Chapter XX

In the fading days of the Red Terror events succeeded each other with precipitance. The fury of the people against their bloody leaders grew more intense, until at length the members of the Soviet began to tremble in their shoes.

By threats and wholesale murder they endeavoured to squash the national awakening, but in vain. The starving people could not buy food, for all the thousands of white Soviet paper crowns they might flourish: the peasants would not sell their goods for worthless money.

No longer were the Red troops keeping back the Rumanians or the Czechs; the Peace Conference was awakening to a true realization of affairs in Budapest.

Now one by one the rats began to leave the sinking ship, and among the first batch was Gunzi, the astute detective, who knew which side his bread was buttered.

Well guarded, the shivering Szamuelly called at his apartment one day, to find Gunzi in the throes of packing up, for he who had come to Budapest with nothing had already collected enough from what pickings had been left by the time he arrived there to fill three large trunks, themselves confiscated in the name of the Soviet Government.

Szamuelly frowned. "Hullo, Comrade Gunzi, where are you off to?"

Gunzi laughed cynically: "To better parts, my friend, to better parts."

"What do you mean? Has Budapest meant so little to you that already you are tired of its attractions?"

The detective grinned. "Ho, ho, Comrade Szamuelly! Budapest is finished for you and for me and for all good Communists. Our day is over. You know it as well as I, friend. In my hunt for your cursed White Knight I have here and there come across traces of a vast White plot, fostered and prepared by the English devil in between times when he has not been hunting you.

"I have ears in my head, I have eyes which can see well. In a few weeks' time, perhaps not so long as that, the Commune will be finished, and God keep us all from the clutches of the White Terror! Mark my words, Comrade Szamuelly, and take heed of them if you are a wise man: there will be a White Terror, as sure as my name is—is supposed to be—Gunzi! Do you not think that the fathers, mothers, sisters, and sons of some of the men you have hanged will clamour for revenge? Eh? The answer is 'yes.' I would, so would you—if for no other reason than that it would show our sympathy with the new Government in wishing to be avenged on the old one, and it is wiser to keep on the right side of governments in these days.

"I became a Communist with my eyes open, and they are still open, my friend. That is why I go.... Whither? Well, I do not know. To Austria perhaps, or Russia, where they have a good way with Whites, or even Italy; anywhere, say I, rather than stop here."

To Szamuelly the words needed no confirmation; all that Gunzi had just said he himself had suspected for some time, but desperately he had continued to hope for the best.

"But—but you swore to get me the White Knight!"

Gunzi cursed. "I have tried, my friend, but one might as well try to catch the raindrops as they fall. He is the Devil himself!—jealous of you, perhaps, Comrade Szamuelly," and he laughed slyly at his own humour.

"May Hell burn his bones!" The Communist looked nervously around him with twitching eyes: "Gunzi, I cannot stand the strain! He is everywhere! Where my Death Train goes he is there before me with the message 'Szamuelly shall die!' I see him in the men who surround me; even among my Terror Boys he must have his spies. My nerves are fraying, my courage disappearing."

Gunzi laughed heartlessly: "You are going just the same way as did Commissary Gonnard. I have never seen such a jelly-bag in all my life as he at the end of one day. He fled here, to Budapest, but finally the White Knight caught him, and hanged him from the Suspension Bridge."

"But how can he get me—how can he?" Desperately the white-faced Szamuelly put the question, a very different Szamuelly from the one who had scornfully sneered at the first threats of the White Knight. "I am surrounded by my faithful Terror Boys—they guard me now night and day—how can he get past them?"

The detective shrugged his shoulders: "Don't ask me, friend; I do not know. All I say is that he will in the long run. Besides, didn't you yourself say you thought he had a spy among them? Take my advice. Do as I am doing. Pack and fly for it, my friend!" and with the sound of Gunzi's mocking laughter in his ears Szamuelly stumbled from the room.

By the time he reached the street his face was chalky, his lips trembled nervously. Gunzi's words haunted him; somehow they had rung so prophetically in his ears. He felt his nerve cracking. His only hope, the one man he felt could have tracked the White Knight, was fleeing, not only from the city, but from the country altogether. Now there was no one to guard him against the machinations of the White Knight! His Terror Boys ... in their brutal way they were brave enough, possibly thoroughly loyal, but Szamuelly had no faith in them; all their bravery was of no use compared with the White Knight's cunning, all their loyalty was likely to evaporate at the sight of the White Knight's well-filled purse.

Two Terror Boys walked by his side. "What's the matter, comrade?" asked one. "You do not look yourself."

Szamuelly shrugged his shoulders helplessly: "I am not, my friend. To-day I have received bad news—news which affects you—I—all of us."

"Bad news which affects us all! What can that be? The only bad news you could give us would be that neither wine nor women remained in the world."

Szamuelly laughed shortly: "Yet, my friend, what I have to say is worse than that. The Commune is finished, the days of commissaries ended."

The Terror Boys looked at him as if they wondered what madness had come over their leader.

"You are not well," growled the second guard, who had not yet spoken.

Szamuelly turned upon him in a temper: "Fools, fools! So you think I am mad! Blockheads, can't you see the truth when it is thrust before you? Let me put it to you in a way you will understand. To-night I leave Budapest for Russia, or Austria, or Italy—anywhere, so long as I escape."

The two Terror Boys stopped in their walk and gazed at Szamuelly with strained expressions. He had spoken in words which they understood. If he were fleeing, he, after Bela Kun the leading light of the Red Terror, then indeed the good days must be finished. They knew their Szamuelly, and no longer did they doubt the truth. It was no trick to get rid of them.

Yet a certain suspicion suggested itself to one of them. "It is not the White Knight?" he queried.

Szamuelly shivered at the mention of the name, yet he would have hotly denied the imputation had he not realized the fruitlessness of so doing. Besides, a plan was formulating in his brain.

"I will be frank with you, comrades," he said, after a pause. "I am afraid of the White Knight. Yet listen. If I thought that the Soviet were likely to last I would dare the Enemy of the Commune to do his worst, for I should have all of you, my friends, to guard me against this cursed bourgeois; but ... let us continue in our walk. I want to make all the necessary arrangements...."

"To scuttle?"

"Ay, my friends, to scuttle."

There was food for thought in what he had said, and each of his guards digested in his mind the astounding news of which he had just been made cognizant. The one who spoke little thought the harder.

"My friend," he said softly to Szamuelly, "even though you flee there is still—the White Knight!"

"Well!" Szamuelly turned on him savagely. "Do you not think I know that as well as you?"

"Yes, yes. But listen, Comrade Szamuelly. Would you not feel safer if you had a comrade—or, say, two good comrades—with you when you escape?"

The second Terror Boy laughed shortly. "My God You are right. Two good comrades, eh, Szamuelly! Three of us—we three—could put up a fight against even the White Knight."

Szamuelly's eyes gleamed. So easily had they fallen into the trap which he had laid for them! "Bravo my friends! Then that is settled. We will go together but ... listen! Supposing that the rest of our comrades hear the news. They too will want to come."

"Why should they?" asked the soft-tongued one.

"Exactly!" agreed Szamuelly. "Then when shall it be?"

"The sooner the better, if what you say in true."

Could the guard have been at the Soviet meeting taking place at that very moment he would not have needed to add that last rider. Amidst an atmosphere of stark tragedy Bela Kun was resigning the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In a halting, tearful tone he was informing his followers of the truth—that the Red Army had collapsed, the Rumanians had crossed the Tisza, the Whites had already brought about their coup d'état, while all over the country red geraniums were being discarded for white roses, and the Red ensign of bloody Communism was being supplanted by the national flag.

Forcefully he drove home the truth: the day of the Commune was ended, and those who valued their necks more than the power they had wielded for the last six months could do worse than resign; he himself set the example.

So fell the Dictatorship of the Proletariat on July 30, 1919, and the government of Hungary was transferred to the Presidency of Peidl, who appointed ministers instead of commissaries, and called his government a "Workmen's Government."

In the meanwhile, with the assistance of his two comrades, Szamuelly prepared for flight, blithely abandoning his fellow-murderers to their fate.

In less than an hour he was packed, while outside the building throbbingly awaited the motor-car which was to rush him and his two Terror Boys to the station to catch the first train to Austria.

With a hasty look to see that he had left nothing behind, for the last time he closed the door of the apartment which he had confiscated a few months previously.

There was a grin on the faces of the two Terror Boys who sat in the car. They saw nothing of treachery in their flight, only a satisfaction that they were one jump ahead of their fellow-Terrorists, that they were escaping the threatened upheaval, of which the others, left behind, would have to bear the brunt. That is why they smiled—or at any rate why one smiled. The soft-tongued guard smiled because the White Knight had paid even more handsomely than usual for certain information, and several crisp Bank of England notes reposed comfortably in the lining of his dirty regimental coat.

For the first time for weeks Szamuelly actually felt light of heart—not because he was giving up his position of official murderer, not really because he feared the White uprising, but because he was leaving the White Knight behind, escaping beyond reach of the White Knight's vengeance.

He nodded cheerfully to the Terrorist who sat at the steering-wheel: "Go ahead, comrade! There is just time in which to catch that train."

The guard depressed the clutch, and with a grinding whine of annoyance the engine slipped into low. Szamuelly settled himself comfortably. A few hours now and he would be able actually to breathe without feeling a queer catch somewhere inside just near his heart.

He looked round, a last parting glance at the streets of Budapest, then suddenly he sobbed with a consuming terror, one which clutched his heart in a violent, chilling constriction, a fear which fluttered through his body, freezing his very marrow, draining the blood from his face and leaving it deathly white.

Barely five yards behind followed another car; beside the driver sat the White Knight, tense and expressionless like the grim figure of Fate.

There was no doubt as to his identity. His face pale with a consuming fury, his scars throbbed redder in contrast. His steely eyes bored hypnotically into Szamuelly's, and in them the Communist read a mocking surety of victory—his death-warrant.

A month ago he would have plucked his revolver from its holster and opened fire on the audacious pursuer, but now—he was paralysed with fright, his nerve entirely gone. He could only gasp, and crouch further into the body of the car.

"Oh, God!" he moaned. "Oh, God! Oh, God!" Then with a shriek he raised his voice, "Quicker, quicker!" and the Terrorist who was driving looked round with a startled air. "Quicker!" screamed Szamuelly, and the pace increased till the already shaky sides of the automobile began to rock unsteadily.

Szamuelly looked back; the relative positions of the two cars had scarcely changed ... once again he looked into the eyes of the White Knight....

He leaned forward. "Comrade, for God's sake ... the aerodrome! ... Behind us the White Knight ... lose his car, we will fly to Russia...."

The driver looked behind him, and the car swayed ominously toward an oncoming automobile as his nerveless fingers suddenly lost their firm grip on the wheel. Just in time the smooth-tongued one clutched and held the wheel on a straighter course.

The narrow escape from a terrible collision only served to make the driver turn still whiter, but at the same time he was filled with a desperate desire to escape, and instinctively he turned his attention to the car—anything to draw away from the dreaded White Knight—and his foot pressed still harder on the accelerator.

He knew the streets well, did Szamuelly's driver, for once upon a time, before he had been imprisoned for robbery with violence, he had been a chauffeur. Filled with a determination to lose their pursuer, without the slightest slackening, without a warning note, he shot off down a side road.

The car rocked over to a dangerous angle, but by a miracle settled down again, and the next second was away in the distance, even while Francis Bakocz, who was driving the pursuing car, little suspecting the sudden manœuvre, overshot the road and, with the brakes shrieking and wailing, came to a stop too late, so that he had to reverse and back. By the time he was in the side road Szamuelly's car had disappeared.

Francis looked at the White Knight inquiringly, but Wenzel was puzzled. As the car turned the Terrorist in his pay had shot his arm up into the air, and his pointing finger had waved in the direction of the heavens. It was a signal; that much Wenzel could guess; but what was its portent he could not gather.

Francis drove wildly on, tearing down the side road at breakneck speed, unheeding the cursing pedestrians who shook their fists and growled; but Szamuelly's Terrorist knew his work, and there was no sign of the car in front. To stop and inquire would be waste of time—in the meantime Szamuelly would escape—but there was apparently nothing else to be done; but, even as Francis slowed up, Wenzel suddenly turned, an idea germinating in his mind.

"Francis, quick, is there an aerodrome in this direction?"

The boy, for he was scarcely more in years, even if the last few months had aged him in experience, nodded.

Wenzel laughed. "That is where he has gone. For God's sake, get there quickly!"

In the meantime Szamuelly's car was nearing the aerodrome. Aeroplanes were waiting—he could see them, their outstretched wings gleaming whitely in the sun, their pilots scattered about the field.

The car drew up, steaming, and Szamuelly tumbled out.

"Comrade," he gasped to one of the pilots, "I am Comrade Szamuelly, a People's Commissary. I ... I seek a consultation in Russia with Lenin, concerning the glorious future of a united European Soviet. You will take me there. I will pay you well—very well—many thousands of crowns."

"Why shouldn't I, comrade? I am fond of money. Come to-morrow and I will see what I can do."

"To-morrow? To-morrow is of no use—I must go now, at once ... this very minute!" His voice rose, and the pilot looked at him with a questioning glance.

"You are in a hurry, comrade! What bites you? Lenin is not dying, is he?"

"Delay not, for God's sake, comrade! The White Knight is after us. He may arrive at any minute now." It was the smooth-tongued one who spoke.

His words were not without effect. The pilot's face creased into ugly lines, and he turned upon Szamuelly with a threatening air:

"Oh, ho, my friend! You do not speak altogether the truth. The White Knight! I have heard of him too often for my own peace of mind. You had best find some one else to take you. I do not relish hanging from the Suspension Bridge." He turned away.

"I will make it ten, twenty thousand crowns, comrade, if you will but take me." He was sobbing now.

The pilot laughed harshly. "Of what use are twenty thousand crowns in Hell, my friend? I prefer to spend them in Budapest. Find some one else."

With streaming tears Szamuelly begged the pilots, one after another, to take him to Russia. Once there, so he told them, they would be safe from the White Knight's vengeance. But his pleas were of no avail. They—who did not yet know the Commune was cracking up, even at that very moment—had no wish to abandon Hungary yet, and besides, they sneered, there were Rumanian planes and Czech planes to pass before Russia was reached, and they had had enough fighting to last them for a while.

Before five minutes had passed Szamuelly knew his quest was useless, and also by that time the train to Austria would be gone; before the next went, God alone knew what might happen! There was only one way out of the country.

He turned to his fellow-Terrorists. "Comrades, drive like Hell for the Austrian frontier. It is the only thing left now."

They bought petrol, for Szamuelly was afraid to confiscate, and started off, five minutes before Wenzel and Francis arrived. While the White Knight remained under cover Francis made inquiries.

The pilots looked at him with suspicion when he asked if Szamuelly had been there, but he seemed too young to be connected with the White Knight, so they grinned and told him that he was not likely to see the commissary any more.

"Why?" They laughed when Francis put the question. "Because he is on his way to Austria. The White Knight is after him."

"The White Knight! Who the Hell is he?" asked Francis naïvely. In asking the question he had meant to be diplomatic, but when ten minutes passed before they had finished telling him all about the White Knight he cursed himself for being such an idiot.

At length he got away. Wenzel's face hardened when he heard the news.

"Well?" he said, and gazed at Francis.

The boy grinned. "I am ready, monsieur."

Wenzel's eyes softened. "Good lad!" he exclaimed quietly, and Francis suddenly lost his fear of the hideous White Knight, whom he had met personally for the first time only a few days previously.

So they started off. Later they reached the road to the Austrian frontier, and not until then did Francis open out the throttle.

For the first hour they saw nothing of the car ahead, but when they made inquiries, at different farmhouses on the road, they heard that Szamuelly's car had passed about half an hour previously, so Francis increased the speed—so much so that by the time they had covered another thirty miles Szamuelly's car was but ten to fifteen minutes in advance of them.

While Francis was increasing his speed, the Terrorist in the car in front was slowing down. For the last two hours there had been no trace of the White Knight, and gradually the spirits of the Terror Boys, and even those of Szamuelly himself, rose higher.

Now there did not seem so much need for haste they began to linger, to talk more boldly and exchange reminiscences. Even the smooth-tongued one spoke a little more, for supposing the White Knight did not catch up again there was certainly enough money hidden in his clothes to last him for some time; and he was equally prepared to desert the White Knight as he had been his Communist leader.

The time passed by, and steadily the distance to the Austrian border decreased. Then suddenly Szamuelly saw, perhaps a mile back, a trail of dust rising into the air.

"By God! Look!" The words burst from hie lips unconsciously. The two Terrorists glanced back.

The chauffeur groaned: "The White Knight!" But his companion unconsciously scratched the palm of his hand—more good English money for his little store!

The Terrorist pressed down his foot, the car shot forward, and underneath the wheels the road slid past too quickly for the eye to follow; but Francis had seen them, and had the better car.

It was a long and thrilling chase; both cars were speeding to their limit, but yard by yard the White Knight crept closer, till Szamuelly was damp with a cold sweat.

A mile, half a mile, quarter of a mile, until at last the two cars were within pistol-shot of one another, and the hour of the White Knight's vengeance seemed very near.

Perhaps another fifteen minutes would have seen the two cars level, and then... Fate for once was against the White Knight. With an internal choking his car came to a gradual halt, and Francis swore. "Petrol," he said briefly. Fortunately there were spare tins behind, but in the meantime Szamuelly drew away.

What were the feelings of Szamuelly when he saw the pursuing car come to a sudden stop will never be known, but it must have seemed to him then that some kindly angel had come to his aid, and his fear dropped from him, so that, all at once, he was in the highest of spirits. He laughed, sang, and joked, confident that he had seen the last of the White Knight.

The car drove on; there was an intoxicating spirit of cheerfulness surrounding them. On ... on to Austria!

Szamuelly gave one final glance back, and saw, in the far distance, a rising cloud of dust, approaching with incredible rapidity, but fear no longer reigned in his heart, for, as the Communist glanced from side to side, he recognized Lajta Ujfalu in the distance, and knew that before many minutes passed he would be safe in Austria. Derisively he waved his hand. "Good-bye, White Knight!" he called out mockingly. "Good-bye, Hungary!"

On ... on. One thousand yards to safety, five hundred, four hundred ... and then—Nemesis!

As they passed a tiny copse there was a rain of bullets, and they saw a group of hidden, uniformed men—Hungarian gendarmerie, already self-organized at the first rumours of the Soviet's downfall. The driver sighed gently and collapsed. The car jumped forward for twenty yards—there was a tearing, rending crash—and the battered skeleton of what just before had been a live, pulsating automobile overturned.

Szamuelly staggered from out the wreckage. Through the bloody film which mistily obstructed his vision he saw men running toward him, shouting and shooting; suddenly he felt a burning, searing pain which vibrated through his body. He wanted to fall, to give up, but an instinct for life urged him forward. He braced up and staggered on—the frontier was just ahead—three hundred yards and he would be safe....

The fear of death lent him wings—the excitement of the chase blinded the eyes of the pursuing gendarmes—and suddenly Szamuelly knew he was across the frontier.... Safe! ... Safe! The Hungarians would never dare to shoot now.... He lurched on and on, smiling grimly, triumphantly.

The gendarmes clustered together on the borderline, cursing, and watched their prey escape. There were no Austrian Volkswehr to be seen, but, scarcely recovered from the heavy yoke of the Soviet, they feared to advance or to fire, and thus provoke international complications.

Such was the position when, with a sobbing grind, Francis brought his car to a stop. The White Knight jumped out, but there was no need for words. Szamuelly had all but escaped ... two minutes more and he would be beyond all hope of revenge.

With a rapid gesture Wenzel seized a rifle from out the hands of one of the gendarmes, and, putting it to his shoulder, sighted the staggering Communist. The figure was small and moving erratically.... Wenzel's hands shook unsteadily. With an effort of will he steadied them, and suddenly Szamuelly was clearly before his eyes, dead between the forked sight.

The rifle flashed—for one vibrant, palpitating second nothing happened. Then Szamuelly just dropped—never to move again....

"Too good a death," grumbled the awakened people of Hungary when they heard the news.

* * * * * *

That night Bela Kun, Weiss, Schwarz, Vago, Pogany, and Landler, together with all their families, stole quietly into one of the Budapest stations where a train was ready for them, steam up, impatiently awaiting the guard's command. The rats were fleeing—escaping with the connivance of the new Peidl Government, but, still more paradoxically, protected from their own people by an escort supplied by the Italian military mission stationed in Budapest.

Only one was missing from the party—Szamuelly! The clock ticked on, the time passed rapidly. In the end they could wait no longer. The guard signalled, the train steamed out, en route to Austria; and so passed out of the pages of history Bela Kun and his colleagues. Once again justice was denied the people of Hungary, for with the help of the Allies the train reached and crossed the Austrian frontier, and the Communists were safe—safe to live thereafter a life of ease, when they ought to have hanged, while those they left behind, betrayed by their leaders to the last, later suffered the extreme penalty. Even to this day it is said that somewhere in Russia Bela Kun still lives.