Chapter II

It was eleven o'clock in Balassagyarmat, and the streets were comparatively pitch dark.

The edict of the Dictator had gone forth—no lights after ten o'clock P.M.—so that even if the gas and electricity had not failed the result would have been the same, for were there not detectives, Terror Boys, and People's Commissaries to see that the word of the Workers' Council was obeyed?

Under the present régime the houses and effects of all were the common property of every one else: books, food, furniture; there was nothing, if the occasion arose, to which the comrades of the Commune could not help themselves.

Not many walked the streets. Here and there drunken Red soldiers staggered back to their billets, notwithstanding that prohibition was in force. Here and there a lurking shadow betokened a detective, or sometimes a daring bourgeois risking his life to visit friends.

Only People's Commissaries walked about openly, or members of the local Soviet.

In some houses there was peace; here lived Communists who ran with the hounds. In some there was a significant quiet—bourgeois who were still left in safety, but who might yet run with the hares.

In one home, the residence of Count Kalman Bakocz, there was only sorrow, a dull, hopeless, heart-gnawing despair.

A week ago Terror Boys had found their way into the house and arrested the Count. In vain his wife had pleaded for her husband's liberty, unsuccessfully had his daughter Cecile added her pleas. The Red officer merely flicked his fingers, gave marching orders, and the Count was torn from the bosom of his family and flung into jail, only to be transferred the following morning to Budapest to await the justice of Korvin-Klein.

Later his son, Francis, returned, and only with a great effort did Cecile and her mother keep him back from invoking his friends to assist him in what could only result in a futile attempt at rescue.

For one week the Countess lay prostrate, unable to eat for the fear which gripped her heart in a vice. Only the tender solicitude of Cecile and the brave optimism of Francis kept her alive.

This was the seventh night after Count Bakocz's arrest, and again no news other than that he was still alive. The news-bringer thought fit to withhold the fact that he was nigh on starving.

Despite the commands of the Dictator there was a tiny particle of candle throwing a flickering light upon the shrunken, careworn features of Countess Bakocz as she lay in bed, her daughter sitting on one side, her son on the other. Heavy curtains protected the windows, so that not a gleam of light could escape the room, yet nevertheless each one was quivering with tension which could not altogether be concealed, and every time footsteps echoed in the street outside Cecile held her breath in terror and Francis clenched his fists.

Countess Bakocz weakly turned her head toward her son. "What news, son, what news to-night?"

Francis shrugged his shoulders slightly, and turned his eyes away as he felt them filling with tears. "Still no further news. Father is still—alive." He swallowed hard.

"Nothing else, Francis?" Even despair did not dim her proud eyes so much that she missed the trembling of his lips.

"Nothing else."

His mother shook her head. "Poor boy, poor boy. You cannot lie, Francis." She stretched out her emaciated hand and placed it tenderly upon his, which lay idly on the coverlet. "Tell me, son, I can bear it."

Unconsciously Francis turned a questioning gaze upon Cecile, who nodded slightly.

"They say," he commenced chokingly, "that Father is—is to be tried on—Mon—Monday."

There was no sound from the Countess, not a movement, but Francis felt the hand clasping his jump convulsively, and her lower lip twitched unceasingly.

"Mother dear, Mother darling, do not give up hope." Cecile leaned forward and kissed her on her bloodless forehead. "Many things may happen. God will save him. God will save him."

"God must have many tears to shed on our unhappy country," she replied softly, and from this Cecile knew that her mother could not even have it in her heart to put her trust in Heaven.

Nor could she blame her mother, for she wondered what evil any of them could have done that they should be visited with this calamity. For twenty years the Count and his family had lived in this selfsame house, leading a God-fearing life.

To the house of his forefathers he had brought his wife twenty years back, and there his daughter Cecile had been born a year later, and two years afterward Francis.

During the War he had fought courageously for his country. Now, with the War scarcely at an end, he was seized by his countrymen and thrown into jail. His crime? Raising his voice on behalf of his unhappy people, beseeching the peasants to look into their hearts, where, he said, they would find they wanted nothing of revolution, wanted only peace to till the land and rear their children.

There was silence in the room; the candle burned smaller. When that was gone Cecile had another bit to put in its place, but after that ... In future they might not have even the welcoming flame of the candle to cheer them; nothing but the dismal dark of the night.

Suddenly Francis raised his head. He heard the hoot of an owl.

"'Tis Kirchhoff!" he cried, and running lightly across the room he disappeared downstairs.

Cecile shivered ominously. Kirchhoff brought only news, and "no news was good news." Was it that Francis had been misled? Perhaps the trial of her father had been that morning. A little cry arose to her throat, and her hand flew up to stop it, but too late. Her mother had heard; she looked at Cecile with the expression of a hunted deer.

"He is a long time," she said. Cecile knew her mother's thoughts had been following the trend of her own.

Was Francis never coming up again? She wanted to scream hysterically. Surely he must know that they would be anxious. The seconds ticked by. Not a movement from below, not a sound to be heard.

Another moment and Cecile would have called, but there was a cautious step, and almost as soon as she recognized the footsteps of Francis she was conscious that there was some one with him.

Hypnotically she watched the door until it swung open. So Francis was bringing Kirchhoff up. Why? Why? She trembled, but the man who entered was not Kirchhoff, but a stranger.

"Mother dear, do not be excited, but there is news, wonderful news. This gentleman has come from Buda. He is Mr Arnold Terhune, of London."

Countess Bakocz flashed a startled glance at her daughter. An Englishman! A late foe, countryman of an enemy land with whom peace had not yet been signed! How could he bring good news?

Cecile did not meet her look, for she was gazing upon the young man who entered, raptly assimilating the picture he presented. Her thoughts were that here was a man connected with good news. If he bore information which should hearten them all what matter his nationality?

The Countess inclined her head coldly as the Englishman bowed.

"You must forgive my intrusion, Countess, but there is a matter of great importance which I must discuss with you."

"I am at your service, monsieur." Try as she might she could not keep the chilling hauteur from her voice.

How different from Cecile, whose eyes were sparkling, and whose cheeks were flushing! He possessed a wonderful voice, this Englishman who spoke their language with scarcely a trace of foreign accent.

Arnold Terhune glanced around him.

"We are alone?"

A tear welled into the eyes of the Countess. "Absolutely," she replied, and the tinge of bitterness and hopelessness in her voice betrayed its story of tragedy, its tale of faithless servants, of forbidden friends.

The Englishman inclined his head. "Then I may speak, for it is of vital importance that what I have to say goes no further. Countess, I bear a message to you from one who is known as the White Knight."

"The White Knight!" The exclamation was from Cecile. With those three words banished hope returned in full force. The White Knight! If the rumour of this mysterious person had not yet reached the proletariat, the same could not be said of the persecuted bourgeoisie and the hunted aristocracy. Like the spread of a forest fire, the name of the White Knight had passed from mouth to mouth with inconceivable rapidity.

Stories of his wonderful rescues had penetrated into every house and home which sheltered one of the hated bourgeoisie, his saga was told in whispers and in snatches. To the gentle families of the forgotten people his name was a glimpse of blue breaking in between the heavy thunderclouds of revolution, a veritable star of hope, shining undimmed through an overpowering blackness.

Countess Bakocz raised herself slightly on her elbows, and the blood flowed into her face. "The White Knight!" she whispered. "God be praised! Then he knows of my husband's plight?"

"Too well, Countess. Moreover, he plans to rescue him—has sworn to do so."

"Sworn to rescue him!" The Countess faintly repeated the words, unable to credit the fact. Then joyfully she spoke again. "Cecile, Francis, listen! The White Knight is to return your father to us. Oh, children, children, tell me I am not dreaming! Make me believe what I hear is true!"

Cecile's lips trembled suspiciously as she flung her arms around the invalid. "Oh, Mother darling, of course it is true!" Across her mother's shoulder her glance met that of Arnold Terhune.

His eyes held hers, clearly and firmly. In that brief second there was a change in both of them, though neither was conscious of the fact. They only felt an inexplicable stirring somewhere deep down within them.

Arnold Terhune, though dressed in the dirty shapeless clothes of the Hungarian labourer, with a three or four days' growth of hair upon his chin, and a very close-cropped head, could not entirely conceal the lithe, athletic grace with which he carried himself, any more than his unshaven chin hid its firm strength.

Dressed more suitably, he would have been the personification of virile English manhood. He was inclined to be tall, just under six feet, yet his hands and feet were unusually small. His broad shoulders hinted at robust health and physical strength; his slimmer waist at a healthy life and arduous exercise.

Well might he have appealed to Cecile, who, herself, was remarkably beautiful, and of a dusky, gipsy type. Her dark, rippling hair admirably set off her almost black eyes and pure olive complexion, while her tiny lips curved seductively into a Cupid's bow.

Perhaps her only fault was a strained, pinched look, the result of four years' privation, so soon succeeded by the worse rigours of the revolution, and subsequent Commune.

Countess Bakocz turned eagerly to her visitor. "Tell us, monsieur, of this rescue. When and how? Oh, how I long to clasp my husband in my arms again! God be pleased to grant the White Knight success, monsieur. You will tell us his plans?"

Terhune smiled, then slowly shook his head. "The White Knight alone knows his plans, Countess. He alone plots his coups."

"But you, monsieur, you know this White Knight?"

Terhune's face broke into a smile again, but this time there was something of hero-worship, of reverence, in it.

"Yes, Countess, he is my friend, and leader."

"Your leader? You work for the White Knight?" Cecile it was who put the question, and she clasped her hands together in her eager excitement.

"Yes, m'selle. I am his lieutenant. I do what I can; it is so little. I wish I could do more, much more, for it makes my heart bleed to see the Hungary I have always loved plunged into the present chaos."

"You love Hungary, monsieur, yet you are an Englishman, an enemy!" There was a gentle reproof in her tones as the Countess spoke.

"We are not our masters in war-time, Countess. I fought for my country, not for myself."

"Forgive me, monsieur." The Countess was contrite. "I should not have said that, but I must plead my awful worry in excuse. I was surprised. To fight against us—and now——!"

"We are already forgetting. Deep in our hearts we English feel for your nation. We feel you have been the cat's-paw of German diplomacy. Now that humanity is being outraged by bestial tyranny, we wish only to aid and assist. Were circumstances different England might do more, but her people do not know of your plight, have no idea even of the revolution here. Russia, yes, but Hungary ... Our papers are full of peace and future prosperity."

"The White Knight, is he English too?"

Terhune nodded. "Yes, Countess, he is, but I beg you not to question me with regard to him. It is his wish, his policy too, that he remain merely a name, a myth. His mystery is his second lieutenant."

The Countess buried her face in her hands and quietly sobbed, while Terhune shuffled his feet uncomfortably, wondering what he had said to have this effect.

Presently she looked up and smiled faintly. "Forgive a woman's tears, monsieur, but it grieves me that our unhappy country must look to enemies for succour against our own people."

"Not entirely, Countess, for there are those in Vienna and in Budapest who seek to form a counter-revolution, a White Army instead of a red. I may not mention names, but——" His eloquent gesture was expressive, and the three Hungarians who listened to him felt a glow of warmth stealing through their bodies.

"But now, Countess, for the reason of my visit here. There is information I require, knowledge I must acquire. Listen...."

It was half an hour later when Terhune slipped away, leaving behind three people who in less than an hour had been pulled from the depths of misery into the heights of hope and confidence. While the Countess dreamed of the future, of the time when she should see her husband again, Francis pictured the adventure and the thrill of the rescue, and wished he could help. Cecile was quiet and thoughtful. Too full for words at the thought of having her father with her once again, she could not, nevertheless, banish the constantly recurring picture of Arnold Terhune, standing in the light of the flickering candle, his glance meeting hers across her mother's shoulder.