The Golden Bough. Gibbs George
then looked up at Rowland, gaze wide and lips parted.
"And you-"
If there was horror, there was no reproach in her tone. Her attitude was more one of consternation and surprise.
"And you, – Monsieur Rowlan'," she whispered in an awed tone. "It is you who are-"
And then she stopped as though frozen suddenly into immobility and silence.
CHAPTER IV
TANYA
And while he stood, still bewildered by the awed tone and startled air of the girl, he saw that the three men had come forward and had taken position in a group beside him. He glanced at them, at once upon the defensive, but was quickly reassured by their passive appearance and attitude, for they stood with heads bowed, like mourners at the grave of a departed friend-with this difference, that their eyes, oblivious of the figure upon the turf, were turned upon Rowland, gazing expectantly, in an awe like Tanya's, but unlike hers, intimidated, respectful, and obedient. Rowland felt like laughing in their faces, but the figure in the Prince Albert coat upon the ground reminded him that the mystery behind this fantastic tragedy was at least worthy of consideration. Whatever the aims of this strange company and however tawdry the means by which they accomplished them, the fact remained that here at his feet lay Kirylo Ivanitch, dead because of his convictions.
With increasing bewilderment he stared at Tanya and again at the others.
"What do you mean, Mademoiselle?" he asked. "I don't understand."
Her reply mystified him further.
"The Visconti!" she stammered. "You know the name?"
"Visconti, yes. It was the name of my Italian mother."
At this reply Tanya started to her feet and behind him he heard the murmur of excitement.
"Speak, Mademoiselle," said Rowland. "What's this mystery?"
Tanya put her fingers to her brows a moment.
"Something very strange has happened, Monsieur Rowlan'," she said with difficulty. "Something long predicted-promises written in the legends of Nemi for hundreds of years and it is-it is you, Monsieur, who have fulfilled them."
"I!" he asked in surprise. "How?"
"That the Visconti should again become the heads of our order."
"What order?"
"The Order of the Priesthood of Nemi."
"Priesthood! I?" Rowland grinned unsympathetically at the solemn faces, which were mocking at his common sense, his appreciation of the ridiculous which from the first had held in good-humored contempt the signs of mediæval flummery.
"You, Monsieur," said the man in the cowl, whom they called Issad. "There is no doubt. It is written."
"I've not written it," said Rowland contemptuously.
"The Priest of Nemi-you have broken the Golden Bough," put in the shock-headed man.
"Oh, I see. I broke your silly tree. I'm sorry."
"Sorry!" whispered Issad, pointing to the dead man. "It is he who should be sorry."
"I've no doubt he is," muttered Rowland, "but he brought this on himself."
"That is true," said the third man eagerly, the one Tanya had called Picard. "We are all witnesses to it."
Rowland frowned at the man.
"Then will you tell me what the devil you meant by shooting a pistol at me?" cried Rowland angrily.
Picard hung his head.
"It was he who was the Priest of Nemi-while he lived, our oath, our allegiance-"
"Ah, I see," put in Rowland, "and now the water is on the other shoulder."
He shrugged and as he did so was aware of a sharp pain where the knife of Ivanitch had struck him, and from the fingers of his left hand he saw that blood was dripping.
Tanya, who had stood silent during this conversation, came forward, touching his arm.
"Monsieur is wounded," she said gently. "You must come-"
Rowland impersonally examined the blood at his finger tips.
"If you wish to call the Gendarmes-" he began coolly.
"Gendarmes!" broke out Picard excitedly, "No, Monsieur. There must be no police here. Nemi settles its own affairs."
Rowland glanced at the fellow. He was not hostile, but desperately in earnest, and the faces of the two other men reflected his seriousness. Tanya Korasov was silent, but into her face had come new lines of decision.
"If you will go into the house, Monsieur," she said quietly, "I will bind your wound and perhaps give you a reason why the police should not be called to Nemi."
Her suggestion reminded him that the wounded shoulder was now tingling unpleasantly, and so, with a glance at the others, who seemed eagerly to assent to his departure, Rowland nodded and followed the girl toward the house.
A while ago the strange actions of this fantastic household had keenly amused him, for Rowland was a product of an unimaginative age, a Nomad of the Cities, bent upon a great errand which had nothing to do with priesthoods. But now the startling sequence of events, culminating in the mention of his mother's name and the death of Ivanitch had made him aware that the arm of coincidence was long, or that Destiny was playing a hand with so sure an intention that he, Phil Rowland, for all his materialism, must accept the facts and what came of them. Destiny! Perhaps. For a year Rowland had believed it his destiny to be killed in battle, instead of which he had lived the life of a dog in a prison camp, and escaped into freedom. But a priest of a secret order, ordained twenty-seven years ago when in the smug security of the orderly Rowland house in West Fifty-ninth Street, he had been born-the thing was unthinkable! But there before him, treading soberly, her slender figure clad in a modish frock which must have come from the Rue de la Paix, was Tanya; and there behind him, in the arms of Picard, Issad and the shock-headed man, was the dead Ivanitch, in token that the prediction of the legends of Nemi had been fulfilled.
He followed the girl into the house and upstairs, where she helped him remove his coat and shirt and bathed and anointed the slight cut in his shoulder. If in his mind he was uncertain as to the judgment of the Twentieth Century upon his extraordinary adventure, he was very sure that Tanya Korasov at least was very real, her fingers very soft, her touch brave, and her expressions of solicitude very genuine. And it was sufficient for Rowland to believe that an intelligence such as that which burned behind her fine level brows, could not be guilty of the worship of false gods. Intelligent, sane and feminine to her finger tips… The sanity of Tanya more even than the madness of Ivanitch gave credence to the story that she was to tell him…
"Thanks, Mademoiselle," he said gently, when she had finished. "You are very good, to one who has brought so much trouble and distress upon you."
She looked up at him quickly and then away, while into her eyes came a rapt expression as that of one who sees a vision.
"Distress!" she said listlessly, and then slowly, "No, it is not that. Monsieur Ivanitch was nothing to me. But Death-such a death can be nothing less-than horrible."
Her lip trembled, she shuddered a little and he saw that a reaction had set in. She rose to hide her weakness and walked the length of the room.
"Forgive me. I should have gone last night-"
"No, no," she said hysterically. "You can bear no blame-nor I. He attacked you yonder. You had to defend yourself-"
She broke off, clasping her hands and turning away from him.
"How could I have known that you were-that you … I thought it mere timidity, nervousness on his part-fear born of the danger that had so long hung over him-I knew the legend of Nemi. But Monsieur-" she threw out her arms wildly-"I-I am no dreamer of dreams, no mystic, no fanatic. I have never believed that such strange things could come to pass. But Kirylo Ivanitch had a vision. You were Death! You were stalking him there and he knew-" She laughed hysterically and turned away from him again. "You