They were all of them shrewd men, however, and he saw that it behoved him to be on the alert. There is such a thing in the City as to be “frozen out” of a good thing, even when one holds it in one’s hand.
By dint of close watching and clever observation, he discovered something, and this caused him to ponder deeply. The syndicate expressed themselves ready to treat, but for the present he was rather unwilling.
Some hitches occurred on technicalities, and there were a number of meetings to consider this point and that. By all this Mr Tremlett saw that he was losing time, and at the same moment he was not keeping faith with the old statesman concerning the amount to be paid into Madame’s account in Paris. At last one morning, after the Parson had left for an unknown destination, he took a taxi-cab down to the City with a bold resolve.
The five prominent financiers were seated together in an office in Old Broad Street when Mr Tremlett, leaning back in his chair, said:
“Well, gentlemen, it seems that we are as far away as ever from coming to terms, and I think it useless to discuss the matter further. I must take the business elsewhere.”
“We admit,” exclaimed an old bald man, a director of one of London’s largest banks, “that it is a good thing, but the price you ask is prohibitive.”
“I can get it in Paris. So I shall go there,” was Tremlett’s prompt reply.
“Well,” exclaimed the bald man, “let’s get straight to facts. Your cousin, Lord Nassington, wants sixty thousand pounds in cash for the concession and a percentage of shares, and that, we have decided, is far too much.”
“Those are his figures,” remarked Tremlett.
“Well, then all we can offer is one-half – thirty thousand in cash and ten per cent, of shares in the company,” said the other, “and,” he added, “I venture to say that ours is a very handsome offer.” Tremlett rose from the table with a sarcastic smile.
“Let us talk of something else,” he said. “I haven’t come down here to the City to play at marbles.”
“Well,” asked the old man who was head of the syndicate. “What are your lowest terms?”
“I’ve stated them.”
“But you don’t give us time to inquire into the business,” he complained.
“I have shown you the actual concession. Surely you are satisfied with it!”
“We are.”
“And I’ve told you the conditions of the contract. Yet you postpone your decision from day to day!”
The five men glanced at each other, rather uneasily Tremlett thought.
“Well,” he went on. “This is the last time I shall attend any meeting. We come to a decision this morning, or the matter is off. You, gentlemen, don’t even show bona fides!”
“Well, I think you know something of the standing of all of us,” the banker said.
“That is so. But my cousin complains that he, having offered the concession, you on your part do not attempt to show your intention to take it up.”
“But we do. We wish to fix a price to-day,” remarked another of the men.
“A price, gentlemen, which is ridiculous,” declared Tremlett.
The five men consulted together in undertones, and in the end advanced their offer five thousand pounds. At this Tremlett only shook his shoulders. A further five thousand was the result, and a long discussion followed.
“Have you your cousin’s authority to accept terms?” asked one of the capitalists.
“I have.”
“Then forty thousand is all we can offer.”
Tremlett hesitated.
“I have a number of payments to make for bribery,” he declared. “It will take half that sum.”
“That does not concern us, my dear sir,” said the bald-headed banker. “We know that a concession such as this can only be obtained by the judicious application of palm-oil.”
“But I must pay out nearly twenty thousand almost immediately,” Tremlett said.
At this there was another long discussion, whereupon at last the bald-headed man said:
“If the payment of the bribes is imperative at once, we will, on consideration of the business being to-day concluded on a forty thousand pound basis, hand you over half the sum at once. That is our final decision.”
Tremlett was not at all anxious. Indeed he took up his hat and cane, and was about to leave, when two of the men present exercising all their powers of persuasion, got him at last to reseat himself and to accept the sum of twenty thousand pounds down, and twenty thousand thirty days from that date, in addition to a percentage of shares in the company to be formed.
Memoranda were drawn up and signed by all parties, whereupon Tremlett took from his pocket the official concession and handed it to the head of the syndicate.
That same afternoon, before four o’clock, he had received a draft for twenty thousand pounds, with which he had opened an account in Charles’s name at a branch bank in Tottenham Court Road.
At nine o’clock that same evening he left for Paris, putting up at a small obscure hotel near the Gare du Nord where he waited in patience for nearly a week.
Once or twice he telegraphed, and received replies.
Late one night the Parson arrived unexpectedly and entered the shabby bedroom where his Lordship was lounging in an armchair reading a French novel.
He sprung up at the entrance of the round-faced cleric, saying:
“Well, Tommy? How has it gone? Tell me quick.”
“You were quite right,” exclaimed the clergyman. “The crowd in London were going behind your back. They sent two clever men to Rome, and those fellows tried to deal with Boncini direct. They arrived the day after I did, and they offered him an extra twenty thousand if he would rescind your concession, and grant them a new one. Boncini was too avaricious and refused, so they then treated with you.”
“I got twenty thousand,” remarked his Lordship, “got it in cash safe in the bank.”
“Yes. I got your wire.”
“And what did you do?” asked his friend.
“I acted just as you ordered. As soon as I was convinced that the people in London were working behind our backs, I laid my plans. Then when your wire came that you’d netted the twenty thousand, I acted.”
“How?”
“I took all the signed proof you gave me of old Boncini’s acceptance of the bribe, and of Madame’s banking account at the Credit Lyonnais, to that scoundrel Ricci, the red-hot Socialist deputy in the Chamber.”
“And what did he say?” asked his Lordship breathlessly.
“Say!” echoed the other. “He was delighted. I spent the whole evening with him. Next day, he and his colleagues held a meeting, and that afternoon he asked in the Chamber whether his Excellency, the Minister of the Interior, had not been bribed by an English syndicate and put a number of similarly awkward questions. The Government had a difficulty in evading the truth, but imagine the sensation when he waved proofs of the corruptness of the Cabinet in the face of the House. A terrible scene of disorder ensued, and the greatest sensation has been caused. Look here,” – and he handed his friend a copy of Le Soir.
At the head of a column on the front page were the words in French, “Cabinet Crisis in Italy,” and beneath, a telegram from Rome announcing that in consequence of the exposure of grave scandals by the Socialists, the Italian Cabinet had placed their resignations in the hands of his Majesty.
“Serve that old thief Boncini right,” declared his Lordship. “He was ready to sell me for an extra few thousands, but I fortunately got in before him. I wonder if the pretty Velia has still any aspirations to enter the British peerage?”
And both men laughed merrily at thought of the nice little nest-egg they had managed to filch so cleverly from the hands of five of the smartest financiers in the City of London.
Chapter Ten
Love and the Outlaw
“By Jove!” I ejaculated, “Who’s the girl, Prince?”
“That’s Zorka. Pretty, isn’t she, Diprose?”
“Pretty!” I echoed. “Why, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in the whole of Servia!”
We were driving slowly together in the big “sixty” up the main street of the city of Belgrade, and were at that moment passing the iron railings of the palace of his Majesty King Peter. It was a bright dry afternoon, and the boulevard was thronged by a smart crowd, ladies in Paris-made gowns, and officers in brilliant uniforms and white crosses with red and white ribbons on their breasts.
Belgrade, though constantly in a ferment of political storm and stress, and where rumours of plots against the throne are whispered nightly in the corners of drawing-rooms, is, nevertheless, a quiet and pleasant place. Its picturesque situation, high up upon its rocks at the confluence of the Save with the Danube, its pretty Kalemegdan gardens, its wide boulevard and its pleasant suburbs, combine to offer considerable attraction to the foreigner. It is the gateway to eastern Europe. At quiet old Semlin – or Zimony – on the opposite bank of the Danube is Hungary, the fringe of western Europe: in Belgrade the Orient commences.
I happened to be at the Grand at Belgrade, and had there found the Prince, or Reggie Martin, as he always called himself in the Balkans. He was idling, with no apparent object. Only the faithful Garrett was with him. Both Charles and the Parson he had left behind in London. Therefore, I concluded that the reason of his presence in Servia was to learn some diplomatic secret or other, for he only went to the Balkans with that one object.
Of his business, the Prince seldom, if ever, spoke. Even from his most intimate associate, the Rev. Thomas Clayton, he usually concealed his ulterior object until it was attained. The Parson, Garrett, and Charles acted in blind obedience. They were paid to obey, not to reason, he often told them.
And so it was that although we had been together a week in King Peter’s capital, I was in entire ignorance of the reason of his presence there.
As we had brought the big car slowly along the boulevard, a dark-eyed peasant-girl, with a face full of wondrous beauty, had nodded saucily to him, and this had caused me to notice and admire her. Belgrade is full of pretty women, but not one was half so handsome. She was about twenty, I judged, and the manner in which her hair was dressed with the gay-coloured handkerchief upon it was in the style of unmarried women.
“I want to speak to her, to ask her a question,” the Prince said suddenly, after we had gone some distance. And driving the car down into the square we turned back in order to overtake her.
“An old friend of yours?” I inquired.
“Yes, my dear Diprose,” he laughed as he touched the button of the electric horn. “And a girl with a very remarkable past. Her story would make a good novel – by Jove it would.”
Five minutes later we had overtaken her, and pulled up at the kerb. The girl blushed and appeared confused as my companion, stopping the car, got down and stood at her side with his motor-cap raised. He spoke to her in his best Servian, for he knew a smattering of that difficult language, and appeared to be inviting her to enter the car and come for a run.
At first she was disinclined to accept the invitation, because of the crowd of smart promenaders. She was probably shy at being seen in the company of two foreigners. At last her curiosity as to what conveyance by automobile might be got the better of her, and she reluctantly entered the door held open for her.
Then Reggie introduced us, and got back to his seat at the wheel, I mounting again to my place beside him.
In a few minutes we were out on the broad Semendria road, a fine well-kept military highway, and on getting clear of the town, put on a “move” until the speedometer before me registered fifty miles an hour.
Zorka, now alone with us, clapped her hands with childish delight. She was an Eastern beauty of rare type, with full red lips, magnificent luminous eyes, and a pink and white complexion that any woman of Mayfair would envy.
Ten miles from Belgrade, we stopped at a small wine-shop and had some refreshment. She sat at the little table before us laughing at me because we could not understand each other. In lieu of paying the rustic beauty compliments, I raised my glass and bowed. She accepted my homage with queenly grace. Indeed, in her peasant costume of scarlet and black, with golden sequins on the bodice, she reminded me of a heroine of opera.
We sat in the little garden above the broad blue Danube until the sun grew golden with departing day, the Prince chatting with her and laughing merrily. He seemed to be asking many questions, while I, in my curiosity, kept pestering him to tell the story of our beautiful companion – the story which he had declared to be so remarkable and romantic.
He had offered her one of his “Petroffs” from his gold cigarette-case, and she was smoking with the air of one accustomed to the use of tobacco. Our eyes met suddenly, and blowing a cloud of smoke from her pretty lips she suddenly burst out laughing. Apparently she was enjoying that unconventional meeting to its full bent. She had never before ridden in a motor-car – indeed, there are but few in Servia – and the rush through the air had exhilarated her. I noted her well-formed hands, her splendid bust, and her slim, graceful figure, and I longed to hear her story. The Prince possessed, indeed, a wide circle of friends ranging from princes of the blood down to peasants.
At last he made some remarks, whereupon our delightful little companion grew suddenly silent, her great dark eyes fixed upon me.
“Zorka is not Servian, Diprose,” the Prince began. “She’s Turkish. And this meeting to-day has recalled to me memories, of a strange and very remarkable incident which occurred to me not so very long ago.” And then he went on to relate the following chapter of his amazing life-story. I will here record it in his own words:
That silent night was glorious. I shall preserve its memory for ever.
High up to that mountain fastness I was the first stranger to ascend, for I was the guest of a wild tribe of Albanian brigands, those men of the Skreli who from time to time hold up travellers to ransom, and against whom the Turkish Government are powerless.
It was a weird, never-to-be-forgotten experience, living with those tall, handsome fellows in white skin-tight woollen trousers with big snake-like bands running up the legs, black furry boleros, and white fezes. Every man was armed to the teeth with great silver-hilted pistols and long knives in their belts, and nobody went a dozen yards without his rifle ready loaded.
Ever since the days before we were together at Cheltenham, Diprose, I had read stories of brigands, but here was the real thing – the free-booters of the mountains, who would never let me go about without a dozen men as guard, lest I should be mistaken for a stranger and “picked off” by one of the tribe lurking behind a rock. Life is, indeed, cheap in the Skreli country, that great range of inaccessible mountains east of gallant little Montenegro.
On that night in the early autumn I was seated upon a rock with a tall, thin, wiry, but handsome, young man, named Lûk, known in his tribe as “The Open Eye,” whom the great chieftain, Vatt Marashi, had given me as head of my body-guard, while beside was the dark-faced Albanian who, speaking Italian, acted as my guide and interpreter. Zorka was spinning her flax close by.
In the domain of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan, the moon seems to shine with far greater brilliancy than it does anywhere else in the world, and surely the panorama of high mountain and deep dark valley there spread before us was a veritable stage-picture, while the men at my side were as romantic looking a pair as could be found anywhere in real life.
Many times, as at night I lay down upon my humble bed of leaves, had I reflected how insecure was my position, and how easily my hosts could break their word, hold me to ransom, and worry the Foreign Office. Yet, let me here assert that all, from the chieftain, down to the humblest tribesman, treated me with a kindness, courtesy, and forethought, that, from the first, caused me to admire them. They might be brigands, and the blood-curdling stories of their cruelty might possibly be true, but they were, without doubt, a most gentlemanly gang of ruffians.
We had eaten our evening meal, and were sitting in the calm night smoking cigarettes, prior to turning in. The two men beside me had placed their rifles upon the ground, where the moonbeams glinted along the bright barrels, and our conversation had become exhausted.
Below, in that dark valley, ran the mule-track to Ipek, therefore day and night it was watched for passing travellers, as indeed were all the paths at the confines of the territory over which my friend Vatt Marashi, defiant of the Turks, ruled so firmly and yet so justly.
Lûk, rolling a fresh cigarette, was making some remark to Palok, my guide, in his peculiar soft-sounding but unwritten language, when it suddenly occurred to me to ask him to give me some little reminiscence of his own adventurous life.
He was silent for a few moments, his keen gaze upon the shining rifle-barrel before him, then, with Palok translating into Italian, he told me the story of how he earned his nickname of “The Open Eye.”
About two years before, when his tribe were at feud with their neighbours, the powerful Kastrati, who live in the opposite range of mountains, he was one dark night with a party of his fellow tribesmen in ambush, expecting a raid from their enemies. The false alarms were several when, of a sudden, Lûk discerned a dark figure moving slowly in the gloom. Raising his rifle he was on the point of firing when some impulse seized him to stay his hand and shout a challenge.
The reply was a frightened one – and in Turkish.
Lûk came forth from his hiding-place, and a few seconds later, to his great surprise, encountered the stranger, who proved to be a woman wearing her veil, and enshrouded by an ugly black shawl wrapped about her. He knew sufficient Turkish to demand her name, and whence she had come, but she refused to satisfy him. She had already recognised by his dress, that he was of the tribe of the Skreli, therefore she knew that she had fallen into the hands of enemies.
“Speak!” he cried, believing her to be a spy from the Kastrati. “Tell me who sent you here to us? Whither are you going?”
“I know not,” was her reply in a sweet voice which told him at once that she was quite young, and he, being unmarried, became instantly interested.
“Where are you from?” he asked, expecting that she had come from Skodra, the nearest Turkish town.
“From Constantinople,” was her reply.
“Constantinople!” gasped Lûk, to whom the capital was so far off as to be only a mere city of legend. It was, indeed, many hundred leagues away. In the darkness he could not see her eyes. He could only distinguish that the lower part of her face was veiled like that of all Mahommedan women.
“And you have come here alone?” he asked.
“Yes, alone. I – I could not remain in Constantinople longer. Am I still in Turkey?”
“Nominally, yes. But the Sultan does not rule us here. We, of the Skreli, are Christians, and our country is a free one – to ourselves, but not to our captives.”
“Ah!” she said with failing heart. “I see! I am your captive – eh? I have heard in Constantinople how you treat the Turks whom you capture.”
“You may have heard many stories, but I assure you that the Skreli never maltreat a woman,” was the brigand’s proud answer. “This path is unsafe for you, and besides it is my duty to take you to our chief Vatt Marashi that he may decide whether we give you safe conduct.”
“No, no!” she implored. “I have heard of him. Take pity upon me – a defenceless woman! I – I thought to escape from Turkey. I have no passport, so I left the train and hoped to get across the mountains into Montenegro, where I should be free.”
“Then you have escaped from your harem – eh?” asked Lûk, his curiosity now thoroughly aroused.
“Yes. But I have money here with me – and my jewels. I will pay you – pay you well, if you will help me. Ah! you do not know!”
Lûk was silent for a moment.
“When a woman is in distress the Skreli give their assistance without payment,” was his reply, and then, as day was breaking, he led her up the steep and secret paths to that little settlement where we now were – the headquarters of the all-powerful Vatt Marashi.
At the latter’s orders she unwound the veil from her face, disclosing the beautiful countenance of a Turkish girl of eighteen, and when she took off her cloak it was seen that beneath she wore a beautiful harem dress, big, baggy trousers of rich mauve and gold brocade, and a little bolero of amaranth velvet richly embroidered with gold. Upon her neck were splendid emeralds, pearls, and turquoises, and upon her wrists fine bracelets encrusted with diamonds.
She stood in the lowly hut before the chief and her captor Lûk, a vision of perfect beauty – looking “a veritable houri as promised by Mahommed,” as Lûk put it.
Vatt Marashi listened to her story. She had, she told him, escaped from her father’s harem because she was betrothed, as is usual in Turkey, to a man whom she had never seen. She had taken money from the place where one of the black eunuchs hoarded it, and with the assistance of a young officer, a cousin of hers, had succeeded in leaving the capital in the baggage-waggon of the Orient Express. Unable to procure a passport, however, she dare not attempt to cross the frontier into Bulgaria, for she would at once be detected, refused permission to travel, and sent back. For a Turkish woman to attempt to leave Turkey in that manner the punishment is death. So at some small station near the frontier, the name of which she did not know, she had, under cover of night, left the train, and taken to the mountains. For four days she had wandered alone, until Lûk had discovered her.
“And what was done with her?” I inquired, much interested.
“Well,” replied my companion. “She elected to remain with us, our chief giving her assurance that she would be well and honourably treated. He pointed out that had she been a man he would have demanded of the Sultan a heavy ransom for her release, but as she was a defenceless woman, and alone, she was not to remain a prisoner. If she cared to accept the offer of the protection of the Skreli, then every man of his tribe would defend her, and her honour to the last drop of blood remaining in their veins. The word of Skreli, once given, is, as you know, never broken.”
And his was no idle boast. The code of honour among the tribes of Northern Albania would put even ours of England to the blush. The Skreli are very bad enemies, but they are, as I know from personal experience, most firm and devoted friends.
“And so it came about,” Lûk went on, “that Zorka – that was her name – was placed in my mother’s charge, and discarded her veil, as do our own women. Well – I suppose I may confess it – I loved her. It was only to be expected, I suppose, for she was very lovely, and every unmarried man in the tribe was her devoted admirer. Though she lived with us, no word of affection passed between us. Why should it? Would it not have been folly? – she the daughter of a great Pasha who was seeking for her all over Turkey, and I a poor humble tribesman, and a Christian into the bargain? And so a year went over. We often walked together, and the others envied me my friendship with the delicate and beautiful girl who preferred our free untrammelled life of the mountains to the constant confinement of her father’s harem on the Bosphorus. Unlike that of our women, her skin was lily white, and her little hands as soft as satin. Ah! yes, I loved her with all my soul, though I never dared to tell her so. She became as a sister to me, as a daughter to my mother. It was she who said the last word to me when I went forth upon a raid; she who waited to welcome me on my return.”
“And you said nothing,” I remarked, with some surprise.
“Nothing. Our chief had ordered that no man should declare his love to her. She was our guest, like yourself, and she was therefore sacred. Well,” he went on, gazing thoughtfully across the dark valley, the white moonbeams shining full upon his thin, sun-tanned countenance. “One day our men down yonder, on the northern border, discovered three strangers who were examining the rocks and chipping pieces off – French mining engineers we afterwards found them to be. They were captured, brought up here, and held to ransom. Two were elderly men, but the third was about twenty-eight, well-dressed with a quantity of French banknotes upon him. At first the price we asked of the Sultan was too high. The Vali of Skodra refused to pay, but suggested a smaller sum. We were in no hurry to compromise, so the three remained prisoners, and – ”
“And what?”
“Well, during that time the younger of the three saw Zorka, and fell in love with her. I caught the pair one night walking together. They sat here, at this very spot. The Frenchman had been in Constantinople, and, speaking a little Turkish, could converse with her. I crept up and overheard some of their conversation. Next day I told the chief, and when he heard it he was angry, and ordered that the prisoners were to be released and sent away – without ransom – that very day. Zorka was one of ourselves. So that afternoon the three strangers were escorted down to the Skodra road, and there told to begone.”
Here Lûk broke off, slowly rolling a fresh cigarette in silence. By the light of the brilliant moon I saw the sudden change in his countenance.
“Well?” I asked.
“There is not much more to tell,” he said hoarsely, hard lines showing at the corners of his mouth. “A few weeks later we one night missed Zorka. The whole tribe went forth to search for her. Some men of the Hoti, down on the way to Skodra, had seen a woman pass. Vatt Marashi took me with some others down to the lake-side, where we heard that she had escaped on the little steamer that runs up the lake to Ryeka, in Montenegro. And further that she had a male companion who, from his description, we knew to be the Frenchman whose life we had spared. With the man was an elderly woman. He had evidently returned to Skodra, and sent Zorka a message in secret. At risk of arrest by the Turks we went down into Skodra itself, and saw the captain of the steamer, from whom we learnt that the Frenchman’s name was Paul Darbour, and that he was a mining engineer, living in Paris. While on the boat he had chatted to the captain in French, and mentioned that he was going first to Ragusa, down on the Dalmatian coast. The Skreli punish an insult to their women with death, therefore that same night, upon the lake shore, we twelve men and our good chief raised the blood-feud, and I was ordered to go forth in search of the man who had enticed away our Zorka. None of them, however knew how deeply I loved her myself. Well, I left, wearing the Montenegrin dress, the blue baggy trousers, scarlet jacket, and pork-pie hat. Through Montenegro, down to Cattaro, I followed them, and took the steamer along the Adriatic to Ragusa. But they had already left. For a month I followed the trio from place to place, until late one night, in Trieste, I met Zorka in European dress, walking with her lover along the quays. He was speaking sharply to her, evidently trying to induce her to act against her will, for she was weeping bitterly. I crept after them unseen in the shadows. From words she let drop in Turkish I knew that he was treating her with cruelty, now that he had got her in his power – that she bitterly regretted listening to his love-speeches. I clenched my teeth, took a few sharp steps, and next instant my keen knife was buried up to the hilt behind our enemy’s shoulder. He fell forward almost without a cry.”
“And Zorka?” I asked.
“I brought her safely back again to us,” was his simple answer. “See. She is my wife!”
Lûk is here, outside Belgrade, the Prince added. But in secret, for a price is set upon his head. He is a Turkish brigand, and he and his band terrorise the Montenegrin border. The Servian Government offered, only a month ago, twenty thousand dinars for his capture. They little dream he is in hiding in a cave over in yonder mountain, and that he is supplied with food by his faithful little wife here!
And true sportsman that he was, he raised his glass again to her – and to her husband.