Lost Countess Falka: a story of the Orient

Front matter

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Book I

Ph,ptpo PAYING OFF OLD SCORES. chapter. Pace. I — From the Dead! After the Opera, at the Stefan's Keller. A Recognition. The Wrong Man! . . . 5 II — A Vanishing Pasha! The Masked Ball at Falkenstein! A Sinister Unbidden Guest! Ilma's Tryst, 25 III — Lost Countess lima! Paul Denton's Life Quest! Faroe Moses' Friend on the Turkish Yacht! Too Late ! 47 IV — The League on the Bosporus. The Indo-European Telegraph Company's General Agent. A Slender Clue, 63 V — The Pavilion on the Hill. A Gallant Frenchman! The Red Handkerchief ! Mustapha's Last Score ! 83

Book II. The Pearl Of

A THOUSAND PURSES. VI — A Forlorn Hope. Ilma's Dream. The Transformation in VII — The American Missionary Doctor at Trebizond! In the Storm on the Black Sea! The Signal! . . . 131 VIII — To the Rescue! Colonel Soltykoff 's Dispatches, . . 15^ IX — A Moslem Caravan ! Three Pilgrims to the Halls of the Lion and the Sun ! 170 X — Friend and Foe Baffled! The Pearl of the Harem! The Shah's Andarun in the Shimran Hills, . . 189

Book III. Closing The Account

XI — Vanished! The Magic Change ! "Hands Off! lam an Englishwoman!" 209 XII — A Lost Pearl of Price! Mustapha's Peril! No Thoroughfare! 229 XIII — The Doctor's Hegira! Betrayed! A Moslem Fanatic! 248 XIV — Kassim's Warning ! At Bay in the Tower of Silence ! 268 XV — Soltykoff's Coup de Main! Kassim, the Supercargo! " 'Tis the Olga!" In the Negaristan! At Moscow ' The Song of the Bells!

Chapter I. From The

DEAD!— AFTER THE OPERA AT THE STEFAN'S KELLER— A RECOGNITION— THE WRONG MAN! "Fideles Wien!" sighed Colonel Soltykoff of the Paul Regiment. "When shall I see you again?" He turned, heavy-hearted, to rejoin his friend Fraser Den ton, who was gazing spellbound from the entrance of the foyer, at the opera box they had just quitted. It was a Lohengrin night, and the perfumed air trembled still with the delicious vibrations of the "Schwan nenlied." "All that's best of dark and bright!" murmured Den ton, as the handsome Russian paused for a moment at his side. "She is certainly the handsomest woman in Europe 1" cried the tall Muscovite, his fingers, gemmed with turquoise luck rings, tugging at hia tawny mustache. "Which one, Serge? Mother or daughter?" replied Denton, with a backward glance at the box where that golden young beauty, Countess lima Falka, shone out beside the peerless Grafin Magda.

"Don't ask such a question of a poor devil who leaves Wien, the very brightest spot on earth, to vegetate on the sandy shores of Odessa, as chief aide to an old bear of a Governor! By Jove, I would rather go back to An nenkoff's staff at Tashkend, than to be pent up among those low ' boutiquiers,' at that mongrel market town, Odessa. I have thrown my whole life away in the service ! I swear, Denton, I will resign and then come back here ! " "Then, Countess Falka will soon re-enter society?" The American's voice was trembling with an eager interest! "Never!" gloomily rejoined Soltykoff, "un less your brilliant diplomat nephew makes the Repub lic richer, by a beautiful citizeness, that star of stars, lima! No! Denton. Grafin Magda has her secret reasons ! She will never marry !" "De l'audace!

Toujours de l'audace!" smiled Den ton. "Remember Ruy Gomez!" "Mon ami," deject edly said the Russian. "Since I came back from Asia, in my two years tour here as Military Attache, I have only learned a part of the sad story which keeps the woman whom I love a close recluse at Falkenstein!" "Bela Batthyani has promised to tell me if Arpad Falka will give him leave! But, I leave here to-morrow for Odessa, and I have found out that a woman's 'Nay' may, for once, not be gainsaid!" The hand somest cavalier of all the glittering throng in the splendid galleries of the Hof-Oper, Serge Soltykoff, iieeded not the flashing glances of the swan-necked Viennese women! "Ah!" queried Denton, "you will not wait for the hunt and the masked ball! Do you not go to Presburg?" "I have had my answer — an answer final, irrevocable !" the Russian no bleman.

"How about Paul and Arpad Falka! You surely will say good-bye to them?" The American pitied the unhappy soldier. "Have they already left "Vi enna?" said Soltykoff, with a start. "Arpad is down there, now, busied with hound, horn and huntsmen, and my nephew is to be Master of Ceremonies at the ball! They have already been two days at Falkenstein. Come down there with me, and see them!" Fraser Denton laid his hand upon Soltykoff's shoulder in a friendly familiarity. "I tell you what I will do, Denton!" mused the Colonel. "I must go over now, and see Madame l'Ambassadrice. A single word from her lips to our chief is a com mand ! I will ask for two days' delay, and then, wait at Budapest, for Paul and Arpad! We will have a jolly good-bye dinner at the Margarethen-Insel ! Meet me at the Stefanskeller, after I have taken the ladies home, and then we will six it up!

I dare not trust myself, again, with Countess Magda Falka at Presburg. I might finish the work that Turcoman ball did so clumsily at Geok-Tepe!" And the soldier diplomat threaded the throng where the gilded youth of Wien envied the man whose passing brought a smile to a score of the dainty mobile faces of the mu tine Viennoises. "What is the bar? Poor Soltykoff is hard hit! Has she really given him the coup-de-grace at last?" Den ton glanced back at the box he had quitted. There, a half dozen cavaliers were bending over the fair women in the loge. An Esterhazy was murmuring airy nothings to the fair-faced Hungarian blossom li ma, while Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador bent over Grafin Magda Falka's hand. Captain Stein, a bronzed model of Uncle Sam's light cavalrymen, was busily recalling "the Point," to Miss Aida Denton, "la belle Americaine."

"I must have Paul interrogate Arpad!" mused Denton. "There must be a way to bring together these two lovers, 'held tenderly apart!' While there is life there is hope!" he decided. "There are ways, through night to light!" And, gazing across the splendid scenario, he sighed for the vanished mother of his own dear child, a human blossom in this world's rose garden of Wien ! — a lovely girl, and, a beauty! "Shipmate ahoy!" rang out a cheery cry at his very elbow, as the astounded American was vigorously ac costed by a rubicund old English veteran of an un mistakably salty flavor. "Mclvor Pasha, by all that's holy!" cried Fraser Denton, in delight. "Where in the world did you come from?" "London!" coolly said the old sailor. "And I'm bound again to the cloudless glow of eastern skies. To Egypt, where we two first met, twenty odd years ago.

See here! I must see you; but I leave to-morrow morning for Constantinople! I shall stay a month there, and first run up to Sebastopol, then sail down through the Greek Sea, to 'bask' again in the shadows of the Pyramids! What have you got to show for all these years? Where have you been?" The American led the stalwart old Admiral to the nearest dow! "I have been selling arms and cannon to continental governments since I doffed the fez! Russia, Austria, Germany, France, have been my stamping ground, as we Yankees say! Do you see that young girl in the second box, front row, the one in white, with violets? My Aida is all I have to show you, now! Come around to the Stefanskeller, after the opera! I shall take supper there with Soltykoff, the Russian Military Attache! We will then swop 'logbooks!'" "So!

That's your girl! She is a beauty!" heartily cried the old man-o'-warsman. "And — her mother?" He dropped his eyeglass hastily, as Denton sadly an swered, "She lies sleeping in Pere la Chaise, these many years — and we two are at home here in Vienna. My brother's widow takes care of Aida. Her son is Second Secretary of the United States Legation here!" "And you?" "Oh! I've been bowsing around the world since I retired from the Egyptian navy at poor old Ismail's downfall. They have made me a part of 'the British Debt,' and, I am going back to where the breeze of Araby the blest draws down the Shou brah Road. Come over there, and sell some of your guns and revolving cannons! We will beat up all the old haunts!" "There goes the bell!" laughed Denton. "The British Lion's paw has 'wiped the eye' of the Ameri can eagle in Egypt!

Coals to Newcastle, now! Be sure to cast anchor after the opera at the Stefan's Kel ler!" The jolly old sea dog nodded an assent and forged away, his broad bulk parting the waves of the Viennese "show" society, leaving a rippling wake in these shallows of this beautiful Vanity Fair! There was the magnetic thrill of a thousand hearts bounding in passion — a thousand pairs of eyes gleaming in mocking Austrian witchery and Fraser Denton was borne backward on the tide of the rushing years! It seemed but a little span of life ! The quarter of a century, when he, once the boy captain of a Rhode Island battery, sought fame and fortune in the service of Is mail Pasha, the great Khedive. "Eheu fugaces! Gone — scattered! The strange motley court gathered around Ismail ! What a change from sixty-eight to ninety !" and, Fraser Denton's eyes were clouded with the mists of other days, as he wended his way back to the box to listen to the mimic anguish of Ortrud and Teiramund.

There was a glow of triumph in Serge Soltykoff's eyes as he stole back into the box, having escaped from his vivacious countrywoman, Princess Mouravief. "Compliments of Madame l'Ambassadrice to the three graces!" he whispered to the one woman of the whole world, the seething world, of his tortured heart. "Princess Mouravief truly says that the whole house is 'regardant!'" ■"Have you, too, learned to flatter, Serge? I thought that you were above such a weakness!" Grafin Falka then dropped her fan in a strange confusion, as her dark eyes rested for a moment on the face of the courtly Russian. "I am above nothing that would lead me to your feet, Magda !" he whispered. The entreaty was not lost upon Fraser Denton, who muttered, "Poor devil! He is bound to the rack! something bars his way. He is unhappy, and I only stand mutely wait ing at the sealed tomb of the past — waiting for the last bugle call, Lights out!

For — the dead never come back!" Fraser Denton, erect and soldierly still, at fifty, gazed out gloomily at the painted unrealities of the stage, while the third act dragged its mimic sor rows away. He was conscious that there were batteries of lor gnettes levelled upon them. Even the Imperial loge deigned to notice the three superb women of Solty koff's last opera party. Scores of the dashing aristo crats knew of the steadfast passion of the romantic Russian cavalier for the patrician young widow who had not graced gay Vienna's balls since Gabor Falka's tragic death left her alone in the world ! There were bright eyes challenging that merry dare devil cousin Bela Batthyani, the curled darling of the "Queen's Own," who, forgetting all, chatted in easy familiarity with the sparkling lima, and light hearts beat nervously under swelling silks and laces to wonder where on this night of nights was Arpad, the last Count Falka, whose place as Captain of the Hungarian Body Guard led him into the august circle of the most ex clusive court of Christendom — the only one now closed to "Brummagem" and "Boodle!"

But the Aus trian men, with fierce glittering eyes, fixed their hawk like glances on Magda Falka's queenly form! Seated, a very queen of night, in black lace and silver, the flashing diamond stars on her brow only accentuated her dark beauty. It was a sad, noble face, with the ex quisite tints of her pale cheek, there lit up with the dark, gleaming, mournful eyes. These eyes had lost their passion, but their sweetness lingered still. The Falka pearls were clasped around the neck of this pas sive Venus de Milo, and her lips only parted in a smile, when she whispered in answer to Serge Solty koff's veiled entreaty! The agony of a good-bye which might be eternal! For, womanlike, she would not have him go, and yet she dared not bid him stay! And, this tragedy was real. lima Falka's golden hair was her legacy of love from the father she had never seen, but the eyes of the peerless mother were her natal gift to the pearl of Hungary.

At eighteen, in the "primavera della vita," lima Falka's impassioned beauty was a startling foil to the sad serenity of the lovely mother, whose widowhood had given her a sis tership of sorrow with the richest heiress of proud Hungary. The daughter of Columbia, rapt in the en trancing melodies of the master singer, gazed out upon the princely stage with her beautiful brown eyes veiled in a mist of unshed tears ! Her exquisite face was glor ious in the bright promise written there; there were nobles who envied the Russian violets, rising and falling upon the fleecy muslin folds of her corsage. It was a strangely cemented friendship, sorrow's seal, which led grave Fraser Denton to the side of Magda Falka. Their children, nymphs of the morning of life, were already companions of the heart, and the soldier, still steadfast to the memory of the loved and lost, was far nearer to Magda Falka's sleeping heart than the haughty cold-faced Austrian magnates, who wooed in vain the beautiful Lady of Falkenstein.

Countess Magda Falka's hand trembled as Soltykoff led her out into the laughing throng crowding the splendid stair cases, and the open loggia, where knots of lovers lingered, now making trysts there under the stars dancing in the blue heavens ! All Vienna thronged the superb Renaissance fane on the Opernring. The winged horses, high in air above them, seemed ready to soar away in the land of light loves and happy laughter. Fraser Denton, uneasy at heart, watched keenly every movement of the princely pair, whose life path was to part here under those silent stars ! For this parting was no sweet sorrow. The Russian had drawn Grafin Magda aside for a moment, and his blue eyes blazed like the wintry pole star, when he murmured: "I shall not see you again. Have you not a single word, after all these years, Magda?"

"What can divide them?" was Denton's inward query. Soltykoff is of the oldest boyars! A superb soldier! His fortune is of a barbaric Russian opu lence! The chosen friend of the Czarovitch!" He gazed while pretty Aida Denton's eyes now ruefully followed Bela Batthyani, soon lost in the departing waves of fashion, with his precious charge, the daz zling lima. "Will she let him go without a word of hope? Ah! Magda! It is only the dead who cannot come back!" Denton sprang forward with sudden alarm, as Grafin Falka suddenly uttered a smothered shriek. A burly stranger brushed past the father, and the frightened daughter, too, was at his side, when, his face as pale as marble, Serge Soltykoff bore the senseless woman into the open door of the nearest loge. Denton, quick witted and alert, his senses tuned to the crash of bat tle and the 'scapes of the field, had caught the startled cry, "My God!

That man here!" and he sprang quick ly down the sculptured staircase in search of the tall intruder who had seemed to menace the Austrian beauty. There was only a single glimpse of a bearded giant, clad in the costume of a Turkish diplomat! The red fez was lost to view at the first turn of the stairs, but Fraser Denton noted the jewelled orders and the sweeping soldierly mustache, giving a European finish to the flowing golden beard. "A strange Turk!" he muttered, darting back, as Soltykoff's voice reached him in appealing accents! "See to the carriage, Denton! Quick! And bring Batthyani here!" There was a crowd of obsequious attendants ready to aid, as the Lady of Falkenstein slowly descended the staircase at last! "Do not leave me! Not an instant! I beg of you! Let us hasten to lima!" were the faltered words which greeted Bela Batthyani's excited questions.

And, clinging to the two strong men, Magda Falka shivered in abject terror, until her daughter clasped her in her arms, safe at last in the waiting carriage. "Drive on! I will follow with Miss Aida," cried Bela, as the two elder men entered the carriage. The Opern Ring was all deserted as the carriage rolled away, and Fraser Denton gazed anxiously out of the window, while Sol tykoff's whispers alone broke the silence. The mad dening parting moment came all too soon, when the splendid town house of the Falkas was reached! It was Serge Soltykoff who alone aided the Countess to mount the marble steps, guarded by huge bronze lions, bearing the quartered shields of the proud patri cian house. Denton waited, his heart beating in sym pathy with the luckless lover. "Come to me with the news as soon as you can, at the Stefanskeller!" hoarsely muttered Soltykoff, who came reeling back from the lighted drawing room, as one who had received his sudden order to lead a for lorn hope.

Denton bowed with a sorely stricken heart, for he had caught but the one farewell whisper, "I will telegraph daily, and if you need me, a single word will bring me back from Odessa!" There had been no spoken word in answer, and Fraser Denton knew too well that his friend was going out into a world now a desert to him. The old story of hopes that failed, of a hungry and sorrowing heart. "This is more than strange," mused the American, a half hour later, when Batthyani joined him in the waiting carriage. "The young ladies will both remain with the Countess!" said the bewildered young officer. "Countess Magda has had a sudden shock of the gravest nature ! She seems to be in some mortal terror! You know that we Hungarians are a strange race ! Fiery, ardent, superstitious and mercurial. It's useless!

I offered all my services ! I even proposed to telegraph to Arpad! The Countess only shook her head and demanded Josef, her house intendant. 'We leave here to-morrow as early as possible!' she said, and then in Magyar, she bade him closely guard the house during the night. I can make nothing of it, for all Countess Magda would say was, 'I have seen some one whom I had long numbered with the dead! Dead for many years! A hideous vision!'" "So!" muttered Denton, "the dead do come back! This bodes no good to Soltykoff, poor fellow!" The young soldier appealingly cried, as the coupe rolled on toward the Stephans platz, "What do you make of it, Major Denton?" "I make this of it, Bela!" reso lutely said the American, "I can answer you if you will now tell us of this past mystery of the Falkas ! Arpad is the head of your house!

He is away! ' Here are Soltykoff and myself! You should either call Arpad and Paul up by telegraph, or else take the lead your self! It is a grave responsibility!" "You are right!" gloomily rejoined the young guardsman, "I will tell Soltykoff and you all that I know — promise or no promise! I will get leave and escort Countess Magda and lima down the Danube to-morrow. She also expects you to go with her! and she says that she only feels safe now at Falkenstein! There's an end of our family's life at court! Did you see this strange fellow who seems to have called up some old sorrow? I wish that I had him up before me at ten paces !" and the fiery young magnate ground his teeth in a helpless rage. "Was it the Turk? That fellow's face seemed strangely familiar!" anxiously brooded Denton. "He rushed down the stairs by me like a bull of Bashan!

I've seen that brutal face before!" "I will leave you to your supper, after I have seen Soltykoff, and then gallop over to Barracks, and wake up the Adjutant. I can get a two days' leave! I will come back to you and then sleep at the house! I told Josef so! You can there confer alone with the Colonel! By heavens! I wish that Countess Magda would marry Sol tykoff and go away to Russia. He has a royal old place at Moscow, and I have hunted bears at his place in Tambov! It is a dream of savage grandeur! And, Soltykoff has served his sad probation!" "How about Countess lima? Don't you see the social awkwardness?" gravely said Major Denton. Bela Batthyani burst out laughing. "My dear Major! You are a wonder as to cannons and small arms, but blind in Cupid's warfare! If Paul Denton is the man I take him for, he will soon lead my beautiful cousin far away from Presburg!

Perhaps that event would give' Soltykoff his innings! He is of the Libro d'oro, and as sine a soldier as ever drew sword! But, here we are at the Stephans Keller!" "I think that I see day light ahead!" cried Denton, springing from the coupe. "But I must first learn the secret of the past! There. is some ground apparently for Countess Magda's se clusion!" The young soldier paused at the door. "Major!" he said earnestly, "make Arpad himself tell you the whole story! Tell him that I feel forced to confide in you to-night ! I can not let these two dear women of our house face their secret enemies un guarded! I would die for them!" The boy's bright face was glowing with generous bravery. "So would I!" said Denton, solemnly, as the great bell of the Stephans Dom boomed out twelve, far above them, where the exquisite spire pierced the thin blue night air!

The darkling shadows wrapped the vast old gothic pile, and a black mantle hid the wondrous tracery of fretted stone, as they entered the modest doorway of the famous haunt of the Wiener bon vi vants. "Two gentlemen waiting for you, Herr Major!" gutturally cried Ernest, the autocratic Oberkellner of Vienna's "Trois Freres," when the friends passed in through the narrow hall of the unpretentious three story habitat of the modern Brillat Savarin. "I've saved you the very best table!" The steward bowed, rattling his silver chain of office, as he pocketed a double florin. Major Denton, bewildered in the glare of the brilliantly lit rooms, gazed at the laughing midnight congerie of the lightest hearted people on earth. The officer gazed in wonder as the portly British sailor seized Denton in his bear hug, twisting him round!

"Now, I've got you, old comrade!" Mclvor shouted. B "Quick! Quick! Denton! Look there! Don't you know that chap? But I'm a lubber if he has not swapped his skin!" "Where?" gasped Denton, as the Admiral pointed to a throng of men squeezing out of the narrow pas sage. There were arch women faces, beaming lan guishing invitation from their wicked Wiener eyes, as the carriages bustled away. "Hello! What's up?" blurted out Mclvor Pasha, as Denton quickly sprang out of his grasp and rushed out bareheaded into the gloomy Stefan Platz! Lieutenant Bela Batthyani nervously twirled his hussar mustache, and gazed in won der at Serge Soltykoff, who had darted after Denton. "It's the devil's own night, a Walpurgis nacht! Every one seems tarantula bitten!" growled the junker. "Too late! I lost him! He got away in a carriage !" groaned Fraser Denton, as he returned with Solty koff.

There were dozens of eyeglasses and several dainty pince-nez centered upon the "crazy American." "Lost who, for God's sake?" demanded Bela. "That Turkish scoundrel who alarmed the Coun tess!" growled Denton, "and I know I have seen that brute before!" "Right you are! I boarded him, too, and he denied his name!" fumed stout old Mclvor. "Don't you remember Becker Bey at Cairo?" Fraser Denton's face grew fixed and stern. "Give us a private room at once !" he abruptly said to the astonished steward ; and then he addressed himself to the formal ity of introductions! But, though Colonel Soltykoff and Admiral Mclvor Pasha fell into instant reminis cence of a hundred mutual friends, the dashing Lieu tenant of the Queen's Own bad vanished. "It's a devil of a night! Bring the Graf Batthyani up to us, Ernest, and send up the best supper you ever cooked, for four!"

"Mind that yellow seal Chambertin! Now, gentlemen! I want you both behind closed doors!" Den ton found time to whisper to Soltykoff, "Silence as to the affair at the opera! I wish to draw the old Admiral out!" The Russian nodded as they entered the room. They had tried but one round of the famous brown beer that even Imperial personages dare not disdain, when Bela Batthyani rattled into the room! His sabre clanked and his jacket was slung from h's shoulder. "I've not much time to spare, Major Den ton, my horse and jager are here ! But I have tipped the head waiter! That fellow, the big Turk, is Mus tapha Pasha, who has been a guest at the Ottoman Embassy here for a fortnight! He is a money spinner, fond of the little soupers a deux, above." The giddy Batthyani blushed, conscience stricken, "And, knows his Vienna to a charm !

Felix tells me that he shows up mostly at night, and the devil of it is, he chatters in Magyar, like an old Honved!" There was a roar from the old sea dog! "Mustapha Pasha be damned ! He is only our old chevalier d' in dustrie, Waldemar Becker Bey transformed!" Serge Soltykoff delayed the introduction of the young Hussar to the irate Admiral by springing up and upsetting a half dozen beer seidels! "There's a devil's witch dance going on somewhere! I've never seen him! But there was a famous soldier of fortune of that name in our Guard once! A present from the lower Danube! He had been in our secret service in Roumania! When he left our Guard he took away an old general's pretty second wife and left his heir, a young ensign of Ours, dying from a ball in his lungs ! A smooth, versa tile scoundrel!"