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Princess Galva, The

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<h3> CHAPTER XXX </h3> <h4> REVENGE </h4> A week after Anna had taken up her residence at No. 9, Dorrington Street, Se�or Gabriel Dasso, as usual, left the house about eight o'clock. He had seen his fellow-lodger for the first time when he had passed her in the dimness of the stairs that night as he went out. But the heavily veiled lady conveyed nothing to him at the moment, and the stairs disguised the height, which was so strong a characteristic of Madame Paluda. Dasso had merely raised his hat and passed on. For some reason a bad mood was upon the ex-dictator of San Pietro. He dined as usual at an exclusive little restaurant in Soho, but his favourite dishes gave him no pleasure, and although he drank twice as much wine as was his custom, the black dog had settled firmly on his back and refused to be dislodged. The hole-and-corner life he was leading was becoming very wearisome to a man of his tastes, and his long daylight sittings in the little Bloomsbury room were getting sadly on his nerves. As he sat over his coffee and cognac he asked himself whether all this hiding was necessary, after all. It was only the memory of the man he had seen reading the Imparcial in Paris which had prompted him to this secrecy. After all, it may have been a coincidence. True, the man had also been seen at Dieppe, but perhaps that was another coincidence. He had certainly not embarked on the Arundel with him, and at Newhaven Dasso had noticed nothing suspicious. No, it was absurd; in the morning he would leave Dorrington Street and take up his residence at some hotel and live a life more fitted to his tastes. Mozara's body, he told himself, would have been burnt out of all recognition in the fire—and ashes tell no tales. Curiously enough, however, the woman he had passed on the stairs would come unbidden into his mind. Perhaps some turn of the head, some gesture, some mannerism, reminded him of some one he had seen before. Later, as he walked round the promenade of the Empire the memory of the woman on the stairs remained with him. He was drinking heavily to-night, and as he drank the depression he had felt earlier in the evening returned to him tenfold; something seemed to tell him that retribution was on his heels, and little devils hammered at the cells of his brain telling him that his hour had come. He walked home to Bloomsbury, but the exercise in the night air gave him no relief. He was full of fancies—there were steps behind him—hands stretched out and touched his shoulder. Once he seemed to hear his name called. He cursed softly and told himself that it was nerves. He had no right to coop himself up in these dingy surroundings. It was life he wanted, rich and full. It was nerves, again, he said, that made him imagine that a bitter taste came into his mouth after he had drank his consomm� that night; perhaps that infernal Liz had put too much salt in it. As he undressed, a curious feeling of lassitude came over him. He forgot his fears, forgot everything but that he wanted to sleep. He sat on the edge of the little bed and fumbled with unhandy fingers with his collar stud, but he did not undo it. With a little sigh his hands dropped nerveless into his lap and he fell back on the shabby eiderdown, his face pale and his breath coming in short, uneven gasps. ***** In the night Dasso dreamed a strange dream. It seemed to him that he awoke to find the room hazy with the grey light of the dawning. Through the little crevices between the slats of the Venetian blinds the pale radiance edged its way, giving to objects in the room a ghostly and unwonted appearance. Between the man on the bed and the window there seemed to stand the tall shadowy figure of a woman, a figure which, as he looked, moved steadily towards him. It seemed to Dasso that the woman bent over him and that two black piercing eyes burnt into his very soul. He tried to speak but could not. Then he heard a voice. The figure was speaking to him in a whisper, low and vibrant with passion, telling him what the little devils had been hammering into his brain—that his hour had come. "—your hour, Gabriel Dasso, and my hour. For fifteen years I have waited for this moment, and I have never doubted but that it would come——" The figure rose up and it seemed to Dasso that he watched her as she glided silently about the room. It seemed to him that she took up the basin which had contained his consomm� and emptied the little liquid which remained into the mould of a pot containing a palm which stood in the alcove by the window. The whisper went on, and now Dasso told himself that this was Miranda's companion who was in the room with him. "—and it is curious, is it not? that so experienced a conspirator as Gabriel Dasso, master of plot and counterplot, should fail to notice that his soup had, shall we say, a distinctive taste? Is it not curious that he should not have noticed that the lock of his door had been tampered with? You have been insensible some hours now—and you are bound and gagged. But you are awake, Dasso, and you can see what I am doing." The figure came again over to the bed and bent down again above the bound figure. "I am a woman of peace, Dasso, and it is no crime I am committing—only an act of justice. For fifteen years I have put the thought of vengeance out of my mind, considering the living before the dead. After to-night I will take my place again in the world, without regret and without exultation—I am a tragic figure, am I not? the mother of a murdered child. "Any time in those fifteen years I could have killed you, you did not know me well and it would have been easy. But I wanted you to know me and to know why I am doing this. Perhaps God will let your agony be your expiation." The figure rose up and crossed over to the little gas stove that stood in the fire-place. In even tones she went on— "I am turning on the taps, here, Dasso, and all the crevices in the room are stopped up. In a little while—when—when you are quite dead, I will put a cloth over my mouth and come in and cut off the scarves which bind you—they are silk and will leave no marks. Then I will rouse the house and complain of a smell of gas, and afterwards there will be——" The vision of the woman with the piercing eyes grew gradually fainter .... and it seemed to Dasso that he awoke suddenly. ***** The room was quite light now. It had been a bad dream. Dasso tried to rise—why, what was this? His hands and legs were firmly bound and his jaws ached with the strain of the gag. The air of the room was heavy with the fumes of gas, and his chest pained him as though it would burst. In his ears were weird noises and he felt the sweat of fear wet upon his forehead. Air—he must have air. The window near him seemed to mock him with its promise of life. With an effort he managed to turn on his side, and inch by laborious inch, he worked his way to the edge of the bed—then on to the floor. He lay for a moment, breathing heavily, his heart beating in great blows against his ribs. He struggled on to his knees and began a series of grotesque hops towards the window. But with each movement the effort grew more difficult and the strain on his heart grew tenser. Twice he fell forward on to his face, once he struggled again to his feet. The second time he remained lying where he had fallen, his head buried in the dusty fur rug beneath his goal. Below, in the street, he heard the jangle of milk cans. Then a man cried cheerily to his horse and a cart rattled past the house. Some sparrows flew past the window chirping and quarrelling—they made a shadow on the blinds and were gone. If only he could throw something and break a pane of glass. Air—air—not two feet away—and life—— With a superhuman effort Dasso was on his knees again—then, a look of despair and a great fear came into the white staring face, and with no sound he rolled over and lay still. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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