University of Virginia Library

36. CHAPTER XXXVI

FOR a long time the Baron lay wide awake, every sense alert, listening for the creak of a footstep on the wooden stair that led up from the harness-room to his prison. What else could the strange words of Dugald have meant, save that some friend proposed to climb those stairs and gently open that stubborn door? And in this opinion he had been confirmed when he observed that on Dugald's departure the key turned with a silence suggesting a recently oiled lock. His bed lay along the wall, with the head so close to the door that any one opening it and stretching forth a hand could tweak him by the nose without an effort (supposing that were the object of their visit). Clearly, he thought, it was not thus arranged without some very special purpose. Yet when hour after hour passed and nothing happened, he began to sleep fitfully, and at last, worn out with fruitless waiting, dropped into a profound slumber.

He was in the midst of a harassing dream or drama, wherein Bunker and Eva played an incoherent part and he himself passed wearily from peril to peril, when the stage suddenly was cleared, his eyes started open, and he became wakefully conscious of a little ray of

light that fell upon his face. Before he could raise his head a soft voice whispered urgently,

"Don't move!"

With admirable self-control he obeyed implicitly.

"Who is zere?" he whispered back.

The voice seemed for a moment to hesitate, and then answered —

"Eleanor Maddison!"

He started so audibly that again she breathed peremptorily —

"Hush! Lie still till I come back. You — you don't deserve it, but I want to save you from the disgrace of arrest."

"Ach, zank you — mine better angel!" he murmured, with a fervor that seemed not unpleasing to his rescuer.

"You really are a nobleman in trouble?"

"I swear I am!"

"And didn't mean anything really wrong?"

"Never — oh, never!"

More kindly than before she murmured —

"Well, I guess I'll take you out, then. I've bribed Dugald, so that's all right. When my car's ready I'll send him up for you. You just lie still till he comes."

From which it appears that Count Bunker's appreciation of the sex fell short of their meed.

Hardly daring to breathe for fear of awakening his fellow-prisoner, trembling with agitation, and consumed by a mad impatience for action, the Baron passed five of the longest minutes he had ever endured.

At the end of that time he heard a stealthy step upon the stairs, and with infinite precautions threw off his bedclothes and sat upright, ready for instant departure. But how slowly and with what a superfluity of precaution his jailor moved! When the door at length opened he wondered that no ray of light fell this time.

"Dugald!" he whispered eagerly.

"Hush!" replied a softer voice than Dugald's; as soft, indeed, as Eleanor's, yet clearly different.

"Who is zat?" he gasped.

"Eva Gallosh!" said the silken voice. "Oh, is that you?"

"Yes — yes — it is me."

"And are you really a Baron and an ambassador?"

"Oh yes — yes — certainly I am."

"Then — then I've come to help you to escape! I've bribed Dugald — and I've got a dog-cart here. Come quickly — but oh, be very quiet!"

For a moment the Baron actually hesitated to flee from that loathed apartment. It seemed to him that if Fortune desired to provide him with opportunities of escape she might have had the sense to offer these one at a time. For how could he tell which of these overtures to close with? A wrong decision might be fatal; yet time unquestionably pressed.

"Mein Gott!" he muttered irresolutely, "vich shall I do?"

At that moment the other bed creaked, and, to his infinite horror, he heard a suspicious voice demand —

"Is that you talking, Rudolph?"

Poor Eva, who was quite unaware of the presence of another prisoner, uttered a stifled shriek; with a cry of "Fly, quickly!" the Baron leaped from his bed, and headlong down the wooden stairs they clattered for freedom.

A dim vision of the thrice-bribed Dugald, screeching, "The car's ready for ye, sir!" but increased their speed.

Outside, a motor car stood panting by the door, and in the youthful driver, turning a pale face toward them in the lamp's radiance, the Baron had just time to recognize his first fair deliverer.

"Good-bye!" he whispered to his second, and flung himself in.

Some one followed him; the door was slammed, and with a mighty throbbing they began to move.

"Rudolph! Rudolph!" wailed a voice behind them.

"Zank ze goodness she is not here!" exclaimed the Baron.

"Whisht! whisht!" he could hear Dugald expostulate.

With a violent start he turned to the fellow-passenger who had followed him in.

"Are you not Dugald?" he demanded hoarsely.

"No — it's — it's me! I dursn't wait for my dog-cart!"

"Eva!" he murmured. "Oh, Himmel! Vat shall I do?"

Only a screen of glass separated his two rescuers,

and the one had but to turn her head and look inside, or the other to study with any attention the roll of hair beneath their driver's cap, in order to lead to most embarrassing consequences. Not that it was his fault he should receive such universal sympathy: but would these charming ladies admit his innocence?

"How thoughtful of Dugald to have this car — " began Eva.

"Hush!" he muttered hoarsely. "Yes, it was thoughtful, but you most not speak too loudly."

"For fear — ?" she smiled, and turned her eyes instinctively toward their driver.

"Excuse me," he muttered, sweeping her as gently as possible from her seat and placing her upon the floor.

"It vill not do for zem to see you," he explained in a whisper.

"How awful a position," he reflected. "Oh, I hope it may still be dark ven we get to ze station."

But with rising concern he presently perceived that the telegraph posts along the roadside were certainly grown plainer already; he could even see the two thin wires against a paling sky; the road behind was visible for half a mile; the hill-tops might no longer be confounded with the clouds-day indubitably was breaking. Also he recollected that to go from Lincoln Lodge to Torrydhulish Station one had to make a vast detour round half the loch; and, further, began to suspect that though Miss Maddison's driving was beyond reproach her knowledge of topography was

scarcely so dependable. In point of fact she increased the distance by at least a third, and all the while day was breaking more fatally clear.

To discourage Miss Gallosh's efforts at conversation, yet keep her sitting contentedly upon the floor; to appear asleep whenever Miss Maddison turned her head and threw a glance inside, and to devise some adequate explanation against the inevitable discovery at the end of their drive, provided him with employment worthy of a diplomatist's steel. But now, at last, they were within sight of railway signals and a long embankment; and over a pine wood a stream of smoke moved with a swelling roar. Then into plain view broke the engine and carriage after carriage racing behind. Regardless of risk, he leaped from his seat and flung up the window, crying —

"Ach, look! Ve shall be late!"

"That train is going north," said Eleanor. "Guess we've half an hour good before yours comes in."

So little can mortals read the stars that he heaved a sigh of relief, and even murmured —

"Ve have timed him very luckily!"

Ten minutes later they descended the hill to Torrydhulish Station. The north-going train had paid its brief call and vanished nearly from sight again; no one seemed to be moving about the station, and the Baron told himself that nothing worse remained than the exercise of a little tact in parting with his deliverers.

"Ach! I shall carry it off gaily," he thought, and

leaping lightly to the ground, exclaimed with a genial air, as he gave his hand to Eva

"Vell! Now have I a leetle surprise for you, ladies!"

Nor did he at all exaggerate their sensation.

"Miss Maddison!"

Alas, that it should be so far beyond the power of mere inky words to express all that was implied in Eva's accents!

"Miss Gallosh!"

Nor is it less impossible to supply the significance of Eleanor's intonation.

"Ladies, ladies!" he implored, "do not, I pray you, misunderstand! I vas not responsible — I could not help it. You both vould come mit me! No, no, do not look so at me! I mean not zat — I mean I could not do vizout both of you. Ach, Himmel! Vat do I say? I should say zat — zat — "

He broke off with a start of apprehension.

"Look! Zere comes a man mit a bicycle! Zis is too public! Come mit me into ze station and I shall eggsplain! He waves his fist! Come! you vould not be seen here?"

He offered one arm to Eva, the other to Eleanor; and so alarming were the gesticulations of the approaching cyclist, and so beseeching the Baron's tones, that without more ado they clung to him and hurried on to the platform.

"Come to ze vaiting-room!" he whispered. "Zere shall ve be safe!"

Alack for the luck of the Baron von Blitzenberg! Out of the very door they were approaching stepped a solitary lady, sole passenger from the south train, and at the sight of those three, linked arm in arm, she staggered back and uttered a cry more piercing than the engine's distant whistle.

"Rudolph!" cried this lady.

"Alicia!" gasped the Baron.

His rescuers said nothing, but clung to him the more tightly, while in the Baroness's startled eyes a harder light began to blaze.

"Who are these, Rudolph?"

He cleared his throat, but the process seemed to take some time, and in the meanwhile he felt the grip of his deliverers relax.

"Who is that lady?" demanded Eleanor.

"His wife," replied the Baroness.

The Baron felt his arms freed now; but still his Alicia waited an answer. It came at last, but not from the Baron's lips.

"Well, here you all are!" said a cheerful voice behind them.