The Yellow Dove/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX
THE CAVE ON THE THORWALD
SAFE?" he heard her whisper.
“Yes, for the present.”
“You have what you came for?”
“I think so.”
“And what shall we do now?”
“Sleep. You’re dead beat. Come.”
He rose and helped her to her feet, then after another pause, turned toward the wall of rocks behind them.
“Do you think you can make it? It’s a difficult climb.”
“Yes. I’ve that much left in me. You lead the way and I’ll follow.” Her teeth were chattering.
As he touched her sleeve he found it soaked with moisture.
“Poor child. You’re nearly frozen.” He had not been conscious of the occasional spatter of rain, for his leather jacket had kept him dry. “But I’ll have you warm and snug before you can say knife.”
And when she questioned, “A fire” he replied, “Isn’t that what one uses to get warm with?”
“But here—tonight?”
“Oh, don’t bother. You’ll see.”
They were climbing up the face of the slippery rocks, Hammersley pausing from time to time to let her rest, pulling her from above when he reached the ledges, and at last they came out into the amphitheater of bowlders from which he had descended.
She was almost too weary for comment and followed blindly as he led her to the wall of the rock where he seemed to disappear in its very face. She followed him inside a dark opening and when they were well within he relinquished her hand and struck a match. A brief glimpse she had of a small chamber in the cliff not twenty feet square when the match went out. He struck another and shading it with his hand went forward. She saw him find what he was looking for and in a moment a candle, after faintly sputtering for a moment, sent forth a steady glow of light.
“Sit here on this stool. I’ll have you right in a jiffy.”
She obeyed him and looked around her. At one side was a bed of pine needles, at another a small table and in the middle of the rocky floor the gray embers of what had been a fire.
“A bit roughish, but not so bad?”
She nodded while he busied himself in building the fire. There were dry leaves, twigs and logs in the corner, and soon a blaze was leaping cheerfully upward. And while she wondered at the signs of occupancy he answered her thought.
“It’s Lindberg’s. He comes here often. It was here that he and I always slept when we went on hunting trips. You see there’s a natural chimney overhead in the rocks where the bally smoke goes out. They might observe the smoke by day, but at night we’re quite safe. I’ve been all around the place when the fire was goin’ and there isn’t a sign of it outside.”
He helped her put her coat off and made her comfortable close to the fire, after which he quickly took the package of papers out of his pocket and examined them. The single papers were military orders of no importance to one Lieutenant Orstmann, obviously the dead messenger. Hammersley put them aside, breaking the seal of the heavy envelope and examining its contents carefully. First a letter of instructions to His Excellency von Stromberg, signed in the bold hand of the Emperor of Germany himself. He showed her the signature and explained its contents and all thought of weariness went from her mind.
“It is—it’s what you came for?”
“Yes,” he replied, smiling grimly. “I’ve got it.”
“Is it—it isn’t so important that you can’t tell me?” she asked timidly.
He laughed, put his arm around her and held her for a moment tenderly. She had endured where a man might have flinched, and yet at this moment she was all woman—timid, weary unto death, but still curious. It was the master impulse.
“No,” he smiled. “You’ve jolly well earned the right to know. I’ll tell you.”
He was so big, so strong, so certain of himself that she wondered how, for a moment even, she could have thought him other than he was. With a sudden impulse of pride and tenderness, she rose, put her arms around his neck and bending his head down to hers kissed him upon the lips. He caught her to him and held her in his arms.
“O Cyril,” she murmured, “that I could ever have failed in my belief in you, that I could ever have thought that you were false! Why didn’t you tell me the truth? I would have kept your secret.”
“It was impossible, dear. It was too big a thing and I was sworn to silence. But since you found out”
“Did you think me curious—” she asked naïvely, “because I read the cigarette papers?”
“Curious!” he laughed. “Well rather! The mistake I made was in tellin’ you not to read them. If I”
“Don’t laugh at me,” she whispered. “I can’t stand that. The only retribution for what I did this afternoon is a blow. If you struck me, Cyril, I should not care.”
“But I won’t, you know, old girl. But I’m going to kiss you again if you don’t mind.”
And he did, while a shadow darkened her eyes. “It seems terrible to be happy, even in our moment of security, with the shadow of death hanging so closely over us. I know you had to kill him, Cyril, but” She paused.
“It was either that or he would have killed me. As it was, it was too jolly close a thing for comfort. I gave the other man his chance, but he wouldn’t take it. Lucky he didn’t, for I might have missed the papers.”
She clung to him more closely.
“And if you had been killed?” she whispered. “I saw it all. At first I thought you had fallen. O Cyril, the agony of it! And then you came out from behind the tree and I knew that you were unharmed. I had seen a man die, as I had, there upon the rocks at Ben-a-Chielt, but when the other one came at you I wanted you to kill him. I wanted it. I prayed that you would. It was murder—in my heart. I can’t understand how I have changed. And I’ve always thought death such a fearsome thing!”
She hid her face in his shoulder and clung to him, trembling. She had passed through danger valiantly, carelessly even, but now that for the moment danger had passed, woman-like, she yielded to the reaction. He kissed her gently.
“Sh—child. Don’t let it work on you. No bally use. We’re safe now.”
“Yes—safe for the present. That ought to be enough for me. But if anything had happened to you—!” She shuddered.
“But it didn’t”
“Oh, I’m thankful,” she whispered. “Thankful for that—and for you—the trouble I’ve passed through—the pain of my thoughts of you—I’m thankful for those too, because without them I never should have known you—the real you, Cyril. I sometimes think that life deals too easily with most of us to bring out the best that’s in us. I never would have known you in England, Cyril, doing the things you always did.”
He smiled at her.
“I’m the same chap, though. Can’t tell what a fellow will do when he has to.”
“But you didn’t have to. You might have gone to France and sat in a trench. Instead of that you did what was harder—let them distrust you—hold you in contempt—keeping silent and cheerful, while you were doing such splendid things for England.” She paused while she caressed him and said in a proud whisper, “The Honorable Cyril!”
“Honorable!” he smiled. “You’d hardly get von Stromberg to think that.”
“That terrible old man!” she went on clinging to him. “I can see his vulture face now. He would have shot you—tomorrow!”
“But we fooled him—what? Poor Lindberg!”
She questioned him and he told her of the devotion of his old friend.
“And what will von Stromberg do to Lindberg?” she asked anxiously.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Nothin’ perhaps, unless Udo tells.” He paused and looked into the fire. “Wish I knew about Udo,” he said thoughtfully. “We were very good pals last year.”
“But he wouldn’t see you shot!”
“He couldn’t do anythin’. I am betrayin’ his country.”
“But not your country, Cyril,” she said.
“No, thank God. Not mine. I love Germany—the Germany of my mother—and the men like Lindberg. But the Germany of von Stromberg—that’s not Germany to me.”
“Do you think we will get away?”
“Yes,” he said quickly.
She read the anxiety in his voice and knew that he was thinking of her, and in that moment a new idea of her duty came to her.
“You mean,” she said quickly, “that you could get away if it wasn’t for me. O Cyril, I know. Don’t try to deceive me. You could disguise yourself and get away to the Swiss border. It would not be difficult for you. I am a weight around your neck which may destroy you.”
“Hush, child.”
“No. I am not too stupid to see that. You ought to be going now.” She clung to his arms and looked up into his face as her duty came more clearly to her, while her voice trembled with earnestness. “I want you to go, Cyril. Your life is valuable to England. They are on a false scent down there. You could get away in the darkness and by morning you can be miles away. I’m not afraid. Tomorrow I can go and give myself up. I am only a girl—an American. They will not dare to harm me. Don’t smile. I am in deadly earnest. You must go, Cyril—now—now”
But he only patted her gently.
“You think that I am a child,” she went on, “that I cannot be trusted to get along alone. Haven’t I proved it to you that I am not afraid? Look at me, Cyril. I am only a little tired now but tomorrow I will go to von Stromberg and say, ‘Here I am—now what can you do to me?’ He may threaten and bluster and rage, but that will not frighten me—when you are safe. What can he reply? What could he do? My nation is not at war with his. He would not dare! O Cyril, say that you’ll go—say that you’ll go”
She looked up into his face and saw that its expression had not changed. He was still smiling at her softly while she felt the touch of his fingers gently petting her.
“Oh—you won’t go—you won’t!” she cried, and then without further warning burst into a passion of tears.
“Don’t, Doris, for God’s sake,” he whispered. “Don’t break now. I need all your courage and your strength. You’ve been so brave—so strong. Keep up your spirits, there’s a dear. We’ll pull through, don’t you worry.”
“They’ll take you—if you stay here.”
“No. They won’t find us. I’m not afraid of that, and there are water and biscuits here. We’ll take things easy for a while and then slip off. Do you think I could go and leave you in the lurch? Pretty sort of a Johnny I’d be to do a thing like that! Not for twenty Englands, Doris,” he whispered, kissing her tenderly. “Not for twenty Englands, I wouldn’t.” His touch soothed her and she grew more quiet.
“Of—of course you w-wouldn’t,” she murmured. “But I w-wish you would.”
Her hands met around his neck and he raised her chin and kissed her on the mouth. It was a kiss of plighted troth, of tenderness, faith and the exalted passion that comes with tears.
“Mated?” he whispered.
“Yes—yes,” she murmured faintly.
They did not move for a long moment when Doris slowly disengaged her arms from around his neck and moved slightly away. Her hair had fallen and hung in golden disorder about her shoulders. She put up her arm, trying to catch the escaping pins, and then she smiled at him, dimpling adorably.
“Come,” he said gently. “You must get to bed. Your coat is nearly dry, but I’ll cover you with my jacket. You must sleep, too. No shammin’, you know. Can’t tell what may happen tomorrow.”
“I’ll try,” she murmured obediently, while he led her to the couch of boughs and made her lie on it. But as he knelt beside her, covering her with his jacket, she caught his hands and would not relinquish them. He raised hers to his lips and kissed them again and again: small, muscular hands they were, but now very brown and dirty. “Are you comfortable? Sorry I haven’t a tub.”
She was silent a moment and then straightened and asked him:
“You promised to tell me about the papers. Won’t you?”
He laughed.
“Not now. It must be nearly morning.”
“Yes, now. I’m not tired now. I will sleep afterwards. I like to hear your voice, Cyril. Perhaps it will soothe me to sleep.”
“Are you sure?” he asked doubtfully—and she nodded.
He saw that she was still nervous and wakeful and sank beside her couch, taking her hand in his.
“It is really quite interestin’,” he began slowly. “Three years ago, at the invitation of the Emperor of Germany, when Europe was at peace and there was no cloud upon the horizon bigger than a chap’s hand, there met in a shootin’ lodge near Schöndorf, not ten miles from here, six men. It was a secret conference, arranged by the Emperor of Germany through His Excellency Graf von Stromberg. The six men were His Highness Prince von Waldheim, at one time Germany’s ambassador to France; Admiral von Frankenhausen, head and front of the Imperial German Navy; General von Sandersdorf, the brains of the German General Staff; His Excellency Moritz von Komarom, minister of war of the Austrian Empire; Viscount Melborne, English Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; and Harlow-Gorden, of the British Admiralty.”
She was listening avidly, wide-eyed, the array of well-known names telling her as nothing else could have done the importance of the conference.
“This meetin’ was a secret,” he went on. “These men all traveled incognito, without servants, and were met by an agent of General von Stromberg at Schöndorf and conducted in automobiles to the huntin’ lodge I have spoken of. These men remained there for two days and two nights and then went home. But while they were there they were makin’ new history for Europe.” He paused to fill his pipe but her curiosity could not be restrained.
“And what were they doing there, Cyril? I can’t understand.”
Hammersley got up and held his pipe to the candle, for matches were scarce, and then, with maddening calmness, sat beside her again.
“That secret meetin’ of these chaps had to do with nothin’ less than the ruin of France”
“France!” she cried. “England had nothing against France and now she is her ally.”
“Three years ago the political conditions were different,” he answered. “Those representatives of England came and sat with representatives of Germany and Austria while they plotted the destruction of France.”
“But how do you know this, Cyril? I can’t understand.”
“No more do I, but it’s a fact. Let me go on. At the table in the lodge where this conference was held, Viscount Melborne made notes of what was goin’ on, includin’ the combinations of land and naval forces that could be made against France and Russia, and the plans to break the Russian Federation in the Balkans. When the meetin’ was over all the scraps of paper these chaps had scribbled on were destroyed by fire before the eyes of the men who had made ’em, except those of Viscount Melborne, who put ’em in his pocket, and with them a pencil copy of this secret treaty in his own handwriting. The original copy of the treaty was entrusted to Harlow-Gorden, who put it in his dispatch-box. It was not until the next day when the Englishmen, in the train on the way to Paris, discovered that Viscount Melborne’s private papers were missin’. Jolly fine mess—what? They got off at the next stop, went back to Schöndorf and looked for the papers, but neither there nor at the lodge was there hair or hide of ’em. So they went back to England hopin’ that by some fortunate accident the papers had been destroyed.”
“And these—” asked the girl, “are they?”
He nodded. “To make the story short, I found out where they had gone. My flights to Germany have been made for this purpose. Don’t you see? The papers came into the hands of the Emperor of Germany and he was plannin’ to have ’em sent to the President of the French Republic—England’s ally. It wouldn’t do, you know, to have such papers at such a time fall into the hands of France. Hardly a credit to English diplomacy. What? Might even result in a new entente.”
“But where were the papers in the meanwhile?” she asked.
“That is what took me so bally long to find out. After many hunts away from Windenberg at night, I traced ’em to a Socialist by the name of Gottschalk at Schöndorf, who had received ’em from a pensioner of the Imperial Forest Service, one of the attendants at the huntin’ lodge where the conference was held. Whether he found ’em or stole ’em I don’t know, but I frightened him and he confessed. I was on the very point of stealing ’em from Gottschalk when I found out that he had been writin’ to the Wilhelmstrasse, and when I tried to get ’em they were gone. If I’d got ’em then, you would not be here, Doris, and I”
“But how did you learn what the Wilhelmstrasse proposed to do with them?”
“Oh, that was quite clear. The English Foreign Office has been badly frightened and has used every effort with its secret agents in Berlin to get that information. It reached London the other day. And just before I left Scotland I knew the job was to be given to General von Stromberg. The rest was Kismet—the fortune of war—a jolly good piece of luck! Lindberg overheard through the microphone von Stromberg givin’ instructions to Wentz—so that His Excellency’s own weapons were turned against him. I was goin’ to waylay Wentz on the way to France, but circumstances prevented”
“It was I, Cyril,” she broke in pleadingly. “I didn’t know. I betrayed you.”
“A trick,” he laughed, “invented in the Rameses family—but still useful.”
“He frightened me,” she stammered. “I believed the message signed ‘Maxwell’ genuine.”
“Not Maxwell,” he said gravely, “for Maxwell—a sore spot since the war began in the side of the War Office—Maxwell is dead.”
“You?” she exclaimed fearfully.
“Yes,” he replied. “I told and they caught him. I couldn’t do so before. It’s war, Doris. It is a fair game. I ask no favors—nor do I give any.”
She was silent a moment looking into the fire.
“Yes, I understand—a terrible game with odds against” And then, after a pause, “You say that we will get away. Won’t you tell me your plan?”
He rose with a confident laugh.
“Yes, I have a plan, but I’m not going to tell it now. You are going to sleep.”
She laughed wearily and sat up.
“And you? Where will you sleep?”
“By the fire. I’ve got some thinkin’ to do. I’m not sleepy. I had eight hours last night. I’m going to watch.”
He bent over her and gently made her lie down. “I will talk to you no more. You must go to sleep.”
She sighed and stretched herself out while he covered her with his coat. Then he put a fresh log on the fire and sat beside her again. In a moment he heard her voice.
“I hope you don’t mind my telling you, Cyril, that I love you a great deal.”
“Not in the least,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t mind listenin’ while you said it all night. But”
“There. You’re going to insist on my sleeping again!”
“Won’t you?”
“I don’t seem to feel as if I could ever sleep again. You’re so cool, so calm, Cyril. How can you be?”
“No bally use gettin’ excited. Here we are snug as two bugs in a rug. We’ll slip through them some way.”
“But where will we go?”
He smiled.
“I have a notion of goin’ to England.” His kind of quiet humor always put her on her mettle.
“To England—?” She started up.
“There won’t be much chance of your doin’ anythin’ tomorrow if you don’t get your sleep,” he insisted gently. “Do what I ask, Doris. Sleep you must.”
“I’ll try. Good night, Cyril.”
“Good night.” He kissed her on the forehead and drew his jacket over her again, then sat beside her, her hand in his, watching. Gradually her nerves grew quiet and weariness mastered her. He waited until her breathing indicated sleep, when he carefully relinquished her hand and moved to the fire, where he carefully studied the papers by the light of his candle, after which he slipped them into the pocket of his trousers and moved softly across the cave into a corner, where he opened the lid of a tin box and examined its contents, taking out a fresh candle to replace the other one, which was on the point of expiring.
Then he filled his pipe with great deliberateness and, returning to the stool by the fire, crossed his knees and bent forward, gazing into the blaze, his brows tangled in deep thought. He had succeeded in getting what he came for. So far, the secret of the meeting in the shooting lodge was safe. But for how long? By this time a description of the two of them had, of course, been telegraphed to every village and military station in Germany. That wouldn’t do at all. Alone it might be managed, with a German officer’s uniform and Herr Lieutenant Orstmann’s military orders, but with Doris—it wasn’t to be thought of.
The other alternative appealed to him more strongly. He had matched his wits against von Stromberg’s so far and had won, and success made him hopeful. Where carefulness failed, audacity sometimes succeeded. The more he thought of his plan, the deeper became his conviction that it was the only one possible under the circumstances. There was continued danger for the papers and he deliberated for a long while upon the wisdom of destroying them at once, finally rejecting that idea except as a last alternative. His word that he had destroyed them would perhaps be sufficient to ease the minds of the gentlemen at the Foreign Office, but there were certain memoranda about the promises of Germany to England signed with the initials of Prince von Waldheim which should at all costs be saved. But aside from this consideration, Hammersley, having carried his affairs thus far successfully, had a pride in finishing it as he had planned. It could be done—he would do it.
He got up and put another log on the fire and then stretched himself out at full length upon the rocks, gazing into the flame. In the corner where the bed was he heard the steady breathing of the girl. What a trump she was—What a tr
He nodded and then dozed. Troubled visions flitted across his mind. Once he thought he heard the sound of a footstep on the rocks and started up. It was broad daylight. He listened for a while and then slowly sank back and slept again. How long he did not know, for something awakened him and he sat up, reaching instinctively for the holster lying at his side, to look straight into the muzzle of an automatic, behind which was the handsome blond head of Udo von Winden.