The Golden Bough

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 see, Monsieur, I-I am not quite myself."

Rowland glanced at her steadily a moment and then quickly went to the cupboard where last night she had found the jug of Chartreuse, and pouring her out a glass, carried it to where she stood struggling with herself at the window.

"Drink!" he said sternly. "It will quiet you."

She glanced at the glass, then at him and obeyed.

"Do not speak now," he urged quietly. "Wait until you feel better."

"No, I am well again. I must speak at once. I must tell you all. It is your right to know." She sank resolutely into the chair before him and leaned forward, her hands clasped over her knees, her gaze fixed on the empty hearth.

"Monsieur Ivanitch was-was my compatriot, Monsieur Rowlan'-that is all. I was sent here to him three years ago to help in the great cause to which I have given my life."

"Your parents, Mademoiselle?" broke in Rowland eagerly.

She moved a hand as though to eliminate all things that pertained to herself.

"It does not matter what I am, so long as you know that I am a Russian sworn to bring Russia's freedom from those who seek to work her ruin."

"And Ivanitch-?"

"A Russian born-an exile, a zealot, a possible tool in the hands of those more dangerous than he."

"Mademoiselle. There are others-?"

"Listen, Monsieur. I must begin at the beginning or you will not understand, what my task has been, and what-God willing-you will help me to do."

"I?"

"You, Monsieur."

Rowland was silent, looking at her, sure now of a deeper import to her meaning.

"If there is anything I can do to help Russia, to help France here, you may count upon me," he said quietly.

He might have added to help Tanya Korasov, but something warned him that a hidden fire within her had burst into a flame, which burned out all lesser ones.

Her fine eyes regarded him steadily in a moment of intense appraisal, and then she went on.

"The origin of the Priesthood of Nemi, Monsieur," she said, "is lost in the mazes of antiquity. According to one story, the priesthood began with the worship of Diana, at Nemi, near Rome, and was instituted by Orestes, who fled to Italy. Within the sanctuary at Nemi there grew a certain tree of which no branch might be broken. Only a runaway slave was allowed to break off, if he could, one of its boughs-"

"A runaway slave," he smiled. "Then I-"

She nodded. "You may think it fantastic, but that was what Monsieur Ivanitch feared when he learned last night what you were. And I-" she stopped again. "I could not believe that such things were possible-"

"They aren't," said Rowland, quietly.

His quiet voice steadied her.

"It is a strange tale," she said with a slow smile, "but you must hear it all. Only a runaway slave who succeeded in reaching the Golden Bough and broke it was entitled to challenge the Priest in single combat. If he-killed him, he reigned in the place of the priest, King of the Wood-"

"REX NEMORENSIS-" muttered Rowland.

"You've heard?"

"I read it-there," pointing to the pedestal. And as he looked, the meaning of the double bust came to him, the anguished face of the older man and the frowning face of the youth who was to take his place.

"He was afraid of me," he said. "I understand."

"The legend tells that the Golden Bough," she went on quickly, "was that which at the Sybil's bidding Æneas plucked before he visited the world of the dead, the flight of the slave was the flight of Orestes, his combat with the priest, a relic of the human sacrifices once offered to the Tauric Diana. A rule of succession by the sword which was observed down to imperial times-"

"A ghastly succession-and Ivanitch-?" he questioned.

She frowned and bent forward, her chin cupped in a hand.

"No one knows of his succession-or no one will tell. It was said that when he returned from Siberia, he killed the man who had sent him there."

"A pretty business," said Rowland, rising. "But I did not kill Kirylo Ivanitch-" he protested. "It was he himself who-" He paused and stared at Tanya thoughtfully.

"You can not deny that if he had not attacked you, he would be here, alive-now."

"That is true, perhaps. But murder-assassination-" He stopped and smiled grimly.

"Mademoiselle Korasov, I'm a soldier and have seen blood shed in a righteous cause. I kill a strange German in a trench because there is not room for us both, and because I am trained to kill as a duty I owe to France. But this-" he waved his hand toward the garden-"this is a brawl. A man attacks me. I defend myself-I strike him with my fists when I might have plunged his own knife into his heart. You saw me-I threw his knife away and fought as we do in my own country, with my hands. If he falls and strikes his head upon a stone-"

He broke off with a shrug.

"Whatever your rights, and I bear witness to them-nevertheless, Monsieur-justified as you are in our eyes and your own conscience, it was you who killed Kirylo Ivanitch."

He stared at her for a moment. Her brows were drawn, but her eyes peered beyond him, as though only herself saw with a true vision. No fanatic-no dreamer? Then what was behind her thoughts-the ones she had not uttered?

"The man is dead," he mumbled. "If I am guilty of his death, I want a court, a judge. I will abide by the law-"

But Tanya was slowly shaking her head.

"There shall be no Court, no Judges but those of Nemi. We saw-we know. There shall be no inquiry. Nemi shall bury its own dead, and you, Monsieur-"

"And I?" he asked as she paused.

"You, Monsieur Rowlan', shall be the Head of the Order of Nemi."

"But, Mademoiselle! You don't understand. I am a part of the Armies of Republican France-a part of the great machinery-a small part, lost but now restored to go on with the great task, a free world has set itself to do."

"A great task!" The girl had risen now and caught him by the arm with a grasp that seemed to try to burn its meaning into his very bones. And her voice, sunk to a whisper, came to his ears with tragic clearness. "There's a greater task for you here-Monsieur. A task that will take greater courage than facing the grenades of the trenches, a task that will take more than courage, – a task only for one of skill, intelligence and great daring. Is it danger that you seek? You will find it here-a danger that will lurk with you always, an insidious threat that will be most dangerous when least anticipated. There are others, Monsieur Rowlan', who may be taught to shoot from the trenches, but there is another destiny for you, a great destiny-to do for the world what half a million of armed men have it not within their power to do. It is here-that destiny-here at Nemi and the weapons shall be forged in your brain, Monsieur, subtle weapons, keen ones, subtler and keener than those of the enemies who will be all about you-your enemies, but more important than that-the enemies of France, or Russia, England and all the free peoples of the Earth-"

She had seemed inspired and her eager eyes, raised to his, burned with a gorgeous fire.

"Germany!" he whispered. "Here?"

"Here-everywhere. They plot-they plan, they seek control-to put men in high places where the cause of Junkerism may be served-"

"But they cannot!"

"I have not told you all. Listen!" She released his arm and sat. "You have misjudged us here. To your Western eyes we were mere actors in a morbid comedy of our own choosing, masqueraders, or fanatics, pursuing our foolish ritual in a sort of mild frenzy of self-absorption. But Nemi means something more than that. It reaches back beyond ancient Rome, comes down through the ages, through Italy, the Holy Roman Empire, through France, Germany and Russia, a secret society, the oldest in the history of the world, and the most powerful, with tentacles reaching into the politics of Free Masonry, of Socialism, of Nihilism, of Maximalism. The society of Nemi, an international society, with leaders in every party, a hidden giant with a hundred groping arms which only need a brain to actuate them all to one purpose."

She paused a moment, her hand at her heart, while she caught her breath. "And that purpose-Monsieur Rowlan'-the saving of the world from autocracy!" she said impressively.

He did not dare smile at her for her revelations were astounding, and in spite of himself all that was venturesome in his spirit had caught of her fire. The rapidity of her utterance and the nature of her disclosures for a moment struck him dumb. How much of this story that she told him was true, and how much born in the brain of the dead Ivanitch? A secret society with ramifications throughout Europe-a power which might pass into the hands of the enemies of France. Rowland was not dull, and clear thinking was slowly driving away the mists of illusion, leaving before him the plain facts of his extraordinary situation.