Complete weird tales of.., p.924
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 924
The waiters were in Russian peasant dress; the orchestra was Russian gipsy; the bill of fare was Russian; and there was only champagne to be had.
Balalaika orchestra and spectators were singing some evidently familiar song — one of those rushing, clattering, clashing choruses of the Steppes; and Sengoun sang too, with all his might, when he and Neeland were seated, which was thirsty work.
Two fascinating Russian gipsy girls were dancing — slim, tawny, supple creatures in their scarlet and their jingling bangles. After a deafening storm of applause, their flashing smiles swept the audience, and, linking arms, they sauntered off between the tables under the trees.
“I wish to dance,” remarked Sengoun. “My legs will kick over something if I don’t.”
They were playing an American dance — a sort of skating step; people rose; couple after couple took the floor; and Sengoun looked around for a partner. He discovered no eligible partner likely to favour him without a quarrel with her escort; and he was debating with Neeland whether a row would be worth while, when the gipsy girls sauntered by.
“Oh,” he said gaily, “a pretty Tzigane can save my life if she will!”
And the girls laughed and Sengoun led one of them out at a reckless pace.
The other smiled and looked at Neeland, and, seating herself, leaned on the table watching the whirl on the floor.
“Don’t you dance?” she asked, with a sidelong glance out of her splendid black eyes.
“Yes; but I’m likely to do most of my dancing on your pretty feet.”
“Merci! In that case I prefer a cigarette.”
She selected one from his case, lighted it, folded her arms on the table, and continued to gaze at the dancers.
“I’m tired tonight,” she remarked.
“You dance beautifully.”
“Thank you.”
Sengoun, flushed and satisfied, came back with his gipsy partner when the music ceased.
“Now I hope we may have some more singing!” he exclaimed, as they seated themselves and a waiter filled their great, bubble-shaped glasses.
And he did sing at the top of his delightful voice when the balalaikas swept out into a ringing and familiar song, and the two gipsy girls sang, too — laughed and sang, holding the frosty goblets high in the sparkling light.
It was evident to Neeland that the song was a favourite one with Russians. Sengoun was quite overcome; they all touched goblets.
“Brava, my little Tziganes!” he said with happy emotion. “My little compatriots! My little tawny panthers of the Caucasus! What do you call yourselves in this bandbox of a country where two steps backward take you across any frontier?”
His dancing partner laughed till her sequins jingled from throat to ankle:
“They call us Fifi and Nini,” she replied. “Ask yourself why!”
“For example,” added the other girl, “we rise from this table and thank you. There is nothing further. C’est fini — c’est Fifi — Nini — comprenez-vous, Prince Erlik?”
“Hi! What?” exclaimed Sengoun. “I’m known, it appears, even to that devilish name of mine!”
Everybody laughed.
“After all,” he said, more soberly, “it’s a gipsy’s trade to know everybody and everything. Tiens!” He slapped a goldpiece on the table. “A kiss apiece against a louis that you don’t know my comrade’s name and nation!”
The girl called Nini laughed:
“We’re quite willing to kiss you, Prince Erlik, but a louis d’or is not a copper penny. And your comrade is American and his name is Tchames.”
“James!” exclaimed Sengoun.
“I said so — Tchames.”
“What else?”
“Nilan.”
“Neeland?”
“I said so.”
Sengoun placed the goldpiece in Nini’s hand and looked at Neeland with an uncomfortable laugh.
“I ought to know a gipsy, but they always astonish me, these Tziganes. Tell us some more, Nini — —” He beckoned a waiter and pointed indignantly at the empty goblets.
The girls, resting their elbows on the tables, framed their faces with slim and dusky hands, and gazed at Sengoun out of humorous, half-veiled eyes.
“What do you wish to know, Prince Erlik?” they asked mockingly.
“Well, for example, is my country really mobilising?”
“Since the twenty-fifth.”
“Tiens! And old Papa Kaiser and the Clown Prince Footit — what do they say to that?”
“It must be stopped.”
“What! Sang dieu! We must stop mobilising against the Austrians? But we are not going to stop, you know, while Francis Joseph continues to pull faces at poor old Servian Peter!”
Neeland said:
“The evening paper has it that Austria is more reasonable and that the Servian affair can be arranged. There will be no war,” he added confidently.
“There will be war,” remarked Nini with a shrug of her bare, brown shoulders over which her hair and her gilded sequins fell in a bright mass.
“Why?” asked Neeland, smiling.
“Why? Because, for one thing, you have brought war into Europe!”
“Come, now! No mystery!” said Sengoun gaily. “Explain how my comrade has brought war into Europe, you little fraud!”
Nini looked at Neeland:
“What else except papers was in the box you lost?” she asked coolly.
Neeland, very red and uncomfortable, gazed back at the girl without replying; and she laughed at him, showing her white teeth.
“You brought the Yellow Devil into Europe, M’sieu Nilan! Erlik, the Yellow Demon. When he travels there is unrest. Where he rests there is war!”
“You’re very clever,” retorted Neeland, quite out of countenance.
“Yes, we are,” said Fifi, with her quick smile. “And who but M’sieu Nilan should admit it?”
“Very clever,” repeated Neeland, still amazed and profoundly uneasy. “But this Yellow Devil you say I brought into Europe must have been resting in America, then. And, if so, why is there no war there?”
“There would have been — with Mexico. You brought the Yellow Demon here, but just in time!”
“All right. Grant that, then. But — perhaps he was a long time resting in America. What about that, pretty gipsy?”
The girl shrugged again:
“Is your memory so poor, M’sieu Nilan? What has your country done but fight since Erlik rested among your people? You fought in Samoa; in Hawaii; your warships went to Chile, to Brazil, to San Domingo; the blood of your soldiers and sailors was shed in Hayti, in Cuba, in the Philippines, in China — —”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Neeland. “That girl is dead right!”
Sengoun threw back his handsome head and laughed without restraint; and the gipsies laughed, too, their beautiful eyes and teeth flashing under their black cascades of unbound hair.
“Show me your palms,” said Nini, and drew Sengoun’s and Neeland’s hands across the table, holding them in both of hers.
“See,” she added, nudging Fifi with her shoulder, “both of them born under the Dark Star! It is war they shall live to see — war!”
“Under the Dark Star, Erlik,” repeated the other girl, looking closely into the two palms, “and there is war there!”
“And death?” inquired Sengoun gaily. “I don’t care, if I can lead a sotnia up Achi-Baba and twist the gullet of the Padisha before I say Fifi — Nini!”
The gipsies searched his palm with intent and brilliant gaze.
“Zut!” said Fifi. “Je ne vois rien que d’l’amour et la guerre aux dames!”
“T’en fais pas!” laughed Sengoun. “I ask no further favour of Fortune; I’ll manage my regiment myself. And, listen to me, Fifi,” he added with a frightful frown, “if the war you predict doesn’t arrive, I’ll come back and beat you as though you were married to a Turk!”
While they still explored his palm, whispering together at intervals, Sengoun caught the chorus of the air which the orchestra was playing, and sang it lustily and with intense pleasure to himself.
Neeland, unquiet to discover how much these casual strangers knew about his own and intimate affairs, had become silent and almost glum.
But the slight gloom which invaded him came from resentment toward those people who had followed him from Brookhollow to Paris, and who, in the very moment of victory, had snatched that satisfaction from him.
He thought of Kestner and of Breslau — of Scheherazade, and the terrible episode in her stateroom.
Except that he had seized the box in the Brookhollow house, there was nothing in his subsequent conduct on which he could plume himself. He could not congratulate himself on his wisdom; sheer luck had carried him through as far as the rue Soleil d’Or — mere chance, and that capricious fortune which sometimes convoys the stupid, fatuous, and astigmatic.
Then he thought of Rue Carew. And, in his bosom, an intense desire to distinguish himself began to burn.
If there were any way on earth to trace that accursed box ——
He turned abruptly and looked at the two gipsies, who had relinquished Sangoun’s hand and who were still conversing together in low tones while Sangoun beat time on the jingling table top and sang joyously at the top of his baritone voice:
“Eh, zoum — zoum — zoum! Boum — boum — boum! Here’s to the Artillery Gaily riding by! Fetch me a distillery, Let me drink it dry — Fill me full of sillery! Here’s to the artillery! Zoum — zoum — zoum! Boum — boum — boum!”
“Fifi!”
“M’sieu?”
“You’re so clever! Where is that Yellow Devil now?”
“Pouf!” giggled Fifi. “On its way to Berlin, pardie!”
“That’s easy to say. Tell me something else more expensive.”
Nini said, surprised:
“What we know is free to Prince Erlik’s friend. Did you think we sell to Russians?”
“I don’t know anything about you or where you get your information,” said Neeland. “I suppose you’re in the Secret Service of the Russian Government.”
“Mon ami, Nilan,” said Fifi, smiling, “we should feel lonely outside the Secret Service. Few in Europe are outside — few in the world, fewer in the half-world. As for us Tziganes, who belong to neither, the business of everybody becomes our secret to sell for a silver piece — but not to Russians in the moment of peril!... Nor to their comrades.... What do you desire to know, comrade?”
“Anything,” he said simply, “that might help me to regain what I have lost.”
“And what do you suppose!” exclaimed Fifi, opening her magnificent black eyes very wide. “Did you imagine that nobody was paying any attention to what happened in the rue Soleil d’Or this noon?”
Nini laughed.
“The word flew as fast as the robber’s taxicab. How many thousand secret friends to the Triple Entente do you suppose knew of it half an hour after it happened? From the Trocadero to Montparnasse, from the Point du Jour to Charenton, from the Bois to the Bièvre, the word flew. Every taxicab, omnibus, sapin, every bateau-mouche, every train that left any terminal was watched.
“Five embassies and legations were instantly under redoubled surveillance; hundreds of cafés, bars, restaurants, hôtels; all the theatres, gardens, cabarets, brasseries.
“Your pigs of Apaches are not neglected, va! But, to my idea, they got out of Paris before we watchers knew of the affair at all — in an automobile, perhaps — perhaps by rail. God knows,” said the girl, looking absently at the dancing which had begun again. “But if we ever lay our eyes on Minna Minti, we wear toys in our garters which will certainly persuade her to take a little stroll with us.”
After a silence, Neeland said:
“Is Minna Minti then so well known?”
“Not at the Opéra Comique,” replied Fifi with a shrug, “but since then.”
“An artiste, that woman!” added Nini. “Why deny it? It appears that she has twisted more than one red button out of a broadcloth coat.”
“She’ll get the Seraglio medal for this day’s work,” said Fifi.
“Or the croix-de-fer,” added Nini. “Ah, zut! She annoys me.”
“Did you ever hear of a place called the Café des Bulgars?” asked Neeland, carelessly.
“Yes.”
“What sort of place is it?”
“Like any other.”
“Quite respectable?”
“Perfectly,” said Nini, smiling. “One drinks good beer there.”
“Munich beer,” added Fifi.
“Then it is watched?” asked Neeland.
“All German cafés are watched. Otherwise, it is not suspected.”
Sengoun, who had been listening, shook his head. “There’s nothing to interest us at the Café des Bulgars,” he said. Then he summoned a waiter and pointed tragically at the empty goblets.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE CAFÉ DES BULGARS
THEIR ADIEUX TO Fifi and Nini were elaborate and complicated by bursts of laughter. The Tziganes recommended Captain Sengoun to go home and seek further adventures on his pillow; and had it not been for the gay babble of the fountain and the persistent perfume of flowers, he might have followed their advice.
It was after the two young men had left the Jardin Russe that Captain Sengoun positively but affectionately refused to relinquish possession of Neeland’s arm.
“Dear friend,” he explained, “I am just waking up and I do not wish to go to bed for days and days.”
“But I do,” returned Neeland, laughing. “Where do you want to go now, Prince Erlik?”
The champagne was singing loudly in the Cossack’s handsome head; the distant brilliancy beyond the Place de la Concorde riveted his roving eyes.
“Over there,” he said joyously. “Listen, old fellow, I’ll teach you the skating step as we cross the Place! Then, in the first Bal, you shall try it on the fairest form since Helen fell and Troy burned — or Troy fell and Helen burned — it’s all the same, old fellow — what you call fifty-fifty, eh?”
Neeland tried to free his arm — to excuse himself; two policemen laughed; but Sengoun, linking his arm more firmly in Neeland’s, crossed the Place in a series of Dutch rolls and outer edges, in which Neeland was compelled to join. The Russian was as light and graceful on his feet as one of the dancers of his own country; Neeland’s knowledge of skating aided his own less agile steps. There was sympathetic applause from passing taxis and fiacres; and they might, apparently, have had any number of fair partners for the asking, along the way, except for Sengoun’s headlong dive toward the brightest of the boulevard lights beyond.
In the rue Royal, however, Sengoun desisted with sudden access of dignity, remarking that such gambols were not worthy of the best traditions of his Embassy; and he attempted to bribe the drivers of a couple of hansom cabs to permit him and his comrade to take the reins and race to the Arc de Triomphe.
Failing in this, he became profusely autobiographical, informing Neeland of his birth, education, aims, aspirations.
“When I was twelve,” he said, “I had known already the happiness of the battle-shock against Kurd, Mongol, and Tartar. At eighteen my ambition was to slap the faces of three human monsters. I told everybody that I was making arrangements to do this, and I started for Brusa after my first monster — Fehim Effendi — but the Vali telegraphed to the Grand Vizier, and the Grand Vizier ran to Abdul the Damned, and Abdul yelled for Sir Nicholas O’Connor; and they caught me in the Pera Palace and handed me over to my Embassy.”
Neeland shouted with laughter:
“Who were the other monsters?” he asked.
“The other two whose countenances I desired to slap? Oh, one was Abdul Houda, the Sultan’s star-reader, who chattered about my Dark Star horoscope in the Yildiz. And the other was the Sultan.”
“Who?”
“Abdul Hamid.”
“What? You wished to slap his face?”
“Certainly. But Kutchuk Saïd and Kiamil Pasha requested me not to — accompanied by gendarmes.”
“You’d have lost your life,” remarked Neeland.
“Yes. But then war would surely have come, and today my Emperor would have held the Dardanelles where the Turkish flag is now flying over German guns and German gunners.”
He shook his head:
“Great mistake on my part,” he muttered. “Should have pulled Abdul’s lop ears. Now, everything in Turkey is ‘Yasak’ except what Germans do and say; and God knows we are farther than ever from St. Sophia.... I’m very thirsty with thinking so much, old fellow. Did you ever drink German champagne?”
“I believe not — —”
“Come on, then. You shall drink several gallons and never feel it. It’s the only thing German I could ever swallow.”
“Prince Erlik, you have had considerable refreshment already.”
“Copain, t’en fais pas!”
The spectacle of two young fellows in evening dress, in a friendly tug-of-war under the lamp-posts of the Boulevard, amused the passing populace; and Sengoun, noticing this, was inclined to mount a boulevard bench and address the wayfarers, but Neeland pulled him down and persuaded him into a quieter street, the rue Vilna.
“There’s a German place, now!” exclaimed Sengoun, delighted.
And Neeland, turning to look, perceived the illuminated sign of the Café des Bulgars.
German champagne had now become Sengoun’s fixed idea; nothing could dissuade him from it, nothing persuade him into a homeward bound taxi. So Neeland, with a rather hazy idea that he ought not to do it, entered the café with Senguon; and they seated themselves on a leather wall-lounge before one of the numerous marble-topped tables.
“Listen,” he said in a low voice to his companion, “this is a German café, and we must be careful what we say. I’m not any too prudent and I may forget this; but don’t you!”
“Quite right, old fellow!” replied Sengoun, giving him an owlish look. “I must never forget I’m a diplomat among these sales Boches — —”
