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LIBRARY








the DARK STAR


■


-' --.&• - '.



^
"Karl!" exclaimed Use Dumoiit.


o The Dark Star
By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
Author of “The Girl Philippa,” “Who Goes There”
“The Hidden Children,” Etc.
WITH FRONTISPIECE
By W. D. STEVENS
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by Arrangement with D. APPLETon & ComPANY


A L ess. (... (-3.1°
V
HARVARD cºll: E. Lºs
GIFT OF HE
HARVARD CLUB of BosTON
MAY 21 1928
** **
Corrangar, 1917, ex
ROBERT W. CHAMBERs
Corraight, 1916, 1917, BY THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAzers. Coaſrary
Printed in the United States of America


TO MY FRIEND
EDGAR SISSON


Dans c'métier-là, faut
rien chercher à comprendre.
René Benjamin



ALAK'S SONG
Where are you going,
Naia?
Through the still noon—
Where are you going?
To hear the thunder of the sea
And the wind blowing!—
To find a stormy moon to comfort me
Across the dune!
Why are you weeping,
Nai'a?
Through the still noon—
Why are you weeping?
Because I found no wind, no sea,
No white surf leaping,
Nor any flying moon to comfort me
Upon the dune.
What did you see there,
Nai'a?
In the still noon—
What did you see there?
Only the parched world drowsed in drought,
And a fat bee, there,
Prying and probing at a poppy's mouth
That drooped a-swoon.
vii


ALAK'S SONG
What did you hear there,
Nai'a?
In the still noon—
What did you hear there?
Only a kestrel's lonely cry
From the wood near there—
A rustle in the wheat as I passed by—
A ericket's rune.
Who led you homeward,
Nai'a?
Through the still noon—
Who led you homeward?
My soul within me sought the sea,
Leading me foam-ward:
But the lost moon's ghost returned with me
Through the high noon.
Where is your soul then,
Nai'a?
Lost at high noon—
Where is your soul then?
It wanders East—or West—I thimk—
Or near the Pole, then—
Or died—perhaps there o» the du»e'§ dry
brink
Seeking the moon,
viii


THE DARK STAR
"The dying star grew dark; the last light faded from it;
went ont. Prince Erlik laughed.
"And suddenly the old order of things began to pass
away more swiftly.
"Between earth and outer space—between Creator and
created, confusing and confounding their identities,—a rush-
ing darkness grew—the hurrying wrack of immemorial
storms heralding whirlwinds through which Truth alone
survives.
"Awaiting the inevitable reestablishment of such tem-
porary conventions as render the incident of human exist-
ence possible, the brooding Demon which men call Truth
stares steadily at Tengri under the high stars which are
passing too, and which at last shall pass away and leave
the Demon watching all alone amid the ruins of eternity.'*
The Prophet of the Kiot Bordjiguen


>


CONTENTS
Preface. Children op the Star
CHAPTEH PAOI
I. The Wonder-Box 1
II. Brook hollow 18
III. In Embryo' 80
IV. The Trodden Way 88
V. Ex Machina 47
VI. The End of Solitude . . . . 60
VII. Obsession .71
VIII. A Change Impends 80
IX. NoNRESISTANCE ...... 88
X. Driving Head-on . . . . .102
XI. The Breakers . . . . . .112
XII. A Life Line 122
XIII. Letters from a Little Girl . . .137
XIV. A Journey Begins . . . . .157
XV. The Locked House . . . . .162
XVI. Scheherazade . . . . . .180
XVII. A White Skirt 193
XVIII. By Radio 202
xi


CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XIX. THE CAPTAIN of THE Volhynia . . 216
XX. The DRoP of IRISH . - - . 223
XXI. METHoD AND Foresight . - - . 239
XXII. Two THIRTEEN . - - - . 246
XXIII. ON HIS WAY . - - - - . 253
XXIV. The RoAD To PARIs . - . . . .261
XXV. CUP AND LIP . - - - - • 280
XXVI. Rue Soleil D’OR . - - - . 290
XXVII. FRoM Four. To Five . - - . 305
XXVIII. Toge:THER - - - - - . 312
XXIX. EN FAMILLE . - - - - ... 325
XXX. JARDIN Russm - - - - . 337
XXXI. THE CAF# DEs BUL.GARs. - - . 347
XXXII. THE CERCLE Extaan Arron ALn - . 358
XXXIII. A RAT HUNT . - - - - . 377
XXXIV. SUNRIsr. . - - - - - . 395
XXXV. THE FIRST DAY . - - - . 410


THE DARK STAR


■
]


THE DARK STAR
PREFACE
CHILDREN OF THE STAR
Not the dark companion of Sirius, brightest of all
stars—not our own chill and spectral planet rushing
toward Vega in the constellation of Lyra—presided at
the birth of millions born to corroborate a bloody
horoscope.
But a Dark Star, speeding unseen through space,
known to the ancients, by them called Erlik, after the
Prince of Darkness, ruled at the birth of those myriad
souls destined to be engulfed in the earthquake of the
ages, or flung by it out of the ordered pathway of their
lives into strange byways, stranger highways—into
deeps and deserts never dreamed of.
Also one of the dozen odd temporary stars on record
blazed up on that day, flared for a month or two, dwin-
dled to a cinder, and went out.
But the Dark Star Erlik, terribly immortal, sped on
through space to complete a two-hundred-thousand-
year circuit of the heavens, and begin anew an imme-
morial journey by the will of the Most High.
What spectroscope is to horoscope, destiny is to
chance. The black star Erlik rushed through inter-
stellar darkness unseen; those born under its violent
augury squalled in their cradles, or, thumb in mouth,
slumbered the dreamless slumber of the newly born.

xvii


THE DARK STAR
One of these, a tiny girl baby, fussed and fidgeted in
her mother's arms, tortured by prickly heat when the
hot winds blew through Trebizond.
Overhead vultures circled; a stem-adler, cleaving the
blue, looked down where the surf made a thin white
line along the coast, then set his lofty course for
China.
Thousands of miles to the westward, a little boy of
eight gazed out across the ruffled waters of the mill
pond at Neeland's Mills, and wondered whether the
ocean might not look that way.
And, wondering, with the salt sea effervescence work-
ing in his inland-born body, he fitted a cork to his fish-
ing line and flung the baited hook far out across the
ripples. Then he seated himself on the parapet of the
stone bridge and waited for monsters of the deep to
come.
And again, off Seraglio Point, men were rowing in a
boat; and a corded sack lay in the sterU, horridly and
limply heavy.
There was also a box lying in the boat, oddly bound
and clamped with metal which glistened like silver under
the Eastern stars when the waves of the Bosporus
dashed high, and the flying scud rained down on box
and sack and the red-capped rowers.
In Petrograd a little girl of twelve was learning to
eat other things than sour milk and cheese; learning to
ride otherwise than like a demon on a Cossack saddle;
learning deportment, too, and languages, and social
graces and the fine arts. And, most thoroughly of all,
the little girl was learning how deathless should be her
hatred for the Turkish Empire and all its works; and
xviii


PREFACE
how only less perfect than our Lord in Paradise was
the Czar on his throne amid that earthly paradise
known as "All the Russias."
Her little brother was learning these things, too, in
the Corps of Officers. Also he was already proficient
on the balalaika.
And again, in the mountains of a conquered province,
the little daughter of a gamekeeper to nobility was
preparing to emigrate with her father to a new home
in the Western world, where she would learn to per-
form miracles with rifle and revolver, and where the
beauty of the hermit thrush's song would startle
her into comparing it to the beauty of her own un-
tried voice. But to her father, and to her, the most
beautiful thing in all the world was love of Father-
land.
Over these, and millions of others, brooded the spell
of the Dark Star. Even the world itself lay under it,
-vaguely uneasy, sometimes startled to momentary seis-
mic panic. Then, ere mundane self-control restored
terrestrial equilibrium, a few mountains exploded, an
island or two lay shattered by earthquake, boiling mud
and pumice blotted out one city; earth-shock and fire
another; a tidal wave a third.
But the world settled down and balanced itself once
more on the edge of the perpetual abyss into which it
must fall some day; the invisible shadow of the Dark
Star swept it at intervals when some far and nameless
sun blazed out unseen; days dawned; the sun of the
solar system rose furtively each day and hung around
the heavens until that dusky huntress, Night, chased
him once more beyond the earth's horizon.
xix


THE DARK STAR
The shadow of the Dark Star was always there,,
though none saw it in sunshine or in moonlight, or in
the silvery lustre of the planets.
A boy, born under it, stood outside the fringe of
willow and alder, through which moved two English
setters followed and controlled by the boy's father.
"Mark!" called the father.
Out of the willows like a feathered bomb burst a big
grouse, and the green foliage that barred its flight
seemed to explode as the strong bird sheered out into-
the sunshine.
The boy's gun, slanting upward at thirty degrees,
glittered in the sun an instant, then the left barrel
spoke; and the grouse, as though struck by lightning
in mid-air, stopped with a jerk, then slanted swiftly
and struck the ground.
"Dead!" cried the boy, as a setter appeared, leading
on straight to the heavy mass of feathers lying on the
pasture grass.
"Clean work, Jim," said his father, strolling out of
the willows. "But wasn't it a bit risky, considering the
little girl yonder?"
"Father!" exclaimed the boy, very red. "I never even
saw her. I'm ashamed."
They stood looking across the pasture, where a little
girl in a pink gingham dress lingered watching them,
evidently lured by her curiosity from the old house at
the crossroads just beyond.
Jim Neeland, still red with mortification, took the
big cock-grouse from the dog which brought it—a
tender-mouthed, beautifully trained Belton, who stood
with his feathered offering in his jaws, very serious,
very proud, awaiting praise from the Neclands, father
and son.
xx


PREFACE
Neeland senior "drew" the bird and distributed the
sacrifice impartially between both dogs—it being the
custom of the country.
Neeland junior broke his gun, replaced the exploded
shell, content indeed with his one hundred per cent per-
formance.
"Better run over and speak to the little girl, Jim,"
suggested old Dick Neeland, as he motioned the dogs
into covert again.
So Jim ran lightly across the stony, clover-set
ground to where the little girl roamed along the old
snake fence, picking berries sometimes, sometimes
watching the sportsmen out of shy, golden-grey
eyes.
"Little girl," he said, "I'm afraid the shot from my
gun came rattling rather close to you that time.
You'll have to be careful. I've noticed you here be-
fore. It won't do; you'll have to keep out of range
of those bushes, because when we're inside we can't see
exactly where we're firing."
The child said nothing. She looked up at the boy,
smiled shyly, then, with much composure, began her
retreat, not neglecting any tempting blackberry on the
way.
The sun hung low over the hazy Gayfield hills; the
beeches and oaks of Mohawk County burned brown and
crimson; silver birches supported their delicate cano-
pies of burnt gold; and imperial white pines clothed
hill and vale in a stately robe of green.
Jim Neeland forgot the child—or remembered her
only to exercise caution in the Brookhollow covert.
The little girl Ruhannah, who had once fidgeted with
prickly heat in her mother's arms outside the walls of
Trebizond, did not forget this easily smiling, tall young
xxi


THE DARK STAR
fellow—a grown man to her—who had come across the
pasture lot to warn her.
But it was many a day before they met again, though
these two also had been born under the invisible shadow
of the Dark Star. But the shadow of Erlik is always
passing like swift lightning across the Phantom Planet
which has fled the other way since Time was born.
Allahou Ekber, O Tchinguiz Khagan!
A native Mongol missionary said to Ruhannah's
father:
"As the chronicles of the Eighurs have it, long ago
there fell metal from the Black Racer of the skies; the
first dagger was made of it; and the first image of the
Prince of Darkness. These pass from Kurd to Cossack
by theft, by gift, by loss; they pass from nation to
nation by accident, which is Divine design.
"And where they remain, war is. And lasts until
image and dagger are carried to another land where
war shall be. But where there is war, only the predes-
tined suffer—those born under Erlik—children of the
Dark Star."
"I thought," said the Reverend Wilbour Carew, "that
my brother had confessed Christ."
"I am but repeating to you what my father be-
lieved; and Temujin before him," replied the native
convert, his remote gaze lost in reflection.
His eyes were quite little and coloured like a lion's;
and sometimes, in deep reverie, the corners of his upper
lip twitched.
This happened when Ruhannah lay fretting in her
mother's arms, and the hot wind blew on Trebizond.
Under the Dark Star, too, a boy grew up in Minetta
Lane, not less combative than other ragged boys about
xxii


PREFACE
him, but he was inclined to arrange and superintend
fist fights rather than to participate in battle, except
with his wits.
His name was Eddie Brandes; his first fortune of
three dollars was amassed at craps; he became a hang-
er-on in ward politics, at race-tracks, stable, club,
squared ring, vaudeville, burlesque. Long Acre at-
tracted him—but always the gambling end of the oper-
ation.
Which predilection, with its years of ups and downs,
landed him one day in Western Canada with an "Un-
known" to match against an Athabasca blacksmith,
and a training camp as the prospect for the next six
weeks.
There lived there, gradually dying, one Albrecht Du-
mont, lately head gamekeeper to nobility in the moun-
tains of a Lost Province, and wearing the Iron Cross
of 1870 on the ruins of a gigantic and bony chest, now
as hollow as a Gothic ruin.
And if, like a thousand fellow patriots, he had been
ordered to the Western World to watch and report to
his Government the trend and tendency of that West-
ern, English-speaking world, only his Government and
his daughter knew it—a child of the Dark Star now
grown to early womanhood, with a voice like a hermit
thrush and the skill of a sorceress with anything that
sped a bullet.
Before the Unknown was .quite ready to meet the
Athabasca blacksmith, Albrecht Dumont, dying faster
now, signed his last report to the Government at Ber-
lin, which his daughter Use had written for him—some-
thing about Canadian canals and stupid Yankees and
their greed, indifference, cowardice, and sloth.
xxiii j


THE DARK STAR
Dumont's mind wandered:
"After the well-born Herr Gott relieves me at my
post," he whispered, "do thou pick up my burden and
stand guard, little Use."
"Yes, father."
"Thy sacred promise?"
"My promise."
The next day Dumont felt better than he had felt
for a year.
"Use, who is the short and broadly constructed
American who comes now already every day to see thee
and to hear thee sing?"
"His name is Eddie Brandes."
"He is of the fight geselhchaft, not?"
"He should gain much money by the fight. A thea-
tre in Chicago may he willingly control, in which light
opera shall be given."
"Is it for that he hears so willingly thy voice?"
"It is for that. . . . And love."
"And what of Herr Max Venem, who has asked of
me thy little hand in marriage?"
The girl was silent.
"Thou dost not love him?"
"No."
Toward sunset, Dumont, lying by the window, opened
his eyes of a dying Ldmmergeier:
"My Dse."
"Father?"
"What has thou to this man said?"
"That I will be engaged to him if thou approve."
"He has gained the fight?"
"Today. . . . And many thousand dollars. The
xxiv


PREFACE
theatre in Chicago is his when he desires. Riches, lei-
sure, opportunity to study for a career upon his stage,
are mine if I desire."
"Dost thou desire this, little Use?"
"Yes."
"And the man Venem who has followed thee so long?"
"I cannot be what he would have me—a Hausfrau—
to mend his linen for my board and lodging."
"And the Fatherland which placed me here on out-
post?"
"I take thy place when God relieves thee."
"So ist's recht! . . . Griis Gott—Ilse"
Among the German settlers a five-piece brass band
had been organised the year before.
It marched at the funeral of Albrecht Dumont, lately
head gamekeeper to nobility in the mountains of a
long-lost province.
Three months later Use Dumont arrived in Chicago
to marry Eddie Brandes. One Benjamin Stull was
best man. Others present included "Captain" Quint,
"Doc" Curfoot, "Parson" Smawley, Abe Gordon—
friends of the bridegroom.
Invited by the bride, among others were Theodor
Weishelm, the Hon. Charles Wilson, M.P., and Herr
Johann Kestner, a wealthy gentleman from Leipsic
seeking safe and promising investments in Canada and
the United States.
A year later Use Dumont Brandes, assuming the
stage name of Minna Minti, sang the role of Bettima
in "The Mascotte," at the Brandes Theatre in Chicago.
A year later, when she created the part of Kathi in
"The White Horse," Max Venem sent word to her that
xxv


THE DARK STAR
she would live to see her husband lying in the gutter
under his heel. Which made the girl unhappy in her
triumph.
But Venem hunted up Abe Grittlefeld and told him
very coolly that he meant to ruin Brandes.
And within a month the latest public favourite, Minna
Minti, sat in her dressing-room, wet-eyed, enraged, with
the reports of Venem's private detectives locked in the
drawer of her dressing table, and the curtain waiting.
So complex was life already becoming to these few
among the million children of the Dark Star Erlik—to
everyone, from the child that fretted in its mother's
arms under the hot wind near Trebizond, to a deposed
Sultan, cowering behind the ivory screen in his zenana,
weeping tears that rolled like oil over his fat jowl to
which still adhered the powdered sugar of a Turkish
sweetmeat.
Allahou Ekber, Khodja; God is great. Great also,
Ande, is Ali, the Fourth Caliph, cousin-companion of
Mahomet the Prophet. But, O tougtchi, be thy name
Niaz and thy surname Bai, for Prince Erlik speeds on
his Dark Star, and beneath the end of the argument be-
tween those two last survivors of a burnt-out world—
behold! The sword!


CHAPTER I
THE WONDER^BOX
As long as she could remember she had been per-
mitted to play with the contents of the late Heir
Conrad Wilner's wonder-box. The programme on
such occasions varied little; the child was permitted
to rummage among the treasures in the box until she
had satisfied her perennial curiosity; conversation with
her absent-minded father ensued, which ultimately in-
cluded a personal narrative, dragged out piecemeal from
the reticent, dreamy invalid. Then always a few pages
of the diary kept by the late Herr Wilner were read as
a bedtime story. And bath and bed and dreamland fol-
lowed. That was the invariable routine, now once more
in full swing.
Her father lay on his invalid's chair, reading; his
rubber-shod crutches rested against the wall, within
easy reach. By him, beside the kerosene lamp, her
mother sat, mending her child's stockings and under-
wear.
Outside the circle of lamplight the incandescent eyes
of the stove glowed steadily through the semi-dusk; and
the child, always fascinated by anything that aroused
her imagination, lifted her gaze furtively from time to
time to convince herself that it really was the big, fa-
miliar stove which glared redly back at her, and not
r


THE DARK ST. A.R
a dragon into which her creative fancy had so often
transformed it.
Reassured, she continued to explore the contents of
the wonder-box—a toy she preferred to her doll, but
not to her beloved set of water-colours and crayon pen-
cils.
Some centuries ago Pandora’s box let loose a world
of troubles; Herr Wilner's box apparently contained
only pleasure for a little child whose pleasures were
mostly of her own invention.
It was a curious old box, made of olive wood and
bound with bands of some lacquered silvery metal to
make it strong—rupee silver, perhaps—strangely
wrought with Arabic characters engraved and in shal-
low relief. It had handles on either side, like a sea-
chest; a silver-lacquered lock and hasp which retained
traces of violent usage; and six heavy strap hinges of
the same lacquered metal.
Within it the little child knew that a most fascinating
collection of articles was to be discovered, taken out
one by one with greatest care, played with discreetly,
and, at her mother’s command, returned to their sev-
eral places in Herr Wilner’s box.
There were, in this box, two rather murderous-look-
ing Kurdish daggers in sheaths of fretted silver—never
to be unsheathed, it was solemnly understood, except
by the child's father.
There was a pair of German army revolvers of the
pattern of 1900, the unexploded cartridges of which
had long since been extracted and cautiously thrown
into the mill pond by the child’s mother, much to the
surprise, no doubt, of the pickerel and sunfish.
There were writing materials of sandalwood, a few
sea shells, a dozen books in German with many steel
2


THE WONDER-BOX
plate engravings; also a red Turkish fez with a dark
blue tassel; two pairs of gold-rimmed spectacles; sev-
eral tobacco pipes of Dresden porcelain, a case full of
instruments for mechanical drawing, a thick blank book
bound in calf and containing the diary of the late
Herr Wilner down to within a few minutes before his
death.
Also there was a figure in bronze, encrusted with tar-
nished gold and faded traces of polychrome decoration.
Erlik, the Yellow Devil, as Herr Wilner called it,
seemed too heavy to be a hollow casting, and yet, when
shaken, something within rattled faintly, as though
when the molten metal was cooling a fissure formed
inside, into which a few loose fragments of bronze had
fallen.
It apparently had not been made to represent any
benign Chinese god; the aspect of the yellow figure was
anything but benevolent. The features were terrific;
scowls infested its grotesque countenance; threatening
brows bent inward; angry eyes rolled in apparent fury;
its double gesture with sword and javelin was violent
and almost humorously menacing. And Ruhannah
adored it.
For a little while the child played her usual game of
frightening her doll with the Yellow Devil and then
rescuing her by the aid of a fairy prince which she her-
self had designed, smeared with water-colours, and cut
out with scissors from a piece of cardboard.
After a time she turned to the remaining treasures
in the wonder-box. These consisted of several volumes
containing photographs, others full of sketches in pen-
cil and water-colour, and a thick roll of glazed linen
scrolls covered with designs in India ink.
The photographs were of all sorts—landscapes, riv-
3


THE DARK STAR
a dragon into which her creative fancy had so often
transformed it.
Reassured, she continued to explore the contents of
the wonder-box—a toy she preferred to her doll, but
not to her beloved set of water-colours and crayon pen-
cils.
Some centuries ago Pandora's box let loose a world
of troubles; Herr Wilner's box apparently contained
only pleasure for a little child whose pleasures were
mostly of her own invention.
It was a curious old box, made of olive wood and
bound with bands of some lacquered silvery metal to
make it strong—rupee silver, perhaps—strangely
wrought with Arabic characters engraved and in shal-
low relief. It had handles on either side, like a sea-
chest; a silver-lacquered lock and hasp which retained
traces of violent usage; and six heavy strap hinges of
the same lacquered metal.
Within it the little child knew that a most fascinating
collection of articles was to be discovered, taken out
one by one with greatest care, played with discreetly,
and, at her mother's command, returned to their sev-
eral places in Herr Wilner's box.
There were, in this box, two rather murderous-look-
ing Kurdish daggers in sheaths of fretted silver—never
to be unsheathed, it was solemnly understood, except
by the child's father.
There was a pair of German army revolvers of the
pattern of 1900, the unexploded cartridges of which
had long since been extracted and cautiously thrown
into the mill pond by the child's mother, much to the
surprise, no doubt, of the pickerel and sunfish.
There were writing materials of sandalwood, a few
sea shells, a dozen books in German with many steel
%


THE WONBER-BOX
plate engravings; also a red Turkish fez with a dark
blue tassel; two pairs of gold-rimmed spectacles; sev-
eral tobacco pipes of Dresden porcelain, a case full of
instruments for mechanical drawing, a thick blank book
bound in calf and containing the diary of the late
Herr Wilner down to within a few minutes before his
death.
Also there was a figure in bronze, encrusted with tar-
nished gold and faded traces of polychrome decoration.
Erlik, the Yellow Devil, as Herr Wilner called it,
seemed too heavy to be a hollow casting, and yet, when
shaken, something within rattled faintly, as though
when the molten metal was cooling a fissure formed
inside, into which a few loose fragments of bronze had
fallen.
It apparently had not been made to represent any
benign Chinese god; the aspect of the yellow figure was
anything but benevolent. The features were terrific;
scowls infested its grotesque countenance; threatening
brows bent inward; angry eyes rolled in apparent fury;
its double gesture with sword and javelin was violent
and almost humorously menacing. And Ruhannah
adored it.
For a little while the child played her usual game of
frightening her doll with the Yellow Devil and then
rescuing her by the aid of a fairy prince which she her-
self had designed, smeared with water-colours, and cut
out with scissors from a piece of cardboard.
After a time she turned to the remaining treasures
in the wonder-box. These consisted of several volumes
containing photographs, others full of sketches in pen-
cil and water-colour, and a thick roll of glazed linen
scrolls covered with designs in India ink.
The photographs were of all sorts—landscapes, riv-


THE DARK STAR
ers, ships in dock, dry dock, and at sea; lighthouses,
forts, horses carrying soldiers armed with lances and
wearing the red fez; artillery on the march, infantry,
groups of officers, all wearing the same sort of fez
which lay there in Herr Wilner's box of olive wood.
There were drawings, too—sketches of cannon, of
rifles, of swords; drawings of soldiers in various gay
uniforms, all carefully coloured by hand. There were
pictures of ships, from the sterns of which the crescent
flag floated lazily; sketches of great, ugly-looking ob-
jects which her father explained were Turkish iron-
clads. The name "ironclad" always sounded menacing
and formidable to the child, and the forbidding pictures
fascinated her.
Then there were scores and scores of scrolls made
out of slippery white linen, on which had been drawn
all sorts of most amazing geometrical designs in ink.
"Plans," her father explained vaguely. And, when
pressed by reiterated questions: "Plans for military
works, I believe—forts, docks, barracks, fortified cuts
and bridges. You are not yet quite old enough to un-
derstand, Ruhannah."
"Who did draw them, daddy?"
"A German friend of mine, Herr Conrad Wilner."
"What for?"
"I think his master sent him to Turkey to make those
pictures."
"For the Sultan?"
"No; for his Emperor."
"Why?"
"I don't exactly know, Rue."
At this stage of the conversation her father usually
laid aside his book and composed himself for the inev-
itable narrative soon to be demanded of him.
4


THE WONDER-BOX
Then, although having heard the story many times
from her crippled father's lips, but never weary of the
repetition, the child's eyes would grow round and very
solemn in preparation for her next and inevitable ques-
tion:
"And did Herr Wilner die, daddy?"
"Yes, dear."
"Tell me!"
"Well, it was when I was a missionary in the
Trebizond district, and your mother and I
went"
"And me, daddy? And me, too!"
"Yes; you were a little baby in arms. And we all
went to Gallipoli to attend the opening of a beautiful
new school which was built for little Mohammedan con-
verts to Christianity"
"Did I see those little Christian children, daddy?"
"Yes, you saw them. But you are too young to re-
member."
"Tell me. Don't stop!"
"Then listen attentively without interrupting, Rue:
Your mother and you and I went to Gallipoli; and my
friend, Herr Wilner, who had been staying with us at
a town called Tchardak, came along with us to attend
the opening of the American school.
"And the night we arrived there was trouble. The
Turkish people, urged on by some bad officials in the
Sanjak, came with guns and swords and spears and
set fire to the mission school.
"They did not offer to harm us. We had already
collected our converts and our personal baggage. Our
caravan was starting. The mob might not have done
anything worse than burn the school if Herr Wilner
had not lost his temper and threatened them with a
5


THE DARK STAR
dog whip. Then they killed him with stones, there in
the walled yard."
At this point in the tragedy, the eagerly awaited
and ardently desired shivers passed up and down the
child's back.
"O—oh! Did they kill him dead?"
"Yes, dear."
"Was he a martyr?"
"In a way he was a martyr to his duty, I suppose.
At least I gather so from his diary and from what he
once told me of his life."
"And then what happened? Tell me, daddy."
"A Greek steamer took us and our baggage to Trebi-
zond."
"And what then?"
"And then, a year later, the terrible massacre at our
Trebizond mission occurred"
That was what the child was waiting for.
"I know!" she interrupted eagerly. "The wicked
Turks and the cruel Kurds did come galloping and
shouting 'Allah!' And all the poor, converted people
became martyrs. And God loves martyrs, doesn't
He?"
"Yes, dear"
"And then they did kill all the poor little Christian
children!" exclaimed the child excitedly. "And they
did cut you with swords and guns! And then the kind
sailors with the American flag took you and mamma and
me to a ship and saved us by the grace of our Lord
Jesus!"
"Yes, dear"
"Tell me!"
"That is all"
"No; you walk on two crutches, and you cannot be
6


THE WONDER-BOX
a missionary any more because you are sick all the time!
Tell me, daddy!"
"Yes. And that is all, Rue"
"Oh, no! Please! Tell me! . . . And then, don't
you remember how the brave British sailors and our
brave American sailors pointed their cannon at the
7-ronclads, and they said, 'Do not shoot or we shall
shoot you to pieces.' And then the brave American
sailors went on shore and brought back some poor little
wounded converted children, and your baggage and the
magic box of Herr Wilner!"
"Yes, dear. And now that is enough tonight"
"Oh, daddy, you must first read in the di-a-ry which
Herr Wilner made!"
"Bring me the book, Rue."
With an interest forever new, the Carew family pre-
pared to listen to the words written by a strange man
who had died only a few moments after he had made the
last entry in the book—before even the ink was entirely
dry on the pages.
The child, sitting cross-legged on the floor, clasped
her little hands tightly; her mother laid aside her sew-
ing, folded it, and placed it in her lap; her father
searched through the pencilled translation which he had
written in between the lines of German script, found
where he had left off the time before, then continued
the diary of Herr Conrad Wilner, deceased:
March. S. My original plans have been sent to the Yildiz
Palace. My duplicates are to go to Berlin when a
messenger from our Embassy arrives. Murad Bey
knows this. I am sorry he knows it. But nobody
except myself is aware that I have a third set of
plans carefully hidden.
March £. All day with Murad's men setting wire en-
7


THE DARK STAR
tanglements under water; two Turkish destroy
patrolling the entrance to the bay, and cavalry pati
on the heights to warn away the curious.
March 6. Forts Alamout and Shah Abbas are being re-
constructed from the new plans. Wired areas under
water and along the coves and shoals are being plotted.
Murad Bey is unusually polite and effusive, con-
versing with me in German and French. A spidery
man and very dangerous.
March 7. A strange and tragic affair last night. The
heat being severe, I left my tent about midnight
and went down to the dock where my little sail-
boat lay, with the object of cooling myself on the
water. There was a hot land breeze; I sailed out
into the bay and cruised ncrth along the coves which
I have wired. As I rounded a little rocky point I
was surprised to see in the moonlight, very near,
a steam yacht at anchor, carrying no lights. The
longer I looked at her the more certain I became
that I was gazing at the Imperial yacht I had no
idea what the yacht might be doing here; I ran my
sailboat close under the overhanging rocks and an-
chored. Then I saw a small boat in the moonlight,
pulling from the yacht toward shore, where the
crescent cove had already been thoroughly staked and
the bottom closely covered with barbed wire as far
as the edge of the deep channel which curves in
here like a scimitar.
It must have been that the people in the boat mis-
calculated the location of the channel, for they were
well over the sunken barbed wire when they lifted
and threw overboard what they had come there to get
rid of—two dark bulks that splashed.
I watched the boat pull back to the Imperial yacht.
A little later the yacht weighed anchor and steamed
northward, burning no lights. Only the red reflec-
tion tinging the smoke from her stacks was visible.
I watched her until she was lost in the moonlight,
thinking all the while of those weighted sacks so often
dropped overboard along the Bosporus and off Seraglio
Point from that same Imperial yacht.
8


THE WONDER-BOX
When the steamer had disappeared, I got out my
sweeps and rowed for the place where the dark
objects had been dropped overboard. I knew that
they must be resting somewhere on the closely criss-
crossed mesh of wires just below the surface of the
water; but I probed for an hour before I located any-
thing. Another hour passed in trying to hook into
the object with the little three-fluked grapnel which
I used as an anchor. I got hold of something
finally; a heavy chest of olive wood bound with metal;
but I had to rig a tackle before I could hoist it
aboard.
Then I cast out again; and very soon my grapnel
hooked into what I expected—a canvas sack, weighted
with a round shot. When I got it aboard, I hesitated
a long while before opening it. Finally I made a long
slit in the canvas with my knife. . . .
She was very young—not over sixteen, I think, and
she was really beautiful, even under her wet, dark
hair. She seemed to be a Caucasian girl—maybe a
Georgian. She wore a small gold cross which hung
from a gold cord around her neck. There was an-
other, and tighter, cord around her neck, too. I cut
the silk bowstring and closed and bound her eyes
with my handkerchief before I rowed out a little
farther and lowered her into the deep channel which
cuts eastward here like the scimitar of that true be-
liever, Abdul Hamid.
Then I hoisted sail and beat up slowly toward my
little dock under a moon which had become ghastly
under the pallid aura of a gathering storm
"A poor dead young lady!" interrupted the child,
clasping her hands more tightly. "Did the Sultan kill
her, daddy?"
"It seems so, Ruhannah."
"Why?"
"I don't know. He was a very cruel and wicked Sul-
tan."
9


THE BARK STAR
"I don't see why he killed the beautiful poor de
lady."
"If you will listen and not interrupt, you shall learn
why."
"And was the chest that Herr Wilner pulled up the
very same chest that is here on the floor beside me?"
insisted the child.
"The very same. Now listen, Rue, and I shall read
a little more in Herr Wilner's diary, and then you must
have your bath and be put to bed"
"Please read, daddy!"
The Reverend Wilbour Carew turned the page and
quietly continued:
March 20. In my own quarters at Trebizond again, and
rid of Murad for a while.
A canvas cover and rope handles concealed the
character of my olive wood chest. I do not believe
anybody suspects it to be anything except one of
the various boxes containing my own personal effects.
I shall open it tonight with a file and chisel, if
possible.
March 21. The contents of the chest reveal something
of the tragedy. The box is full of letters written
in Russian, and full of stones which weigh col-
lectively a hundred pounds at least. There is nothing
else in the chest except a broken Ikon and a bronze
figure of Erlik, a Yildiz relic, no doubt, of some
Kurdish raid into Mongolia, and probably placed be-
side the dead girl by her murderers in derision. I
am translating the letters and arranging them in
sequence.
March 25. I have translated the letters. The dead girl's
name was evidently Tatyana, one of several children
of some Cossack chief or petty prince, and on the
eve of her marriage to a young officer named Mitya,
the Kurds raided the town. They carried poor Taty-
ana off along with her wedding chest—the chest I
fished up with my grapnel.
10


THE WONBER-BOX
In brief, the chest and the girl found their way
into Abdul's seraglio. The letters of the dead girl—
which were written and entrusted probably to a faith-
less slave, but which evidently never left the seraglio
—throw some light on the tragedy, for they breathe
indignation and contempt of Islam, and call on her
affianced, on her parents, and on her people to rescue
her and avenge her.
And after a while, no doubt Abdul tired of read-
ing fierce, unreconciled little Tatyana's stolen letters,
and simply ended the matter by having her bow-
strung and dumped overboard in a sack, together with
her marriage chest, her letters, and the Yellow Devil
in bronze as a final insult.
She seems to have had a sister, Nai'a, thirteen years
old, betrothed to a Prince Mistchenka, a cavalry officer
in the Terek Cossacks. Her father had been Hetman
of the Don Cossacks before the Emperor Nicholas re-
served that title for Imperial use. And she ended in
a sack off Gallipoli! That is the story of Tatyana and
her wedding chest.
March 29. Murad arrived, murderously bland and assidu-
ous in his solicitude for my health and comfort. I
am almost positive he knows that I fished up some-
thing from Cove No. 37 under the theoretical guns
of theoretical Fort Osman, both long plotted out but
long delayed.
April 5. My duplicate plans for Gallipoli have been
stolen. I have a third set still. Colonel Murad Bey
is not to be trusted. My position is awkward and is
becoming serious. There is no faith to be placed in
Abdul Hamid. My credentials, the secret agreement
with my Government, are no longer regarded even
with toleration in the Yildiz Kiosque. A hundred
insignificant incidents prove it every day. And if
Abdul dare not break with Germany it is only be-
cause he is not yet ready to defy the Young Turk
party. The British Embassy is very active and
bothers me a great deal.
April 10. My secret correspondence with Enver Bey has
been discovered, and my letters opened. This is a
11


THE DARK STAR
very bad business. I have notified my Government
that the Turkish Government does not want me here;
that the plan of a Germanised Turkish army is be-
coming objectionable to the Porte; that the duplicate
plans of our engineers for the Dardanelles and the
Gallipoli Peninsula have been stolen.
April IS. A secret interview with Enver Bey, who
promises that our ideas shall be carried out when
his party comes into power. Evidently he does not
know that my duplicates have been stolen.
Troubles threaten in the Vilayet of Trebizond,
where is an American Mission. I fear that our emis-
saries and the emissaries of Enver Bey are delib-
erately fomenting disorders because Americans are
not desired by our Government Enver denies this;
but it is idle to believe anyone in this country.
April 16. Another interview with Enver Bey. His scheme
is flatly revolutionary, namely, the deposition of Abdul,
a secret alliance, offensive and defensive, with us;
the Germanisation of the Turkish army and navy;
the fortification of the Gallipoli district according
to our plans; a steadily increasing pressure on Serbia;
a final reckoning with Russia which is definitely to
settle the status of Albania and Serbia and leave the
Balkan grouping to be settled between Austria, Ger-
many, and Turkey.
I spoke several times about India and Egypt, but
he does not desire to arouse England unless she in-
terferes.
I spoke also of Abdul Hamid's secret and growing
fear of Germany, and his increasing inclination
toward England once more.
No trace of my stolen plans. The originals are
in the Yildiz Palace. I have a third set secreted,
about which nobody knows.
April 21. I have been summoned to the Yildiz Palace. It
possibly means my assassination. I have confided my
box of data, photographs, and plans, to the Reverend
Wilbour Carew, an American missionary in the
Trebizond sanjak.
There are rumours that Abdul has become mentally
12


THE WONDER-BOX
unhinged through dread of assassination. One of
his own aides-de-camp, -while being granted an audi-
ence in the Yildiz, made a sudden and abrupt move-
ment to find his handkerchief; and Abdul Hamid
whipped out a pistol and shot him dead. This is
authentic.
April SO. Back at Tchardak with my good missionary and
his wife. A strange interview with Abdul. There
were twenty French clocks in the room, all going and
all striking at various intervals. The walls were set
with French mirrors.
Abdul's cordiality was terrifying; the full original
set of my Gallipoli plans was brought in. After a
while, the Sultan reminded me that the plans were
in duplicate, and asked me where were these dupli-
cates. What duplicity! But I said pleasantly that
they were to be sent to General Staff Headquarters
in Berlin.
He pretended to understand that this was con-
trary to the agreement, and insisted that the plans
should first be sent to him for comparison. I merely
referred him to his agreement with my Government.
But all the while we were talking I was absolutely
convinced that the stolen duplicates were at that mo-
ment in the Yildiz Kiosque. Abdul must have known
that I believed it. Yet we both merely smiled our
confidence in each other.
He seemed to be unusually good-natured and
gracious, saying that no doubt I was quite right in
sending the plans to Berlin. He spoke of Enver Bey
cordially, and said he hoped to be reconciled to him
and his friends very soon. When Abdul Hamid be-
comes reconciled to anybody who disagrees with him,
the latter is always dead.
He asked me where I was going. I told him about
the plans I was preparing for the Trebizond district.
He offered me an escort of Kurdish cavalry, saying
that he had been told the district was not very safe.
I thanked him and declined his escort of assassins.
I saw it all very plainly. Like a pirate captain,
Abdul orders his crew to dig a secret hole for his
13


THE WONDER-BOX
American missionary, the Reverend Wilbour Carew;
and, too, for me to seek shelter with him.
As I am now afraid that an enemy may imper-
sonate an official of the German Embassy, I have the
missionary's promise that he will retain and conceal
the contents of my box until I instruct him other-
wise. I am practically in hiding at his house, and
in actual fear of my life.
May 15. The missionary and his wife and baby travel
to Gallipoli, where an American school for girls is
about to be opened.
Today, in a cafe, I noticed that the flies, swarm-
ing on the edge of my coffee cup, fell into the saucer
dead. I did not taste my coffee.
May 16. Last night a shot was fired through my door.
I have decided to travel to Gallipoli with the mis-
sionary.
May 18. My groom stole and ate an orange from my
breakfast tray. He is dead.
May 20. The Reverend Mr. Carew and his wife are most
kind and sympathetic. They are good people, simple,
kindly, brave, faithful, and fearlessly devoted to God's
service in this vile land of treachery and lies.
May 21. I have confessed to the Reverend Mr. Carew as
I would confess to a priest in holy orders. I have
told him all under pledge of secrecy. I told him
also that the sanctuary he offers might be violated
with evil consequences to him; and that I would travel
as far as Gallipoli with him and then leave. But
the kind, courageous missionary and his wife insist
that I remain under the protection which he says the
flag of his country affords me. If I could only get
my third set of plans out of the country!
May 22. Today my coffee was again poisoned. I don't
know what prevented me from tasting it—some vague
premonition. A pariah dog ate the bread I soaked
in it, and died before he could yelp.
It looks to me as though my end were inevitable.
Today I gave my bronze figure of Erlik, the Yellow
Devil, to Mrs. Carew to keep as a dowry for her
little daughter, now a baby in arms. If it is hollow,
15


THE BARK STAR
as I feel sure, there are certain to be one or two
jewels in it. And the figure itself might bring five
hundred marks at an antiquary's.
May 30. Arrived at the Gallipoli mission. Three Turkish
ironclads lying close inshore. A British cruiser, the
Cobra, and an American cruiser, the Oneida, ap-
peared about sunset and anchored near the ironclads.
The bugles on deck were plainly audible. If a Ger-
man warship appears I shall carry my box on board.
My only chance to rehabilitate myself is to get the
third set of plans to Berlin.
June 1. In the middle of the religious exercises with
which the new school is being inaugurated, cries of
"Allah" come from a great crowd which has gathered.
From my window where I am writing I can see how
insolent the attitude of this Mohammedan riffraff is
becoming. They spit upon the ground—a pebble is
tossed at a convert—a sudden shout of "Allah"—
pushing and jostling—a lighted torch blazes! I take
my whip of rhinoceros hide and go down into the
court to put a stop to this insolence
Her father slowly closed the book.
"Daddy! Is that where poor Herr Wilner died?"
"Yes, dear."
After a silence his wife said thoughtfully:
"I have always considered it very strange that the
German Government did not send for Herr Wilner's
papers."
"Probably they did, Mary. And very probably Mu-
rad Bey told them that the papers had been destroyed."
"And you never believed it to be your duty to send
the papers to the German Government?"
"No. It was an unholy alliance that Germany sought
with that monster Abdul. And when Enver Pasha seized
the reins of government such an alliance would have
been none the less unholy. You know and so do I that
if Germany did not actually incite the Armenian massa-
16


THE WONDER-BOX
cres she at least was cognisant of preparations made
to begin them. Germany is still hostile to all British
or American missions, all Anglo-Saxon influence in
Turkey.
"No; I did not send Herr Wilner's papers to Berlin;
and the events of the last fifteen years have demon-
strated that I was right in withholding them."
His wife nodded, laid aside her work basket, and
rose.
"Come, Ruhannah," she said with decision; "put
everything back into the wonder-box."
And, stooping, she lifted and laid away in it the
scowling, menacing Yellow Devil.
And so, every month or two, the wonder-box was
opened for the child to play with, the same story told,
extracts from the diary read; but these ceremonies,
after a while, began to recur at lengthening intervals as
the years passed and the child grew older.
And finally it was left to her to open the box when
she desired, and to read for herself the pencilled trans-
lation of the diary, which her father had made during
some of the idle and trying moments of his isolated and
restricted life. And, when she had been going to school
for some years, other and more vivid interests replaced
her dolls and her wonder-box; but not her beloved case
of water-colours and crayon pencils.


CHAPTER II
BROOKHOLLOW
The mother, shading the candle with her work-worn
hand, looked down at the child in silence. The subdued
light fell oh a freckled cheek where dark lashes rested,
on a slim neck and thin shoulders framed by a mass of
short, curly chestnut hair.
Though it was still dark, the mill whistle was blowing
for six o'clock. Like a goblin horn it sounded omi-
nously through Ruhannah's dream. She stirred in her
sleep; her mother stole across the room, closed the
window, and went away carrying the candle with her.
At seven the whistle blew again; the child turned over
and unclosed her eyes. A brassy light glimmered be-
tween leafless apple branches outside her window.
Through the frosty radiance of sunrise a blue jay
screamed.
Ruhannah cuddled deeper among the blankets and
buried the tip of her chilly nose. But the grey eyes
remained wide open and, under the faded quilt, her little
ears were listening intently.
Presently from the floor below came the expected
summons:
"Ruhannah!"
"Oh, please, mother!"
"It's after seven"
"I know: I'll be ready in time!"
"It's after seven, Rue!"
"I'm so cold, mother dear!"
18


BROOKHOLLOW
"I closed your window. You may bathe and dress
down here."
"B-r-r-r! I can see my own breath when I breathe!"
"Come down and dress by the kitchen range," re-
peated her mother. "I've warm water all ready for
you."
The brassy light behind the trees was becoming
golden; slim bluish shadows already stretched from the
base of every tree across frozen fields dusted with
snow.
As usual, the lank black cat came walking into the
room, its mysterious crystal-green eyes brilliant in the
glowing light.
Listening, the child heard her father moving heavily
about in the adjoining room.
Then, from below again:
"Ruhannah!"
"I'm going to get up, mother!"
"Rue! Obey me!"
"I'm up I I'm on my way!" She sprang out amid a
tempest of bedclothes, hopped gingerly across the
chilly carpet, seized her garments in one hand, comb
and toothbrush in the other, ran into the hallway and
pattered downstairs.
The cat followed leisurely, twitching a coal-black
tail.
"Mother, could I have my breakfast first? I'm so
hungry"
Her mother turned from the range and kissed her as
she huddled close to it. The sheet of zinc underneath
warmed her bare feet delightfully. She sighed with
satisfaction, looked wistfully at the coffeepot simmer-
ing, sniffed at the biscuits and sizzling ham.
"Could I have one little taste before I"
19


THE DARK STAR
"Come, dear. There's the basin. Bathe quickly,
now."
Ruhannah frowned and cast a tragic glance upon the
tin washtub on the kitchen floor. Presently she stole
over, tested the water with her finger-tip, found it not
unreasonably cold, dropped the night-dress from her
frail shoulders, and stepped into the tub with a per-
functory shiver—a thin, overgrown child of fifteen, with
pipestem limbs and every rib anatomically apparent.
Her hair, which had been cropped to shoulder length,
seemed to turn from chestnut to bronze fire, gleaming
and crackling under the comb which she hastily passed
through it before twisting it up.
"Quickly but thoroughly," said her mother.
"Hasten, Rue."
Ruhannah seized soap and sponge, gasped, shut her
grey eyes tightly, and fell to scrubbing with the fury
of despair.
"Don't splash, dear"
"Did you warm my towel, mother?"—blindly stretch-
ing out one thin and dripping arm.
Her mother wrapped her in a big crash towel from
head to foot.
Later, pulling on stockings and shoes by the range,
she managed to achieve a buttered biscuit at the same
time, and was already betraying further designs upon
another one when her mother sent her to set the table
in the sitting-room.
Thither sauntered Ruhannah, partly dressed, still
dressing.
By the nickel-trimmed stove she completed her toilet,
then hastily laid the breakfast cloth and arranged the
china and plated tableware, and filled the water pitcher.
Her father came in on his crutches; she hurried from
20


BROOKHOLLOW
the table, syrup jug in one hand, cruet in the other, and
lifted her face to be kissed; then she brought hot plates,
coffeepot, and platters, and seated herself at the
table where her father and mother were waiting in
silence.
When she was seated her father folded his large, pal-
lid, bony hands; her mother clasped hers on the edge of
the table, bowing her head; and Ruhannah imitated
them. Between her fingers she could see the cat under
the table, and she watched it arch its back and gently
rub against her chair.
"For what we are about to receive, make us grateful,
Eternal Father. This day we should go hungry except
for Thy bounty. Without presuming to importune
Thee, may we ask Thee to remember all who awake
hungry on this winter day. . . . Amen."
Ruhannah instantly became very busy with her
breakfast. The cat beside her chair purred loudly and
rose at intervals on its hind legs to twitch her dress; and
Ruhannah occasionally bestowed alms and conversation
upon it.
"Rue," said her mother, "you should try to do better
with your algebra this week."
"Yes, I do really mean to."
"Have you had any more bad-conduct marks?"
"Yes, mother."
Her father lifted his mild, dreamy eyes of an invalid.
Her mother asked:
"What for?"
"For wasting my time in study hour," said the girl
truthfully.
"Were you drawing?"
"Yes, mother."
"Rue! Again! Why do you persist in drawing pic-
21


THE DARK STAR
tures in your copy books when you have an hour's les-
son in drawing every week? Besides, you may draw
pictures at home whenever you wish."
"I don't exactly know why," replied the girl slowly.
"It just happens before I notice what I am doing. . . .
Of course," she explained, "I do recollect that I
oughtn't to be drawing in study hour. But that's after
I've begun, and then it seems a pity not to finish."
Her mother looked across the table at her husband:
"Speak to her seriously, Wilbour."
The Reverend Mr. Carew looked solemnly at his long-
legged and rapidly growing daughter, whose grey eyes
gazed back into her father's sallow visage.
"Rue," he said in his colourless voice, "try to get all
you can out of your school. I haven't sufficient means
to educate you in drawing and in similar accomplish-
ments. So get all you can out of your school. Because,
some day, you will have to help yourself, and perhaps
help us a little."
He bent his head with a detached air and sat gazing
mildly at vacancy—already, perhaps, forgetting what
the conversation was about.
"Mother?"
"What, Rue?"
"What am I going to do to earn my living?"
"I don't know."
"Do you mean I must go into the mill like every-
body else?"
"There are other things. Girls work at many things
in these days."
"What kind of things?"
"They may learn to keep accounts, help in
shops-
"If father could afford it, couldn't I learn to do
22


BROOKHOLLOW
something more interesting? What do girls work at
whose fathers can afford to let them learn how to
work?"
"They may become teachers, learn stenography and
typewriting; they can, of course, become dressmakers;
they can nurse"
"Mother P'
"Yes?"
"Could I choose the business of drawing pictures? I
know how!"
"Dear, I don*t believe it is practical to"
"Couldn't I draw pictures for books and magazines?
Everybody says I draw very nicely. You say so, too.
Couldn't I earn enough money to live on and to take
care of you and father?"
Wilbour Carew looked up from his reverie:
"To learn to draw correctly and with taste," he said
in his gentle, pedantic voice, "requires a special training
which we cannot afford to give you, Ruhannah."
"Must I wait till I'm twenty-five before I can have
my money?" she asked for the hundredth time. "I do
so need it to educate myself. Why did grandma do
such a thing, mother?"
"Your grandmother never supposed you would need
the money until you were a grown woman, dear. Your
father and I were young, vigorous, full of energy; your
father's income was ample for us then."
"Have I got to marry a man before I can get enough
money to take lessons in drawing with?"
Her mother's drawn smile was not very genuine.
When a child asks such questions no mother finds it
easy to smile.
"If you marry, dear, it is not likely you'll marry in
order to take lessons in drawing. Twenty-five is not
23


THE DARK STAR
old. If you still desire to study art you will be able
to do so."
"Twenty-five!" repeated Rue, aghast. "I'll be an
old woman."
"Many begin their life's work at an older age"
"Mother! I'd rather marry somebody and begin to
study art. Oh, don't you think that even now I could
support myself by making pictures for magazines?
Don't you, mother dear?"
"Rue, as your father explained, a special course of
instruction is necessary before one can become an ar-
tist"
"But I do draw very nicely!" She slipped from her
chair, ran to the old secretary where the accumulated
masterpieces of her brief career were treasured, and
brought them for her parents' inspection, as she had
brought them many times before.
Her father looked at them listlessly; he did not un-
derstand such things. Her mother took them one by
one from Ruhannah's eager hands and examined these
grimy records of her daughter's childhood.
There were drawings of every description in pencil,
in crayon, in mussy water-colours, done on scraps of
paper of every shape and size. The mother knew them
all by heart, every single one, but she examined each
with a devotion and an interest forever new.
There were many pictures of the cat; many of her
parents, too—odd, shaky, smeared portraits all out of
proportion, but usually recognisable.
A few landscapes varied the collection—a view or
two of the stone bridge opposite, a careful drawing of
the ruined paper mill. But the majority of the sub-
jects were purely imaginary; pictures of demons and
angels, of damsels and fairy princes—paragons of
24-


BROOKHOLLOW
beauty—with castles on adjacent crags and swans
adorning convenient ponds.
Her mother rose after a few moments, laid aside the
pile of drawings, went to the kitchen and returned with
her daughter's schoolbooks and lunch basket.
"Rue, you'll be late again. Get on your rubbers
immediately."
The child's shabby winter coat was already too short
in skirt and sleeve, and could be lengthened no further.
She pulled the blue toboggan cap over her head, took a
hasty osculatory leave of her father, seized books and
lunch basket, and followed her mother to the door.
Below the house the Brookhollow road ran south
across an old stone bridge and around a hill to Gay-
field, half a mile away.
Rue, drawing on her woollen gloves, looked up at her
mother. Her lip trembled very slightly. She said:
"I shouldn't know what to do if I couldn't draw
pictures. . . . When I draw a princess I mean her for
myself. ... It is pleasant—to pretend to live with
swans."
She opened the door, paused on the step; the frosty
breath drifted from her lips. Then she looked back
over her shoulder; her mother kissed her, held her
tightly for a moment.
"If I'm to be forbidden to draw pictures," repeated
the girl, "I don't know what will become of me. Be-
cause I really live there—in the pictures I make."
"We'll talk it over this evening, darling. Don't draw
in study hour any more, will you?"
"I'll try to remember, mother."
When the spindle-limbed, boyish figure had sped away
beyond sight, Mrs. Carew shut the door, drew her wool
25


THE DARK STAR
shawl closer, and returned slowly to the sitting-room.
Her husband, deep in a padded rocking-chair by the
window, was already absorbed in the volume which lay
open on his knees—the life of the Reverend Adoniram
Judson—one of the world's good men. Ruhannah had
named her cat after him.
His wife seated herself. She had dishes to do, two
bedrooms, preparations for noonday dinner—the usual
and unchangeable routine. She turned and looked out
of the window across brown fields thinly powdered with
snow. Along a brawling, wintry-dark stream, fringed
with grey alders, ran the Brookhollow road. Clumps
of pines and elms bordered it. There was nothing else
to see except a distant crow in a ten-acre lot, walking
solemnly about all by himself.
. . . Like the vultures that wandered through the
compound that dreadful day in May . . . she thought
involuntarily.
But it was a far cry from Trebizond to Brookhollow.
And her husband had been obliged to give up after
the last massacre, when every convert had been dragged
out and killed in the floating shadow of the Stars and
Stripes, languidly brilliant overhead.
For the Sublime Porte and the Kurds had had their
usual way at last; there was nothing left of the Mis-
sion; school and converts were gone; her wounded hus-
band, her baby, and herself refugees in a foreign con-
sulate; and the Turkish Government making apologies
with its fat tongue in its greasy cheek.
The Koran says: "Woe to those who pray, and in
their prayers are careless."
The Koran also says: "In the name of God the Com-
passionate, the Merciful: What thinkest thou of him
who treateth our religion as a lie?"
26


BBOOKHOLLOW
Mrs. Carew and her crippled husband knew, now,
what the Sublime Porte thought about it, and what
was the opinion of the Kurdish cavalry concerning
missionaries and converts who treated the Moslem re-
ligion as a lie.
She looked at her pallid and crippled husband; he
was still reading; his crutches lay beside him on the
floor. She turned her eyes to the window. Out there
the solitary crow was still walking busily about in the
frozen pasture. And again she remembered the vultures
that hulked and waddled amid the debris of the burned
Mission.
Only that had been in May; and above the sunny
silence in that place of death had sounded the unbroken
and awful humming of a million million flies. . . .
And so, her husband being now hopelessly broken
and useless, they had come back with their child, Ru-
hannah, to their home in Brookhollow.
Here they had lived ever since; here her grey life
was passing; here her daughter was already emerging
into womanhood amid the stark, unlovely environments
of a country crossroads, arid in summer, iron naked
in winter, with no horizon except the Gayfield hills, no
outlook save the Brookhollow road. And that led to
the mill.
She had done what she could—was still doing it.
But there was nothing to save. Her child's destiny
seemed to be fixed.
Her husband corresponded with the Board of Mis-
sions, wrote now and then for the Christian Pioneer,
and lived on the scanty pension allowed to those who,
like himself, had become incapacitated in line of duty.
There was no other income.
27


THE DARK STAR
There was, however, the six thousand dollars left to
Ruhannah by her grandmother, slowly accumulating
interest in the Mohawk Bank at Orangeville, the county
seat, and not to be withdrawn, under the terms of the
will, until the day Ruhannah married or attained, un-
married, her twenty-fifth year.
Neither principal nor interest of this legacy was
available at present. Life in the Carew family at
Brookhollow was hard sledding, and bid fair to con-
tinue so indefinitely.
The life of Ruhannah's father was passed in read-
ing or in gazing silently from the window—a tall, sal-
low, bearded man with the eyes of a dreaming martyr
and the hands of an invalid—who still saw in the
winter sky, across brown, snow-powdered fields, the
minarets of Trebizond.
In reading, in reflection, in dreaming, in spiritual
acquiescence, life was passing in sombre shadows for
this middle-aged man who had been hopelessly crushed
in Christ's service; and who had never regretted that
service, never complained, never doubted the wisdom
and the mercy of his Leader's inscrutable manoeuvres
with the soldiers who enlist to follow Him. As far as
that is concerned, the Reverend Wilbour Carew had
been born with a believing mind; doubt of divine good-
ness in Deity was impossible for him; doubt of human
goodness almost as difficult.
Such men have little chance in a brisk, busy, and
jaunty world; but they prefer it should be that way
with them. And of these few believers in the goodness
of God and man are our fools and gentlemen composed.
On that dreadful day, the Kurd who had mangled
him so frightfully that he recovered only to limp
28


BROOKHOLLOW
through life on crutches bent over him and shouted
in his face:
"Now, jou Christian dog, before I cut your throat
show me how this Christ of yours can be a god!"
"Is it necessary," replied the missionary faintly, "to
light a candle in order to show a man the midday sun?"
Which was possibly what saved his life, and the lives
of his wife and child. Your Moslem adores and under-
stands such figurative answers. So he left the Reverend
Mr. Carew lying half dead in the blackened doorway
and started cheerfully after a frightened convert pray-
ing under the compound wall.


CHAPTER III
IN EMBRYO
A child on the floor, flat on her stomach in the red
light of the stove, drawing pictures; her mother by
the shaded lamp mending stockings; her father read-
ing; a faint odour of kerosene from the glass lamp in
the room, and the rattle of sleet on roof and window;
this was one of her childhood memories which never
faded through all the years of Ruhannah's life.
Of her waking hours she preferred that hour after
supper when, lying prone on the worn carpet, with
pencil and paper, just outside the lamp's yellow circle
of light, her youthful imagination kindled and caught
fire.
For at that hour the magic of the stove's glowing
eyes transformed the sitting-room chairs to furtive
watchers of herself, made of her mother's worktable a
sly and spidery thing on legs, crouching in ambush; be-
witched the ancient cottage piano so that its ivory keys
menaced her like a row of monstrous teeth.
She adored it all. The tall secretary stared at her
with owlish significance. Through that neutral veil
where lamplight and shadow meet upon the wall, the
engraved portrait of a famous and godly missionary
peered down at her out of altered and malicious eyes;
the claw-footed, haircloth sofc. was a stealthy creature
offering to entrap her with wide, inviting arms; three
folded umbrellas leaned over the edge of their shadowy
stand, looking down at her like scrawny and baleful
-
30


IN EMBRYO
birds, ready to peck at her with crooked handles. And
as for Adoniram, her lank black cat, the child's restless
creative fancy was ever transforming him from goblin
into warlock, from hydra to hippogriff, until the ear-
nestness of pretence sent agreeable shivers down her
back, and she edged a trifle nearer to her mother.
But when pretence became a bit too real and too
grotesque she had always a perfect antidote. It was
merely necessary to make a quick picture of an angel
or two, a fairy prince, a swan, and she felt herself in
their company, and delightfully protected.
There was a night when the flowing roar of the gale
outside filled the lamplit silence; when the snow was
drifting level with the window sills; when Adoniram,
unable to prowl abroad, lay curled up tight and sound
asleep beside her where she sat on the carpet in the
stove radiance. Wearied of drawing castles and swans,
she had been listening to her father reading passages
aloud from the book on his knees to her mother who
was sewing by the lamp.
Presently he continued his reading:
"I asked Alaro the angel: 'Which place is this, and
which people are these?'
"And he answered: 'This place is the star-track; and
these are they who in the world offered no prayers
and chanted no liturgies. Through other works they
have attained felicity.'"
Her mother nodded, continuing to sew. Ruhannah
considered what her father had read, then:
"Father?"
"Yes "He looked down at her absently.
"What were you reading?"
"A quotation from the Sacred Anthology."
31


THE BARK STAR
"Isn't prayer really necessary?"
Her mother said:
"Yes, dear."
"Then how did those people who offered no prayers
go to Heaven?"
Her father said:
"Eternal life is not attained by praise or prayer
alone, Ruhannah. Those things which alone justify
prayer are also necessary."
"What are they?"
"What we really think and what we do—both only in
Christ's name. Without these nothing else counts very
much—neither form nor convention nor those indi-
vidual garments called creed and denomination, which
belief usually wears throughout the world."
Her mother, sewing, glanced gravely down at her
daughter:
"Your father is very tolerant of what other people
believe—as long as they really do believe. Your father
thinks that Christ would have found friends in Buddha
and Mahomet."
"Do such people go to Heaven?" asked Ruhannah,
astonished.
"Listen," said her father, reading again:
"'I came to a place and I saw the souls of the liberal,
adorned above all other souls in splendour. And it
seemed to me sublime.
"'I saw the souls of the truthful who walked in lofty
splendour. And it seemed to me sublime.
"'I saw the souls of teachers and inquirers; I saw
the friendly souls of interceders and peacemakers; and
these walked brilliantly in the light. And it seemed
to me sublime '"
He turned to his wife:

32


THE DARK STAR
"Amid the myriad pursuits and interests and trades
and professions of the human race, amid their multi-
tudinous aspirations, perplexities, doubts, passions, en-
deavours, deep within every intelligent man remains one
dominant desire, one persistent question to be answered
if possible."
"What desire, father?"
"The universal desire for another chance—for im-
mortality. Man's never-ending demand for evidence of
an immortality which shall terminate for him the most
tremendous of all uncertainties, which shall solve for
him the most vital of all questions: What is to become
of him after physical death? Is he to live again? Is
he to see once more those whom he loved the best?"
Ruhannah sat thinking in the red stove light, cross-
legged, her slim ankles clasped in either hand.
"But our souls are immortal," she said at last.
"Yes."
"Our Lord Jesus has said it."
"Yes."
"Then why should anybody not believe it?"
"Try to believe it always. Particularly after your
mother and I are no longer here, try to believe it. . . .
You are unusually intelligent; and if some day your
intelligence discovers that it requires evidence for be-
lief seek for that evidence. It is obtainable. Try to
recognise it when you encounter it. . . . Only, in any
event, remember this: never alter your early faith, never
destroy.your childhood's belief until evidence to prove
the contrary convinces you."
"No. . . . There is no such evidence, is there,
father?"
"I know of none."
"Then," said the girl calmly, "I shall take Christ's
34,


IN EMBRYO
evidence that I shall live again if I do no evil. . . .
Father?"
"Yes."
"Is there any evidence that Adoniram has no soul?"
"I know of none."
"Is there any that he has a soul?"
"Yes, I think there is."
"Are you sure?"
"Not entirely."
"I wonder," mused the girl, looking gravely at the
sleeping cat.
It was the first serious doubt that Ruhannah had
ever entertained in her brief career.
That night she dreamed of the Yellow Devil in Herr
Wilner's box, and, awaking, remembered her dream.
It seemed odd, too, because she had not even thought
of the Yellow Devil for over a year.
But the menacing Mongol figure seemed bound to
intrude into her life once more and demand her atten-
tion as though resentful of long oblivion and neglect;
for, a week later, an old missionary from Indo-China
—a native Chinese—who had lectured at the Baptist
Church in Gayfield the evening previous, came to pay
his respects to the Reverend Wilbour Carew. And Rue
had taken the Yellow Devil from the olive-wood box
that day and was busily making a pencil drawing of it.
At sight of the figure the native missionary's narrow
almond eyes opened extremely wide, and he leaned on
the table and regarded the bronze demon very intently.
Then he took from his pocket and adjusted to his
button nose a pair of large, horn spectacles; and he
carefully examined the Chinese characters engraved on
the base of the ancient bronze, following them slowly
with a yellow and clawlike forefinger.
35'


THE DARK STAR
"Can you read what is written there?" inquired the
Reverend Mr. Carew.
"Yes, brother. Thi3 is what is written: 'I am Erlik,
Ruler of Chaos and of All that Was. The old order
passes when I arrive. I bring confusion among the
peoples; I hurl down emperors; kingdoms crumble where
I pass; the world begins to rock and tip, spilling na-
tions into outer darkness. When there are no more
kingdoms and no more kings; no more empires and no
emperors; and when only the humble till, the blameless
sow, the pure reap; and when only the teachers teach
in the shadow of the Tree, and when the Thinker sits
unstirring under the high stars, then, from the dark
edges of the world I let go my grasp and drop into
those immeasurable deeps from which I came—I, Erlik,
Ruler of All that Was.'"
After a silence the Reverend Mr. Carew asked
whether the figure was a very old one.
"It is before the period called 'Han'—a dynasty
during which the Mongols were a mighty people. This
inscription is Mongol. Erlik was the Yellow Devil of
the Mongols."
"Not a heathen god, then?"
"No, a heathen devil. Their Prince of Darkness."
Ruhannah, pencil in hand, looked curiously at this
heathen Prince of Darkness, arrived out of the dark
ages to sit to her for his scowling portrait.
"I wonder what he thinks of America," she said,
partly to herself.
The native missionary smiled, picked up the Yellow
Devil, shook the figure, listening.
"There is something inside," he said; "perhaps
jewels. If you drilled a hole in him you could find out."
The Reverend Mr. Carew nodded absently:
>
36


IN EMBRYO
"Yes; it might be worth while," he said.
"If there is a jewel," repeated the missionary, "you
had better take it, then cast away the figure. Erlik
brings disaster to the land where his image is set up."
The Reverend Mr. Carew smiled at his Chinese and
Christian confrere's ineradicable vein of superstition.


CHAPTER IV
THE TRODDEN WAY
Theke came the indeterminate year when Ruhannah
finished school and there was no money available to send
her elsewhere for further embellishment, no farther
horizon than the sky over the Gayfield hills, no other
perspective than the main street of Gayfield with the
knitting mill at the end of it.
So into Gayfield Mill the girl walked, and found a
place immediately among the unskilled. And her career
appeared to be predetermined now, and her destiny a
simple one—to work, to share the toil and the gaieties
of Gayfield with the majority of the other girls she
knew; to marry, ultimately, some boy, some clerk in
one of the Gayfield stores, some farmer lad, perhaps,
possibly a school teacher or a local lawyer or physician,
or possibly the head of some department in the mill,
or maybe a minister—she was sufficiently well bred and
educated for any one of these.
The winter of her seventeenth year found her still
very much a child at heart, physically backward, a late
adolescent, a little shy, inclined to silences, romantic,
sensitive to all beauty, and passionately expressing
herself only when curled up by the stove with her pen-
cil and the red light of the coals falling athwart the
slim hand that guided it.
She went sometimes to village parties, learned very
easily to dance, had no preferences among the youths
38


THE TRODDEN WAV
of Gayfield, no romances. For that matter, while she
was liked and even furtively admired, her slight shy-
ness, reticence, and a vague, indefinite something about
her seemed to discourage familiar rustic gallantry.
Also, she was as thin and awkward as an overgrown lad,
not thought to be pretty, known to be poor. But for
all that more than one young man was vaguely haunted
at intervals by some memory of her grey eyes and the
peculiar sweetness of her mouth, forgetting for the
moment several freckles on the delicate bridge of her
nose and several more on her sun-tanned cheeks.
She had an agreeable time that winter, enchanted
to learn dancing, happy at "showers" and parties, at
sleigh rides and "chicken suppers," and the various spe-
cies of village gaiety which ranged from moving pic-
tures every Thursday and Saturday nights to church
entertainments, amateur theatricals at the town hall,
and lectures under the auspices of the aristocratic
D. O. F.—Daughters of the Old Frontier.
But she never saw any boy she preferred to any
other, never was conscious of being preferred, except-
ing once—and she was not quite certain about that.
It was old Dick Neeland's son, Jim—vaguely under-
stood to have been for several years in Paris studying
art—and who now turned up in Gayfield during Christ-
mas week.
Ruhannah remembered seeing him on several occa-
sions when she was a little child. He was usually
tramping across country with his sturdy father, Dick
Neeland of Neeland's Mills—an odd, picturesque pair
with their setter dogs and burnished guns, and old
Dick's face as red as a wrinkled winter apple, and his
hair snow-white.
There was six years' difference between their ages,
39
"-


THE DARK STAR
Jim Neeland's and hers, and she had always consid-
ered him a grown and formidable man in those days.
But that winter, when somebody at the movies pointed
him out to her, she was surprised to find him no older
than the other youths she skated with and danced with.
Afterward, at a noisy village party, she saw him
dancing with every girl in town, and the drop of Irish
blood in this handsome, careless young fellow estab-
lished him at once as a fascinating favourite.
Rue became quite tremulous over the prospect of
dancing with him. Presently her turn came; she rose
with a sudden odd loss of self-possession as he was pre-
sented, stood dumb, shy, unresponsive, suffered him to
lead her out, became slowly conscious that he danced
rather badly. But awe of him persisted even when he
trod on her slender foot.
He brought her an ice afterward, and seated himself
beside her.
"I'm a clumsy dancer," he said. "How many times
did I spike you?"
She flushed and would have found a pleasant word
to reassure him, but discovered nothing to say, it be-
ing perfectly patent to them both that she had retired
from the floor with a slight limp.
"I'm a steam roller," he repeated carelessly. "But
you dance very well, don't you?"
"I have only learned to dance this winter."
"I thought you an expert. Do you live here?"
"Yes. ... I mean I live at Brookhollow."
"Funny. I don't remember you. Besides, I don't
know your name—people mumble so when they intro-
duce a man."
"I'm Ruhannah Carew."
"Carew," he repeated, while a crease came between
40


THE TRODBEN WAY
his eyebrows. "Of Brookhollow Oh, I know!
Your father is the retired missionary—red house facing
the bridge."
"Yes."
"Certainly," he said, taking another look at her;
"you're the little girl daddy and I used to see across
the fields when we were shooting woodcock in the
willows."
"I remember you," she said.
"I remember you!"
She coloured gratefully.
"Because," he added, "dad and I were always afraid
you'd wander into range and we'd pepper you from
the bushes. You've grown a lot, haven't you?" He
had a nice, direct smile though his speech and man-
ners were a trifle breezy, confident, and sans facon.
But he was at that age—which succeeds the age of
bumptiousness—with life and career before him, at-
tainment, realisation, success, everything the mystery
of life holds for a young man who has just flung open
the gates and who takes the magic road to the future
with a stride instead of his accustomed pace.
He was already a man with a profession, and meant
that she should become aware of it.
Later in the evening somebody told her what a per-
sonage he had become, and she became even more deeply
thrilled, impressed, and tremulously desirous that he
should seek her out again, not venturing to seek him,
not dreaming of encouraging him to notice her by
glance or attitude—not even knowing, as yet, how to
do such things. She thought he had already forgotten
her existence.
But that this thin, freckled young thing with grey
41
'


THE DARK STAR
eyes ought to learn how much of a man he was remained
somewhere in the back of Neeland's head; and when he
heard his hostess say that somebody would have to
see Rue Carew home, he offered to do it. And pres-
ently went over and asked the girl if he might—not too
patronisingly.
In the cutter, under fur, with the moonlight electri-
cally brilliant and the world buried in white, she ven-
tured to speak of his art, timidly, as in the presence of
the very great.
':0h, yes," he said. "I studied in Paris. Wish I
were back there. But I've got to draw for magazines
and illustrated papers; got to make a living, you see.
I teach at the Art League, too."
"How happy you must be in your career!" she said,
devoutly meaning it, knowing no better than to say
it.
"It's a business," he corrected her, kindly.
"But—yes—but it is art, too."
"Oh, art!" he laughed. It was the fashion that year
to shrug when art was mentioned—reaction from too
much gabble.
"We don't busy ourselves with art; we busy ourselves
with business. When they use my stuff I feel I'm get-
ting on. You see," he admitted with reluctant hon-
esty, "I'm young at it yet—I haven't had very much
of my stuff in magazines yet."
After a silence, cursed by an instinctive truthful-
ness which always spoiled any little plan to swagger:
"I've had several—well, about a dozen pictures re-
produced."
One picture accepted by any magazine would have
awed her sufficiently. The mere fact that he was an
artist had been enough to impress her.
-\
42


THE TRODBEN WAY
"Do you care for that sort of thing—drawing, paint-
ing, I mean?" he inquired kindly.
She drew a quick breath, steadied her voice, and said
she did.
"Perhaps you may turn out stuff yourself some
day."
She scarcely knew how to take the word "stuff."
Vaguely she surmised it to be professional vernacular.
She admitted shyly that she cared for nothing so
much as drawing, that she longed for instruction, but
that such a dream was hopeless.
At first he did not comprehend that poverty barred
the way to her; he urged her to cultivate her talent,
bestowed advice concerning the Art League, boarding
houses, studios, ways, means, and ends, until she felt
obliged to tell him how far beyond her means such
magic splendours lay.
He remained silent, sorry for her, thinking also that
the chances were against her having any particular
talent, consoling a heart that was unusually sympa-
thetic and tender with the conclusion that this girl
would be happier here in Brookhollow than scratching
around the purlieus of New York to make both ends
meet.
"It's a tough deal," he remarked abruptly. "—I
mean this art stuff. You work like the dickens and kick
your heels in ante-rooms. If they take your stuff they
send you back to alter it or redraw it. / don't know
how anybody makes a living at it—in the beginning."
"Don't you?"
"I? No." He reddened; but she could not notice
it in the moonlight. "No," he repeated; "I have an
allowance from my father. I'm new at it yet."
"Couldn't a man—a girl—support herself by draw-
43
r


THE DARK STAR
ing pictures for magazines?" she inquired tremulously.
"Oh, well, of course there are some who have arrived
—and they manage to get on. Some even make wads,
you know."
"W-wads?" she repeated, mystified.
"I mean a lot of money. There's that girl on the
Star, Jean Throssel, who makes all kinds of wealth,
they say, out of her spidery, filmy girls in ringlets and
cheesecloth dinner gowns."
"Oh!"
"Yes, Jean Throssel, and that Waythorne girl, Be-
linda Waythorne, you know—does all that stuff for
The Looking Glass—futurist graft, no mouths on her
people—she makes hers, I understand."
It was rather difficult for Rue to follow him amid
the vernacular mazes.
"Then, of course," he continued, "men like Alexander
Fairless and Philip Lightwood who imitates him, make
fortunes out of their drawing. I could name a dozen,
perhaps. But the rest—hard sledding, Miss Carew!"
"Is it very hard?"
"Well, I don't know what on earth I'd do if dad
didn't back me as his fancy."
"A father ought to, if he can afford it."
"Oh, I'll pay my way some day. It's in me. I feel
it; I know it. I'll make plenty of money," he assured
her confidently.
"I'm sure you will."
"Thank you," he smiled. "My friends tell me I've
got it in me. I have one friend in particular—the Prin-
cess Mistchenka—who has all kinds of confidence in my
future. When I'm blue she bolsters me up. She's quite
wonderful. I owe her a lot for asking me to her Sunday
nights and for giving me her friendship."
44


THE TRODDEN WAY
"A—a princess?" whispered the girl, who had drawn
pictures of thousands but was a little startled to realise
that such fabled creatures really exist.
"Is she very beautiful?" she added.
"She's tremendously pretty."
"Her—clothes are very beautiful, I suppose," ven-
tured Rue.
"Well—they're very—smart. Everything about her
is smart. Her Sunday night suppers are wonderful.
You meet people who do thinjjs—all sorts—everybody
whe is sametody."
He turned to her frankly:
"I think myself very lucky that the Princess Mist-
chenka should be my friend, because, honestly, Miss
Carew, I don't see what there is in me to interest such a
woman."
Rue thought she could see, but remained silent.
"If I had my way," said Neeland, a few moments
later, "I'd drop illustrating and paint battle scenes.
But it wouldn't pay, you see."
"Couldn't you support yourself by painting bat-
tles?"
"Not yet," he said honestly. "Of course I have
hopes—intentions "he laughed, drew his reins; the
silvery chimes clashed and jingled and flashed in the
moonlight; they had arrived.
At the door he said:
"I hope some day you'll have a chance to take lessons.
Thank you for dancing with me. ... If you ever do
come to New York to study, I hope you'll let me
know."
"Yes," she said, "I will."
He was halfway to his sleigh, looked back, saw her
looking back as she entered the lighted doorway.
45


THE DARK STAR
"Good night, Rue," he said impulsively, warmly sorry
for her.
"Good night," she said.
The drop of Irish blood in him prompted him to go
back to where she stood framed in the lighted doorway.
And the same drop was no doubt responsible for his
taking her by the waist and tilting back her head in its
fur hood and kissing her soft, warm lips.
She looked up at him in a flushed, bewildered sort of
way, not resisting; but his eyes were so gay and mis-
chievous, and his quick smile so engaging that a breath-
less, uncertain smile began to edge her lips; and it re-
mained stamped there, stiffening even after he had
jumped into his cutter and had driven away, jingling
joyously out into the dazzling moonshine.
In bed, the window open, and the covers pulled to her
chin, Rue lay wakeful, living over again the pleasures
of the evening; and Neeland's face was always before
her open eyes, and his pleasant voice seemed to bo
sounding in her ears. As for the kiss, it did not trouble
her. Girls she went with were not infrequently so sa-
luted by boys. That, being her own first experience,
was important only in that degree. And she shyly
thought the experience agreeable. And, as she recalled,
revived, and considered all that Neeland had said, it
seemed to her that this young man led an enchanted
life and that such as he were indeed companions fit
for princesses.
"Princess Mistchenka," she repeated aloud to her-
self. And somehow it sounded vaguely familiar to the
girl, as though somewhere, long ago, she had heard
another voice pronounce the name.


CHAPTER V
EX MACHINA
After she had become accustomed to the smell of
rancid oil and dyestuffs and the interminable racket of
machinery she did not find her work at the knitting
mill disagreeable. It was like any work, she imagined,
an uninteresting task which had to be done.
The majority of the girls and young men of the
village worked there in various capacities; wages were
fair, salaries better, union regulations prevailed. There
was nothing to complain of.
And nothing to expect except possible increase in
wages, holidays, and a disquieting chance of getting
caught in the machinery, which familiarity soon dis-
counted.
As for the social status of the mill workers, the mill
was Gayfield; and Gayfield was a village where the
simpler traditions of the Republic still survived; where
there existed no invidious distinction in vocations; a
typical old-time community harbouring the remains of
a Grand Army Post and too many churches of too
many denominations; where the chance metropolitan
stranger was systematically "done"; where distrust of
all cities and desire to live in them was equalled only by
a passion for moving pictures and automobiles; where
the school trustees used double negatives and traced
their ancestry to Colonial considerables—who, how-
ever, had signed their names in "lower case" or with a
Maltese cross—the world in miniature, with its due
47


THE DARK STAR
proportion of petty graft, petty squabbles, envy, kind-
ness, jealousy, generosity, laziness, ambition, stupidity,
intelligence, honesty, hypocrisy, hatred, affection, bad-
ness and goodness, as standardised by the code estab-
lished according to folk-ways on earth—in brief, a per-
fectly human community composed of the usual ingredi-
ents, worthy and unworthy—that was Gayfield, Mo-
hawk County, New York.
Before spring came—before the first robin appeared,
and while icy roads still lay icy under sunlit pools of
snow-water—a whole winter indoors, and a sedentary
one, had changed the smoothly tanned and slightly
freckled cheeks of Rue Carew to a thinner and paler
oval. Under her transparent skin a tea-rose pink
came and went; under her grey eyes lay bluish shadows.
Also, floating particles of dust, fleecy and microscopic
motes of cotton and wool filling the air in the room
where Ruhannah worked, had begun to irritate her
throat and bronchial tubes; and the girl developed an
intermittent cough.
When the first bluebird arrived in Gayfield the cough
was no longer intermittent; and her mother sent her
to the village doctor. So Rue Carew was transferred
to the box factory adjoining, in which the mill made
its own paper boxes, where young women sat all day
at intelligent machines and fed them with squares of
pasteboard and strips of gilt paper; and the intelligent
and grateful machines responded by turning out hun-
dreds and hundreds of complete boxes, all neatly gilded,
pasted, and labelled. And after a little while Ruhan-
nah was able to nourish one of these obliging and re-
sponsive machines. And by July her cough had left
her, and two delicate freckles adorned the 'bridge of
her nose.
48


EX MACHINA
The half-mile walk from and to Brookhollow twice
a day was keeping her from rapid physical degenera-
tion. Yet, like all northern American summers, the
weather became fearfully hot in July and August, and
the half-mile even in early morning and at six in the
evening left her listless, nervously dreading the great
concrete-lined room, the reek of glue and oil, the
sweaty propinquity of her neighbours, and the monot-
onous appetite of the sprawling machine which she fed
all day long with pasteboard squares. ',
She went to her work in early morning, bareheaded,
in a limp pink dress very much open at the throat,
which happened to be the merciful mode of the moment
—a slender, sweet-lipped thing, beginning to move with
grace now—and her chestnut hair burned gold-pale by
the sun.
There came that movable holiday in August, when
the annual shutdown for repairs closed the mill and
box factory during forty-eight hours—a matter of
prescribing oil and new bearings for the overfed ma-
chines so that their digestions should remain unim-
paired and their dispositions amiable.
It was a hot August morning, intensely blue and
still, with that slow, subtle concentration of suspended
power in the sky, ominous of thunder brooding some-
where beyond the western edges of the world.
Ruhannah aided her mother with the housework,
picked peas and a squash and a saucer full of yellow
pansies in the weedy little garden, and, at noon, dined
on the trophies of her husbandry, physically and
aesthetically.
After dinner, dishes washed and room tidied, she sat
down on the narrow, woodbine-infested verandah with
49
r


THE DARK STAR
pencil and paper, and attempted to draw the stone
bridge and the little river where it spread in deeps
and shallows above the broken dam.
Perspective was unknown to her; of classic composi-
tion she was also serenely ignorant, so the absence of
these in her picture did not annoy her. On the con-
trary, there was something hideously modern and re-
cessional in her vigorous endeavour to include in her
drawing everything her grey eyes chanced to rest on.
She even arose and gently urged a cow into the already
overcrowded composition, and, having accomplished its
portrait with Cezanne-like fidelity, was beginning to
look about for Adoniram to include him also, when her
mother called to her, holding out a pair of old gloves.
"Dear, we are going to save a little money this year.
Do you think you could catch a few fish for supper?"
The girl nodded, took the gloves, laid aside her pencil
and paper, picked up the long bamboo pole from the
verandah floor, and walked slowly out into the garden.
A trowel was sticking in the dry earth near the
flower bed, where poppies, and pansies, and petunias,
and phlox bordered the walk.
Under a lilac the ground seemed moister and more
promising for vermicular investigation; she drew on her
gloves, dug a few holes with the trowel, extracted an
angleworm, frowned slightly, holding it between gloved
fingers, regarding its contortions with pity and
aversion.
To bait a hook was not agreeable to the girl; she
managed to do it, however, then shouldering her pole
she walked across the road and down to the left,
through rank grasses and patches of milkweed, ber-
gamot, and queen's lace, scattering a cloud of brown
and silver-spotted butterflies.
50


EX MACHINA
Alder, elder, and Indian willow barred her way; rank
thickets of jewelweed hung vivid blossoming drops
across her path; woodbine and clematis trailed dainty
snares to catch her in their fairy nets; a rabbit scur-
ried out from behind the ruined paper mill as she came
to the swift, shallow water below the dam.
Into this she presently plumped her line, and the next
instant jerked it out again with a wriggling, silvery
minnow flashing on the hook.
Carrying her pole with its tiny, glittering victim
dangling aloft, Rue hastily retraced her steps to the
road, crossed the bridge to the further end, seated
herself on the limestone parapet, and, swinging her pole
with both hands, cast line and hook and minnow far
out into the pond. It was a business she did not care
for—this extinguishing of the life-spark in anything.
But, like her mill work, it appeared to be a necessary
business, and, so regarding it, she went about it.
The pond above the half-ruined dam lay very still;
her captive minnow swam about with apparently no dis-
comfort, trailing on the surface of the pond above him
the cork which buoyed the hook.
Rue, her pole clasped in both hands between her
knees, gazed with preoccupied eyes out across the water.
On the sandy shore, a pair of speckled tip-ups ran
busily about, dipping and bobbing, or spread their
white, striped wings to sheer the still surface of the
pond, swing shoreward with bowed wings again, and
resume their formal, quaint, and busy manners.
From the interstices of the limestone parapet grew a
white bluebell—the only one Rue had ever seen. As
long as she could remember it had come up there every
year and bloomed, snow-white amid a world of its blue
comrades in the grass below. She looked for it now,
51 ^


THE BARK STAR
saw it in bud—three sturdy stalks sprouting at right
angles from the wall and curving up parallel to it.
Somehow or other she had come to associate this white
freak of nature with herself—she scarcely knew why.
It comforted her, oddly, to see it again, still surviving,
still delicately vigorous, though where among those
stone slabs it found its nourishment she never could
imagine.
The intense blue of the sky had altered since noon;
the west became gradually duller and the air stiller;
and now, over the Gayfield hills, a tall cloud thrust up
silvery-edged convolutions toward a zenith still royally
and magnificently blue.
She had been sitting there watching her swimming
cork for over an hour when the first light western
breeze arrived, spreading a dainty ripple across the
pond. Her cork danced, drifted; beneath it she caught
the momentary glimmer of the minnow; then the cork
was jerked under; she clasped the pole with all her
strength, struck upward; and a heavy pickerel, all
gold and green, sprang furiously from the water and
fell back with a sharp splash.
Under the sudden strain of the fish she nearly lost
her balance, scrambled hastily down from the parapet,
propping the pole desperately against her body, and
stood so, unbending, unyielding, her eyes fixed on the
water where the taut line cut it at forty-five degrees.
At the same time two men in a red runabout speeding
westward caught sight of the sharp turn by the bridge
which the ruins of the paper mill had hidden. The man
driving the car might have made it even then had he not
seen Ruhannah in the centre of the bridge. It was
instantly all off; so were both mud-guards and one
52


EX MACH1NA
wheel. So were driver and passenger, floundering on
their backs among the rank grass and wild flowers.
Ruhannah, petrified, still fast to her fish, gazed at the
catastrophe over her right shoulder.
A broad, short, squarely built man of forty emerged
from the weeds, went hastily to the car and did some-
thing to it. Noise ceased; clouds of steam continued
to ascend from the crumpled hood.
The other man, even shorter, but slimmer, sauntered
out of a bed of milkweed whither he had been cata-
pulted. He dusted with his elbew a grey felt hat as
he stood looking at the wrecked runabout; his com-
rade, still clutching a cigar between his teeth, continued
to examine the car.
"Hell!" remarked the short, thickset man.
"It's going to rain like it, too," added the other. The
thunder boomed again beyond Gayfield hills.
"What do you know about this!" growled the thick-
set man, in utter disgust. "Do we hunt for a garage,
or what?"
"It's up to you, Eddie. And say! What was the
matter with you? Don't you know a bridge when you
see one?"
"That damn girl "He turned and looked at
Ruhannah, who was dragging the big flapping pickerel
over the parapet by main strength.
The men scowled at her in silence, then the one ad-
dressed as Eddie rolled his cigar grimly into the left
corner of his jaw.
"Damn little skirt," he observed briefly. "It seems
to worry her a lot what she's done to us."
"I wonder does she know she wrecked us," suggested
the other. He was a stunted, wiry little man of thirty-
five. His head seemed slightly too large; he had a


THE DARK STAR
pasty face with the sloe-black eyes, button nose, and
the widely chiselled mouth of a circus clown.
The eyes of the short, thickset man were narrow and
greyish green in a round, smoothly shaven face. They
narrowed still more as the thunder broke louder from
the west.
Ruhannah, dragging her fish over the grass, was
coming toward them; and the man called Eddie stepped
forward to bar her progress.
"Say, girlie," he began, the cigar still tightly
screwed into his cheek, "is there a juice mill anywhere
near us, d'y'know?"
"What?" said Rue.
"A garage."
"Yes; there is one at Gayfield."
"How far, girlie?"
Rue flushed, but answered:
"It is half a mile to Gayfield."
The other man, noticing the colour in Ruhannah's
face, took off his pearl-grey hat. His language was
less grammatical than his friend's, but his instincts
were better.
"Thank you," he said—his companion staring all the
while at the girl without the slightest expression. "Is
there a telephone in any of them houses, miss?"—
glancing around behind him at the three edifices which
composed the crossroads called Brookhollow.
"No," said Rue.
It thundered again; the world around had become
very dusky and silent and the flash veined a rapidly
blackening west.
"It's going to rain buckets," said the man called
Eddie. "If you live around here, can you let us come
into your house till it's over, gir—er—miss?"
54


EX MACHINA
"Yes."
"I'm Mr. Brandes—Ed Brandes of New York-
speaking through cigar-clutching teeth. "This is Mr.
Ben Stull, of the same. . . . It's raining already. Is
that your house?"
"I live there," said Rue, nodding across the bridge.
"You may go in."
She walked ahead, dragging the fish; Stull went to
the car, took two suitcases from the boot; Brandes
threw both overcoats over his arm, and followed in the
wake of Ruhannah and her fish.
"No Saratoga and no races today, Eddie," remarked
Stull. But Brandes' narrow, grey-green eyes were fol-
lowing Ruhannah.
"It's a pity," continued Stull, "somebody didn't
learn you to drive a car before you ask your friends
joy-riding."
"Aw—shut up," returned Brandes slowly, between
his teeth.
They climbed the flight of steps to the verandah,
through a rapidly thickening gloom which was ripped
wide open at intervals by lightning.
So Brandes and his shadow, Bennie Stull, came into
the home of Ruhannah Carew.
Her mother, who had observed their approach from
the window, opened the door.
"Mother," said Ruhannah, "here is the fish I caught
—and two gentlemen."
With which dubious but innocent explanation she
continued on toward the kitchen, carrying her fish.
Stull offered a brief explanation to account for their
plight and presence; Brandes, listening and watching
the mother out of greenish, sleepy eyes, made up his
mind concerning her.
55


THE DARK STAR
While the spare room was being prepared by mother
and daughter, he and Stull, seated in the sitting-room,
.their hats 'upon their knees, exchanged solemn common-
places with the Reverend Mr. Carew.
Brandes, always the gambler, always wary and
reticent by nature, did all the listening before he came
to conclusions that relaxed the stiffness of his attitude
and the immobility of his large, round face.
Then, at ease under circumstances and conditions
which he began to comprehend and have an amiable
contempt for, he became urbane and conversational,
and a little amused to find navigation so simple, even
when out of his proper element.
From the book on the invalid's knees, Brandes took
his cue; and the conversation developed into a mono-
logue on the present condition of foreign missions—
skilfully inspired by the respectful attention and the
brief and ingenious questions of Brandes.
"Doubtless," concluded the Reverend Mr. Carew,
"you are familiar with the life of the Reverend
Adoniram Judson, Mr. Brandes."
It turned out to be Brandes' favourite book.
"You will recollect, then, the amazing conditions in
India which confronted Dr. Judson and his wife."
Brandes recollected perfectly—with a slow glance at
Stull.
"All that is changed," said the invalid. "—God be
thanked. And conditions in Armenia are changing for
the better, I hope."
"Let us hope so," returned Brandes solemnly.
"To doubt it is to doubt the goodness of the Al-
mighty," said the Reverend Mr. Carew. His dreamy
eyes became fixed on the rain-splashed window, burned
a little with sombre inward light.
\.
56


EX MACHINA
"In Trebizond," he began, "in my time"
His wife came into the room, saying that the spare
bedchamber was ready and that the gentlemen might
wish to wash before supper, which would be ready in a
little while.
On their way upstairs they encountered Ruhannah
coming down. Stull passed with a polite grunt;
Brandes ranged himself for the girl to pass him.
"Ever so much obliged to you, Miss Carew," he
said. "We have put you to a great deal of trouble,
I am sure."
Rue looked up surprised, shy, not quite understand-
ing how to reconcile his polite words and pleasant voice
with the voice and manner in which he had addressed
her on the bridge.
"It is no trouble," she said, flushing slightly. "I
hope you will be comfortable."
And she continued to descend the stairs a trifle more
hastily, not quite sure she cared very much to talk
to that kind of man.
In the spare bedroom, whither Stull and Brandes had
been conducted, the latter was seated on the big and
rather shaky maple bed, buttoning a fresh shirt and
collar, while Stull took his turn at the basin. Rain beat
heavily on the windows.
"Say, Ben," remarked Brandes, "you want to be
careful when we go downstairs that the old guy don't
spot us for sporting men. He's a minister, or some-
thing."
Stull lifted his dripping face of a circus clown from
the basin.
"What's that?"
57


THE DARK STAR
"I say we don't want to give the old people a shock.
You know what they'd think of us."
"What do I care what they think?"
"Can't you be polite?"
"I can be better than that; I can be honest," said
Stull, drying his sour visage with a flimsy towel.
After Brandes had tied his polka-dotted tie care-
fully before the blurred mirror:
"What do you mean by that?" he asked stolidly.
"Ah—I know what I mean, Eddie. So do you.
You're a smooth talker, all right. You can listen and
look wise, too, when there's anything in it for you.
Just see the way you got Stein to put up good money
for you! And'all you done was to listen to him and
keep your mouth shut."
Brandes rose with an air almost jocular and smote
Stull upon the back.
"Stein thinks he's the greatest manager on earth.
Let him tell you so if you want anything out of him,"
he said, walking to the window.
The volleys of rain splashing on the panes obscured
the outlook; Brandes flattened his nose against the
glass and stood as though lost in thought.
Behind him Stull dried his features, rummaged in the
suitcase, produced a bathrobe and slippers, put them
on, and stretched himself out on the bed.
"Aren't you coming down to buzz the preacher?"
demanded Brandes, turning from the drenched window.
"So you can talk phony to the little kid? No."
"Ah, get it out of your head that I mean phony."
"Well, what do you mean?"
"Nothing."
Stull gave him a contemptuous glance and turned
over on the pillow.
^
58


EX MACHINA
"Are you coming down?"
"No."
So Brandes took another survey of himself in the
glass, used his comb and brushes again, added a studied
twist to his tie, shot his cuffs, and walked out of the
room with the solid deliberation which characterised
his carriage at all times.
*
-if


CHAPTER VI
THE END OF SOLITUDE
A bain-washed world, smelling sweet as a wet rose,
a cloudless sky delicately blue, and a swollen stream
tumbling and foaming under the bridge—of these Mr.
Eddie Brandes was agreeaWy conscious as he stepped
out on the verandah after breakfast, and, unclasping a
large gold cigar case, inserted a cigar between his teeth.
He always had the appearance of having just come
out of a Broadway barber shop with the visible traces
of shave, shampoo, massage, and manicure patent upon
his person.
His short, square figure was clothed in well-cut blue
serge; a smart straw hat embellished his head, polished
russet shoes his remarkably small feet. On his small
fat fingers several heavy rings were conspicuous. And
the odour of cologne exhaled from and subtly pervaded
the ensemble.
Across the road, hub-deep in wet grass and weeds,
he could see his wrecked runabout, glistening with rain-
drops.
He stood for a while on the verandah, both hands
shoved deep into his pockets, his cigar screwed into his
cheek. From time to time he jingled keys and loose
coins in his pockets. Finally he sauntered down the
steps and across the wet road to inspect the machine at
closer view.
Contemplating it tranquilly, head on one side and
his left eye closed to avoid the drifting cigar smoke,
60
r 4i&


THE END OF SOLITUDE
he presently became aware of a girl in a pink print
dress leaning over the grey parapet of the bridge. And,
picking his way among the puddles, he went toward
her.
"Good morning, Miss Carew," he said, taking off his
straw hat.
She turned her head over her shoulder; the early
sun glistened on his shiny, carefully parted hair and
lingered in glory on a diamond scarf pin.
"Good morning," she said, a little uncertainly, for
the memory of their first meeting on the bridge had not
entirely been forgotten.
"You had breakfast early," he said.
"Yes."
He kept his hat off; such little courtesies have their
effect; also it was good for his hair which, he feared,
had become a trifle thinner recently.
"It is beautiful weather," said Mr. Brandes, squint-
ing at her through his cigar smoke.
"Yes." She looked down into the tumbling water.
"This is a beautiful country, isn't it, Miss Carew?"
"Yes."
With his head a little on one side he inspected her.
There was only the fine curve of her cheek visible, and
a white neck under the chestnut hair; and one slim,
tanned hand resting on the stone parapet.
"Do you like motoring?" he asked.
She looked up:
"Yes. ... I have only been out a few times."
"I'll have another car up here in a few days. I'd like
to take you out."
She was silent.
"Ever go to Saratoga?" he inquired.
"No."
61


THE DARK STAR
"I'll take you to the races—with your mother.'
Would you like to go?"
She remained silent so long that he became a trifle
uneasy.
"With your mother," he repeated, moving so he could
see a little more of her face.
"I don't think mother would go," she said.
"Would she let you go?"
"I don't think so."
"There's nothing wrong with racing," he said, "if
you don't bet money on the horses."
But Rue knew nothing about sport, and her igno-
rance as well as the suggested combination of Saratoga,
automobile, and horse racing left her silent again.
Brandes sat down on the parapet of the bridge and
held his straw hat on his fat knees.
"Then we'll make it a family party," he said, "your
father and mother and you, shall we? And we'll just
go off for the day."
"Thank you."
"Would you like it?"
"Yes."
"Will you go?"
"I—work in the mill."
"Every day?"
"Yes."
"How about Sunday?"
"We go to church. ... I don't know. . . . Per-
haps we might go in the afternoon."
"I'll ask your father," he said, watching the deli-
cately flushed face with odd, almost sluggish persist-
ency.
His grey-green eyes seemed hypnotised; he ap-
peared unable to turn them elsewhere; and she, grad-


THE END OF SOLITUDE
ually becoming conscious of his scrutiny, kept her own
eyes averted.
"What were you looking at in the water?" he asked.
"I was looking for our boat. It isn't there. I'm
afraid it has gone over the dam."
"I'll help you search for it," he said, "when I come
back from the village. I'm going to walk over and find
somebody who'll cart that runabout to the railroad
station. . . . You're not going that way, are you?" he
added, rising.
"No."
"Then "he lifted his hat high and put it on with
care—"until a little later, Miss Carew. . . . And I
want to apologise for speaking so familiarly to you
yesterday. I'm sorry. It's a way we get into in New
York. Broadway isn't good for a man's manners.
. . . Will you forgive me, Miss Carew?"
Embarrassment kept her silent; she nodded her head,
and finally turned and looked at him. His smile was
agreeable.
She smiled faintly, too, and rose.
"Until later, then," he said. "This is the Gayfield
road, isn't it?"
"Yes."
She turned and walked toward the house; and as.
though he could not help himself he walked beside her,
his hat in his hand once more.
"I like this place," he said. "I wonder if there is a
hotel in Gayfield."
"The Gayfield House."
"Is it very bad?" he asked jocosely.
She seemed surprised. It was considered good, she
thought.
With a slight, silent nod of dismissal she crossed the
r


CHAPTER WI
THE END OF SOLITUDE
A RAIN-wAsHED world, smelling sweet as a wet rose,
a cloudless sky delicately blue, and a swollen stream
tumbling and foaming under the bridge—of these Mr.
Eddie Brandes was agreeably conscious as he stepped
out on the verandah after breakfast, and, unclasping a
large gold cigar case, inserted a cigar between his teeth.
He always had the appearance of having just come
out of a Broadway barber shop with the visible traces
of shave, shampoo, massage, and manicure patent upon
his person.
His short, square figure was clothed in well-cut blue
serge; a smart straw hat embellished his head, polished
russet shoes his remarkably small feet. On his small
fat fingers several heavy rings were conspicuous. And
the odour of cologne exhaled from and subtly pervaded
the ensemble.
Across the road, hub-deep in wet grass and weeds,
he could see his wrecked runabout, glistening with rain-
drops.
He stood for a while on the verandah, both hands
shoved deep into his pockets, his cigar screwed into his
cheek. From time to time he jingled keys and loose
coins in his pockets. Finally he sauntered down the
steps and across the wet road to inspect the machine at
closer view.
Contemplating it tranquilly, head on one side and
his left eye closed to avoid the drifting cigar smoke,
60


THE END OF SOLITUDE
he presently became aware of a girl in a pink print
dress leaning over the grey parapet of the bridge. And,
picking his way among the puddles, he went toward
her.
“Good morning, Miss Carew,” he said, taking off his
straw hat.
She turned her head over her shoulder; the early
sun glistened on his shiny, carefully parted hair and
lingered in glory on a diamond scarf pin.
“Good morning,” she said, a little uncertainly, for
the memory of their first meeting on the bridge had not
entirely been forgotten.
“You had breakfast early,” he said.
“Yes.”
He kept his hat off; such little courtesies have their
effect; also it was good for his hair which, he feared,
had become a trifle thinner recently.
“It is beautiful weather,” said Mr. Brandes, squint-
ing at her through his cigar smoke.
“Yes.” She looked down into the tumbling water.
“This is a beautiful country, isn’t it, Miss Carew?”
“Yes.”
With his head a little on one side he inspected her.
There was only the fine curve of her cheek visible, and
a white neck under the chestnut hair; and one slim,
tanned hand resting on the stone parapet.
“Do you like motoring?” he asked.
She looked up:
“Yes. . . . I have only been out a few times.”
“I’ll have another car up here in a few days. I’d like
to take you out.”
She was silent.
“Ever go to Saratoga?” he inquired.
“No.”
61


THE DARK STAR
road and went into the house, leaving him standing
beside his wrecked machine once more, looking after
her out of sluggish eyes.
Presently, from the house, emerged Stull, his pasty
face startling in its pallor under the cloudless sky, and
walked slowly over to Brandes.
"Well, Ben," said the latter pleasantly, "I'm going
to Gayfield to telegraph for another car."
"How soon can they get one up?" inquired Stull, in-
serting a large cigar into his slitted mouth and light-
ing it.
"Oh, in a couple of days, I guess. I don't know.
I don't care much, either."
"We can go on to Saratoga by train," suggested
Stull complacently.
"We can stay here, too."
"What for?"
Brandes said in his tight-lipped, even voice:
"The fishing's good. I guess I'll try it." He con-
tinued to contemplate the machine, but Stull's black
eyes were turned on him intently.
"How about the races?" he asked. "Do we go or
not?"
"Certainly."
"When?"
"When they send us a car to go in."
"Isn't the train good enough?"
"The fishing here is better."
Stull's pasty visage turned sourer:
"Do you mean we lose a couple of days in this God-
forsaken dump because you'd rather go to Saratoga
in a runabout than in a train?"
"I tell you I'm going to stick around for a while."
"For how long?"
64


THE END OF SOLITUDE
"Oh, I don't know. When we get our car we can talk
it over and"
"Ah," ejaculated Stull in disgust, "what the hell's
the matter with you? Is it that little skirt you was
buzzing out here like you never seen one before?"
"How did you guess, Ben?" returned Brandes with
the almost expressionless jocularity that characterised
him at times.
"That little red-headed, spindling, freckled, milk-fed
mill-hand"
"Funny, ain't it? But there's no telling what will
catch the tired business man, is there, Ben?"
"Well, what does catch him?" demanded Stull an-
grily. "What's the answer?"
"I guess she's the answer, Ben."
"Ah, leave the kid alone"
"I'm going to have the car sent up here. I'm going
to take her out. Go on to Saratoga if you want to.
I'll meet you there"
"When?"
"When I'm ready," replied Brandes evenly. But he
smiled.
Stull looked at him, and his white face, soured by
dyspepsia, became sullen with wrath. At such times,
too, his grammar suffered from indigestion.
"Say, Eddie," he began, "can't no one learn you
nothin' at all? How many times would you have been
better off if you'd listened to me? Every time you
throw me you hand yourself one. Now that you got a
little money again and a little backing, don't do any-
thing like that"
"Like what?"
"Like chasin' dames! Don't act foolish like you done
in Chicago last summer! You wouldn't listen to me
65


THE DARK STAR
then, would you? And that Denver business, too!
Say, look at all the foolish things you done against all
I could say to save you—like backing that cowboy plug
against Battling Jensen!—Like taking that big hunk o'
beef, Walstein, to San Antonio, where Kid O'Rourke
put him out in the first! And everybody's laughing at
you yet! Ah "he exclaimed angrily, "somebody
tell me why I don't quit you, you big dill pickle! I
wish someone would tell me why I stand for you, because
I don't know. . . . And look what you're doing now;
you got some money of your own and plenty of syndi-
cate money to put on the races and a big comish! You
got a good theayter in town with Morris Stein to back
you and everything—and look what you're doing!" he
ended bitterly.
Brandes tightened his dental grip on his cigar and
squinted at him good-humouredly.
"Say, Ben," he said, "would you believe it if I told
you I'm stuck on her?"
"Ah, you'd fall for anything. I never seen a skirt
you wouldn't chase."
"I don't mean that kind."
"What kind, then?"
"This is on the level, Ben."
"What! Ah, go on! You on the level?"
"All the same, I am."
"You can't be on the level! You don't know how."
"Why?"
"You got a wife, and you know damn well you have."
"Yes, and she's getting her divorce."
Stull regarded him with habitual and sullen distrust.
"She hasn't got it yet."
"She'll get it. Don't worry."
"I thought you was for fighting it."
66


THE END OF SOLITUDE
"I was going to fight it; but "His slow, narrow,
greenish eyes stole toward the house across the road.
"Just like that," he said, after a slight pause; "that's
the way the little girl hit me. I'm on the level, Ben.
First skirt I ever saw that I wanted to find waiting
dinner for me when I come home. Get me?"
"I don't know whether I do or not."
"Get this, then; she isn't all over paint; she's got
freckles, thank God, and she smells sweet as a daisy
field. Ah, what the hell "he burst out between his
parted teeth "—when every woman in New York smells
like a chorus girl! Don't I get it all day? The whole
city stinks like a star's dressing room. And I married
one! And I'm through. I want to get my breath and
I'm getting it."
Stull's white features betrayed merely the morbid
suffering of indigestion; he said nothing and sucked
his cigar.
"I'm through," repeated Brandes. "I want a home
and a wife—the kind that even a fly cop won't pinch
on sight—the kind of little thing that's over there in
that old shack. Whatever I am, I don't want a wife
like me—nor kids, either."
Stull remained sullenly unresponsive.
"Call her a hick if you like. All right, I want that
kind."
No comment from Stull, who was looking at the
wrecked car.
"Understand, Ben?"
"I tell you I don't know whether I do or not!"
"Well, what don't you understand?"
"Nothin'. . . . Well, then, your falling for a kid
like that, first crack out o' the box. I'm honest; I
don't understand it."
67


THE DARK STAR
"She hit me that way—so help me God!"
"And you're on the level?"
"Absolutely, Ben."
"What about the old guy and the mother? Take 'em
to live with you?"
"If she wants 'em."
Stull stared at him in uneasy astonishment:
"All right, Eddie. Only don't act foolish till Minna
passes you up. And get out of here or you will. If
you're on the level, as you say you are, you've got to
mark time for a good long while yet"
"Why?"
"You don't have to ask me that, do you?"
"Yes, I do. Why? I want to marry her, I tell you.
I mean to. I'm taking no chances that some hick
will do it while I'm away. I'm going to stay right
here."
"And when the new car comes?"
"I'll keep her humming between here and Saratoga."
"And then what?"
Brandes' greenish eyes rested on the car and he
smoked in silence for a while. Then:
"Listen, Ben. I'm a busy man. I got to be back in
town and I got to have a wedding trip too. You know
me, Ben. You know what I mean. That's me. When
I do a thing I do it. Maybe I make plenty of mistakes.
Hell! I'd rather make 'em than sit pat and do
nothing!"
"You're crazy."
"Don't bet on it, Ben. I know what I want. I'm
going to make money. Things are going big with
me"
"You tinhorn! You always say that!"
"Watch me. I bet you I make a killing at Saratoga!
68


THE END OF SOLITUDE
I bet you I make good with Morris Stein! I bet you
the first show I put on goes big! I bet"
"Ah, can it!"
"Wait! I bet you I marry that little girl in two
weeks and she stands for it when I tell her later we'd
better get married again!"
"Say! Talk sense!"
"I am."
"What'U they do to you if your wife makes a holler?"
"Who ever heard of her or me in the East?"
"You want to take a chance like that?"
"I'll fix it. I haven't got time to wait for Minna
to shake me loose. Besides, she's in Seattle. I'll fix it
so she doesn't hear until she gets her freedom. I'll get
a license right here. I guess I'll use your name"
"What!" yelled Stull.
"Shut your face!" retorted Brandes. "What do you
think you're going to do, squeal?"
"You think I'm going to stand for that?"
"Well, then, I won't use your name. I'll use my own.
Why not? I mean honest. It's dead level. I'll re-
marry her. I want her, I tell you. I want a wedding
trip, too, before I go back"
"With the first rehearsal called for September fif-
teenth! What's the matter with you? Do you think
Stein is going to stand for"
"You'll be on hand," said Brandes pleasantly. "I'm
going to Paris for four weeks—two weeks there, two
on the ocean"
"You"
"Save your voice, Ben. That's settled."
Stull turned upon him a dead white visage distorted
with fury:
"I hope she throws you out!" he said breathlessly.
69


THE DARK STAR
"You talk about being on the level! Every level's
crooked with you. You don't know what square means;
a square has got more than four corners for you! Go
on! Stick around. I don't give a damn what you do.
Go on and do it. But I quit right here."
Both knew that the threat was empty. As a shadow
clings to a man's heels, as a lost soul haunts its slayer,
as damnation stalks the damned, so had Stull followed
Brandes; and would follow to the end. Why? Neither
knew. It seemed to be their destiny, surviving every-
thing^—their bitter quarrels, the injustice and tyranny
of Brandes, his contempt and ridicule sometimes—en-
during through adversity, even penury, through good
and bad days, through abundance and through want,
through shame and disgrace, through trickery, treach-
ery, and triumph—nothing had ever broken the occult
bond which linked these two. And neither understood
why, but both seemed to be vaguely conscious that
neither was entirely complete without the other.
"Ben," said Brandes affably, "I'm going to walk
over to Gayfield. Want to come?"
They went off, together.
>
N


CHAPTER VII
OBSESSION
By the end of the week Brandes had done much to
efface any unpleasant impression he had made on Ru-
hannah Carew.
The girl had never before had to do with any mature
man. She was therefore at a disadvantage in every
way, and her total lack of experience emphasised the
odds.
Nobody had ever before pointedly preferred her,
paid her undivided attention; no man had ever sought
her, conversed with her, deferred to her, interested him-
self in her. It was entirely new to her, this attention
which Brandes paid her. Nor could she make any com-
parisons between this man and other men, because she
knew no other men. He was an entirely novel experi-
ence to her; he had made himself interesting, had
proved amusing, considerate, kind, generous, and ap-
parently interested in what interested her. And if his
unfeigned preference for her society disturbed and per-
plexed her, his assiduous civilities toward her father
and mother were gradually winning from her far more
than anything he had done for her.
His white-faced, odd little friend had gone; he him-
self had taken quarters at the Gayfield House, where a
car like the wrecked one was stabled for his use.
He had already taken her father and mother and
herself everywhere within motoring distance; he had
accompanied them to church; he escorted her to the
71


movies; he walked with her in the August evenings after
supper, rowed her about on the pond, fished from the
bridge, told her strange stories in the moonlight on the
verandah, her father and mother interested and atten-
tive.
For the career of Mr. Eddie Brandes was capable of
furnishing material for interesting stories if carefully
edited, and related with discretion and circumspection.
He had been many things to many men—and to several
women—he had been a tinhorn gambler in the South-
west, a miner in Alaska, a saloon keeper in Wyoming, a
fight promoter in Arizona. He had travelled profitably
on popular ocean liners until requested to desist;
Auteuil, Neuilly, Vincennes, and Longchamps knew him
as tout, bookie, and, when fitfully prosperous, as a
plunger. Epsom knew him once as a welcher; and
knew him no more.
He had taken a comic opera company through the
wheat-belt—one way; he had led a burlesque troupe into
Arizona and had traded it there for a hotel.
"When Eddie wants to talk,"' Stull used to say, "that
smoke, Othello, hasn't got nothing on him."
However, Brandes seldom chose to talk. This was
one of his rare garrulous occasions; and, with careful
self-censorship, he was making an endless series of won-
der-tales out of the episodes and faits divers common
to the experience of such as he.
So, of moving accidents by flood and field this man
had a store, and he contrived to make them artistically
innocuous and perfectly fit for family consumption.
Further, two of his friends motored over from Sara-
toga to see him, were brought to supper at the Carews';
and they gave him a clean bill of moral health. They
were, respectively, "Doc" Curfoot—suave haunter of
72


OBSESSION
Peacock Alley and gentleman "capper"—whom Brandes
introduced as the celebrated specialist, Doctor Elbert
Curfoot—and Captain Harman Quint, partner in
"Quint's" celebrated temple of chance—introduced as
the distinguished navigating officer which he appeared
to be. The steering for their common craft, however,
was the duty of the eminent Doc.
They spent the evening on the verandah with the
family; and it was quite wori'derful what a fine fellow
each turned out to be—information confidentially
imparted to the Reverend Mr. Carew by each of the
three distinguished gentlemen in turn.
Doc Curfoot, whose business included the ability to
talk convincingly on any topic, took the Reverend Mr.
Carew's measure and chose literature; and his suave
critique presently became an interesting monologue
listened to in silence by those around him.
Brandes had said, "Put me in right, Doc," and Doc
was accomplishing it, partly to oblige Brandes, partly
for practice. His agreeable voice so nicely pitched, so
delightfully persuasive, recapitulating all the common-
places and cant phrases concerning the literature of
the day, penetrated gratefully the intellectual isolation
of these humble gentlepeople, and won very easily their
innocent esteem. With the Reverend Mr. Carew Doc
discussed such topics as the influence on fiction of the
ethical ideal. With Mrs. Carew Captain Quint ex-
changed reminiscences of travel on distant seas.
Brandes attempted to maintain low-voiced conversation
with Rue, who responded in diffident monosyllables to
his advances.
Brandes walked down to their car with them after
they had taken their leave.
73


THE BARK STAR
"What's the idea, Eddie?" inquired Doc Curfoot,
Dausing before the smart little speeder.
"It's straight."
"Oh," said Doc, softly, betraying no surprise—about
;he only thing he never betrayed. "Anything in it for
you, Eddie?"
"Yes. A good girl. The kind you read about. Isn't
that enough?"
"Minna chucked you?" inquired Captain Quint.
"She'll get her decree in two or three months. Then
I'll have a home. And everything that you and I are
keeps out of that home, Cap. See?"
"Certainly," said Quint. "Quite right, Eddie."
Doc Curfoot climbed in and took the wheel; Quint
followed him.
"Say," he said in his pleasant, guarded voice, "watch
out that Minna don't double-cross you, Eddie."
"How?"
"—Or shoot you up. She's some schutzen-fest, you
know, when she turns loose"
"Ah, I tell you she wants the divorce. Abe Grittle-
feld's crazy about her. He'll get Abe Gordon to star
her on Broadway; and that's enough for her. Besides,
she'll marry Maxy Venem when she can afford to keep
him."
"You never understood Minna Minti."
"Well, who ever understood any German?" demanded
Brandes. "She's one of those sour-blooded, silent
Dutch women that make me ache."
Doc pushed the self-starter; there came a click, a
low humming. Brandes' face cleared and he held out
his square-shaped hand:
"You fellows," he said, "have put me right with the
old folks here. Fll do the same for you some day.
74


OBSESSION
Don't talk about this little girl and me, that's
all."
"All the same," repeated Doc, "don't take any
chances with Minna. She's on to you, and she's got a
rotten Dutch disposition."
"That's right, Doc. And say, Harman,"—to Quint
—"tell Ben he's doing fine. Tell him to send me what's
mine, because I'll want it very soon now. I'm going
to take a month off and then I'm going to show Stein
how a theatre can be run."
"Eddie," said Quint, "it's a good thing to think big,
but it's a damn poor thing to talk big. Cut out the
talk and you'll be a big man some day."
The graceful car moved forward into the moonlight;
his two friends waved an airy adieu; and Brandes went
slowly back to the dark verandah where sat a young
girl, pitifully immature in mind and body—and two
old people little less innocent for all their experience in
the ranks of Christ, for all the wounds that scarred
them both in the over-sea service which had broken them
forever.
"A very handsome and distinguished gentleman, your
friend Dr. Curfoot," said the Reverend Mr. Carew. "I
imagine his practice in New York is not only fashion-
able but extensive."
"Both," said Brandes.
"I assume so. He seems to be intimately acquainted
with people whose names for generations have figured
prominently in the social columns of the New York
press."
"Oh, yes, Curfoot and Quint know them all."
Which was true enough. They had to. One must
know people from whom one accepts promissory notes
to liquidate those little affairs peculiar to the temple
75


THE DARK STAR
of chance. And New York's best furnished the neo-
phytes for these rites.
"I thought Captain Quint very interesting," ven-
tured Ruhannah. "He seems to have sailed over the
entire globe."
"Naval men are always delightful," said her mother.
And, laying her hand on her husband's arm in the dark:
"Do you remember, Wilbour, how kind the officers from
the cruiser Oneida were when the rescue party took us
aboard?"
"God sent the Oneida to us," said her husband
dreamily. "I thought it was the end of the world for
us—for you and me and baby Rue—that dreadful
flight from the mission to the sea."
His bony fingers tightened over his wife's toilworn
hand. In the long grass along the creek fireflies
sparkled, and their elfin lanterns, waning, glowing,
drifted high in the calm August night.
The Reverend Mr. Carew gathered his crutches; the
night was a trifle damp for him; besides, he desired to
read. Brandes, as always, rose to aid him. His wife
followed.
"Don't stay out long, Rue," she said in the door-
way.
"No, mother."
Brandes came back. Departing from his custom, he
did not light a cigar, but sat in silence, his narrow eyes
trying to see Ruhannah in the darkness. But she was
only a delicate shadow shape to him, scarcely detached
from the darkness that enveloped her.
He meant to speak to her then. And suddenly found
he could not, realised, all at once, that he lacked the
courage.
This was the more amazing and disturbing to him
76


OBSESSION
because he could not remember the time or occasion
-when the knack of fluent speech had ever failed
him.
He had never foreseen such a situation; it had never
occurred to him that he would find the slightest diffi-
culty in saying easily and gracefully what he had deter-
mined to say to this young girl.
Now he sat there silent, disturbed, nervous, and
tongue-tied. At first he did not quite comprehend what
was making him afraid. After a long while he under-
stood that it was some sort of fear of her—fear of her
refusal, fear of losing her, fear that she might have—
in some occult way—divined what he really was, that
she might have heard things concerning him, his wife,
his career. The idea turned him cold.
And all at once he realised how terribly in earnest
he had become; how deeply involved; how vital this
young girl had become to him.
Never before had he really wanted anything as com-
pared to this desire of his for her. He was understand-
ing, too, in a confused way, that such a girl and such
a home for him as she could make was going not only
to give him the happiness he expected, but that it also
meant betterment for himself—straighter living, per-
haps straighter thinking—the birth of something re-
sembling self-respect, perhaps even aspiration—or at
least the aspiration toward that respect from others
which honest living dare demand.
He wanted her; he wanted her now; he wanted to
marry her whether or not he had the legal right; he
wanted to go away for a month with her, and then re-
turn and work for her, for them both—build up a for-
tune and a good reputation with Stein's backing and
Stein's theatre—stand well with honest men, stand well
77


THE DARK STAR
with himself, stand always, with her, for everything a
man should be.
If she loved him she would forgive him and quietly
remarry him as soon as Minna kicked him loose. He
was confident he could make her happy, make her love
him if once he could find courage to speak—if once he
could win her. And suddenly the only possible way to
go about it occurred to him.
His voice was a trifle husky and unsteady from the
nervous tension when he at last broke the silence:
"Miss Rue," he said, "I have a word to say to your
father and mother. Would you wait here until I come
back?"
"I think I had better go in, too"
"Please don't."
"Why?" She stopped short, instinctively, but not
surmising.
"You will wait, then?" he asked.
"I was going in. . . . But I'll sit here a little while."
He rose and went in, rather blindly.
Ruhannah, dreaming there deep in her splint arm-
chair, slim feet crossed, watched the fireflies sailing over
the alders. Sometimes she thought of Brandes, pleas-
antly, sometimes of other matters. Once the memory
of her drive home through the wintry moonlight with
young Neeland occurred to her, and the reminiscence
was vaguely agreeable.
Listless, a trifle sleepy, dreamily watching the fireflies,
the ceaseless noise of the creek in her ears, inconsequen-
tial thoughts flitted through her brain—the vague, aim-
less, guiltless thoughts of a young and unstained
mind.
She was nearly asleep when Brandes came back, and
'«8


OBSESSION
she looked up at him where he stood beside her porch
chair in the darkness.
"Miss Rue," he said, "I have told your father and
mother that I am in love with you and want to make
you my wife."
The girl lay there speechless, astounded.
r


CHAPTER VIII
A CHANGE IMPENDS
The racing season at Saratoga drew toward its close,
and Brandes had appeared there only twice in person,
both times with a very young girl.
"If you got to bring her here to the races, can't you
get her some clothes?" whispered Stull in his ear. "That
get-up of hers is something fierce."
Late hours, hot weather, indiscreet nourishment, and
the feverish anxiety incident to betting other people's
money had told on Stull. His eyes were like two smears
of charcoal on his pasty face; sourly he went about the
business which Brandes should have attended to, nurs-
ing resentment—although he was doing better than
Brandes had hoped to do.
Their joint commission from his winnings began to
assume considerable proportions; at track and club and
hotel people were beginning to turn and stare when the
little man with the face of a sick circus clown ap-
peared, always alone, greeting with pallid indifference
his acquaintances, ignoring overtures, noticing neither
sport, nor fashion, nor political importance, nor yet
the fair and frail whose curiosity and envy he was grad-
ually arousing.
Obsequiousness from club, hotel, and racing officials
made no impression on him; he went about his business
alone, sullen, preoccupied, deathly pale, asking no in-
formation, requesting no favours, conferring with no-
body, doing no whispering and enduring none.
80


A CHANGE IMPENDS
After a little study of that white, sardonic, impossi-
ble face, people who would have been glad to make use
of him became discouraged. And those who first had
recognised him in Saratoga found, at the end of the
racing month, nothing to add to their general identifi-
cation of him as "Ben Stull, partner of Eddie Brandes
—Western sports."
Stull, whispering in Brandes' ear again, where he sat
beside him in the grand stand, added to his earlier com-
ment on Ruhannah's appearance:
"Why don't you fix her up, Eddie? It looks like you
been robbing a country school."
Brandes' slow, greenish eyes marked sleepily the dis-
tant dust, where Mr. Sanford's Nick Stoner was lead-
ing a brilliant field, steadily overhauling the favourite,
Deborah Glenn.
"When the time comes for me to fix her up," he said
between thin lips which scarcely moved, "she'll look
like Washington Square in May—not like Fifth Ave-
nue and Broadway."
Nick Stoner continued to lead. Stull's eyes resem-
bled two holes burnt in a sheet; Brandes yawned.
They were plunging the limit on the Sanford fa-
vourite.
As for Ruhannah, she sat with slender gloved hands
tightly clasped, lips parted, intent, fascinated with the
sunlit beauty of the scene.
Brandes looked at her, and his heavy, expressionless
features altered subtly:
"Some running!" he said.
A breathless nod was her response. All around them
repressed excitement was breaking out; men stood up
and shouted; women rose, and the club house seemed
81


THE BARK STAR
suddenly to blossom like a magic garden of wind-tossed
flowers.
Through the increasing cheering Stull looked on
without a sign of emotion, although affluence or ruin, in
the Sanford colours, sat astride the golden roan.
Suddenly Ruhannah stood up, one hand pressed to
the ill-fitting blue serge over her wildly beating heart.
Brandes rose beside her. Not a muscle in his features
moved.
"Gawd!" whispered Stull in his ear, as they were
leaving.
"Some killing, Ben!" nodded Brandes in his low, de-
liberate voice. His heavy, round face was deeply
flushed; Fortune, the noisy wanton, had flung both
arms around his neck. But his slow eyes were contin-
ually turned on the slim young girl whom he was teach-
ing to walk beside him without taking his arm.
"Ain't she on to us?" Stull had enquired. And
Brandes' reply was correct; Ruhannah never dreamed
that it made a penny's difference to Brandes whether
Nick Stoner won or whether it was Deborah Glenn
which the wild-voiced throng saluted.
They did not remain in Saratoga for dinner. They
took Stull back to his hotel on the rumble of the run-
about, Brandes remarking that he thought he should
need a chauffeur before long and suggesting that Stull
look about Saratoga for a likely one.
Halted in the crush before the United States Hotel,
Stull decided to descend there. Several men in the
passing crowds bowed to Brandes; one, Norton Smaw-
ley, known to the fraternity as "Parson" Smawley,
came out to the curb to shake hands. Brandes intro-
82


A CHANGE IMPENBS
duced him to Rue as "Parson" Smawley—whether with
some sinister future purpose already beginning to take
shape in his round, heavy head, or whether a perverted
sense of humour prompted him to give Rue the idea that,
she had been in godly company, it is difficult to deter-
mine.
He added that Miss Carew was the daughter of a
clergyman and a missionary. And the Parson took his
cue. At any rate Rue, leaning from her seat, listenpd
to the persuasive and finely modulated voice of Parson
Smawley with pleasure, and found his sleek, graceful
presence and courtly manners most agreeable. There
were no such persons in Gayfield.
She hoped, shyly, that if he were in Gayfield he would
call on her father. Once in a very long while clergy-
men called on her father, and their rare visits remained
a pleasure to the lonely invalid for months.
The Parson promised to call, very gravely. It would
not have embarrassed him to do so; it was his business
in life to have a sufficient knowledge of every man's busi-
ness to enable him to converse convincingly with any-
body.
He took polished leave of her; took leave of Brandes
with the faintest flutter of one eyelid, as though he un-
derstood Brandes' game. Which he did not; nor did
Brandes himself, entirely.
They had thirty miles to go in the runabout. So
they would not remain to dinner. Besides, Brandes did
not care to make himself conspicuous in public just
then. Too many people knew more or less about him
—the sort of people who might possibly be in communi-
cation with his wife. There was no use slapping chance
in the face. Two quiet visits to the races with Ruhan-
83


THE DARK STAR
nah was enough for the present. Even those two visits
were scarcely discreet. It was time to go.
Stull and Brandes stood consulting together beside
the runabout; Rue sat in the machine watching the
press of carriages and automobiles on Broadway, and
the thronged sidewalks along which brilliant, animated
crowds were pouring.
"I'm not coming again, Ben," said Brandes, dropping
his voice. "No use to hunt the limelight just now.
You can't tell what some of these people might do. I'll
take no chances that some fresh guy might try to start
something."
"Stir up Minna?" Stull's lips merely formed the
question, and his eyes watched Ruhannah.
"They couldn't. What would she care? All the
same, I play safe, Ben. Well, be good. Better send me
mine on pay day. I'll need it."
Stull's face grew sourer:
"Can't you wait till she gets her decree?"
"And lose a month off? No."
"It's all coming your way, Eddie. Stay wise and
play safe. Don't start anything now"
"It's safe. If I don't take September off I wait a
year for my—honeymoon. And I won't. See?"
They both looked cautiously at Ruhannah, who sat
motionless, absorbed in the turmoil of vehicles and
people.
Brandes' face slowly reddened; he dropped one hand
on Stull's shoulder and said, between thin lips that
scarcely moved:
"She's all I'm interested in. You don't think much
of her, Ben. She isn't painted. She isn't dolled up the
way you like 'em. But there isn't anything else that
matters very much to me. All I want in the world is
84


A CHANGE IMPENBS
sitting in that runabout, looking out of her kid eyes at
a thousand or two people who ain't worth the pair of
run-down shoes she's wearing."
But Stull's expression remained sardonic and un-
convinced.
So Brandes got into his car and took the wheel; and
Stull watched them threading a tortuous path through
the traffic tangle of Broadway.
They sped past the great hotels, along crowded
sidewalks, along the park, and out into an endless
stretch of highway where hundreds of other cars were
travelling in'the same direction.
"Did you have a good time?" he inquired, shifting
his cigar and keeping his narrow eyes on the road.
"Yes; it was beautiful—exciting."
"Some horse, Nick Stoner! Some race, eh?"
"I was so excited—with everybody standing up and
shouting. And such beautiful horses—and such pretty
women in their wonderful dresses! I—I never knew
there were such things."
He swung the car, sent it rushing past a lumbering
limousine, slowed a little, gripped his cigar between his
teeth, and watched the road, both hands on the wheel.
Yes, things were coming his way—coming faster and
faster all the while. He had waited many years for
this—for material fortune—for that chance which
every gambler waits to seize when the psychological sec-
ond ticks out. But he never had expected that the
chance was to include a very young girl in a country-
made dress and hat.
As they sped westward the freshening wind from dis-
tant pine woods whipped their cheeks; north, blue hills
and bluer mountains beyond took fairy shape against
the sky; and over all spread the tremendous heavens
85
'


THE DARK STAR
where fleets of white clouds sailed the uncharted wastes,
and other fleets glimmered beyond the edges of the
world, hull down, on vast horizons.
"I want to make you happy," said Brandes in his
low, even voice. It was, perhaps, the most honest state-
ment he had ever uttered.
Ruhannah remained silent, her eyes riveted on the
far horizon.
It was a week later, one hot evening, that he tele-
graphed to Stull in Saratoga:
"Find me a chauffeur who will be willing to go
abroad. I'll give you twenty-four hours to get him
here."
The next morning he called up Stull on the telephone
from the drug store in Gayfield:
"Get my wire, Ben?"
"Yes. But I"
"Wait. Here's a postscript. I also want Parson
Smawley. I want him to get a car and come over to
the Gayfield House. Tell him I count on him. And
he's to wear black and a white tie."
"Yes. But about that chauffeur you want"
"Don't argue. Have him here. Have the Parson,
also. Tell him to bring a white tie. Understand?"
"Oh, yes, I understand you, Eddie! You don't want
anything of me, do you! Go out and get that combi-
nation? Just like that! What'U I do? Step into the
street and whistle?"
"It's up to you. Get busy."
"As usual," retorted Stull in an acrid voice. "All
the same, I'm telling you there ain't a chauffeur you'd
have in Saratoga. Who handed you that dope?"
"Try. I need the chauffeur part of the combine, any-
86


A CHANGE IMPENBS
way. If he won't go abroad, I'll leave him in town. Get
a wiggle on, Ben. How's things?"
"All right. We had War-axe and Lady Johnson.
Some killing, eh? That stable is winning all along.
We've got Adriutha and Queen Esther today. The
Ocean Belle skate is scratched. Doc and Cap and me
is thick with the Legislature outfit. We'll trim 'em to-
night. How are you feeling, Eddie?"
"Never better. I'll call you up in the morning.
Ding-dong!"
"Wait! Are you really going abroad?" shouted
Stull.
But Brandes had already hung up.
He walked leisurely back to Brookhollow through the
sunshine. He had never been as happy in all his life.


CHAPTER IX
NONRESISTANCE
"Long distance calling you, Mr. Stull. One moment,
please. . . . Here's your party," concluded the oper-
ator.
Stull, huddled sleepily on his bed, picked up the trans-
mitter from the table beside him with a frightful yawn.
"Who is it?" he inquired sourly.
"It's me—Ben!"
"Say, Eddie, have a heart, will you! I need the
sleep"
Brandes' voice was almost jovial:
"Wake up, you poor tout! It's nearly noon"
"Well, wasn't I singing hymns with Doc and Cap
till breakfast time? And believe me, we trimmed the
Senator's bunch! They've got their transportation
back to Albany, and that's about all"
"Careful what you say. I'm talking from the Gay-
field House. The Parson got here all right. He's just
left. He'll tell you about things. Listen, Ben, the
chauffeur you sent me from Saratoga got here last
evening, too. I went out with him and he drives all
right. Did you look him up?"
"Now, how could I look him up when you gave me
only a day to get him for you?"
"Did he have references?"
"Sure, a wad of them. But I couldn't verify them."
"Who is he?"
"I forget his name. You ought to know it by now."
88


NONRESISTANCE
"How did you get him?"
"Left word at the desk. An hour later he came to
my room with a couple of bums. I told him about the
job. I told him you wanted a chauffeur willing to go
abroad. He said he was all that and then some. So
I sent him on. Anything you don't fancy about
him?"
"Nothing, I guess. He seems all right. Only I like
to know about a man"
"How can I find out if you don't give me time?"
"All right, Ben. I guess he'll do. By the way, I'm
starting for town in ten minutes." ;.
"What's the idea?"
"Ask the Parson. Have you any other news except
that you killed that Albany bunch of grafters?"
"No. . . . Yes! But it ain't good news. I was go-
ing to call you soon as I waked up''
"What's the trouble?"
"There ain't any trouble—yet. But a certain party
has showed up here—a very smooth young man whose
business is hunting trouble. Get me?"
After a silence Stull repeated:
"Get me, Eddie?"
"No."
"Listen. A certain slippery party"
"Who, damn it? Talk out. I'm in a hurry."
"Very well, then. Maxy Venem is here!"
The name of his wife's disbarred attorney sent a chill
over Brandes.
"What's he doing in Saratoga?" he demanded.
"I'm trying to find out. He was to the races yester-
day. He seen Doc. Of course Doc hadn't laid eyes on
you for a year. Oh, no, indeed! Heard you was some-
where South, down and out. I don't guess Maxy was
89


THE DARK STAR
fooled none. What we done here in Saratoga is grow-
ing too big to hush up"
"What we've done? Whad'ye mean, we? I told you
to work by yourself quietly, Ben, and keep me out of
it."
"That's what I done. Didn't I circulate the news
that you and me had quit partnership? And even then
you wouldn't take my advice. Oh, no. You must show-
up here at the track with a young lady"
"How long has Maxy Venem been in Saratoga?"
snapped Brandes.
"He told Doc he just come, but Cap found out he'd
been here a week. All I hope is he didn't see you with
the Brookhollow party"
"Do you think he did?"
"Listen, Eddie. Max is a smooth guy"
"Find out what he knows! Do you hear?"
"Who? Me? Me try to make Maxy Venem talk?
That snake? If he isn't on to you now, that would be
enough to put him wise. Act like you had sense, Eddie.
Call that other matter off and slide for town"
"I can't, Ben."
"You got to."'
"I can't, I tell you."
"You're nutty in the head! Don't you suppose that
Max is wise to what I've been doing here? And don't
you suppose he knows damn well that you're back of
whatever I do? If you ain't crazy you'll call that party
off for a while."
Brandes' even voice over the telephone sounded a
trifle unnatural, almost hoarse:
"I can't call it off. It's done."
"What's done?"
"What I told you I was going to do."
90


NON RESIST A NCE
"That!"
"The Parson married us."
"Oh!"
"Wait! Parson Smawley married us, in church, as-
sisted by the local dominie. I didn't count on the
dominie. It was her father's idea. He butted in."
"Then is it—is it?"
"That's what I'm not sure about. You see, the
Parson did it, but the dominie stuck around. Whether
he got a half nelson on me I don't know till I ask. Any-
way, I expected to clinch things—later—so it doesn't
really matter, unless Max Venem means bad. Does
he, do you think?"
"He always does, Eddie."
"Yes, I know. Well, then, I'll wait for a cable
from ytfu. And if I've got to take three months off
in Paris, why I've got to—that's all."
"Good God! What about Stein? What about the
theaytre?"
"You'll handle it for the first three months. . . .
Say, I've got to go, now. I think she's waiting"
"Who?"
"My—wife."
"Oh!"
"Yes. The chauffeur took her back to the house
in the car to put something in her suitcase that she
forgot. I'm waiting for her here at the Gayfield
House. We're on our way to town. Going to motor
in. Our trunks have gone by rail."
After a silence, Stull's voice sounded again, tense,
constrained:
"You better go aboard tonight."
"That's right, too."
"What's your ship?"
91


THE DARK STAR
"Lusitania."
"What'll I tell Stein?"
"Tell him I'll be back in a month. You look out for
my end. I'll be back in time."
"Will you cable me?"
"Sure. And if you get any later information about
Max today, call me at the Knickerbocker. We'll dine
there and then go aboard."
"I get you. . . . Say, Eddie, I'm that worried! If
this break of yours don't kill our luck"
"Don't you believe it! I'm going to fight for what
I got till someone hands me the count. She's the first
thing I ever wanted. I've got her and I guess I can
keep her. . . . And listen: there's nothing like her in
all God's world!"
"When did you do—it?" demanded Stull, coldly.
"This morning at eleven. I just stepped over here
to the garage. I'm talking to you from the bar. She's
back by this time and waiting, I guess. So take care
of yourself till I see you."
"Same to you, Eddie. And be leery of Max. He's
bad. When they disbar a man like that he's twice as
dangerous as he was. His ex-partner, Abe Grittle-
feld, is a certain party's attorney of record. Ask your-
self what you'd be up against if that pair of wolves
get started after you! You know what Max would
do to you if he could. And Minna, too!"
"Don't worry."
"I am worrying! And you ought to. You know
what you done to Max. Don't think he ever forgets.
He'll do you if he can, same as Minna will."
Brandes' stolid face lost a little of its sanguine col-
our, where he stood in the telephone box behind the
bar of the Gayfield House.
92


NONRESISTA NCE
Yes, he knew well enough what he had once done
to the disbarred lawyer out in Athabasca when he was
handling the Unknown and Venem, the disbarred, was
busy looking out for the Athabasca Blacksmith, furnish-
ing the corrupt brains for the firm of Venem and Grit-
tlefeld, and paying steady court to the prettiest girl
in Athabasca, Use Dumont.
And Brandes' Unknown had almost killed Max Ven-
em's blacksmith; Brandes had taken all Venem's money,
and then his girl; more than that, he had '<made" this
girl, in the theatrical sense of the word; and he had
gambled on her beauty and her voice and had won out
with both.
Then, while still banking her salary to reimburse
himself for his trouble with her, he had tired of her
sufficiently to prove unfaithful to his marriage vows
at every opportunity. And opportunities were many.
Venem had never forgiven him; Use Dumont could not
understand treachery; and Venem's detectives furnished
her with food for thought that presently infuriated her.
And now she was employing Max Venem, once senior
partner in the firm of Venem and Grittlefeld, to guide
her with his legal advice. She wanted Brandes' ruin,
if that could be accomplished; she wanted her freedom
anyway.
Until he had met Rue Carew he had taken measures
to fight the statutory charges, hoping to involve Venem
and escape alimony. Then he met Ruhannah, and be-
came willing to pay for his freedom. And he was still
swamped in the vile bog of charges and countercharges,
not yet free from it, not yet on solid ground, when the
eternal gambler in him suggested to him that he take
the chance of marrying this young girl before he was
legallv free to do so.
93
-


THE DARK STAR
Why on earth did he want to take such a chance?
He had only a few months to wait. He had never before
really cared for any woman. He loved her—as he
understood love—as much as he was capable of loving.
If in all the world there was anything sacred to him,
it was his sentiment regarding Rue Carew. Yet, he
was tempted to take the chance. Even she could not
escape his ruling passion; at the last analysis, even
she represented to him a gambler's chance. But in
Brandes there was another streak. He wanted to take
the chance that he could marry her before he had a
right to, and get away with it. But his nerve failed.
And, at the last moment, he had hedged, engaging Par-
son Smawley to play the lead instead of an ordained
clergyman.
All these things he now thought of as he stood unde-
cided, worried, in the telephone booth behind the bar
at the Gayfield House. Twice Stull had spoken, and
had been bidden to wait and to hold the wire.
Finally, shaking off the premonition of coming trou-
ble, Brandes called again:
"Ben?"
"Yes, I'm listening."
"I'll stay in Paris if there's trouble."
"And throw Stein down?"
"What else is there to do?"
"Well, you can wait, can't you? You don'tjfcem to
be able to do that any more, but you better leftrn."
"All right. What next?"
"Make a quick getaway. Now!"
"Yes, I'm going at once. Keep me posted, Ben. Be
good!"
He hung up and went out to the wide, tree-
shaded street where Ruhannah sat in the runabout
94


NONRESISTANCE
awaiting him, and the new chauffeur stood by the car.
He took off his straw hat, pulled a cap and goggles
from his pocket. His man placed the straw hat in the
boot.
"Get what you wanted, Rue?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Been waiting long?"
"I—don't think so."
"All right," he said cheerily, climbing in beside her.
"I'm sorry I kept you waiting. Had a business matter
to settle. Hungry?"
Rue, very still and colourless, said no, with a me-
chanical smile. The chauffeur climbed to the rumble.
"I'll jam her through," nodded Brandes as the car
moved swiftly westward. "We'll lunch in Albany on
time."
Half a mile, and they passed Neeland's Mills, where
old Dick Neeland stood in his boat out on the pond and
cast a glittering lure for pickerel.
She caught a glimpse of him—his sturdy frame,
white hair, and ruddy visage—and a swift, almost wist-
ful memory of young Jim Neeland passed through her
mind.
But it was a very confused mind—only the bewildered
mind of a very young girl—and the memory of the boy
flashed into its confusion and out again as rapidly as
the landscape sped away behind the flying car.
Dully she was aware that she was leaving familiar
and beloved things, but could not seem to realise it
—childhood, girlhood, father and mother, Brookhollow,
the mill, Gayfield, her friends, all were vanishing in
the flying dust behind her, dwindling, dissolving into an
infinitely growing distance.
They took the gradual slope of a mile-long hill as
95


THE DARK STAR
“Lusitania.”
“What’ll I tell Stein?”
“Tell him I’ll be back in a month. You look out for
my end. I’ll be back in time.”
“Will you cable me?”
“Sure. And if you get any later information about
Max today, call me at the Knickerbocker. We’ll dine
there and then go aboard.”
“I get you. . . . Say, Eddie, I’m that worried! If
this break of yours don’t kill our luck 33
“Don’t you believe it! I’m going to fight for what
I got till someone hands me the count. She’s the first
thing I ever wanted. I’ve got her and I guess I can
keep her. . . . And listen: there’s nothing like her in
all God’s world !”
“When did you do—it?” demanded Stull, coldly.
“This morning at eleven. I just stepped over here
to the garage. I’m talking to you from the bar. She’s
back by this time and waiting, I guess. So take care
of yourself till I see you.”
“Same to you, Eddie. And be leery of Max. He’s
bad. When they disbar a man like that he's twice as
dangerous as he was. His ex-partner, Abe Grittle-
feld, is a certain party’s attorney of record. Ask your-
self what you’d be up against if that pair of wolves
get started after you! You know what Max would
do to you if he could. And Minna, too!”
“Don’t worry.”
“I am worrying! And you ought to. You know
what you done to Max. Don’t think he ever forgets.
He'll do you if he can, same as Minna will.”
Brandes’ stolid face lost a little of its sanguine col-
our, where he stood in the telephone box behind the
bar of the Gayfield House.
92


NONRESISTANCE
Yes, he knew well enough what he had once done
to the disbarred lawyer out in Athabasca when he was
handling the Unknown and Venem, the disbarred, was
busy looking out for the Athabasca Blacksmith, furnish-
ing the corrupt brains for the firm of Venem and Grit-
tlefeld, and paying steady court to the prettiest girl
in Athabasca, Ilse Dumont.
And Brandes’ Unknown had almost killed Max Wen-
em's blacksmith; Brandes had taken all Venem's money,
and then his girl; more than that, he had “made” this
girl, in the theatrical sense of the word; and he had
gambled on her beauty and her voice and had won out
with both.
Then, while still banking her salary to reimburse
himself for his trouble with her, he had tired of her
sufficiently to prove unfaithful to his marriage vows
at every opportunity. And opportunities were many.
Wenem had never forgiven him; Ilse Dumont could not
understand treachery; and Venem's detectives furnished
her with food for thought that presently infuriated her.
And now she was employing Max Wenem, once senior
partner in the firm of Venem and Grittlefeld, to guide
her with his legal advice. She wanted Brandes’ ruin,
if that could be accomplished; she wanted her freedom
anyway.
Until he had met Rue Carew he had taken measures
to fight the statutory charges, hoping to involve Venem
and escape alimony. Then he met Ruhannah, and be-
came willing to pay for his freedom. And he was still
swamped in the vile bog of charges and countercharges,
not yet free from it, not yet on solid ground, when the
eternal gambler in him suggested to him that he take
the chance of marrying this young girl before he was
legally free to do so.
93


THE DARK STAR
swallows take the air; houses, barns, woods, orchards,
grain fields, flew by on either side; other cars approach-
ing passed them like cannon balls; the sunlit, undulating
world flowed glittering away behind; only the stainless
blue ahead confronted them immovably—a vast, mag-
nificent goal, vague with the mystery of promise.
"On this trip," said Brandes, "we may only have
time to see the Loove and the palaces and all like that.
Next year we'll fix it so we can stay in Paris and you
can study art."
Ruhannah's lips formed the words, "Thank you."
"Can't you learn to call me Eddie?" he urged.
The girl was silent.
"You're everything in the world to me, Rue."
The same little mechanical smile fixed itself on her
lips, and she looked straight ahead of her.
"Haven't you begun to love me just a little bit, Rue?"
"I like you. You are very kind to us."
"Don't your affection seem to grow a little stronger
now?" he urged.
"You are so kind to us," she repeated gratefully; "I
like you for it."
The utterly unawakened youth of her had always
alternately fascinated and troubled him. Gambler that
he was, he had once understood that patience is a
gambler's only stock in trade. But now for the first
time in his career he found himself without it.
"You said," he insisted, "that you'd love me when
we were married."
She turned her child's eyes on him in faint surprise:
"A wife loves her husband always, doesn't she?"
"Do youV
"I suppose I shall. ... I haven't been married very
long—long enough to feel as though I am really mar-
96


NONRESISTANCE
ried. When I begin to realise it I shall understand, of
course, that I love you."
It was the calm and immature reply of a little girl
playing house. He knew it. He looked at her pure,
perplexed profile of a child and knew that what he had
said was futile—understood that it was meaningless
to her, that it was only confusing a mind already dazed
—a mind of which too much had been expected, too
much demanded.
He leaned over and kissed the cold, almost colourless
cheek; her little mechanical smile came back. Then
they remembered the chauffeur behind them and Bran-
des reddened. He was unaccustomed to a man on the
rumble.
"Could I talk to mother on the telephone when we
get to New York?" she asked presently, still painfully
flushed.
"Yes, darling, of course."
"I just want to hear her voice," murmured Rue.
"Certainly. We can send her a wireless, too, when
we're at sea."
That interested her. She enquired curiously in re-
gard to wireless telegraphy and other matters concern-
ing ocean steamers.
In Albany her first wave of loneliness came over her
in the stuffy dining-room of the big, pretentious hotel,
when she found herself seated at a small table alone
with this man whom she seemed, somehow or other, to
have married.
As she did not appear inclined to eat, Brandes began
to search the card for something to tempt her. And,
glancing up presently, saw tears glimmering in her eyes.
For a moment he remained dumb as though stunned
97


THE DARK STAR
by some sudden and terrible accusation—for a mo-
ment only. Then, in an unsteady voice:
"Rue, darling. You must not feel lonely and fright-
ened. I'll do anything in the world for you. Don't
you know it?"
She nodded.
"I tell you," he said in that even, concentrated voice
of his which scarcely moved his narrow lips, "I'm just
crazy about you. You're my own little wife. You're
all I care about. If I can't make you happy somebody
ought to shoot me."
She tried to smile; her full lips trembled; a single
tear, brimming, fell on the cloth.
"I—don't mean to be silly. . . . But—Brookhollow
seems—ended—forever. ..."
"It's only forty miles," he said with heavy joviality.
"Shall we turn around and go back?"
She glanced up at him with an odd expression, as
though she hoped he meant it; then her little mechanical
smile returned, and she dried her eyes nai'vely.
"I don't know why I cannot seem to get used to be-
ing married," she said. "I never thought that getting
married would make me so—so—lonely."
"Let's talk about art," he suggested. "You're crazy
about art and you're going to Paris. Isn't that fine."
"Oh, yes"
"Sure, it's fine. That's where art grows. Artville
is Paris' other name. It's all there, Rue—the Loove,
the palaces, the Latin Quarter, the statues, the
churches, and all like that."
"What is the Louvre like?" she asked, tremulously,
determined to be brave.
As he had seen the Louvre only from the outside, his
imaginary description was cautious, general, and brief.
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NONRESISTANCE
After a silence, Rue asked whether he thought that
their suitcases were quite safe.
"Certainly," he smiled. "I checked them."
"And you're sure they are safe?"
"Of course, darling. What worries you?"
And, as she hesitated, he remembered that she had
forgotten to put something into her suitcase and that
the chauffeur had driven her back to the house to get
it while he himself went into the Gayfield House to
telephone Stull.
"What was it you went back for, Rue?" he asked.
"One thing I went back for was my money."
"Money? What money?"
"Money my grandmother left me. I was to have it
when I married—six thousand dollars."
"You mean you have it in your suitcase?" he asked,
astonished.
"Yes, half of it."
"A cheque?"
"No, in hundreds."
"Bins?"
"Yes. I gave father three thousand. I kept three
thousand."
"In bills," he repeated, laughing. "Is your suitcase
locked?"
"Yes. I insisted on having my money in cash. So
Mr. Wexall, of the Mohawk Bank, sent a messenger
with it last evening."
"But," he asked, still immensely amused, "why do
you want to travel about with three thousand dollars
in bills in your suitcase?"
She flushed a little, tried to smile:
"I don't know why. I never before had any money.
It is—pleasant to know I have it."
99


THE BARK STAR
"But I'll give you all you want, Rue."
"Thank you. ... I have my own, you see."
"Of course. Put it away in some bank. When you
want pin money, ask me."
She shook her head with a troubled smile.
"I couldn't ask anybody for money," she ex-
plained.
"Then you don't have to. We'll fix your allowance."
"Thank you, but I have my money, and I don't
need it."
This seemed to amuse Wm tremendously; and even
Rue laughed a little.
"You are going to take your money to Paris?" he
asked.
"Yes."
"To buy things?"
"Oh, no. Just to have it with me."
His rather agreeable laughter sounded again.
"So that was what you forgot to put in your suit-
case," he said. "No wonder you went back for it."
"There was something else very important, too."
"What, darling?"
"My drawings," she explained innocently.
"Your drawings! Do you mean you've got them,
too?"
"Yes. I want to take them to Paris and compare
them with the pictures I shall see there. It ought to
teach me a great deal. Don't you think so?"
"Are you crazy to study?" he asked, touched to the
quick by her utter ignorance.
"It's all I dream about. If I could work that way
and support myself and my father and mother"
"But, Rue! Wake up! We're married, little girl.
You don't have to work to support anybody!"
100


NONRESISTANCE
“I—forgot,” said the girl vaguely, her confused
grey eyes resting on his laughing, greenish ones.
Still laughing, he summoned the waiter, paid the
reckoning; Ruhannah rose as he did; they went slowly
out together.
On the sidewalk beside their car stood the new chauf-
feur, smoking a cigarette which he threw away without
haste when he caught sight of them. However, he
touched the peak of his cap civilly, with his forefinger.
Brandes, lighting a cigar, let his slow eyes rest on
the new man for a moment. Then he helped Rue into
the tonneau, got in after her, and thoughtfully took the
wheel, conscious that there was something or other
about his new chauffeur that he did not find entirely to
his liking.


CHAPTER X
DRIVING HEAD-ON
It was mid-afternoon when they began to past
through that series of suburbs which the city has flung
like a single tentacle northward for a hundred miles
along the eastern banks of the Hudson.
A smooth road of bluestone with a surface like velvet,
rarely broken by badly paved or badly worn sections,
ran straight south. Fast mansions standing amid spa-
cious lawns all ablaze with late summer and early au-
tumn flowers they sped; past parks, long stretches of
walls, high fences of wrought iron through which brief
glimpses of woodlands and splendid gardens caught
Rue's eye. And, every now and then, slowing down
to traverse some village square and emerging from
the further limits, the great river flashed into view,
sometimes glassy still under high headlands or along
towering parapets of mountains, sometimes ruined
and silvery where it widened into bay or inland sea,
with a glimmer of distant villages on the further
shore.
Over the western bank a blinding sun hung in a sky
without a cloud—a sky of undiluted azure; but farther
south, and as the sun declined, traces of vapours from
the huge but still distant city stained the heavens.
Gradually the increasing haze changed from palest lav-
ender and lemon-gold to violet and rose with smoulder-
ing undertones of fire. Beneath it the river caught the
•tains in deeper tones, flowing in sombre washes of flame
102


DRIVING HEAD-ON
or spreading wide under pastel tints of turquoise set
with purple.
Now, as the sun hung lower, the smoke of every river
boat, every locomotive speeding along the shores below,
lay almost motionless above the water, tinged with the
delicate enchantment of declining day.
And into this magic veil Rue was passing already
through the calm of a late August afternoon, through
tree-embowered villages and towns, the names of which
she did not know—swiftly, inexorably passing into the
iris-grey obscurity where already the silvery points of
arc-lights stretched away into intricate geometrical de-
signs—faint traceries as yet sparkling with subdued
lustre under the sunset heavens.
Vast shadowy shapes towered up ahead—outlying
public buildings, private institutions, industrial plants,
bridges of iron and steel, the ponderous bowed spans of
which crossed wildernesses of railroad tracks or craft-
crowded waters.
Two enormous arched viaducts of granite stretched
away through sparkling semi-obscurity—High Bridge
and Washington Bridge. Then it became an increas-
ing confusion of phantom masses against a fading sky
—bridges, towers, skyscrapers, viaducts, boulevards,
a wilderness of streets outlined by the growing bril-
liancy of electric lamps.
Brandes, deftly steering through the swarming maze
of twilight avenues, turned east across the island, then
swung south along the curved parapets and spreading
gardens of Riverside Drive.
Perhaps Brandes was tired; he had become uncom-
municative, inclined to silence. He did point out to
her the squat, truncated mass where the great General
slept; called her attention to the river below, where
103


THE DARK STAR
three grey battleships lay. A bugle call from the decks
came faintly to her ears.
If Rue was tired she did not know it as the car swept
her steadily deeper amid the city's wonders.
On her left, beyond the trees, the great dwellings
and apartments of the Drive were already glimmering
with light in every window; to the right, under the
foliage of this endless necklace of parks and circles, a
summer-clad throng strolled and idled along the river
wall; and past them moved an unbroken column of
automobiles, taxicabs, and omnibuses.
At Seventy-second Street they turned to the east
across the park, then into Fifth Avenue south once
more. She saw the name of the celebrated avenue on
the street corner, turned to glance excitedly at Brandes;
but his preoccupied face was expressionless, almost for-
bidding, so she turned again in quest of other delight-
ful discoveries. But there was nothing to identify for
her the houses, churches, hotels, shops, on this endless
and bewildering avenue of grey stone; as they swung
west into Forty-second Street, she caught sight of the
great marble mass of the Library, but had no idea what
it was.
Into this dusky canon, aflame with light, they rolled,
where street lamps, the lamps of vehicles, and electric
signs dazzled her unaccustomed eyes so that she saw
nothing except a fiery vista filled with the rush and
roar of traffic.
When they stopped, the chauffeur dropped from the
rumble and came around to where a tall head porter
in blue and silver uniform was opening the tonneau
door.
Brandes said to his chauffeur:
"Here are the checks. Our trunks are at the Grand
104


DRIVING HEAD-ON
Central. Get them aboard, then come back here for us
at ten o'clock."
The chauffeur lifted his hand to his cap, and looked
stealthily between his fingers at Brandes.
"Ten o'clock," he repeated; "very good, sir."
Rue instinctively sought Brandes' arm as they en-
tered the crowded lobby, then remembered, blushed, and
withdrew her hand.
Brandes had started toward the desk with the in-
tention of registering and securing a room for the few
hours before going aboard the steamer; but something
halted him—some instinct of caution. No, he would
not register. He sent their luggage to the parcels
room, found a maid who took Rue away, then went on
through into the bar, where he took a stiff whisky and
soda, a thing he seldom did.
In the toilet he washed and had himself brushed.
Then, emerging, he took another drink en passant,
conscious of an odd, dull sense of apprehension for
which he could not account.
At the desk they told him there was no telephone mes-
sage for him. He sauntered over to the news stand,
stared at the display of periodicals, but had not suffi-
cient interest to buy even an evening paper.
So he idled about the marble-columned lobby, now
crowded with a typical early-autumn throng in quest
of dinner and the various nocturnal amusements which
the city offers at all times to the frequenters of its
thousand temples.
Rue came out of the ladies' dressing room, and he
went to her and guided her into the dining-room on the
left, where an orchestra was playing. In her blue, pro-
vincial travelling gown the slender girl looked oddly out
of place amid lace and jewoA and the delicate tints
105


THE DARK STAR
of frail evening gowns, but her cheeks were bright with
colour and her grey eyes brilliant, and the lights touched
her thick chestnut hair with a ruddy glory, so that more
than one man turned to watch her pass, and the idly
contemptuous indifference of more than one woman
ended at her neck and chin.
What Rue ate she never afterward remembered. It
was all merely a succession of delicious sensations for
the palate, for the eye, for the ear when the excellent
orchestra was playing some gay overture from one of
the newer musical comedies or comic operas.
Brandes at times seemed to shake off a growing de-
pression and rouse himself to talk to her, even jest with
her. He smoked cigarettes occasionally during din-
ner, a thing he seldom did, and, when coffee was served,
he lighted one of his large cigars.
Rue, excited under an almost childishly timid man-
ner, leaned on the table with both elbows and linked
fingers, listening, watching everything with an al-
most breathless intelligence which strove to compre-
hend.
People left; others arrived; the music continued.
Several times people passing caught Brandes' eye, and
bowed and smiled. He either acknowledged such salutes
with a slight and almost surly nod, or ignored them
altogether.
One of his short, heavy arms lay carelessly along the
back of his chair, where he was sitting sideways looking
at the people in the lobby—watching with that same
odd sensation of foreboding of which he had been
conscious from the first moment he had entered the
city line.
What reason for apprehension he had he could not
understand. Only an hour lay between him and the
106


DRIVING HEAD-ON
seclusion of the big liner; a few hours and he and this
girl beside him would be at sea.
Once he excused himself, went out to the desk, and
made an inquiry. But there was no telephone or tele-
graph message for him; and he came back chewing his
cigar.
Finally his uneasiness drew him to his feet again:
"Rue," he said, "I'm going out to telephone to Mr.
Stull. It may take some little time. You don't mind
waiting, do you?"
"No," she said.
"Don't you want another ice or something?"
She confessed that she did.
So he ordered it and went away.
As she sat leisurely tasting her ice and watching with
unflagging interest the people around her, she noticed
that the dining-room was already three-quarters empty.
People were leaving for cafe, theatre, or dance; few
remained.
Of these few, two young men in evening dress now
arose and walked toward the lobby, one ahead of the
other. One went out; the other, in the act of going,
glanced casually at her as he passed, hesitated, halted,
then, half smiling, half inquiringly, came toward her.
"Jim Neeland!" she exclaimed impulsively. "—I
mean Mr. Neeland "a riot of colour flooding her
face. But her eager hand remained outstretched. He
took it, pressed it lightly, ceremoniously, and, still
standing, continued to smile down at her.
Amid all this strange, infernal glitter; amid a city
of six million strangers, suddenly to encounter a fa-
miliar face—to see somebody—anybody—from Gayfield
—seemed a miracle too delightful to be true.
"You are Rue Carew," he said. "I was not certain
107


THE BARK STAR
for a moment. You know we met only once before.**
Rue, conscious of the startled intimacy of her first
greeting, blushed with the memory. But Neeland was
a tactful young man; he said easily, with his very en-
gaging smile:
"It was nice of you to remember me so frankly and
warmly. You have no idea how pleasant it was to
hear a Gayfield voice greet me as 'Jim.'"
"I—didn't intend to"
"Please intend it in future, Rue. You don't mind,
do you?"
"No."
"And will you ever forget that magnificent winter
night when we drove to Brookhollow after the party?"
"I have—remembered it."
"So have I. . . . Are you waiting for somebody? Of
course you are," he added, laughing. "But may I sit
down for a moment?"
"Yes, I wish you would."
So he seated himself, lighted a cigarette, glanced up
at her and smiled.
"When did you come to New York?" he asked.
"Tonight."
"Well, isn't that a bit of luck to run into you like
this! Have you come here to study art?"
"No. . . . Yes, I think, later, I am to study art
here."
"At the League?"
"I don't know."
"Better go to the League," he said. "Begin there
anyway. Do you know where it is?"
"No," she said.
He called a waiter, borrowed pencil and pad, and
wrote down the address of the Art Students' League.
108


THE DARK STAR
note to the steamer tonight saying that—that my very
particular friend, Ruhannah Carew, is on board, and
won't she ask you to tea. You'd love her, Rue. She's a.
regular woman."
"But—oh, dear!—a Princess!"
"You won't even notice it," he said reassuringly.
"She's a corker; she's an artist, too. I couldn't begin
, to tell you how nice she has been to me. By the way,
Rue, whom did you marry?"
"Mr. Brandes."
"Brandes? I don't remember—was he from up-
state?"
"No; New York—I think"
As she bent forward to taste her ice again he noticed
for the first time the childlike loveliness of her throat
and profile; looked at her with increasing interest,
realising that she had grown into a most engaging crea-
ture since he had seen her.
Looking up, and beyond him toward the door, she
said:
"I think your friend is waiting for you. Had you
forgotten him?"
"Oh, that's so!" he exclaimed. Then rising and
offering his hand: "I wish you happiness, Rue. You
have my address. When you return, won't you let me
know where you are? Won't you let me know your
husband?"
"Yes."
"Please do. You see you and I have a common bond
in art, another in our birthplace. Gayfield folk are
your own people and mine. Don't forget me, Rue."
"No, I won't."
So he took his leave gracefully and went awav
through the enthralling, glittering unreality of it all,
110


DRIVING HEAD-ON
leaving a young girl thrilled, excited, and deeply im-
pressed with his ease and bearing amid awe-inspiring
scenes in which she, too, desired most ardently to find
herself at ease.
Also she thought of his friend, the Princess Mis-
tchenka. And again, as before, the name seemed to
evoke within her mind a recollection of having heard
it before, very long ago.
She wondered whether Neeland would remember to
write, and if he did she wondered whether a real prin-
cess would actually condescend to invite her to take tea.


CHAPTER XI
THE BREAKERS
The east iiining-room was almost empty now, though
the lobby and the cafe beyond still swarmed with people
arriving and departing. Brandes, chafing at the tele-
phone, had finally succeeded in getting Stull on the wire,
only to learn that the news from Saratoga was not
agreeable; that they had lost on every horse. Also,
Stull had another disquieting item to detail; it seemed
that Maxy Venem had been seen that morning in the act
of departing for New York on the fast express; and
with him was a woman resembling Brandes' wife.
"Who saw her?" demanded Brandes.
"Doc. He didn't get a good square look at her. You
know the hats women wear."
"All right. I'm off, Ben. Good-bye."
The haunting uneasiness which had driven him to
the telephone persisted when he came out of the booth.
He cast a slow, almost sleepy glance around him, saw
no familiar face in the thronged lobby, then he looked
at his watch.
The car had been ordered for ten; it lacked half an
hour of the time; he wished he had ordered the car
earlier,
For now his uneasiness was verging on that species
of superstitious inquietude which at times obsesses all
gamblers, and which is known as a "hunch." He had
a hunch that he was "in wrong" somehow or other;
an overpowering longing to get on board the steamer
112


THE BREAKERS
assailed him—a desire to get out of the city, get away
quick.
The risk he had taken was beginning to appear to
him as an unwarranted piece of recklessness; he was
amazed with himself for taking such a chance—dis-
gusted at his foolish and totally unnecessary course
with this young girl. All he had had to do was to wait
a few months. He could have married in safety then.
And even now he didn't know whether or not the cere-
mony performed by Parson Smawley had been an ille-
gally legal one; whether it made him a bigamist for the
next three months or only something worse. What on
earth had possessed him to take sucn a risk—the ter-
rible hazard of discovery, of losing the only woman he
had ever really cared for—the only one he probably
could ever care for? Of course, had he been free he
would have married her. When he got his freedom he
would insist on another ceremony. He could persuade
her to that on some excuse or other. But in the mean-
while!
He entered the deserted dining-room, came over to
where Rue was waiting, and sat down, heavily, holding
an unlighted cigar between his stubby fingers.
"Well, little girl," he said with forced cheerfulness,
"was I away very long?"
"Not very."
"You didn't miss me?" ne inquired, ponderously
playful.
His heavy pleasantries usually left her just a little
doubtful and confused, for he seldom smiled when he
delivered himself of them.
He leaned across the cloth and laid a hot, cushiony
hand over both of hers, where they lay primly clasped
on the table edge:
118


THE DARK STAR
"Don't you ever miss me when I'm away from you,
Rue?" he asked.
"I think—it is nice to be with you," she said, hotly
embarrassed by the publicity of his caress.
"I don't believe you mean it." But he smiled this
time. At which the little rigid smile stamped itself
on her lips; but she timidly withdrew her hands from
his.
"Rue, I don't believe you love me." This time there
was no smile.
She found nothing to answer, being without any
experience in give-and-take conversation, which left her
always uncertain and uncomfortable.
For the girl was merely a creature still in the mak-
ing—a soft, pliable thing to be shaped to perfection
only by the light touch of some steady, patient hand
that understood—or to be marred and ruined by a
heavy hand which wrought at random or in brutal haste.
Brandes watched her for a moment out of sleepy,
greenish eyes. Then he consulted his watch again,
summoned a waiter, gave him the parcels-room checks,
and bade him have a boy carry their luggage into the
lobby.
As they rose from the table, a man and a woman
entering the lobby caught sight of them, halted, then
turned and walked back toward the street door which
they had just entered.
Brandes had not noticed them where he stood by the
desk, scratching off a telegram to Stull:
"All O. K. Just going aboard. Fix it with Stein."
He rejoined Rue as the boy appeared with their lug-
gage; an under porter took the bags and preceded them
toward the street.
"There's the car!" said Brandes, with a deep breath
114


THE BREAKERS
of relief. "He knows his business, that chauffeur of
mine."
Their chauffeur was standing beside the car as they
emerged from the hotel and started to cross the side-
walk; the porter, following, set their luggage on the
curbstone; and at the same instant a young and pretty
woman stepped lightly between Rue and Brandes.
"Good evening, Eddie," she said, and struck him a
staggering blow in the face with her white-gloved hand.
Brandes lost his balance, stumbled sideways, recov-
ered himself, turned swiftly and encountered the full,
protruding black eyes of Maxy Venem staring close
*nd menacingly into his.
From Brandes' cut lip blood was running down over
his chin and collar; his face remained absolutely ex-
pressionless. The next moment his eyes shifted, met
Ruhannah's stupefied gaze.
"Go into the hotel," he said calmly. "Quick"
"Stay where you are!" interrupted Maxy Venem,
and caught the speechless and bewildered girl by the
elbow.
Like lightning Brandes' hand flew to his hip pocket,
and at the same instant his own chauffeur seized both
his heavy, short arms and held them rigid, pinned be-
hind his back.
"Frisk him!" he panted; Venem nimbly relieved him
of the dull black weapon.
"Can the fake gun-play, Eddie," he said, coolly shov-
ing aside the porter who attempted to interfere.
"You're double-crossed. We got the goods on you;
come on; who's the girl?"
The woman who had struck Brandes now came up
again beside Venem. She was young, very pretty, but
deathly white except for the patches of cosmetic on
115


THE DARK STAR
either cheek. She pointed at Brandes. There was
blood on her soiled and split glove:
"You dirty dog!" she said unsteadily. "You'll marry
this girl before I've divorced you, will you? And you
think you are going to get away with it! You dog!
You dirty dog!"
The porter attempted to interfere again, but Venem
shoved him out of the way. Brandes, still silently
struggling to free his imprisoned arms, ceased twisting
suddenly and swung his heavy head toward Venem. His
hat had fallen off; his face, deeply flushed with exertion,
was smeared with blood and sweat.
"What's the idea, you fool!" he said in a low voice.
"I'm not married to her."
But Ruhannah heard him say it.
"You claim that you haven't married this girl?" de-
manded Venem loudly, motioning toward Rue, who
stood swaying, half dead, held fast by the gathering
crowd which pushed around them from every side.
"Did you marry her or did you fake it?" repeated
Venem in a louder voice. "It's jail one way; maybe
both!"
"He married her in Gayfield at eleven this morning!"
said the chauffeur. "Parson Smawley turned the
trick."
Brandes' narrow eyes glittered; he struggled for a
moment, gave it up, shot a deadly glance at Maxy
Venem, at his wife, at the increasing throng crowding
closely about hiri. Then his infuriated eyes met Rue's,
and the expression of her face apparently crazed him.
Frantic, he hurled himself backward, jerking one arm
free, tripped, fell heavily with the chauffeur on top,
twisting, panting, struggling convulsively, while all
around him surged the excited crowd, scouting, press-
"
116


THE BREAKERS
ing closer, trampling one another in eagerness to see.
Rue, almost swooning with fear, was pushed, jostled,
flung aside. Stumbling over her own suitcase, she fell
to her knees, rose, and, scarce conscious of what she
was about, caught up her suitcase and reeled away
into the light-shot darkness.
She had no idea of what she was doing or where she
was going; the terror of the scene still remained luridly
before her eyes; the shouting of the crowd was in her
ears; an indescribable fear of Brandes filled her—a
growing horror of this man who had denied that he had
married her. And the instinct of a frightened and be-
wildered child drove her into blind flight, anywhere to
escape this hideous, incomprehensible scene behind her.
Hurrying on, alternately confused and dazzled in the
patches of darkness and flaring light, clutched at and
followed by a terrible fear, she found herself halted on
the curbstone of an avenue through which lighted tram-
cars were passing. A man spoke to her, came closer;
and she turned desperately and hurried across a street
where other people were crossing.
From overhead sounded the roaring dissonance of
an elevated train; on either side of her phantom shapes
swarmed—figures which moved everywhere around her,
now illumined by shop windows, now silhouetted against
them. And always through the deafening confusion in
her brain, the dismay, the stupefaction, one dreadful
fear dominated—the fear of Brandes—the dread and
horror of this Judas who had denied her.
She could not drive the scene from her mind—the
never-to-be forgotten picture where he stood with blood
from his cut lip striping his fat chin. She heard his
voice denying her through swollen lips that scarcely
moved—denying that he had married her.
117


THE DARK STAR
And in her ears still sounded the other voice—the
terrible words of the woman who had struck him—an
unsteady, unreal voice accusing him; and her brain
throbbed with the horrible repetition: "Dirty dog—
dirty dog—dirty dog "until, almost out of her
mind, she dropped her bag and clapped both hands
over her ears.
One or two men stared at her. A taxi driver came
from beside his car and asked her if she was ill. But
she caught up her suitcase and hurried on without
answering.
She was very tired. She had come to the end of the
lighted avenue. There was darkness ahead, a wall,
trees, and electric lights sparkling among the foliage.
Perhaps the sudcjn glimpse of a wide and star-set
sky quieted her, calmed her. Freed suddenly from the
canon of the city's streets, the unreasoning panic of
a trapped thing subsided a little.
Her arm ached; she shifted the suitcase to her other
hand and looked across at the trees and at the high
stars above, striving desperately for self-command.
Something had to be done. She must find some place
where she could sit down. Where was she to find it?
For a while she could feel her limbs trembling; but
gradually the heavy thudding of her pulses quieted;
nobody molested her; nobody had followed her. That
she was quite lost did not matter; she had also lost this
man who had denied her, somewhere in the depths of
the confusion behind her. That was all that mattered
—escape from him, from the terrible woman who had
struck him and reviled him.
With an effort she checked her thoughts and strug-
gled for self-command. Somewhere in the city there
118


THE BREAKERS
must be a railroad station from which a train would
take her home.
With the thought came the desperate longing for
flight, and a rush of tears that almost choked her.
Nothing mattered now except her mother's arms; the
rest was a nightmare, the horror of a dream which still
threatened, still clutched at her with shadowy and
spectral menace.
For a moment or two she stood there on the curb,
her eyes closed, fighting for self-control, forcing her
disorganized brain to duty.
Somebody must help her to find a railroad station
and a train. That gradually became clear to her. But
when she realised that, a young man sauntered up beside
her and looked at her so intently that her calmness
gave way and she turned her head sharply to conceal
the starting tears.
"Hello, girlie," he said. "Got anythin' on to-
night?"
With head averted, she stood there, rigid, dumb, her
tear-drenched eyes fixed on the park; and after one or
two jocose observations the young man became dis-
couraged and went away. But he had thrust the fear
of strangers deep into her heart; and now she dared
not ask any man for information. However, when two
young women passed she found sufficient courage to
accost them, asking the direction of the railroad station
from which trains departed for Gayfield.
The women, who were young and brightly coloured
in plumage, displayed a sympathetic interest at once.
"Gayfield?" repeated the blonder of the two. "Gee,
dearie, I never heard of that place."
"Is it on Long Island?" inquired the other.
"No. It is in Mohawk County."
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THE DARK STAR
"That's a new one, too. Mohawk County? Never
heard of it; did you, Lil?"
"Search me!"
"Is it up-state, dearie?" asked the other. "You bet-
ter go over to Madison Avenue and take a car to the
Grand Central"
"Wait," interrupted her friend; "she better take a
taxi"
"Nix on a taxi you pick up on Sixth Avenue!" And
to Rue, curiously sympathetic: "Say, you've got friends
here, haven't you, little one?"
"No."
"What! You don't know anyone in New York!"
Rue looked at her dumbly; then, of a sudden, she
remembered Neeland.
"Yes," she said, "I know one person."
"Where does your friend live?"
In her reticule was the paper on which he had writ-
ten the address of the Art Students' League, and, as
an afterthought, his own address.
Rue lifted the blue silk bag, opened it, took out her
purse and found the paper.
"One Hundred and Six, West Fifty-fifth Street," she
read; "Studio No. 10."
"Why, that isn't far!" said the blonder of the two.
"We are going that way. We'll take you there."
"I don't know—I don't know him very well"
"Is it a man?"
"Yes. He comes from my town, Gayfield."
"Oh! I guess that's all right," said the other woman,
laughing. "You got to be leery of these men, little one.
Come on; we'll show you."
It was only four blocks; Ruhannah presently found
herself on the steps of a house from which dangled
120


THE BREAKERS
a sign, "Studios and Bachelor Apartments to
Let."
"What's his name?" said the woman addressed as Lil.
"Mr. Neeland."
By the light of the vestibule lantern they inspected
the letter boxes, found Neeland's name, and pushed
the electric button.
After a few seconds the door clicked and opened.
"Now, you're all right!" said Lil, peering into the
lighted hallway. "It's on the fourth floor and there
isn't any elevator that I can see, so you keep on going
upstairs till your friend meets you."
"Thank you so much for your great kindness"
"Don't mention it. Good luck, dearie!"
The door clicked behind her, and Rue found herself
alone.
The stairs, flanked by a massive balustrade of some
dark, polished wood, ascended in spirals by a short
series of flights and landings. Twice she rested, her
knees almost giving way, for the climb upward seemed
interminable. But at last, just above her, she saw a
skylight, and a great stair-window giving on a court;
and, as she toiled up and stood clinging, breathless, to
the banisters on the top landing, out of an open door
stepped Neeland's shadowy figure, dark against the
hall light behind him.
"For heaven's sake!" he said. "What on earth"
The suitcase fell from her nerveless hand; she swayed
a little where she stood.
The next moment he had passed his arm around her,
and was half leading, half carrying her through a
short hallway into a big, brilliantly lighted studio.


CHAPTER XII
A LIFE LINE
She had told him her story from beginning to end.
as far as she herself comprehended it. She was lying
sideways now, in the depths of a large armchair, her
cheek cushioned on the upholstered wings.
Her hat, with its cheap blue enamel pins sticking in
the crown, lay on his desk; her hair, partly loosened,
shadowed a young face grown pinched with weariness;
and the reaction from shock was already making her
grey eyes heavy and edging the under lids with bluish
shadows.
She had not come there with the intention of telling
him anything. All she had wanted was a place in which
to rest, a glass of water, and somebody to help her find
the train to Gayfield. She told him this; remained reti-
cent under his questioning; finally turned her haggard
face to the chairback and refused to answer.
For an hour or more she remained obstinately dumb,
motionless except for the uncontrollable trembling of
her body; he brought her a glass of water, sat watching
her at intervals; rose once or twice to pace the studio,
his well-shaped head bent, his hands clasped behind
his back, always returning to the corner-chair before
the desk to sit there, eyeing her askance, waiting for
some decision.
But it was not the recurrent waves of terror, the ever
latent fear of Brandes, or even her appalling loneliness
that broke her down; it was sheer fatigue—nature's
122 -w


A LIFE LINE
merciless third degree—under which mental and physi-
cal resolution disintegrated—went all to pieces.
And when at length she finally succeeded in recon-
quering self-possession, she had already stammered out
answers to his gently persuasive questions—had told
him enough to start the fuller confession to which he
listened in utter silence.
And now she had told him everything, as far as she
understood the situation. She lay sideways, deep in the
armchair, tired, yet vaguely conscious that she was rest-
ing mind and body, and that calm was gradually pos-
sessing the one, and the nerves of the other were grow-
ing quiet.
Listlessly her grey eyes wandered around the big
studio where shadowy and strangely beautiful but in-
comprehensible things met her gaze, like iridescent, in-
definite objects seen in dreams.
These radiantly unreal splendours were only Nee-
land's rejected Academy pictures and studies; a few
cheap Japanese hangings, cheaper Nippon porcelains,
and several shaky, broken-down antiques picked up for
a song here and there. All the trash and truck and
dust and junk characteristic of the conventional artist's
habitation were there.
But to Ruhannah this studio embodied all the won-
ders and beauties of that magic temple to which, from
her earliest memory, her very soul had aspired—the
temple of the unknown God of Art.
Vaguely she endeavoured to realise that she was now
inside one of its myriad sanctuaries; that here under
her very tired and youthful eyes stood one of its count-
less altars; that here, also, near by, sat one of those
blessed acolytes who aided in the mysteries of its won-
drous service.
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THE DARK STAR
"Ruhannah," he said, "are you calm enough to let
me tell you what I think about this matter?"
"Yes. I am feeling better."
"Good work! There's no occasion for panic. What
you need is a cool head and a clear mind."
She said, without stirring from where she lay rest-
ing her cheek on the chairback:
"My mind has become quite clear again."
"That's fine! Well, then, I think the thing for yon
to do is "He took out his watch, examined it, re-
placed it—"Good Lord!" he said. "It is three o'clock!"
She watched him but offered no comment. He went
to the telephone, called the New York Central Station,
got General Information, inquired concerning trains,
hung up, and came back to the desk where he had been
sitting.
"The first train out leaves at six three," he said. "I
think you'd better go into my bedroom and lie down.
I'm not tired; I'll call you in time, and I'll get a taxi
and take you to your train. Does that suit you, Ru-
hannah?"
She shook her head slightly.
"Why not?" he asked.
"I've been thinking. I can't go back."
"Can't go back! Why not?"
"I can't."
"You mean you'd feel too deeply humiliated?"
"I wasn't thinking of my own disgrace. I was think-
ing of mother and father." There was no trace of emo-
tion in her voice; she stated the fact calmly.
"I can't go back to Brookhollow. It's ended. I
couldn't bear to let them know what has happened to
me."
"What did you think of doing?" he asked uneasily.
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A LIFE LINE
"I must think of mother—I must keep my disgrace
from touching them—spare them the sorrow—humilia-
tion "Her voice became tremulous, but she turned
around and sat up in her chair, meeting his gaze
squarely. "That's as far as I have thought," she said.
Both remained silent for a long while. Then Ru-
hannah looked up from her pale preoccupation:
"I told you I had three thousand dollars. Why
can't I educate myself in art with that? Why can't
I learn how to support myself by art?"
"Where?"
"Here."
"Yes. But what are you going to say to your pa-
rents when you write? They suppose you are on your
way to Paris."
She nodded, looking at him thoughtfully.
"By the way," he added, "is your trunk on board
the Lusitama?"
"Yes."
"That won't do! Have you the check for it?"
"Yes, in my purse."
"We've got to get that trunk off the ship," he said.
"There's only one sure way. I'd better go down now,
to the pier. Where's your steamer ticket?"
"I—I have both tickets and both checks in my bag.
He—let me have the p-pleasure of carrying them"
Again her voice broke childishly, but the threatened
emotion was strangled and resolutely choked back.
"Give me the tickets and checks," he said. "I'll go
down to the dock now."
She drew out the papers, sat holding them for a few
moments without relinquishing them. Then she raised
her eyes to his, and a bright flush stained her
face:
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THE DARK STAR
"Why should I not go to Paris by myself?" she
demanded.
"You mean now? On this ship?"
"Yes. Why not? I have enough money to go there
and study, haven't I?"
"Yes. But"
"Why not!" she repeated feverishly, her grey eyes
sparkling. "I have three thousand dollars; I can't
go back to Brookhollow and disgrace them. What
does it matter where I go?"
"It would be all right," he said, "if you'd ever had
any experience"
"Experience! What do you call what I've had to-
day!" She exclaimed excitedly. "To lose in a single
day my mother, my home—to go through in this city
what I have gone through—what I am going through
now—is not that enough experience? Isn't it?"
He said:
"You've had a rotten awakening, Rue—a perfectly
devilish experience. Onljr—you've never travelled
alone "Suddenly it occurred to him that his lively
friend, the Princess Mistchenka, was sailing on the
Lusitania; and he remained silent, uncertain, looking
with vague misgivings at this girl in the armchair op-
posite—this thin, unformed, inexperienced child who
had attained neither mental nor physical maturity.
"I think," he said at length, "that I told you I had
a friend sailing on the Lusitania tomorrow."
She remembered and nodded.
"But wait a moment," he added. "How do you
know that this—this fellow Brandes will not attempt to
sail on her, also "Something checked him, for in
the girl's golden-grey eyes he saw a flame glimmer;
something almost terrible came into the child's still
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A LIFE LINE
gaze; and slowly died out like the afterglow of light-
ning.
And Neeland knew that in her soul something had
been born under his very eyes—the first emotion of
maturity bursting from the chrysalis—the flaming con-
sciousness of outrage, and the first, fierce assumption
of womanhood to resent it.
She had lost her colour now; her grey eyes still re-
mained fixed on his, but the golden tinge had left them.
"I don't know why you shouldn't go," he said
abruptly.
"I am going."
"All right! And if he has the nerve to go—if he
bothers you—appeal to the captain."
She nodded absently.
"But I don't believe he'll try to sail. I don't believe
he'd dare, mixed up as he is in a dirty mess. He's
afraid of the law, I tell you. That's why he denied mar-
rying you. It meant bigamy to admit it. Anyway, I
don't think a fake ceremony like that is binding; I mean
that it isn't even real enough to put him in jail. Which
means that you're not married, Rue."
"Does it?"
"I think so. Ask a lawyer, anyway. There may be
steps to take—I don't know. All the same—do you
really want to go to France and study art? Do you
really mean to sail on this ship?"
"Yes."
"You feel confidence in yourself? You feel sure of
yourself?"
"Yes."
"You've got the backbone to see it through?"
"Yes. It's got to be done."
"All right, if you feel that way." He made no move,
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THE DARK STAR
however, but sat there watching her. After a while he
looked at his watch again:
"I'm going to ring up a taxi," he said. "You might
as well go on board and get some sleep. What time
does she sail?"
"At five thirty, I believe."
"Well, we haven't so very long, then. There's my
bedroom—if you want to fix up."
She rose wearily.
When she emerged from his room with her hat and
gloves on, the taxicab was audible in the street below.
Together they descended the dark stairway up which
she had toiled with trembling knees. He carried her
suitcase, aided her into the taxi.
"Cunard Line," he said briefly, and entered the cab.
Already in the darkness of early morning the city
was awake; workmen were abroad; lighted tramcars
passed with passengers; great wains, trucks, and coun-
try wagons moved slowly toward markets and ferries.
He had begun to tell her almost immediately all that
he knew about Paris, the life there in the students'
quarters, methods of living economically, what to seek
and what to avoid—a homily rather hurried and con-
densed, as they sped toward the pier.
She seemed to be listening; he could not be sure that
she understood or that her mind was fixed at all on
what he was saying. Even while speaking, numberless
objections to her going occurred to him, but as he had
no better alternatives to suggest he did not voice them.
In his heart he really believed she ought to go back
to Brookhollow. It was perfectly evident she would
not consent to go there. As for her remaining in New
York, perhaps the reasons for her going to Paris were
as good. He was utterly unable to judge; he only knew
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A LIFE LINE
that she ought to have the protection of experience,
and that was lacking.
"I'm going to remain on board with you," he said,
"until she sails. I'm going to try to find my very good
friend, the Princess Mistchenka, and have you meet
her. She has been very kind to me, and I shall ask her
i to keep an eye on you while you are crossing, and to
give you a lot of good advice."
"A—princess," said Rue in a tired, discouraged
voice, "is not very likely to pay any attention to me, I
think."
"She's one of those Russian or Caucasian princesses.
You know they don't rank very high. She told me her-
self. She's great fun—full of life and wit and intelli-
gence and wide experience. She knows a lot about
everything and everybody; she's been everywhere, trav-
elled all over the globe."
"I don't think," repeated Rue, "that she would care
for me at all."
"Yes, she would. She's young and warm-hearted and
human. Besides, she is interested in art—knows a lot
about it—even paints very well herself."
"She must be wonderful."
"No—she's just a regular woman. It was because
she was interested in art that she came to the League,
and I was introduced to her. That is how I came to
know her. She comes sometimes to my studio."
"Yes, but you are already an artist, and an in-
teresting man"
"Oh, Rue, I'm just beginning. She's kind, that's
all—an energetic, intelligent woman, full of interest in
life. I know she'll give you some splendid advice—tell
you how to get settled in Paris—Lord! You don't
even know French, do you?"
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THE DARK STAR
"No."
"Not a word?"
"No. ... I don't know anything, Mr. Neeland."
He tried to laugh reassuringly:
"I thought it was to be Jim, not Mister," he re-
minded her.
But she only looked at him out of troubled eyes.
In the glare of the pier's headlights they descended.
Passengers were entering the vast, damp enclosure;
porters, pier officers, ship's officers, sailors, passed to
and fro as they moved toward the gangway where, in
the electric glare of lamps, the clifflike side of the
gigantic liner loomed up.
At sight of the monster ship Rue's heart leaped,
quailed, leaped again. As she set one slender foot on
the gangway such an indescribable sensation seized her
that she caught at Neeland's arm and held to it, al-
most faint with the violence of her emotion.
A steward took the suitcase, preceded them down
abysmal and gorgeous stairways, through salons, deep
into the dimly magnificent bowels of the ocean giant,
then through an endless white corridor twinkling with
lights, to a stateroom, where a stewardess ushered
them in.
There was nobody there; nobody had been there.
"He dare not come," whispered Neeland in Ruhan-
nah's ear.
The girl stood in the centre of the stateroom looking
silently about her.
"Have you any English and French money?" he
asked.
"No."
"Give me—well, say two hundred dollars, and Til
have the purser change it."
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A LIFE LINE
She went to her suitcase, where it stood on the
lounge; he unstrapped it for her; she found the big
packet of treasury notes and handed them to him.
"Good heavens!" he muttered. "This won't do. I'm
going to have the purser lock them in the safe and give
me a receipt. Then when you meet the Princess Mis-
tchenka, tell her what I've done and ask her advice. Will
you, Rue?"
"Yes, thank you."
"You'll wait here for me, won't you?"
"Yes."
So he noted the door number and went away hastily
in search of the purser, to do what he could in the
matter of foreign money for the girl. And on the
upper companionway he met the Princess Mistchenka
descending, preceded by porters with her luggage.
"James!" she exclaimed. "Have you come aboard
to elope with me? Otherwise, what are you doing on
the Lusitania at this very ghastly hour in the morn-
ing?"
She was smiling into his face and her daintily gloved
hand retained his for a moment; then she passed her
arm through his.
"Follow the porter," she said, "and tell me what
brings you here, my gay young friend. You see I am
wearing the orchids you sent me. Do you really mean
to add yourself to this charming gift?"
He told her the story of Ruhannah Carew as briefly
as he could; at her stateroom door they paused while
he continued the story, the Princess Mistchenka looking
at him very intently while she listened, and never utter-
ing a word.
She was a pretty woman, not tall, rather below middle
Mature, perhaps, beautifully proportioned and per-
131


THE BARK STAR
fectly gowned. Hair and eyes were dark as velvet; her
skin was old ivory and rose; and always her lips seemed
about to part a little in the faint and provocative
smile which lay latent in the depths of her brown eyes.
"Mon Dieu!" she said, "what a history of woe you
are telling me, my friend James! What a tale of inno-
cence and of deception and outraged trust is this that
you relate to me! Allonsl Vite! Let us find this poor,
abandoned infant—this unhappy victim of your sex's
well-known duplicity!"
"She isn't a victim, you know," he explained.
"I see. Only almost—a—victim. Yes? Where is
this child, then?"
"May I bring her to you, Princess?"
"But of course! Bring her. I am not afraid—so
far—to look any woman in the face at five o'clock in
the morning." And the threatened smile flashed out
in her fresh, pretty face.
When he came back with Rue Carew, the Princess
Mistchenka was conferring with her maid and with her
stewardess. She turned to look at Rue as Neeland came
up—continued to scrutinise her intently while he was
presenting her.
There ensued a brief silence; the Princess glanced at
Neeland, then her dark eyes returned directly to the
young girl before her, and she held out her hand,
smilingly:
"Miss Carew—I believe I know exactly what your
voice is going to be like. I think I have heard, in
America, such a voice once or twice. Speak tb me and
prove me right."
Rue flushed:
"What am I to say?" she asked nai'vely.
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A LIFE LINE
"I knew I was right," exclaimed the Princess Mis-
tchenka gaily. "Come into my stateroom and let each
one of us discover how agreeable is the other. Shall
we—my dear child?"
When Neeland returned from a visit to the purser
with a pocket full of British and French gold and silver
for Ruhannah, he knocked at the stateroom door of
the Princess Mistchenka.
That lively personage opened it, came out into the
corridor holding the door partly closed behind her.
"She's almost dead with fatigue and grief. I un-
dressed her myself. She's in my bed. She has been
crying."
"Poor little thing," said Neeland.
"Yes."
"Here's her money," he said, a little awkwardly.
The Princess opened her wrist bag and he dumped
in the shining torrent.
"Shall I—call good-bye to her?" he asked.
"You may go in, James."
They entered together; and he was startled to see
how young she seemed there on the pillows—how piti-
fully immature the childish throat, the tear-flushed face
lying in its mass of chestnut hair.
"Good-bye, Rue," he said, still awkward, offering his
hand.
Slowly she held out one slim hand from the covers.
"Good voyage, good luck," he said. "I wish you
would write a line to me."
"I will."
"Then "He smiled; released her hand.
"Thank you for—for all you have done," she said.
"I shall not forget."
133
'


THE BARK STAR
Something choked him slightly; he forced a laugh:
"Come back a famous painter, Rue. Keep your head
clear and your heart full of courage. And let me know
how you're getting on, won't you?"
"Yes. . . . Good-bye."
So he went out, and at the door exchanged adieux
with the smiling Princess.
"Do you—like her a little?" he whispered.
"I do, my friend. Also—I like you. I am old enough
to say it safely, am I not?"
"If you think so," he said, a funny little laugh in
his eyes, "you are old enough to let me kiss you good-
bye."
But she backed away, still smiling:
"On the brow—the hair—yes; if you promise discre-
tion, James."
"What has tottering age like yours to do with dis-
cretion, Princess Nai'a?" he retorted impudently. "A
kiss on the mouth must of itself be discreet when be-
stowed on youth by such venerable years as are yours."
But the Princess, the singularly provocative smile
still edging her lips, merely looked at him out of dark
and slightly humorous eyes, gave him her hand, with-
drew it with decision, and entered her stateroom, clos-
ing the door rather sharply behind her.
When Neeland got back to the studio he took a cou-
ple of hours' sleep, and, being young, perfectly healthy,
and perhaps not unaccustomed to the habits of the
owl family, felt pretty well when he went out to break-
fast.
Over his coffee cup he propped up his newspaper
against a carafe; and the heading on one of the col-
umns immediately attracted his attention.
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A LIFE LINE
ROW BETWEEN SPORTING MEN
EDDIE BRANDES, FIGHT PROMOTER AND
THEATRICAL MAN, MIXES IT WITH
MAXY VENEM
A WOMAN SAID TO BE THE CAUSE: AFFRAY DRAWS
A BIG CROWD IN FRONT OF THE HOTEL
KNICKERBOCKER
BOTK MEN, BADLY BATTERED, GET AWAY BEFORE THE
POLICE ARRIVE
Breakfasting leisurely, he read the partly humorous,
partly contemptuous account of the sordid affair.
Afterward he sent for all the morning papers. But
in none of them was Ruhannah Carew mentioned at all,
nobody, apparently, having noticed her in the exciting
affair between Venem, Brandes, the latter's wife, and
the chauffeur.
Nor did the evening papers add anything material
to the account, except to say that Brandes had been
interviewed in his office at the Silhouette Theatre and
that he stated that he had not engaged in any personal
encounter with anybody, had not seen Max Venem in
months, had not been near the Hotel Knickerbocker,
and knew nothing about the affair in question.
He also permitted a dark hint or two to escape him
concerning possible suits for defamation of character
against irresponsible newspapers.
The accounts in the various evening editions agreed,
however, that when interviewed, Mr. Brandes was nurs-
ing a black eye and a badly swollen lip, which, accord-
ing to him, he had acquired in a playful sparring en-
135
r


THE DARK STAR
counter with his business manager, Mr. Benjamin Stull.
And that was all; the big town had neither time nor
inclination to notice either Brandes or Venem any
further; Broadway completed the story for its own
edification, and, by degrees, arrived at its own con-
clusions. Only nobody could discover who was the
young girl concerned, or where she came from or what
might be her name. And, after a few days, Broadway,
also, forgot the matter amid the tarnished tinsel and
raucous noises of its own mean and multifarious pre-
occupations.
>


CHAPTER Xni
LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GIRL
Neeland had several letters from Ruhannah Carew
that autumn and winter. The first one was written a
few weeks after her arrival in Paris:
Dear Mr. Neeland:
Please forgive me for writing to you, but I am home-
sick.
I have written every week to mother and have made
my letters read as though I were still married, because
it would almost kill her if she knew the truth.
Some day I shall have to tell her, but not yet. Could
you tell me how you think the news ought to be broken
to her and father?
That man was not on the steamer. I was quite ill cross-
ing the ocean. But the last two days I went on deck with
the Princess Mistchenka and her maid, and I enjoyed the
sea.
The Princess has been so friendly. I should have died,
I think, without her, what with my seasickness and home-
sickness, and brooding over my terrible fall. I know it
is immoral to say so, but I did not want to live any longer,
truly I didn't. I even asked to be taken. I am sorry now
that I prayed that way.
Well, I have passed through the most awful part of my
life, I think. I feel strange and different, as though I
had been very sick, and had died, and as though it were
another girl sitting here writing to you, and not the girl
who Vas in your studio last August.
I had always expected happiness some day. Now T
know I shall never have it. Girls' dream many foolish
things about the future. They have such dear, silly hopes.
All dreams are ended for me; all that remains in life
137


THE DARK STAR
for me is to work very hard so that I can learn to sup-
port myself and my parents. I should like to make a
great deal of money so that when I die I can leave it to
charity. I desire to be remembered for my good works.
But of course I shall first have to learn how to take care
of myself and mother and father before I can aid the
poor. I often think of becoming a nun and going out to
nurse lepers. Only I don't know where there are any.
Do you?
Paris is very large and a sort of silvery grey colour,
full of trees with yellowing leaves—but Oh, it is *o lonely,
Mr. Neeland! I am determined not to cry every day,
but it is quite difficult not to. And then there are so
many, many people, and they all talk French! They talk
very fast, too, even the little children.
This seems such an ungrateful letter to write you, who
were so good and kind to me in my dreadful hour of trial
and disgrace. I am afraid you won't understand how full
of gratitude I am, to you and to the Princess Mistchenka.
I have the prettiest little bedroom in Vzr house.
There is a pink shade on my night lamp. She insisted
that I go home with her, and I had to, because I didn't
know where else to go, and she wouldn't tell me. In
fact, I can't go anywhere or find any place because I
speak no French at all. It's humiliating, isn't it, fox ,
even the very little children speak French in Paris.
But I have begun to learn; a cheerful old lady comes
for an hour every day to teach me. Only it is very hard
for me, because she speaks no English and I am forbidden
to utter one word of my own language. And so far I
understand nothing that she says, which makes me more
lonely than I ever was in all my life. But sometimes it
is so absurd that we both laugh.
I am to study drawing and painting at a studio for
women. The kind Princess has arranged it. I am also
to study piano and voice culture. This I did not suppose
would be possible with the money I have, but the Princess
Mistchenka, who has asked me to let her take charge of
my money and my expenses, says that I can easily afford
it. She knows, of course, what things cost, and what I
am able to afford; and I trust her willingly because she

138


LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GIRL
is so dear and sweet to me, but I am a little frightened
at the dresses she is having made for me. They can't
be inexpensive!—Such lovely clothes and shoes and hats—
and other things about which I never even heard in Brook-
hollow.
I ought to be happy, Mr. Neeland, but everything is so
new and strange—even Sunday is not restful; and how
different is Notre Dame de Paris and Saint Eustache from
our church at Gay field! The high arches and jewelled
windows and the candles and the dull roar of the organ
drove from my mind those quiet and solemn thoughts of
God which always filled my mind so naturally and peace-
fully in our church at home. I couldn't think of Him;
I couldn't even try to pray; it was as though an ocean were
rolling and thundering over me where I lay drowned in a
most deep place.
Well, I must close, because dejeuner is ready—you see
I know one French word, after all! And one other—
"Bonjour, monsieur!"—which counts two, doesn't it?—or
three in all.
It has made me feel better to write to you. I hope you
will not think it a presumption.
And now I shall say thank you for your great kind-
ness to me in your studio on that most frightful night of
my life. It is one of those things that a girl can never,
Soever forget—your aid in my hour of need. Through all
my shame and distress it was your help that sustained me;
for I was so stunned by my disgrace that I even forgot
God himself.
But I will prove that I am thankful to Him, and worthy
of your goodness to me; I will profit by this dreadful
humiliation and devote my life to a more worthy and lofty
purpose than merely getting married just because a man
asked me so persistently and I was too young and ignorant
to continue saying no! Also, I did want to study art.
How stupid, how immoral I was!
And now nobody would ever want to marry me again
after this—and also it's against the law, I imagine. But
I don't care; I never, never desire to marry another man.
All I want is to learn how to support myself by art;
and some day perhaps I shall forget what has happened
139


THE DARK STAR
to me and perhaps find a little pleasure in life when I
am very old.
With every wish and prayer for your happiness and
success in this world of sorrow, believe me your grateful
friend, Rue Carew.
Every nai've and laboured line of the stilted letter
touched and amused and also flattered Neeland; for
no young man is entirely insensible to a young girl's
gratitude. An agreeable warmth suffused him; it
pleased him to remember that he had been associated
in the moral and social rehabilitation of Rue Carew.
He meant to write her some kind, encouraging advice;
he had every intention of answering'her letter. But in
New York young men are very busy; or think they are.
For youth days dawn and vanish in the space of a fire-
fly's lingering flash; and the moments swarm by like
a flight of distracted golden butterflies; and a young
man is ever at their heels in breathless chase with as
much chance of catching up with the elusive moment as
a squirrel has of outstripping the wheel in which he
whirls.
So he neglected to reply—waited a little too long.
Because, while her childish letter still remained un-
answered, came a note from the Princess Mistchenka,
enclosing a tremulous line from Rue:
Mon cher James:
Doubtless you have already heard of the sad death of
Ruhannah's parents—within a few hours of each other—
both stricken with pneumonia within the same week. The
local minister cabled her as Mrs. Brandes in my care.
Then he wrote to the child; the letter has just arrived.
My poor little protegee is prostrated—talks wildly of
going back at once. But to what purpose now, mon ami?
Her loved ones will have been in their graves for days be-
fore Ruhannah could arrive.
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LETTERS FROM 'A LITTLE GIRL
No; I shall keep her here. She is young; she shall
be kept busy every instant of the day. That is the only
antidote for grief; youth and time its only cure.
Please write to the Baptist minister at Gayfield, James,
and find out what is to be done; and have it done. Judge
Cary, at Orangeville, had charge of the Reverend Mr.
Carew's affairs. Let him send the necessary papers to
Ruhannah here. I enclose a paper which she has executed,
conferring power of attorney. If a guardian is to be
appointed, I shall take steps to qualify through the good
offices of Lejeune Brothers, the international lawyers
whom I have put into communication with Judge Cary
through the New York representatives of the firm.
There are bound to be complications, I fear, in regard
to this mock marriage of hers. I have consulted my at-
torneys here and they are not very certain that the cere-
mony was not genuine enough to require further legal
steps to free her entirely. A suit for annulment is possi-
ble.
Please have the house at Brookhollow locked up and
keep the keys in your possession for the present. Judge
Cary will have the keys sent to you.
James, dear, I am very deeply indebted to you for
giving to me my little friend, Ruhannah Carew. Now, I
wish to make her entirely mine by law until the inevitable
day arrives when some man shall take her from me.
Write to her, James; don't be selfish.
Yours always,
Naia.
The line enclosed from Ruhannah touched him deeply:
I cannot speak of it yet. Please, when you go to Brook-
hollow, have flowers planted. You know where our plot
is. Have it made pretty for them.
Rue.
He wrote at once exactly the sort of letter that an
impulsive, warm-hearted young man might take time
to write to a bereaved friend. He was genuinely
141


THE DARK STAR
grieved and sorry for her, but he was glad when his
letter was finished and mailed, and he could turn his
thoughts into other and gayer channels.
To this letter she replied, thanking him for what
he had written and for what he had done to make the
plot in the local cemetery "pretty."
She asked him to keep the keys to the house in Brook-
hollow. Then followed a simple report of her quiet
and studious daily life in the home of the Princess
Mistchenka; of her progress in her studies; of her hopes
that in due time she might become sufficiently educated
to take care of herself.
It was a slightly dull, laboured, almost emotionless
letter. Always willing to shirk correspondence, he per-
suaded himself that the letter called for no immediate
answer. After all, it was not to be expected that a very
young girl whom a man had met only twice in his life
could hold his interest very long, when absent. How-
ever, he meant to write her again; thought of doing so
several times during the next twelve months.
It was a year before another letter came from her.
And, reading it, he was a little surprised to discover
how rapidly immaturity can mature under the shock
of circumstances and exotic conditions which tend to-
ward forced growth.
Mon CHER ami:
I was silly enough to hope you might write to me. But I
suppose you have far more interesting and important mat-
ters to occupy you.
Still, don't you sometimes remember the girl you drove
home with in a sleigh one winter night, ages ago? Don't
you sometimes think of the girl who came creeping up-
stairs, half dead, to your studio door? And don't you
sometimes wonder what has become of her?
Why is it that a girl is always more loyal to past mem-
'"V
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LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GIRL
ories than a man ever is? Don't answer that it is because
she has less to occupy her than a man has. You have no
idea how busy I have been (luring this long year in which
you have forgotten me.
Among other things I have been busy growing. I am
taller by two inches than when last I saw you. Please be
impressed by my five feet eight inches.
Also, I am happy. The greatest happiness in the world
is to have the opportunity to learn about that same world.
I am happy because I now have that opportunity.
During these many months since I wrote to you I have
learned a little French; I read some, write some, under-
stand pretty well, and speak a little. What a pleasure,
mon ami!
Piano and vocal music, too, occupy me; I love both, and
I am told encouraging things. But best and most delight-
ful of all I am learning to draw and compose and paint
from life in the Academie Julian! Think of it! It is
difficult, it is absorbing, it requires energy, persistence, self-
denial; but it is fascinating, satisfying, glorious.
Also, it is very trying, mon ami; and I descend into
depths of despair and I presently soar up out of those
depressing depths into intoxicating altitudes of aspiration
and self-confidence.
You yourself know how it is, of course. At the criticism
today I was lifted to the seventh heaven. "Pas mal," he
said; "continuez, mademoiselle." Which is wonderful for
him. Also my weekly sketch was chosen from among all
the others, and I was given number one. That means my
choice of tabourets on Monday morning, voyez vous? So
do you wonder that I came home with Suzanne, walking
on air, and that as soon as dejeuner was finished I flew in
here to write to you about it?
Suzanne is our maid—the maid of Princess Nai'a, of
course—who walks to and from school with me. I didn't
wish her to follow me about at first, but the Princess in-
sisted, and I'm resigned to it now.
The Princess Mistchenka is such a darling! I owe her
more than I owe anybody except mother and father. She
simply took me as I was, a young, stupid, ignorant, awk-
ward country girl with no experience, no savoir-faire, no
143


THE DARK STAR
clothes, and even no knowledge of how to wear them;
and she is trying to make out of me a fairly intelligent
and presentable human being who will not offend her by
gaucheries when with her, and who will not disgrace her
when in the circle of her friends.
Oh, of course I still make a faux pas now and then,
mon ami; there are dreadful pitfalls in the French
language into which I have fallen more than once. And
at times- I have almost died of mortification. But every-
body is so amiable and patient, so polite, so gay about my
mistakes. I am beginning to love the French. And I am
learning so much! I had no idea what a capacity I had
for learning things. But then, with Princess Nai'a, and
with my kind and patient teachers and my golden op-
portunities, even a very stupid girl must learn something.
And I am not really very stupid; I've discovered that. On
the contrary, I really seem to learn quite rapidly; and
all that annoys me is that there is so much to learn and
the days are not long enough, so anxious am I, so am-
bitious, so determined to get out of this wonderful op-
portunity everything I possibly can extract.
I have lived in these few months more years than my
own age adds up! I am growing old and wise very fast.
Please hasten to write to me before I have grown so old
that yoa would not recognize me if you met me.
Your friend,
EUHANNAH.
The letter flattered him. He was rather glad he had
once kissed the girl who could write such a letter.
He happened to be engaged, at that time, in drawing
several illustrations for a paper called the Midweek
Magazine. There was a heroine, of course, in the story
he was illustrating. And, from memory, and in spite
of the model posing for him, he made the face like the
face of Ruhannah Carew.
But the days passed, and he did not reply to her
letter. Then there came still another letter from her:
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LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GIRL
Why don't you write me just one line? Have you
really forgotten me? You'd like me if you knew me
now, I think. I am really quite grown up. And I am so
happy!
The Princess is simply adorable. Always we are busy,
Princess Nai'a and I; and now, since I have laid aside
mourning, we go to concerts; we go to plays; we have
been six times to the opera, and as many more to the
Theatre Francais; we have been to the Louvre and the
Luxembourg many times; to St. Cloud, Versailles, Fon-
tainebleau.
Always, when my studies are over, we do something in-
teresting; and I am beginning to know Paris, aad to care
for it with real affection; to feel secure and happy and at
home in this dear, glittering, silvery-grey city—full of
naked trees and bridges and palaces. And, sometimes
when I feel homesick, and lonely, and when Brookhollow
seems very, very far away, it troubles me a little to find
that I am not nearly so homesick as I think I ought to be.
But I think it must be like seasickness; it is too frightful
to last.
The Princess Mistchenka has nursed me through the
worst. All I can say is that she is very wonderful.
On her day, which is Thursday, her pretty salon is
thronged. At first I was too shy and embarrassed to be
anything but frightened and self-conscious and very miser-
able when I sat beside her on her Thursdays. Besides,
I was in mourning and did not appear on formal occa-
sions.
Now it is different; I take my place beside her; I am
not self-conscious; I am interested; I find pleasure in
knowing people who are so courteous, so considerate, so
gay and entertaining.
Everybody is agreeable and gay, and I am sorry that
I miss so much that is witty in what is said; but I am
learning French very rapidly.
The men are polite to me! At first I was so gauche,
so stupid and provincial, that I could not bear to have any-
body kiss my hand and pay me compliments. I've made
a lot of other mistakes, too, but I never make the same
sntstake twice.
145


THE DARK STAR
So many interesting men come to our Thursdays; and
some women. I prefer the men, I think. There is one
old French General who is a dear; and there are young
officers, too; and yesterday two cabinet ministers and sev-
eral people from the British and Russian embassies. And
the Turkish Charge, whom I dislike.
The women seem to be agreeable, and they all are most
beautifully gowned. Some have titles. But all seem to be
a little too much made up. I don't know any of them ex-
cept formally. But I feel that I know some of the men
better—especially the old General and a young military
attache of the Russian Embassy, whom everybody likes
and pets, and whom everybody calls Prince Erlik—such
a handsome boy! And his real name is Alak, and I think
he is very much in love with Princess Nai'a.
Now, something very odd has happened which I wish
to tell you about. My father, as you know, was mis-
sionary in the Vilayet of Trebizond many years ago.
While there he came into possession of a curious sea chest
belonging to a German named Conrad Wilner, who was
killed in a riot near Gallipoli.
In this chest were, and still are, two very interesting
things—an old bronze Chinese figure which I used to play
with when I was a child. It was called the Yellow Devil;
and a native Chinese missionary once read for us the
inscription on the figure which identified it as a Mongol
demon called Erlik, the Prince of Darkness.
The other object of interest in the box was the manu-
script diary kept by this Herr Wilner to within a few
moments of his death. This I have often heard read
aloud by my father, but I forget much of it now, and I
never understood it all, because I was too young. Now,
here is the curious thing about it all. The first time you
spoke to me of the Princess Nai'a Mistchenka, I had a
hazy idea that her name seemed familiar to me. And ever
since I have known her, now and then I found myself try-
ing to recollect where I had heard that name, even before
I heard it from you.
Suddenly, one evening about a week ago, it came to me
that I had heard both the names, Naia and Mistchenka,
when I was a child. Also the name Erlik. The two
146


LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GIRL
former names occur in Herr Wilner's diary; the latter
I heard from the Chinese missionary years ago; and that
is why they seemed so familiar to me.
It is so long since I have read the diary that I can't
remember the story in which the names Nai'a and Mist-
chenka are concerned. As I recollect, it was a tragic story
that used to thrill me.
At any rate, I didn't speak of this to Princess Nai'a; but
about a week ago there were a few people dining here
with us—among others an old Turkish Admiral, Murad
Pasha, who took me out. And as soon as I heard his name
I thought of that diary; and I am sure it was mentioned
in it.
Anyway, he happened to speak of Trebizond; and,
naturally, I said that my father had been a missionary
there many years ago.
As this seemed to interest him, and because he ques-
tioned me, I told him my father's name and all that I
knew in regard to his career as a missionary in the Treb-
izond district. And, somehow—I don't exactly recollect
how it came about—I spoke of Herr Wilner, and his death
at Gallipoli, and how his effects came into my father's
possession.
And because the old, sleepy-eyed Admiral seemed so
interested and amused, I told him about Herr Wilner's
box and his diary and the plans and maps and photographs
with which I used to play as a little child.
After dinner, Princess Nai'a asked me what it was I
had been telling Murad Pasha to wake him up so com-
pletely and to keep him so amused. So I merely said that
I had been telling the Admiral about my childhood in
Brookhollow.
Naturally neither she nor I thought about the incident
any further. Murad did not come again; but a few days
later the Turkish Charge d'Affaires was present at a very
large dinner given by Princess Nai'a.
And two curious conversations occurred at that dinner:
The Turkish Charge suddenly turned to me and asked
me in English whether I were not the daughter of the
Reverend Wilbour Carew who once was in charge of the
America* Mission near Trebizond. I was so surprised
147


THE DARK STAR
at the question; but I answered yes, remembering that
Murad must have mentioned me to him.
He continued to ask me about my father, and spoke of
his efforts to establish a girls' school, first at Brusa, then
at Tchardak, and finally near Gallipoli. I told him I had
often heard my father speak of these matters with my
mother, but that I was too young to remember anything
about my own life in Turkey.
All the while we were conversing, I noticed that the
Princess kept looking across the table at us as though
some chance word had attracted her attention.
After dinner, when the gentlemen had retired to the
smoking room, the Princess took me aside and made me
repeat everything that Ahmed Mirka had asked me.
I told her. She said that the Turkish Charge was an
old busybody, always sniffing about for all sorts of infor-
mation; that it was safer to be reticent and let him do the
talking; and that almost every scrap of conversation with
him was mentally noted and later transcribed for the
edification of the Turkish Secret Service.
I thought this very humorous; but going into the little
salon where the piano was and where the music was kept,
while I was looking for an old song by Messager, from
"La Basoche," called "Je suis aime de la plus belle—"
Ahmed Mirka's handsome attache, Colonel Izzet Bey, came
up to where I was rummaging in the music cabinet.
He talked nonsense in French and in English for a
while, but somehow the conversation led again toward my
father and the girls' school, at Gallipoli which had been
attacked and burned by a mob during the first month after
it had been opened, and where the German, Herr Wilner,
had been killed.
"Monsieur, your reverend father, must surely have told
you stories about the destruction of the Gallipoli school,
mademoiselle," he insisted.
"Yes. It happened a year before the mission at
Trebizond was destroyed by the Turks," I said maliciously.
"So I have heard. What a pity! Our Osmanli—our
peasantry are so stupid! And it was such a fine school. A
German engineer was killed there, I believe."
"Yes, my father said so."
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LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GIRL
"A certain Herr Conrad Wilner, was it not?"
"Yes. How did you hear of him, Colonel Izzet?"
"It was known in Stamboul. He perished by mistake,
1 believe—at Gallipoli."
"Yes; my father said that Herr Wilner was the only
man hurt. He went out all alone into the mob amd began
to cut them with his riding whip. My father tried to
save him, but they killed Herr Wilner with stones."
"Exactly." He spread his beautifully jewelled hands
deprecatingly and seemed greatly grieved.
"And Herr Wilner's—property?" he inquired. "Did
you ever hear what became of it?"
"Oh, yes," I said. "My father took charge of it"
"Oh! It was supposed at the time that all of Herr
Wilner's personal property was destroyed when the school
and compound burned. Do you happen to know just what
was saved, mademoiselle?"
Of course I immediately thought of the bronze demon,
the box of instruments, and the photographs and papers
at home with which I used to play as a child. I remem-
bered my father had said that these things were taken on
board the Oneida when he, my mother, and I were rescued
by marines and sailors from our guard vessel which came
through the Bosporus to the Black Sea, and which es-
corted us to the Oneida. And I was just going to tell this
to Izzet Bey when I also remembered what the Princess
had just told me about giving any information to Ahmed
Pasha. So I merely opened my eyes very innocently and
gazed at Colonel Izzet and shook my head as though I
did not understand his question.
The next instant the Princess came in to see what I was
about so long, and she looked at Izzet Bey with a funny
sort of smile, as though she had surprised him in mis-
chief and was not angry, only amused. And'when Colonel
Izzet bowed, I saw how red his face had grown—as red
as his fez.
The Princess laughed and said in French: "That is the
difference between professional and amateur—between
Nizam and Redif—between Ahmed Pasha and our esteemed
but very youthful attache—who has much yet to learn
about that endless war called Peace!"
149 -


THE DARK STAR
I didn't know what she meant, but Izzet Bey turned a
bright scarlet, bowed again, and returned to the smok-
ing room.
And that night, while Suzanne was unhooking me,
Princess Na'ia came into my bedroom and asked me some
questions, and I told her about the box of instruments and
the diary, and the slippery linen papers covered with draw-
ings and German writing, with which I used to play.
She said never to mention them to anybody, and that I
should never permit anybody to examine those military
papers, because it might be harmful to America.
How odd and how thrilling! I am most curious to know
what all this means. It seems like an exciting story just
beginning, and I wonder what such a girl as I has to do
with secrets which concern the Turkish ChargS in Paris.
Don't you think it promises to be romantic? Do you
suppose it has anything to do with spies and diplomacy
and kings and thrones, and terrible military secrets? One
hears a great deal about the embassies here being hotbeds
of political intrigue. And of course France is always
thinking of Alsace and Lorraine, and there is an ever-
present danger of war in Europe.
Mr. Neeland, it thrills me to pretend to myself that
I am actually living in the plot of a romance full of mys-
tery and diplomacy and dangerous possibilities. I hope
something will develop, as something always does in
novels.
And alas, my imagination, which always has been vivid,
needed almost nothing to blaze into flame. It is on fire
now; I dream of courts and armies, and ambassadors,
and spies; I construct stories in which I am the heroine
always—sometimes the interesting and temporary victim
of wicked plots; sometimes the all-powerful, dauntless,
and adroit champion of honour and righteousness against
treachery and evil!
Did you ever suppose that I still could remain such a
very little girl? But I fear that I shall never outgrow
my imagination. And it needs almost nothing to set me
dreaming out stories or drawing pictures of castles and
princes and swans and fairies. And even this letter seems
a part of some breathlessly interesting plot which I am
150


LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GIRL
not only creating but actually a living part of and destined
to act in.
Do you want a part in it? Shall I include you? Rather
late to ask your permission, for I have already included
you. And, somehow, I think the Yellow Devil ought to
be included, too.
Please write to me, just once. But don't speak of the
papers which father had, and don't mention Herr Conrad
Wilner's box if you write. The Princess says your letter
might be stolen.
I am very happy. It is rather cold tonight, and pres-
ently Suzanne will unhook me and I shall put on such
a pretty negligee, and then curl up in bed, turn on my
reading light with the pink shade, and continue to read the
new novel recommended to me by Princess Naia, called
"Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard." It is a perfectly
darling story, and Anatole France, who wrote it, must be a
darling, too. The Princess knows him and promises that
he shall dine with us some day. I expect to fall in love
with him immediately.
Good night, dear Mr. Neeland. I hope you will write
to me.
Your little Gayfield friend grown up,
RUHANNAH CaREW.
This letter he finally did answer, not voluminously,
but with all cordiality. And, in a few days, forgot
about it and about the girl to whom it was written.
And there was nothing more from her until early
summer.
Then came the last of her letters—an entirely ma-
ture missive, firm in writing, decisive, concise, self-
possessed, eloquent with an indefinite something which
betrayed a calmly ordered mind already being moulded
by discipline mondame:
Mr dear Mr. Neeland:
I had your very kind and charming letter in reply to
mine written last January. My neglect to answer it, dur-
151


THE DARK STAR
ing all these months, involves me in explanations which, if
you like, are perhaps due you. But if you require them
at all, I had rather surrender them to you personally when
we meet.
Possibly that encounter, so happily anticipated on my
part, may occur sooner than you believe likely. I permit
myself to hope so. The note which I enclose to you from
the lady whom I love very dearly should explain why I
venture to entertain a hope that you and I are to see
each other again in the near future.
As you were kind enough to inquire about myself and
what you describe so flatteringly as my "amazing progress
in artistic and worldly wisdom," I venture to reply to you*
questions in order:
They seem to be pleased with me at the school. I have
a life-drawing "on the wall," a composition sketch, and a
"concourt" study in oil. That I have not burst to atoms
with pride is a miracle inexplicable.
I have been told that my progress at the piano is fair.
But I am very certain I shall do no more with vocal and
instrumental music than to play and sing acceptably for
such kind and uncritical friends as do not demand much
of an amateur. Without any unusual gifts, with a rather
sensitive ear, and with a very slightly cultivated and
perfectly childish voice—please do not expect anything
from me to please you.
In French I am already becoming fluent. You see, ex-
cept for certain lessons in it, I have scarcely heard a word
of English since I came here; the Princess will not use it
to me nor permit its use by me. And therefore, my ear
being a musical one and rather accurate, I find—now that
I look back upon my abysmal ignorance—a very decided
progress.
Also let me admit to you—and I have already done so,
I see—that, since I have been here, I have had daily les-
sons in English with a cultivated English woman; and in
consequence I have been learning to enlarge a very meagre
vocabulary, and have begun to appreciate possibilities in
my own language of which I never dreamed.
About my personal appearance—as long as you ask me
—I think perhaps that, were I less thin, I might be rather
152


LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GIRL
pretty. Dress makes such a vast difference in a plain
girl. Also, intelligent care of one's person improves
mediocrity. Of course everybody says such gracious
things to a girl over here that it would not do to accept
any pretty compliment very literally. But I really believe
that you might think me rather nice to look at.
As for the future, the truth is that I feel much en-
couraged. I made some drawings in wash and in pen and
ink—just ideas of mine. And Monsieur Bonvard, who is
editor of The Grey Cat—a very clever weekly—has ac-
cepted them and has paid me twenty-five francs each for
them! I was so astonished that I could not believe it.
One has been reproduced in last week's paper. I have
cut it out and pasted it in my scrapbook.
I think, take it all in all, that seeing my first illustra-
tions printed has given me greater joy than I shall ever
again experience on earth.
My daily intercourse with the Princess Mistchenka con-
tinues to comfort me, inspire me, and fill me with de-
termination so to educate myself that when the time comes
I shall be ready and able to support myself with pen and
pencil.
And now I must bring my letter to its end. The pros-
pect of seeing you very soon is agreeable beyond words.
You have been very kind to me. I do not forgot it.
Yours very sincerely,
RuHANNAH CAREW.
The enclosure was a note from the Princess Mist-
chenka:
Dear Jim.:
If in the past it has been my good fortune to add any-
thing to yours, may I now invoke in you the memory of
our very frank and delightful friendship?
When you first returned to America from Paris I found
it possible to do for you a few favours in the way of mak-
ing you known to certain editors. It was, I assure you,
merely because I liked you and believed in your work,
not because I ever expected to ask from you any favour in
return.
153


THE DARK STAR
Now, Fate has thrown an odd combination from he»
dice-box; and Destiny has veiled herself so impenetrably
that nobody can read that awful visage to guess what
thoughts possess her.
You, in America, have heard of the murder of the
Austrian Archduke, of course. But—have you, in America,
any idea what the consequences of that murder may lead
to?
Enough of that. Now for the favour I ask.
Will you go at once to Brookhollow, go to RuhannahV
house, open it, take from it a chest made of olive wood
and bound with some metal which looks like silver, lock
the box, take it to New York, place it in a safe deposit
vault until you can sail for Paris on the first steamer that
leaves New York?
Will you do this—get the box I have described and
bring it to me yourself on the first steamer that sails?
And, Jim, keep your eye on the box. Don't trust any-
body near it. Rue says that, as she recollects, the box is
about the size and shape of a suitcase and that it has a
canvas and leather cover with a handle which buttons
over it
Therefore, you can carry it yourself exactly as though
it were your suitcase, keep it with you in the train and
on shipboard.
Will you do this, Jim? It is much to ask of you. I
break in upon your work and cause you great inconveni-
ence and trouble and expense. But—will you do it for
me?
Much depends npon your doing this. I think that pos-
sibly the welfare of your own country might depend on
your doing this for me.
If you find yourself embarrassed financially, cable me
just one word, "Black," and I shall arrange matters
through a New York bank.
If you feel that you do not care to do me this favour,
cable the single word, "White."
If you have sufficient funds, and are willing to bring the
box to me yourself, cable the word, "Blue."
In case that you undertake this business for me, be
careful of the contents of the box. Let nobody see it
154


LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GIRL
open. Be certain that the contents are absolutely secure.
I dare not tell you how vitally important to civilisation
these papers already are—how much they may mean to
the world; what powers of evil they might encourage if
in any way they fall into other hands than the right ones.
Jim, I have seldom taken a very serious tone with you
since we have known each other. I am very serious now.
And if our friendship means anything to you, prove it!
Yours,
Naia.
As he sat there in his studio, perplexed, amazed, an-
noyed, yet curious, trying to think out what he ought
to do—what, in fact, must be done somehow or other—
there came a ring at his door bell. A messenger with
a cable despatch stood there; Neeland signed, tore open
the envelope, and read:
Please go at once to Brookhollow and secure an olive-
wood box bound with silver, containing military maps,
plans, photographs, and papers written in German, prop-
erty of Ruhannah Carew. Lose no time, I implore you, as
an attempt to rob the house and steal the papers is likely.
Beware of anybody resembling a German. Have written,
but beg you not to wait for letter.
Naia.
Twice he reread the cablegram. Then, with a half-
bewildered, half-disgusted glance around at his studio,
his belongings, the unfinished work on his easel, he
went to the telephone.
It being July he had little difficulty in reserving a
good stateroom on the Cunarder Volhynia, sailing the
following day. Then, summoning the janitor, he
packed a steamer trunk and gave order to have it taken
aboard that evening.
On his way downtown to his bank he stopped at a
155 _


THE DARK STAR
telegraph and cable office and sent a cable message to
the Princess Mistchenka. The text consisted of only
one word: "Blue."
He departed for Gayfield on the five o'clock after-
noon train, carrying with him a suitcase amd an auto-
matic pistol in his breast pocket.


CHAPTER XIV
A JOURNEY BEGINS
It was a five-hour trip. He dined aboard the train
with little deeire for food, the July evening being op-
pressive, and a thunder storm brewing over the Hudson.
It burst in the vicinity of Fishkill with a lively display
of lightning, deluging the Catskills with rain. And
when he changed to a train on the Mohawk division the
cooler air was agreeably noticeable.
He changed trains again at Orangeville, and here
the night breeze was delightful and the scent of rain-
soaked meadows came through the open car window.
It was nearly ten o'clock and already, ahead, he
caught sight of the lights of Neeland's Mills. Always
the homecoming was a keen delight to him; and now, as
he stepped off the train, the old familiar odours were
in his nostrils—the unique composite perfume of the
native place which never can be duplicated elsewhere.
All the sweet and aromatic and homely smells of
earth and land and water came to him with his first
deep-drawn breath. The rank growth of wild flowers
and weeds were part of it—the flat atmosphere of the
mill pond, always redolent of water weed and lily pads,
tinctured it; distant fields of buckwheat added heavier
perfume.
Neither in the quaint brick feed mill nor in the lum-
ber mill were there any lights, but in his own home,
almost buried among tall trees and vines, the light
streamed from the sitting-room windows.
157


THE DARK STAR
From the dark yard two or three dogs barked at
him, then barked again in a different key, voicing an
excited welcome; and he opened the picket gate and
went up the path surrounded by demonstrative setters
and pointers, leaping and wagging about him and mak-
ing a vast amount of noise on the vine-covered veran-
dah as he opened the door, let himself into the house,
and shut them out.
"Hello, dad!" he said, crossing swiftly to where his
father sat by the reading lamp.
Their powerful grip lingered. Old Dick Neeland,
ruddy, white-haired, straight as a pine, stood up in his
old slippers and quilted smoking coat, his brier pipe
poised in his left hand.
"Splendid, Jim. I've been thinking about you this
evening." He might have added that there were few
moments when his son was not in his thoughts.
"Are you all right, dad?"
"Absolutely. You are, too, I see."
They seated themselves.
"Hungry, Jim?"
"No; I dined aboard."
"You didn't telegraph me."
"No; I came at short notice."
"Can't you stay?''
*Dad, I have a drawing-room reserved for the mid-
It tonight, and I am sailing on the Volhynia tomor-
! nine in the morning!"
Jd bless me! Why, Jim?"
, I'll tell you all I know about it."
is father sat with brier pipe suspended and keen
eyes fixed on his son, while the son told everything
Sew about the reason for his flying trip to Paris.
ou see how it is, don't you, dad?" he ended. "The

158


4 JOURNEY BEGINS
Princess has been a good and loyal friend to me. She
has used her influence; I have met', through her, the
people I ought to know, and they have given me work
to do. I'm in her debt; I'm under real obligation to
her. And I've got to go, that's all."
Old Dick Neeland's clear eyes of a sportsman con-
tinued to study his son's face.
"Yes, you've got to go," he said. He smoked for a
few moments, then: "What the devil does it mean, any-
way? Have you any notion, Jim?"
"No, I haven't. There seems to be some military
papers in this box that is mentioned. Evidently they
are of value to somebody. Evidently other people have
got wind of that fact and desire to obtain them for
themselves. It almost seems as though something is
brewing over there—trouble of some sort between Ger-
many and some other nation. But I haven't heard of
anything."
His father continued to smoke for a while, then:
"There is something brewing over there, Jim."
"I hadn't heard," repeated the young man.
"I haven't either, directly. But in my business
some unusual orders have come through—from abroad.
Both France and Germany have been making inquiries
through agents in regard to shipments of grain and
feed and lumber. I've heard of several very heavy rush
orders."
"What on earth could cause war?"
"I can't see, Jim. Of course Austria's attitude
toward Servia is very sullen. But outside of that I
can see no trouble threatening.
"And yet, the Gayfield woollen mill has just received
an enormous order for socks and underwear from the
French Government. They're running all night now.
159


THE DARK STAR
And another thing struck me: there has been a man
in this section buying horses for the British Govern-
ment. Of course it's done now and then, but, taking
this incident with the others which have come to my
personal knowledge, it would seem as though something
were brewing over in Europe."
Jim's perplexed eyes rested on his father; he shook
his youthful head slightly:
"I can't see why," he said. "But if it's to be France
and Germany again, why my sympathy is entirely for
France."
"Naturally," nodded his father.
Their Irish ancestors had fought for Bonaparte, and
for the Bourbons before him. And, cursed with cou-
sins, like all Irish, they were aware of plenty of Nee-
lands in France who spoke no English.
Jim rose, glanced at his watch:
"Dad, I'll just be running over to Brookhollow to
get that box. I haven't such a lot of time, if I'm to
catch the midnight train at Orangeville."
"I should say you hadn't," said his father.
He was disappointed, but he smiled as he exchanged
a handclasp with his only son.
"You're coming right back from Paris?"
"Next steamer. I've a lot of work on hand, thank
goodness! But that only puts me under heavier obli-
gations to the Princess Mistchenka."
"Yes, I suppose so. Anything but ingratitude, Jim.
It's the vilest vice of 'em all. They say it's in the Irish
blood—ingratitude. They must never prove it by a
Neeland. Well, my boy—I'm not lonesome, you un-
derstand; busy men have no time to be lonesome—but
run up, will you, when you get back?"
"You bet I will."
160


A JOURNEY BEGINS
"I'll show you a brace of promising pups. They
stand rabbits, still, but they won't when the season is
"Blue Bird's pups?"
"Yea. They take after her."
"Fine! I'll be back for the shooting, anyway. Many
broods this season?"
"A fair number. It was not too wet."
For a moment they lingered, smiling at each other,
then Jim gave his father's hand a quick shake, picked
up his suitcase, turned.
"I'll take the runabout, dad. Someone from the
Orangeville garage will bring it over in the morning."
He went out, pushed his way among the leaping dogs
to the garage, threw open the doors, and turned on
the electric light.
A slim and trim Snapper runabout stood glistening
beside a larger car and two automobile trucks. He ex-
changed his straw hat for a cap; placed hat and suit-
case in the boot; picked up a flash light from the work-
table, and put it into his pocket, cranked the Snapper,
jumped in, ran it to the service entrance, where his
father stood ready to check the dogs and close the
gates after him.
"Good-bye, dad!" he called out gaily.
"Good-bye, my son."
The next instant he was speeding through the starry
darkness, following the dazzling path blazed out for
him by hie headlights.


CHAPTER XV
THE LOCKED HOUSE
From the road, just before he descended to cross the
bridge into Brookhollow, he caught a gleam of light
straight ahead. For a moment it did not occur to him
that there was anything strange in his seeing a light
in the old Carew house. Then, suddenly, he realised
that a light ought not to be burning behind the lowered
shades of a house which was supposed to be empty and
locked.
His instant impulse was to put on his brakes then
and there, but the next moment he realised that his car
must already have been heard and seen by whoever had
lighted that shaded lamp. The car was already on
the old stone bridge; the Carew house stood directly
behind the crossroads ahead; and he swung to the right
into the creek road and sped along it until he judged
that neither his lights nor the sound of his motor could
be distinguished by the unknown occupant of the Carew
house.
Then he ran his car out among the tall weeds close
to the line of scrub willows edging the creek; extin-
guished his lights, including the tail-lamp; left his en-
gine running; stood listening a moment to the whisper-
ing whirr of his motor; then, taking the flash light from
his pocket, he climbed over the roadside wall and ran
back across the pasture toward the house.
As he approached the old house from the rear, no
crack of light was visible, and he began to think he
162


THE LOCKED HOUSE
might have been mistaken—that perhaps the dancing
glare of his own acetylenes on the windows had made
it seem as though they were illuminated from within.
Cautiously he prowled along the rear under the
kitchen windows, turned the corner, and went to the
front porch.
He had made no mistake; a glimmer was visible be-
tween the edge of the lowered shade and the window
casing.
Was it some impudent tramp who had preempted this
lonely house for a night's lodging? Was it, possibly,
a neighbour who had taken charge in return for a gar-
den to cultivate and a place to sleep in? Yet, how could
it be the latter when he himself had the keys to the
house? Moreover, such an arrangement could scarcely
have been made by Rue Carew without his being told
of it.
Then he remembered what the Princess Mistchenka
had said in her cable message, that somebody might
break into the house and steal the olive-wood box unless
he hastened to Brookhollow and secured it immediately.
Was this what was being done now? Had somebody
broken in for that purpose? And who might it be?
A slight chill, not entirely agreeable, passed over
Neeland. A rather warm sensation of irritation suc-
ceeded it; he mounted the steps, crossed the verandah,
went to the door and tried the knob very cautiously.
The door was locked; whoever might be inside either
possessed a key that fitted or else must have entered by
forcing a window.
But Neeland had neither time nor inclination to prowl
around and investigate; he had a duty to fulfil, a train
to catch, and a steamer to connect with the next morn-
ing. Besides, he was getting madder every second.
163


THE DARK STAR
So he fitted his key to the door, careless of what
noise he made, unlocked and pushed it open, and started
to cross the threshold.
Instantly the light in the adjoining room grew dim.
At the same moment his quick ear caught a sound as
though somebody had blown out the turned-down flame:
and he found himself facing total darkness.
"Who the devil's in there!" he called, flashing his
electric pocket lamp. "Come out, whoever you are.
You've no business in this house, and you know it!"
And he entered the silent room.
His flash light revealed nothing except dining-room
furniture in disorder, the doors of a cupboard standing
open—one door still gently swinging on its hinges.
The invisible hand that had moved it could not be
far away. Neeland, throwing his light right and left,
caught a glimpse of another door closing stealthily,
ran forward and jerked it open. His lamp illuminated
an empty passageway; he hurried through it to the
door that closed the farther end, tore it open, and
deluged the sitting-room with his blinding light.
Full in the glare, her face as white as the light itself,
stood a woman. And just in time his eyes caught the
glitter of a weapon in her stiffly extended hand; and he
snapped off his light and ducked as the level pistol-
flame darted through the darkness.
The next second he had her in his grasp; held her
writhing and twisting; and, through the confused tram-
ple and heavy breathing, he noticed a curious crackling
noise as though the clothing she wore were made of
paper.
The struggle in pitch darkness was violent but brief:
she managed to fire again as he caught her right arm
and felt along it until he touched the desperatelv
164


THE LOCKED HOUSE
clenched pistol. Then, still clutching her closed fingers,
he pulled the flash light from his side pocket and threw
its full radiance straight into her face.
"Let go your pistol," he breathed.
She strove doggedly to retain it, but her slender fin-
gers slowly relaxed under his merciless grip; the pistol
fell; and he kicked the pearl-handled, nickel-plated
weapon across the dusty board floor.
They both were panting; her right arm, rigid, still
remained in his powerful clutch. He released it pres-
ently, stepped back, and played the light over her from
head to foot.
She was deathly white. Under her smart straw hat,
which had been pushed awry, the contrast between her
black hair and eyes and her chalky skin was startling.
"What are you doing in this house?" he demanded,
still breathing heavily from exertion and excitement.
She made an effort:
"Is it your house?" she gasped.
"It isn't yours, is it?" he retorted.
She made no answer.
"Why did you shoot at me?"
She lifted her black eyes and stared at him. Her
breast rose and fell with her rapid breathing, and she
placed both hands over it as though to quiet it.
"Come," he said, "I'm in a hurry. I want an explana-
tion from you"
The words died on his lips as she whipped a knife
out of her bosom and flew at him. Through the confu-
sion of flash light and darkness they reeled, locked to-
gether, but he caught her arm again, jerking it so vio-
lently into the air that he lifted her off her feet.
"That's about all for tonight," he panted, twisting
the knife out of her helpless hand and flinging it be-
165


THE DARK STAR
hind him. Without further ceremony, he pulled out hi»
handkerchief, caught her firmly, reached for her other
arm, jerked it behind her back, and tied both wrists.
Then he dragged a chair up and pushed her on it.
Her hat had fallen off, and her hair sagged to her
neck. The frail stuff of which her waist was made had
been badly torn, too, and hung in rags from her right
shoulder.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
As she made no reply, he went over and picked up the
knife and the pistol. The knife was a silver-mounted
Kurdish dagger; the engraved and inlaid blade appeared
to be dull and rusty. He examined it for a few mo-
ments, glanced inquiringly at her where she sat, pale
and mute on the chair, with both wrists tied behind
her.
"You seem to be a connoisseur of antiques," he said.
"Your dagger is certainly a collector's gem, and your
revolver is equally out of date. I recommend an auto-
matic the next time you contemplate doing murder."
Walking up to her he looked curiously into her dark
eyes, but he could detect no expression in them.
"Why did you come here?" he demanded.
No answer.
"Did you come to get an olive-wood box bound with
silver?"
A slight colour tinted the ashy pallor under ber
eyes.
He turned abruptly and swept the furniture with his
searchlight, and saw on a table her coat, gloves, wrist
bag, and furled umbrella; and beside them what ap-
peared to be her suitcase, open. It had a canvas and
leather cover: he walked over to the table, turned back
the cover of the suitcase and revealed a polished box
166


THE LOCKED HOUSE
of olive wood, heavily banded by some metal resembling
silver.
Inside the box were books, photographs, a bronze
Chinese figure, which he recognised as the Yellow Devil,
a pair of revolvers, a dagger very much like the one
he had wrested from her. But there were no military
plans there.
He turned to his prisoner:
"Is everything here?" he asked sharply.
"Yes."
He picked up her wrist bag and opened it, but dis-
covered only some money, a handkerchief, a spool of
thread and packet of needles.
There was a glass lamp on the table. He managed
to light it finally; turned off his flash light, and ex-
amined the contents of the box again thoroughly. Then
he came back to where she was seated.
"Get up," he said.
She looked at him sullenly without moving.
"I'm in a hurry," he repeated; "get up. I'm going
to search you."
At that she bounded to her feet.
"What!" she exclaimed furiously.
But he caught hold of her, held her, untied the hand-
kerchief, freeing her wrists.
"Now, pull out those papers you have concealed
under your clothing," he said impatiently. And, as
she made no motion to comply: "If you don't, I'll do
it for you!"
"You dare lay your hand on me!" she flamed.
"You treacherous little cat, do you think I'll hesi-
tate?" he retorted. "Do you imagine I retain any re-
spect for you or your person? Give me those papers!"
"I have no papers!"
167


THE DARK STAR
"You are lying. Listen to me once for all; I've a
train to catch and a steamer to catch, and I'm going
to do both. And if you don't instantly hand out those
papers you've concealed I'll have no more compunction
in taking them by force than I'd have in stripping an
ear of corn! Make up your mind and make it up
quick!"
"You mean you'd strip—me!" she stammered, scar-
let to her hair.
"That's what I mean, you lying little thief. That's
just what I mean. Kick and squall as you like, I'll take
those papers with me if I have to take your clothing
too!"
Breathless, infuriated, she looked desperately around
her, caught sight of the Kurdish dagger, leaped at it;
and for the third time found herself struggling in his
arms.
"Don't!" she gasped. "Let me go! I—I'll give you
what you want"
"Do you mean it?"
"Yes."
He released the dishevelled girl, who shrank away
from him. But the devil himself glowed in her black
eyes.
"Go out of the room," she said, "if I'm to get the
papers for you!"
"I can't trust you," he answered. "I'll turn my
back." And he walked over to the olive-wood box,
where the weapons lay.
Standing there he heard, presently, the rustle of
crumpling papers, heard a half-smothered sob,
waited, listening, alert for further treachery on her
part.
"Hurry!" he said.
168


THE LOCKED HOUSE
A board creaked.
"Don't move again!" he cried. The floor boards
creaked once more; and he turned like a flash to find
her in her stocking feet, already halfway to where he
stood. In either hand she held out a bundle of papers;
and, as they faced each other, she took another step
toward him.
"Stand where you are," he warned her. "Throw
those papers on the floor!"
"Do you hear!"
Looking him straight in the eyes she opened both
hands; the papers fell at her feet, and with them
dropped the two dagger-like steel pins which had held
her hat.
"Now, go and put on your shoes," he said contemp-
tuously, picking up the papers and running over them.
When he had counted them, he came back to where
she was standing.
"Where are the others?"
"What others?"
"The remainder of the papers! You little devil,
they're wrapped around your body! Go into that pan-
try! Go quick! Undress and throw out every rag
you wear!"
She drew a deep, quivering breath, turned, entered
the pantry and closed the door. Presently the door
opened a little and her clothing dropped outside in a
heap.
There were papers in her stockings, papers stitched
to her stays, basted inside her skirts. A roll of draw-
ings traced on linen lay on the floor, still retaining
the warmth of her body around which they had been
wrapped.
169


THE DARK STAR
He pulled the faded embroidered cover from the old
piano and knocked at the pantry door.
"Put that on," he said, "and come out."
She emerged, swathed from ankle to chin, her flushed
face shadowed by her fallen mass of dark hair. He
turned his flash light on the cupboard, but discovered
nothing more. Then he picked up her hat, clothes, and
shoes, laid them on the pantry shelf, and curtly bade
her go back and dress.
"May I have the lamp and that looking glass?"
"If you like," he said, preoccupied with the papers.
While she was dressing, he repacked the olive-wood
box. She emerged presently, carrying the lamp, and
he took it from her hurriedly, not knowing whether she
might elect to throw it at his head.
While she was putting on her jacket he stood watch-
ing her with perplexed and sombre gaze.
"I think," he remarked, "that I'll take you with me
and drop you at the Orangeville jail on my way to
town. Be kind enough to start toward the door."
As she evinced no inclination to stir he passed one
arm around her and lifted her along a few feet; and she
turned on him, struggling, her face convulsed with
fury.
"Keep your insolent hands off me," she said. "Do
you hearP*
"Oh, yes, I hear." He nodded again toward the door.
"Come," he repeated impatiently; "move on!"
She hesitated; he picked up the olive-wood box, ex-
tinguished the lamp, opened his flash, and motioned
with his head, significantly. She walked ahead of him,
face lowered.
Outside he closed and locked the door of the house.
"This way," he said coldlv- "If you refuse, I'll pick
170


THE LOCKED HOUSE
you up and carry you under my arm. I think by this
time you realise I can do it, too."
Halfway across the dark pasture she stopped short
in her tracks.
"Have I got to carry you?" he demanded sharply.
"Don't have me locked up."
"Why not?"
"I'm not a—a thief."
"Oh! Excuse me. What are you?"
"You know. Don't humiliate me."
"Answer my question! What are you if you're n6t a
lady crook?"
"I'm employed—as you are! Play the game fairly."
She halted in the dark pasture, but he motioned her to
go forward.
"If you don't keep on walking," he said, "I'll pick
you up as I would a pet cat and carry you. Now, then,
once more, who are you working for? By whom are
you employed, if you're not a plain thief?"
"The—Turkish Embassy."
"What!"
"You knew it," she said in a low voice, walking
through the darkness beside him.
"What is your name?" he insisted.
"Dumont."
"What else?"
"Use Dumont."
"That's French."
"It's Alsatian German."
"All right. Now, why did you break into that
house?"
"To take what you took."
"To steal these papers for the Turkish Embassy?"
"To take them."
171


THE BARK STAR
"For the Turkish Ambassador!" he repeated incredu-
lously.
"No; for his military attache."
"What are you, a spy?"
"You knew it well enough. You are one, also. But
you have treated me as though I were a thief. You'll
be killed for it, I hope."
"You think I'm a spy?" he asked, astonished.
"What else are you?"
"A spy?" he repeated. "Is that what you are? And
you suppose me to be one, too? That's funny. That's
extremely "He checked himself, looked around at
her. "What are you about?" he demanded. "What's
that in your hand?"
"A cigarette."
They had arrived at the road. He got over the wall
with the box; she vaulted it lightly.
In the darkness he caught the low, steady throbbing
of his engine, and presently distinguished the car stand-
ing where he had left it.
"Get in," he said briefly.
"I am not a thief! Are you going to lay that charge
against me?"
"I don't know. Is it worse than charging you with
three separate attempts to murder me?"
"Are you going to take me to jail?"
"I'll see. You'll go as far as Orangeville with me,
anyhow."
"I don't care to go."
"I don't care whether you want to go or not. Get
into the car!"
She climbed to the seat beside the wheel; he tossed
in the olive-wood box, turned on his lamps, and took
the wheel.
172


THE LOCKED HOUSE
"May I have a match for my cigarette?" she asked
meekly.
He found one, scratched it; she placed a very thick
and long cigarette between her lips and he lighted it
for her.
Just as he threw in the clutch and the car started,
the girl blew a shower of sparks from the end of her
cigarette, rose in her seat, and flung the lighted ciga-
rette high into the air. Instantly it burst into a flare
of crimson fire, hanging aloft as though it were a fire
balloon, and lighting up road and creek and bushes and
fields with a brilliant strontium glare.
Then, far in the night, he heard a motor horn screech
three times.
"You young devil!" he said, increasing the speed.
"I ought to have remembered that every snake has its
mate. ... If you oifer to touch me—if you move—if
you as much as lift a finger, I'll throw you into the
creek!"
The car was flying now, reeling over the dirt road
like a drunken thing. He hung grimly to the wheel, his
strained gaze fixed on the shaft of light ahead, through
which the road streamed like a torrent.
A great wind roared in his ears; his cap was gone.
The car hurled itself forward through an endless tunnel
of darkness lined with silver. Presently he began to
slow down; the furious wind died away; the streaking
darkness sped by less swiftly.
"Have you gone mad?" she cried in his ear. "You'll
kill us both!"
"Wait," he shouted back; "I'll show you and your
friends behind us what speed really is."
The car was still slowing down as they passed over a
wooden bridge where a narrow road, partly washed out,
173


THE DARK STAR
turned to the left and ran along a hillside. Into this
he steered.
"Who is it chasing us?" he asked curiously, still in-
credulous that any embassy whatever was involved in
this amazing affair.
"Friends."
"More Turks?"
She did not reply.
He sat still, listening for a few moments, then hastily
started his car down the hill.
"Now," he said, "I'll show you what this car of mine
really can do! Are you afraid?"
She said between her teeth:
"I'd be a fool if I were not. All I pray for is that
you'll kill yourself, too."
"Well chance it together, my murderous little
friend."
The wind began to roar again as they rushed down-
ward over a hill that seemed endless. She clung to her
seat and he hung to his wheel like grim death; and, for
one terrible instant, she almost lost consciousness.
Then the terrific pace slackened; the car, running
swiftly, was now speeding over a macadam road; and
Neeland laughed and cried in her ear:
"Better light another of your hell's own cigarettes if
you want your friends to follow us!"
Slowing, he drove with one hand on the wheel.
"Look up there!" he said, pointing high at a dark
hillside. "See their lights? They're on the worst road
in the Gayfield hills. We cut off three miles this way."
Still driving with one hand, he looked at his watch,
laughed contentedly, and turned to her with the sudden
and almost friendly toleration born of success and of
danger shared in common.
174


THE LOCKED HOUSE
"That was rather a reckless bit of driving," he ad-
mitted. "Were you frightened?"
"Ask yourself how you'd feel with a fool at the
wheel."
"We're all fools at times," he retorted, laughing.
"You were when you shot at me. Suppose I'd been
seized with panic. I might have turned loose on you,
too."
For a while she remained silent, then she looked at
him curiously:
"Were you armed?"
"I carry an automatic pistol in my portfolio pocket."
She shrugged.
"You were a fool to come into that house without
carrying it in your hand."
"Where would you be now if I had done that?"
"Dead, I suppose," she said carelessly. . . . "What
are you going to do with me?"
He was in excellent humour with himself; exhilaration
and excitement still possessed him, keyed him up.
"Fancy," he said, "a foreign embassy being mixed
up in a plain case of grand larceny!—robbing with at-
tempt to murder! My dear but bloodthirsty young
lady, I can hardly comprehend it."
She remained silent, looking straight in front of her.
"You know," he said, "I'm rather glad you're not a
common thief. You've lots of pluck—plenty. You're
as clever as a cobra. It isn't every poisonous snake
that is clever," he added, laughing.
"What do you intend to do with me?" she repeated
coolly.
"I don't know. You are certainly an interesting
companion. Maybe I'll take you to New York with me.
You see I'm beginning to like you."
175


THE DARK STAB
She was silent.
He said:
"I never before met a real spy. I scarcely believed
they existed in time of peace, except in novels. Reallv,
I never imagined there were any spies working for em-
bassies, except in Europe. You are, to me, such a rare
specimen," he added gaily, "that I rather dread part-
ing with you. Won't you come to Paris with me?"
"Does what you say amuse you?"
"What you say does. Yes, I think I'll take you to
New York, anyway. And as we journey toward that
great metropolis together you shall tell me all about
your delightful profession. You shall be a Schehera-
zade to me! Is it a bargain?"
She said in a pleasant, even voice:
"I might as well tell you now that what you've been
stupid enough to do tonight is going to cost you your
life."
"What!" he exclaimed laughingly. "More murder?
Oh, Scheherazade! Shame on your naughty, naughty
behaviour!"
"Do you expect to reach Paris with those papers?"
"I do, fair houri! I do, Rose of Stamboul!"
"You never will."
"No?"
"No." She sat staring ahead of her for a few mo-
ments, then turned on him with restrained impatience:
"Listen to me, now! I don't know who you are. If
you're employed by any government you are a no-
vice"
"Or an artist!"
"Or a consummate artist," she admitted, looking at
him uncertainly.
"I am an artist," he said.
176


THE LOCKEB HOUSE
"You have an excellent opinion of yourself."
"No. I'm telling you the truth. My name is Nee-
land—James Neeland. I draw little pictures for a liv-
ing—nice little pictures for newspapers and maga-
zines."
His frankness evidently perplexed her.
"If that is so," she said, "what interests you in the
papers you took from me?"
"Nothing at all, my dear young lady! Vm not in-
terested in them. But friends of mine are."
"Who?"
He merely laughed at her.
"Are you an agent for any government?"
"Not that I know of."
She said very quietly:
"You make a terrible mistake to involve yourself in
this affair. If you are not paid to do it—if you are
not interested from patriotic motives—you had better
keep aloof."
"But it's too late. I cm mixed up in it—whatever
it may mean. Why not tell me, Scheherazade?"
His humorous badinage seemed only to make her
more serious.
"Mr. Neeland," she said quietly, "if you really are
what you say you are, it is a dangerous and silly thing
that you have done tonight."
"Don't say that! Don't consider it so tragically.
I'm enjoying it all immensely."
"Do you consider it a comedy when a woman tries to
kill you?"
"Maybe you are fond of murder, gentle lady."
"Your sense of humour seems a trifle perverted. I
am more serious than I ever was in my life. And I tell
you very solemnly that you'll be killed if you try to
177


THE DARK STAR
take those papers to Paris. Listen!"—she laid one
hand lightly on his arm—"Why should you involve
yourself—you, an American? This matter is no con-
cern of yours"
"What matter?"
"The matter concerning those papers. I tell you it
does not concern you; it is none of your business. Let
me be frank with you: the papers are of importance to
a foreign government—to the German Government.
And in no way do they threaten your people or your
country's welfare. Why, then, do you interfere? Why
do you use violence toward an agent of a foreign and
friendly government?"
"Why does a foreign and friendly government em-
ploy spies in a friendly country?"
"All governments do."
"Is that so?"
"It is. America swarms with British and French
agents."
"How do you know?"
"It's my business to know, Mr. Neeland."
"Then that is your profession! You really are a
spy?"
"Yes."
"And you pursue this ennobling profession with an
enthusiasm which does not stop short of murder!"
"I had no choice."
"Hadn't you? Your business seems to be rather a
deadly one, doesn't it, Scheherazade?"
"Yes, it might become so. . . . Mr. Neeland, I have
no personal feeling of anger for you. You offered me
violence; you behaved brutally, indecently. But I want
you to understand that no petty personal feeling in-
cites me. The wrong you have done me is nothing; the
178


THE LOCKED HOUSE
injury you threaten to do my country is very grave. I
ask you to believe that I speak the truth. It is in the
service of my country that I have acted. Nothing
matters to me except my country's welfare. Individ-
uals are nothing; the Fatherland everything. . . . Will
you give me back my papers?"
"No. I shall return them to their owner."
"Is that final?"
"It is."
"I am sorry," she said.
A moment later the lights of Orangeville came into
distant view across the dark and rolling country.


CHAPTER XVI
SCHEHERAZADE
At the Orangeville garage Neeland stopped his car,
put on his straw hat, got out carrying suitcase and box,
entered the office, and turned over the care of the ma-
chine to an employee with orders to drive it back to
Neeland's Mills the next morning.
Then he leisurely returned to his prisoner who had
given him her name as Use Dumont and who was stand-
ing on the sidewalk beside the car.
"Well, Scheherazade," he said, smiling, "teller of
marvellous tales, I don't quite believe your stories, but
they were extremely entertaining. So I won't bow-
string you or cut off your unusually attractive head!
No! On the contrary, I thank you for your wonder-
tales, and for not murdering me. And, furthermore,
I bestow upon you your liberty. Have you sufficient
cash to take you where you desire to waft your-
self?"
All the time her dark, unsmiling eyes remained fixed
on him, calmly unresponsive to his badinage.
"I'm sorry I had to be rough with you, Schehera-
zade," he continued, "but when a young lady sews her
clothes full of papers which don't belong to her, what,
I ask you, is a modest young man to do?"
She said nothing.
"It becomes necessary for that modest young man
to can his modesty—and the young lady's. Is there
anything else he could do?" he repeated gaily.
180


SCHEHERAZABE
"He had better return those papers," she replied in
a low voice.
"I'm sorry, Scheherazade, but it isn't done in ultra-
crooked circles. Are you sure you have enough money
to go where destiny and booty call you?"
"I have what I require," she answered dryly.
"Then good-bye, Pearl of the Harem! Without ran-
cour, I offer you the hand that reluctantly chastened
you."
They remained facing each other in silence for a mo-
ment; his expression was mischievously amused; hers
inscrutable. Then, as he patiently and good-humour-
edly continued to offer her his hand, very slowly she
laid her own in it, still looking him directly in the eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said in a low voice.
"For what? For not shooting me?"
"I'm sorry for you, Mr. Neeland. . . . You're only
a boy, after all. You know nothing. And you refuse
to learn. . . . I'm sorry. . . . Good-bye."
"Could I take you anywhere? To the Hotel Or-
ange? I've time. The station is across the street."
"No," she said.
She walked leisurely along the poorly lighted street
and turned the first corner as though at hazard. The
next moment her trim and graceful figure had disap-
peared.
With his heart still gay from the night's excitement,
sad the drop of Irish blood in him lively as champagne,
he crossed the square briskly, entered the stuffy sta-
tion, bought a ticket, and went out to the wooden plat-
form beside the rails.
Placing box and suitcase side by side, he seated him-
wlf upon them and lighted a cigarette.
Here was an adventure! Whether or not he under-
181


THE DARK STAR
considered the scowling demon, he hummed an old song
of his father's under his breath:
"Wan balmy day in May
Th' ould Nick come to the dure;
Sez I 'The divil's to pay,
An' the debt comes harrd on the poor!*
His eyes they shone like fire
An' he gave a horrid groan;
Sez I to me sister Suke,
'Suke!!!!
Tell him I ain't at home!'
"He stood forninst the dure,
His wings were wings of a bat,
An' he raised his voice to a roar,
An' the tail of him switched like a cat,
'O wirra the day!' sez I,
'Ochone I'll no more roam!'
Sez I to me brother Luke,
'Luke!!!!
Tell him I ain't at home!'"
As he laid the bronze figure away and closed, locked
and strapped the olive-wood box, an odd sensation crept
over him as though somebody were overlooking what he
was doing. Of course it could not be true, but so sud-
den and so vivid was the impression that he rose, opened
the door, and glanced into the private washroom—even
poked under the bed and the opposite sofa; and of
course discovered that only a living skeleton could lie
concealed in such spaces.
His courage, except moral courage, had never been
particularly tested. He was naturally quite fearless,
even carelessly so, and whether it was the courage of
ignorance or a constitutional inability to be afraid
never bothered his mind because he never thought about
it.
1"'


SCHEHERAZABE
Now, amused at his unusual fit of caution, he
stretched himself out on his bed, still dressed, debating
in his mind whether he should undress and try to sleep,
or whether it were really worth while before he boarded
the steamer.
And, as he lay there, a cigarette between his lips,
wakeful, his restless gaze wandering, he suddenly
caught a glimpse of something moving—a human face
pressed to the dark glass of the corridor window
between the partly lowered shade and the cherry-wood
silL
So amazed was he that the face had disappeared
before he realised that it resembled the face of Use Du-
mont. The next instant he was on his feet and opening
the door of the drawing-room; but the corridor between
the curtained berths was empty and dark and still; not
a curtain fluttered.
He did not care to leave his doorway, either, with
the box lying there on his bed; he stood with one hand
on the knob, listening, peering into the dusk, still ex-
cited by the surprise of seeing her on the same train
that he had taken.
However, on reflection, he quite understood that she
could have had no difficulty in boarding the midnight
train for New York without being noticed by him; be-
cause he was not expecting her to do such a thing and
he had paid no attention to the group of passengers
emerging from the waiting room when the express rolled
in.
"This is rather funny," he thought. "I wish I could
find her. I wish she'd be friendly enough to pay me a
visit. Scheherazade is certainly an entertaining girl.
And it's several hours to New York."
He lingered a while longer, but seeing and hearing
185


THE DARK STAR
nothing except darkness and assorted snores, he stepped
into his stateroom and locked the door again.
Sleep was now impossible; the idea of Scheherazade
prowling in the dark corridor outside amused him in-
tensely, and aroused every atom of his curiosity. Did
the girl really expect an opportunity to steal the box?
Or was she keeping a sinister eye on him with a view to
summoning accomplices from vasty metropolitan deeps
as soon as the train arrived? Or, having failed at
Brookhollow, was she merely going back to town to
report "progress backward"?
He finished his mineral water, and, still feeling
thirsty, rang, on the chance that the porter might still
be awake and obliging.
Something about the entire affair was beginning to
strike him as intensely funny, and the idea of foreign
spies slinking about Brookhollow; the seriousness with
which this young girl took herself and her mission; her
amateur attempts at murder; her solemn mention of
the Turkish Embassy—all these excited his sense of the
humorous. And again incredulity crept in; and pres-
ently he found himself humming Irwin's immortal Kai-
ser refrain:
"Hi-lee! Hi-lo!
Der vinds dey blow
Joost like die wacht am Rhine!
Und vot iss mine belongs to me,
Und vot iss yours iss mine!"
There came a knock at his door; he rose and opened
it, supposing it to be the porter; and was seized in the
powerful grasp of two men and jerked into the dark
corridor.
One of them had closed his mouth with a gloved hand,
186


SCHEHERAZADE
crushing him with an iron grip around the neck; the
other caught his legs and lifted him bodily; and, as they
slung him between them, his startled eyes caught sight
of Use Dumont entering his drawing-room.
It was a silent, fierce struggle through the corridor
to the front platform of the vestibule train; it took
both men to hold, overpower, and completely master
him; but they tried to do this and, at the same time,
lift the trap that discloses the car steps. And could
not manage it.
The instant Neeland realised what they were trying
to do, he divined their shocking intention in regard to
himself, and the struggle became terrible there in the
swaying vestibule. Twice he nearly got at the auto-
matic pistol in his breast pocket, but could not quite
grasp it. They slammed him and thrashed him around
between them, apparently determined to open the trap,
fling him from the train, and let him take his chances
with the wheels.
Then, of a sudden, came a change in the fortunes of
war; they were trying to drag him over the chain sag-
ging between the forward mail-car and the Pullman,
when one of them caught his foot on it and stumbled
backward, releasing Neeland's right arm. In the same
instant he drove his fist into the face of his other assail-
ant so hard that the man's head jerked backward as
though his neck were broken, and he fell flat on his
back.
Already the train was slowing down for the single
stop between Albany and New York—Hudson. Nee-
land got out his pistol and pointed it shakily at the man
who had fallen backward over the chain.
"Jump!" he panted. "Jump quick!"
The man needed no other warning; he opened the
187


THE DARK STAR
trap, scrambled and wriggled down the mail-car steps,
and was off the train like a snake from a sack.
The other man, bloody and ghastly white, crept un-
der the chain after his companion. He was a well-
built, good-looking man of forty, with blue eyes and a
golden beard all over blood. He seemed sick from the
terrific blow dealt him; but as the train had almost
stopped, Neeland pushed him off with the flat of his
foot.
Drenched in perspiration, dishevelled, bruised, he
slammed both traps and ran back into the dark corri-
dor, and met Use Dumont coming out of his stateroom
carrying the olive-wood box.
His appearance appeared to stupefy her; he took the
box from her without resistance, and, pushing her back
into the stateroom, locked the door.
Then, still savagely excited, and the hot blood of
battle still seething in his veins, he stood staring wick-
edly into her dazed eyes, the automatic pistol hanging
from his right fist.
But after a few moments something in her naive as-
tonishment—her amazement to see him alive and stand-
ing there before her—appealed to him as intensely ludi-
crous ; he dropped on the edge of the bed and burst into
laughter uncontrolled.
"Scheherazade! Oh, Scheherazade!" he said, weak
with laughter, "if you could only see your face! If you
could only see it, my dear child! It's too funny to be
true! It's too funny to be a real face! Oh, dear, I'll
die if I laugh any more. You'll assassinate me with
your face!"
She seated herself on the lounge opposite, still gazing
blankly at him in his uncontrollable mirth.
After a while he put back the automatic into his
188


SCHEHERAZADE
breast pocket, took off coat and waistcoat, without pay-
ing the slightest heed to her or to convention; opened
his own suitcase, selected a fresh shirt, tie, and collar,
and, taking with him his coat and the olive-wood box,
went into the little washroom.
He scarcely expected to find her there when he
emerged, cooled and refreshed; but she was still there,
seated as he had left her on the lounge.
"I wanted to ask you," she said in a low voice, "did
you kill them?"
"Not at all, Scheherazade," he replied gaily. "The
Irish don't kill; they beat up their friends; that's all.
Fist and blackthorn, my pretty lass, but nix for the
knife and gun."
"How—did you do it?"
"Well, I got tired having a ham-fisted Dutchman
pawing me and closing my mouth with his big splay
fingers. So I asked him to slide overboard and shoved
his friend after him."
"Did you shoot them?"
"No, I tell you!" he said disgustedly. "I hadn't a
chance in hot blood, and I couldn't do it in cold. No,
Scheherazade, I didn't shoot. I pulled a gun for dra-
matic effect, that's all."
After a silence she asked him in a low voice what he
intended to do with her.
"Do? Nothing! Chat affably with you until we
reach town, if you don't mind. Nothing more violent
than that, Scheherazade."
The girl, sitting sideways on the sofa, leaned her
head against the velvet corner as though very tired.
Her small hands lay in her lap listlessly, palms up-
turned.
"Are you really tired?" he asked.
189


THE DARK STAR
"Yes, a little."
He took the two pillows from his bed and placed
them on the sofa.
"You may lie down if you like, Scheherazade."
"Won't you need them?"
"Sunburst of my soul, if I pillow my head on any-
thing while you are in the vicinity, it will be on that
olive-wood box!"
For the first time the faintest trace of a smile
touched her lips. She turned, settled the pillows to her
liking, and stretched out her supple figure on the sofa
with a slight sigh.
"Shall I talk to you, Scheherazade, or let you snug-
gle into the chaste arms of Morpheus?"
"I can't sleep."
"Is it a talk-fest, then?"
"I am listening."
"Then, were the two recent gentlemen who so rudely
pounced upon me the same gentlemen who so cheerfully
chased me in an automobile when you made red fire?"
"Yes."
"I was betting on it. Nice-looking man—the one
with the classical map and the golden Frick."
She said nothing.
"Scheherazade," he continued with smiling malice,
"do you realise that you are both ornamental and
young? Why so young and murderous, fair houri?
Why delight in manslaughter in any degree? Why cul-
tivate assault and battery? Why swipe the property
of others?"
She closed her eyes on the pillow, but, as he remained
silent, presently opened them again.
"I asked them not to hurt you," she said irrele-
vantly.


SCHEHERAZADE
"Who? Oh, your strenuous friends with the footpad
technique? Well, they obeyed you unwillingly."
"Did they hurt you?"
"Oh, no. But the car-wheels might have."
"The car-wheels?"
"Yes. They were all for dumping me down the steps
of the vestibule. But I've got a nasty disposition, Sche-
herazade, and I kicked and bit and screamed so lustily
that I disgusted them and they simply left the train
and concluded to cut my acquaintance."
It was evident that his good-humoured mockery
perplexed her. Once or twice the shadow of a smile
passed over her dark eyes, but they remained uncertain
and watchful.
"You really were astonished to see me alive again,
weren't you?" he asked.
"I was surprised to see you, of course."
"Alive?"
"I told you that I asked them not to really hurt
you."
"Do you suppose I believe that, after your pistol
practice on me?"
"It is true," she replied, her eyes resting on him.
"You wished to reserve me for more pistol practice?"
"I have no—enmity—for you."
"Oh, Scheherazade!" he protested, laughing.
"You are wrong, Mr. Neeland."
"After alL I did to you?"
To his surprise a bright blush spread over her face
where it lay framed by the pillows; she turned her head
abruptly and lay without speaking.
He sat thinking for a few minutes, then leaning for-
ward from where he sat on the bed's edge:
"After a man's been shot at and further intimidated
191


THE DARK STAR
with a large, unpleasantly rusty Kurdish dagger, he is
likely to proceed without ceremony. All the same, I
am sorry I had to humiliate you, Scheherazade."
She lay silent, unstirring.
"A girl would never forgive that, I know," he said.
"So I shall look for a short shrift from you if your
opportunity ever comes."
The girl appeared to be asleep. He stood up and
looked down at her. The colour had faded from the
one cheek visible. For a while he listened to her quiet
breathing, then, the imp of perversity seizing him, and
intensely diverted by the situation, he bent over her,
touched her cheek with his lips, put on his hat, took
box and suitcase, and went out to spend the remaining
hour or two in the smoking room, leaving her to sleep
in peace.
But no sooner had he closed the door on her than
the girl sat straight up on the sofa, her face surging in
colour, and her eyes brilliant with starting tears.
When the train arrived at the Grand Central Station,
in the grey of a July morning, Neeland, finding the
stateroom empty, lingered to watch for her among the
departing passengers.
But he lingered in vain; and presently a taxicab took
him and his box to the Cunard docks, and deposited him
there. And an hour later he was in his cabin on board
that vast ensemble of machinery and luxury, the Cu-
narder Volhynia, outward bound, and headed straight
at the dazzling disc of the rising sun.
And thought of Scheherazade faded from his mind as
a tale that is told.


CHAPTER XVII
A WHITE SKIRT
It was in mid-ocean that Neeland finally came to the
conclusion that nobody on board the Volhynia was
likely to bother him or his box.
The July weather had been magnificent—blue skies,
a gentle wind, and a sea scarcely silvered by a comber.
Assorted denizens of the Atlantic took part in the
traditional vaudeville performance for the benefit of the
Volhynia passengers; gulls followed the wake to mid-
ocean; Mother Carey's chickens skimmed the baby bil-
lows; dolphins turned watery flip-flaps under the bows;
and even a distant whale consented to oblige.
Everybody pervaded the decks morning, noon, and
evening; the most squeamish recovered confidence in
twenty-four hours; and every constitutional lubber
concluded he was a born sailor.
Neeland really was one; no nausea born from the bad
adjustment of that anatomical auricular gyroscope re-
cently discovered in man ever disturbed his abdominal
nerves. Short of shipwreck, he enjoyed any entertain-
ment the Atlantic offered him.
So he was always on deck, tranquilly happy and with
nothing in the world to disturb him except his responsi-
bility for the olive-wood box.
He dared not leave it in his locked cabin; he dared
not entrust it to anybody; he lugged it about with him
wherever he went. On deck it stood beside his steamer
chair; it dangled from his hand when he promenac
lenade^
193


A WHITE SKIRT
remain there instead of trusting to his crutches on a
temperamental deck.
Neeland, passing the closed and curtained door, won-
dered whether the invalid had made a hit, or whether
he had a relative aboard who wore a white serge skirt,
white stockings and shoes, and was further endowed
with agreeable ankles.
He fitted his key to his door, turned it, withdrew the
key to pocket it; and immediately became aware that
the end of the key was sticky.
He entered the stateroom, however, and bolted the
door, then he sat down on his sofa and examined his
fingers and his door key attentively. There was wax
sticking to both.
When he had fully digested this fact he wiped and
pocketed his key and cast a rather vacant look around
the little stateroom. And immediately his eye was
arrested by a white object lying on the carpet between
the bed and the sofa—a woman's handkerchief, without
crest or initials, but faintly scented.
After he became tired of alternately examining it
and sniffing it, he put it in his pocket and began an un-
easy tour of his room.
If it had been entered and ransacked, everything had
been replaced exactly as he had left it, as well as he
could remember. Nothing excepting this handkerchief
and the wax on the key indicated intrusion; nothing,
apparently, had been disturbed; and yet there was the
handkerchief; and there was the wax on the end of his
door key.
"Here's a fine business!" he muttered to himself; and
rang for his steward.
The man came—a cockney, dense as his native fog—
who maintained that nobody could have entered the
195


THE BARK STAR
stateroom without his knowledge or the knowledge of
the stewardess.
"Do you think she's been in my cabin?"
"No, sir."
"Call her."
The stewardess, an alert, intelligent little woman
with a trace of West Indian blood in her, denied en-
tering his stateroom. Shown the handkerchief and in-
vited to sniff it, she professed utter ignorance concern-
ing it, assured him that no lady in her section used that
perfume, and offered to show it to the stewardesses of
other sections on the chance of their identifying the
perfume or the handkerchief.
"All right," said Neeland; "take it. But bring it
back. And here's a sovereign. And—one thing more.
If anybody pays you to deceive me, come to me and
I'll outbid them. Is that a bargain?"
"Yes, sir," she said unblushingly.
When she had gone away with the handkerchief, Nee-
land closed the door again and said to the steward:
"Keep an eye on my door. I am positive that some-
body has taken a wax impression of the keyhole. What
I said to that stewardess also holds good with you. I'll
outbid anybody who bribes you."
"Very good, sir."
"Sure it's good! It's devilish good. Here's a beau-
tiful and newly minted gold sovereign. Isn't it artistic?
It's yours, steward."
"Thanky, sir."
"Not at all. And, by the way, what's that invalid
gentleman's name?"
"'Awks, sir."
"Hawks?"
"Yes, sir; Mr. 'Erbert 'Awks."
196


A WHITE SKIRT
"American?"
"I don't know, sir."
"British?"
"Shall I inquire, sir?" starting to go.
"Not of him! Don't be a lunatic, steward! Please
try to understand that I want nothing said about this
matter or about my inquiries."
"Yes, sir."
"Very well, then! Find out, if you can, who Mr.
Herbert Hawks is. Find out all you can concerning
him. It's easy money, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, sir"
"Wait a moment. Has he any friends or relatives
on board?"
"Not that I know, sir."
"Oh, no friends, eh? No ladies who wear white serge
skirts and white shoes and stockings?"
"No, sir, not as I knows of."
"Oh! Suppose you step across to his door, knock,
and ask him if he rang. And, if the door is opened,
take a quick slant at the room."
"Very good, sir."
Neeland, his door at the crack, watched the steward
cross the corridor and knock at the door of Mr. Her-
bert Hawks.
"Well, what iss it?" came a heavy voice from within.
"Mr. 'Awks, sir, did you ring?"
"No, I did not."
"Oh, beg pardon, sir"
The steward was starting to return to Neeland, but
that young man motioned him violently away from his
door and closed it. Then, listening, his ear against
the panel, he presently heard a door in the passage
creak open a little way, then close again, stealthily.
197


A WHITE SKIRT
It was hard work waiting, harder work reading, but
between the two and a cigarette now and then Neeland
managed to do his sentry go until dinner time ap-
proached and the corridors resounded with the trample
of the hungry.
The stewardess reappeared a little later and re-
turned to him his handkerchief and the following infor-
mation:
Mr. Hawks, it appeared, travelled with a trained
nurse, whose stateroom was on another deck. That
nurse was not in her stateroom, but a similar handker-
chief was, scented with similar perfume.
"You're a wonder," said Neeland, placing some more
sovereigns in her palm and closing her fingers over
them. "What is the nurse's name?"
"Miss White."
"Very suitable name. Has she ever before visited
Herr—I mean Mr.—Hawks in his stateroom?"
"Her stewardess says she has been indisposed since
we left New York."
"Hasn't been out of her cabin?"
"No."
"I see. Did you inquire what she looked like?"
"Her stewardess couldn't be certain. The stateroom
was kept dark and the tray containing her meals was
left at the bedside. Miss White smokes."
"Yes," said Neeland reflectively, "she smokes Red
Light cigarettes, I believe. Thank you, very much.
More sovereigns if you are discreet. And say to my
steward that Fll dine in my stateroom. Soup, fish,
meat, any old thing you can think of. Do you under-
stand?"
"Perfectly, sir."
When she had withdrawn he kneeled down on his
199


THE DARK STAR
sofa and looked out through the port at the sunset
sea.
There was a possibility that Scheherazade and her
friends might be on board the Volhi/nia. Who else
would be likely to take wax impressions of his keyhole
and leave a scented scrap of a handkerchief on his
stateroom floor?
That they had kept themselves not only out of sight
but off the passenger list merely corroborated suspi-
cion. That's what they'd be likely to do.
And now there was no question in his mind of leaving
the box in his cabin. He'd cling to it like a good
woman to alimony. Death alone could separate his box
from him.
As he knelt there, snifSng the salt perfume of the sea,
his ears on duty detected the sound of a tray in the
corridor.
"Leave it on the camp-table outside my door!" he
said over his shoulder.
"Very good, sir."
He was not hungry; he was thinking too hard.
"Confound it," he thought to himself, "am I to squat
here in ambush for the rest of the trip?"
The prospect was not agreeable for a man who loved
the sea. All day and most of the starry night the hur-
ricane deck called to him, and his whole anatomy re-
sponded. And now to sit hunched up here like a rat in
the hold was not to his taste. Suppose he should con-
tinue to frequent the deck, carrying with him his box,
of course. He might never discover who owned the
white serge skirt or who owned the voice which pro-
nounced is as "iss."
Meanwhile, it occurred to him that for a quarter of
an hour or more his dinner outside his door had been
200


A WHITE SKIRT
growing colder and colder. So he slid from the sofa,
unstrapped the rubber band, opened the door, lifted
table and tray into his stateroom with a sharp glance
at the opposite door, and, readjusting the rubber band,
composed himself to eat.


CHAPTER XVIII
BY RADIO
Peehaps it was because he did not feel particularly
hungry that his dinner appeared unappetising; possi-
bly because it had been standing in the corridor outside
his door for twenty minutes, which did not add to its
desirability.
The sun had set and the air in the room had grown
cold. He felt chilly; and, when he uncovered the silver
tureen and discovered that the soup was still piping hot,
he drank some of it to warm himself.
He had swallowed about half a cupful beff -e he dis-
covered that the seasoning was not agreeable to his
palate. In fact, the flavour of the hot broth was so
decidedly unpleasant that he pushed aside the cup and
sat down on the edge of his bunk without any further
desire to eat anything.
A glass of water from the carafe did not seem to rid
him of the subtle, disagreeable taste lingering in his
mouth—in fact, the water itself seemed to be tainted
with it.
He sat for a few moments fumbling for his cigarette
case, feeling curiously uncomfortable, as though the
slight motion of the ship were affecting his head.
As he sat there looking at the unlighted cigarette in
his hand, it fell to the carpet at his feet. He started
to stoop for it, caught himself in time, pulled himself
erect with an effort.
Something was wrong with him—very wrong. Every
202


BY RADIO
uneven breath he drew seemed to fill his lungs with the
odour of that strange and volatile flavour he had no-
ticed. It was beginning to make him giddy; it seemed
to affect his vision, too.
Suddenly a terrible comprehension flashed through
his confused mind, clearing it for a moment.
He tried to stand up and reach the electric bell; his
knees seem incapable of sustaining him. Sliding to the
floor, he attempted to crawl toward the olive-wood hox;
managed to get one arm around it, grip the handle.
Then, with a last desperate effort, he groped in his
breast pocket for the automatic pistol, freed it, tried
to fire it. But the weapon and the unnerved hand that
held it fell on the carpet. A muscular paralysis set in
like the terrible rigidity of death; he could still see and
hear as in a thickening dream.
A moment later, from the corridor, a slim hand was
inserted between the door and jamb; the supple fingers
became busy with the rubber band for a moment, re-
leased it. The door opened very slowly.
For a few seconds two dark eyes were visible between
door and curtain, regarding intently the figure lying
prone upon the floor. Then the curtain was twitched
noiselessly aside; a young woman in the garb of a
trained nurse stepped swiftly into the stateroom on tip-
toe, followed by a big, good-looking, blue-eyed man
wearing a square golden beard.
The man, who carried with him a pair of crutches,
but who did not appear to require their aid, hastily set
the dinner-tray and camp-table outside in the corridor,
then closed and bolted the door.
Already the nurse was down on her knees beside the
fallen man, trying to loosen his grasp on the box. Then
her face blanched.
203


THE DARK STAR
"It's like the rigor of death itself," she whispered
fearfully over her shoulder. "Could I have given him
enough to kill him?"
"He took only half a cup and a swallow of water.
No."
"I can't get his hand free"
"Wait! I try!" He pulled a big, horn-handled
clasp-knife from his pocket and deliberately opened the
eight-inch blade.
"What are you doing?" she whispered, seizing his
wrist. "Don't do that!"
The man with the golden beard hesitated, then
shrugged, pocketed his knife, and seized Neeland's
rigidly clenched hand.
"You are right. It makes too much muss!" tugging
savagely at the clenched and unconscious hand. "Sac-
reminton! What for a death-grip is this KerVs? If I
cut his hand off so iss there blood and gossip right
away already. No—too much muss. Wait! I try an-
other way"
Neeland groaned.
"Oh, don't! Don't!" faltered the girl. "You're
breaking his wrist"
"Ugh!" grunted her companion; "I try; I can it not
accomplish. See once if the box opens!"
"It is locked."
"Search this pig-dog for the key!"
She began a hurried search of Neeland's clothing;
presently discovered her own handkerchief; thrust it
into her apron pocket, and continued rummaging while
the bearded man turned his attention to the automatic
pistol. This he finally succeeded in disengaging, and
he laid it on the wash basin.
"Here are his keys," whispered the nurse feverishly,
204


BY RADIO
holding them up against the dim circle of evening sky
framed by the open port. "You had better light the
stateroom; I can't see. Hurry! I think he is begin-
ning to recover."
When the bearded man had switched on the electric
light he returned to kneel once more beside the inert
body on the floor, and began to pull and haul and tug
at the box and attempt to insert the key in the lock.
But the stiffened clutch of the drugged man made it
impossible either to release the box or get at the key-
hole.
"Ach, was! Verfliichtete' schwekirhund /" He
seized the rigid hand and, exerting all the strength of
a brutally inflamed fury, fairly ripped loose the fingers.
"Also!" he panted, seizing the stiffened body from
the floor and lifting it. "Hold you him by the long
and Yankee legs once, und I push him out"
"Out of the port?"
"Gewiss! Otherwise he recovers to raise some hell!"
"It is not necessary. How shall this man know?"
"You left your handkerchief. He iss no fool. He
makes a noise. No, it iss safer we push him overboard."
"I'll take the papers to Karl, and then I can remain
in my stateroom"
"No! Lift his legs, I tell you! You want I hold him
in my arms all day while you talk, talk, talk! You take
his legs right away quick!"
He staggered a few paces forward with his unwieldy
burden and, setting one knee on the sofa, attempted to
force Neeland's head and shoulders through the open
port. At the same moment a rapid knocking sounded
outside the stateroom door.
"Quick!" breathed the nurse. "Throw him on his
bed!"
205


THE DARK STAR
The blue-eyed, golden-bearded man hesitated, then
as the knocking sounded again, imperative, persistent,
he staggered to the bed with his burden, laid it on the
pillows, seized his crutches, rested on them, breathing
heavily, and listening to the loud and rapid knocking
outside the door.
"We've got to open," she whispered. "Don't forget
that we found him unconscious in the corridor!" And
she slid the bolt noiselessly, opened the stateroom door,
and stepped outside the curtain into the corridor.
The cockney steward stood there with a messenger.
"Wireless for Mr. Neeland "he began; but his
speech failed and his jaw fell at sight of the nurse in
her cap and uniform. And when, on his crutches, the
bearded man emerged from behind the curtain, the stew-
ard's eyes fairly protruded.
"The young gentleman is ill," explained the nurse
coolly. "Mr. Hawks heard him fall in the corridor and
came out on his crutches to see what had happened. I
chanced to be passing through the main corridor, for-
tunately. I am doing what I can for the young gen-
tleman."
"Ow," said the steward, staring over her shoulder
at the bearded man on crutches.
"There iss no need of calling the ship's doctor," said
the man on crutches. "This young woman iss a hos-
pital nurse wnd she iss so polite and obliging to volun-
teer her service for the poor young gentleman."
"Yes," she said carelessly, "I can remain here for
an hour or two with him. He requires only a few simple
remedies—I've already given him a sedative, and he is
sleeping very nicely."
"Yess, yess; it iss not grave. Pooh! It is notting.
He s\> and knock his head. Maybe too much tchani-
S06


BY RABIO
pagne. He sleep, and by and by he feel better. It iss
not advisable to make a fuss. So! We are not longer
needed, steward. I return to my room."
And, nodding pleasantly, the bearded man hobbled
out on his crutches and entered his own stateroom
across the passage.
"Steward," said the nurse pleasantly, "you may leave
the wireless telegram with me. When Mr. Neeland
wakes I'll read it to him"
"Give that telegram to me!" burst out a ghostly
voice from the curtained room behind her.
Every atom of colour left her face, and she stood
there as though stiffened into marble. The steward
stared at her. Still staring, he passed gingerly in front
of her and entered the curtained room.
Neeland was lying on his bed as white as death;
but his eyes fluttered open in a dazed way:
"Steward," he whispered.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Neeland."
"My—box." His eyes closed.
"Box, sir?"
"Where—is—it?"
"Which box, sir? Is it this one here on the floor?"—
lifting the olive-wood box in its case. The key was in
the lock; the other keys hung from it, dangling on a
steel ring.
The nurse stepped calmly into the room.
"Steward," she said in her low, pleasant voice, "the
sedative I gave him has probably confused his mind a
little"
"Put that box—under—my head," interrupted Nee-
land's voice like a groan.
"I tell you," whispered the nurse, "he doesn't know
what he is saying."
207


BY RADIO
"Stay outside—my door."
"Do you wish the doctor, sir?"
"No. . . . No! . . . Don't call him; do you hear?"
"I won't call him, sir."
"No, don't call him."
"No, sir. . . . Mr. Neeland, there is a—a trained
nurse here. You will not want her, will you, sir?"
Again the shadow of a smile crept over Neeland's
face.
"Did she come for—her handkerchief?"
There was a silence; the steward looked steadily at
the nurse; the nurse's dark eyes were fixed on the man
lying there before her.
"You shan't be wanting her any more, shall you,
sir?" repeated the steward, not shifting his gaze.
"Yes; I think I shall want her—for a little while."
. . . Neeland slowly opened his eyes, smiled up at the
motionless nurse: "How are you, Scheherazade?" he
said weakly. And, to the steward, with an effort: "Miss
White and I are—old friends. . . .• However—kindly
remain outside—my door. . . . And throw what re-
mains of my dinner—out of—the port. . . . And be
ready—at all times—to look after the—gentleman on
crutches. . . . Fm—fond of him. . . . Thank you,
steward."
Long after the steward had closed the stateroom
door, Use Dumont stood beside Neeland's bed without
stirring. Once or twice he opened his eyes and looked
at her humorously. After a while he said:
"Please be seated, Scheherazade."
She calmly seated herself on the edge of his couch.
"Horrid soup," he murmured. "You should attend
a cooking school, my dear."
209


THE DARK STAR
She regarded him absently, as though other matters
absorbed her.
"Yes," he repeated, "as a cook you're a failure,
Scheherazade. That broth which you seasoned for me
has done funny things to my eyes, too. But they're
recovering. I see much better already. My vision is
becoming sufficiently clear to observe how pretty you
are in your nurse's cap and apron."
A slow colour came into her face and he saw her
eyebrows bend inward as though she were annoyed.
"You are pretty, Scheherazade," he repeated. "You
know you are, don't you? But you're a poor cook
and a rotten shot. You can't be perfection, you know.
Cheer up!"
She ignored the suggestion, her dark eyes brooding
and remote again; and he lay watching her with placid
interest in which no rancour remained. He was feel-
ing decidedly better every minute now. He lifted the
automatic pistol and shoved it under his pillow, then
cautiously flexed his fingers, his arms, and finally his
knees, with increasing pleasure and content.
"Such dreadful soup," he said. "But I'm a lot bet-
ter, thank you. Was it to have been murder this time,
too, Scheherazade? Would the entire cupful have made
a pretty angel of me? Oh, fie! Naughty Schehera-
zade!"
She remained mute.
"Didn't you mean manslaughter with intent to ex-
terminate?" he insisted, watching her.
Perhaps she was thinking of her blond and beard-
ed companion, and the open port, for she made no
reply.
"Why didn't you let him heave me out?" inquired
Neeland. "Why did you object?"
210


BY RABIO
At that she reddened to the roots of her hair, under-
standing that what she feared had been true—that
Neeland, while physically helpless, had retained suf-
ficient consciousness to be aware of what was happening
to him and to understand at least a part of the con-
versation.
"What was the stuff with which you flavoured that
soup, Scheherazade?"
He was merely baiting her; he did not expect any
reply; but, to his surprise, she answered him:
"Threlanium—Speyer's solution is what I used," she
said with a sort of listless effrontery.
"Don't know it. Don't like it, either. Prefer other
condiments."
He lifted himself on one elbow, remained propped so,
tore open his wireless telegram, and, after a while,
contrived to read it:
"James Neeland,
"S. S. Volhynia.
"Spies aboard. Be careful. If trouble threatens cap-
tain has instructions British Government to protect you
and order arrests on your complaint.
"Naia."
With a smile that was almost a grin, Neeland handed
the telegram to Use Dumont.
"Scheherazade," he said, "you'll be a good little girl,
now, won't you? Because it would be a shocking thing
for you and your friend across the way to land in
England wearing funny bangles on your wrists and
keeping step with each other, wouldn't it?"
She continued to hold the slip of paper and stare at
it long after she had finished reading it and the words
became a series of parallel blurs.
211


THE DARK STAR
"Scheherazade," he said lightly, "what on earth am
I going to do with you?"
"I suppose you will lodge a charge with the captain
against me," she replied in even tones.
"Why not? You deserve it, don't you? You and
your humorous friend with the yellow beard?"
She looked at him with a vague smile.
"What can you prove?" said she.
"Perfectly true, dear child. Nothing. I don't want
to prove anything, either."
She smiled incredulously.
"It's quite true, Scheherazade. Otherwise, I shouldn't
have ordered my steward to throw the remains of my
dinner out of the corridor porthole. No, dear child.
I should have had it analysed, had your stateroom
searched for more of that elusive seasoning you used
to flavour my dinner; had a further search made for
a certain sort of handkerchief and perfume. Also,
just imagine the delightful evidence which a thorough
search of your papers might reveal!" He laughed.
"No, Scheherazade; I did not care to prove you any-
thing resembling a menace to society. Because, in the
first place, I am absurdly grateful to you."
Her face became expressionless under the slow flush
mounting.
"I'm not teasing you," he insisted. "What I say is
true. I'm grateful to you for violently injecting ro-
mance into my perfectly commonplace existence. You
have taken the book of my life and not only extra
illustrated it with vivid and chromatic pictures, but you
have unbound it, sewed into its prosaic pages several
chapters ripped bodily from a penny-dreadful, and
you have then rebound the whole thing and pasted your
own pretty picture on the cover! Come, now! Ought



BY RADIO
not a man to be grateful to any philanthropic girl who
so gratuitously obliges him?"
Her face burned under his ridicule; her clasped
hands in her lap were twisted tight as though to main-
tain her self-control.
"What do you want of me?" she asked between lips
that scarcely moved.
He laughed, sat up, stretched out both arms with a
sigh of satisfaction. The colour came back to his
face; he dropped one leg over the bed's edge; and she
stood erect and stepped aside for him to rise.
No dizziness remained; he tried both feet on the floor,
straightened himself, cast a gaily malicious glance at
her, and slowly rose to his feet.
"Scheherazade," he said, "isn't it funny? I ask you,
did you ever hear of a would-be murderess and her
escaped victim being on such cordial terms? Did you?"
He was going through a few calisthenics, gingerly
but with increasing abandon, while he spoke.
"I feel fine, thank you. I am enjoying the situation
extremely, too. It's a delightful paradox, this situa-
tion. It's absurd, it's enchanting, it's incredible!
There is only one more thing that could make it per-
fectly impossible. And I'm going to do it!" And he
deliberately encircled her waist and kissed her.
She turned white at that, and, as he released her,
laughing, took a step or two blindly, toward the door;
stood there with one hand against it as though support-
ing herself.
After a few moments, and very slowly, she turned
and looked at him; and that young man was scared for
the first time since their encounter in the locked house
in Brookhollow.
Yet in her face there was no anger, no menace, noth-
213


THE DARK STAR
ing he had ever before seen in any woman's face, noth-
ing that he now comprehended. Only, for the moment,
it seemed to him that something terrible was gazing
at him out of this girl's fixed eyes—something that
he did not recognise as part of her—another being
hidden within her, staring out through her eyes at
him.
"For heaven's sake, Scheherazade "he faltered.
She opened the door, still watching him over her
shoulder, shrank through it, and was gone.
He stood for a full five minutes as though stupefied,
then walked to the door and flung it open. And met
a ship's officer face to face, already lifting his hand
to knock for admittance.
"Mr. Neeland?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Captain West's compliments, and he would be glad
to see you in his cabin."
"Thank you. My compliments and thanks to Cap-
tain West, and I shall call on him immediately."
They exchanged bows; the officer turned, hesitated,
glanced at the steward who stood by the port.
"Did you bring a radio message to Mr. Neeland?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, I received the message," said Neeland.
"The captain requests you to bring the message with
you."
"With pleasure," said Neeland.
So the officer went away down the corridor, and
Neeland sat down on his bed, opened the box, went over
carefully every item of its contents, relocked it with
a grin of satisfaction, and, taking it with him, went
off to pay a visit to the captain of the Volhynia.
The bearded gentleman in the stateroom across the
214


BY RADIO
passage had been listening intently to the conversation,
with his ear flat against his keyhole.
And now, without hesitating, he went to a satchel
which stood on the sofa in his stateroom, opened it,
took from it a large bundle of papers and a ten-pound
iron scale-weight.
Attaching the weight to the papers by means of a
heavy strand of copper wire, he mounted the sofa and
hurled the weighted package into the Atlantic Ocean.
"Pig-dogs of British," he muttered in his golden
beard, "you may go and dive for them when The Day
dawns."
Then he filled and lighted a handsome porcelain pipe,
and puffed it with stolid satisfaction, leaving the
pepper-box silver cover open.
"Der Tag," he muttered in his golden beard; and his
clear eyes swept the starlit ocean with the pensive and
terrifying scrutiny of a waiting eagle.


CHAPTER XIX
THE CAPTAIN OF THE VOLHYNIA
The captain of the Volhyma had just come from the
bridge and was taking a bite of late supper in his cabin
when the orderly announced Neeland. He rose at once,
offering a friendly hand:
"Mr. Neeland, I am very glad to see you. I know
you by name and reputation already. There were some
excellent pictures by you in the latest number of the
Midweek Magazine"
"I'm so glad you liked them, Captain West."
"Yes, I did. There was a breeze in them—a gaiety.
And such a fetching girl you drew for your heroine!"
"You think so! It's rather interesting. I met a
young girl once—she comes from up-state where I
come from. There was a peculiar and rather subtle
attraction about her face. So I altered the features
of the study I was making from my model, and put
in hers as I remembered them."
"She must be beautiful, Mr. Neeland."
"It hadn't struck me so until I drew her from mem-
ory. And there's more to the story. I never met her
but twice in my life—the second time under exceed-
ingly dramatic circumstances. And now I'm crossing
the Atlantic at a day's notice to oblige her. It's an
amusing story, isn't it?"
"Mr. Neeland, I think it is going to be what you
call a 'continued' story."
"No. Oh, no. It ought to be, considering its ele-


THE CAPTAIN OF THE VOLHYNIA
ments. But it isn't. There's no further romance in
it, Captain West."
The captain's smile was pleasant but sceptical.
They seated themselves, Neeland declining an invita-
tion to supper, and the captain asking his indulgence
if he talked while eating.
"Mr. Neeland," he said, "I'm about to talk rather
frankly with you. I have had several messages by
wireless today from British sources, concerning you."
Neeland, surprised, said nothing. Captain West fin-
ished his bite of supper; the steward removed the dishes
and went out, closing the door. The captain glanced
at the box which Neeland had set on the floor by his
chair.
"May I ask," he said, "why you brought your suit-
case with you?"
"It's valuable."
The captain's keen eyes were on his.
"Why are you followed by spies?" he asked.
Neeland reddened.
"Yes," continued the captain of the Volhynia, "my
Government instructs me, by wireless, to offer you any
aid and protection you may desire. I am informed
that you carry papers of military importance to a cer-
tain foreign nation with which neither England nor
France are on what might be called cordial terms. I
am told it is likely that agents of this foreign country
have followed you aboard my ship for the purpose of
robbing you of these papers. Now, Mr. Neeland, what
do you know about this business?"
"Very little," said Neeland.
"Have you had any trouble?"
"Oh, yes."
The captain smiled:
217


THE DARK STAR
"Evidently you have wriggled out of it," he said.
"Yes, wriggled is the literal word."
"Then you do not think that you require any protec-
tion from me?"
"Perhaps I do. I've been a singularly innocent and
lucky ass. It's merely chance that my papers have
not been stolen, even before I started in quest of them."
"Have you been troubled aboard my ship?"
Neeland waved his hand carelessly:
"Nothing to speak of, thank you."
"If you have any charge to make"
"Oh, no."
The captain regarded him intently:
"Let me tell you something," he said. "Since we
sailed, have you noticed the bulletins posted contain-
ing our wireless news?"
"Yes, I've read them."
"Did they interest you?"
"Yes. You mean that row between Austria and
Servia over the Archduke's murder?"
"I mean exactly that, Mr. Neeland. And now I am
going to tell you something else. Tonight I had a
radio message which I shall not post on the bulletins
for various reasons. But I shall tell you under the seal
of confidence."
"I give you my word of honour," said Neeland
quietly.
"I accept it, Mr. Neeland. And this is what has hap-
pened: Austria has decided on an ultimatum to Servia.
And probably will send it."
They remained silent for a moment, then the captain
continued:
"Why should we deceive ourselves? This is the most
serious thing that has happened since the Hohenzollern
«18


THE CAPTAIN OF THE VOLHYNIA
incident which brought on the Franco-Prussian War."
Neeland nodded.
"You see?" insisted the captain. "Suppose the
humiliation is too severe for Servia to endure? Sup-
pose she refuses the Austrian terms? Suppose Austria
mobilises against her? What remains for Russia to
do except to mobilise? And, if Russia does that, what
is going to happen in Germany? And then, instantly
and automatically, what will follow in France?" His
mouth tightened grimly. "England," he said, "is the
ally of France. Ask yourself, Mr. Neeland, what are
the prospects of this deadly combination and deadlier
situation."
After a few moments the young man looked up from
his brown study:
"I'd like to ask you a question—perhaps not germane
to the subject. May I?"
"Ask it."
"Then, of what interest are Turkish forts to any of
the various allied nations—to the Triple Entente or
the Triple Alliance?"
"Turkish fortifications?"
"Yes—plans for them."
The captain glanced instinctively at the box beside
Neeland's chair, but his features remained incurious.
"Turkey is supposed to be the ally of Germany,"
he said.
"I've heard so. I know that the Turkish army is
under German officers. But—if war should happen,
is it likely that this ramshackle nation which was fought
to a standstill by the Balkan Alliance only a few months
ago would be likely to take active sides?"
"Mr. Neeland, it is not only likely, it is absolutely
certain."
219
"
%
X


THE DARK STAR
"You believe Germany would count on her?"
"There is not a doubt of it. Enver Pasha holds the
country in his right hand; Enver Pasha is the Kaiser's
jackal."
"But Turkey is a beaten, discredited nation. She
has no modern guns. Her fleet is rusting ia the Bos-
porus."
"The Dardanelles bristle with Krupp oaimon, Mr.
Neeland, manned by German gunners. Von der Goltz
Pasha has made of a brave people a splendid army.
As for ships, the ironclads and gunboats off Seraglio
Point are rusting at anchor, as you say; but there are
today enough German and Austrian armored ships
within running distance of the Dardanelles to make
for Turkey a powerful defensive squadron. Didn't you
know any of these facts?"
"No."
"Well, they are facts. . . . You see, Mr. Neeland,
we English sailors of the merchant marine are also
part of the naval reserve. And we are supposed to
know these things."
Neeland was silent.
"Mr. Neeland," he said, "in case of war between the
various powers of Europe as aligned today, where do
you imagine your sympathy would lie—and the sym-
pathies of America?"
"Both with France and England," said Neeland
bluntly.
"You think so?"
"Yes, I do—unless they are the aggressors."
The captain nodded:
"I feel rather that way myself. I feel very sure of
the friendliness of your country. Because of course we
—France and England—never would dream of attack-
220


THE DARK STAR
So they shook hands and said good night; and Nee-
land went away, leaving his box on the floor of the cap-
tain's cabin as certain of its inviolability as he was of
the Bank of England.


CHAPTER XX
THE DROP OF IRISH
The usual signs of land greeted Neeland when he
rose early next morning and went out on deck for the
first time without his olive-wood box—first a few gulls,
then puffins, terns,x and other sea fowl in increasing
numbers, weed floating, fishing smacks, trawlers tossing
on the rougher coast waters.
After breakfast he noticed two British torpedo boat
destroyers, one to starboard, the other on the port bow,
apparently keeping pace with the Volhynia. They
were still there at noon, subjects of speculation among
the passengers; and at tea-time their number was in-
creased to five, the three new destroyers appearing
suddenly out of nowhere, dead ahead, dashing for-
ward through a lively sea under a swirling vortex of
gulls.
The curiosity of the passengers, always easily
aroused, became more thoroughly stirred up by the bul-
letins posted late that afternoon, indicating that the
tension between the several European chancelleries was
becoming acute, and that emperors and kings were ex-
changing personal telegrams.
There was all sorts of talk on deck and at the dinner
table, wild talk, speculative talk, imaginative discus-
sions, logical and illogical. But, boiled down to its
basic ingredients, the wildest imagination on board
the Volhynia admitted war to be an impossibility of
modern times, and that, ultimately, diplomacy would


THE DARK STAR
settle what certainly appeared to be the ugliest inter-
national situation in a hundred years.
At the bottom of his heart Neeland believed this, too;
wished for it when his higher and more educated spirit-
ual self was flatly interrogated; and yet, in the every-
day, impulsive ego of James Neeland, the drop of Irish
had begun to sing and seethe with the atavistic instinct
for a row.
War? He didn't know what it meant, of course. It
made good poetry and interesting fiction; it rendered
history amusing; made dry facts succulent.
Preparations for war in Europe, which had been
going on for fifty years, were most valuable, too, in
contributing the brilliant hues of uniforms to an other-
wise sombre civilian world, and investing commonplace
and sober cities with the omnipresent looming mys-
tery of fortifications.
To a painter, war seemed to be a dramatic and gor-
geous affair; to a young man it appealed as all excite-
ment appeals. The sportsman in him desired to witness
a scrap; his artist's imagination was aroused; the
gambler in him speculated as to the outcome of such
a war. And the seething, surging drop of Irish fizzed
and purred and coaxed for a chance to edge sideways
into any fight which God in His mercy might provide
for a decent gossoon who had never yet had the pleasure
of a broken head.
"Not," thought Neeland to himself, "that I'll go
trailing my coat tails. I'll go about my own business,
of course—but somebody may hit me a crack at
that!"
He thought of Use Dumont and of the man with
the golden beard, realising that he had had a wonderful
time, after all; sorry in his heart that it was all over
224


THE DROP OF IRISH
and that the Vdlhynia was due to let go her mudhooks
in the Mersey about three o'clock the next morning.
As he leaned on the deck rail in the soft July dark-
ness, he could see the lights of the destroyers to port
and starboard, see strings of jewel-like signals flash,
twinkle, fade, and flash again.
All around him along the deck passengers were
promenading, girls in evening gowns or in summer
white; men in evening dress or reefed in blue as nau-
tically as possible; old ladies toddling, swathed in veils,
old gentlemen in dinner coats and sporting headgear—
every weird or conventional combination infested the
decks of the Volhynia.
Now, for the first time during the voyage, Neeland
felt free to lounge about where he listed, saunter wher-
ever the whim of the moment directed his casual steps.
The safety of the olive-wood box was no longer on his
mind, the handle no longer in his physical clutch. He
was at liberty to stroll as carelessly as any boulevard
flaneur; and he did so, scanning the passing throng for
a glimpse of Use Dumont or of the golden-bearded one,
but not seeing either of them.
In fact, he had not laid eyes on them since he had
supped not wisely but too well on the soup that Sche-
herazade had flavoured for him.
The stateroom door of the golden-bearded man had
remained closed. His own little cockney steward, who
also looked out for Golden Beard, reported that gen-
tleman as requiring five meals a day, with beer in
proportion, and the porcelain pipe steaming like Mtn&
all day long.
His little West Indian stewardess also reported the
gossip from her friend on another corridor, which was,
in effect, that Miss White, the trained nurse, took all^*'
225


THE DARK STAR
meals in her room and had not been observed to leave
that somewhat monotonous sanctuary.
How many more of the band there might be Neeland
did not know. He remembered vaguely, while lying
rigid under the grip of the drug, that he had heard Use
Dumont's voice mention somebody called Karl. And
he had an idea that this Karl might easily be the big,
ham-fisted German who had tried so earnestly to stifle
him and throw him from the vestibule of the midnight
express.
However, it did not matter now. The box was safe
in the captain's care; the Valhynia would be lying at
anchor off Liverpool before daylight; the whole excit-
ing and romantic business was ended.
With an unconscious sigh, not entirely of relief,
Neeland opened his cigarette case, found it empty,
turned and went slowly below with the idea of refill-
ing it.
They were dancing somewhere on deck; the music
of the ship's orchestra came to his ears. He paused
a moment on the next deck to lean on the rail in the
darkness and listen.
Far beneath him, through a sea as black as onyx,
swept the reflections of the lighted ports; and he could
hear the faint hiss of foam from the curling flow
below.
As he turned to resume his quest for cigarettes, he
was startled to see directly in front of him the heavy
figure of a man—so close to him, in fact, that Neeland
instinctively threw up his arm, elbow out, to avoid
contact.
But the man, halting, merely lifted his hat, saying
that in the dim light he had mistaken Neeland for a
friend; and they passed each other on the almost de-


THE DROP OF IRISH
serted deck, saluting formally in the .European fashion,
with lifted hats.
His spirits a trifle subdued, but still tingling with
the shock of discovering a stranger so close behind him
where he had stood leaning over the ship's rail, Neeland
continued on his way below.
Probably the big man had made a mistake in good
faith; but the man certainly had approached very
silently; was almost at his very elbow when discovered.
And Neeland remembered the light-shot depths over
which, at that moment, he had been leaning; and
he realised that it would have been very easy for a
man as big as that to have flung him overboard
before he had wit to realise what had been done to
him.
Neither could he forget the curious gleam in the
stranger's eyes when a ray from a deck light fell across
his shadowy face—unusually small eyes set a little too
close together to inspire confidence. Nor had the man's
slight accent escaped him—not a Teutonic accent, he
thought, but something fuller and softer—something
that originated east of Scutari, suggesting the Eu-
rasian, perhaps.
But Neeland's soberness was of volatile quality; be-
fore he arrived at his stateroom he had recovered his
gaiety of spirit. He glanced ironically at the closed
door of Golden Beard as he fitted his key into his own
door.
"A lively lot," he thought to himself, "what with
Scheherazade, Golden Beard, and now Ali Baba—by
jinx!—he certainly did have an Oriental voice!—and
he looked the part, too, with a beak for a nose and a
black moustache a la Enver Pasha!"
Much diverted by his own waxing imagination, he
227


THE BARK STAR
turned on the light in his stateroom, filled the cigarette
case, turned to go out, and saw on the carpet just in-
side his door a bit of white paper folded cocked-hat
fashion and addressed to him.
Picking it up and unfolding it, he read:
May I see you this evening at eleven? My stateroom
is 623. If there is anybody in the corridor, knock; if
not, come in without knocking.
I mean no harm to you. I give my word of honour.
Please accept it for as much as your personal courage
makes it worth to you—its face value, or nothing.
Knowing you, I may say without flattery that I ex-
pect you. If I am disappointed, I still must bear witness
to your courage and to a generosity not characteristic of
your sex.
You have had both power and provocation to make my
voyage on this ship embarrassing. You have not done
so. And self-restraint in a man is a very deadly weapon
to use on a woman.
I hope you will come. I desire to be generous on my
part. Ask yourself whether you are able to believe this.
You don't know women, Mr. Neeland. Your conclusion
probably will be a wrong one.
But I think you'll come, all the same. And you will be
right in coming, whatever you believe.
Ilse Dumont.
It was a foregone conclusion that he would go. He
knew it before he had read half the note. And when he
finished it he was certain.
Amused, his curiosity excited, grateful that the ad-
venture had not yet entirely ended, he lighted a cig-
arette and looked impatiently at his watch.
It lacked half an hour of the appointed time and his
exhilaration was steadily increasing.
He stuck the note into the frame of his mirror over
the washstand with a vague idea that if anything hap-


THE DROP OF IRISH
pened to him this would furnish a clue to his where-
abouts.
Then he thought of the steward, but, although he
had no reason to believe the girl who had written him,
something within him made him ashamed to notify the
steward as to where he was going. He ought to have
done it; common prudence born of experience with Use
Dumont suggested it. And yet he could not bring
himself to do it; and exactly why, he did not under-
stand.
One thing, however, he could do; and he did. He
wrote a note to Captain West giving the Paris address
of the Princess Mistchenka, and asked that the olive-
wood box be delivered to her in case any accident befell
him. This note he dropped into the mailbox at the end
of the main corridor as he went out. A few minutes
later he stood in an empty passageway outside a door
numbered 628. He had a loaded automatic in his breast
pocket a cigarette between his fingers, and, on his
agreeable features, a smile of anticipation—a smile in
which amusement, incredulity, reckless humour, and a
spice of malice were blended—the smile born of the drop
of Irish sparkling like champagne in his singing veins.
And he turned the knob of door No. 623 and went in.
She was reading, curled up on her sofa under the
electric bulb, a cigarette in one hand, a box of bonbons
beside her.
She looked up leisurely as he entered, gave him a
friendly nod, and, when he held out his hand, placed
her own in it. With delighted gravity he bent and
saluted her finger tips with lips that twitched to control
a smile.
"Will you be seated, please?" she said gently.
The softness of her agreeable voice struck him as
229


THE DARK STAR
meals in her room and had not been observed to leave
that somewhat monotonous sanctuary.
How many more of the band there might be Neeland
did not know. He remembered vaguely, while lying
rigid under the grip of the drug, that he had heard Ilse
Dumont’s voice mention somebody called Karl. And
he had an idea that this Karl might easily be the big,
ham-fisted German who had tried so earnestly to stifle
him and throw him from the vestibule of the midnight
express.
However, it did not matter now. The box was safe
in the captain's care; the Volhynia would be lying at
anchor off Liverpool before daylight; the whole excit-
ing and romantic business was ended.
With an unconscious sigh, not entirely of relief,
Neeland opened his cigarette case, found it empty,
turned and went slowly below with the idea of refill-
ing it.
They were dancing somewhere on deck; the music
of the ship's orchestra came to his ears. He paused
a moment on the next deck to lean on the rail in the
darkness and listen.
Far beneath him, through a sea as black as onyx,
swept the reflections of the lighted ports; and he could
hear the faint hiss of foam from the curling flow
below.
As he turned to resume his quest for cigarettes, he
was startled to see directly in front of him the heavy
figure of a man—so close to him, in fact, that Neeland
instinctively threw up his arm, elbow out, to avoid
contact.
But the man, halting, merely lifted his hat, saying
that in the dim light he had mistaken Neeland for a
friend; and they passed each other on the almost de-
226


THE DROP OF IRISH
serted deck, saluting formally in the European fashion,
with lifted hats.
His spirits a trifle subdued, but still tingling with
the shock of discovering a stranger so close behind him
where he had stood leaning over the ship's rail, Neeland
continued on his way below.
Probably the big man had made a mistake in good
faith; but the man certainly had approached very
silently; was almost at his very elbow when discovered.
And Neeland remembered the light-shot depths over
which, at that moment, he had been leaning; and
he realised that it would have been very easy for a
man as big as that to have flung him overboard
before he had wit to realise what had been done to
him.
Neither could he forget the curious gleam in the
stranger’s eyes when a ray from a deck light fell across
his shadowy face—unusually small eyes set a little too
close together to inspire confidence. Nor had the man’s
slight accent escaped him—not a Teutonic accent, he
thought, but something fuller and softer—something
that originated east of Scutari, suggesting the Eu-
rasian, perhaps.
But Neeland’s soberness was of volatile quality; be-
fore he arrived at his stateroom he had recovered his
gaiety of spirit. He glanced ironically at the closed
door of Golden Beard as he fitted his key into his own
door.
“A lively lot,” he thought to himself, “what with
Scheherazade, Golden Beard, and now Ali Baba—by
jinx –he certainly did have an Oriental voice!—and
he looked the part, too, with a beak for a nose and a
black moustache à la Enver Pasha P"
Much diverted by his own waxing imagination, he
227


THE DARK STAR
he looked around for a seat, then directly at her; and
saw that she meant him to find a seat on the lounge
beside her.
"Now, indeed you are Scheherazade of the Thou-
sand and One Nights," he said gaily, "with your cig-
arette and your bonbons, and cross-legged on your
divan"
"Did Scheherazade smoke cigarettes, Mr. Neeland?"
"No," he admitted; "that is an anachronism, I sup-
pose. Tell me, how are you, dear lady?"
"Thank you, quite well."
"And—busy?" His lips struggled again to maintain
their gravity.
"Yes, I have been busy."
"Cooking something up?—I mean soup, of course,"
he added.
She forced a smile, but reddened as though it were
difficult for her to accustom herself to his half jesting
sarcasms.
"So you've been busy," he resumed tormentinglj,
"but not with cooking lessons! Perhaps you've been
practising with your pretty little pistol. You know
you really need a bit of small arms practice, Schehera-
zade."
"Because I once missed you?" she inquired serenely.
"Why so you did, didn't you?" he exclaimed, de-
lighted to goad her into replying.
"Yes," she said, "I missed you. I needn't have. I
am really a dead shot, Mr. Neeland."
"Oh, Scheherazade!" he protested.
She shrugged:
"I am not bragging; I could have killed you. I sup-
posed it was necessary only to frighten you. It was
my mistake and a bad one."
239


THE DROP OF IRISH
"My dear child," he expostulated, "you meant mur-
der and you know it. Do you suppose I believe that
you know how to shoot?"
"But I do, Mr. Neeland," she returned with good-
humoured indifference. "My father was head jager to
Count Geier von Sturmspitz, and I was already a dead
shot with a rifle when we emigrated to Canada. And
when he became an Athabasca trader, and I was only
twelve years old, I could set a moose-hide shoe-lace
swinging and cut it in two with a revolver at thirty
yards. And I can drive a shingle nail at that distance
and drive the bullet that drove it, and the next and
the next, until my revolver is empty. You don't be-
lieve me, do you?"
"You know that the beautiful Scheherazade"
"Was famous for her fantastic stories? Yes, I know
that, Mr. Neeland. I'm sorry you don't believe I fired
only to frighten you."
"I'm sorry I don't," he admitted, laughing, "but
I'll practise trying, and maybe I shall attain perfect
credulity some day. Tell me," he added, "what have
you been doing to amuse yourself?"
"I've been amusing myself by wondering whether you
would come here to see me tonight."
"But your note said you were sure I'd come."
"You home come, haven't you?"
'TTes, Scheherazade, I'm here at your bidding, spirit
and flesh. But I forgot to bring one thing;"
"What?"
"The box which—you have promised yourself."
"Yes, the captain has it, I believe," she returned
serenely.
"Oh, Lord! Have you even found out that? I don't
know whether I'm much flattered by this surveillance
231


THE DARK STAR
yon and your friends maintain over me. I suppose you
even know what I had for dinner. Do you?"
"Yes."
"Come, I'll call that bluff, dear lady! What did I
have?"
When she told him, carelessly, and without humour,
mentioning accurately every detail of his dinner, he
lost his gaiety of countenance a little.
"Oh, I say, you know," he protested, "that's going
it a trifle too strong. Now, why the devil should your
people keep tabs on me to that extent?"
She looked up directly into his eyes:
"Mr. Neeland, I want to tell you why. I asked you
here so that I may tell you. The people associated with
me are absolutely pledged that neither the French
nor the British Government shall have access to the
contents of your box. That is why nothing that
you do escapes our scrutiny. We are determined to
have the papers in that box, and we shall have
them."
"You have come to that determination too late," he
began; but she stopped him with a slight gesture of
protest:
"Please don't interrupt me, Mr. Neeland."
"I won't; go on, dear lady!"
"Then, I'm trying to tell you all I may. I am trying
to tell you enough of the truth to make you reflect
very seriously.
"This is no ordinary private matter, no vulgar at-
tempt at robbery and crime as you think—or pretend
to think—for you are very intelligent, Mr. Neeland,
and you know that the contrary is true.
"This affair concerns the secret police, the embassies,
the chancelleries, the rulers themselves of nations long


THE DROP OF IRISH
since grouped into two formidable alliances radically
hostile to one another.
"I don't think you have understood—perhaps even
yet you do not understand why the papers you carry
are so important to certain governments—why it is
impossible that you be permitted to deliver them to
the Princess Mistchenka"
"Where did you ever hear of her!" he demanded in
astonishment.
The girl smiled:
"Dear Mr. Neeland, I know the Princess Mistchenka
better, perhaps, than you do."
"Do you?"
"Indeed I do. What do you know about her? Noth-
ing at all except that she is handsome, attractive, culti-
vated, amusing, and apparently wealthy.
"You know her as a traveller, a patroness of music
and the fine arts—as a devotee of literature, as a grace-
ful hostess, and an amiable friend who gives promising
young artists letters of introduction to publishers who
are in a position to offer them employment."
That this girl should know so much about the Prin-
cess Mistchenka and about his own relations with her
amazed Neeland. He did not pretend to account for
it; he did not try; he sat silent, serious, and surprised,
looking into the pretty and almost smiling face of a
girl who apparently had been responsible for three
separate attempts to kill him—perhaps even a fourth
attempt; and who now sat beside him talking in a soft
and agreeable voice about matters concerning which
he had never dreamed she had heard.
For a few moments she sat silent, observing in his
changing expression the effects of what she had said
to him. Then, with a smile:
233


THE DARK STAR
"Ask me whatever questions you desire to ask, Mr.
Neeland. I shall do my best to answer them."
"Very well," he said bluntly; "how do you happen to
know so much about me?"
"I know something about the friends of the Princess
Mistchenka. I hare to."
"Did you know who I was there in the house at
Brookhollow?"
"No."
"When, then?"
"When you yourself told me your name, I recog-
nised it."
"I surprised you by interrupting you in Brookhol-
low?"
"Yes."
"You expected no interruption?"
"None."
"How did you happen to go there? Where did you
ever hear of the olive-wood box?"
"I had advices by cable from abroad—directions
to go to Brookhollow and secure the box."
"Then somebody must be watching the Princess Mis-
tchenka."
"Of course," she said simply.
"Why 'of course'?"
"Mr. Neeland, the Princess Mistchenka and her
youthful protSgee, Miss Carew"
"What!!!"
The girl smiled wearily:
"Really," she said, "you are such a boy to be mixed
in with matters of this colour. I think that's the reason
you have defeated us—the trained fencer dreads a left-
handed novice more than any classic master of the
foils.


THE BROP OF IRISH
"And that is what you have done to us—blundered—
if you'll forgive me—into momentary victory.
"But such victories are only momentary, Mr. Nee-
land. Please believe it. Please try to understand, too,
that this is no battle with masks and plastrons and
nicely padded buttons. No; it is no comedy, but a
grave and serious affair that must inevitably end in
tragedy—for somebody."
"For me?" he asked without smiling.
She turned on him abruptly and laid one hand lightly
on his arm with a pretty gesture, at once warning,
appealing, and protective.
"I asked you to come here," she said, "because—
because I want you to escape the tragedy."
"You want me to escape?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I—am sorry for you."
He said nothing.
"And—I like you, Mr. Neeland."
The avowal in the soft, prettily modulated voice, lost
none of its charm and surprise because the voice was a
trifle tremulous, and the girl's face was tinted with a
delicate colour.
"I like to believe what you say, Scheherazade," he
said pleasantly. "Somehow or other I never did think
you hated me personally—except once"
She flushed, and he was silent, remembering her hu-
miliation in the Brookhollow house.
"I don't know," she said in a colder tone, "why I
should feel at all friendly toward you, Mr. Neeland,
except that you are personally courageous, and you
have shown yourself generous under a severe temptation
to be otherwise.
235


THE DARK STAR
"As for—any personal humiliation—inflicted upon
me "She looked down thoughtfully and pretended
to sort out a honbon to her taste, while the hot colour
cooled in her cheeks.
"I know," he said, "I've also jeered at you, jested,
nagged you, taunted you, kiss "He checked him-
self and he smiled and ostentatiously lighted a cigarette.
"Well," he said, blowing a cloud of aromatic smoke
toward the ceiling, "I believe that this is as strange a
week as any man ever lived. It's like a story book—
like one of your wonderful stories, Scheherazade. It
doesn't seem real, now that it is ended"
"It is not ended," she interrupted in a low voice.
He smiled.
"You know," he said, "there's no use trying to
frighten such an idiot as I am."
She lifted her troubled eyes:
"That is what frightens me," she said. "I am afraid
you don't know enough to be afraid."
He laughed.
"But I want you to be afraid. A really brave man
knows what fear is. I want you to know."
"What do you wish me to do, Scheherazade?"
"Keep away from that box."
"I can't do that."
"Yes, you can. You can leave it in charge of the
captain of this ship and let him see that an attempt
is made to deliver it to the Princess Mistchenka."
She was in deadly earnest; he saw that. And, in
spite of himself, a slight thrill that was almost a chill
passed over him, checked instantly by the hot wave
of sheer exhilaration at the hint of actual danger.
"Oho!" he said gaily. "Then you and your friends
are not yet finished with me?"
236


THE DROP OF IRISH
"Yes, if you will consider your mission accom-
plished."
"And leave the rest to the captain of the Volhynia?"
"Yes."
"Scheherazade," he said, "did you suppose me to he
a coward?"
"No. You have done all that you can. A reserve
officer of the British Navy has the box in his charge.
Let him, protected by his Government, send it toward
its destination."
In her even voice the implied menace was the more
sinister for her calmness.
He looked at her, perplexed, and shook his head.
"I ask you," she went on, "to keep out of this af-
fair—to disassociate yourself from it. I ask it be-
cause you have been considerate and brave, and because
I do not wish you harm."
He turned toward her, leaning a little forward on the
lounge:
"No use," he said, smiling. "I'm in it until it
ends"
"Let it end then!" said a soft, thick voice directly
behind him. And Neeland turned and found the man
he had seen on deck standing beside him. One of his
fat white hands held an automatic pistol, covering him;
the other was carefully closing the door which he had
noiselessly opened to admit him.
"Karl!" exclaimed Use Dumont.
"It is safaire that you do not stir, either, to inter-
fere," he said, squinting for a second at her out of his
eyes set too near together.
"Karl!" she cried. "I asked him to come in order
to persuade him! I gave him my word of honour!"
"Did you do so? Then all the bettaire. I think we
237


THE BARK STAR
shall persuade him. Do not venture to move, young
man; I shoot veree willingly."
And Neeland, looking at him along the blunt barrel
of the automatic pistol, was inclined to believe him.
His sensations were not agreeable; he managed to
maintain a calm exterior; choke back the hot chagrin
that reddened his face to the temples; and cast a half
humorous, half contemptuous glance at Use Dumont.
"You prove true, don't you?" he said coolly.
"—True to your trade of story-telling, Scheherazade P'
"I knew—nothing—of this!" she stammered.
But Neeland only laughed disagreeably.
Then the door opened again softly, and Golden Beard
came in without his crutches.


CHAPTER XXI
METHOD AND FORESIGHT
Without a word—with merely a careless glance at
Neeland, who remained seated under the level threat of
Ali Baba's pistol, the big, handsome German removed
his overcoat. Under it was another coat. He threw
this off in a brisk, businesslike manner, unbuckled a
brace of pistols, laid them aside, unwound from his
body a long silk rope ladder which dropped to the floor
at Use Dumont's feet.
The girl had turned very pale. She stooped, picked
up the silk ladder, and, holding it in both hands, looked
hard at Golden Beard.
"Johann," she said, "I gave my word of honour to
this young man that if he came here no harm would
happen to him."
"I read the note you have shoved under his door,"
said Golden Beard. "That iss why we are here, Karl
and I."
Neeland remembered the wax in the keyhole then. He
turned his eyes on Use Dumont, curiously, less certain
of her treachery now.
Meanwhile, Golden Beard continued busily unwind-
ing things from his apparently too stout person, and
presently disengaged three life-belts.
One of these he adjusted to his own person, then, put-
ting on his voluminous overcoat, took the pistol from
Ali Baba, who, in turn, adjusted one of the remaining
life-belts to his body.
239 -


THE DARK STAR
Neeland, deeply perplexed and uncomfortable,
watched these operations in silence, trying to divine
some reason for them.
"Now, then!" said Golden Beard to the girl; and
his voice sounded cold and incisive in the silence.
"This is not the way to do it," she said in a low
tone. "I gave him my word of honour."
"You will be good enough to buckle on that belt,"
returned Golden Beard, staring at her.
Slowly she bent over, picked up the life-belt, and,
looping the silk rope over her arm, began to put on
the belt. Golden Beard, impatient, presently came to
her assistance; then he unhooked from the wall a cloak
and threw it over her shoulders.
"Now, Karl!" he said. "Shoot him dead if he stirs!"
And he snatched a sheet from the bed, tore it into
strips, walked over to Neeland, and deftly tied him hand
and foot and gagged him.
Then Golden Beard and AH Baba, between them,
lifted the young man and seated him on the iron bed
and tied him fast to it.
"Go out on deck!" said Golden Beard to Use Dumont.
"Let me stay"
"No! You have acted like a fool. Go to the lower
deck where is our accustomed rendezvous."
"I wish to remain, Johann. I shall not interfere"
"Go to the lower deck, I tell you, and be ready to
tie that rope ladder!"
Ali Baba, down on his knees, had pulled out a steamer
trunk from under the bed, opened it, and was lifting out
three big steel cylinders.
These he laid on the bed in a row beside the tied
man; and Golden Beard, still facing Use Dumont,
turned his head to look.
240


METHOD AND FORESIGHT
The instant his head was turned the girl snatched
a pistol from the brace of weapons on the washstand
and thrust it under her cloak. Neither Golden Beard
nor Ali Baba noticed the incident; the latter was busy
connecting the three cylinders with coils of wire; the
former, deeply interested, followed the operation for
a moment or two, then walking over to the trunk,
he lifted from it a curious little clock with two dials
and set it on the railed shelf of glass above the wash-
stand.
"Karl, haf you ship's time?"
Ali Baba paused to fish out his watch, and the two
compared timepieces. Then Golden Beard wound the
clock, set the hands of one dial at the time indicated
by their watches; set the hands of the other dial at
2:13; and Ali Baba, carrying a reel of copper wire
from the bed to the washstand, fastened one end of
it to the mechanism of the clock.
Golden Beard turned sharply on Use Dumont:
"I said go on deck! Did you not understand?"
The girl replied steadily:
"I understood that we had abandoned this idea for
a better one."
"There iss no better one!"
"There is! Of what advantage would it be to blow
up the captain's cabin and the bridge when it is not
certain that the papers will be destroyed?"
"Listen once!" returned Golden Beard, wagging his
finger in her face:
"Cabin and bridge are directly above us and there
remains not a splinter large like a pin! I know. I
know my bombs! I know"
The soft voice of Ali Baba interrupted, and his shal-
low, lightish eyes peered around at them:
241


THE DARK STAR
"Eet ees veree excellent plan, Johann. We do not
require these papers; eet ees to destroy them we are
mooch anxious"—he bent a deathly stare on Neeland
—"and this yoong gentleman who may again annoy
us." He nodded confidently to himself and continued
to connect the wires. "Yes, yes," he murmured ab-
sently, "eet ees veree good plan—veree good plan to
blow him into leetle pieces so beeg as a pin."
"It is a clumsy plan!" said the girl, desperately.
*'There is no need for wanton killing like this, when we
can"
"Killing?" repeated Golden Beard. "That makes
nothing. This English captain he iss of the naval re-
serve. Und this young man"—nodding coolly toward
Neeland—"knows too much already. That iss not
wanton killing. Also! You talk too much. Do you
hear? We are due to drop anchor about 2:30. God
knows there will be enough rushing to and fro at % :18.
"Go on deck, I say, and fasten that rope ladder!
Weishelm's fishing smack will be watching; wnd if we
do not swim for it we are caught on board! Und that
iss the end of it all for us!"
"Johann," she began tremulously, "listen to me"
"Nein! Nein! What for a Frcmenzimmer haff we
here!" retorted Golden Beard, losing his patience and
catching her by the arm. "Go out und fix for us our
ladder und keep it coiled on the rail und lean ofer it
like you was looking at those stars once!"
He forced her toward the door; she turned, strug-
gling, to confront him:
"Then for God's sake, give this man a chance! Don't
leave him tied here to be blown to atoms! Give him a
chance—anything except this! Throw him out of the
port, there!" She pointed at the closed port, evaded


METHOD AND FORESIGHT
Golden Beard, sprang upon the sofa, unscrewed the
glass cover, and swung it open.
The port was too small even to admit the passage of
her own body; she realised it; Golden Beard laughed
and turned to examine the result of Ali Baba's wiring.
For a second the girl gazed wildly around her, as
though seeking some help in her terrible dilemma, then
she snatched up a bit of the torn sheeting, tied it to
the screw of the porthole cover, and flung the end out
where it fluttered in the darkness.
As she sprang to the floor Golden Beard swung round
"in renewed anger at her for still loitering.
"Sacreminton!" he exclaimed. "It is time you do
your part! Go to your post then! We remain here
until five minutes is left us. Then we join you."
The girl nodded, turned to the door.
"Wait! You understand the plan?"
"Yes."'
"You understand that you do not go overboard until
we arrive, no matter what happens?"
"Yes."
He stood looking at her for a moment, then with a
shrug he went over and patted her shoulder.
"That's my brave girl! I also do not desire to kill
anybody. But when the Fatherland is in danger, then
killing signifies nothing—is of no consequence—pouf!
—no lives are of importance then—not even our own!"
He laughed in a fashion almost kindly and clapped her
lightly once more on her shoulder: "Go, my child. The
Fatherland is in danger!"
She went, not looking back. He closed and locked
the door behind her and calmly turned to aid Ali Baba
who was still fussing with the wires. Presently, how-
ever, he mounted the bed where Neeland sat tied and
243


THE DARK STAR
gagged; pulled from his pockets an auger with its bit,
a screw-eye, and block and tackle; and, standing on
the bed, began to bore a hole in the ceiling.
In a few moments he had fastened the screw-eye,
rigged his block, made a sling for his bombs out of a
blanket, and had hoisted the three cylinders up flat
against the ceiling from whence the connecting wires
sagged over the foot of the bedstead to the alarm clock
on the washstand.
To give the clock more room on the glass shelf, Ali
Baba removed the toilet accessories and set them on
the washstand; but he had no room for a large jug
of water, and, casting about for a place to set it, no-
ticed a railed bracket over the head of the bed, and
placed it there.
Then, apparently satisfied with his labours, he sat
down Turk fashion on the sofa, lighted a cigarette,
selected a bonbon from the box beside him, and calmly
regaled himself.
Presently Golden Beard tied the cord which held up
the sling in which the bombs were slung against the
ceiling. He fastened it tightly to the iron frame of
the bed, stepped back to view the effect, then leisurely
pulled out and filled his porcelain pipe, and seated him-
self on the sofa beside Ali Baba.
Neither spoke; twice Golden Beard drew his watch
from his waistcoat pocket and compared it carefully
with the dial of the alarm clock on the washstand shelf.
The third time he did this he tapped Ali Baba on the
shoulder, rose, knocked out his pipe and flung it out
of the open port.
Together they walked over to Neeland, examined
the gag and ligatures as impersonally as though the
prisoner were not there, nodded their satisfaction,
244


METHOD ANB FORESIGHT
turned off the electric light, and, letting themselves out,
locked the door on the outside.
It lacked five minutes of the time indicated on the
alarm dial.


CHAPTER XXII
TWO THIRTEEN
To Neeland, the entire affair had seemed as though
it were some rather obvious screen-picture at which he
was looking—some photo-play too crudely staged, and
in which he himeslf was no more concerned than any
casual spectator.
Until now, Neeland had not been scared; Ali Baba
and his automatic pistol were only part of this un-
reality; his appearance on the scene had been fan-
tastically classical; he entered when his cue was given
by Scheherazade—this oily, hawk-nosed Eurasian with
his pale eyes set too closely and his moustache hiding
under his nose a, la Enver Pasha—a faultless make-up,
an entry properly timed and prepared. And then, al-
ways well-timed for dramatic effect, Golden Beard had
appeared. Everything was en regie, every unity nicely
preserved. Scheherazade had protested; and her pro-
test sounded genuine. Also entirely convincing was the
binding and gagging of himself at the point of an auto-
matic pistol; and, as for the rest of the business, it was
practically all action and little dialogue—an achieve-
ment really in these days of dissertation.
All, as he looked on at it over the bandage which
closed his mouth, had seemed unreal, impersonal, even
when his forced attitude had caused him inconvenience
and finally pain.
But now, with the light extinguished and the closing
of the door behind Golden Beard and Ali Baba, he ex-
V


TWO THIRTEEN
perienced a shock which began to awaken him to the
almost incredible and instant reality of things.
It actually began to look as though these story-book
conspirators—these hirelings of a foreign government
who had not been convincing because they were too ob-
vious, too well done—actually intended to expose him
to serious injury.
In spite of their sinister intentions in regard to him,
in spite of their attempts to harm him, he had not,
so far, been able to take them seriously or even to
reconcile them and their behaviour with the common-
places of the twentieth century in which he lived.
But now, in the darkness, with the clock on the wash-
stand shelf ticking steadily, he began to take the matter
very seriously. The gag in his mouth hurt him cruelly;
the bands of linen that held it in began to stifle him so
that his breath came in quick gasps through his nostrils;
sweat started at the roots of his hair; his heart leaped,
beat madly, stood still, and leaped again; and he threw
himself against the strips that held him and twisted and
writhed with all his strength.
Suddenly fear pierced him like a poignard; for a
moment panic seized him and chaos reigned in his
bursting brain. He swayed and strained convulsively;
he strove to hurl all the inward and inert reserve of
strength against the bonds that held him.
After what seemed an age of terrible effort he found
himself breathing fast and heavily as though his lungs
would burst through his straining, dilating nostrils,
seated exactly as he had been without a band loosened,
and the icy sweat pouring over his twitching face.
He heard himself trying to shout—heard the im-
prisoned groan shattered in his own throat, dying there
within him.
247


TWO THIRTEEN
seated on the bed and staring at her with eyes that
fairly started from their sockets:
"Mr. Neeland, can't you move? Try! Try to break
loose"
Her voice died away in a whisper as a flash of bluish
flame broke out close to the ceiling overhead, where the
three bombs were slung.
"Oh, God!" she faltered. "The fuses are afire!"
For an instant her brain reeled; she instinctively re-
coiled as though to fling herself out into the darkness.
Then, in a second, her extended arm grew rigid, slanted
upward; the pistol exploded once, twice, the third time;
the lighted bombs in their sling, released by the severed
rope, fell to the bed, the fuses sputtering and fizzling.
Instantly the girl fired again at the big jug of water
on the bracket over the head of the bed; a deluge
drenched the bed underneath; two fuses were out; one
still snapped and glimmered and sent up little jets and
rings of vapour; but as the water soaked into the match
the cinder slowly died until the last spark fell from
the charred wet end and went out on the drenched
blanket.
She waited a little longer, then with an indescribable
look at the helpless man below, she withdrew her head,
pushed herself free, hung to the invisible rope ladder
for a moment, swaying against the open port. His eyes
were fastened on her where she dangled there against
the darkness betwixt sky and sea, oscillating with the
movement of the ship, her pendant figure now gilded by
the light from the room, now phantom dim as she swung
outward.
As the roll of the ship brought her head to the level
of the port once more, she held up her pistol, shook it,
and laughed at him:
249


THE DARK STAR
"Now do you believe that I can shoot?" she called
out. "Answer me some time when that mocking tongue
of yours is free!"
Then, climbing slowly upward into darkness, the
light, falling now across her body, now athwart her
skirt, gilded at last the heels of her shoes; suddenly she
was gone; then stars glittered through the meshes of
the shadowy, twitching ladder which still barred the
open port. And finally the ladder was pulled upward
out of sight.
He waited. After a little while—an interminable
interval to him—he heard somebody stealthily trying
the handle of the door; then came a pause, silence, fol-
lowed by a metallic noise as though the lock were being
explored or picked.
For a while the scraping, metallic sounds continued
steadily, then abruptly ceased as though the unseen
meddler had been interrupted.
A voice—evidently the voice of the lock-picker—
pitched to a cautious key, was heard in protest as
though objecting to some intentions evident in the
new arrival. Whispered expostulations continued for
a while, then the voices became quarrelsome and
louder; and somebody suddenly rapped on the door.
Then a thick, soft voice that he recognised with a
chill, grew angrily audible:
"I say to you, steward, that I forbid you to entaire
that room. I forbid you to disturb thees yoong lady.
Do you know who I am?"
"I don't care who you are"
"I have authority. I shall employ it. You shall lose
your berth! Thees yoong lady within thees room ees
my fiancee! I forbid you to enter forcibly"
"Haven't I knocked? Wot's spilin' you? I am do-
^


TWO THIRTEEN
ing my duty. Back away from this 'ere door, I tell
you!"
"You spik thees-a-way, so impolite"
"Get out o' my way! Blime d'you think I'll stand
'ere jawin' any longer?"
"I am membaire of Parliament"
And the defiant voice of Jim's own little cockney
steward retorted, interrupting:
"Ahr, stow it! Don't I tell you as how a lydy tele-
phones me just now that my young gentleman is in
there? Get away from that door, you blighter, or I'll
bash your beak in!"
The door trembled under a sudden and terrific kick;
the wordy quarrel ceased; hurried steps retreated along
the corridor; a pass key rattled in the lock, and the
door was flung wide open:
"Mr. Neeland, sir—oh, my Gawd, wot ever 'ave they
gone and done, sir, to find you 'ere in such a 'orrid
state!"
But the little cockney lost no time; fingers and pen-
knife flew; Neeland, his arms free, tore the bandage
from his mouth and spat out the wad of cloth.
"I'll do the rest," he gasped, forcing the words from
his bruised and distorted lips; "follow that man who
was outside talking to you! Find him if you can. He
had been planning to blow up this ship!"
"That man, sir!"
"Yes! Did you know him?"
"Yes, sir; but I darsn't let on to him I knew him—
what with 'earing that you was in here"
"You did know him?"
"Yes, sir."
"Who is he?"
"Mr. Neeland, sir, that there cove is wot he says
251


THE DARK STAR
he is, a member of Parliament, and his name is Wil-
son—"
"You're mad! He's an Eurasian, a spy; his name
is Karl Breslau—I heard it from the others—and he
tried to blow up the captain's cabin and the bridge with
those three bombs lying there on the bed!"
"My God, sir—what you tell me may be so, but what
I say is true, sir; that gentleman you heard talking
outside the door to me is Charles Wilson, member of
Parliament, representing Glebe and Wotherness; and
I knew it w'en I 'anded 'im the 'ot stuff!—'strewth I
did, sir—and took my chance you'd 'elp me out if I
got in too rotten with the company!"
Neeland said:
"Certainly you may count on me. You're a brick!"
He continued to rub and slap and pinch his arms and
legs to restore the circulation, and finally ventured to
rise to his shaky feet. The steward offered an arm;
together they hobbled to the door, summoned another
steward, placed him in charge of the room, and went
on in quest of Captain West, to whom an immediate
report was now imperative.


THE DARK STAR
wood box and ran down the landing stairs like a monkey.
"Good luck," said the captain of the Volhynia. "And
keep it in your mind every minute that those two men
and that woman probably are at this moment aboard
some German fishing craft, and headed for France.
"Remember, too, that they are merely units in a vast
system; that they are certain to communicate with
other units; that between you and Paris are people
who will be notified to watch for you, follow you, rob
you."
Neeland nodded thoughtfully.
The captain said again:
"Good luck! I wish you were free to turn over that
box to us. But if you've given your word to deliver it
in person, the whole matter involves, naturally, a point
of honour."
"Yes. I have no discretion in the matter, you see."
He laughed. "You're thinking, Captain West, that I
haven't much discretion anyway."
"I don't think you have very much," admitted the
captain, smiling and shaking the hand which Neeland
offered. "Well, this is merely one symptom of a very
serious business, Mr. Neeland. That an attempt should
actually have been made to murder you and to blow
me to pieces in my cabin is a slight indication of what
a cataclysmic explosion may shatter the peace of the
entire world at any moment now. . . . Good-bye. And
I warn you very solemnly to take this affair as a deadly
serious one and not as a lark."
They exchanged a firm clasp; then Neeland descended
and entered the boat; the Inspector of Police took the
tiller; the policemen bent to the oars, and the boat shot
away through a mist which was turning to a golden
vapour.
254


ON HIS WAY
It was within a few boat-lengths of the landing stairs
that Neeland, turning for a last look into the steaming
golden glory behind him, saw the most splendid sight
of his life. And that sight was the British Empire
assuming sovereignty.
For there, before his eyes, militant, magnificent, the
British fleet was taking the sea, gliding out to accept
its fealty, moving majestically in mass after mass of
steel under flowing torrents of smoke, with the phantom
battle flags whipping aloft in the blinding smother of
mist and sun and the fawning cut-water hurrying too,
as though even every littlest wave were mobilised and
hastening seaward in the service of its mistress, Ruler
of all Waters, untroubled by a man-made Kiel.
And now there was no more time to be lost; no more
stops until he arrived in Paris. A taxicab rushed him
*nd his luggage across the almost empty city; a train,
hours earlier than the regular steamer train, carried
him to London where, as he drove through the crowded,
sunlit streets, in a hansom cab, he could see news-
venders holding up strips of paper on which was printed
in great, black letters:
THE BRITISH FLEET SAILS
SPY IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
CHARLES WILSON, M.P., ACCUSED
MISSING MEMBER SUPPOSED TO BE KARL BRESLATJ,
INTERNATIONAL SPY
And he noticed knots of people pausing to buy the
latest editions of the papers offered.
But Neeland had no time to see much more of Lon-
don than that—glimpses of stately grey buildings and
255


THE DARK STAR
green trees; of monuments and palaces where soldiers
in red tunics stood guard; the crush of traffic in the
city; trim, efficient police, their helmets strapped to
their heads, disentangling the streams of vehicles, halt-
ing, directing everything with calm and undisturbed
precision; a squadron of cavalry in brilliant uniforms
leisurely emerging from some park between iron rail-
ings under stately trees; then the crowded confusion
of a railroad station, but not the usual incidents of
booking and departure, because he was to travel by a
fast goods train under telegraphed authority of the
British Government.
And that is about all that Neeland saw of the might-
iest city in the world on the eve of the greatest conflict
among the human races that the earth has ever wit-
nessed, or ever shall, D. V.
The flying goods train that took him to the Channel
port whence a freight packet was departing, offered
him the luxury of a leather padded armchair in a
sealed and grated mail van.
Nobody disturbed him; nobody questioned him; the
train officials were civil and incurious, and went calmly
about their business with all the traditional stolidity
of official John Bull.
Neeland had plenty of leisure to think as he sat there
in his heavy chair which vibrated but did not sway very
much; and his mind was fully occupied with his reflec-
tions, for, so far, he had not had time to catalogue,
index, and arrange them in proper order, so rapid and
so startling had been the sequence of events since he
had left his studio in New York for Paris, via Brook-
hollow, London, and other points east.
One thing in particular continued to perplex and
astonish him: the identity of a member of Parliament,
256


ON HIS WAY
known as Charles Wilson, suddenly revealed as Karl
Breslau, an international spy.
The wildest flight of fancy of an irresponsible nov-
elist had never created such a character in penny-dread-
ful fiction. It remained incomprehensible, almost in-
credible to Neeland that such a thing could be true.
Also, the young man had plenty of food for reflec-
tion, if not for luncheon, in trying to imagine exactly
how Golden Beard and Ali Baba, and that strange,
illogical young girl, Use Dumont, had escaped from
the VoUiynia.
Probably, in the darkness, the fishing boat which
they expected had signalled in some way or other. No
doubt the precious trio had taken to the water in their
life-jackets and had been picked up even before armed
sailors on the Volhynia descended to their empty state-
rooms and took possession of what luggage could be
discovered, and of the three bombs with their charred
wicks still soaking on the sopping bed.
And now the affair had finally ended, Neeland be-
lieved, in spite of Captain West's warnings. For how
could three industrious conspirators in a fishing smack
off the Lizard do him any further damage?
If they had managed to relay information concern-
ing him to their friends ashore by some set of precon-
certed signals, possibly the regular steamer train to and
out of London might be watched.
Thinking of this, it presently occurred to Neeland
that friends in France, also, might be stirred up in time
to offer him their marked attentions. This, no doubt,
was what Captain West meant; and Neeland considered
the possibility as the flying train whirled him toward
the Channel.
He asked if he might smoke, and was informed tha
:d that
257


THE BARK STAR
he might; and he lighted a cigarette and stretched out
on his chair, a little hungry from lack of luncheon, a
trifle tired from lack of sleep, but, in virtue of his vig-
orous and youthful years, comfortable, contented, and
happy.
Never, he admitted, had he had such a good time in
all his life, despite the fact that chance alone, and not
his own skill and alertness and perspicacity, had saved
his neck.
No, he could not congratulate himself on his clever-
ness and wisdom; sheer accident had saved his skin—
and once the complex and unaccountable vagary of a
feminine mind had saved him from annihilation so utter
that it slightly sickened him to remember his position
in Use Dumont's stateroom as she lifted her pistol and
coolly made good her boast as a dead-shot. But he
forced himself to take it lightly.
"Good Lord!" he thought to himself. "Was ever a
man in such a hellish position, except in melodrama?
And what a movie that would have made! And what
a shot that girl proved herself to be! Certainly she
could have killed me there at Brookhollow! She could
have riddled me before I ducked, even with that nickel-
plated affair about which I was ass enough to taunt
her!"
Lying in his chair, cheek on arm, he continued to
ponder on what had happened, until the monotonous
vibration no longer interfered with his inclination for
a nap. On the contrary, the slight, rhythmic jolting
soothed him and gradually induced slumber; and he
slept there on the rushing train, his feet crossed and
resting on the olive-wood box.
A hand on his arm aroused him; the sea wind blowing
258


ON HIS WAY
through the open doors of the mail-van dashed in his
face like a splash of cool water as he sat up and looked
around him.
As he descended from the van an officer of the freight
packet greeted him by name; a sailor piled his luggage
on a barrow; and Neeland walked through the vista of
covered docks to the pier.
There was a lively wind whipping that notoriously
bad-mannered streak of water known as the English
Channel. Possibly, had it been christened the French
Channel its manners might have been more polite. But
there was now nothing visible about it to justify its sen-
timental pseudonym of Silver Streak.
It was a dirty colour, ominous of ill-temper beyond
the great breakwater to the northward; and it fretted
and fumed inshore and made white and ghastly faces
from the open sea.
But Neeland, dining from a tray in a portholed pit
consecrated to the use of a casual supercargo, rejoiced
because he adored the sea, inland lubber that he had
been born and where the tides of fate had stranded him.
For, to a New Yorker, the sea seems far away—as far
as it seems to the . Parisian. And only when chance
business takes.him to the Battery does a New Yorker
realise the nearness of the ocean to that vast volume of
ceaseless dissonance called New York.
Neeland ate cold meat and bread and cheese, and
washed it down with bitters.
He was nearly asleep on his sofa when the packet
cast off.
He was sound asleep when, somewhere in the rag-
ing darkness of the Channel, he was hurled from the
sofa against the bunk opposite—into which he pri
259


THE DARK STAR
ently crawled and lay, still half asleep, mechanically
rubbing a maltreated shin.
Twice more the bad-mannered British Channel was
violently rude to him; each time he crawled back to
stick like a limpet in the depths of his bunk.
Except when the Channel was too discourteous, he
slept as a sea bird sleeps afloat, tossing outside thun-
dering combers which batter basalt rocks.
Even in his deep, refreshing sea sleep, the subtle sense
of exhilaration—of well-being—which contact with the
sea always brought to him, possessed him. And, deep
within him, the drop of Irish seethed and purred as a
kettle purrs through the watches of the night over a
banked but steady fire.


THE DARK STAR
ing; longed for the gale and the heavy seas again, sorry
the crossing was ended.
He cast a last glance of regret at the white fury
raging beyond the breakwater as he disembarked among
a crowd of porters, gendarmes, soldiers, and assorted
officials; then, following his porter to the customs, he
prepared to submit to the unvarying indignities inci-
dent to luggage examination in France.
He had leisure, while awaiting his turn, to buy a
novel, "Les Bizarettes," of Maurice Bertrand; time,
also, to telegraph to the Princess Mistchenka. The
fox-faced man, who looked like an American, was now
speaking French like one to a perplexed official, inquir-
ing where the Paris train was to be found. Neeland
listened to the fluent information on his own account,
then returned to the customs bench.
But the unusually minute search among his effects
did not trouble him; the papers from the olive-wood
box were buttoned in his breast pocket; and after a
while the customs officials let him go to the train which
stood beside an uncovered concrete platform beyond
the quai, and toward which the fox-faced American
had preceded him on legs that still wabbled with sea-
sickness.
There were no Pullmans attached to the train, only
the usual first, second, and third class carriages with
compartments; and a new style corridor car with cen-
tral aisle and lettered doors to compartments holding
four.
Into one of these compartments Neeland stepped,
hoping for seclusion, but backed out again, the place
being full of artillery officers playing cards.
In vain he bribed the guard, who offered to do his
best; but the human contents of a Channel passenger
262


THE DARK STAR
sary, to escape conversation with the three tired-eyed
ones.
So he hung up his hat, opened his novel, and settled
back to endure the trip through the rain, now begin-
ning to fall from a low-sagging cloud of watery
grey.
After a few minutes the train moved. Later the
guard passed and accomplished his duties. Neeland
inquired politely of him in French whether there was
any political news, and the guard replied politely that
he knew of none. But he looked very serious when he
said it.
Half an hour from the coast the rain dwindled to a
rainbow and ceased; and presently a hot sun was gild-
ing wet green fields and hedges and glistening roofs
which steamed vapour from every wet tile.
Without asking anybody's opinion, one of the men
opposite raised the window. But Neeland did not ob-
ject; the rain-washed air was deliciously fragrant; and
he leaned his elbow on his chair arm and looked out
across the loveliest land in Europe.
"Say, friend," said an East Side voice at his elbow,
"does smoking go?"
He glanced back over his shoulder at the speaker—
a little, pallid, sour-faced man with the features of a
sick circus clown and eyes like two holes burnt in a
lump of dough.
"Pardon, monsieur?" he said politely.
"Can't you even pick a Frenchman, Ben?" sneered
one of the men opposite—a square, smoothly shaven
man with slow, heavy-lidded eyes of a greenish tinge.
The fox-faced man said:
"He had me fooled, too, Eddie. If Ben Stull didn't
get his number it don't surprise me none, becuz he was
264


THE ROAD TO PARIS
on the damn boat I crossed in, and I certainly picked
him for New York."
"Aw," said the pasty-faced little man referred to as
Ben Stull, "Eddie knows it all. He never makes no
breaks, of course. You make 'em, Doc, but he doesn't.
That's why me and him and you is travelling here—
this minute—because the great Eddie Brandes never
makes no breaks"
"Go on and smoke and shut up," said Brandes, with
a slow, sidewise glance at Neeland, whose eyes remained
fastened on the pages of "Les Bizarettes," but whose
ears were now very wide open.
"Smoke," repeated Stull, "when this here Frenchman
may make a holler?"
"Wait till I ask him," said the man addressed as
Doc, with dignity. And to Neeland:
"Pardong, nmsseer, permitty vous moi de fumy wng
cigar?"
"Mais comment, done, monsieur! Je vous en
prie"
"He says politely," translated Doc, "that we can
smoke and be damned to us."
They lighted three obese cigars; Neeland, his eyes on
his page, listened attentively and stole a glance at the
man they called Brandes.
So this was the scoundrel who had attempted to de-
ceive the young girl who had come to him that night in
his studio, bewildered with what she believed to be her
hopeless disgrace!
This was the man—this short, square, round-faced
individual with his minutely shaven face and slow green-
ish eyes, and his hair combed back and still reeking with
perfumed tonic—this shiny, scented, and overgroomed
sport with rings on his fat, blunt fingers and the silk
265


THE DARK STAR
laces on his tan oxfords as fastidiously tied as though
a valet had done it!
Ben Stull began to speak; and presently Neeland
discovered that the fox-faced man's name was Doc Cur-
foot; that he had just arrived from London on receipt
of a telegram from them; and that they themselves
had landed the night before from a transatlantic liner
to await him here.
Doc Curfoot checked the conversation, which was
becoming general now, saying that they'd better be very
sure that the man opposite understood no English be-
fore they became careless.
"Musseer," he added suavely to Neeland, who looked
up with a polite smile, "parly voo Anglay?"
"Je parte Fratifais, monsieur."
"I get him," said Stull, sourly. "I knew it anyway.
He's got the sissy manners of a Frenchy, even if he
don't look the part. No white man tips his lid to no-
body except a swell skirt."
"I seen two dudes do it to each other on Fifth
Avenue," remarked Curfoot, and spat from the win-
dow.
Brandes, imperturbable, rolled his cigar into the cor-
ner of his mouth and screwed his greenish eyes to nar-
row slits.
"You got our wire, Doc?"
"Why am I here if I didn't!"
"Sure. Have an easy passage?"
Doc Curfoot's foxy visage still wore traces of the
greenish pallor; he looked pityingly at Brandes—telf-
pityingly:
"Say, Eddie, that was the worst I ever seen. A
freight boat, too. God! I was that sick I hoped she'd
turn turtle! And nab it from me; if you hadn't wired
266


THE ROAB TO PARIS
me SOS, I'd have waited over for the steamer train
and the regular boat!"
"Well, it's S 0 S all right, Doc. I got a cable
from Quint this morning saying our place in Paris is
ready, and we're to be there and open up tonight"
"What place?" demanded Curfoot.
"Sure, I forgot. You don't know anything yet, do
you?"
"Eddie," interrupted Stull, "let me do the talking
this time, if you please."
And, to Curfoot:
"Listen, Doc. We was up against it. You heard.
Every little thing has went wrong since Eddie done
what he done—every damn thing! Look what's hap-
pened since Maxy Venem got sore and he and Minna
started out to get him! Morris Stein takes away the
Silhouette Theatre from us and we can't get no time
for 'Lilith' on Broadway. We go on the road and bust.
All our Saratoga winnings goes, also what we got in-
vested with Parson Smawley when the bulls pulled
Quint's!"
"Ah, f'r the lov' & Mike!" began Brandes. "Can
that stuff!"
"All right, Eddie. I'm tellin' Doc, that's all. I ain't
aiming to be no crape-hanger; I only want you both to
listen to me this time. If you'd listened to me before,
we'd have been in Saratoga today in our own machines.
But no; you done what you done—God! Did anyone
ever hear of such a thing!—taking chances with that
little rube from Brookhollow—that freckled-faced mill-
hand—that yap-skirt! And Minna and Max having
you watched all the time! You big boob! No—don't
interrupt! Listen to me! Where are you now? You
had good money; you had a theaytre, you had backing!
267


THE DARK STAR
Quint was doing elegant; Doc and Parson and you and
me had it all our way and comin' faster every day.
Wait, I tell you! This ain't a autopsy. This is busi-
ness. I'm tellin' you two guys all this becuz I want you
to realise that what Eddie done was against my advice.
Come on, now; wasn't it?"
"It sure was," admitted Curfoot, removing his cigar
from his lean, pointed visage of a greyhound, and
squinting thoughtfully at the smoke eddying in the
draught from the open window.
"Am I right, Eddie?" demanded Stull, fixing his
black, smeary eyes on Brandes.
"Well, go on," returned the latter between thin lips
that scarcely moved.
"All right, then. Here's the situation, Doc. We're
broke. If Quint hadn't staked us to this here new game
we're playin', where'd we be, I ask you?
"We got no income now. Quint's is shut up; Maxy
Venem and Minna Minti fixed us at Saratoga so we
can't go back there for a while. They won't let us
touch a card on the liners. Every pug is leery of as
since Eddie flimflammed that Battling Smoke; and I
told you he'd holler, too! Didn't I?" turning on
Brandes, who merely let his slow eyes rest on him
without replying.
"Go on, Ben," said Curfoot.
"I'm going on. We guys gotta do something
«
'We ought to have fixed Max Venem," said Curfoot
coolly.
There was a silence; all three men glanced stealthily
at Neeland, who quietly turned the page of his book as
though absorbed in his story.
"That squealer, Max," continued Curfoot with pla-
cid ferocity blazing in his eyes, "ought to have been put
268


THE ROAD TO PARIS
away. Quint and Parson wanted us to have it done.
Was it any stunt to get that dirty little shyster in
some roadhouse last May?"
Brandes said:
"I'm not mixing with any gunmen after the Rosen-
thal business."
"Becuz a lot of squealers done a amateur job like
that, does it say that a honest job can't be pulled?"
demanded Curfoot. "Did Quint and me ask you to go
to Dopey or Clabber or Pete the Wop, or any of them
cheap gangsters?"
"Ah, can the gun-stuff," said Brandes. "I'm not for
it. It's punk."
"What's punk?"
"Gun-play."
"Didn't you pull a pop on Maxy Venem the night
him and Hyman Adams and Minna beat you up in front
of the Knickerbocker?"
"Eddie was stalling," interrupted Stull, as Brandes'
face turned a dull beef-red. "You talk like a bad actor,
Doc. There's other ways of getting Max in wrong.
Guns ain't what they was once. Gun-play is old stuff.
But listen, now. Quint has staked us and we gotta
make good. And this is a big thing, though it looks
like it was out of aur line."
"Go on; what's the idea?" inquired Curfoot, inter-
ested.
Brandes, the dull red still staining his heavy face,
watched the flying landscape from the open window.
Stull leaned forward; Curfoot bent his lean, narrow
head nearer; Neeland, staring fixedly at his open book,
pricked up his ears.
"Now," said Stull in a low voice, "I'll tell you guys
all Eddie and I know about this here business of Cap-
269


THE DARK STAR
tain Quint's. It's like this, Doc: Some big feller comes
to Quint after they close him up—he won't tell who—
and puts up this here proposition: Quint is to open a
elegant place in Paris on the Q. T. In fact, it's ready
now. There'll be all the backing Quint needs. He's
to send over three men he can trust—three men who
can shoot at a pinch! He picks us three and stakes us.
Get me?"
Doc nodded.
Brandes said in his narrow-eyed, sleepy way:
"There was a time when they called us gunmen—
Ben and me. But, so help me God, Doc, we never did
any work like that ourselves. We never fired a shot to
croak any living guy. Did we, Ben?"
"All right," said Stull impatiently. And, to Cur-
foot: "Eddie and I know what we're to do. If it's on
the cards that we shoot—well, then, we'll shoot. The
place is to be small, select, private, and first class. Doc,
you act as capper. You deal, too. Eddie sets 'em up.
I deal or spin. All right. We three guys attend to
anything American that blows our way. Get that?"
Curfoot nodded.
"Then for the foreigners, there's to be a guy called
Karl Breslau."
Neeland managed to repress a start, but the blood
tingled in his cheeks, and he turned his head a trifle as
though seeking better light on the open pages in his
hands.
"This here man Breslau," continued Stull, "speaks
all kinds of languages. He is to have two friends with
him, a fellow named Kestner and one called Weishelm.
They trim the foreigners, they do; and"
"Well, I don't see nothing new about this "began
Curfoot; but Stull interrupted:
270


THE ROAD TO PARIS
"Wait, can't you! This ain't the usual. We run a
place for Quint. The place is like Quint's. We trim
guys same as he does—or did. But there's more to it."
He let his eyes rest on Neeland, obliquely, for a full
minute. The others watched him, too. Presently the
young man cut another page of his book with his pen-'
knife and turned it with eager impatience, as though
the story absorbed him.
"Don't worry about Frenchy," murmured Brandes
with a shrug. "Go ahead, Ben."
Stull laid one hand on Curfoot's shoulder, drawing
that gentleman a trifle nearer and sinking his voice:
"Here's the new stuff, Doc," he said. "And it's
brand new to us, too. There's big money into it. Quint
swore we'd get ours. And as we was on our uppers we
went in. It's like this: We lay for Americans from
the Embassy or from any of the Consulates. They are
our special game. It ain't so much that we trim them;
we also get next to them; we make 'em talk right out
in church. Any political dope they have we try to get.
We get it any way we can. If they'll accelerate we ac-
celerate 'em; if not, we dope 'em and take their papers.
The main idee is to get a holt on 'em!
"That's what Quint wants; that's what he's payin'
for and gettin' paid for—inside information from the
Embassy and Consulates"
"What does Quint want of that?" demanded Cur-
foot, astonished.
"How do I know? Blackmail? Graft? I can't call
the dope. But listen here! Don't forget that it ain't
Quint who wants it. It's the big feller behind him
who's backin' him. It's some swell guy higher up who's
payin' Quint. And Quint, he pays us. So where's the
squeal coming?"
271


THE DARK STAR
'Yes, but-
"Where's the holler?" insisted Stull.
"I ain't hollerin', am I? Only this here is new stuff
to me"
"Listen, Doc. I don't know what it is, but all these
here European kings is settin' watchin' ene another like
toms in a back alley. I think that some foreign politi-
cal high-upper wants dope on what our people are find-
ing out over here. Like this, he says to himself: 'I
hear this Kink is building ten sooper ferry boats. If
that's right, I oughta know. And I hear that the Queen
of Marmora has ordered a million new nifty fifty-shot
bean-shooters for the boy scouts! That is indeed seri-
ous news? So he goes to his broker, who goes to a
big feller, who goes to Quint, who goes to us. Flag
me?"
"Sure."
"That's all. There's nothing to it, Doc. Says Quint
to us: 'Trim a few guys for me and get their letters,'
says Quint; 'and there's somethin' in it for me and you."
And that's the new stuff, Doc."
"You mean we're spies?"
"Spies? I don't know. We're on a salary. We get
a big bonus for every letter we find on the carpet"
He winked at Curfoot and relighted his cigar.
"Say," said the latter, "it's like a creeping joint.
It's a panel game, Ben"
"It's politics like they play 'em in Albany, only it's
ambassadors and kinks we trim, not corporations."
"We can't do it! What the hell do we know about
kinks and attaches?"
"No; Weishelm, Breslau and Kestner do that. We
lay for the attaches or spin or deal or act handy at the
bar and buffet with homesick Americans. No; the fine
272


THE ROAD TO PARIS
work—the high-up stuff, is done by Breslau and Weis-
helm. And I guess there's some fancy skirts somewhere
in the game. But they're silent partners; and anyway
Weishelm manages that part."
Curfoot, one lank knee over the other, swung his
foot thoughtfully to and fro, his ratty eyes lost in
dreamy revery. Brandes tossed his half-consumed cigar
out of the open window and set fire to another. Stull
waited for Curfoot to make up his mind. After several
minutes the latter looked up from his cunning abstrac-
tion:
"Well, Ben, put it any way you like, but we're just
plain political spies. And what the hell do they hand
us over here if we're pinched?"
"I don't know. What of it?"
"Nothing. If there's good money in it, I'll take a
chance."
"There is. Quint backs us. When we get 'em com-
ing"
"Ah," said Doc with a wry face, "that's all right for
the cards or the wheel. But this pocket picking"
"Say; that ain't what I mean. It's like this: Young
Fitznoodle of the Embassy staff gets soused and starts
out lookin' for a quiet game. We furnish the game.
We don't go through his pockets; we just pick up what-
ever falls out and take shorthand copies. Then back
go the letters into Fitznoodle's pocket"
"Yes. Who reads 'em first?" m
"Breslau. Or some skirt, maybe."
"What's Breslau?"
"Search Trie. He's a Dutchman or a Rooshian or
some sort of Dodo. What do you care?"
"I don't. All right, Ben. You've got to show me;
that's all."
273


THE DARK STAR
"Show you what?"
"Spot cash!"
"You're in when you handle it?"
"If you show me real money—yes."
"You're on. I'll cash a cheque of Quint's for you at
Monroe's soon as we hit the asphalt! And when you
finish counting out your gold nickels put 'em in your
pants and play the game! Is that right?"
"Yes."
They exchanged a wary handshake; then, one after
another, they leaned back in their seats with the air
of honest men who had done their day's work.
Curfoot blinked at Brandes, at his excessively
groomed person, at his rings.
"You look prosperous, Eddie."
"It's his business to," remarked Stull.
Brandes yawned:
"It would be a raw deal if there's a war over here,"
he said listlessly.
"Ah," said Curfoot, "there won't be none."
"Why?"
"The Jews and bankers won't let these kinks mix
it."
"That's right, too," nodded Brandes.
But Stull said nothing and his sour, pasty visage
turned sourer. It was the one possibility that disturbed
him—the only fly in the amber—the only mote that
'troubled his clairvoyance. Also, he was the only man
among the three who didn't think a thing was certain to
happen merely because he wanted it to happen.
There was another matter, too, which troubled him.
Brandes was unreliable. And who but little Stull should
know how unreliable?
For Brandes had always been that. And now Stull
274


THE ROAD TO PARIS
"Aw—don't hand me the true-love stuff, Eddie! If
you'd meant it with that little haymaker you'd have
respected her"
Brandes' large face became crimson with rage:
"You say another word about her and I'll push your
block off—you little dough-faced kike!"
Stull shrugged and presently whispered to Curfoot:
"That's the play he always makes. I've waited two
years, but he won't ring down on the love stuff. I guess
he was hit hard that trip. It took a little red-headed,
freckled country girl to stop him. But it was comin'
to Eddie Brandes, and it certainly looks like it was
there to stay a while."
"He's still stuck on her?"
"I guess she's still the fly paper," nodded Stull.
Suddenly Brandes turned on Stull such a look of con-
centrated hatred that the little gambler's pallid fea-
tures stiffened with surprise:
"Ben," said Brandes in a low voice, which was too in-
distinct for Neeland to catch, "I'll tell you something
now that you don't know. I saw Quint alone; I talked
with him. Do you know who is handling the big stuff
in this deal?"
"Who?" asked Stull, amazed.
"The Turkish Embassy in Paris. And do you know
who plays the fine Italian hand for that bunch of
Turks?"
"No."
"Minna!"
"You're crazy!"
Brandes took no notice, but went on with a sort of
hushed ferocity that silenced both Stull and Curfoot:
"That's why I went in. To get Minna. And I'll get
her if it costs every cent I've got or ever hope to get.
277
r


THE BARK STAR
That's why I'm in this deal; that's why I came; that's
why I'm here telling you this. I'm in it to get Minna,
not for the money, not for anything in all God's world
except to get the woman who has done what Minna did
to me."
Neeland listened in vain to the murmuring voice; he
could not catch a word.
Stull whispered:
"Aw, f'r God's sake, Eddie, that ain't the game. Do
you want to double-cross Quint?"
"I have double-crossed him."
"What! Do you mean to sell him out?"
"I have sold him out."
"Jesus! Who to?"
"To the British Secret Service. And there's to be
one hundred thousand dollars in it, Doc, for you and me
to divide. And fifty thousand more when we put the
French bulls on to Minna and Breslau. Now, how does
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars against five
thousand apiece strike you two poor, cheap guys?"
But the magnitude of Brandes' treachery and the
splendour of the deal left the two gamblers stunned.
Only by their expressions could Neeland judge that
they were discussing matters of vital importance to
themselves and probably to him. He listened; he could
not hear what they were whispering. And only at in-
tervals he dared glance over his book in their direc-
tion.
"Well," said Brandes under his breath, "go on. Spit
it out. What's the squeal?"
"My God!" whispered Stull. "Quint will kill you."
Brandes laughed unpleasantly:
"Not me, Ben. I've got that geezer where I want him
on a dirty deal he pulled off with the police."
278


THE ROAD TO PARIS
Curfoot turned his pointed muzzle toward the win-
dow and sneered at the sunny landscape.
A few minutes later, far across the rolling plain set
with villas and farms, and green with hedgerows, gar-
dens, bouquets of trees and cultivated fields, he caught
sight of a fairy structure outlined against the sky.
Turning to Brandes:
"There's the Eiffel Tower," remarked Curfoot.
"Where are we stopping, Eddie?"
"Caffy des Bulgars."
"Where's that?"
"It's where we go to work—Roo Vilna."
Stull's smile was ghastly, but Curfoot winked at
Brandes.
Neeland listened, his eyes following the printed pages
of his book.


CUP AND LIP
—animated, cordial, gay scenes complicated by many
embraces on both cheeks.
And, of a sudden, he noticed the prettiest girl he had
ever seen in his life. She was in white, with a black
straw hat, and her face and figure were lovely beyond
words. Evidently she was awaiting friends; there was
a charming expectancy on her fresh young face, a slight
forward inclination of her body, as though expectancy
amd happy impatience alone controlled her.
Her beauty almost took his breath away.
"Lord!" he thought to himself. "If such a girl as
that ever stood waiting for me"
At the same moment her golden-grey eyes, sweeping
the passing crowd, met his; a sharp thrill of amaze-
ment passed through him as she held out both gloved
hands with a soft exclamation of recognition:
"Jim! Jim Neeland!"
"Rue Carew!" He could scarcely credit his eye-
sight, where he stood, hat in hand, holding both her
little hands in one of his.
No, there was no use in trying to disguise his aston-
ishment. He looked into the face of this tall young
girl, searched it for familiar features, recognised a
lovely paraphrase of the freckled face and thin figure
he remembered, and remained dumb before this radiant
reincarnation of that other unhappy, shabby, and
meagre child he had known two years ago.
Ruhannah, laughing and flushed, withdrew her hands.
"Have I changed? You haven't. And I always
thought you the most wonderful and ornamental young
man on this planet. I knew you at once, Jim Neeland.
Would you have passed without recognising me?"
"Perhaps I wouldn't have passed after seeing
you"
281


THE DARK STAR
"Jim Neeland! What a remark!" She laughed.
"Anyway, it's nice to believe myself attractive enough
to be noticed. And I'm so glad to see you. Naia is
here, somewhere, watching for you"—turning her
pretty, eager head to search for the Princess Mist-
chenka. "Oh, there she is! She doesn't see us"
They made their way between the passing ranks of
passengers and porters; the Princess caught sight of
them, came hastily toward them.
"Jim! It's nice to see you. Thank you for coming!
So you found him, Rue? How are you, Jim? And
where is the olive-wood box?"
"I'm well, and there's that devilish box!" he replied,
laughing and lifting it in his hand to exhibit it. "Nai'a,
the next time you want it, send an escort of artillery
and two battleships.1"
"Did you have trouble?"
"Trouble? I had the time of my life. No moving
picture can ever again excite me; no best seller. I've
been both since I had your cable to get this box and
bring it to you."
He laughed as he spoke, but the Princess continued
to regard him very seriously, and Rue Carew's smile
came and waned like sunlight in a wood, for she was
not quite sure whether he had really encountered any
dangers on this mission which he had fulfilled so well.
"Our car is waiting outside," said the Princess.
"Where is your porter, Jim?"
Neeland glanced about him, discovered the porter,
made a sign for him to follow, and they moved together
toward the entrance to the huge terminal.
"I haven't decided where to stop yet," began Neeland,
but the Princess checked him with a pretty gesture:
"You stop with us, Jim."
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CUP AND LIP
"Thank you so much, but"
"Please. Must I beg of you?"
"Do you really wish it?"'
"Certainly," she replied absently, glancing about her.
She added: "I don't see my car. I don't see my foot-
man. I told him to wait here. Rue, do you see him
anywhere?"
"No, I don't," said the girl.
"How annoying!" said the Princess. "He's a new
man. My own footman was set upon and almost killed
by Apaches a week ago. So I had to find a substitute.
How stupid of him! Where on earth can he be wait-
ing?"
They traversed the court of the terminal. Many
automobiles were parked there or just leaving; liveried
footmen stood awaiting masters and mistresses; but
nowhere was the car of the Princess Mistchenka in
sight.
They stood there, Neeland's porter behind with his
suitcase and luggage, not knowing whether to wait
longer or summon a taxicab.
"I don't understand," repeated the Princess impa-
tiently. "I explained very carefully what I desired.
That new groom is stupid. Caron, my chauffeur, would
never have made a mistake unless that idiot groom mis-
understood his instructions."
"Let me go and make some inquiries," said Neeland.
"Do you mind waiting here? I'll not be long"
He went off, carrying the olive-wood box, which his
grasp never quitted now; and presently the Princess
and Ruhannah saw him disappear among the ranks of
automobiles and cabs.
"I don't like it, Rue," repeated the Princess in a low
voice. "I neither understand nor relish this situation."
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THE DARK STAR
"Have you any idea"
"Hush, child! I don't know. That new groom, Ver-
dier, was recommended by the Russian Embassy. I
don't know what to think of this."
"It ccun't be anything—queer, can it, dear?" asked
Rue.
"Anything com, have happened. Nothing is likely ta
have occurred, however—unless—unless those Apaches
were"
"Naia!"
"It's possible, I suppose. They may have attacked
Picard as part of a conspiracy. The Russian Embassy
may have been deceived in Verdier. All this may be
part of a plan. But—I scarcely believe it. . . . All
the same, I dislike to take a taxicab"
She caught sight of Neeland returning; both women
moved forward to meet him.
"I've solved the mystery," he said. "Naia, your car
was run into outside the station a few minutes after
you left it. And I'm sorry to say that your chauffeur
was badly enough hurt to require an ambulance."
"Where on earth did you learn that?"
"The official at the taxicab control told me. I went
to him because that is where one is likely to receive in-
formation."
"Caron hurt!" murmured the Princess. "What a
shame! Where did they take him, Jim?"
"To the Charite."
"I'll go this afternoon. But where is that imbecile
groom of mine?"
"It appears that he and a policeman went to a garage
on the repair truck that took your car."
"Was he arrested?"
"I believe so."
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CUP AND LIP
"What a contretemps!" exclaimed the Princess Mist-
chenka. "We shall have to take a taxicab after
all!"
"I've ordered one from the control. There it comes
now," said Neeland, as a brand new taxicab, which
looked like a private car, drew up at the curb, and a
smiling and very spick and span chauffeur saluted.
Neeland's porter hoisted trunk and suitcase on top;
the Princess stepped into the limousine, followed by
Rue and Neeland; the chauffeur took the order, started
his car, wheeled out into the square, circled the traffic
policeman, and whizzed away into the depths of the
most beautiful city in the world.
Neeland, seated with his back to the driver, laid the
olive-wood box on his knees, unlocked it, drew from his
breast pocket the papers he carried; locked them in the
box once more, and looked up laughingly at the
Princess and Ruhannah as he placed it at his feet.
"There you are!" he said. "Thank heaven my task
and your affair have been accomplished. All the papers
are there—and," to Ruhannah, "that pretty gentleman
you call the Yellow Devil is inside, along with some
assorted firearms, drawing instruments, and photo-
graphs. The whole business is here, intact—and so am
I—if that irrelevant detail should interest you."
Rue smiled her answer; the Princess scrutinised him
keenly:
"Did you have trouble, Jim?"
"Yes, I did."
"Serious trouble?"
"I tell you it was like a movie in five reels. Never
before did I believe such things happened outside a
Yonkers studio. But they do, Nai'a. And I've learned
that the world is full of more excitingly melodrama
•amatir
285


THE DARK STAR
possibilities than any novel or scenario ever contained."
"You're not serious, of course," began Rue Carew,
watching the varying expressions on his animated fea-
tures; but the Princess Mistchenka said, unsmiling:
"A film melodrama is a crude and tawdry thing com-
pared to the real drama so many of us play in every
moment of our lives."
Neeland said to Rue, lightly:
"That is true as far as I have been concerned with
that amazing box. It's full of the very devil—of that
Yellow Devil! When I pick it up now I seem to feel a
premonitory tingling all over me—not entirely disagree-
able," he added to the Princess, "but the sort of half-
scared exhilaration a man feels who takes a chance and
is quite sure he'll not have another chance if he loses.
Do you understand what I mean?"
"Yes," said the Princess unsmilingly, her clear, pleas-
ant eyes fixed on him.
In her tranquil, indefinite expression there was some-
thing which made him wonder how many such chances
this pretty woman had taken in her life of intellectual
pleasure and bodily ease.
And now he remembered that Use Dumont apparently
knew about her—about Ruhannah, too. And Use Du-
mont was the agent of a foreign government.
Was the Princess Mistchenka, patron and amateur
of the arts, another such agent? If not, why had he
taken this journey for her with this box of papers?
The passage of the Boulevard was slow; at every
square traffic was halted; all Paris crowded the streets
in the early afternoon sunshine, and the taxicab in
which they sat made little speed until the Place de la
Concorde opened out and the great Arc—a tiny phan-
tom of lavender and pearl—spanned the vanishing
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CUP AND LIP
point of a fairy perspective between parallel and end-
less ramparts of tender green.
"There was a lot of war talk on the Volhynia," said
Neeland, "but I haven't heard any since I landed, nor
have I seen a paper. I suppose the Chancelleries have
come to some agreement."
"No," said the Princess.
"You don't expect trouble, do you? I mean a gen-
eral European free-for-all fight?"
"I don't know, Jim."
"Haven't you," he asked blandly, "any means of ac-
quiring inside information?"
She did not even pretend to evade the good-humoured
malice of his smile and question:
"Yes; I have sources of private information. I have
learned nothing, so far."
He looked at Rue, but the smile had faded from her
face and she returned his questioning gaze gravely.
"There is great anxiety in Europe," she said in a
low voice, "and the tension is increasing. When we
arrive home we shall have a chance to converse more
freely." She made the slightest gesture with her head
toward the chauffeur—a silent reminder and a caution.
The Princess nodded slightly:
"One never knows," she remarked. "We shall have
much to say to one another when we are safely home."
But Neeland could not take it very seriously here in
the sunshine, with two pretty women facing him—here
speeding up the Champs Elysees between the endless
green of chestnut trees and the exquisite silvery-grey
facades of the wealthy—with motors flashing by ©n
every side and the cool, leafy alleys thronged with chil-
dren and nurse-maids, and Monsieur Guignol squeaking
and drumming in his red-curtained box!
287


THE DARK STAR
How could a young man believe in a sequel to the
almost incredible melodrama in which he had figured,
with such a sane and delightful setting, here in the fa-
miliar company of two charming women he had known?
Besides, all Paris and her police were at his elbow;
the olive-wood box stood between his knees; a smartly
respectable taxi and its driver drove them with the
quiet eclat and precision of a private employe; the Arc
de Triomphe already rose splendidly above them, and
everything that had once been familiar and reassuring
and delightful lay under his grateful eyes on every
side.
And now the taxicab turned into the rue Soleil d'Or
—a new street to Neeland, opened since his student
days, and only one square long, with a fountain in the
middle and young chestnut trees already thickly
crowned with foliage lining both sides of the street.
But although the rue Soleil d'Or was a new street to
him, Paris construction is also a rapid affair. The
street was faced by charming private houses built of
grey Caen stone; the fountain with its golden sundial,
with the seated figure—a life-size replica of Manship's
original in the Metropolitan Museum—serenely and
beautifully holding its place between the Renaissance
facades and rows of slender trees.
Summer had not yet burned foliage or flowers; the
freshness of spring itself seemed still to reign there.
Three blue-bloused street-sweepers with hose and
broom were washing the asphalt as their cab slowed
down, sounding its horn to warn them out of the way.
And, the spouting hose still in their hands, the street-
cleaners stepped out of the gutter before the pretty
private hotel of Madame la Princesse.
Already a butler was opening the grille; already the
288


CUP AND LIP
chauffeur had swung Neeland's steamer trunk and suit-
case to the sidewalk; already the Princess and Rue were
advancing to the house, while Neeland fumbled in his
pocket for the fare.
The butler, bowing, relieved him of the olive-wood
box. At the same instant the blue-bloused man with the
hose turned the powerful stream of water directly into
the butler's face, knocking him flat on the sidewalk; and
his two comrades tripped up Neeland, passed a red
sash over his head, and hurled him aside, blinded, half
strangled, staggering at random, tearing furiously at
the wide band of woollen cloth which seemed to suffo-
cate him.
Already the chauffeur had tossed the olive-wood box
into tke cab; the three blue-bloused men sprang in after
it; the chauffeur slipped into his seat, threw in the
clutch, and, driving with one hand, turned a pistol on
the half drowned butler, who had reeled to his feet and
was lurching forward to seize the steering wheel.
The taxicab, gathering speed, was already turning
the corner of the rue de la Lune when Neeland managed
to free throat and eyes from the swathe of woollen.
The butler, checked by the levelled pistol, stood drip-
ping, still almost blinded by the force of the water from
the hose; but he had plenty of pluck, and he followed
Neeland on a run to the corner of the street.
The street was absolutely empty, except for the spar-
rows, and the big, fat, slate-coloured pigeons that strut-
ted and coo-cooed under the shadow of the chestnut
trees.
'


CHAPTER XXVI
RUE SOLEIL D’OR
MARoTTE, the butler, in dry clothes, had served
luncheon—a silent, respectable, self-respecting man,
calm in his fury at the incredible outrage perpetrated
upon his person.
And now luncheon was over; the Princess at the tele-
phone in her boudoir; Rue in the music-room with Nee-
land, still excited, anxious, confused.
Astonishment, mortification, anger, had left Neeland
silent; and the convention known as luncheon had not
appealed to him.
But very little was said during that formality; and
in the silence the serious nature of the episode which so
suddenly had deprived the Princess of the olive-wood
box and the papers it contained impressed Neeland
more and more deeply.
The utter unexpectedness of the outrage—the help-
less figure he had cut—infuriated him. And the more
he reflected the madder he grew when he realised that
all he had gone through meant nothing now—that every
effort had been sterile, every hour wasted, every step
he had taken from Brookhollow to Paris—to the very
doorstep where his duty ended—had been taken in
vain.
It seemed to him in his anger and humiliation that
never had any man been so derided, so heartlessly
mocked by the gods.
And now, as he sat there behind lowered blinds in the
290


RUE SOLEIL DOR
cool half-light of the music-room, he could feel the hot
blood of resentment and chagrin in his cheeks.
"Nobody could have foreseen it," repeated Rue Ca-
rew in a pretty, bewildered voice. "And if the Princess
Nai'a had no suspicions, how could I harbour any—or
how could you?"
"I've been sufficiently tricked—or I thought I had
been—to be on my guard. But it seems not. I ought
never to have been caught in such a digusting trap—
such a simple, silly, idiotic cage! But—good Lord!
How on earth was a man to suspect anything so—so
naturally planned and executed—so simply done. It
w&s an infernal masterpiece, Rue. But—that is no con-
solation to a man who has been made to appear like a
monkey!"
The Princess, entering, overheard; and she seated
herself and looked tranquilly at Neeland as he resumed
his place on the sofa.
"You were not to blame, Jim," she said. "It was my
fault. I had warning enough at the railroad terminal
when an accident to my car was reported to me by the
control through you." She added, calmly: "There was
no accident."
"No accident?" exclaimed Neeland, astonished.
"None at all. My new footman, who followed us to
the waiting salon for incoming trains, returned to my
chauffeur, Caron, saying that he was to go back to
the garage and await orders. I have just called the
garage and I had Caron on the wire. There was no
accident; he has not been injured; and—the new foot-
man has disappeared!"
"It was a clear case of treachery?" exclaimed Nee-
land.
"Absolutely a plot. The pretended official at thH'
291


RUE SOLEIL DOR
"Did she cause you any trouble, Jim?"
"Every bit I had was due to her. Also—and here's
a paradox—I shouldn't be here now if Use Dumont had
not played square with me. Who is she?"
The Princess Nai'a did not reply immediately. In-
stead, she dropped one silken knee over the other,
lighted a cigarette, and sat for a few moments gazing
into space. Then:
"Use Dumont," she said, "is a talented and exceed-
ingly pretty young woman who was born in Alsace of
one German and one thoroughly Germanised parent.
"She played two seasons in Chicago in light opera
under another name. She had much talent, an accepta-
ble voice and she became a local favourite."
The Princess looked at her cigarette; continued
speaking as though addressing it:
"She sang at the Opera Comique here in Paris the
year before last and last year. Her roles were minor
ones. Early this spring she abruptly broke her con-
tract with the management and went to New York."
Neeland said bluntly:
"Use Dumont is an agent in the service of the Turk-
ish Government."
The Princess nodded.
"Did you know it, Nai'a?"
"I began to suspect it recently."
"May I ask how?"
The Princess glanced at Rue and smiled:
"Ruhannah's friend, Colonel Izzet Bey, was very de-
voted to Minna Minti"
"To whom!" exclaimed Neeland, astounded.
"To Use Dumont. Minna Minti is her stage name,"
said the Princess.
Neeland turned and looked at Rue, who, conscious
293


THE DARK STAR
of his excitement, flushed brightly, yet never suspect-
ing what he was about to say.
The Princess said quietly:
"Yes, tell her, Jim. It is better she should know.
Until now it has not been necessary to mention the mat-
ter, or I should have done so."
Rue, surprised, still prettily flushed with expectancy,
looked with new curiosity from one to the other.
Neeland said:
"Use Dumont, known on the stage as Minna Minti,
is the divorced wife of Eddie Brandes."
At the mention of a name so long hidden away, buried
in her memory, and almost forgotten, the girl quivered
and straightened up, as though an electric shock had
passed through her body.
Then a burning colour flooded her face as at the
swift stroke of a lash, and her grey eyes glimmered with
the starting tears.
"You'll have to know it, darling," said the Princess
in a low voice. "There is no reason why you should
not; it no longer can touch you. Don't you know
that?"
"Y-yes "Ruhannah's slowly drooping head
was lifted again; held high; and the wet brilliancy
slowly dried in her steady eyes.
"Before I tell you," continued Neeland, "what hap-
pened to me through Use Dumont, I must tell you what
occurred in the train on my way to x'aris. . . . May I
have a cigarette, Princess Naia?"
"At your elbow in that silver box."
Rue Carew lighted it for him with a smile, but her
hand still trembled.
"First," he said, "tell me what particular significance
those papers in the olive-wood box have. Then I can
294


RUE SOLEIL DOB
tell you more intelligently what happened to me since I
went to Brookhollow to find them."
"They are the German plans for the fortification of
the mainland commanding the Dardanelles, and for the
forts dominating the Gallipoli peninsula."
"Yes, I know that. But of what interest to England
or France or Russia"
"If there is to be war, can't you understand the im-
portance to us of those plans?" asked the Princess in
a low, quiet voice.
"To—'us'?" he repeated.
"Yes, to us. I am Russian, am I not?"
"Yes. I now understand how very Russian you are,
Princess. But what has Turkey"
"What is Turkey?"
"An empire"
"No. A German province."
"I did not know"
"That is what the Ottoman Empire is today," con-
tinued the Princess Mistchenka, "a Turkish province
fortified by Berlin, governed from Berlin through a
Germanised Turk, Enver Pasha; the army organised,
drilled, equipped, officered, and paid by the Kaiser Wil-
helm; every internal resource and revenue and develop-
ment and projected development mortgaged to Ger-
many and under German control; and the Sultan a no-
body!"
"I did not know it," repeated Neeland.
"It is the truth, mon ami. It is inevitable that Tur-
key fights if Germany goes to war. England, France,
Russia know it. Ask yourself, then, how enormous to
us the value of those plans—tentative, sketchy, per-
haps, yet the inception and foundation of those Ger-
man-made and German-armed fortifications which today
295
-


THE BARK STAR
line the Dardanelles and the adjacent waters within the
sphere of Ottoman influence!"
"So that is why you wanted them," he said with an
unhappy glance at Rue. "What idiotic impulse
prompted me to put them hack in the box I can't im-
agine. You saw me do it, there in the taxicab."
Ruhannah said:
"The chauffeur saw you, too. He was looking at
you in his steering mirror; I saw his face. But it never
entered my mind that anything except idle curiosity
possessed him."
"Perhaps," said the Princess to Neeland, "what you
did with the papers saved your life. Had that chauf-
feur not seen you place them in the box, he might
have shot and robbed you as you left the cab, merely
on the chance of your having them on your per-
son."
There was a silence; then Neeland said:
"This is a fine business! As far as I can see murder
seems to be the essence of the contract."
"It is often incidental to it," said the Princess Mist-
chenka serenely. "But you and Ruhannah will soon
be out of this affair."
"I?" said the girl, surprised.
"I think so."
"Why, dear?"
"I think there is going to be war. And if there is,
France will be concerned. And that means that you
and Ruhannah, too, will have to leave France."
"But you?" asked the girl, anxiously.
"I expect to remain. How long can you stay here,
Jim?"
Neeland cast an involuntary glance at Rue as he
replied:
296


RUE SOLEIL DOR
"I intended to take the next steamer. Why? Can I
be of any service to you, Princess Naia?"
The Princess Mistchenka let her dark eyes rest on
him for a second, then on Rue Carew.
"I was thinking," she said, "that you might take
Ruhannah back with you if war is declared."
"Back to America!" exclaimed the girl. "But where
am I to go in America? What am I to do there? I—I
didn't think I was quite ready to earn my own living"—
looking anxiously at the Princess Nai'a—"do you think
so, dear?"
The Princess said:
"I wanted you to remain. And you must not worry»
darling. Some day I shall want you back But if
there is to be war in Europe you cannot remain here."
"Why not?"
"In the first place, only useful people would be wanted
in Paris"
"But, Naia, darling! Couldn't I be useful to you?"
The girl jumped up from the sofa and came and knelt
down by the Princess Mistchenka, looking up into her
face.
The Princess laid aside her cigarette and put both
hands on Rue's shoulders, looking her gravely, ten-
derly in the eyes.
"Dear," she said, "I want James Neeland to hear
this, too. For it is partly a confession.
"When I first saw you, Rue, I was merely sorry for
you, and willing to oblige Jim Neeland by keeping an
eye on you until you were settled somewhere here in.
Paris.
"Before we landed I liked you. And, because I saw
wonderful possibilities in the little country girl who
shared my stateroom, I deliberately made up my mind
297
r


THE DARK STAR
to develop you, make use of your excellent mind, your
quick intelligence, your amazing capacity for absorb-
ing everything that is best, and your very unusual at-
tractions for my own purposes. I meant—to train you
—educate you—to aid me."
There was a silence; the girl looked up at her, flushed,
intent, perplexed; the Princess Mistchenka, her hands
on the girl's shoulders, looked back at her out of grave
and beautiful dark eyes.
"That is the truth," said the Princess. "My inten-
tion was to develop you along the lines which I follow
as a—profession; teach you to extract desirable infor-
mation through your wit, intelligence, and beauty—
using your youth as a mask. But I—I can't do it"
She shook her head slightly. "Because I've lost my
heart to you. . . . And the business I follow is a—a
rotten game."
Again silence fell among those three; Rue, kneeling
at the elder woman's feet, looked up into her face in
silence; Neeland, his elbows resting on his knees, leaned
slightly forward from the sofa, watching them.
"I'll help you, if you wish," said Rue Carew.
"Thank you, dear. No."
"Let me. I owe you everything since I have been
here"
"No, dear. What I said to you—and to James—is
true. It's a merciless, stealthy, treacherous business;
it's dangerous to a woman, body and soul. It is one
long lifetime of experience with treachery, with greed,
with baser passions, with all that is ignoble in mankind.
"There is no reason for you to enter such a circle;
no excuse for it; no duty urges you; no patriotism
incites you to such self-sacrifice; no memory of wrong
done to your nearest and dearest inspires you to dedi-
298


THE DARK STAR
"It seems that a well-known gambler in New York,
called Captain Quint, is backing them; and somebody
higher up is backing Quint"
"Probably the Turkish Embassy at Washington,"
interposed the Princess, coolly. "I'm sorry, Jim; pray
go on."
"The Turkish Embassy?" he repeated, surprised
that she should guess.
"Yes; and the German Embassy is backing that.
There you are, Jim. That is the sequence as far as
your friend, Captain Quint. Now, who comes next in
the scale?"
"This man—Brandes—and the little chalk-faced
creature, Stull; and the other one, with the fox face—
Doc Curfoot."
"I see. And then?"
"Then, as I gathered, there are several gentlemen
wearing Teutonic names—who are to go into partner-
ship with them—one named Kestner, one called Theo-
dore Weishelm, and an exceedingly oily Eurasian gen-
tleman with whom I became acquainted on the Volhynia
—one Karl Breslau"
"Breslau!" exclaimed the Princess. "Now I under-
stand."
"Who is he, Princess?"
"He is the most notorious international spy in the
world—a protean individual with aliases, professions,
and experiences sufficient for an entire jail full of crimi-
nals. His father was a German Jew; his mother a
Circassian girl; he was educated in Germany, France,
Italy, and England. He has been a member of the so-
cialist group in the Reichstag under one name, a mem-
ber of the British Parliament under another; he did
dirty work for Abdul Hamid; dirtier for Enver Bey.
S00
V


THE DARK STAR
officials, employees of all consulates, legations, and em-
bassies are what they're really after. I heard them
discussing it there in the train today."
The Princess had fallen very silent, musing, watching
Neeland's animated face as he detailed his knowledge
of what had occurred.
"Why not notify the police?" he added. "There
might be a chance to recover the box and the papers."
The Princess shook her pretty head.
"We have to be very careful how we use the police,
James. It seems simple, but it is not. I can't explain
the reasons, but we usually pit spy against spy, and
keep very clear of the police. Otherwise," she added,
smiling, "there would be the deuce to pay among the
embassies and legations." She added: "It's a most
depressing situation; I don't exactly know what to do.
... I have letters to write, anyway"
She rose, turned to Rue and took both her hands:
"No; you must go back to New York and to your
painting and music if there is to be war in Europe.
But you have had a taste of what goes »n in certain
circles here; you have seen what a chain of conse-
quences ensue from a chance remark of a young girl at
a dinner table."
"Yes."
"It's amusing, isn't it? A careless and innocent
word to that old busybody, Ahmed Mirka Pasha, at my
table—that began it. Then another word to Izzet
Bey. And I had scarcely time to realise what had
happened—barely time to telegraph James in New
York—before their entire underground machinery was
set in motion to seize those wretched papers in Brook-
hollow!"
Neeland said:
302


RUE SOLEIL DOR
"You don't know even yet, Princess, how amazingly
fast that machinery worked."
"Tell me now, James. I have time enough to write
my warning since it is already too late." And she
seated herself on the sofa and drew Ruhannah down
beside her.
"Listen, dear," she said with pretty mockery, "here
is a most worthy young man who is simply dying to
let us know how picturesque a man can bo when he
tries to."
Neeland laughed:
"The only trouble with me," he retorted, "is that
I've a rather hopeless habit of telling the truth. Other-
wise there'd be some chance for me as a hero in what
I'm going to tell you."
And he began with his first encounter with Use Du-
mont in Rue Carew's house at Brookhollow. After
he had been speaking for less than a minute, Rue Ca-
rew's hands tightened in the clasp of the Princess Nai'a,
who glanced at the girl and noticed that she had lost
her colour.
And Neeland continued his partly playful, partly
serious narrative of "moving accidents by flood and
field," aware of the girl's deep, breathless interest,
moved by it, and, conscious of it, the more inclined to
avoid the picturesque and heroic, and almost ashamed
to talk of himself at all under the serious beauty of
the girl's clear eyes.
But he could scarcely tell his tale and avoid men-
tioning himself; he was the centre of it all, the focus
of the darts of Fate, and there was no getting away
from what happened to himself.
So he made the melodrama a comedy, and the mo-
ments of deadly peril he treated lightly. And one thing
303


THE DARK STAR
he avoided altogether, and that was how he had kissed
Use Dumont.
When he finished his account of his dreadful situa-
tion in the stateroom of Use Dumont, and how at the
last second her unerring shots had shattered the bomb
clock, cut the guy-rope, and smashed the water-jug
which deluged the burning fuses, he added with a very
genuine laugh:
"If only some photographer had taken a few hun-
dred feet of film for me I could retire on an income
in a year and never do another stroke of honest
work!"
The Princess smiled, mechanically, but Rue Carew
-dropped her white face on the Princess Nai'a's shoulder
as though suddenly fatigued.


CHAPTER XXVn
FROM FOUR TO FIVE
The Princess Mistchenka and Rue Carew had re-
tired to their respective rooms for that hour between
four and five in the afternoon, which the average woman
devotes to cat-naps or to that aimless feminine fussing
which must ever remain a mystery to man.
The afternoon had turned very warm; Neeland, in
his room, lay on the lounge in his undershirt and trou-
sers, having arrived so far toward bathing and chang-
ing his attire.
No breeze stirred the lattice blinds hanging over
both open windows; the semi-dusk of the room was
pierced here and there by slender shafts of sunlight
which lay almost white across the carpet and striped
the opposite wall; the rue Soleil d'Or was very silent in
the July afternoon.
And Neeland lay there thinking about all that had
happened to him and trying to bring it home to him-
self and make it seem plausible and real; and could not.
For even now the last ten days of his life seemed
like a story he had read concerning someone else.
Nor did it seem to him that he personally had known
all those people concerned in this wild, exaggerated,
grotesque story. They, too, took their places on the
printed page, appearing, lingering, disappearing, re-
appearing, as chapter succeeded chapter in a romance
too obvious, too palpably sensational to win the confi-
dence and credulity of a young man of today.
305


THE DARK STAR
Fed to repletion on noisy contemporary fiction, his
finer perception blunted by the daily and raucous yell
of the New York press, his imagination too long over-
strained by Broadway drama and now flaccid and in-
capable of further response to its leering or shrieking
appeal, the din of twentieth-century art fell on nerve-
less ears and on a brain benumbed and sceptical.
And so when everything that he had found grotesque,
illogical, laboured, obvious, and elamorously redundant
in literature and the drama began to happen and con-
tinued to happen in real life to him—and went on hap-
pening and involving himself and others all around
him in the pleasant July sunshine of 1914, this young
man, made intellectually blast, found himself without
sufficient capacity to comprehend it.
There was another matter with which his mind was
struggling as he lay there, his head cradled on one
elbow, watching the thin blue spirals from his ciga-
rette mount straight to the ceiling, and that was the
metamorphosis of Rue Carew.
Where was the thin girl he remembered—with her
untidy chestnut hair and freckles, and a rather sweet
mouth—dressed in garments the only mission of which
was to cover a flat chest and frail body and limbs
whose too rapid growth had outstripped maturity?
To search for her he went back to the beginning,
where a little girl in a pink print dress, bare-legged
and hatless, loitered along an ancient rail fence and
looked up shyly at him as he warned her to keep out
of range of the fusillade from the bushes across the
pasture.
He thought of her again at the noisy party in Gay-
field on that white night in winter; visualised the tall,
shy, overgrown girl who danced with him and made no
806


FROM FOUR TO FIVE
complaint when her slim foot was trodden on. And
again he remembered the sleigh and the sleighbells
clashing and tinkling under the moon; the light from
her doorway, and how she stood looking back at him;
and how, on the mischievous impulse of the moment, he
had gone back and kissed her
At the memory an odd sensation came over him, scar-
ing him a little. How on earth had he ever had the
temerity to do such a thing to her!
And, as he thought of this exquisite, slender, clear-
eyed young girl who had greeted him at the Paris ter-
minal—this charming embodiment of all that is fresh
and sweet and fearless—in her perfect hat and gown
of mondame youth and fashion, the memory of his
temerity appalled him.
Imagine his taking an unencouraged liberty now!
Nor could he dare imagine encouragement from the
Rue Carew so amazingly revealed to him.
Out of what, in heaven's name, had this lovely
girl developed? Out of a shy, ragged, bare-legged
child, haunting the wild blackberry tangles in Brook-
hollow?
Out of the frail, charmingly awkward, pathetic,
freckled mill-hand in her home-made party clothes, the
rather sweet expression of whose mouth once led him
to impudent indiscretion?
Out of what had she been evolved—this young girl
whom he had left just now standing beside her boudoir
door with the Princess Nai'a's arm around her waist?
Out of the frightened, white-lipped, shabby girl who
had come dragging her trembling limbs and her suit-
case up the dark stairway outside his studio? Out
of the young thing with sagging hair, crouched in an
armchair beside his desk, where her cheap hat lay with
307


THE DARK STAR
two cheap hatpins sticking in the crown? Out of the
fragile figure buried in the bedclothes of a stateroom
berth, holding out to him a thin, bare arm in voiceless
adieu?
And Neeland lay there thinking, his head on his el-
bow, the other arm extended—from the fingers of which
the burnt-out cigarette presently fell to the floor.
He thought to himself:
"She is absolutely beautiful; there's no denying that.
It's not her clothes or the way she does her hair, or
her voice, or the way she moves, or how she looks at
a man; it's the whole business. And the whole bally
business is a miracle, that's all. Good Lord! And to
think I ever had the nerve—the nerve!"
He swung himself to a sitting posture, sat gazing
into space for a few moments, then continued to undress
by pulling off one shoe, lighting a cigarette, and re-
garding his other foot fixedly.
That is the manner in which the vast majority of
young men do their deepest thinking.
However, before five o'clock he had scrubbed himself
and arrayed his well constructed person in fresh linen
and outer clothing; and now he sauntered out through
the hallway and down the stairs to the rear drawing-
room, where a tea-table had been brought in and tea
paraphernalia arranged. Although the lamp under the
kettle had been lighted, nobody was in the room ex-
cept a West Highland terrier curled up on a lounge,
who, without lifting his snow-white head, regarded Nee-
land out of the wisest and most penetrating eyes the
young man had ever encountered.
Here was a personality! Here was a dog not to be
approached lightly or with flippant familiarity. No!
That small, long, short-legged body with its thatch of
308


FROM FOUR TO FIVE
wiry white hair was fairly instinct with dignity, wis-
dom, and uncompromising self-respect.
"That dog," thought Neeland, venturing to seat
himself on a chair opposite, "is a Presbyterian if ever
there was one. And I, for one, haven't the courage
to address him until he deigns to speak to me."
He looked respectfully at the dog, glanced at the
kettle which had begun to sizzle a little, then looked
out of the long windows into the little walled garden
where a few slender fruit trees grew along the walls
in the rear of well-kept flower beds, now gay with
phlox, larkspur, poppies, and heliotrope, and edged
with the biggest and bluest pansies.he had ever beheld.
On the wall a Peacock butterfly spread its brown
velvet and gorgeously eyed wings to the sun's warmth;
a blackbird with brilliant yellow bill stood astride a
peach twig and poured out a bubbling and incessant
melody full of fluted grace notes. And on the grass
oval a kitten frisked with the ghosts of last month's
dandelions, racing after the drifting fluff and occasion-
ally keeling over to attack its own tail, after the
enchanting manner of all kittens.
A step behind him and Neeland turned. It was
Marotte, the butler, who presented a thick, sealed en-
velope to'him on his salver, bent to turn down the flame
under the singing silver kettle, and withdrew without a
sound.
Neeland glanced at the letter in perplexity, opened
the envelope and the twice-folded sheets of letter paper
inside, and .read this odd communication:
Have I been fair to you? Did I keep my word? Surely
you must now, in your heart, acquit me of treachery—of
any premeditated violence toward you.
I never dreamed that those men would come to my
309


THE DARK STAR
stateroom. That plan had been discussed, but was aban-
doned because it appeared impossible to get hold of you.
And also—may I admit it without being misunder-
stood?—I absolutely refused to permit any attempt in-
volving your death.
When the trap shut on you, there in my stateroom, it
shut also on me. I was totally unprepared; I was averse
to murder; and also I had given you my word of honour.
Judge, then, of my shame and desperation—my anger
at being entrapped in a false position involving the loss
in your eyes of my personal honour!
It was unbearable: and I did what I could to make it
clear to you that I had not betrayed you. But my com-
rades do not yet know that I had any part in it; do not
yet understand why the ship was not blown to splinters.
They are satisfied that I made a mistake in the rendezvous.
And, so far, no suspicion attaches to me; they believe the
mechanism of the clock failed them. And perhaps it is
well for me that they believe this.
It is, no doubt, a matter of indifference to you how the
others and I reached safety. I have no delusions concern-
ing any personal and kindly feeling on your part toward
me. But one thing you can not—dare not—believe, and
that is that I proved treacherous to you and false to my
own ideas of honour.
And now let me say one more thing to you—let me say
it out of a—friendship—for which you care nothing—
could not care anything. And that is this: your task is
accomplished. You could not possibly have succeeded.
There is no chance for recovery of those papers. Your
mission is definitely ended.
Now, I beg of you to return to America. Keep clear
of entanglement in these events which are beginning to
happen in such rapid succession in Europe. They do not
concern you; you have nothing to do with them, no in-
terest in them. Your entry into affairs which can not con-
cern you would be insulting effrontery and foolish bravado.
I beg you to heed this warning. I know you to be
personally courageous; I suppose that fear of conse-
quences would not deter you from intrusion into any af-
fair, however dangerous; but I dare hope that perhaps
310


TOGETHER
"Give it to him, please "Rue handed the sugar
to Neeland, who delivered it gravely.
"That's because I want Sandy to like you," she
added.
Neeland regarded the little dog and addressed him
politely:
"I shouldn't dare call you Sandy on such brief ac-
quaintance," he said; "but may I salute you as Alex-
ander? Thank you, Alexander."
He patted the dog, whose tail made a slight, sketchy
motion of approval.
"Now," said Rue Carew, "you are friends, and we
shall all be very happy together, I'm sure. . . . Prin-
cess Nai'a said we were not to wait. Tell me how to
fix your tea."
He explained. About to begin on a buttered crois-
sant, he desisted abruptly and rose to receive the
Princess, who entered with the light, springy step char-
acteristic of her, gowned in one of those Parisian after-
noon creations which never are seen outside that capi-
tal, and never will be.
"Far too charming to be real," commented Neeland.
"You are a pretty fairy story, Princess Naia, and your
gown is a miracle tale which never was true."
He had not dared any such flippancy with Rue
Carew, and the girl, who knew she was exquisitely
gowned, felt an odd little pang in her heart as this
young man's praise of the Princess Mistchenka fell so
easily and gaily from his lips. He might have noticed
her gown, as it had been chosen with many doubts, much
hesitation, and anxious consideration, for him.
She flushed a little at the momentary trace of envy:
"You are too lovely for words," she said, rising. But
the Princess gently forced her to resume her seat.
313


TOGETHER
Rue Carew, hesitated, then, nodding a gay adieu,
turned and left the room with Neeland at her elbow.
"Ill tuck you in," he began; but she said:
"Thanks; Marotte will do that." And left him at
the door.
When the car had driven away down the rue Soleil
d'Or, Neeland returned to the little drawing-room
where Rue was indulging Sandy with small bits of
sugar.
He took up cup and buttered croissant, and for a
little while nothing was said, except to Sandy who,
upon invitation, repeated his opinion of the Sultan and
snapped in the offered emolument with unsatiated satis-
faction.
To Rue Carew as well as to Neeland there seemed to
be a slight constraint between them—something not en-
tirely new to her since they had met again after two
years.
In the two years of her absence she had been very
faithful to the memory of his kindness; constant in the
friendship which she had given him unasked—given him
first, she sometimes thought, when she was a little child
in a ragged pink frock, and he was a wonderful young
man who had taken the trouble to cross the pasture
and warn her out of range of the guns.
He had always held his unique place in her memory
and in her innocent affections; she had written to him
again and again, in spite of his evident lack of interest
in the girl to whom he had been kind. Rare, brief
letters from him were read and reread, and laid away
with her best-loved treasures. And when the prospect
of actually seeing him again presented itself, she had
been so frankly excited and happy that the Princess
Mistchenka could find in the girl's unfeigned delight
315


THE DARK STAR
nothing except a young girl's touching and slightly
amusing hero-worship.
But with her first exclamation when she caught sight
of him at the terminal, something about her precon-
ceived ideas of him, and her memory of him, was sud-
dently and subtly altered, even while his name fell from
her excited lips.
Because she had suddenly realised that he was even
more wonderful than she had expected or remembered,
and that she did not know him at all—that she had no
knowledge of this tall, handsome, well-built young fel-
low with his sunburnt features and his air of smiling
aloofness and of graceful assurance, almost fascinating
and a trifle disturbing.
Which had made the girl rather grave and timid,
uncertain of the estimation in which he might hold her;
no longer so sure of any encouragement from him in
her perfectly obvious attitude of a friend of former
days.
And so, shyly admiring, uncertain, inclined to warm
response at any advance from this wonderful young
man, the girl had been trying to adjust herself to this
new incarnation of a certain James Neeland who had
won her gratitude and who had awed her, too, from
the time when, as a little girl, she had first beheld him.
She lifted her golden-grey eyes to him; a little unex-
pected sensation not wholly unpleasant checked her
speech for a moment.
This was odd, even unaccountable. Such awkward-
ness, such disquieting and provincial timidity wouldn't
do.
"Would you mind telling me a little about Brook-
hollow?" she ventured.
Certainly he would tell her. He laid aside his plate
816


THE DARK STAR
he said as crudely and uncouthly as any haymaker in
Gayfield.
He looked up, exasperated, and met her eyes
squarely. And Rue Carew blushed.
They both looked elsewhere at once, but in the girl's
breast a new pulse beat; a new instinct stirred, blindly
importuning her for recognition; a new confusion
threatened the ordered serenity of her mind, vaguely
menacing it with unaccustomed questions.
Then the instinct of self-command returned; she
found composure with an effort.
"You haven't asked me," she said, "about my work.
Would you like to know?"
He said he would; and she told him—chary of self-
praise, yet eager that he should know that her masters
had spoken well of her.
"And you know," she said, "every week, now, I con-
tribute a drawing to the illustrated paper I wrote to
you about. I sent one off yesterday. But," and she
laughed shyly, "my nostrils are no longer filled with
pride, because I am not contented with myself any
more. I wish to do—oh, so much better work!"
"Of course. Contentment in creative work means
that we have nothing more to create."
She nodded and smiled:
"The youngest born is the most tenderly cherished—
until a new one comes. It is that way with me; I am
all love and devotion and tenderness and self-sacrifice
while fussing over my youngest. Then a still younger
comes, and I become like a heartless cat and drive away
all progeny except the newly born."
She sighed and smiled and looked up at him:
"It can't be helped, I suppose—that is, if one's go-
ing to have more progeny."
318


TOGETHER
"It's our penalty for producing. Only the newest
counts. And those to come are to be miracles. But
they never are."
She nodded seriously.
"When there is a better light I should like to show
you some of my studies," she ventured. "No, not now.
I am too vain to risk anything except the kindest of
morning lights. Because I do hope for your ap-
proval"
"I know they're good," he said. And, half laugh-
ingly: "I'm beginning to find out that you're a rather
Tfonderful and formidable and overpowering girl, Ru-
hannah."
"You don't think so!" she exclaimed, enchanted.
"'Do you? Oh, dear! Then I feel that I ought to show
you my pictures and set you right immediately"
She sprang to her feet. "I'll get them; I'll be only a
moment"
She was gone before he discovered anything to say,
leaving him to walk up and down the deserted room
and think about her as clearly as his somewhat dislo-
cated thoughts permitted, until she returned with both
arms full of portfolios, boards, and panels.
"Now," she said with a breathless smile, "you may
mortify my pride and rebuke my vanity. I deserve it;
I need it; but Oh!—don't be too severe"
"Are you serious?" he asked, looking up in astonish-
ment from the first astonishing drawing in colour which
he held between his hands.
"Serious? Of course "She met his eyes anx-
iously, then her own became incredulous and the swift
colour dyed her face.
"Do you like my work?" she asked in a fainter
voice.
319


TOGETHER
ings," she said. "I thought I'd just show you the—
the results of them and of—of whatever is in me."
"I'm just beginning to understand what is in you,"
he said.
"Tell me—what is it?" she asked, almost timidly.
"Tell you?" He rose, stood by the window looking
out, then turned to her:
"What can / tell you?" he added with a short laugh.
"What have I to say to a girl who can do—these—
after two years abroad?"
Sheer happiness kept her silent. She had not dared
hope for such approval. Even now she dared not per-
mit herself to accept it.
"I have so much to say," she ventured, "and such an
appalling amount of work before I can learn to say
it"
"Your work is—stunning!" he said bluntly.
"You don't think so!" she exclaimed incredulously.
"Indeed I do! Look at what you have done in two
years. Yes, grant all your aptitude and talents, just
look what you've accomplished and where you are!
Look at you yourself, too—what a stunning, bewilder-
ing sort of girl you've developed into!"
"Jim Neeland!"
"Certainly, Jim Neeland, of Neeland's Mills, who
has had years more study than you have, more years
of advantage, and who now is an illustrator without
anything in particular to distinguish him from the sev-
eral thousand other American illustrators"
"Jim! Your work is charming f"
"How do you know?"
"Because I have everything you ever did! I sent for
the magazines and cut them out; and they are in my
scrapbook"
321


THE DARK STAR
She hesitated, breathless, smiling back at him out of
her beautiful golden-grey eyes as though challenging
him to doubt her loyalty or her belief in him.
It was rather curious, too, for the girl was unusually
intelligent and discriminating; and Neeland's work was
very, very commonplace.
His face had become rather sober, but the smile still
lurked on his lips.
"Rue," he said, "you are wonderfully kind. But I'm
afraid I know about my work. I can draw pretty well,
according to school standards; and I approach pretty
nearly the same standards in painting. Probably that
is why I became an instructor at the Art League. But,
so far, I haven't done anything better than what is
called 'acceptable.'"
"I don't agree with you," she said warmly.
"It's very kind of you not to." He laughed and
walked to the window again, and stood there looking out
across the sunny garden. "Of course," he added over
his shoulder, "I expect to get along all right. Medi-
ocrity has the best of chances, you know."
"You are not mediocre!"
"No, I don't think I am. But my work is. And, d*
you know," he continued thoughtfully, "that is very
often the case with a man who is better equipped to act
than to tell with pen or pencil how others act. I'm
beginning to be afraid that I'm that sort, because I'm
afraid that I get more enjoyment out of doing things
than in explaining with pencil and paint how they are
done."
But Rue Carew, seated on the arm of her chair, slowly
shook her head:
"I don't think that those are the only alternatives;
do you?"
S22


TOGETHER
"What other is there?"
She said, a little shyly:
"I think it is all right to do things if you like; make
exact pictures of how things are done if you choose;
but it seems to me that if one really has anything to
say, one should show in one's pictures how things might
be or ought to be. Don't you?"
He seemed surprised and interested in her logic, and
she took courage to speak again in her pretty, depre-
cating way:
"If the function of painting and literature is to re-
flect reality, a mirror would do as well, wouldn't it?
But to reflect what might be or what ought to be re-
quires something more, doesn't it?"
"Imagination. Yes."
"A mind, anyway. . . . That is what I have thought;
but I'm not at all sure I am right."
"I don't know. The mind ought to be a mirror re-
flecting only the essentials of reality."
"And that requires imagination, doesn't it?" she
asked. "You see you have put it much better than I
have."
"Have I?" he returned, smiling. "After a while
you'll persuade me that I possess your imagination,
Rue. But I don't."
"You do, Jim"
"I'm sorry; I don't. You construct, I copy; you
create, I ring changes on what already is; you dissect,
I skate over the surface of things—Oh, Lord! I don't
know what's lacking in me!" he added with gay pre-
tence of despair which possibly was less feigned than
real. "But I know this, Rue Carew! I'd rather ex-
perience something interesting than make a picture of
it. And I suppose that confession is fatal."
323


THE DARK STAR
"Why, Jim?"
"Because with me the pleasures of reality are substi-
tuted for the pleasures of imagination. Not that I
don't like to draw and paint. But my ambition in
painting is and always has been bounded by the visible.
And, although that does not prevent me from apprecia-
tion—from understanding and admiring your work, for
example—it sets an impregnable limit to any such
aspiration on my part"
His mobile and youthful features had become very
grave; he stood a moment with lowered head as though
what he was thinking of depressed him; then the quick
smile came into his face and cleared it, and he said
gaily:
"I'm an artistic Dobbvn; a reliable, respectable sort
of Fido on whom editors can depend; that's all. Don't
feel sorry for me," he added, laughing; "my work will
be very much in demand."


THE DARK STAR
His hurt expression and protesting gesture appealed
to the universe against misinterpretation, but the
Princess Mistchenka laughed again unfeelingly, and
seated herself at the piano.
"Some day," she said, striking a lively chord or two,
"I hope you'll catch it, young man. You're altogether
too free and easy with your feminine friends. . . .
What do you think of Rue Carew?"
"An astounding and enchanting transformation. I
haven't yet recovered my breath."
"When you do, you'll talk nonsense to the child, I
suppose."
"Princess! Have I ever"
"You talk little else, dear friend, when God sends a
pretty fool to listen!" She looked up at him from the
keyboard over which her hands were nervously wander-
ing. "I ought to know," she said; "I also have lis-
tened." She laughed carelessly, but her glance lingered
for an instant on his face, and her mirth did not sound
quite spontaneous to either of them.
Two years ago there had been an April evening after
the opera, when, in taking leave of her in her little
salon, her hand had perhaps retained his a fraction
of a second longer than she quite intended; and he had,
inadvertently, kissed her.
He had thought of it as a charming and agreeable
incident; what the Princess Nai'a Mistchenka thought
of it she never volunteered. But she so managed that
he never again was presented with a similar oppor-
tunity.
Perhaps they both were thinking of this rather an-
cient episode now, for his face was touched with a mis-
chievously reminiscent smile, and she had lowered her
head a trifle over the keyboard where her slim, ivory-
826


EN FAMILLE
tinted hands still idly searched after elusive harmonies
in the subdued light of the single lamp.
"There's a man dining with us," she remarked, "who
has the same irresponsible and casual views on life and
manners which you entertain. No doubt you'll get
along very well together."
"Who is he?"
"A Captain Sengoun, one of our attaches. It's likely
you'll find a congenial soul in this same Cossack whom
we all call Alak." She added maliciously: "His only
logic is the impulse of the moment, and he is known as
Prince Erlik among his familiars. Erlik was the Devil,
you know"
He was announced at that moment, and came march-
ing in—a dark, handsome, wiry young man with win-
ning black eyes and a little black moustache just shad-
owing his short upper lip—and a head shaped to con-
tain the devil himself—the most reckless looking head,
Neeland thought, that he ever had beheld in all his life.
But the young fellow's frank smile was utterly irre-
sistible, and his straight manner of facing one, and of
looking directly into the eyes of the person he addressed
in his almost too perfect English, won any listener im-
mediately.
He bowed formally over Princess Naia's hand, turned
squarely on Neeland when he was named to the Ameri-
can, and exchanged a firm clasp with him. Then, to
the Princess:
"I am late? No? Fancy, Princess—that great
booby, Izzet Bey, must stop me at the club, and I ex-
ceedingly pressed to dress and entirely out of humour
with all Turks. 'Eh bien, mon vieux!' said he in his
mincing manner of a nervous pelican, 'they're warming
up the Balkan boilers with Austrian pine. But I hear
327


THE DARK STAR
they’re full of snow.” And I said to him: ‘Snow boils
very nicely if the fire is sufficiently persistent!’ And I
think Izzet Bey will find it so!”—with a quick laugh of
explanation to Neeland: “He meant Russian snow,
you see; and that boils beautifully if they keep on
stoking the boiler with Austrian fuel.”
The Princess shrugged:
“What schoolboy repartéeſ Why did you answer
him at all, Alak’”
“Well,” explained the attaché, “as I was due here at
eight I hadn’t time to take him by the nose, had I?”
Rue Carew entered and went to the Princess to make
amends:
“I’m so sorry to be late!”—turned to smile at Nee-
land, then offered her hand to the Russian. “How do
you do, Prince Erlik?” she said with the careless and
gay cordiality of old acquaintance. “I heard you say
something about Colonel Izzet Bey's nose as I came
In.”
Captain Sengoun bowed over her slender white hand:
“The Mohammedan nose of Izzet Bey is an admirable
bit of Oriental architecture, Miss Carew. Why should
it surprise you to hear me extol its bizarre beauty?”
“Anyway,” said the girl, “I’m contented that you left
devilry for revelry.” And, Marotte announcing din-
ner, she took the arm of Captain Sengoun as the
Princess took Neeland’s.
Like all Russians and some Cossacks, Prince Alak ate
and drank as though it were the most delightful experi-
ence in life; and he did it with a whole-souled heartiness
and satisfaction that was flattering to any hostess and
almost fascinating to anybody observing him. .
His teeth were even and very white; his appetite
328


THE DARK STAR
"Nothing, Prince Erlik!" said Rue, laughing. aIt
suffices that you be appointed adviser in general to bis
majesty the Czar."
Sengoun laughed with all his might.
"And an excellent thing that would be, Miss Carew.
What we need in Russia," he added with a bow to the
Princess, "are, first of all, more Kazatchkee, then my-
self to execute any commands with which my incom-
parable Princess might deign to honour me."
"Then I command you to go and smoke cigarettes in
the music-room and play some of your Cossack songs
on the piano for Mr. Neeland until Miss Carew and I
rejoin you," said the Princess, rising.
At the door there was a moment of ceremony; then
Sengoun, passing his arm through Neeland's with boy-
ish confidence that his quickly given friendship was wel-
come, sauntered off to the music-room where presently
he was playing the piano and singing some of the en-
trancing songs of his own people in a voice that, culti-
vated, might have made a fortune for him:
"We are but horsemen,
And God is great.
We hunt on hill and fen
The fierce Kerait,
Naiman and Eighur,
Tartar and Khiounnou,
Leopard and Tiger
Flee at our view-halloo;
We are but horsemen
Cleansing the hill and fen
Where wild men hide—
Wild beasts abide,
Mongol and Baiaghod,
Turkoman, Taidjigod,
Each in his den.
832


THE DARK STAR
"'Now hast thou conquered me!
Humbly thy captive, I.
My soul escapes to thee;
My body here must lie;
Ride!—with thy song, and my seal in thy arms; and
• let me die.'"
Sengoun, still playing, flung over his shoulder:
"A Tartar song from the Turcoman. I borrowed it
and put new clothes on it. Nice, isn't it?"
"Enchanting!" replied Neeland, laughing in spite of
himself.
Rue Carew, with her snowy shoulders and red-gold
hair, came drifting in, consigning them to their seats
with a gesture, and giving them to understand that she
had come to hear the singing.
So Sengoun continued his sketchy, haphazard recital,
waving his cigarette now and then for emphasis, and
conversing frequently over his shoulder while Rue Ca-
rew leaned on the piano and gravely watched his
nimble fingers alternately punish and caress the key-
board.
After a little while the Princess Mistchenka came in
saying that she had letters to write. They conversed,
however, for nearly an hour before she rose, and Cap-
tain Sengoun gracefully accepted his congS.
"I'll walk with you, if you like," suggested Neeland.
"With pleasure, my dear fellow! The night is beau-
tiful, and I am just beginning to wake up."
"Ask Marotte to give you a key, then," suggested the
Princess, going. At the foot of the stairs, however, she
paused to exchange a few words with Captain Sengoun
in a low voice; and Neeland, returning with his latch-
key, went over to where Rue stood by the lamplit table
absently looking over an evening paper.
384


CHAPTER XXX
JARDIN RUSSE
At midnight the two young men had not yet parted.
For, as Sengoun explained, the hour for parting was
already past, and it was too late to consider it now.
And Neeland thought so, too, what with the laughter
and the music, and the soft night breezes to counsel
folly, and the city's haunting brilliancy stretching away
in bewitching perspectives still unexplored.
From every fairy lamp the lustrous capital signalled
to youth her invitation, her challenge, and her menace.
Like some jewelled sorceress—some dreaming Circe by
the river bank, pondering new spells—so Paris lay in
all her mystery and beauty under the July stars.
Sengoun, his arm through Neeland's, had become af-
fectionately confidential. He explained that he really
was a nocturnal creature; that now he had completely
waked up; that his habits were due to a passion for
astronomy, and that the stars he had discovered at odd
hours of the early morning were more amazing than
any celestial bodies ever before identified.
But Neeland, whose head and heart were already
occupied, declined to study any constellations; and they
drifted through the bluish lustre of white arc-lights
and the clustered yellow glare of incandescent lamps
toward a splash of iridescent glory among the chestnut
trees, where music sounded and tables stood amid flow-
ers and grass and little slender fountains which bal-
anced silver globes upon their jets.
837




JARDIN RUSSE
"Merci! In that case I prefer a cigarette."
She selected one from his case, lighted it, folded her
arms on the table, and continued to gaze at the dancers.
"I'm tired tonight," she remarked.
"You dance beautifully."
"Thank you."
Sengoun, flushed and satisfied, came back with his
gipsy partner when the music ceased.
"Now I hope we may have some more singing!" he
exclaimed, as they seated themselves and a waiter filled
their great, bubble-shaped glasses.
And he did sing at the top of his delightful voice
when the balalaikas swept out into a ringing and fa-
miliar song, and the two gipsy girls sang, too—laughed
and sang, holding the frosty goblets high in the spark-
ling light.
It was evident to Neeland that the song was a fa-
vourite one with Russians. Sengoun was quite over-
come; they all touched goblets.
"Brava, my little Tziganes!" he said with happy emo-
tion. "My little compatriots! My little tawny pan-
thers of the Caucasus! What do you call yourselves
in this bandbox of a country where two steps backward
take you across any frontier?"
His dancing partner laughed till her sequins jingled
from throat to ankle:
"They call us Fifi and Nini," she replied. "Ask your-
self why!"
"For example," added the other girl, "we rise from
this table and thank you. There is nothing further.
C'est fini—c'est Fiji—Nmi—comprenez-vous, Prince
Erlik?"
"Hi! What?" exclaimed Sengoun. "I'm known, it
appears, even to that devilish name of mine!"
339


THE DARK STAR
Everybody laughed.
"After all," he said, more soberly, "it's a gipsy's
trade to know everybody and everything. Tiensf
He slapped a goldpiece on the table. "A kiss apiece
against a louis that you don't know my comrade's name
and nation!"
The girl called Nini laughed:
"We're quite willing to kiss you, Prince Erlik, but
a louis <Tor is not a copper penny. And your comrade
is American and his name is Tchames."
"James!" exclaimed Sengoun.
"I said so—Tchames."
"What else?"
"Nilan."
"Neeland?"
"I said so."
Sengoun placed the goldpiece in Nini's hand and
looked at Neeland with an uncomfortable laugh.
"I ought to know a gipsy, but they always astonish
me, these Tziganes. Tell us some more, Nini"
He beckoned a waiter and pointed indignantly at the
empty goblets.
The girls, resting their elbows on the tables, framed
their faces with slim and dusky hands, and gazed at
Sengoun out of humorous, half-veiled eyes.
"What do you wish to know, Prince Erlik?" they
asked mockingly.
"Well, for example, is my country really mobilis-
ing?"
"Since the twenty-fifth."
"Tiens! And old Papa Kaiser and the Gown Prince
Footit—what do they say to that?"
"It must be stopped."
"What! Sang die a! We must stop mobilising
840


THE DARK STAR
"There would have been—with Mexico. You brought
the Yellow Demon here, but just in time!"
"All right. Grant that, then. But—perhaps he was
a long time resting in America. What about that,
pretty gipsy?"
The girl shrugged again:
"Is your memory so poor, M'sieu Nilan? What has
your country done but fight since Erlik rested among
your people? You fought in Samoa; in Hawaii; your
warships went to Chile, to Brazil, to San Domingo;
the blood of your soldiers and sailors was shed in Hayti,
in Cuba, in the Philippines, in China"
"Good LordP' exclaimed Neeland. "That girl is
dead right!"
Sengoun threw back his handsome head and laughed
without restraint; and the gipsies laughed, too, their
beautiful eyes and teeth flashing under their black cas-
cades of unbound hair.
"Show me your palms," said Nini, and drew Sen-
goun's and Neeland's hands across the table, holding
them in both of hers.
"See," she added, nudging Fifi with her shoulder,
"both of them born under the Dark Star! It is war
they shall live to see—war!"
"Under the Dark Star, Erlik," repeated the other
girl, looking closely into the two palms, "and there is
war there?'
"And death?" inquired Sengoun gaily. "I don't
care, if I can lead a sotnia up Achi-Baba and twist the
gullet of the Padisha before I say Fifi—Nini!"
The gipsies searched his palm with intent and bril-
liant gaze.
"Zut!" said Fifi. "Je ne vols rien que dVamoitr et
la guerre aux dames I"
842


JARDIN RUSSE
"T'en fais pas!" laughed Sengoun. "I ask no further
favour of Fortune; I'll manage my regiment myself.
And, listen to me, Fifi," he added with a frightful
frown, "if the war you predict doesn't arrive, I'll come
back and beat you as though you were married to a
Turk!"
While they still explored his palm, whispering to-
gether at intervals, Sengoun caught the chorus of the
air which the orchestra was playing, and sang it lustily
and with intense pleasure to himself.
Neeland, unquiet to discover how much these casual
strangers knew about his own and intimate affairs, had
become silent and almost glum.
But the slight gloom which invaded him came from
resentment toward those people who had followed him
from Brookhollow to Paris, and who, in the very mo-
ment of victory, had snatched that satisfaction front
him.
He thought of Kestner and of Breslau—of Sche-
herazade, and the terrible episode in her stateroom.
Except that he had seized the box in the Brookhollow
house, there was nothing in his subsequent conduct on
which he could plume himself. He could not congratu-
late himself on his wisdom; sheer luck had carried him
through as far as the rue Soleil d'Or—mere chance, and
that capricious fortune which sometimes convoys the
stupid, fatuous, and astigmatic
Then he thought of Rue Carew. And, in his bosom,
an intense desire to distinguish himself began to burn.
If there were any way on earth to trace thai accursed
box
He turned abruptly and looked at the two gipsies,
who had relinquished Sangoun's hand and who were
still conversing together in low tones while Sangoun
r
X


THE DARK STAR
beat time on the jingling table tot) and sang joyously
at the top of his baritone voice:
"Eh, zoum—zoum—zoum!
Bourn—bourn—bouml
Here's to the Artillery
Gaily riding by!
Fetch me a distillery,
Let me drink it dry—-
Fill me full of sillery!
Here's to the artillery!
Zoum—zoum—zoum!
Bourn—bourn—bourn!"
"Fifi!"
"M'sieu?"
"You're so clever! Where is that Yellow Devil now?"
"Pouf!" giggled Fifi. "On its way to Berlin, pardie!"
"That's easy to say. Tell me something else more
expensive."
Nini said, surprised:
"What we know is free to Prince Erlik's friend. Did
you think we sell to Russians?"
"I don't know anything about you or where you get
your information," said Neeland. "I suppose you're
in the Secret Service of the Russian Government."
"Mon ami, Nilan," said Fifi, smiling, "we should feel
lonely outside the Secret Service. Few in Europe are
outside—few in the world, fewer in the half-world. As
for us Tziganes, who belong to neither, the business of
everybody becomes our secret to sell for a silver piece
—but not to Russians in the moment of peril! . .*.
Nor to their comrades. . . . What do you desire to
know, comrade?"
"Anything," he said simply, "that might help me to
regain what I have lost."
344


CHAPTER XXXI
THE CAFE DES BULGARS
Their adieux to Fifi and Nini were elaborate and
complicated by bursts of laughter. The Tziganes rec-
ommended Captain Sengoun to go home and seek fur-
ther adventures on his pillow; and had it not been for
the gay babble of the fountain and the persistent per-
fume of flowers, he might have followed their advice.
It was after the two young men had left the Jardin
Russe that Captain Sengoun positively but affection-
ately refused to relinquish possession of Neeland's arm.
"Dear friend," he explained, "I am just waking up
and I do not wish to go to bed for days and days."
"But I do," returned Neeland, laughing. "Where do
you want to go now, Prince Erlik?"
The champagne was singing loudly in the Cossack's
handsome head; the distant brilliancy beyond the Place
de la Concorde riveted his roving eyes.
"Over there," he said joyously. "Listen, old fellow,
I'll teach you the skating step as we cross the Place!
Then, in the first BcX, you shall try it on the fairest
form since Helen fell and Troy burned—or Troy fell
and Helen burned—it's all the same, old fellow—what
you call fifty-fifty, eh?"
Neeland tried to free his arm—to excuse himself;
two policemen laughed; but Sengoun, Unking his arm
more firmly in Neeland's, crossed the Place in a series
of Dutch rolls and outer edges, in which Neeland was
compelled to join. The Russian was as light and grace-
347


THE DARK STAR
ful on his feet as one of the dancers of his own country;
• Neeland's knowledge of skating aided his own less agile
steps. There was sympathetic applause from passing
taxis and fiacres; and they might, apparently, have had
any number of fair partners for the asking, along the
way, except for Sengoun's headlong dive toward the
brightest of the boulevard lights beyond.
In the rue Royal, however, Sengoun desisted with
sudden access of dignity, remarking that such gambols
were not worthy of the best traditions of his Embassy;
and he attempted to bribe the drivers of a couple of
hansom cabs to permit him and his comrade to take
the reins and race to the Arc de Triomphe.
Failing in this, he became profusely autobiographi-
cal, informing Neeland of his birth, education, aims,
aspirations.
"When I was twelve," he said, "I had known already
the happiness of the battle-shock against Kurd, Mon-
gol, and Tartar. At eighteen my ambition was to slap
the faces of three human monsters. I told everybody
that I was making arrangements to do this, and I
started for Brusa after my first monster—Fehim Ef-
fendi—but the Vali telegraphed to the Grand Vizier,
and the Grand Vizier ran to Abdul the Damned, and
Abdul yelled for Sir Nicholas O'Connor; and they
caught me in the Pera Palace and handed me over to
my Embassy."
Neeland shouted with laughter:
"Who were the other monsters?" he asked.
"The other two whose countenances I desired to slap?
Oh, one was Abdul Houda, the Sultan's star-reader,
who chattered about my Dark Star horoscope in the
Yildiz. And the other was the Sultan."
"Who?"
348


THE CAFE DES BULGARS
"Abdul Hamid."
"What! You wished to slap his face?"
"Certainly. But Kutchuk Said and Kiamil Pasha
requested me not to—accompanied by gendarmes."
"You'd have lost your life," remarked Neeland.
"Yes. But then war would surely have come, and
today my Emperor would have held the Dardanelles
where the Turkish flag is now flying over German guns
and German gunners."
He shook his head:
"Great mistake on my part," he muttered. "Should
have pulled Abdul's lop ears. Now, everything in Tur-
key is 'Yasak' except what Germans do and say; and
God knows we are farther than ever from St. Sophia.
. . . I'm very thirsty with thinking so much, old fel-
low. Did you ever drink German champagne?"
"I believe not"
"Come on, then. You shall drink several gallons and
never feel it. It's the only thing German I could ever
swallow."
"Prince Erlik, you have had considerable refresh-
ment already."
"Copain, t'en fais pas!"
The spectacle of two young fellows in evening dress,
in a friendly tug-of-war under the lamp-posts of the
Boulevard, amused the passing populace; and Sengoun,
noticing this, was inclined to mount a boulevard bench
and address the wayfarers, but Neeland pulled him
down and persuaded him into a quieter street, the rue
Vilna.
"There's a German place, now!" exclaimed Sengoun,
delighted.
And Neeland, turning to look, perceived the illumi-
nated sign of the Cafe des Bulgars.
349


THE DARK STAR
German champagne had now become Sengoun's fixed
idea; nothing could dissuade him from it, nothing per-
suade him into a homeward bound taxi. So Neeland,
with a rather hazy idea that he ought not to do it, en-
tered the cafe with Senguon; and they seated them-
selves on a leather wall-lounge before one of the numer-
ous marble-topped tables.
"Listen," he said in a low voice to his companion,
"this is a German caf£, and we must be careful what
we say. I'm not any too prudent and I may forget this;
but don't you!"
"Quite right, old fellow!" replied Sengoun, giving
him an owlish look. "I must never forget I'm a diplo-
mat among these sales Boches"
"Be careful, Sengoun! That expression is not diplo-
matic."
"Careful is the word, mon vieux" returned the other
loudly and cheerfully. "I'll bet you a dollar, three
kopeks, and two sous that I go over there and kiss the
cashier"
"No! Be a real diplomat, Sengoun!"
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Neeland, because she's
unusually pretty. And we might establish a triple en-
tente until you find some Argive Helen to quadruple it.
Aha! Here is our German champagne! Positively the
only thing German a Russian can"
"Listen! This won't do. People are looking at
us"
"Right, old fellow—always right! You know, Nee-
land, this friendship of ours is the most precious, most
delightful, and most inspiring experience of my life.
Here's a full goblet to our friendship! Hurrah! As
for Enver Pasha, may Erlik seize him!"
After they had honoured the toast, Sengoun looked
350


THE DARK STAB
"Tomorrow being Sunday, the terrace closes now,
monsieur; but the cafe remains open all night," ex-
plained the waiter with a noticeable German accent.
"Thank you." And, to Sengoun: "I'd certainly
like to go upstairs. I'd like to see what it looks like up
there—take a glance around."
"Very well, let us go up"
"We ought to have some excuse"
"We'll think of several on the way," rising with alac-
rity, but Neeland pulled him back.
"Wait a moment! It would only mean a fight"
"All fights," explained Sengoun seriously, "are agree-
able—some more so. So if you are ready, dear com-
rade"
"But a row will do us no good"
"Pardon, dear friend, I have been in serious need ef
one for an hour or two"
"I don't mean that sort of 'good,'" explained Nee-
land, laughing. "I mean that I wish to look about np
there—explore"
"Quite right, old fellow—always right! But—here's
an idea! I could stand at the head of the stairs mad
throw them down as they mounted, while you had lei-
sure to look around for your stolen box"
"My dear Prince Erlik, we've nothing to shoot with,
and it's likely they have. There's only one way to get
upstairs with any chance of learning anything useful.
And that is to start a row between ourselves." And,
raising his voice as though irritated, he called for the
reckoning, adding in a tone perfectly audible to any-
body in the vicinity that he knew where roulette was
played, and that he was going whether or not his friend
accompanied him.
Sengoun, delighted, recognised his cue and protested
354


THE BARK STAR
club where everything is unquestionably con-
ducted"
"Where?" demanded Neeland, abruptly.
"On the third floor, monsieur."
"Here?"
"Certainly, sir. If the gentlemen will honour me
with their names, and will be seated for one little mo-
ment, I shall see what can be accomplished."
"Very well," said Sengoun, with a short, incredulous
laugh. "I'm Prince Erlik, of the Mongol Embassy,
and my comrade is Mr. Neeland, Consul General of the
United States of America in the Grand Duchy of Gerol-
stein!"
The gerant smiled. After he had gone away toward
the further room in the cafe, Neeland remarked to Sen-
goun that doubtless their real names were perfectly well
known, and Sengoun disdainfully shrugged his indif-
ference:
"What can one expect in this dirty rat-nest of Eu-
rope? Abdul the Damned employed one hundred thou-
sand spies in Constantinople alone! And William the
Sudden admired him. Why, Neeland, mon ami, I never
take a step in the streets without being absolutely cer-
tain that I am watched and followed. What do I care!
Except that towns make me sick. But the only cure
is a Khirgiz horse and a thousand lances. God send
them. I'm sick of cities."
A few moments later the gerant returned and, in a
low voice, requested them to accompany him.
They passed leisurely through the cafe, between
tables where lowered eyes seemed to deny any curiosity:
but guests and waiters looked after them after they had
passed, and here and there people whispered together
—particularly two men who had followed them
S56


THE CAFE DES BULGABS
from the sun-dial fountain in the rue Soleil d'Or to the
Jardin Russe, across the Place de la Concorde, and into
the Cafe des Bulgars in the rue Vilna.
On the stairs Neeland heard Sengoun still muttering
to himself:
"Certainly I am sick of cities and narrow strips of
sky. What I need is a thousand lances at a gallop,
and a little Kirghiz horse between my knee*."


CHAPTER XXXII
THE CERCLE EXTRANATIONALE
The suite of rooms into which they were ushered ap-
peared to be furnished in irreproachable taste. Except
for the salon at the further end of the suite, where play
was in progress, the charming apartment might have
been a private one; and the homelike simplicity of the
room, where books, flowers, and even a big, grey cat
confirmed the first agreeable impression, accented the
lurking smile on Sengoun's lips.
Doc Curfoot, in evening dress, came forward to re-
ceive them, in company with another man, young, nice-
looking, very straight, and with the high, square shoul-
ders of a Prussian.
"Bong soire, mussoors," said Curfoot genially. "JJai
I'honnoor de vous faire connaitre mong ami, Mutsoor
Weishelm."
They exchanged very serious bows with "Mussoor"
Weishelm, and Curfoot retired.
In excellent French Weishelm inquired whether thev
desired supper; and learning that they did not, bowed
smilingly and bade them welcome:
"You are at home, gentlemen; the house is yours.
If it pleases you to sup, we offer you our hospitality:
if you care to play, the salon is at your disposal, or, if
you prefer, a private room. Yonder is the buffet; there
are electric bells at your elbow. You are at home," he
repeated, clicked his heels together, bowed, and took
his leave.
358


THE CERCLE EXTRANATIONALS
Sengoim dropped into a comfortable chair and sent
a waiter for caviar, toast, and German champagne.
Neeland lighted a cigarette, seated himself, and
looked about him curiously.
Over in a corner on a sofa a rather pretty woman,
a cigarette between her jewelled fingers, was reading an
evening newspaper. Two others in the adjoining room,
young and attractive, their feet on the fireplace fender,
conversed together over a sandwich, a glass of the
widely advertised Dubonnet, and another of the equally
advertised Bon Lait Maggi—as serenely and as com-
fortably as though they were by their own firesides.
"Perhaps they are," remarked Sengoun, plastering
an oblong of hot toast with caviar. "Birds of this kind
nest easily anywhere."
Neeland continued to gaze toward the salon where
play was in progress. There did not seem to be many
people there. At a small table he recognised Brandes
and Stull playing what appeared to be bridge whist
with two men whom he had never before seen. There
were no women playing.
As he watched the round, expressionless face of
Brandes, who was puffing a long cigar screwed tightly
into the corner of his thin-lipped mouth, it occurred
to him somewhat tardily what Rue Carew had said con-
cerning personal danger to himself if any of these peo-
ple believed him capable of reconstructing from memory
any of the stolen plans.
He had not thought about that specific contingency;
instinct alone had troubled him a little when he first
entered the Caf£ des Bulgars.
However, his unquiet eyes could discover nothing of
either Kestner or Breslau; and, somehow, he did not
even think of encountering Use Dumont in such a place.
859


THE DARK STAR
As for Brandes and Stull, they did not recognise him at
all.
So, entirely reassured once more by the absence of
Ali-Baba and Golden Beard, and of Scheherazade whom
he had no fear of meeting, Neeland ate his caviar with
a relish and examined his surroundings.
Of course it was perfectly possible that the stolen
papers had been brought here. There were three other
floors in the building, too, and he wondered what they
were used for.
Sengoun's appetite for conflict waned as he ate and
drank; and a violent desire to gamble replaced it.
"You poke about a bit," he said to Neeland. "Tali
to that girl over there and see what you can learn. As
for me, I mean to start a little flirtation with Made-
moiselle Fortuna. Does that suit you?"
If Sengoun wished to play it was none of Neeland's
business.
"Do you think it an honest game?" he asked, doubt-
fully. /
"With negligible stakes all first-class gamblers are
honest."
"If I were you, Sengoun, I wouldn't drink anything
more."
"Excellent advice, old fellow!" emptying his goblet
with satisfaction. And, rising to his firm and grace-
ful height, he strolled away toward the salon where
play progressed amid the most decorous and edifying
of atmospheres.
Neeland watched him disappear, then he glanced curi-
ously at the girl on the sofa who was still preoccupied
with her newspaper.
So he rose, sauntered about the room examining the
few pictures and bronzes, modern but excellent. The
860


THE DARK STAR
"Thank you," he said; "and I fear I have interrupted
jour reading"
"I have read enough lies; I am quite ready to tell you
a few. Shall I?"
'"You are most amiable. I have been wondering what
the other floors in this building are used for."
"Private apartments," she replied smiling, looking
him straight in the eyes. "Now you don't know
whether I've told you the truth or not; do you?"
"Of course I know."
"Which, then?"
"The truth."
She laughed and indicated a chair; and he seated
himself.
"Who is the dark, nice-looking gentleman accom-
panying you?" she enquired.
"How could you see him at all through your news-
paper?"
"I poked a hole, of course."
"To look at him or at me?"
"Your mirror ought to reassure you. However, as
an afterthought, who is he?"
"Prince Erlik, of Mongolia," replied Neeland sol-
emnly.
"I supposed so. We of the infernal aristocracy be-
long together. I am the Contessa Diabletta d'Enfer."
He inclined gravely:
"I'm afraid I don't belong here," he said. "I'm only
a Yankee."
"Hell is full of them," she said, smiling. "All Yan-
kees belong where Prince Erlik and I are at home.
. . . Do you play?"
"No. Do you?"
"It depends on chance."
862


THE CERCLE EXTRANATIONALS
He turned to the girl on the sofa and made his adieux
with conventional ceremony and a reckless smile which
said:
"You were quite right, mademoiselle; I'm in trouble
already."
Then he followed Use Dumont into the adjoining
room, which was lined with filled bookcases and where
the lounges and deep chairs were covered with
leather.
Halting by the library table, Use Dumont turned to
him—turned on him a look such as he never before
had encountered in any living woman's eyes—a dead
gaze, dreadful, glazed, as impersonal as the fixed regard
of a corpse.
She said:
"I came. . . . They sent for me. ... I did not
believe they had the right man. ... I could not be-
lieve it, Neeland."
A trifle shaken, he said in tones which sounded steady
enough:
"What frightens you so, Scheherazade?"
"Why did you come? Are you absolutely mad?"
"Mad? No, I don't think so," he replied with a
forced smile. "What threatens me here, Schehera-
zade?"—regarding her pallid face attentively.
"Death. . . . You must have known it when you
came."
"Death? No, I didn't know it."
"Did you suppose that if they could get hold of
you they'd let you go?—A man who might carry in his
memory the plans for which they tried to kill you? I
wrote to you—I wrote to you to go back to America!
And—this is what you have done instead!"
"Well," he said in a pleasant but rather serious
365


THE CERCLE EXTRANATIONALS
"Above—the knee," she stammered; but there was
scarcely a sound from the blanched lips that formed
the words.
"Pistols?"
"Yes."
"Loaded? Both of them?"
"Yes."
"Clips?"
"No."
"Unstrap them!"
The woman turned, bent almost double, twisting
her supple body entirely around; but Use Dumont
was at her side like a flash and caught her wrist as
she withdrew her hand from the hem of her fluffy
skirt.
"Now—take your life!" said Use Dumont between
her teeth. "There's the door! Go out!"—following
her with blazing eyes—"Stop! Stand where you are
until I come!"
Then she came quickly to where Neeland stood,
astonished; and thrust two automatic pistols into his
hands.
"Get Sengoun," she whispered. "Don't go down-
stairs, for God's sake. Get to the roof, if you can.
Try—oh, try, try, Neeland, my friend!" Her voice
trembled; she looked into his eyes—gave him, in that
swift regard, all that a woman withholds until the right
man asks.
Her lips quivered; she turned sharply on her heel,
went to the outer hallway, where the other woman stood
motionless.
"What am I to do with you?" demanded Use Du-
mont. "Do you think you are going out of here to
summon the police? Mount those stairs!"
369


THE DARK STAR
The woman dropped her hand on the banisters,
heavily, set foot on the first stair, then slowly mounted
as though her little feet in their dainty evening slippers
were weighted with ball and chain.
Use Dumont followed her, opened a door in the pas-
sage, motioned her to enter. It was a bedroom that
the electric light revealed. The woman entered and
stood by the bed as though stupefied.
"I'll keep my word to you," said Use Dumont.
"When it becomes too late for you to do us any mis-
chief, I'll return and let you go."
And she stepped back across the threshold and
locked the door on the outside.
As she did so, Neeland and Sengoun came swiftly
up the stairs, and she beckoned them to follow, gath-
ered the skirts of her evening gown into one hand,
and ran up the stairs ahead of them to the fifth
floor.
In the dim light Neeland saw that the top floor was
merely a vast attic full of debris from the caf6 on the
ground floor—iron tables which required mending or
repainting, iron chairs, great jars of artificial stone
with dead baytrees standing in them, parts of rusty
stoves and kitchen ranges, broken cutlery in boxes,
cracked table china and heavier kitchen crockery in
tubs which once had held flowers.
The only windows gave on a court. Through their
dirty panes already the grey light of that early Sunday
morning glimmered, revealing the contents of the
shadowy place, and the position of an iron ladder
hooked to two rings under the scuttle overhead.
Use Dumont laid her finger on her lips, conjuring
silence, then, clutching her silken skirts, she started up
the iron ladder, reached the top, and, exerting all her
370


THE CERCLE EXTRANATIONALS
strength., lifted the hinged scuttle leading to the leads
outside.
Instantly somebody challenged her in a guttural
voice. She stood there a few moments in whispered con-
versation, then, from outside, somebody lowered the
scuttle cover; the girl locked it, descended the iron
ladder backwards, and came swiftly across to where
Neeland and Sengoun were standing, pistols lifted.
"They're guarding the roof," she whispered, "—two
men. It is hopeless, that way."
"The proper way," said Sengoun calmly, "is for us
to shoot our way out of this!"
The girl turned on him in a passion:
"Do you suppose I care what happens to you?" she
said. "If there were no one else to consider you might
do as you pleased, for all it concerns me!"
Sengoun reddened:
"Be silent, you treacherous little cat!" he retorted.
"Do you imagine your riffraff are going to hold me
here when I'm ready to depart! Me! A free Cossack!
Bah!"
"Don't talk that way, Sengoun," said Neeland
sharply. "We owe these pistols to her."
"Oh," muttered Sengoun, shooting a menacing glance
at her. "I didn't understand that." Then his scowl
softened and a sudden laugh cleared his face.
"I'm sorry, mademoiselle," he said. "You're quite
welcome to your low opinion of me. But if anyone
should ask me, I'd say that I don't understand what is
happening to us. And after a while I'll become angry
and go downstairs for information."
"They know nothing about you in the satte de jeu"
she said, "but on the floor below they're waiting to
kill you."
871


THE CERCLE EXTRANATIONALS
"All this espionage!" cried Sengoun, furiously.
"—It makes me sick, I tell you! Where everybody
betrays everybody is no place for a free Cossack!"
The terrible expression on the girl's face checked
him; she said, slowly:
"It is we others who have been betrayed, it seems.
It is we who are trapped here. They've got us all—
every one of us. Oh, my God!—every one of us—at
last!"
She lifted her haggard face and stared at the increas-
ing light which was turning the window panes a sickly
yellow.
"With sunrise comes war," she said in a stunned
voice, as though to convince herself. "We are caught
here in this house. And Kestner and Weishelm and
Breslau and I "she trembled, framing her burning
face in slim hands that were like ice. "Do you under-
stand that Brandes and Curfoot, bought by England,
have contracted to deliver us to a French court mar-
tial?"
The men looked at her in silence.
"Kestner and Breslau knew they had been bought.
One of our own people witnessed that treachery. But
we never dreamed that these traitors would venture into
this house tonight. We should have come here ourselves
instead of going to the Turkish Embassy. That was
Mahmud Damat's meddling! His messenger insisted.
God! What a mistake! What a deathly mistake for
all of us!"
She leaned for a moment against one of the iron
pillars which supported the attic roof, and covered her
face with her hands.
After a moment, Neeland said:
"I don't understand why you can't leave this house
373


THE DARK STAR
if you are in danger. You say that there are men
downstairs who are waiting to kill us—waiting only
for Kestner and Breslau and Mahmud Damat to ar-
rive."
She said faintly:
"I did not before understand Mahmud's delay. Now,
I understand. He has been warned. Breslau and Kest-
ner will not come. Otherwise, you now would be barri-
caded behind that breastwork of rubbish, fighting for
your lives."
"But you say there are men on the stairs below who
are ready to kill us if we try to leave the house."
"They, too, are trapped without knowing it. War
will come with sunrise. This house has been under sur-
veillance since yesterday afternoon. They have not
closed in on us yet, because they are leaving the trap
open in hopes of catching us all. They are waiting for
Breslau and Kestner and Mahmud Damat. . . . But
they'll never come, now. . . . They are out of the city
by this time. ... I know them. They are running for
their lives at this hour. . . . And we—we lesser ones—
caught here—trapped—reserved for a French court
martial and a firing squad in a barrack square!"
She shuddered and pressed her hands over her tem-
ples.
Neeland said:
"I am going to stand by you. Captain Sengoun will
do the same."
She shook her head:
"No use," she said with a shiver. "I am too well
known. They have my dossier almost complete. My
proces will be a brief one."
"Can't you get away by the roof? There are two
of your men up there."
874


CHAPTER XXXIII
A RAT HUNT
The interior of the entire house was now in an up-
roar; shots came fast from every landing; the semi-
dusk of stair-well and corridor was lighted by incessant
pistol flashes and the whole building echoed the deafen-
ing racket.
"What do you make of it?" shouted Sengoun fu-
riously, standing like a baited and perplexed bull.
"Who's fighting who in this fool of a place? By Erlik!
I'd like to know whom I'm to fire at!"
Use Dumont, creeping along the wall, looked fear-
fully down at Weishelm who no longer moved where he
lay on the dusty floor, with eyes and mouth open and
his distorted face already half covered by a wet and
crawling scarlet mask.
"Brandes and Stull are betraying us," she whispered.
"They are killing my comrades—on the stairs down
there"
"If that is true," called out Neeland in a low, cau-
tious voice, "you'd better wait a moment, Sengoun!"
But Sengoun's rage for combat had already filled
him to overflowing, and the last rag of patience left
him.
"I don't care who is fighting!" he bellowed. "It's all
one to me! Now is the time to shoot our way out of
this. Come on, Neeland! Hurrah for the Terek Cos-
sacks! Another town taken! Hurrah!"
Neeland caught Use by the wrist:
377


THE DARK STAR
"You'd better get free of this house while you can!"
he said, dragging her with him after Sengoun, who had
already reached the head of the stairs and was starting
down, peering about for a target.
Suddenly, on the landing below, Golden Beard and
Ali Baba appeared, caught sight of Sengoun and Nee-
land above, and opened fire on them instantly, driving
them back from the head of the staircase flat against
the corridor wall. But Golden Beard, seeming to real-
ise now that the garret landing was held and the way
to the roof cut off, began to retreat from the foot of
the garret stairs with Ali Baba following, their rest-
less, upward-pointed pistols searching for the slight-
est movement in the semi-obscurity of the hallway
above.
Sengoun, fuming and fretting, had begun to creep
toward the head of the stairs again, when there came
a rattling hail of shots from below, a rush, the trample
of feet, the crash of furniture and startling slam of
a door.
Downstairs straight toward the uproar ran Sengoun
with Neeland beside him. The halls were swimming in
acrid fumes; the floors trembled and shook under the
shock as a struggling, fighting knot of men went tum-
bling down the stairway below, reached the landing
and burst into the rooms of the Cercle Extranationals.
Leaning over the banisters, Neeland saw Golden
Beard turn on Doc Curfoot, raging, magnificent as *
Viking, his blue eyes ablaze. He hurled his empty pistol
at the American; seized chairs, bronzes, andirons, the
clock from the mantel, and sent a storm of heavy mis-
siles through the doorway among the knot of men who
were pressing him and who had already seized Ali Baba.
Then, from the banisters above, Neeland and Sen-
378


A RAT HUNT
goun saw Brandes, moving stealthily, swiftly, edge his
way to a further door.
Steadying the elbow of his pistol hand in the hollow
cup of his left palm, his weapon level, swerving as his
quarry moved, he presently fired at Golden Beard and
got him through the back. And then he shot him again
deliberately, through the body, as the giant turned,
made a menacing gesture toward him; took an uncer-
tain step in his direction; another step, wavering,
blindly grotesque; then stood swaying there under the
glare of the partly shattered chandelier from which
hung long shreds of crystal prisms.
And Brandes, aiming once more with methodical and
merciless precision, and taking what time he required to
make a bull's-eye on this great, reeling, golden-crowned
bull, fired the third shot at his magnificent head.
The bronze Barye lion dropped from Golden Beard's
nerveless fist; the towering figure, stiffening, fell over
rather slowly and lay across the velvet carpet as rigid
as a great tree.
Brandes went into the room, leaned over the dying
man and fired into his body until his pistol was empty.
Then he replaced the exhausted clip leisurely, leering
down at his victim.
There was a horrid sound from the stairs, where Cur-
foot and another man were killing a waiter. Strange,
sinister faces appeared everywhere from the smoke-
filled club rooms; Stull came out into the hallway below
and shouted up through the stair-well:
"Say, Eddie! For Christ's sake come down here!
There's a mob outside on the street and they're tearing
the iron shutters off the cafe!"
Curfoot immediately started downstairs; Brandes,
pistol in hand, came slowly out of the club rooms, still
379


THE DARK STAR
leering, his slitted, greenish eyes almost phosphorescent
in the semi-obscurity.
Suddenly he caught sight of Use Dumont standing
close behind Sengoun and Neeland on the landing above.
"By God!" he shouted to Curfoot. "Here she is,
Doc! Tell your men! Tell them she's up here on the
next floor!"
Sengoun immediately fired at Brandes, who did not
return the shot but went plunging downstairs into the
smoky obscurity below.
"Come on!" roared Sengoun to Neeland, starting
forward with levelled weapon. "They've all gone crazy
and it's time we were getting out of this!"
"Quick!" whispered Neeland to Use Dumont. "Fol-
low me downstairs! It's the only chance for you now!"
But the passageway was blocked by a struggling,
cursing, panting crowd, and they were obliged to re-
treat into the club rooms.
In the salle de jeit, Ali Baba, held fast by three men
dressed as waiters, suddenly tripped up two of them,
turned, and leaped for the doorway. The two men who
had been tripped scrambled to their feet and tore after
him. When they reached the hallway the Eurasian
was gone; but all of a sudden there came the crash of
a splintered door from the landing above; and the dim
corridor rang with the frightful screaming of a woman.
"It's—that—that—Russian girl!" stammered Use
Dumont; "—The girl I locked in! Oh, my God!—my
God! Karl Breslau is killing her!"
Neeland sprang into the hall and leaped up the
stairs; but the three men disguised as waiters had
arrived before him.
And there, across the threshold of the bedroom,
backed up flat against the shattered door, Ali Baba
380


A RAT HUNT
was already fighting for his life; and the frightened
Russian girl crept out from the bedroom behind him
and ran to Neeland for protection.
Twice Neeland aimed at Ali Baba, but could not
bring himself to fire at the bleeding, rabid object which
snarled and slavered and bit and kicked, regardless of
the blows raining on him. At last one of his assailants
broke the half demented creature's arm with a chair;
and the bloody, battered thing squeaked like a crip-
pled rat and darted away amid the storm of blows
descending, limping and floundering up the attic
stairs, his broken arm flapping with every gasping
bound.
After him staggered his sweating and exhausted as-
sailants, reeling past Neeland and Use Dumont and
the terrified Russian girl who crouched behind them.
But, halfway up the stairs all three halted and stood
clinging to the banisters as though listening to some-
thing on the floor above them.
Neeland heard it, too: from the roof came a ripping,
splintering sound, as though people on the slates were
prying up the bolted scuttle. The three men on the
stairs hesitated a moment longer; then turned to flee,
too late; a hail of pistol shots swept the attic stairs;
all three men came pitching and tumbling down to the
landing.
Two of them lay still; one rose immediately and
limped on again down the hallway, calling over the
banisters to those below:
"The Germans on the leads 'ave busted into the gar-
ret! Breslau is up 'ere! Send along those American
gunmen, or somebody what can shoot!"
He was a grey-haired Englishman, smooth shaven
and grim; and, as he stood there at the head of the
381


THE DARK STAR
further stairs, breathing heavily, awaiting aid from
below, he said to Neeland coolly enough:
"You'd better go below, sir. We 'ad our orders to
take this Breslau rat alive, but we can't do it now, and
there's like to be a 'orrid mess 'ere directly."
"Can we get through below?"
"You can," said the man significantly, "but they'll
be detaining one o' them ladies at the door."
"Do you mean me?" said Use Dumont.
"Yes, ma'am, I do"
She sprang toward the attic stairway, but the British
agent whipped out a pistol and covered her.
"No," he said grimly. "You're wanted below. Go
down!"
She came slowly back to where Neeland was standing.
"You'll have to take your chance below," he said
under his breath. "I'll stand by you to the end."
She smiled and continued on toward the stairs where
the English agent stood. Neeland and the Russian girl
followed her.
The agent said:
"There's 'ell to pay below, sir."
The depths of the house rang with the infernal din
of blows falling on iron shutters. A deeper, more sin-
ister roar rose from the mob outside. There was a
struggle going on inside the building, too; Neeland
could hear the trampling and surging of men on every
floor—voices calling from room to room, shouts of
anger, the terrible outcry of a man in agony.
"Wot a rat's nest, then, there was in this here blessed
'ouse, sir!" said the British agent, coolly. "If we get
Breslau and the others on the roof we've bagged 'em
all."
The Russian girl was trembling so violently that
382


A RAT HUNT
from the street outside, rose the frantic yelling of the
mob mingled with the crash of glass and the clanging
dissonance of iron grilles and shutters which were be-
ing battered into fragments.
"It's my chance, now!" whispered Use Dumont, slip-
ping past him like a shadow.
For a moment he saw her silhouetted against the yel-
low electric glare on the stairs below, then, half carry-
ing the almost helpless Russian girl, he stumbled down
the last flight of stairs and pushed his way through
a hurrying group of men who seemed to be searching
for something, for they were tearing open cupboards
and buffets, dragging out table drawers and tumbling
linen, crockery, and glassware all over the black and
white marble floor.
The whole place was ankle deep in shattered glass
and broken bottles, and the place reeked with smoke
and the odour of wine and spirits.
Neeland forced his way forward into the cafe,
looked around for Sengoun, and saw him almost imme-
diately.
The young Russian, flushed, infuriated, his collar
gone and his coat in tatters, was struggling with some
men who held both his arms but did not offer to strike
him.
Behind him, crowded back into a corner near the
cashier's steel-grilled desk, stood Use Dumont, calm,
disdainful, confronted by Brandes, whose swollen,
greenish eyes, injected with blood, glared redly at her.
Stull had hold of him and was trying to drag him
away:
"For God's sake, Eddie, shut your mouth," he pleaded
in English. "You can't do that to her, whatever she
done to you P'
885


THE DARK STAR
But Brandes, disengaging himself with a jerk, pushed
his Way past Sengoun to where Use stood.
"I've got the goods on you!" he said in a ferocious
voice that neither Stull nor Curfoot recognised. "You
know what you did to me, don't you! You took my wife
from me! Yes, my wife! She was my wife! She is my
wife!—For all you did, you lying, treacherous slut!—
For all you've done to break me, double-cross me, ruin
me, drive me out of every place I went! And now I've
got you! I've sold you out! Get that? And you know
what they'll do to you, don't you? Well, you'll see
when —"
Curfoot and Stull threw themselves against him, but
Brandes, his round face pasty with fury, struggled
back again to confront Use Dumont.
"Ruined me!" he repeated. "Took away from me
the only thing God ever gave me for my own! Took my
wife!"
"You dog!" said Use Dumont very slowly. "You
dirty dog!"
A frightful spasm crossed Brandes' features, and
Stull snatched at the pistol he had whipped out. There
was a struggle; Brandes wrenched the weapon free; but
Neeland tore his way past Curfoot and struck Brandes
in the face with the butt of his heavy revolver.
Instantly the group parted right and left; Sengoun
suddenly twisted out of the clutches of the men who
held him, sprang upon Curfoot, and jerked the pistol
from his fist. At the same moment the entire front of
the cafe- gave way and the mob crashed inward with &
roar amid the deafening din of shattered metal and the
clash of splintering glass.
Through the dust and falling shower of debris, Bran-
des fired at Use Dumont, reeled about in the whirl of
386


A RAT HUNT
An immense wave of people surged suddenly across
the rue Vilna, headed toward the German cafes on the
Boulevard; and then, for the first time, Neeland
caught sight of policemen standing in little groups,
coolly watching the destruction of the Cafe des
Bulgars.
Either they were too few to cope with the mob, or
they were indifferent as to what was being done to a
German caf£, but one thing was plain; the police had
not the faintest idea that murder had been rampant in
the place. For, when suddenly a dead body was thrown
from the door out on the sidewalk, their police whistles
shrilled through the street, and they started for the
mob, resolutely, pushing, striking with white-gloved
fists, shouting for right of way.
Other police came running, showing that they had
been perfectly aware that German cafes were being at-
tacked and wrecked. A mounted inspector forced his
horse along the swarming sidewalk, crying:
"Attons! Circulez! Cest defendu de s'attrouper
dans la rue! Mais fichez-moi le camp, now, de Dieul Les
Attemands ne sont pas encore dans la place!"
Along the street and on the Boulevard mobs were
forming and already storming three other German
cafes; a squadron of Republican Guard cavalry arrived
at a trot, their helmets glittering in the increasing day-
light, driving before them a mob which had begun to
attack a cafe on the corner.
A captain, superbly mounted, rode ahead of the ad-
vancing line of horses, warning the throng back into
the rue Vilna, up which the mob now recoiled, sullenly
protesting.
Neeland and Sengoun and the two women were forced
back with the crowd as a double rank of steel-helmeted
389


THE DARK STAR
horsemen advanced, sweeping everybody into the rue
Vilna.
Up the street, through the vague morning light, they
retired between ranks of closed and silent houses, past
narrow, evil-looking streets and stony alleys still dark
with the shadows of the night.
Into one of these Neeland started with Ilse Dumont,
but Sengoun drew him back with a sharp exclamation
of warning. At the same time the crowd all around
them became aware of what was going on in the maze
of dusky lanes and alleys past which they were being
driven by the cavalry; and the people broke and scat-
tered like rabbits, darting through the cavalry, dodg-
ing, scuttling under the very legs of the horses.
The troop, thrown into disorder, tried to check the
panic-stricken flight; a brigadier, spurring forward to
learn the cause of the hysterical stampede, drew bridle
sharply, then whipped his pistol out of the saddle-hol-
ster, and galloped into an impasse.
The troop captain, pushing his horse, caught sight
of Sengoun and Neeland in the remains of their eve-
ning dress; and he glanced curiously at them, and at
the two young women clad in the rags of evening
gowns.
"Nom de Dieu!" he cried. "What are such people as
you doing here? Go back! This is no quarter for
honest folk!"
"What are those police doing in the alleys?" de-
manded Sengoun; but the captain cantered his horse up
the street, pistol lifted; and they saw him fire from his
saddle at a man who darted out of an alley and who
started to run across the street.
The captain missed every shot, but a trooper, whose
horse had come up on the sidewalk beside Neeland, fired
390


A RAT HUNT
twice more after the running man, and dropped him at
the second shot.
"A good business, too," he said calmly, winking at
Neeland. "You bourgeois ought to be glad that we're
ordered to clean up Paris for you. And now is the time
to do it," he added, reloading his weapon.
Sengoun said in a low voice to Neeland:
"They're ridding the city of apaches. It's plain
enough that they have orders to kill them where they
find them! Look!" he added, pointing to the dead wall
across the street; "It's here at last, and Paris is clean-
ing house and getting ready for it! This is war, Nee-
land—war at last!"
Neeland looked across the street where, under a gas
lamp on a rusty iron bracket, was pasted the order for
general mobilisation. And on the sidewalk at the base
of the wall lay a man, face downward, his dusty shoes
crossed under the wide flaring trousers, the greasy
casquet still crowding out his lop ears; his hand
clenched beside a stiletto which lay on the stone flagging
beside him.
"An apache," said Sengoun coolly. "That's right,
too. It's the way we do in Russia when we clean house
for war"
His face reddened and lighted joyously.
"Thank God for my thousand lances!" he said, lifting
his eyes to the yellowing sky between the houses in the
narrow street. "Thank God! Thank God!"
Now, across the intersections of streets and alleys
beyond where they stood, policemen and Garde cavalry
were shooting into doorways, basements, and up the
sombre, dusky lanes, the dry crack of their service re-
volvers re-echoing noisily through the street.
Toward the Boulevard below, a line of police and of
391


THE DARK STAR
to her home—wherever that hazy locality might be—
and carried her in his arms to the taxieab, amid en-
couraging shouts of laughter from the line of cavalry-
men who had been watching the proceedings from the
corner of the rue Vilna.
That shout of Gallic appreciation inflamed Sengoun:
he reached for his hat, to lift and wave it, but found no
hat on his head. So he waved his tattered sleeve in-
stead:
"Hurrah for France!" he shouted. "Hurrah for
Russia! I'm Sengoun, of the Terek!—And I am to
have a thousand lances with which to explain to the
Germans my opinion of them and of their Emperor!"
The troopers cheered him from their stirrups, in spite
of their officers, who pretended to check their men.
"Vive la France! Vive la Russie!" they roared.
"Forward the Terek Cossacks!"
Sengoun turned to Use Dumont:
"Madame," he said, "in gratitude and admiration!"
—and he gracefully saluted her hand. Then, to his
comrade: "Neeland!"—seizing both the American's
hands. "Such a night and such a comrade I shall never
forget! I adore our night together; I love you as a
brother. I shall see you before I go?"
"Surely, Sengoun, my dear comrade!"
"Alors—au revoir!" He sprang into the taxieab.
"To the Russian Embassy!" he called out; and turned
to the half fainting girl on the seat beside him.
"Where do you live, my dear?" he asked very gently,
taking her icy hand in his.
^


CHAPTER XXXIV
SUNRISE
When the taxicab carrying Captain Sengoun and
the unknown Russian girl had finally disappeared far
away down the Boulevard in the thin grey haze of early
morning, Neeland looked around him; and it was a
scene unfamiliar, unreal, that met his anxious eyes.
The sun had not yet gilded the chimney tops; east
and west, as far as he could see, the Boulevard stretched
away under its double line of trees between ranks of
closed and silent houses, lying still and mysterious in
the misty, bluish-grey light.
Except for police and municipal guards, and two
ambulances moving slowly away from the ruined cafe,
across the street, the vast Boulevard was deserted; no
taxicabs remained; no omnibuses moved; no early work-
men passed, no slow-moving farm wagons and milk wains
from the suburbs; no chiffoniers with scrap-filled sacks
on their curved backs, and steel-hooked staves, furtively
sorting and picking among the night's debris on side-
walk and in gutter.
Here and there in front of half a dozen wrecked cafes
little knots of policemen stood on the glass-littered
sidewalk, in low-voiced consultation; far down the
Boulevard, helmets gleamed dully through the haze
where municipal cavalry were quietly riding off the
mobs and gradually pushing them back toward the
Montmartre and Villette quarters, whence they had
arrived.
395


THE DARK STAR
Mounted Municipals still sat their beautiful horses in
double line across the corner of the rue Vilna and par-
allel streets, closing that entire quarter where, to judge
from a few fitful and far-away pistol shots, the methodi-
cal apache hunt was still in progress.
And it was a strange and sinister phase of Paris that
Neeland now gazed upon through the misty stillness of
early morning. For there was something terrible in
the sudden quiet, where the swift and shadowy fury of
earliest dawn had passed: and the wrecked buildings
sagged like corpses, stark and disembowelled, spilling
out their dead intestines indecently under the whitening
sky.
Save for the echoes of distant shots, no louder than
the breaking of a splinter—save for the deadened
stamp and stir of horses, a low-voiced order, the fainter
clash of spurs and scabbards—an intense stillness
brooded now over the city, ominously prophetic of what
fateful awakening the coming sunrise threatened for
the sleeping capital.
Neeland turned and looked at Use Dumont. She
stood motionless on the sidewalk, in the clear, colour-
less light, staring fixedly across the street at the
debris of the gaping, shattered Cafe des Bulgars. Her
evening gown hung in filmy tinted shreds; her thick,
dark hair in lustrous disorder shadowed her white shoul-
ders; a streak of dry blood striped one delicate bare
arm.
To see her standing there on the sidewalk in the full,
unshadowed morning light, silent, dishevelled, scarcely
clothed, seemed to him part of the ghastly unreality of
this sombre and menacing vision, from which he ought
to rouse himself.
She turned her head slowly; her haggard eyes met his
396


SUNRISE
without expression; and he found his tongue with the
effort of a man who strives for utterance through a
threatening dream:
"We can't stay here," he said. The sound of his
own voice steadied and cleared his senses. He glanced
down at his own attire, blood-stained, and ragged; felt
for the loose end of his collar, rebuttoned it, and knotted
the draggled white tie with the unconscious indifference
of habit.
"What a nightmare!" he muttered to himself. "The
world has been turned upside down over night." He
looked up at her: "We can't stay here," he repeated.
"Where do you live?"
She did not appear to hear him. She had already
started to move toward the rue Vilna, where the troop-
ers barring that street still sat their restive horses.
They were watching her and her dishevelled companion
with the sophisticated amusement of men who, by clean
daylight, encounter fagged-out revellers of a riotous
night.
Neeland spoke to her again, then followed her and
took her arm.
"Where are you going?" he repeated, uneasily.
"I shall give myself up," she replied in a dull
voice.
"To whom?"
"To the Municipals over there."
"Give yourself up!" he repeated. "Why?"
She passed a slender hand over her eyes as though
unutterably weary:
"Neeland," she said, "I am lost already. . . . And
I am very tired."
"What do you mean?" he demanded, drawing her
back under a porte-coctere. "You live somewhere,

397


SUNRISE
—if I am found by the police in their company! . . .
No, Neeland. There's no hope for me. Too many know
me in Paris. I took a risk in coming here when war
was almost certain. I took my chances, and lost. It's
too late to whimper now."
As he stared at her something suddenly brightened
above them; and he looked up and saw the first sun-
beam painting a chimney top with palest gold.
"Come," he said, "we've got to get out of this!
We've got to go somewhere—find a taxicab and get
under shelter"
She yielded to the pressure of his arm and moved for-
ward beside him. He halted for a moment on the curb,
looking up and down the empty streets for a cab of any
sort, then, with the instinct of a man for whom the
Latin Quarter had once been a refuge and a home,
he started across the Boulevard, his arm clasping
hers.
All the housetops were glittering with the sun as
they passed the ranks of the Municipal cavalry.
A young officer looked down mischievously as they
traversed the Boulevard—the only moving objects in
that vast and still perspective.
"Mon Dieu!" he murmured. "A night like that is
something to remember in the winter of old age!"
Neeland heard him. The gay, bantering, irrespon-
sible Gallic wit awoke him to himself; the rising sun,
tipping the city's spires with fire, seemed to relight a
little, long-forgotten flame within him. His sombre fea-
tures cleared; he said confidently to the girl beside
him:
"Don't worry; we'll get you out of it somehow or
other. It's been a rather frightful dream, Schehera-
zade, nothing worse"
399


THE DARK STAR
Her arm suddenly tightened against his and he turned
to look at the shattered Cafe des Bulgars which they
were passing, where two policemen stood looking at a
cat which was picking its way over the mass of debris,
mewing dismally.
One of the policemen, noticing them, smiled sympa-
thetically at their battered appearance.
"Would you like to have a cat for your livelv
menage?" he said, pointing to the melancholy animal
which Neeland recognised as the dignified property of
the Cercle Extranationale.
The other policeman, more suspicious, eyed Use Du-
mont closely as she knelt impulsively and picked up
the homeless cat.
"Where are you going in such a state?" he asked,
moving over the heaps of splintered glass toward her.
"Back to the Latin Quarter," said Neeland, so cheer-
fully that suspicion vanished and a faint grin replaced
the official frown.
"AUons, mes enfants," he muttered. "Faut pas
s'attrouper dans la rue. Also you both are a scandal
AUons! Filez! Houp! The sun is up already!"
They went out across the rue Royale toward the
Place de la Concorde, which spread away before them
in deserted immensity and beauty.
There were no taxicabs in sight. Use, carrying the
cat in her arms, moved beside Neeland through the
deathly stillness of the city, as though she were walking
in a dream. Everywhere in the pale blue sky above
them steeple and dome glittered with the sun; there
were no sounds from quai or river; no breeze stirred
the trees; nothing moved on esplanade or bridge; the
pale blue August sky grew bluer; the gilded tip of the
obelisk glittered like a living flame.
400


SUNRISE
Neeland turned and looked up the Champs Elysees.
Far away on the surface of the immense avenue a
tiny dark speck was speeding—increasing in size, com-
ing nearer.
"A taxi," he said with a quick breath of relief.
"We'll be all right now."
Nearer and nearer came the speeding vehicle, rushing
toward them between the motionless green ranks of
trees. Neeland walked forward across the square to
signal it, waited, watching its approach with a slight
uneasiness.
Now it sped between the rearing stone horses, and
now, swerving, swung to the left toward the rue Royale.
And to his disgust and disappointment he saw it was
a private automobile.
"The devil!" he muttered, turning on his heel.
At the same moment, as though the chauffeur had
suddenly caught an order from within the limousine,
the car swung directly toward him once more.
As he rejoined Use, who stood clasping the homeless
cat to her breast, listlessly regarding the approaching
automobile, the car swept in a swift circle around the
fountain where they stood, stopped short beside them;
and a woman flung open the door and sprang out to
the pavement.
And Use Dumont, standing there in the rags of her
frail gown, cuddling to her breast the purring cat,
looked up to meet her doom in the steady gaze of the
Princess Naia Mistchenka.
Every atom of colour left her face, and her ashy
lips parted. Otherwise, she made no sign of fear, no
movement.
There was a second's absolute silence; then the dark
eyes of the Princess turned on Neeland.
401


SUNRISE
antly, "but—" he smiled at her and stepped back be-
side Use Dumont, and passed his arm through hers:
"I'm a grateful beast," he added lightly, "and if I've
nine lives to lose, perhaps Miss Dumont will save seven
more of them before I'm entirely done for."
The girl gently disengaged his arm.
"You'll only get yourself into serious trouble," she
murmured, "and you can't help me, dear Neeland."
The Princess Naia, flushed and exasperated, bit her
lip.
"James," she said, "you are behaving absurdly. That
woman has nothing to fear from me now, and she ought
to know it!" And, as Use lifted her head and stared
at her: "Yes, you ought to know it!" she repeated.
"Your work is ended. It ended today at sunrise. And
so did mine. War is here. There is nothing further
for you to do; nothing for me. The end of everything
is beginning. What would your death or mine signify
now, when the dawn of such a day as this is the death
warrant for millions? What do we count for now,
Mademoiselle Minna Minti?"
"Do you not mean to give me up, madame?"
"Give you up? No. I mean to get you out of Paris
if I can. Give me your cat, mademoiselle. Please help
her, James''
"You—offer me your limousine?" stammered Use.
"Give that cat to me. Of course I do! Do you
suppose I mean to leave you in rags with your cat on
the pavement here?" And, to Neeland: "Where is
Alak?"
"Gone home as fit as a fiddle. Am I to receive the
hospitality of your limousine also, dear lady? Look at
the state I'm in to travel with two ladies!"
The Princess Nai'a's dark eyes glimmered; she tucked
403


SUNRISE
"Why, I've got to," said the Princess Mistchenka
with a shrug. "I am not a barbarian to leave you to a
firing squad, I hope."
The car had stopped; the chauffeur descended and
came around to open the door.
"Caron," said the Princess, "no servants are stirring
yet. Take my key, find a cloak and bring it out—and
a coat for Monsieur Neeland—the one that Captain
Sengoun left the other evening. Have you plenty of
gasoline?"
"Plenty, madame."
"Good. We leave for Havre in five minutes. Bring
the cloak and coat quickly."
The chauffeur hastened to the door, unlocked it, dis-
appeared, then came out carrying a voluminous wrap
and a man's opera cloak. The Princess threw the one
over Use Dumont; Neeland enveloped himself in the
other.
"Now," murmured the Princess Nai'a, "it will look
more like a late automobile party than an ambulance
after a free fight—if any early servants are watch-
ing us."
She descended from the car; Use Dumont followed,
still clasping the cat under her cloak; and Neeland fol-
lowed her.
"Be very quiet," whispered the Princess. "There is
no necessity for servants to observe what we do"
A small and tremulous voice from the head of the
stairs interrupted her:
"Nai'a! Is it you?"
"Hush, Ruhannah! Yes, darling, it is I. Every-
thing is all right and you may go back to bed"
"Nai'a! Where is Mr. Neeland?" continued the voice,
fearfully.
407 ^


THE DARK STAR
"He is here, Rue! He is all right. Go back to your
room, dear. I have a reason for asking you."
Listening, she heard a door close above; then she
touched Use on the shoulder and motioned her to follow-
up the stairs. Halfway up the Princess halted, bent
swiftly over the banisters:
"James!" she called softly.
"Yes?"
"Go into the pantry and find a fruit basket and fill
it with whatever food you can find. Hurry, please."
He discovered the pantry presently, and a basket of
fruit there. Poking about he contrived to disinter from
various tins and ice-boxes some cold chicken and bis-
cuits and a bottle of claret. These he wrapped hastily
in a napkin which he found there, placed them in the
basket of fruit, and came out into the hall just as Use
Dumont, in the collar and cuffs and travelling coat of
a servant, descended, carrying a satchel and a suit-case.
"Good business!" he whispered, delighted. "You're
all right now, Scheherazade! And for heaven's sake,
keep out of France hereafter. Do you promise?"
He had taken the satchel and bag from her and
handed both, and the fruit basket, to Caron, who stood
outside the door.
In the shadowy hall those two confronted each other
now, probably for the last time. He took both her
hands in his.
"Good-bye, Scheherazade dear," he said, with a
new seriousness in his voice which made the tone of it
almost tender.
"G-good-bye "The girl's voice choked; she bent
her head and rested her face on the hands he held
clasped in his.
He felt her hot tears falling, felt the slender fingers
408


SUNRISE
within his own tighten convulsively; felt her lips against
his hand—an instant only; then she turned and slipped
through the open door.
A moment later the Princess Nai'a appeared on the
stairs, descending lightly and swiftly, her motor coat
over her arm.
"Jim," she said in a low voice, "it's the wretched
girl's only chance. They know about her; they're look-
ing for her now. But I am trusted by my Ambassador;
I shall have what papers I ask for; I shall get her
through to an American steamer."
"Princess Nai'a, you are splendid!"
"You don't think so, Jim; you never did. ... Be
nice to Rue. The child has been dreadfully frightened
about you. . . . And," added the Princess Mistchenka
with a gaily forced smile, resting her hand on Nee-
land's shoulder for an instant, "don't ever kiss Rue
Carew unless you mean it with every atom of your
heart and soul. ... I know the child. . . . And I
know you. Be generous to her, James. All women
need it, I think, from such men as you—such men as
you," she added laughingly, "who know not what
they do."
If there was a subtle constraint in her pretty laugh-
ter, if her gay gesture lacked spontaneity, he did not
perceive it. His face had flushed a trifle under her
sudden badinage.
"Good-bye," he said. "You are splendid, and I do
think so. I know you'll win through."
"I shall. I always do—except with you," she added
audaciously. And "Look for me tomorrow!" she
called back to him through the open door; and slammed
it behind her, leaving him standing there alone in the
dark and curtained house.
409


THE DARK STAR
men and boys calling extra editions of the papers.
There seemed to be no need for the raising of hoarse
and threatening voices in the soundless capital. Men
and youths of all ages traversed the avenues and streets
with sheafs of fresh, damp newspapers over their ragged
arms, but it was the populace who crowded after and
importuned them, not they the people; and no sooner
did a paper-seller appear than he was stripped of his
wares and was counting his coppers under the trees
before hurrying away for a fresh supply.
Neeland dressed himself in sections, always returning
to the window to look out; and in this manner he
achieved his toilet.
Marotte, the old butler, was on the floor below, carry-
ing a tea tray into the wide, sunny sitting-room as
Neeland descended.
"I overslept," explained the young American, "and
I'm nearly starved. Is Mademoiselle Carew having
tea?"
"Mademoiselle requested tea for two, sir, in case you
should awake," said the old man solemnly.
Neeland watched him fussing about with cloth and
table and silver.
"Have you any news?" he asked after a moment.
"Very little, Monsieur Neeland. The police have
ordered all Germans into detention camps—men,
women, and children. It is said that there are to be
twelve great camps for these unfortunates who are to
assemble in the Lycee Condorcet for immediate trans-
portation."
Neeland thought of Use Dumont. Presently he asked
whether any message had been rceeived from the
Princess Mistchenka.
"Madame the Princess telephoned from Havre at
412


THE FIRST BAY
four o'clock this afternoon. Mademoiselle Carew has
the message."
Neeland, reassured, nodded:
"No other news, Marotte?"
"The military have taken our automobiles from the
garage, and have requisitioned the car which Madame la
Princess is now using, ordering us to place it at their
disposal as soon as it returns from Havre. Also, Mon-
sieur le Capitaine Sengoun has telephoned from the
Russian Embassy, but Mademoiselle Carew would not
permit Monsieur to be awakened."
"What did Captain Sengoun say?"
"Mademoiselle Carew received the message."
"And did anyone else call me up?" asked Neeland,
smiling.
"II y avait une fe—wne espece de dame," replied the
old man doubtfully, "—who named herself Fifi la Tzi-
gane. I permitted myself to observe to her," added the
butler with dignity, "that she had the liberty of writ-
ing to you what she thought necessary to communi-
cate."
He had arranged the tea-table. Now he retired, but
returned almost immediately to decorate the table with
Cloth of Gold roses.
Fussing and pottering about until the mass of
lovely blossoms suited him, he finally presented himself
to Neeland for further orders, and, learning that there
were none, started to retire with a self-respecting dig-
nity that was not at all impaired by the tears which
kept welling up in his aged eyes, and which he always
winked away with a demi-tour and a discreet cough cor-
rectly stifled by his dry and wrinkled hand.
As he passed out the door Neeland said:
"Are you in trouble, Marotte?"
413


THE FIRST DAY
Then it had passed; the darkly speeding torrent of
motor cars alone possessed the Avenue; and Neeland
turned away into the room again.
And there, before him, stood Rue Carew.
A confused sense of unreasoning, immeasurable hap-
piness rushed over him, and, in that sudden, astound-
ing instant of self-revelation, self-amazement left him
dumb.
She had given him both her slim white hands, and he
held to them as though to find his bearings. Both were
a trifle irrelevant and fragmentary.
"Do you c-care for tea, Jim? . . . What a night!
What a fright you gave us. . . . There are croissants,
too, and caviar. ... I would not permit anybody to
awaken you; and I was dying to see you-
"I am so sorry you were anxious about me. And I'm
tremendously hungry. . . . You see, Sengoun and I
did not mean to remain out all night. . . . I'll help you
with that tea; shall I? . . ."
He still retained her hands in his; she smiled and
flushed in a breathless sort of way, and looked some-
times at the tea-kettle as though she never before had
seen such an object; and looked up at him as though
she had never until that moment beheld any man like
him.
"The Princess Nai'a has left us quite alone," she said,
"so I must give you some tea." She was nervous and
smiling and a little frightened and confused with the
sense of their contact.
"So—I shall give you your tea, now," she repeated.
She did not mention her manual inability to perform
her promise, but presently it occurred to him to release
her hands, and she slid gracefully into her chair and
took hold of the silver kettle with fingers that trembled.
415
f


THE DARK STAR
lands where mosses edged the brooks; of peaceful vil-
lages they both had known, where long, tree-shaded
streets slept in the dappled shadow under the sun of
noon.
Marotte came, silent, self-respecting, very grey and
tranquil in his hour of trial.
There were two letters for Neeland, left by hand.
And, when the old man had gone away bearing his silver
tray among his heavier burdens:
"Read them," nodded Rue Carew.
He read them both aloud to her: the first amused
them a little—not without troubling them a little, too:
Monsieur Neeland:
It is the Tzigane, Fifi, who permits herself the honour
of addressing you.
Breslau escaped. With him went the plans, it seems.
You behaved admirably in the Cafe des Bulgars. A Rus-
sian comrade has you and Prince Erlik to remember in
her prayers.
You have done well, monsieur. Now, your task is ended.
Go back to the Western World and leave us to end this
battle between ourselves.
It is written and confirmed by the stars that what the
Eastern World has sown it shall now reap all alone.
We Tziganes know. You should not mock at onr knowl-
edge. For there is a dark star, Erlik, named from the
Prince of Hell. And last night it was in conjunction
with the red star, Mars. None saw it; none has ever be-
held the dark star, Erlik.
But we Tziganes know. We have known for five thou-
sand years that Erlik hung aloft, followed by ten black
moons. Ask your astronomers. But we Tziganes knew
this before there ever were astronomers!
Therefore, go home to your own land, monsieur. The
Prince of Hell is in the heavens. The Yellow Devil shall
see the Golden Horn again. Empires shall totter and fall-
Little American, stand from under.
418


THE FIRST DAY
Adieu! We Tziganes wish you well—Fifi and Nini of
the Jardin Russe.
"Adieu, beau jeune homme! And—to her whom you
shall take with you—homage, good wishes, good augury,
and adieus!"
"'To her whom you shall take with you,'" he re-
peated, looking at Rue Carew.
The girl blushed furiously and bent her head, and
her slender fingers grew desperately busy with her hand-
kerchief.
Neeland, as nervous as she, fumbled with the seal of
the remaining letter, managed finally to break it,
glanced at the writing, then laughed and read:
My dear Comrade Neeland:
I get my thousand lances! Congratulate me! Were
you much battered by that canaille last night? I laugh
until I nearly burst when I think of that absurd bou-
sculade!
That girl I took with me is all right. I'm going to
Petrograd! I'm going on the first opportunity by way
of Switzerland.
What happiness, Neeland! No more towns for me, ex-
cept those I take. No more politics, no more diplomacy!
I shall have a thousand lances to do my talking for me.
Hurrah!
Neeland, I love you as a brother. Come to the East with
me. You shall make a splendid trooper! Not, of course,
a Terek Cossack. A Cossack is God's work. A Terek
Cossack is born, not made.
But, good heavens! There is other most excellent
cavalry in the world, I hope! Come with me to Russia.
Say that you will come, my dear comrade Neeland, and
I promise you we shall amuse ourselves when the world's
dance begins
"Oh!" breathed the girl, exasperated. "Sengoun is
a fool!"
419 ,*■


THE FIRST DAY
•whither it shall one day fade and disappear and pass
away forever.
"My darling"
"Oh, Jim—I have loved you all my life," she whis-
pered. And her young arms crept up and clung around
his neck.
"My darling Rue—my little Rue Carew"
Outside the window an officer also spoke through the
unbroken clatter of passing horsemen which filled the
whole house with a hollow roar. But she heard her
lover's voice alone as in a hushed and magic world; and
in her girl's enchanted ears his words were the only
sounds that stirred a heavenly quiet that reigned be-
tween the earth and stars.
.(1)
/-