Chapter IX

The darkness of the woods was overpowering. When Wenzel ventured out, followed by Terhune and Apor, he wondered how they were all going to find their separate ways, but when he mentioned this to Apor the Hungarian laughed.

"Do not worry. I shall be able to guide you to the valley. As for Terhune," he turned to Arnold, "keep that star immediately above that distant pine—the one over there on the peak—always in the same position, and you will find yourself right on the road. Then walk to your left until you come to the car. Keep straight on for two miles, when you will arrive at cross-roads, take the right-hand road, and after that—well, follow the map, and remember to take care of the petrol. It will only just be sufficient, I am afraid."

They saw Terhune stumbling through the trees, hands outstretched to warn him of impeding obstacles, before they continued their own way. After he had been following Apor for a short distance, it appeared to Wenzel that the pseudo-Communist found his way with uncanny ease.

When he said so Apor laughed. "You forget, Wenzel, I was born in these parts, and in my younger days there were no automobiles. We had to horseback everywhere, and so became accustomed to making our way about in the dark."

Soon they reached the summit. "The valley is before us," Apor announced.

"How the Devil can you tell? Gad! it looks to me as black as the nether regions. You must have cat's eyes."

Apor laughed. "A result of upbringing. I cannot really see, so that it is probably instinct which enables me to move about so easily."

He led the way, Wenzel following close on his heels, and for some minutes they proceeded downward into the valley. Then Apor stopped.

"Can you hear anything?" he asked, in a puzzled voice.

Wenzel listened acutely, but caught no sound other than the slight movement of trees, the rustle of scuttling animals, and the grumbling chirrup of disturbed birds.

"What kind of a noise do you mean?"

Apor hesitated. "I scarcely know. More like a distant hum."

Wenzel gazed into the darkness. He did not expect to see anything, for he believed trees to be on either side of him, but looking to his left he saw a small, red reflection away in the far distance.

He caught Apor's arm in a pinching grasp. "Look!"

Together they watched the curious glow; almost simultaneously they realized that it was becoming larger, and then Wenzel too heard the echo of a faint, whispering drone.

"What the Devil!..." exclaimed Apor.

The glow apparently increased—then they saw that it was not actually growing larger, though this effect was caused by the fact that the reflection was rapidly approaching in their direction.

It was Wenzel who first grasped the truth. "Damn! Oh, damn!" he exclaimed. "We are too late! It is the Death Train!"

Apor could not contradict. It was too evident now. White billowing masses of smoke, belched forth into the air, were lit up and reddened by the reflection of the roaring boiler-fire. Evidently it was approaching at full speed, for the engine swung round a curve and the watchers saw following a twinkling line of lights. For a second only, then the coaches were hidden again behind the smoke-clouds.

The effect was weird and unearthly. Swirling into the air the smoke formed briefly into strange, phantomesque, and terrifying shapes, which gave way instantly as other puffs spread out and re-formed into other ghoulish creations.

It might have been a burning chariot from Hell furiously driving along toward them, fiendishly blazing its defiance into the night: were it the Death Train, with Szamuelly inside, then indeed was the description all the more applicable.

Filled with despair, Wenzel watched the progress of the train which meant the collapse of all his plans. At the rate the locomotive was moving, Szamuelly would have reached Bira and completed his massacre long before Arnold arrived, and more Hungarian lives would have been lost in a fruitless cause.

He groaned, and hearing him Apor sobbed slightly. "Satan is with him. Szamuelly must have altered his time-table. Wenzel, I can't look, I can't." He sank to the ground and buried his face in his hands.

By now the Death Train was passing below them, roaring onward, screeching and wailing like a lost soul in agony. Four coaches there were, brilliantly lit; one flashingly revealed a party of men, holding glasses in their hands, toasting.

Then no more, just the tail-light, mockingly winking its derision at Wenzel, ominously reminiscent of blood—blood....

Fascinated, mentally stupefied, and partially mesmerized by its malignant twinkle, Wenzel continued to watch the red light, and wondered how soon it would be before its circumference dwindled to a mere pin-prick, thence to fade away as the train vanished round the next curve.

It was receding from him, but as yet he could still see it plainly. He waited, and the minutes ticked by. Still it was visible, also the glow of the engine fire on the smoke.

"It has gone?" There was a query in Apor's dull voice.

"Not yet."

"Not yet! But surely...!" Apor scrambled to his feet. Then he turned to Wenzel. "My God! Don't you see, Wenzel? It has stopped!"

"Stopped!" So that was why he could still see the wicked, red glare? "What does that mean, Apor? Is there a station there?"

"Not for another five miles."

They stood, side by side, watching, and waiting for the train to resume its journey, but presently they noticed the clouds of smoke diminishing.

Wenzel stirred at last. "Apor, I am curious to know why Szamuelly and his crew have stopped. How far away do you imagine it to be?"

"It is hard to say. Perhaps a mile, perhaps more."

"Then guide me there. I am going to investigate."

Twenty-five minutes' journey brought them to the slope of the hill just above where the train stood. Now it was necessary to move with caution, for the quiet night intensified sounds. They could even hear the sound of voices where the Terror Boys argued together.

Wenzel caught hold of Apor, as the Hungarian would have continued to advance, and whispered in his ear: "I will go on alone, Apor; there is light enough from the train to guide me."

The other man turned remonstratingly. "But, Wenzel——"

Wenzel shook his head. "Waste no words, Apor. I know full well what you would tell me. I understand and sympathize. Yet you must curb your impatience. If I should be recognized and escape no harm will be done, but should you once be seen you could be of no further use to me. One thing more before I go. If I get killed Terhune will carry on my work. Give him your allegiance, Apor, in the same spirit as you have given it to me. You will?"

Too moved for words the Hungarian held out his hand. Wenzel gripped it tightly, and knew he need have no doubt of his follower. Then he bent low and crept away through the trees toward the train.

He reached the fringe of the wood; before him the Death Train snorted impatiently, radiating a brilliant glow of light, and Wenzel was able to see for himself the ghastly thing of which he had heard so much.

It consisted all together of the four coaches; the first two he noticed to be first-class saloon cars, the last two ordinary third-class. This fact he noted in a sweeping glance which embraced the whole of the train; then he turned his inspection upon the two Pullman cars, and as he noted one detail after another it seemed to him that his eyes must be playing him a freakish trick.

He blinked once or twice, but when he looked again the picture remained unaltered, and slowly the realization sank into his brain that what he saw was no fleeting chimera, no fanciful dream, but stark, actual fact.

He had travelled in de luxe Pullmans of pre-War days, and considered them the acme of comfort, yet they were cheerless and commonplace compared with the coach which Szamuelly had adopted as his home, and in which he now lived permanently, surrounded by his guard of wicked Terrorists.

All the regular furnishings of the car had been stripped away; instead was substituted gorgeous furniture, filched from the palaces of the King of Hungary, or from the palatial town and country residences of the magnates, from the castles of the aristocrats, the châteaux of the ruling Magyars.

The walls were hung with exquisite tapestry, worked long ages ago, and depicting the glories of Hungary's past, the heroic deeds of Losonczy at Tenescar, of Szondi at Dregel, Zrinyi at Szigetvar, and vaguely Wenzel wondered how each thread, worked by dainty fingers, must have twisted in shame and disgust, as it hung there and witnessed other deeds, black and bloody, blotting the later pages of Hungary's chivalrous history!

Beautiful bevelled mirrors were displayed upon the walls, and pure, deep glass glitteringly reflected the fragile gilt Louis XVI furniture which stood everywhere, its pink brocade dimly reminiscent of another revolution, while lastly, in the centre of the first coach, stood a delicate, feminine writing-table, its dainty carving in harmony with the cushioned settle by its side.

To Wenzel, gazing into the lighted saloon from the shadows of the wood, it was as though he might have been peeping from the dark, overcast present into the brightness of the past. Not one adornment in the saloon but had survived many decades, not one piece which could not have breathed the fame of Deak or Kossuth.

Wenzel wrenched his gaze away. What of the third-class compartments by which the train earned its ghastly title? Therein travelled the unfortunate prisoners of the Terrorists, therein the walls and floors were bare of any ornament other than the rusty stains of dried blood which covered them—the blood of the murdered. Well was it named the Death Train!

There in the two end carriages countless executions took place at the command of Szamuelly, who sat at the fragile desk in the parlour-coach. At his word his captives were butchered, and their bodies flung through the windows, so that the railway tracks of Hungary during the days of the Red Terror were littered with naked corpses.

With a shuddering gasp, which even he could not altogether restrain, Wenzel turned his attention to the Terrorists themselves, who strolled along the down track, glad of the opportunity to stretch their legs.

In a sense they were uniformed, not only in costume but in face. Most of them wore Army service uniforms, some with puttees, others wore their trousers loose, but every one boasted the voluminous, heavy overcoat and fatigue cap. It was their features where the similarity was mostly to be glimpsed, not in actual likeness, but in the same degenerate cast, in the same surly, lowering glance, in the same cruel, tightened lips, and receding forehead.

Only one stood out conspicuously. Wenzel had a good view of him as he stood still, right in a path of light. He was a Jew, of small stature, dressed in black, with leggings. He was different. His hair, crinkly, curled, was not shaven to the scalp like the majority of the others. His forehead was high, and apparently intellectual, his eyes open and fearless.

The lower part of his face was covered with a beard, but it was carefully trimmed, and that, with his heavy moustache, gave him a handsome appearance. Wenzel would have believed him a prisoner of the brutes who surrounded him, but, even as the White Knight was watching, one of the Terrorists called to the Jew, and the name he cried was "Kohn-Kerekes."

Kohn-Kerekes! Szamuelly's favourite hangman! The man who once had an argument with Gustav Nick, a freed murderer and Terrorist, as to whether it were possible to hang two or three men within the space of five minutes!

This, then, was the trainload of murderers who were on their way to Bira to put down the counter-revolution. Something seemed to tighten around Wenzel's heart at the mere thought. Somehow he must delay them, hold them back long enough for Arnold to get to Bira and warn the rebels of Szamuelly's approach. Yet how?

The engine was left unguarded, the engine-driver and his mate having joined their fellow-Terrorists. Wenzel's eyes flared with suggestion. He knew nothing of engines, yet he felt confident that if he could but work his will on the levers, the handles, and all the different controls, he was bound to do some damage or other.

He made up his mind to attempt the feat, but firstly he realized that it would be necessary to cross the line and approach the engine from the other side. As far as he could see, all the Terrorists were on the down track, some seated on the rails, some walking up and down, so that, to judge from appearances, the farther side was apparently unprotected.

He slunk farther back into the shadows of the trees, then took a direction which would bring him well to the front of the train, assuming that there he would be less likely to be seen, by reason of being behind the light cast by the engine boiler-fire.

When he had traversed the distance of a hundred yards or so he considered that he had gone far enough, and made his way toward the track again. Where the trees finished to make way for the iron lines he paused, ready for the crossing.

He peered into the gloom on each side of him, and listened acutely for any suggestion of an approaching Terrorist; but everything was calm and peaceful.

Doubling his tall bulk he moved cautiously forward, and without a sound crossed the track into the belt of wood the other side, and once there made his way back again toward the train.

It was as he had suspected: all the men were congregated on one side of the train, leaving the approach on the other absolutely clear, though how long such a state of things was likely to continue he did not know. He realized that he must work at once or perhaps fail to have another opportunity.

Poised ready for instant flight in the event of discovery he advanced toward the train, step by step, and at each stride his eyes flickered from side to side for any sign of interruption.

On the other side of the coaches he heard the chatter of their tongues and the crunching movement of their feet as the Terrorists walked to and fro. By peering low between the carriage wheels he could even see some of them, and knew that, contrariwise, if one of them should chance to look his way, discovery would be inevitable, and all chance gone of delaying the Death Train.

In a man's way he prayed that he might reach his destination. As he advanced and nothing happened he began to believe that Fortune was playing into his hands. At last! The steps to the driver's platform were before him. He swung himself on to the engine with a lithe movement, but even as he did so, a flashing glance toward the end of the train made him aware that the driver and the fireman were slowly strolling back to their allotted places.

He could not retreat, for now he was cut off. He could not go forward, for the dozens of Terrorists on the down track. Swiftly he glanced around, for hide himself he must. There was only one possible place: on top of a coach.

He clambered silently up the tender, and then, trusting to luck that he would not be seen, hoisted himself on to the roof of the first coach, and on his stomach wormed his way along. He was only just in time, for even as he reached the shadows he saw the driver and his assistant mount the engine platform.

Despite the precariousness of his situation he could not help appreciating the humour of it. Undoubtedly, of the many predicaments in which he had found himself from time to time since his adoption of the role of White Knight, the present one was the most curious and unusual.

By lifting his head slightly he could see the Terrorists below; so visible were they to him, indeed, that he felt sure that he himself must naturally be equally outstanding to anyone who should chance to look up, until he reflected that he was above the radius of the light.

Their voices rose clearly to him, and concentrating on one couple, who seemed either to be nearer than the others or talking more loudly, he was able to hear their conversation.

"Three-quarters of an hour we have been here. Why don't we get on instead of hanging about?" said one.

"Obviously Szamuelly wants to get to Bira just after daybreak so that he can catch the White Revolution in the act."

The questioner spat on the ground. "Good enough, comrade; but as we are here why not let us go right ahead? A man hangs as well in the dark. Alternatively, we might as well have slept in Budapest. There are at least women there."

"Use your brains, Kerner. If we should arrive in Bira too early every one would be asleep, and if they should wake up to see us standing in the station they would speedily forget to be White and would don their Red cockade again. Every one would be innocent, and there would be no one to hang." The speaker laughed.

"Well, and could we not have stopped in Buda, and have left there in time to arrive in Bira soon after daybreak?"

"Perhaps Szamuelly thought we should not be too willing to get up."

"Huh!" The first man grunted. "Maybe he was right. Once I tumble into bed I prefer to stick there."

Wenzel did not listen any more—he had heard sufficient. What need to draw attention to an enemy in their midst by tampering with the engine when, if the Terrorists below were to be believed, Szamuelly was of his own accord delaying the train? He could trust Arnold to do his work well. When Szamuelly arrived he would find no one upon whom to wreak his sanguinary vengeance.

There remained nothing else for him to do but to make his escape from the present situation as quickly as possible. Unfortunately he could not return as he had come, the engine-driver effectively barred the way, but he believed that he might creep along to the edge of the coach, and slip down the space in between it and the next one.

Still lying flat on his stomach, he moved gradually away from the engine and nearer to his way of escape, but as he looked around he began to realize that, just as a rat confidently enters the inviting trap, only to find his exit barred, so was he too in a somewhat similar position.

The Terror Boys were restless. Groups of them sauntered in every direction, many of them now encircled the train in a regular promenade, and the White Knight, as he felt the cold penetrating through his clothes, did not need to conjecture the reason for their movements.

With the utmost care he wriggled into a position from where, at the first favourable opportunity, he would be able to slip down to the ground and scuttle back into the wooded slopes again, and waited.

The minutes ticked by—minutes which began to total into respectable fractions of an hour—but still many of the Terror Boys kept up their unceasing tour. Round and round they marched till the blood glowed as redly as possible in their wan and dissolute faces, and in the meantime the White Knight became more and more chilled.

He longed to move, to circulate his freezing blood—to do, in fact, what his enemies themselves were doing—but it seemed that Fate, having once permitted him to board the train, was set on keeping him there, irresponsibly transferring her favour to the other side; coquettishly flirting, now with him, the next moment conspiring against him.

Once there was a lull. For some reason the Communists suddenly assembled together in argument, and as the group swelled, so one side of the train was left to itself.

Wenzel tensed himself for his escape, but even as he drew himself to the edge, preparatory to clambering down to the buffers, the engine-driver alighted and walked along, swinging his arms as he moved. By the time the man was warm again the promenade had recommenced and Wenzel's opportunity had gone.

Later the Terrorists began to climb back into the train, and Wenzel's eyes glistened with anticipation; but his hopes were very quickly shattered. Szamuelly, with the cunning of a serpent, set two guards, one on each side of the train.

So the night passed. Despite everything, his watch and his discomfort, Wenzel fell into a fitful slumber—not sleep in the actual sense of the word, but a restless jerky doze from which he forced himself to awake every few minutes until his head ached with the effort.

Without warning there was a grinding jerk. Wenzel opened his eyes with a start. The train was moving; with a sense of dismay he realized that eventually he must have given way and actually slept. Now it was too late to escape—he was being carried with the Death Train to Bira.

The engine gathered speed and, with its added velocity, rocked unsteadily from side to side. Then for Wenzel began a nightmare of inconceivable hideousness. He gripped hold of something—he never knew what—and held to it with a tenacity which presently became subconscious, but even so his body was turned, rolled, and banged on the sloping roof.

The billowing clouds of smoke blew into his face until his throat and nose were filled with cinders, and he felt sick from the taste of the acrid fumes. Somehow he repressed the burst of coughing which threatened to seize him every second, but to do so he had to fill his body with deep breaths which served to suck in still further supplies of the smoke.

Fortunately there was enough wind from the east to keep the smoke sufficiently away to enable him to retain consciousness, but in doing so its scurrying rush deadened his senses and numbed his limbs and bones.

Time ceased to be of consequence, he knew only that he must hold tight if he wished to retain his life. So, somehow, his fingers continued to grip, even when his consciousness practically vanished.

The train pounded on, but except for a sensation of unreality he was totally unaware of what else was happening. From head to foot his body ached and pained. Bruised all over from the buffeting of the train, frozen by the cold, deafened by the shrieking of the wind, blinded by the smoke-dust, he believed then that Hades itself could not contain more suffering, and he groaned slightly with the torture.

At last it was over. He felt the train slowing down, and released one hand to free his eyes from their covering of grime and dirt. During the journey the day had dawned, and in the misty half-light he saw the name of Bira written on the railway embankment in small, white stones, and in the distance the station.

He knew that there was no time to be lost, so gathering up what strength there was still left in his limbs he climbed down to the buffers. Quietly and ominously the train slid into the station and quiveringly halted; the next moment Wenzel jumped to the ground, crossed the lines, and was out of the station.

He dimly expected a hail, if not from the train, then perhaps from the station, but he had not been noticed. He breathed softly with relief, and looked round.

There was an ominous, brooding silence, and over the neighbourhood in which he was there seemed to hang a pall of oppression and apprehension. It was whispered by the wind which sighed sullenly through the telegraph wires; it was told by the Red flags hung out at intervals, which flapped angrily with staccato reports; it was suggested by the tightly shut windows and doors.

Wenzel's face broke into a smile of gratification. Evidently Arnold had done his work well. Not only was there no one about, but so quickly had Bira turned Red again at the news of the approach of Szamuelly that nowhere could Wenzel catch a glimpse of white. There was no work for Szamuelly's butcher hangmen in Bira.

All this he noted in a quick, fleeting glance, for a backward look at the train revealed to him that its travellers were tumbling out in pell-mell haste. Wenzel knew that he must hide quickly.

Before the front of the station was a wide square. He knew if he doubled across it he might be seen. Obviously it would be better to hide on the station roof. He looked up and noted that the stone coping formed a convenient ladder upward. A few seconds later he was securely hidden, watching the movements of the Terrorists below.

Szamuelly, carefully guarded by four or five men, each of whom flourished a serviceable revolver, sauntered toward the station, to halt scarcely a yard or so from where Wenzel was hidden.

In quick, precise tones Szamuelly gave his orders, and small parties of his men dispersed to different parts of the town. In the meantime, while he waited for their return, Szamuelly smoked a cigarette and jested with his own special guard.

"Well, comrades, ready for your work, eh?"

One man grunted. "Everything looks strange. Where is the White counter-revolution which we have come to suppress, may I ask? There are Red flags by the plenty, but I see no signs of the White cockade."

Szamuelly laughed grimly. "The revolutionaries are skulking away. We will drag the rats from their holes. When they stand before me, waiting for my verdict, we shall soon see by their faces whether they are loyalists or not. We will let go free all whose faces go red—eh, friends?—and string up those who go white at the sound of their sentence. Will that not be judgment worthy of Solomon himself?"

Then the conversation drifted into more personal channels. There was a woman in Budapest whom one had seduced, and the tale was well worth the telling. As the story progressed the laughter of the listeners became incessant.

Presently the Terror Boys returned, group by group.

"Where are the prisoners?" Szamuelly asked, and his voice grew harsher as he heard the same answer from all quarters:

"There has been a mistake, comrade. Bira is Red. There is no counter-revolutionary movement here. The Red flag flies everywhere."

"Fools, dolts, idiots! Do you think we have come all this way to go back again like a lot of lost sheep? If we cannot track out the revolutionaries themselves then we must find their supporters with whom to set an example. When I leave here Bira will hesitate to tear the Red flag down again. Go on, boys, fetch them out."

Then followed a ghastly scene, which Wenzel viewed with indescribable horror. Filled with enthusiasm, the Terror Boys crossed the station square and burst into surrounding houses. Presently the air was filled with the sounds of struggle; here and there the reverberating echo of shots intermingled with the wailing of women, the pleading of children. Half dressed, unkempt, and dishevelled, the victims of the Terror Boys were hustled across the square to the station, where they were lined up before Szamuelly.

"Ho, you!" Szamuelly strode up to one of the prisoners. "So you are one of the scum who saw fit to try and overthrow our glorious cause, are you?"

"No, no, comrade, I swear I am not. I am a loyal Communist. For God's sake, do not hang me! My wife—she is giving birth to a child, even at this minute. Mercy, mercy, for the love of Christ! Mercy!"

The trembling wretch sank on his knees, the tears ran down his cheeks. Szamuelly laughed.

"Is his face red or white, comrades?"

There was a roar of laughter from his followers, and the verdict was unanimous: "White, Comrade Szamuelly, white!"

"Then he hangs. Throw a rope over that tree yonder."

Willing hands were found to obey the injunction. In less than a minute a rope was thrown over a lower branch, a running loop formed, and underneath it a chair was placed.

To it the victim was dragged and forced up upon the chair. The loop was adjusted round his neck. Everything ready, Szamuelly crossed and stood in front of the man. He took the cigarette from his mouth, and suddenly placed its lighted end upon the hapless victim's bare foot. The poor wretch howled with pain, kicked backward, the chair fell over, and the loop tightened....

There were seven other trees near by, and in less than twenty minutes at every tree twisted and swayed a lifeless body at the end of a rope. After that Szamuelly was satisfied.

"Come along, comrades. Do you think Bira will go White again?"

A hoarse growl of laughter arose. "Not if they are wise."

So the Death Train steamed back to Budapest. Its work was done. Bira would not go White again. Innocent or guilty, eight victims hung warningly in the station square.

Wenzel—as his body had been chilled with cold the night before, so now his heart and his emotions were frozen. He could not think coherently. Civilization! What progress had it made in the hearts of these people? They were more savage than the Turks their forefathers had driven across the frontier centuries before.

There was but one thought dominant in Wenzel's mind then. After Gonnard, Szamuelly; after Gonnard, known murderer of two good Hungarian men. Szamuelly, the murderer of hundreds!

Szamuelly must die! Of the chaotic thoughts which obsessed Wenzel that was the one dominant factor. Szamuelly must die!

The Death Train disappeared in the distance, and Wenzel watched it with eyes which gleamed with an unbridled fury of hatred. Even the death of Elizabeth's cousin was as nothing compared with this crime, but there was his word—the word of the White Knight—given to Elizabeth. Yet afterward... Szamuelly must die!