Part 65

The other answered, “If he said soon after five, he will come then. We must be ready for him!”

“Can’t you see anything yet?”

The two men went off. Wenk tried to raise his head, but could not see beyond the frame of the window. The country must be flat--there was nothing but sky discernible.

“Give me the glass! There he is!” Wenk heard suddenly.

“Now comes the decisive moment,” he thought, and summoned all his powers to help him dispel the dread ideas which crowded upon him.

The events that followed occurred in rapid succession. The door of the car was flung open, and hands gripped him by the shoulders, which lay nearest the door. They dragged him out, his feet striking painfully on the step and then on the ground. The second man took his legs, and they carried him a short distance. Then Wenk saw sand-dunes in front of him, and a few steps further the men had climbed with him to the top.

“Faster!” cried the man behind, as he turned round and looked back over the landscape.

Wenk heard a motor-car, and said to himself, “That is Mabuse coming!” Suddenly a light awning appeared above him, and after a time he recognized it for the wing of an aeroplane.

The two men arranged everything with hasty movements. Wenk was laid on the sand, and two cords tied together made a noose under his chest and arms. One man raised his legs and these were fastened by two cords which had been attached somewhere to a pole rather high up. A third leash was then slung round his hips. It was not long before Wenk realized that he was hanging bound to the outer wall of the car of a flying-machine. He lay closely fastened there like a package that was to be taken on a journey. With his uncovered right eye he saw beyond the edge of the bandage that the aeroplane stood on a prepared landing-stage over a course which sloped down to the sea. Beyond it stretched the shore. It was ebb-tide.

“I am going to have a sea voyage,” cried a despairing voice within Wenk sadly. “How long it is since my last voyage. All the years of war lie between, and yet now, for me, comes the war--the bombshell is prepared.”

From the depths of his muscular being there came an answer to this sad voice of despair. He exerted his muscles against his bonds. His body moved and wriggled in the nooses, and the wing of the machine quivered beneath the shock, and swayed above him.

Then a broad face and a high, well-formed head bent over him, and two fiery eyes seemed to pierce him through and through.

“Aha!” said the voice of the man who stood above him.

“Yes, there is the foe, there is Mabuse,” thought Wenk.

“Get in!” he heard him say, and there was the rustling of a woman’s dress, and out of the rustling a voice ... a voice that made his knees tremble in their bonds. He knew that voice! The rustling was louder and closer, and the woman’s voice cried, “What is that?” Wenk heard the horror, trouble and anxiety that spoke in the voice as she put the question.

“Get in!” said Mabuse again. Then the voice, the well-known, low, sweet voice of the Countess Told, said in a tone of anxious entreaty, “What are you doing with this man?”

Wenk said to himself, “She does not know who I am.”

“Get in! He’s going to make the trip with us, and we haven’t a third seat. Come along quickly, now!” cried Mabuse.

Wenk saw Mabuse’s arm seize the woman and lift her into the gondola, then he himself got in, making use of Wenk’s body as a step, and when he was settled in the pilot’s seat, not two fingers’ breadth above Wenk, he bent down to him and said in a harsh tone, “The gentleman is going to accompany us on our journey--but whither? Good luck!--All ready?” he called out to the men.

“All quite ready, sir!”

The propeller hummed and the aeroplane glided along the course so swiftly that the very moment Wenk felt the throbbing of the engine its wheels were already clear of the ground and the earth vanished from his sight. The machine soared upwards steeply, and it seemed to Wenk as if his body were standing upright. No word was spoken in the car. The air beat so heavily upon him that it seemed like flying wood, and he soon began to feel bitterly cold. The cold seemed to cut through the wide opening of his evening suit and strike at his very heart. He felt that it pressed ever deeper and deeper within him, like revolving knives. His hair was stiff and stood on end, and it seemed as if needles were pricking him all over. He had lost all capability of thought, save for one idea. It dimly occurred to him that he was enduring martyrdom, and that this martyrdom was on account of the Countess Told, whom he had once loved, at a time when such love was not lawful.

Then he felt the blow of a fist on his head, and a harsh voice asked, “Is twelve thousand feet high enough for you?” A few moments later he heard, “Or are you already dead--of fright?”

The voice died away and Wenk felt that the aeroplane was being righted. When it was flying level, a hand touched his head, hastily tearing away his bonds. Then Wenk saw the face of Mabuse bending over him. He was silent, but his features were distorted with a malicious joy which aroused horror. His grey eyes had neither shape nor pupils; they were like old weather-beaten stones, and, as Wenk recognized with a shudder, they were glowering death at him. Then the capacious mouth opened like the yawning chasm in a rocky gorge, and the harsh voice said, “You have dared to oppose your will against mine. You are now facing your last moment, and I have taken the gag from your mouth so that my ears may enjoy the shriek with which you fall twelve thousand feet down to your own world!”

Wenk heard his voice, and it sounded like thunder rolling along after the lightning flash. He saw that Mabuse was loosening the bonds that held his legs. He tugged and tore at them. Suddenly his legs were free. For a moment they fell, then the leash that was bound round his hips held them again, and the hands were now busy with this. In a few seconds it was untied.

In his further fall Wenk’s body regained an upright position, held only by the noose which bound his chest to the wall of the car. He suddenly felt that his hands were free, and at this feeling he was fired with a sudden hope. In the midst of his phantasies there surged upwards like a fairy story the recollection of the Countess’s beauty and sympathy. He had never forgotten her, and now in the last moment of his life, when she herself was so close to him, his feeling for her, exalted to an undying and compassionate brotherhood, was wafted as a cloud beyond the savage and brutal murderer, to envelop the frail human being beside him with indomitable pride and courage.

Wenk saw her eyes, fluttering like birds shot down in the clear blue ether, glance for a moment beyond and above Mabuse’s eager bent head.... He saw her hands, tearing off their fur gloves, cling white and trembling to Mabuse’s shoulder as she strove to drag him back from his deadly intent.

But Mabuse shook the woman off, and raised his hands with mad rage to untie the last noose. He tore undone the first of its fastenings, making Wenk’s body sink deeper, and beat away Wenk’s hands, which were seeking to maintain a grip on the edge of the car, with his closed fists.

Then one last defiance of fate, arising from the will to live, lent strength to Wenk’s voice as he shouted in the air, “He is the murderer of Count Told. He made him cheat at cards! He put the razor into his hands that he might cut his throat!”