The Dark Star

Shall Samarcand ask more?
Or my song shall cleanse thy house or my heart’s blood foul thy floor!’

“‘Now hast thou conquered me!
Humbly thy captive, I.
My soul escapes to thee;
My body here must lie;
Ride! – with thy song, and my soul in thy arms; and let me die.’”

Sengoun, still playing, flung over his shoulder:

“A Tartar song from the Turcoman. I borrowed it and put new clothes on it. Nice, isn’t it?”

“Enchanting!” replied Neeland, laughing in spite of himself.

Rue Carew, with her snowy shoulders and red-gold hair, came drifting in, consigning them to their seats with a gesture, and giving them to understand that she had come to hear the singing.

So Sengoun continued his sketchy, haphazard recital, waving his cigarette now and then for emphasis, and conversing frequently over his shoulder while Rue Carew leaned on the piano and gravely watched his nimble fingers alternately punish and caress the keyboard.

After a little while the Princess Mistchenka came in saying that she had letters to write. They conversed, however, for nearly an hour before she rose, and Captain Sengoun gracefully accepted his congé.

“I’ll walk with you, if you like,” suggested Neeland.

“With pleasure, my dear fellow! The night is beautiful, and I am just beginning to wake up.”

“Ask Marotte to give you a key, then,” suggested the Princess, going. At the foot of the stairs, however, she paused to exchange a few words with Captain Sengoun in a low voice; and Neeland, returning with his latchkey, went over to where Rue stood by the lamplit table absently looking over an evening paper.

As he came up beside her, the girl lifted her beautiful, golden-grey eyes.

“Are you going out?”

“Yes, I thought I’d walk a bit with Captain Sengoun.”

“It’s rather a long distance to the Russian Embassy. Besides–” She hesitated, and he waited. She glanced absently over the paper for a moment, then, not raising her eyes: “I’m – I – the theft of that box today – perhaps my nerves have suffered a little – but do you think it quite prudent for you to go out alone at night?”

“Why, I am going out with Captain Sengoun!” he said, surprised at her troubled face.

“But you will have to return alone.”

He laughed, but they both had flushed a little.

Had it been any other woman in the world, he had not hesitated gaily to challenge the shy and charming solicitude expressed in his behalf – make of it his capital, his argument to force that pretty duel to which one day, all youth is destined.

He found himself now without a word to say, nor daring to entertain any assumption concerning the words she had uttered.

Dumb, awkward, afraid, he became conscious that something in this young girl had silenced within him any inclination to gay effrontery, any talent for casual gallantry. Her lifted eyes, with their clear, half shy regard, had killed all fluency of tongue in him – slain utterly that light good-humour with which he had encountered women heretofore.

He said:

“I hadn’t thought myself in any danger whatever. Is there any reason for me to expect further trouble?”

Rue raised her troubled eyes:

“Has it occurred to you that they might think you capable of redrawing parts of the stolen plans from memory?”

“It had never occurred to me,” he admitted, surprised. “But I believe I could remember a little about one or two of the more general maps.”

“The Princess means to ask you, tomorrow, to draw for her what you can remember. And that made me think about you now – whether the others might not suspect you capable of remembering enough to do them harm… And so – do you think it prudent to go out tonight?”

“Yes,” he replied, quite sincerely, “it is all right. You see I know Paris very well.”

She did not look convinced, but Sengoun came up and she bade them both good night and went away with the Princess Mistchenka.

As, arm in arm, the two young men sauntered around the corner of the rue Soleil d’Or, two men who had been sitting on a marble bench beside the sun-dial fountain rose and strolled after them.

CHAPTER XXX

JARDIN RUSSE

At midnight the two young men had not yet parted. For, as Sengoun explained, the hour for parting was already past, and it was too late to consider it now. And Neeland thought so, too, what with the laughter and the music, and the soft night breezes to counsel folly, and the city’s haunting brilliancy stretching away in bewitching perspectives still unexplored.

From every fairy lamp the lustrous capital signalled to youth her invitation, her challenge, and her menace. Like some jewelled sorceress – some dreaming Circe by the river bank, pondering new spells – so Paris lay in all her mystery and beauty under the July stars.

Sengoun, his arm through Neeland’s, had become affectionately confidential. He explained that he really was a nocturnal creature; that now he had completely waked up; that his habits were due to a passion for astronomy, and that the stars he had discovered at odd hours of the early morning were more amazing than any celestial bodies ever before identified.

But Neeland, whose head and heart were already occupied, declined to study any constellations; and they drifted through the bluish lustre of white arc-lights and the clustered yellow glare of incandescent lamps toward a splash of iridescent glory among the chestnut trees, where music sounded and tables stood amid flowers and grass and little slender fountains which balanced silver globes upon their jets.

The waiters were in Russian peasant dress; the orchestra was Russian gipsy; the bill of fare was Russian; and there was only champagne to be had.

Balalaika orchestra and spectators were singing some evidently familiar song – one of those rushing, clattering, clashing choruses of the Steppes; and Sengoun sang too, with all his might, when he and Neeland were seated, which was thirsty work.

Two fascinating Russian gipsy girls were dancing – slim, tawny, supple creatures in their scarlet and their jingling bangles. After a deafening storm of applause, their flashing smiles swept the audience, and, linking arms, they sauntered off between the tables under the trees.

“I wish to dance,” remarked Sengoun. “My legs will kick over something if I don’t.”

They were playing an American dance – a sort of skating step; people rose; couple after couple took the floor; and Sengoun looked around for a partner. He discovered no eligible partner likely to favour him without a quarrel with her escort; and he was debating with Neeland whether a row would be worth while, when the gipsy girls sauntered by.

“Oh,” he said gaily, “a pretty Tzigane can save my life if she will!”

And the girls laughed and Sengoun led one of them out at a reckless pace.

The other smiled and looked at Neeland, and, seating herself, leaned on the table watching the whirl on the floor.

“Don’t you dance?” she asked, with a sidelong glance out of her splendid black eyes.

“Yes; but I’m likely to do most of my dancing on your pretty feet.”

“Merci! In that case I prefer a cigarette.”

She selected one from his case, lighted it, folded her arms on the table, and continued to gaze at the dancers.