# Sophy of Kravonia/Part 3/Chapter 4

IV
THE MESSAGE OF THE NIGHT
THE last of the transparencies died out; the dim and infrequent oil-lamps alone lit up the Street of the Fountain and St. Michael's Square. They revelled still down at the Hôtel de Paris, whither Max von Hollbrandt and a dozen others had hurried with the news of the evening's great event. But here, on the borders of the old north quarter, all grew still—the Golden Lion empty, the townsmen to their beds, the soldiers to barracks, full of talk and fears and threats. Yet a light burned still in the round room in the keep of Suleiman's Tower, and the Commandant's servant still expected his royal master. Peter Vassip, a sturdy son of Volseni, had no apprehensions—but he was very sleepy, and he and the sentries were the only men awake. "One might as well be a soldier at once!" he grumbled for the men of the hills did not esteem the Regular Army so high as it rated itself.
The Commandant lingered in the Street of the Fountain. Sergius Stefanovitch was half a Bourbon, but it was the intellectual half. He had the strong, concentrated, rather narrow mind of a Bourbon of before the family decadence; on it his training at Vienna had grafted a military precision, perhaps a pedantry, and no little added scorn of what men called liberty and citizens called civil rights. What ​rights had a man against his country? His country was in his King—and to the King the Army was his supreme instrument. So ran his public creed, his statesman's instinct. But beside the Bourbon mother was the Kravonian father, and behind him the long line of mingled and vacillating fortunes which drew descent from Stefan, Lord of Praslok, and famous reiver of lowland herds. In that stock the temperament was different: indolent to excess sometimes, ardent to madness at others, moderate seldom. When the blood ran hot, it ran a veritable fire in the veins.
And for any young man the fight in the fantastically illuminated night, the Virgin with the broken lamp, a near touch of the scythe of death, and a girl's white face at the window? Behind the Commandant's stern wrath—nay, beside—and soon before it for the moment dazzling his angry eyes—came the bright gleams of romance.
He knew who lodged at the sign of the Silver Cock. Marie Zerkovitch was his friend, Zerkovitch his zealous follower. The journalist was back now from the battle-fields of France and was writing articles for The Patriot, a leading paper of Slavna. He was deep in the Prince's confidence, and his little house on the south boulevard often received this distinguished guest. The Prince had been keen to hear from Zerkovitch of the battles, from Marie of the life in Paris; with Marie's tale came the name, and what she knew of the story, of Sophie de Gruche. Yet always, in spite of her praises of her friend, Marie had avoided any opportunity of presenting her to the Prince. Excuse on excuse she made, for his curiosity ranged round Casimir de Savres's bereaved lover. "Oh, I shall meet her some day all the same," he had said, ​laughing; and Marie doubted whether her reluctance—a reluctance to herself strange—had not missed its mark, inflaming an interest which it had meant to balk. Why this strange reluctance? So far it was proved baseless. His first encounter with the Lady of the Red Star—Casimir's poetical sobriquet had passed Marie's lips—had been supremely fortunate.
From the splash of blood to the broken Virgin, from the broken Virgin to the open window and the dark room behind, his restless glances sped. Then came swift, impulsive decision. He caught up the bronze figure and entered the porch. He knew Meyerstein's shop, and that from it no staircase led to the upper floor. The other door was his mark, and he knocked on it, raising first with a cautious touch, then more resolutely, the old brass hand with hospitably beckoning finger which served for knocker. Then he listened for a footstep on the stairs. If she came not, the venturesome night went ungraced by its crowning adventure. He must kiss the hand that saved him before he slept.
The door opened softly. In the deep shadow of the porch, on the winding, windowless staircase of the old house, it was pitch dark. He felt a hand put in his and heard a low voice saying: "Come, Monseigneur." From first to last, both in speech and in writing, she called him by that title and by none other. Without a word he followed her, picking his steps, till they reached her room. She led him to the chair by the window; the darkness was somewhat less dense there. He stood by the chair.
"The lamp's broken—and there's only one match in the box!" said Sophy, with a low laugh. "Shall we use it now—or when you go, Monseigneur?"
​"Light it now. My memory, rather than my imagination!"
She struck the match; her face came upon him white in the darkness, with the mark on her cheek a dull red; but her eyes glittered. The match flared and died down.
"It is enough. I shall remember."
"Did I kill him?"
"I don't know whether he's killed—he's badly hurt. This lady here is pretty heavy."
"Give her to me. I'll put her in her place." She took the figure and set it again on the window-sill.
"And the big man who attacked you?"
"Mistitch? He'll be shot."
"Yes," she agreed with calm, unquestioning emphasis.
"You know what you did to-night?"
"I had the sense to think of the man in the porch."
"You saved my life."
Sophy gave a laugh of triumph. "What will Marie Zerkovitch say to that?"
"She's my friend, too, and she's told me all about you. But she didn't want us to meet."
"She thinks I bring bad luck."
"She'll have to renounce that heresy now." He felt for the chair and sat down, Sophy leaning against the window-sill.
"Why did they attack you?"
He told her of the special grudge which Mistitch and his company had against him, and added: "But they all hate me, except my own fellows from Volseni. I have a hundred of them in Suleiman's Tower, and they're stanch enough."
"Why do they hate you?"
"Oh, I'm their school-master and a very strict ​one, I suppose. Or, if you like, the pruning-knife—and that's not popular with the rotten twigs."
"There are many rotten twigs?"
She heard his hands fall on the wooden arms of the chair and pictured his look of despair. "All— almost all. It's not their fault. What can you expect? They're encouraged to laziness and to riot. They have no good rifles. The city is left defenceless. I have no big guns." He broke suddenly into a low laugh. "There—that's what Zerkovitch calls my fixed idea; he declares it's written on my heart big guns!"
"If you had them, you'd be master?"
"I could make some attempt at a defence anyhow; at least we could cover a retreat to the hills, if war came." He paused. "And in peace—yes, I should be master of Slavna. I'd bring men from Volseni to serve the guns." His voice had grown vindictive.
"Stenovics knows that, I think." He roused himself again and spoke to her earnestly. "Listen. This fellow Mistitch is a great hero with the soldiers and the mob. When I have him shot, as I shall—not on my own account, I could have killed him to-night, but for the sake of discipline there will very likely be a disturbance. What you did to-night will be all over the city by to-morrow morning. If you see any signs of disturbance, if any people gather round here, go to Zerkovitch's at once—or, if that's not possible or safe, come to me in Suleiman's Tower, and I'll send for Marie Zerkovitch too. Will you promise? You must run no risk."
"I'll come if I'm afraid."
"Or if you ought to be?" he insisted, laughing again.
"Well, then—or if I ought to be," she promised, ​joining in his laugh. "But the King—isn't he with you?"
"My father likes me; we're good friends. But 'like father, unlike son' they say of the Stefanovitches. I'm a martinet, they tell me; well, he—isn't. Nero fiddled—you remember? The King goes fishing. He's remarkably fond of fishing, and his advisers don't discourage him. I tell you all this because you're committed to our side now."
"Yes, I'm committed to your side. Who else is with you?"
"In Slavna? Nobody! Well, the Zerkovitches, and my hundred in Suleiman's Tower. And perhaps some old men who have seen war. But at Volseni and among the hills they're with me." Again he seemed to muse as he reviewed his scanty forces.
"I wish we had another match. I want to see your face close," said Sophy. He rose with a laugh and leaned his head forward to the window. "Oh no; you're nothing but a blur still!" she exclaimed impatiently.
Yet, though Sophy sighed for light, the darkness had its glamour. To each the other's presence, seeming in some sense impalpable, seemed also diffused through the room and all around; the world besides was non-existent since unseen; they two alone lived and moved and spoke in the dead silence and the blackness. An agitation stirred Sophy's heart—forerunner of the coming storm. That night she had given him life; he seemed to be giving back life to her life that night. How should the hour not seem pregnant with destiny, a herald of the march of Fate?
But suddenly the Prince awoke from his reverie— perhaps from a dream. To Sophy he gave the impression—as he was to give it more than once again— ​of a man pulling himself up, tightening the rein, drawing back into himself. He stood erect, his words became more formal, and his voice restrained.
"I linger too long," he said. "My duty lies at the Tower yonder. I've thanked you badly; but what thanks can a man give for his life? We shall meet again—I'll arrange that with Marie Zerkovitch. You'll remember what I've told you to do in case of danger? You'll act on it?"
"Yes, Monseigneur."
He sought her hand, kissed it, and then groped his way to the stairs. Sophy followed and went with him down to the porch.
"Be careful to lock your door," he enjoined her, "and don't go out to-morrow unless the streets are quite quiet."
"Oh, but I've a French lesson to give at ten o'clock," she remonstrated with a smile.
"You have to do that?"
"I have to make my living, Monseigneur."
"Ah, yes," he said, meditatively. "Well, slip out quietly—and wear a veil."
"Nobody knows my face."
"Wear a veil. People notice a face like yours. Again thanks, and good-night."
Sophy peeped out from the porch and watched his quick, soldierly march up the street to St. Michael's Square. The night had lightened a little, and she could make out his figure, although dimly, until he turned the corner and was lost to sight. She lingered for a moment before turning to go back to her room—lingered musing on the evening's history.
Down the street, from the Square, there came a woman—young or old, pretty or ugly, fine dame or drudge, it was too dark to tell. But it was a woman, ​and she wept as though her heart were broken. For whom and for what did she weep like that? Was she mother, or wife, or sweetheart? Perhaps she wept for Sterkoff, who lay in peril of death. Perhaps she loved big Mistitch, over whom hovered the shadow of swift and relentless doom. Or maybe her sorrow was remote from all that touched them or touched the girl who listened to her sobs—the bitter sobs which she did not seek to check, which filled the night with a dirge of immeasurable sadness. In the darkness, and to Sophy's ignorance of anything individual about her, the woman was like a picture or a sculpture—some type or monument of human woe—a figure of embodied sorrow, crying that all joy ends in tears—in tears in tears.
She went by, not seeing her watcher. The sound of her sobbing softened with distance, till it died down to a faint, far-off moan. Sophy herself gave one choked sob. Then fell the silence of the night again. Was that its last message—the last comment on what had passed? Tears—and then silence? Was that the end?
Sophy never learned aught of the woman—who she was or why she wept. But her memory retained the vision. It had come as the last impression of a night no moment of which could ever be forgotten. What had it to say of all the rest of the night's happenings? Sophy's exaltation fell from her; but her courage stood against darkness, solitude, and the unutterable sadness of that forlorn wailing. Dauntlessly she looked forward and upward still, yet with a new insight for the cost.
So for Sophy passed the name-day of King Alexis.