G.o.d pity me, but must I make it plainer?"

Here, he believed, was his last throw. "Have I not told you that nothing mattered, nothing at all save that I love you?"

"I can not argue more," wearily.

"He will tire of you again," desperately.

"I know it. But in my heart something speaks that he will need me; and when he does I shall go to him."

"G.o.d in heaven! to be loved like that!"

Scarcely realizing the violence of his action, he crushed her to his heart, roughly, and kissed her face, her eyes, her hair. She did not struggle. It was all over in a moment. Then he released her and turned away toward the dusty road. She was not angry. She understood.

It was the farewell of the one man who had loved her in honor.

Presently he seemed to dissolve into the shadows, and she knew that out of her life he had gone for ever.

CHAPTER XXV

THE DUPE

The next morning Fitzgerald found Cathewe's note under his plate. He opened it with a sense of disaster.

"MY DEAR OLD JACK:

I'm off. Found a pony and shall jog to Ajaccio by the route we came.

Please take my luggage back to the Grand Hotel, and I'll pick it up.

And have my trunk sent ash.o.r.e, too. I shan't go back to America with the admiral, bless his kindly old heart! I'm off to Momba.s.sa. Always keep a shooting-kit there for emergencies. I suppose you'll understand. Be kind to her, and help her in any way you can. I hope I shan't run into Breitmann. I should kill him out of hand. Happiness to you, my boy. And maybe I'll ship you a trophy for the wedding.

Explain my departure in any way you please.

"CATHEWE."

The reader folded the note and stowed it away. Somehow, the bloom was gone from things. He was very fond of Cathewe, kindly, gentle, brave, and chivalrous. What was the matter with the woman, anyhow? How to explain? The simplest way would be to state that Cathewe had gone back to Ajaccio. The why and wherefore should be left to the imagination.

But, oddly enough, no one asked a second question. They accepted Cathewe's defection without verbal comment. What they thought was of no immediate consequence. Fitzgerald was gloomy till that moment when Laura joined him. To her, of course, he explained the situation.

Neither she nor Hildegarde cared to go up to the forest. They would find nothing but a hole. And indeed, when the men returned from the pines, weary, dusty, and dissatisfied, they declared that they had gone, not with the expectation of finding anything, but to certify a fact.

M. Ferraud was now in a great hurry. Forty miles to Corte; night or not, they _must_ make the town. There was no dissention; the spell of the little man was upon them all.

Hildegarde rode alone, in the middle carriage. Such had been her desire. She did not touch her supper. And when, late at night, they entered the gates of Corte and stepped down before the hotel lights, Laura observed that Hildegarde's face was streaked by the pa.s.sage of many burning tears. She longed to comfort her, but the older woman held aloof.

Men rarely note these things, and when they do it has to be forced upon them. Fitzgerald, genuine in his regret for Cathewe, was otherwise at peace with the world. He alone of them all had found a treasure, the incomparable treasure of a woman's love.

Racing his horses all through the night, scouring for fresh ones at dawn and finding them, and away again, climbing, turning, climbing round this pa.s.s, over that bridge, through this cut, thus flew Breitmann, the pa.s.sion of haste upon him. By this tremendous pace he succeeded in arriving at Evisa before the admiral had covered half the distance to Carghese.

How clear and keen his mind was as on he rolled! A thousand places wove themselves to the parent-stem. He even laughed aloud, sending a shiver up the spine of the driver, who was certain his old _padrone_ was mad. The face of Laura drifted past him as in a dream, and then again, that of the other woman. No, no; he regretted nothing, absolutely nothing. But he had been a fool there; he had wasted time and lent himself to a despicable intrigue. For all that he outcried it, there was a touch of shame on his cheeks when he remembered that, had he asked, she would have given him that sc.r.a.p of paper the first hour of their meeting. Somewhere in Hildegarde von Mitter lay dormant the spirit of heroes. He had made a mistake.

Two millions of shining money, gold, silver, and English notes! And he laughed again as he recalled M. Ferraud, caught in a trap. He was clever, but not clever enough. What a stroke! To make prisoners of the party on their return, to carry the girl away into the mountains!

Would any of them think of treasures, of conspiracies, with her as a hostage? He thought not. In the hue and cry for her, these elements in the game would fall to a minor place. Well he knew M. Ferraud: he would call to heaven for the safety of Laura. Love her? Yes! She was the one woman. But men did not make captives of women and obtain their love. He knew the futility of such coercion. He had committed two or three scoundrelly acts, but never would he or could he sink to such a level. No. He meant no harm at all. Frighten her, perhaps, and terrorize the others; and mayhap take a kiss as he left her to the coming of her friends. Nothing more serious than that.

Two millions in gold and silver and English notes! He would have his revenge, for all these years of struggle and failure; for the cold and callous policies of state which had driven him to this piece of roguery, on their heads be it. Two thousand in Ma.r.s.eilles, ready at his beck and call, a thousand more in Avignon, in Lyons, in Dijon, and so on up to Paris, the Paris he had cursed one night from under his mansard. In a week he would have them shaking in their boots. The unemployed, the idlers, thieves, his to a man. If he saw his own death at the end, little he cared. He would have one great moment, pay off the score, France as well as Germany. He would at least live to see them harrying each other's throats. To declare to France that he was only Germany's tool, put forward for the sole purpose of destroying peace in the midst of a great military crisis. He had other papers, and the prying little Frenchman had never seen those; clever forgeries, bearing the signature of certain great German personages. These should they find at the selected moment. Let them rip one another's throats, the dogs! Two million of francs, enough to purchase a hundred thousand men.

"Ah, my great-grandsire, if spirits have eyes, yours will see something presently. And that poor little devil of a secret agent thinks I want a crown on my head! There was a time . . . Curse these infernal headaches!"

On, on; hurry, hurry. The driver was faithful, a sometime brigand and later a harbor boatman; and of all his confederates this one was the only man he dared trust on an errand of this kind.

Evisa. They did not pause. They ate their supper on the way. With three Sardinian donkeys, strong and patient little brutes, with lanterns and shovels and sacks, the two fared into the pines. Atone was all familiar ground to the Corsican who, in younger days, had taken his illegal t.i.the from these hills. They found the range soon enough, but made a dozen mistakes in measurements; and it was long toward midnight, when the oil of the lanterns ran low, that their shovels bore down into the precious pocket. The earth flew. They worked like madmen, with nervous energy and power of will; and when the chest finally came into sight, rotten with age and the soak of earth, they fell back against a tree, on the verge of collapse. The hair was damp on their foreheads, their breath came harshly, almost in sobs.

Suddenly Breitmann fell upon his knees and laughed hysterically, plunged his blistered hands into the shining heap. It played through his fingers in little musical cascades. He rose.

"Pietro, you have been faithful to me. Put your two hands in there."

"I, _padrone_?" stupefied.

"Go on! Go on! As much as your two hands can hold is yours. Dig them in deep, man, dig them in deep!"

With a cry Pietro dropped and burrowed into the gold and silver. A dozen times he started to withdraw his hands, but they trembled so that some of the coins would slip and fall. At last, with one desperate plunge, the money running down toward his elbows, he turned aside and let fall his burden on the new earth outside the shallow pit. He rolled beside it, done for, in a fainting state. Breitmann laughed wildly.

"Come, come; we have no time. Put it into your pockets."

"But, _padrone_, I have not counted it!" naively.

"To-morrow, when we make camp for breakfast. Let us hurry."

Quickly Pietro stuffed his pockets. Jabbering in his patois, swearing so many candles to the Virgin for this night's work. Then began the loading of the sacks, and these were finally dumped into the donkey-panniers.

"Now, Pietro, the shortest cut to Ajaccio. First, your hand on your amulet, and oath never to reveal what has happened."

Pietro swore solemnly. "I am ready now, _padrone_!"

"Lead on, then," replied Breitmann. Impulsively he raised his hands high above his head. "Mine, all mine!"

He wiped his face and hands, pulled his cap down firmly, lighted a cigarette, struck the rear donkey, and the hazardous journey began.

Seven men, more or less young, with a genial air of dissipation about their eyes and a varied degree of recklessness lurking at the corners of their mouths; seven men sat round a table in a house in the Rue St.

Charles. They had been eating and drinking rather luxuriously for Ajaccio. The Rue St. Charles is neither s.p.a.cious nor elegant as a thoroughfare, but at that point where it turns into the _Place Let.i.tia_ it is quiet and unfrequented at night. A film of tobacco smoke wavered in and out among the guttering candles and streamed round the empty and part empty champagne bottles. At the head of the table sat Breitmann, still pale and weary from his Herculean labors. His face was immobile, but his eyes were lively.

"To-morrow," said Breitmann, "we leave for France. On board the moneys will be equally divided. Then, for the work." His voice was cold, authoritative.

"Two millions!" mused Picard, from behind a fresh cloud of smoke. He picked up a bottle and gravely filled his gla.s.s, beckoning to the others to follow his example. At another sign all rose to their feet, Breitmann alone remaining seated, "To the Day!"

Breitmann's lips grew thinner; that was the only sign.

Outside, glancing obliquely through the grilled window, stood M.