The Yellow Dove

“Mated?” he whispered.

“Yes—yes,” she murmured faintly.

They did not move for a long moment when Doris slowly disengaged her arms from around his neck and moved slightly away. Her hair had fallen and hung in golden disorder about her shoulders. She put up her arm, trying to catch the escaping pins, and then she smiled at him, dimpling adorably.

“Come,” he said gently. “You must get to bed. Your coat is nearly dry, but I’ll cover you with my jacket. You must sleep, too. No shammin’, you know. Can’t tell what may happen tomorrow.”

“I’ll try,” she murmured obediently, while he led her to the couch of boughs and made her lie on it. But as he knelt beside her, covering her with his jacket, she caught his hands and would not relinquish them. He raised hers to his lips and kissed them again and again: small, muscular hands they were, but now very brown and dirty. “Are you comfortable? Sorry I haven’t a tub.”

She was silent a moment and then straightened and asked him:

“You promised to tell me about the papers. Won’t you?”

He laughed.

“Not now. It must be nearly morning.”

“Yes, now. I’m not tired now. I will sleep afterwards. I like to hear your voice, Cyril. Perhaps it will soothe me to sleep.”

“Are you sure?” he asked doubtfully—and she nodded.

He saw that she was still nervous and wakeful and sank beside her couch, taking her hand in his.

“It is really quite interestin’,” he began slowly. “Three years ago, at the invitation of the Emperor of Germany, when Europe was at peace and there was no cloud upon the horizon bigger than a chap’s hand, there met in a shootin’ lodge near Schöndorf, not ten miles from here, six men. It was a secret conference, arranged by the Emperor of Germany through His Excellency Graf von Stromberg. The six men were His Highness Prince von Waldheim, at one time Germany’s ambassador to France; Admiral von Frankenhausen, head and front of the Imperial German Navy; General von Sandersdorf, the brains of the German General Staff; His Excellency Moritz von Komarom, minister of war of the Austrian Empire; Viscount Melborne, English Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; and Harlow-Gorden, of the British Admiralty.”

She was listening avidly, wide-eyed, the array of well-known names telling her as nothing else could have done the importance of the conference.

“This meetin’ was a secret,” he went on. “These men all traveled incognito, without servants, and were met by an agent of General von Stromberg at Schöndorf and conducted in automobiles to the huntin’ lodge I have spoken of. These men remained there for two days and two nights and then went home. But while they were there they were makin’ new history for Europe.” He paused to fill his pipe but her curiosity could not be restrained.

“And what were they doing there, Cyril? I can’t understand.”

Hammersley got up and held his pipe to the candle, for matches were scarce, and then, with maddening calmness, sat beside her again.

“That secret meetin’ of these chaps had to do with nothin’ less than the ruin of France–”

“France!” she cried. “England had nothing against France and now she is her ally.”

“Three years ago the political conditions were different,” he answered. “Those representatives of England came and sat with representatives of Germany and Austria while they plotted the destruction of France.”

“But how do you know this, Cyril? I can’t understand.”

“No more do I, but it’s a fact. Let me go on. At the table in the lodge where this conference was held, Viscount Melborne made notes of what was goin’ on, includin’ the combinations of land and naval forces that could be made against France and Russia, and the plans to break the Russian Federation in the Balkans. When the meetin’ was over all the scraps of paper these chaps had scribbled on were destroyed by fire before the eyes of the men who had made ’em, except those of Viscount Melborne, who put ’em in his pocket, and with them a pencil copy of this secret treaty in his own handwriting. The original copy of the treaty was entrusted to Harlow-Gorden, who put it in his dispatch-box. It was not until the next day when the Englishmen, in the train on the way to Paris, discovered that Viscount Melborne’s private papers were missin’. Jolly fine mess—what? They got off at the next stop, went back to Schöndorf and looked for the papers, but neither there nor at the lodge was there hair or hide of ’em. So they went back to England hopin’ that by some fortunate accident the papers had been destroyed.”

“And these—” asked the girl, “are they?”

He nodded. “To make the story short, I found out where they had gone. My flights to Germany have been made for this purpose. Don’t you see? The papers came into the hands of the Emperor of Germany and he was plannin’ to have ’em sent to the President of the French Republic—England’s ally. It wouldn’t do, you know, to have such papers at such a time fall into the hands of France. Hardly a credit to English diplomacy. What? Might even result in a new entente.”

“But where were the papers in the meanwhile?” she asked.

“That is what took me so bally long to find out. After many hunts away from Windenberg at night, I traced ’em to a Socialist by the name of Gottschalk at Schöndorf, who had received ’em from a pensioner of the Imperial Forest Service, one of the attendants at the huntin’ lodge where the conference was held. Whether he found ’em or stole ’em I don’t know, but I frightened him and he confessed. I was on the very point of stealing ’em from Gottschalk when I found out that he had been writin’ to the Wilhelmstrasse, and when I tried to get ’em they were gone. If I’d got ’em then, you would not be here, Doris, and I–”

“But how did you learn what the Wilhelmstrasse proposed to do with them?”

“Oh, that was quite clear. The English Foreign Office has been badly frightened and has used every effort with its secret agents in Berlin to get that information. It reached London the other day. And just before I left Scotland I knew the job was to be given to General von Stromberg. The rest was Kismet—the fortune of war—a jolly good piece of luck! Lindberg overheard through the microphone von Stromberg givin’ instructions to Wentz—so that His Excellency’s own weapons were turned against him. I was goin’ to waylay Wentz on the way to France, but circumstances prevented–”

“It was I, Cyril,” she broke in pleadingly. “I didn’t know. I betrayed you.”

“A trick,” he laughed, “invented in the Rameses family—but still useful.”

“He frightened me,” she stammered. “I believed the message signed ‘Maxwell’ genuine.”

“Not Maxwell,” he said gravely, “for Maxwell—a sore spot since the war began in the side of the War Office—Maxwell is dead.”

“You–?” she exclaimed fearfully.

“Yes,” he replied. “I told and they caught him. I couldn’t do so before. It’s war, Doris. It is a fair game. I ask no favors—nor do I give any.”

She was silent a moment looking into the fire.

“Yes, I understand—a terrible game with odds against–” And then, after a pause, “You say that we will get away. Won’t you tell me your plan?”

He rose with a confident laugh.

“Yes, I have a plan, but I’m not going to tell it now. You are going to sleep.”

She laughed wearily and sat up.

“And you? Where will you sleep?”

“By the fire. I’ve got some thinkin’ to do. I’m not sleepy. I had eight hours last night. I’m going to watch.”

He bent over her and gently made her lie down. “I will talk to you no more. You must go to sleep.”

She sighed and stretched herself out while he covered her with his coat. Then he put a fresh log on the fire and sat beside her again. In a moment he heard her voice.

“I hope you don’t mind my telling you, Cyril, that I love you a great deal.”

“Not in the least,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t mind listenin’ while you said it all night. But–”

“There. You’re going to insist on my sleeping again!”

“Won’t you?”

“I don’t seem to feel as if I could ever sleep again. You’re so cool, so calm, Cyril. How can you be?”

“No bally use gettin’ excited. Here we are snug as two bugs in a rug. We’ll slip through them some way.”

“But where will we go?”

He smiled.

“I have a notion of goin’ to England.” His kind of quiet humor always put her on her mettle.

“To England—?” She started up.

“There won’t be much chance of your doin’ anythin’ tomorrow if you don’t get your sleep,” he insisted gently. “Do what I ask, Doris. Sleep you must.”

“I’ll try. Good night, Cyril.”

“Good night.” He kissed her on the forehead and drew his jacket over her again, then sat beside her, her hand in his, watching. Gradually her nerves grew quiet and weariness mastered her. He waited until her breathing indicated sleep, when he carefully relinquished her hand and moved to the fire, where he carefully studied the papers by the light of his candle, after which he slipped them into the pocket of his trousers and moved softly across the cave into a corner, where he opened the lid of a tin box and examined its contents, taking out a fresh candle to replace the other one, which was on the point of expiring.

Then he filled his pipe with great deliberateness and, returning to the stool by the fire, crossed his knees and bent forward, gazing into the blaze, his brows tangled in deep thought. He had succeeded in getting what he came for. So far, the secret of the meeting in the shooting lodge was safe. But for how long? By this time a description of the two of them had, of course, been telegraphed to every village and military station in Germany. That wouldn’t do at all. Alone it might be managed, with a German officer’s uniform and Herr Lieutenant Orstmann’s military orders, but with Doris—it wasn’t to be thought of.

The other alternative appealed to him more strongly. He had matched his wits against von Stromberg’s so far and had won, and success made him hopeful. Where carefulness failed, audacity sometimes succeeded. The more he thought of his plan, the deeper became his conviction that it was the only one possible under the circumstances. There was continued danger for the papers and he deliberated for a long while upon the wisdom of destroying them at once, finally rejecting that idea except as a last alternative. His word that he had destroyed them would perhaps be sufficient to ease the minds of the gentlemen at the Foreign Office, but there were certain memoranda about the promises of Germany to England signed with the initials of Prince von Waldheim which should at all costs be saved. But aside from this consideration, Hammersley, having carried his affairs thus far successfully, had a pride in finishing it as he had planned. It could be done—he would do it.

He got up and put another log on the fire and then stretched himself out at full length upon the rocks, gazing into the flame. In the corner where the bed was he heard the steady breathing of the girl. What a trump she was— What a tr–

He nodded and then dozed. Troubled visions flitted across his mind. Once he thought he heard the sound of a footstep on the rocks and started up. It was broad daylight. He listened for a while and then slowly sank back and slept again. How long he did not know, for something awakened him and he sat up, reaching instinctively for the holster lying at his side, to look straight into the muzzle of an automatic, behind which was the handsome blond head of Udo von Winden.

CHAPTER XX

THE FIGHT IN THE CAVERN

Udo loomed against the light and the uniform he wore seemed to give the projecting weapon a new significance. He was not Udo, the kinsman and companion who had so often shared this refuge with Hammersley in the hunting days. He was Germany. Hammersley could never remember the time when the muzzle of a weapon had seemed so large. It was much better to sit without moving, and Udo’s quick instructions were not wasted.

“Don’t move, Cyril,” he said coolly in German. “Up with your hands! So. Now get up, leaving your belt where it is, and sit on the stool yonder. Quickly! I will shoot—to kill.”

Hammersley read in his expression a determination to put the threat into practice and, watching narrowly, silently obeyed. Von Winden, still covering him carefully, picked up the belt and transferred Lindberg’s pistol to his own holster. He was a dead shot with any firearm, as Hammersley knew, and his own chances at three paces even in a rush were small. It was decidedly a case for discretion.

“I suppose there’s nothing to be said,” Hammersley muttered. “You outguessed me, Udo.” And then, to gain a moment of time, “I thought that your memory might be quite good enough to forget the Thorwald.” Von Winden frowned down the barrel of the automatic.

“It is too much to expect even from me,” he said crisply. “I am your kinsman but I am first of all—a German. And not even for you will I be a traitor.”

“Natürlich!” smiled Cyril.

Udo von Winden’s look was grave, his voice sober, and the muzzle of his automatic did not waver.

“I have already had a bad memory, my cousin. This afternoon I forgot that Lindberg, who served your meals, was a good friend of yours and mine and that he might be counted on to help you out of your difficulties. I also forgot that there was such a place as the Cave of the Thorwald until I learned from Excellenz last night, the price Germany was to pay for my indifference. If you had failed to capture the documents of His Majesty, I might have remained silent. As you took them, there remained nothing but to act. I came here, for I knew it would be the one place where I should find you.” Hammersley bent his head. “I understand.” And then quickly, “Would you mind telling me if you have spoken—if you have told what Lindberg—?”

“No,” von Winden broke in, “I have told nothing. Lindberg is safe. I have come here alone–”

Hammersley gave a gasp of relief and leaned forward, peering into the fire.

“I came for one purpose, Cyril,” Udo went on quietly. “I have no personal desire for your death, but I would kill you as you sit rather than see Germany suffer the loss of the documents in your possession. I came for them and I intend that you shall give them to me.”

Hammersley looked up into his cousin’s face and their eyes met. Von Winden’s tone was cool and his manner as calm as on the days last year when they were hunting together, but Hammersley knew that when Udo von Winden was most calm he was also most dangerous. So he slowly reached into the pocket of his trousers and handed his cousin the papers he had taken from the German messenger.

“Danke,” said Udo, backing to the light of the entrance of the cave to examine them. “You are sure they are all here?”

“My word on it, Udo,” said Hammersley frankly. He watched his cousin examine the documents and heard him give an exclamation of satisfaction, but Hammersley saw that his eyes neglected no detail of the cavern and was aware that the muzzle of the weapon in Udo’s hand still bore directly upon him. In the shadows Hammersley saw the face of Doris, who was sitting up, pallid and dark-eyed as though awakened from one nightmare into another. As Udo saw her the muzzle of his weapon wavered and went out of alignment, but Hammersley did not move or even appear to notice the girl.

There was a note of embarrassment in the German’s officer’s voice as he spoke again.

“I am sorry, my cousin, that your father’s blood called you to be false to Germany. You had been suspected by Excellenz, but I would have sworn that he was mistaken. You owe me nothing, of course, but–”

“It’s war, Udo,” said Hammersley quietly. “You will remember that I did not seek duty in the Imperial Secret Service. It was the Herr General who thought it valuable to use our kinship for his own purposes.”

Udo shrugged. “Yes, I know,” he said quietly. “You have done your duty—but you must now be aware of the fact that you can ask no favors of me.”

“I don’t. I am in your power. Shoot me if you like.”

Udo smiled.

“I can hardly be expected to do that. I do not love you now, my cousin. I cannot love anyone who is false to my country, but I cannot forget that once, not a year ago, we were brothers. No, I cannot shoot you, Cyril, though perhaps that would be a better death than that other—yonder.”

Hammersley shrugged. “It is the fortune of war. From your point of view I deserve it. I can only thank you again, for myself and for Miss Mather, for your generosity.”

A sound from the girl and Udo acknowledged her presence by a bow.

“Under other circumstances,” he said with stiff politeness, “I should be glad to extend the hospitalities of Winden Schloss. But, of course, as Miss Mather can see, my mother and sisters are away and I–”

“Of course, Graf von Winden, it is understood,” she said haltingly in German.

“I can do nothing, Fräulein. I am powerless—at the orders of General von Stromberg, who arranges the coming and the going of all at Windenberg.”

“The coming, Udo,” said Hammersley dryly. “Not the going.”

“I am sorry, I have done what I could. You have done well to give me the papers. I shall now go back to Blaufelden and return them to Excellenz.”

Hammersley started up.

“You mean that you will leave us here?”

“Natürlich. I do not wish to see you killed against the kitchen wall. It is not the death for the blood of von Eppingen. Even if you are shot while escaping it would be better.” He shrugged. “My position is this. You can do Germany no further harm. I shall tell a likely story. I have the papers—they are what I came for. If you had not given them to me I would have killed you, but now I shall go away alone as I came.”

“Good old Udo!” said Hammersley impulsively, taking a pace toward him, his hand outstretched.

But von Winden’s automatic came quickly into line and Hammersley halted.

“One moment, my cousin,” said von Winden coolly. “I am quite willing to accept your expressions of gratitude from a distance. I may not wish to see you killed by others, and I would regret the necessity of killing you myself. I shall consider you my prisoner until I go. After that”—and he shrugged expressively—“you can go where you like.”

Hammersley folded his arms and frowned.

“Where I like!” he muttered. “With every village in Hesse-Nassau on the lookout for me.” There was a pause, after which von Winden spoke with quiet earnestness. “Unfortunately I may not help you further. Since there is food, to wait here is safer. Alone, traveling by night, a man might reach Basel safely. As for the Fräulein, if she will return to Blaufelden and give herself up, imprisonment for a time is perhaps the worst that she need fear.”

Doris had risen, the white light from the door of the cavern searching her face pitilessly.

“It is what I would do,” she said haltingly. “What I have pleaded with him to let me do. Cyril,” she implored in English, “you must let me.”

“I will think about it,” he muttered. “You are sure that no harm will come to her?” The muzzle of the automatic had wavered out of line again and Hammersley was carefully measuring with his eye the distance that separated him from his cousin.

“The bark of Excellenz is much worse than his bite. He will bluster and storm. But eventually he will return Miss Mather to her own people.”

Hammersley was shaking his head in indecision.

“I am not so sure that I agree with you about the bite of Excellenz. I shall think of what I will do. I’m sure of one thing, Udo,” he said with sincerity, “that I am deeply grateful for what you have done. The war has made us enemies, and you have now prevented the success of my great venture. But I bear you no illwill. The debt is still mine on account of your silence, back there—a debt made deeper by the presence of Fräulein Mather.” He paused to give his words effect. “I had not told you, Udo, for at Windenberg one has no time to think of the gentler things of life. But just before the war broke out Fräulein Mather had promised me to become my wife.”

Hammersley watched von Winden as he turned toward Doris with a smile, bowing deeply, his sense of the situation lost for a second in the obligations of civility, as he murmured a phrase of congratulations. “I am much honored by your confidences,” he said formally, “and I deeply regret–”

He got no further, for Hammersley had sprung in suddenly toward him, risking Udo’s shot, which was fired quickly, without aim.

A furious struggle followed. Hammersley caught at von Winden’s wrist and his weight bore him back against the rock, while both of them fought for the possession of the weapon. The German officer was smaller than his cousin but his wrists were good and he was quicker than Hammersley. They bore only friendship for each other but the incentive of each was greater even than hatred could have been. They struggled in silence, the thought of the possession of the papers uppermost in the minds of both. The struggle was not that of kinsman against kinsman, but of England against Germany. Realizing the desperateness of Hammersley’s attack and the purpose of it, von Winden knew that a victory for Hammersley meant the loss of the papers and so he was bent on killing his cousin if he could, Hammersley on preventing him from doing so. They swayed from side to side, breathing hard, while Doris crouched against the side of the cavern, dumb with terror. Twice she saw the weapon in the German officer’s hand point downward toward Cyril’s back and then, before it could be used, saw Cyril’s arm quickly push it upward. She knew that she was in danger, but she did not know what to do. At one moment von Winden seemed to have the advantage and in another Cyril. Udo’s back was against the wall and one of Cyril’s arms was around him, while their legs were intertwined as each tried to get the other off his balance. Suddenly with an effort Hammersley managed to wrench the pistol from von Winden’s hand and he tossed it into the corner of the cavern.

Von Winden had every ethical right to kill Hammersley if he could, but after what his cousin had done for him, Hammersley could not kill Udo. That was impossible. He must succeed without that. This generosity nearly proved fatal to him for the German managed to reach Hammersley’s automatic in his own holster and had almost disengaged it when Hammersley caught his hand again, and the struggle was renewed. But Doris, whose senses and initiative had slowly returned to her, now crept around the walls of the cave and when von Winden’s outstretched hand came within her reach she seized his forearm in both of her hands and clung to it desperately, keeping the muzzle pointed away from Cyril. She was swayed to and fro with the struggling men, who finally toppled sideways and fell to the floor, dragging her with them, but von Winden’s grasp of the weapon, never quite secure, was loosened and, as they dropped, it went flying under the table.

The fight was soon out of the German, for Hammersley’s weight had fallen on him heavily, and in a moment the officer was flat on his back and Hammersley was sitting on him. Doris, who had meanwhile picked up the pistol, now heard Hammersley gasping jerkily.

“Quick, Doris—something to tie with—your stay-strings!”

She understood and disappeared outside the cavern, returning presently with the bonds, helping Cyril while he made the wrists and ankles of von Winden fast.

“I might have killed you—but I didn’t,” Hammersley was gasping. “You saw that, Udo, didn’t you?”

“You needn’t make apologies. I would have killed you. I tried to. It’s too bad—too bad,” he panted.

“I’m sorry,” Hammersley repeated. “Those papers—they’re England’s, Udo. They’re my property. I’ve got to take them.”

And without further words he put his hand inside the breast of the officer’s coat and took the papers out.

“I wish it were anybody but you,” he said.

“I don’t think you can get away with them.”

“I’m going to try.”

“I’ll prevent you if I can.”

“How?”

“I’ll show you.” And with the remnants of his breath he shouted lustily for help. Hammersley threw him back, none too gently, and clapped a handkerchief in his mouth, while he directed Doris to tear her under-skirt and make bandages for a gag. They worked quickly and in a moment the German officer was silent and helpless. Then for a long moment Hammersley sat by the prostrate man, slowly recovering his breath. Doris, ash-gray with fear, crouched beside him, obedient to his look and action. At last with a laugh he got up.