CHAPTER XXXIX
"I UNDERSTAND"
MADAME SABINOV awakened to a horror surpassing any she had known. Uncouth caresses touched her. Repulsive kisses were being pressed upon her hands, her arms. Pain-racked and nauseated, she opened her eyes, to find that she lay upon a couch in a room part laboratory and part office. Crouching upon the floor, gloating over her, hideously, animally, was a hirsute, wild-eyed creature, whom in that first fearful glance she did not believe to be human.
She uttered a piercing cry, her mind, body, and soul shrinking from loathsome contact. She leapt up, swayed, staggered-and fell back again upon the couch. After-effects of the drug robbed her of strength; and now, seeking to grasp her hands, her hideous companion, in a guttural voice shaken with emotion, began to speak.
Madame Sabinov succeeded in sitting upright, drawing back—farther back-and watching the quivering, hairy face with horror-bright eyes.
"Please understand—oh! please understand," Krauss began, and speech seemed to demand great physical and mental effort; his accent and intonation alike were barbarous. "You are so beautiful, you make me mad. But see!"—he knelt like a great ape at her feet; "I would not harm you; I will not even touch you. I am your slave. You are so beautiful!"
His glance roamed over her hungrily.
"I have watched, I have watched you for so long. When you did not know I was watching. When you were with him I was watching. I have torn my own flesh, I have beaten myself unconscious, when I have known he was with you. Hundreds, hundreds, and more than hundreds of times, I have been where I could see the light at your window until morning."
He swayed to and fro, gesticulating uncouthly with hairy hands. She watched him, fighting for reason, for sanity; knowing that if ever she needed her wits she needed them now.
"When I tell you all of it you can perhaps forgive," he went on in that hoarse animal tone which characterized his speech. "If I am mad, it is you and not myself that should be blamed. Do not fear me—do not fear me—do not think of my ugliness. Think of my power; of what I can do for you. I will give you, not a house and servants, but gold enough to buy the world! I will take you to the place where it is made, and all that is made shall be yours. Those foolish gifts were nothing: the poor little jewels he gave you. If from me you ask a room built of pearls—you shall have it. The paths you walk I will pave with diamonds. No woman in all the world has been as you will be. He was not fit to have you, to hold you. I understand the power, the demands, of beauty. Let me be your slave, let me only see you sometimes-touch your hands-and I will make you a goddess. Immortal: never to die!"
Sanity, understanding, began now to return to the woman who listened. As the torrent of words was poured forth she regained command of herself. Her first frightful impression left her, giving place to a second, scarcely less horrible, but which she preferred to entertain, since at least it classified this shaggy creature in whose power she found herself. He was some protégé of Trepniak's. This was the shadow of which long since she had become aware.
He was a madman. His demeanour, his words, proved it. Therefore, whilst terrifying, he was pitiable; and if she could but restrain him from violence, her wit yet might conquer.
And now, whilst the demented but formidable creature babbled on, Madame Sabinov became aware of something which intuitively she knew to mean hope of rescue; not possibility of new peril, but the coming of a friend.
A window almost directly before her, but invisible to the ape-man who crouched at her feet, was being opened, slowly and nearly silently!
She thought that it was Trepniak who had traced her, and she sought to render her face expressionless in order that she might not betray her hopes and fears to the deformed creature, whose small sunken eyes were fixed upon her hungrily. At last the window became fully raised-and a little Japanese swung himself over the ledge. Madame's surprise betrayed her into a start.
At the moment that the Japanese dropped upon the floor Krauss sprang up, whirled around-and instantly the two were locked in deadly conflict!
Not doubting the issue, not daring to watch, Madame Sabinov, clenching her hands tightly, stood up and ran to the door.
It was locked, and the key was missing.
She turned, leaning back against it. The fight was not over yet. Krauss was uttering horrible growls like those of an enraged animal; but Ecko fought silently and skilfully, striking no blows, but cunningly dodging those of his opponent. Then, suddenly, he secured a hold, and Krauss fell with a crash which shook the room, Ecko on top of him.
It was well done, and must have meant victory for the Japanese in the case of any normal man. But Krauss, who seemingly possessed superhuman strength, instant by instant fought against the strangle-hold, great veins starting out on his ape-like forehead, whilst Ecko's face grew gray with effort.
Krauss's breath whistled audibly through his nostrils. There came a sharp, snapping sound. He turned completely over—and, his left arm hanging useless from the shoulder, he raised himself upright one second ahead of the Japanese and heavily kicked the latter upon the head.
The impact of a thick-soled boot upon the skull was sickeningly audible.
Ecko went down like a log; and Krauss, his eyes blood-shot, his face quivering, rushed to the door, fumbled for a key, and found it He unlocked the door, and with his one serviceable hand dragged Ecko out into the corridor beyond.
He returned, closing the door.
One arm hanging limply beside him, he stood staring across at Madame Sabinov. His eyes, in which a reddish hue had appeared, resembled the eyes of a dangerous wild animal.
***
Ecko was recalled from shadowy places to painful consciousness by the appealing cry of a woman. He found himself in darkness, his head throbbing like a drum and his face bathed in blood. For a few moments he lay still, seeking a clue to his plight; and at last it came: he remembered.
Faint light shone under the door outside which he lay, and a torrent of guttural language, broken up by pitiful, breathless appeals, gave strength to his will to act.
Painfully, weakly, he got upon his feet, one hand outstretched to the wall to steady himself. So he stood for a while, and knew, because of the shaking of his limbs and sense of swimming in his head, that now he was no match for the hairy man, but at all costs must obtain assistance, and speedily.
Facts began to come back to him. The taxi driver, finally entering into the spirit of the chase—but from whom, since he could not leave his cab, Ecko had been compelled to part at the corner of Pennyfields—had undertaken to find a policeman. At this point it had become clear that the destination of the two-seater could only be a big warehouse at the end of the lane.
Ecko groped his way blindly along the passage. With trembling fingers he struck a match, discovered an uncarpeted stair, and staggered down to the door at the bottom. He opened it—and found himself in a little well-like yard on the opposite side of the building from that into which the car had been driven.
Here it was, as he stood looking about him from right to left, that he heard a great cry, and a sudden turmoil as of the hasty moving of furniture.
Fresh air acting as a restorative, he wiped the blood from his eyes, and presently discovered a sunken window from beyond which the cry seemed to have come. He stood for a moment again, listening, but could hear no sound of voices in the lane. Therefore, since nothing was to be gained by going out, he determined to investigate the cause of this strange outcry. Instinct told him that he might find an ally.
***
Madame Sabinov looked up into the grinning, animal face. Reason had fled from those deep-set eyes. No possible appeal could reach her persecutor, wholly de- humanized, transformed into a brute thing by the attack of the mysterious but courageous Japanese, whose gallant fight had led, she supposed, to his death.
Rapidly her strength was ebbing in the unequal contest.
"You are for me!" Krauss muttered thickly. "He would have let you die. But I will keep you beautiful always."
Three times, by trickery, she had escaped from the clutch of that one sound arm, and three times had all but reached the door, which Krauss had failed to relock. But always he had foiled her, growing more dangerous with each attempted escape. And, now, his arm was about her like a band of steel.
She pressed her hands against the hideous hairy face, and twisted her head aside, for she knew that the touch of those animal lips upon hers would be the end. This she could not suffer and retain her senses.
Inch by inch, relentlessly, he conquered. His blue-black beard touched her cheek, and resistance grew ever less. She tore at his face with her nails. Except that he bared a row of gleaming yellow teeth, Krauss gave no evidence of the pain which he must have suffered.
Now she could feel his hot breath upon her forehead. It nauseated her. Her fighting powers were almost exhausted. A name rose like a sigh to her quivering lips.
"Michael!" she whispered.
As if in magical response, the door was thrown open. Michael hurled himself into the room, Ecko close behind him. The whisper died. Krauss's gross lips touched those of the swooning woman, and she became as a dead thing in his embrace.
Michael sprang across, stooped, grasped the hairy throat with both hands, and, planting a knee in Krauss's spine, he jerked the latter back from his victim. Krauss reeled, received a furious blow behind his left ear, and crashed to the floor.
"My love!"
Michael dropped upon his knees beside the insensible woman, held her in his arms, and looked into her face with incredulous, adoring eyes. In his gaze were wonder, rapture, and a great, unnameable fear. He began to kiss her pale lips and to whisper her name. Ecko, glancing at the hunched-up figure of Krauss, unnoticed, stepped back into the corridor.
"Poppæa!" Michael whispered, "my love, my love, speak to me!"
And now his words, his kisses, recalled her. Drooping lids quivered, then suddenly were raised; and she stared, wide-eyed, into the face so near her own. For fully five seconds there was absolute silence. Then, a slow smile like that of a frightened child who awakes to find her mother bending over her stirred the pale lips, and:
"I have found you," she whispered. "I knew you would be waiting. Can you forgive me, my dear one?"
"Poppæa," Michael said huskily, "try to understand. You are safe—you are safe in my arms. Thank God I have found you again."
The smile left her lips: remembrance came. She looked about her, her glance now horror-laden. But he held her fast, pressing his cheek to hers.
"You are safe," he murmured, "you are safe, my love."
But she struggled upright, pushing him gently away, and looking at him, the pupils of her eyes blackly dilated.
"Michael!"
She uttered the name as a stifled shriek. Convulsively she sprang back from him. But:
"My dearest," he said soothingly, and opened his arms—"I understand, I understand. You thought me dead, but I am alive. Only my mind was dead; my memory left me-after my escape from the Red Army. It has returned. Your dear voice awakened me. I know that I am Michael Sabinov, and I know, and thank God, that you are my wife-my love."
But she did not move. She began to breathe quickly, standing, hands clenched and her arms held rigidly to her sides. Then:
"God!" she whispered. "It is true! You have come back to me, and now-I am not fit for your love. No!" Her voice rose emotionally: "Don't touch me! I never doubted you were dead—I never doubted it—and the' loss of you drove me mad, cruelly, wickedly mad. Do you understand?" Her eyes stared at him feverishly. "Can you understand what I have done in my sorrow and loneliness? All that I was, before, I have become again-and worse. What had I to cling to?"
Her face seemed to grow lined and haggard, tears streamed down her cheeks.
"I have dragged your name in the gutter," she sobbed. "I have defied heaven. I have flaunted my defiance-because my heart was broken."
Yet, wondrously, nothing but yearning compassion could be read in Count Michael's face. His arms remained outstretched.
"My love," he said, "I understand."
Unable to believe, watching him, watching him almost frenziedly, extending quivering hands and drawing them back again, re-clenching them, she began to creep nearer, doubting, wondering, seeming to fear a rebuff that would mean death. But at last comprehending the miracle of this man's great love, with a low sobbing cry of utter joy she threw herself into the haven of his arms. …
The crack of a pistol sounded, and Michael staggered, clutching at his shoulder.
Krauss had fired from the floor, and now getting upon his knees, he raised the pistol to fire a second time. But Ecko was too quick for him. Like a swift shadow he entered the room, kicking the weapon from its owner's hand.
Michael, grown suddenly pale, dropped back upon the couch, and, Ecko's attention being thus diverted, Krauss, uttering an indescribable snarling sound, got upon his feet and ran out.
Madame Sabinov was transfigured. Once she glanced at the pale face of the wounded man, then, stooping, she snatched up the pistol and ran out into the corridor. Again and again she fired after the retreating figure. Coolly, purposefully, she followed to the head of the stairs, and only ceased firing when the magazine was empty. A door banged, and a sudden outcry arose in the street.