Chapter XI The Hidden Passage
A crown! what is it?
It is to bear the miseries of the people!
To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents,
And sink beneath a load of splendid care!
To have your best success ascribed to fortune,
And fortune’s failures all ascribed to you!
It is to sit upon a joyless height,
To every blast of changing fate exposed!
Too high for hope! Too great for happiness!
—Hannah More: Daniel.
When Solonika hurled herself upon my breast she found me ready for her. I was not overborne by the shock of the encounter, and my eye never lost track of the knife in its descent. Instinctively I protected my heart with my elbows and caught her wrists with both hands in a grip of iron.
She struggled like the mad woman she temporarily was, but her recently dislocated arm robbed her of much of her power and she finally, under the pressure of my fingers, released her hold upon her weapon. The knife fell to the carpet between us. I crushed her against my chest as tightly as I could without hurting her, just as a boxer will run into clinches with his nimble antagonist to keep from getting hurt. The pain in her arm, and the knowledge that she was powerless against my strength in a physical encounter, and weaponless, brought on a quick reaction. Her body relaxed in my arms and she broke into a torrent of tears, more hard to bear than her desperate anger.
“Solonika,” I whispered, “will you listen to me?”
“No, no, no,” she sobbed; “let me go! Let me go.”
“If I let you go will you promise not to attempt my life again?”
Sobs were my only answer.
“Solonika,” I said, “there is no need for all this show of feeling. I am not here to harm you or yours. Your secret is safe with me.”
Her weeping continued, but I knew that she was listening.
“If I meant to escape, it is in my power to do so. I need but thrust you aside and leap through the panel. You could not stop me before I reached my friends. To prove to you that I mean you no ill, I will release you and permit you to do as you will with me.”
I set her upon her feet as I spoke, but I was careful to pick up the knife and put it in my pocket. Dazed, she stood looking at me through her tears.
“You know; oh, my God, you know!” she cried.
There was the same look in her eyes which I noticed when she first detected my presence. But, seeing that I made no move, her old courage returned. She ran to the wall and pressed an electric button that rang a bell somewhere in the castle out of hearing. Then she possessed herself of a silver-mounted revolver which she took from her wardrobe.
Although I knew that, never as long as I lived and she reigned upon her throne, could she feel that her secret was safe; that at the least I might be imprisoned for life in the family dungeon, and at the most condemned to death by her angry father, I made no move to stop her. I pinned my faith to the hope that I would be able to convince her, and if necessary, her father, that I would not betray them even to my friends.
“Stand in the centre of the room,” she ordered, and I promptly obeyed. She took up her position against the panel and we faced each other, waiting. My ready compliance with her curt commands aroused her suspicions instead of allaying them as I wished. She thought I must have good reason not to fear her.
“Your friend Nicholas no doubt is waiting you in the Prince’s room?” she flung out. “He too has seen, and you wish to give him time to escape.”
My object was not to escape, else I might have lied to her.
“No,” I said, “I came alone.”
She smiled pityingly upon me, but there was no mistaking the look of relief which passed over her face. The secret was still within the keeping of the battlements and there it would stay.
“You fool; oh, you fool,” she said. Her contempt was unbearable.
“Aye, fool indeed,” I rejoined bitterly, “ever to hope that you would see and understand. It is true that my presence here indicates that I have been spying upon your movements. It is true that I suspected you. But have my subsequent actions been those of a spy? When you were powerless in my arms a moment ago, did I try to escape? Don’t you see that the show of supremacy you now have over me, I have willingly given you? Does not your better judgment tell you that I am speaking the truth?”
“I wish I could believe you,” she said; “it would make things easier.”
“Do believe me, Solonika,” I pleaded. “Palmora did not send me here. I came alone to see you in the summer-house as I promised, and, not finding you there, I followed you to the castle. In the Prince’s room I heard you singing and came here without knowing what I was to see.”
“I cannot understand you, Dr. Wharton,” she said, and I could see that my words were taking effect; “it is not fear of the consequences that makes you say this.”
“What consequences?” I asked, wishing to learn what she intended doing with me.
“Of course you know that you can never leave this castle again,” she said.
I nodded.
“I do not know what method my father will take to insure your silence. The future is in his hands.”
“It is likely then that my fate may be similar to that of the old nurse whose neck was broken,” I said. She was startled.
“You know that, too?” she said.
“Yes, I know.”
“How do you a stranger in Bharbazonia know this?”
“General Palmora has always suspected something. He told me.”
“When father learns of this I fear for your life, sir.”
I bowed; there was nothing to say.
“Perhaps you will explain, Dr. Wharton, why you are willing to withhold from your friends that which they would give much to know,” she asked.
“Why should I wish to tell?” I asked her in return. “I have no interest in Bharbazonian politics. Neither have I any friends in this country who would be benefited by my information. But I tell you frankly that, if there were any way by which I could prevent you from continuing this dreadful masquerade, I would gladly make use of it.”
My answer staggered her. But I wished her to understand me thoroughly.
“Why?” she gasped.
“Because I pity you.”
It was a tense moment for me. If I had read this girl aright she was a womanly woman and her heart had often rebelled against her lot. If I was to convince her of my sincerity, I must show her that I understood; that I knew how much she detested playing the part of a man; that I sympathized with her. Knowing that I felt this interest in her, she must appreciate that I would be the last man in the world to make the performance harder for her to bear.
She looked at me in wonder, while her assurance in herself vanished. Her knees became weak and she suddenly sat down. But it seemed as if fate were against me. Just when I needed her undivided attention most, there came a knock upon the door that startled us both. Solonika recovered her composure instantly, remembering the business in hand.
“Who’s there?” she called, watching me for any move to escape. But I made no sign.
“Your Highness rang,”—it was the voice of Therese, the maid.
“Tell my father to come here instantly,” ordered the Princess. She was determined to carry out her original plan of submitting everything to her father. Therese ran upon her errand, for there was that in Solonika’s voice which lent the maid the wings of fear. The Duke would soon be here; there was not much time left me.
“Your friends will miss you,” smiled the Princess.
“Yes,” I returned, although I knew that I was wasting time on the wrong track, “and they know that I came here. They will search for me in the right place.”
“But with little success,” she replied; “Dhalmatia knows how to keep its secrets.”
“Nicholas will not rest until he has found me,” I said.
“But David will never find his Jonathan. They left you in the roadway. No one saw you enter the castle and no one will see you leave. You mayhap were captured by highwaymen. Bharbazonia is full of them.”
“You forget Dajerak. He let me in.”
“He is incorruptible. He will say he never saw you.”
“But my friends will not rest until they have found me.”
“We will invite them to search the castle if they become insistent, but they will not find you.”
“This is idle talk,” I said, “beside the purpose. I knew when I placed myself in your power that I ran this risk. If it be necessary to pay such a price, I will pay it. But one of these days I will convince you that I mean it when I say that your secret is safe with me.”
“You said a while back you pitied me,” she suggested, and my heart jumped that she had not forgotten. “Perhaps you will tell me why.”
The Duke would be here any moment. I had come to my last stand.
“You have asked for an explanation. I will give it to you,” I said. “I pity you because you do not enter into this masquerade of your own free will, nor because you like it, but rather because you love your father and desire to further his ambition. So far, am I not right?”
“I love my father,” she replied, soberly, “he is all I have in the world.”
“And to that affection you have sacrificed everything in life that makes life worth the living. Where are the girl friends who should be yours? You dare not bring them here for fear of discovery. The young nobles of this country cannot come to see you. Here you live in loneliness, you who were made for better things. You had a taste of happiness when you were away at the English schools, and you know what you are sacrificing. And for what? To gratify an old man’s whim.”
“No, no,” she cried, as if she would not hear.
“Have you stopped to look at the future? To me that will be worse than the past. The time will come when you may no longer be a woman but must ever be a man. Once you have taken up the sceptre the door is shut behind you. You can never marry; you can never have a lover and a husband; you can never have children. All this to gratify an evil ambition.”
A look of deep agony drove the light of battle from the poor girl’s eyes. She followed each word until her pent-up feelings could no longer be restrained.
“Stop, stop! for God’s sake!” she cried, beating upon her breast with her clenched fists. “Don’t, don’t talk so. I cannot bear it. Haven’t I known all this? Oh, haven’t I seen it often in the night? Sleep flees from me and these thoughts come and will not let me rest. The years that are past have been unhappy enough, but the years to come will be worse. To be always watchful lest I betray myself! to go on acting—acting—ever acting, never able to be just myself—”
“Never to love as other women love,” I said, gently.
“Oh, you don’t know,” she cried, vehemently, “you don’t know all the agony I have suffered. I have seen peasant women in the streets of Nischon suckling their dirty babes; I have seen the love in their eyes for the stalwart men at their sides, and I have hated them. Hated them, do you hear? I could have killed them for daring to be happy while I am so miserable—I, a princess of Bharbazonia. They point me out to their little ones and hold them up to see the great lady riding by—they envy me—me!—me! Oh, God, how little they know that I would give everything to change places with the humblest of them.”
Sob upon sob seemed wrung from her soul by the grief that was deeper than I ever suspected. She was totally unconscious of my presence when I placed my hand upon her head in a gentle caress. She rested against me with a sigh.
“I have thought about it so much of late. I think my heart is breaking. I try to tell father, but he cannot understand. But you can, you do understand.”
“Yes,” I said, “I do understand. And I know that the worst is still before you.”
“Oh, no, nothing can be worse,” she cried, as if she would ward off a blow.
“Your father is old. He must some day leave you.”
“Alone! I shall be alone?” she cried. “I cannot go on alone. I cannot do it, I tell you! When he is gone I shall die also. I shall be old then, and I shall welcome death when he tardily comes.”
It was awful to hear a young woman with all of life before her talking like this. I permitted her to weep until her tears ceased to flow of their own accord. When she became quieter she looked up in my face, and wonder was written on her countenance.
“You understand!” was all she said, but there was something like awe in her voice.
“It was because I understood that I would do all in my power to prevent you sacrificing yourself. It was because I understood that I would not escape, when I could, to give you additional cause for worry. It was because I understood that I will keep your secret forever. Now, do you understand at last?”
“But, how do you know all these things? You have read my very soul and made me say that which I never dreamed I should say to any one.”
“It is because—I am your friend,” I said.
In a voice full of excitement the Red Fox, pounding upon the outer door, demanded admittance. Like the knocking on the door in the play of Macbeth, the interruption brought us back to a realization of the things of the world without. We sprang to our feet and faced each other.
“Do you believe me, Solonika?” I whispered.
Noiselessly she pushed the curtains aside at the head of the couch upon which her large French hat and red parasol were lying. Behind the curtains a door stood open, revealing a pair of stone steps leading down into the darkness.
“Go, go!” she whispered in turn. I knew how much she was risking in thus giving me my freedom.
“Good-bye, Solonika,” I said, pausing upon the top step.
She held out her hand and I pressed it reverently against my lips.
“Good-bye, my—friend,” she said.
The curtain fell, shutting off the light, but I did not go down the steps. I waited behind the curtain and heard her open the door to the Red Fox.
“What is the matter?” he cried, rushing into the room. “Therese said something had happened to you.”
“Nothing is wrong, father,” said she. “I needed you because—I am afraid to be left alone.”
“Now, daughter, control yourself. You will be in a nervous condition during the coronation if you permit yourself to go to pieces thus. Son of my soul, you will soon reign as King in Bharbazonia, then you will forget these womanly weaknesses!”
“Yes, I shall be King and forget my womanhood,” she replied, listlessly.
I had heard enough and crept away. The stone steps were very dark and, for fear of making a noise, I removed my shoes. The Duke must not know. Presently, by feeling my way along the wall at the side, I came noiselessly to the end of the steps and found that I was in a narrow underground passage. Judging from the interminable number of steps, I was deep under the castle foundations. The tunnel led away from the castle, if I was any judge of direction.
I followed it slowly, still feeling my way along the wall and watching for pitfalls under my feet. Subterranean passages I knew were always full of dangers. I might even now be in the dungeon with which Solonika threatened me, where my friend would never be able to find me. Not that I doubted her, but she might have sent me here to protect me from her father, and her father from me.
The passage kept continually dipping downward as if it were going far under the earth, but it also led me further and further from the castle. Of that I was sure. Its sides were beginning to drip with water, and I put on my shoes after stepping into a puddle. My progress was slow and, although I listened, I heard no sound from the castle. At last my outstretched hand came in contact with a wooden door. Softly I felt for the knob and cautiously turned it. What was I to find at the end of the passage? Was sudden death lurking there? The door was unlocked and yielded to the pressure of my hand. I opened it slowly outward and was greeted with a flood of light.
A tall Japanese screen was the first object that met my view. Beside it was a picture of Solonika standing on the tips of her dainty toes in the midst of a Bharbazonian dance. Close to it was another picture of Solonika in the costume of the Prince. There was her easy chair close to the flowers by the windows—I was standing in the summer-house—free!
Solonika was trusting me!