CHAPTER XVII

_Leo and Sonia determine to steal a motor-car but fall into an unexpected trap_

Never before had Leo found the avenue between the Copper House and Karka gates so interminably long. Sometimes it seemed as wide as a boulevard, at others no broader than a woodland path, where he kept on bumping into the trees, and grazing his hands. The rain, which blew in diagonal lines across their path, or fell upon their heads in heavy drops from the thick foliage, drenched, but did not cool him; hot and breathless, he stumbled continually, and at last stood still, perfectly bewildered.

"Wait!" he panted to the young girl. "It has never taken me more than six minutes to walk down this avenue, but to-night it seems by some sort of black magic to be five times longer than usual. If one could at least see one's own nose!"

"Hush!" whispered Sonia. "We are somewhere near the lodge; I fancied I saw a light...."

Leo started nervously.

"Is there someone behind us?" he exclaimed, trying to peer between the trees. But he could no longer see even the lights on the terrace, and came to the conclusion that they must somehow have traversed the entire length of the avenue.

"No, it's nobody," said the girl, after listening for a minute; "they are too busy now with Ortiz' arrival."

"Ortiz! don't speak of him, I am scared to death when I think of his face: supposing he comes after us!"

"No, no," said the girl, catching hold of his coat. "Never mind Ortiz now! Look, isn't that a light over there?"

They went on through the trees; a flash of lightning flickered through the darkness, but its momentary glimmer was not sufficient to show them their exact whereabouts; it was succeeded by a brief peal of thunder, echoing among the surrounding hills. Leo could see nothing of the light which the girl had noticed.

"Yes, yes!" she insisted; "it was just as though somebody was lighting a pipe--ah, there it is again!"

This time they really saw a faint glow, which threw an intermittent light upon a brutal face, wreathed in smoke, whilst a burning match ricochetted through the air and went out. Leo recognized the face of the gate-keeper Tugan, who had fired at him on his first arrival at the Copper House.

They heard him grumbling to himself, and suddenly a light flared out again: the man had opened a dark-lantern, and was flashing it suspiciously first on one side, then on the other, but without discovering the fugitives, who had taken cover behind the trunk of a large tree. After some minutes the light vanished, and they thought they heard steps moving away. Meanwhile, the temporary illumination had shown them where they were: the lodge was not more than twenty paces away from them, and twenty paces further on to the right, they could make out the bars of the gates. The gate-keeper seemed to be the only human being about.

"He has gone," whispered Sonia. "He went out of the gate."

"No," returned Leo, "he went inside: I heard a door shut."

"Impossible, for we should see a light in the window."

"Not necessarily; he would be on the look-out."

They wrangled obstinately, though in subdued tones, assured that the rain and the wind were sufficient to cover any sound they might make.

"Let us wait a few seconds, and we shall know for certain"; Leo proposed finally; "I don't feel quite comfortable about it; the old fox may be lying in wait."

They stood so close together, sheltering as best they could from the rain, that the girl's soft hair brushed his face, and he could feel the vibration of her hurried breathing. She was evidently strung-up to a high pitch of excitement, and her agitation communicated itself to him, making him feel strengthless and confused.

"Sonia," said he, taking her hand, "I may call you Sonia, mayn't I? Your fingers are like ice, are you very frightened? Things have gone rather well, so far."

"No," she answered in a low tone, not withdrawing her hand; "I am not frightened...."

He ventured to squeeze the little hand.

"You'll see, if once we can get safely out of this, it will be all right. We shall manage to outwit the lot of them, Ortiz and his myrmidons; he shan't hurt your people, and to-morrow a happier future will dawn...."

"There can be no future for me," she burst out mournfully, "unless, unless...."

"Yes, unless what? Tell me."

"Unless Sergius is saved. He runs the greatest risk of all, and if he dies...."

She broke off with a sob, and the sound struck Leo like a blow.

"Yes, of course, Sergius," he murmured. "Oh, that'll be all right. Sergius shan't be taken from you."

In spite of his brave words he was conscious of a feeling of exhaustion and disappointment, as he realized that he had been fixing his hopes on something that was quite out of his reach ... no, it was best as it was ... Sergius! So all her anxiety was for him. Ah well, perhaps it was the most suitable....

He pulled himself together.

"Come along!" he encouraged her; "let's go ahead to rescue Sergius."

They went up to the lodge, and tried to look in through the window.

"He isn't there," whispered the girl.

"No, so it seems," muttered Leo; "but which way did he go?"

"That doesn't matter, we needn't bother about him," she returned impatiently. "Don't you remember that the telephone is here? We must telephone for help."

"Yes, you are right, let us do so at once."

They skirted the wall, and approached the door. Leo turned the handle, found the door unfastened, and entered.

Something whizzed past him with an ominous sound, and struck the door-post with a crack: it was a knife.

"Ha!" cried the young man, "is that your game, you sneaking brute!"

The burly form of the gate-keeper loomed dimly just inside the door, and Leo flung himself unhesitatingly upon him, for he knew that it was a matter of life or death. His enemy seized him in a bear's hug, but he wriggled out of it, and planted his fist squarely in the center of the brutal face. The fellow reeled backwards, slipped his right hand behind him, and raised the butt of his gun over his head, with a furious bellow.

"Oh no, I have had enough of that gun of yours," said Leo; "I owe you something for yesterday. Tit for tat, you know. Now then, come on and get it! And there's another: and just one more!"

Tugan had counted too much on his brute strength; the young man's powerful onrush gave him no chance of inflicting his intended death-blow with the clubbed rifle; a smashing blow on the point of the chin knocked him off his feet, he fell backwards over chairs and table with a crash, and lay motionless.

Leo groped for the matches, and a tiny, flickering flame lighted up the room. Tugan was stunned, and lay like a pole-axed steer on the floor; Sonia stared at him in alarm.

"Is he dead?" she whispered.

"No, he will soon come to."

With a certain satisfaction, Leo reflected that he must now have regained the prestige which he had lost in her eyes by his sham fight with the Austrian. The match went out, but he struck another, and lighted a candle which stood on the table. The telephone became visible on the wall near the door, and a thrill of triumph went through him, as he picked up the receiver. At last he had succeeded! In another minute their plight would be made known to the outside world, and help would be forthcoming.

"Hallo!" he shouted impatiently: "hallo! Now then, Exchange! Can't you answer? Are you all asleep there? Hallo, hallo!"

Sonia gave a cry and pointed to the wall.

"Look! the wires are cut! The telephone is useless!"

Leo saw that she was right: the cut wires were dangling down. With an exclamation of dismay, he flung away the receiver.

"It is dreadful," faltered Sonia; "it shows that they have no further need of it; they just want to secure themselves against being surprised. We are lost!"

"Not yet," muttered Leo, "not yet."

He extinguished the candle, and they hurried out again into the rain, which had come on more heavily. They looked around them, and Leo said:

"We must get out through the gates."

"It's the only way," she agreed, but broke off. "Oh, look, look! They're coming!" she whispered.

Leo glanced instinctively up the avenue. Far back amongst the great trees, lights began to be reflected in the puddles, and to throw fantastic, leaping shadows on the path. There seemed to be four or five lanterns, and their rapid movements showed that the men who carried them were running.

Without a word, Leo made for the gates; they were just ajar, and creaked horribly as they were pushed open to let the fugitives through. Out on the high-road they could hear voices inside the park, giving the alarm. In the middle of the road, eight or ten steps away, stood a large car, quivering with the throbbing of its engine. Two fugitives in wet coats were crouching under the hood, but they sprang out, and their black shadows were clearly defined against the beams of the headlights.

"We must have this," said Leo, and he rushed forward ready to throw the two figures into the mud. He immediately recognized one of them to be Marcus Tassler; the other was, presumably, the chauffeur. The young man "saw red," and he cried:

"Ah, here is our excellent friend, our benefactor, the honest merchant! So you persist in hanging about here, sir! I suppose you carry about the mortgages in your pocket, to make quite sure that I am not running off with the securities for your cash. Come along, old boy!--you fat little Nebuchadnezzar!--just come along, and I'll reckon up what I owe you!"

He advanced threateningly, and, with a bound, Tassler placed himself in safety on the other side of the car.

"The fellow is mad!" he yelled. "Shoot him! Knock him down!"

The chauffeur threw himself between them, with a spanner in his gloved hand. He was a little bit of a man, and Leo put both arms around his waist, lifted him up, in spite of his frantic struggles, and flung him across the road, where he disappeared with a splash. Tassler continued to shout and threaten from the further side of the car.

"Easy there, old boy!" said Leo. "I haven't time...."

Sonia had already clambered into the car, and he followed her. He threw himself down behind the wheel, and grasped it as eagerly as though it had been a life-buoy. It was a pleasant surprise to find that the car was a "Mercedes," such as he had frequently driven in California. He cast one more look through the gates, towards the avenue: the dancing lights had almost caught them up. He touched the starting-gear with a light and practiced hand, and the car began to purr gently, gave a slight jerk, and rolled forward, as the tires took a grip of the wet surface of the road.

Tassler tore open his coat, snatched out a little nickelled revolver, and--piff, piff!--a couple of bullets whizzed past them. "Bang!" a rifle replied from the avenue. The young man laughed aloud. Sonia looked at him with surprise, and with renewed interest: he seemed transformed. The fighting blood of the Graths had for a few short moments wakened into life in this last effeminate scion of the race. At that minute he would have marched up to a battery of machine-guns: his eyes sparkled, and his long, "artistic" hair seemed to stand out round his head like a halo. The car shot away, its fifty horse-power obedient to the touch of his hand: they were off on the road to freedom. The dazzling headlights illuminated the darkness for ten yards ahead of them, and made the wet road shine like polished marble. The trees bordering the road stood motionless, their boughs heavy with moisture. And still the rain streamed and splashed down on them, in a tepid, unceasing shower-bath: it gurgled in the ditches, and drummed on the glass wind-screen of the car.

"Au revoir, Marcus!" Leo shouted over his shoulder. His voice was drowned in a peal of thunder, but the girl clapped her hands.

"That's splendid!" she exclaimed delightedly. "They can't catch us! Where will you drive to?"

"First of all to the nearest usable telephone," he replied. "And then--well, I hope there may be some sort of police-station in this neighborhood, otherwise we must make straight for Stockholm; it's all plain sailing now."

"Do you know the way?"

"Don't I just! Like the inside of my pocket!"

His self-confidence had gone up a hundred per cent., since he got his hands on the steering-wheel. He let out the car to its fullest extent, murmuring:

"Good old Mercedes!--it's up to you, now! Show what you can do!"

And almost at the same instant, as the car obeyed him, and shot out at full speed, with the dizzying rush of a torpedo--at that instant the catastrophe was upon them! Their triumph was changed into bitter disappointment, and now they understood why so few shots had been sent after them; it was not freedom, but a murderous trap that awaited them.

"The wretches!" cried Leo. "They mean to murder us!"

Across the road in front of them, they caught sight of a network of slender, gleaming, sharp-edged threads; they were steel wires, stretched like a barbed-wire entanglement from side to side. At the speed at which they were going, every one of these wires must meet them like a sword-blade: it was impossible to evade them, they were everywhere.

The steering-wheel spun round between the young man's convulsively-working fingers; the car leaped from the track, swung round on two wheels, gave a terrific lurch, and ran in under the trees to a distance of several feet. The whole dead-weight of the ponderous machine was flung crashing into the ditch. Leo was shot through the air, and fell with outspread arms, and a sickening thud, deep into a soft, water-logged swamp. He rolled over, felt the water spurt up under his arms, and struggled to his knees. Both the lamps of the car had been smashed, and impenetrable darkness surrounded him. Dizzy with the shock, he felt as though he were still falling, and, faint with terror, he managed to catch hold of a branch. At length his head cleared, and he remembered his companion; what had become of her?

"Sonia!" he called anxiously; "Sonia!"

He scrambled to his feet. A sharp pain in his left shoulder showed him that he had not escaped unhurt, but for the minute that seemed of little consequence.

"Sonia, Sonia, where are you?"

"Here!" answered a faint voice.

He took a few steps, and ran into her; she was on her feet, leaning against the trunk of a tree, and trying to bandage her right hand with her handkerchief.

"Are you hurt?" he asked. "Can you walk?"

"Yes," she replied; "it's only a scratch. What about you?"

"Nothing to speak of."

"Let's go on," she murmured, but tottered as she spoke, and fell into his arms. "My head is a little giddy--never mind me--go...."

He saw that she was on the point of fainting, lifted her up, and carried her down to the road.

"Put me down," she said in a weak voice: "I can walk; we must hurry."

The lights from the gates were already quite near; they came on like a swarm of flying gnats, and running footsteps splashed along the road. At the sight of the wrecked car, a great shout of savage laughter was raised, and a voice called out:

"Stay there, you two, or I shall shoot!"

They were surrounded, and rough hands caught hold of them. Marcus Tassler's breathless voice panted in the background:

"Keep a sharp look-out on them, and take them with you to the Copper House. That was a very short drive, wasn't it, my young friends! You haven't much fight left in you, have you?"

He came up, laughing and rubbing his hands. Leo's excitement had died away, his muscles relaxed, and he realized that he was beaten. Fate was against them. Without a word, he and the young girl walked back side by side to the gates, surrounded by eight or ten men who hustled them along with coarse jests. They were prisoners once more. As Leo took a last glance in the direction where their lost freedom awaited them, he saw a little bright light shine out and twinkle, a long way off. It seemed to come from one of the hills to the left of the road, about a mile or so away, and was probably a signal. He wondered idly what it meant, and took it for granted that it was exchanged between some of Rastakov's men, but turned listlessly into the avenue, too worn-out to think. He didn't care what happened now: he had done his best--and failed!

Yet when he remembered Gabriel Ortiz, whose face he had already seen for one terrifying moment, he shuddered. The girl murmured softly:

"Ortiz is waiting for us!"