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He nodded, clearing his throat huskily. Her hand on his shoulder was
a thing to charm him to fire.

"I'd fight--I'd fight for you," he replied uneasily, "as long as--as
long as there was any one to fight."

He was feeling his way in speech, as best he could, past
conventionalities. There had dawned on him, duskily and half-seen,
the unfitness of little proprieties and verbose frills while he went
to war across the roofs with this woman of passion.

"You would," she said fervently, with half-closed eyes. "I know you
would."

She dropped her hand, and stood beside him in silence. There was a
long pause. He guessed she was waiting for the next move from him,
and he nerved himself to be adequate to her unspoken demand.

"You lead on," he said at last unsteadily.

"Where?" she asked breathlessly.

He did not speak, but waved an open hand that gave her the freedom of
choice. It was his surrender to the wild spirit of the Coast, and he
grasped the head of the brass image the tighter when he had done it.
She and Fate must guide now; it rested with him only to break
opposing heads.

She smiled and shivered. "Come on, then," she said, and started
before him.

They traversed perhaps a score of roofs enclosed with high parapets,
on to each of which he lifted her, hands in her armpits, swinging her
cleanly to the level of his face and planting her easily and squarely
on the coping. He welcomed each opportunity to take hold of her and
put out the strength of his muscles, and she sat where he placed her,
smiling and silent, while he clambered up and dropped down on the
other side.

At length a creaking wooden stair that hung precariously on the sheer
side of a house brought them again to the ground level. It was
another gloomy alley into which they descended, and the darkness
about him and the mud underfoot struck Dawson with a sense of being
again in familiar surroundings. The woman's hand slid into his as
he stood, and they started along again together.

The alley seemed to be better frequented than that of which he
already had experience. More than once dark, sheeted figures passed
them by, noiseless save for the underfoot swish in the mud, and
presently the alley widened into a little square, at one side of
which there was a fresh rustle of green things. At the side of it a
dim light showed through a big open door, from which came a musical
murmur of voices, and Dawson recognized a church.

"The Little Garden of St. Sebastien," murmured the woman, and led him
on to cross the square. A figure that had been hidden in the shadow
now lounged forth; and revealed itself to them as a man in uniform.
He stood across their way, and accosted the woman briefly in
Portuguese.

Dawson stood fidgeting while she spoke with him. He seemed to be
repeating a brief phrase over and over again, harshly and irritably;
but she was cajoling, remonstrating, arguing, as he had seen her
argue in that ill-fated room an hour back.

"What's the matter with him?" demanded Dawson impatiently.

"He says he won't let me go," answered the woman, with a tone of
despair in her voice.

"The devil he won't! What's he got to do with it?"

"Oh, these little policemen, they always arrest me when they can,"
she replied, with a smile.

"Here, you!" cried Dawson, addressing himself to the man in uniform--
"you go away. Voetsaak, see! You mind your own business, and get
out."

The officer drawled something in his own tongue, which was, of
course, unintelligible to Dawson, but it had the effect of annoying
him strangely.

"You little beast!" he said, and knocked the man down with his fist.

"Run," hissed the woman at his elbow--"run before he can get up. No,
not that way. To the church and out by another way!"

She caught his hand, and together they raced across the square and in
through the big door.

There were a few people within, most sleeping on the benches and
along the floor by the walls. In the chancel there were others,
masked by the lights, busy with some offices. A wave of sudden song
issued from among them as Dawson and the woman entered, and gave way
again to the high, nervous voice of a map that stood before the
altar. All along the sides of the church was shadow, and the woman
speedily found a little arched door.

"Come through the middle of it," she whispered urgently to Dawson, as
she packed her loose skirts together in her hand--"cleanly through
the middle; do not rub the wall as you come."

He obeyed and followed her, and they were once more in the darkness
of an alley.

"It was the door of the lepers," she explained, as she let her skirts
swish down again. "See, there is the light by the sea!"

The wind came cleanly up the alley, and soon they were at its mouth,
where a lamp flickered in the breeze. Dawson drew a deep breath, and
tucked the image under his arm. His palm was sore with the roughness
of its head.

"Some one is passing," said the woman in a low tone. "Wait here till
they are by."

Footsteps were approaching along the front, and very soon Dawson
heard words and started.

"What is it!" whispered the woman, her breath on his neck.

"Listen!" he answered curtly.

The others came within the circle of the lamp--a girl and two men.

"I do hope he's found my idol," the girl was saying.

Dawson stepped into the light, and they turned and saw him.

"Why, here he is," exclaimed Miss Paterson shrilly.

He raised his hat to the woman who stood at the entrance to the
alley--raised it as he would have raised it to a waitress in a bun-
shop, and went over to the people from the second-class saloon.

"I found it," he said, lifting the image forward, and brushing with
his hand at the foulness of blood and hair upon it. "But I was almost
thinking I should miss the boat."



II

THE SENSE OF CLIMAX

It was in the fall of the year that Truda Schottelius on tour came to
that shabby city of Southern Russia. Nowadays, the world remembers
little of her besides her end, which stirred it as Truda Schottelius
could always stir her audience; but in those days hers was a fame
that had currency from Paris to Belgrade, and the art of drama was
held her debtor.

It was soon after dawn that she looked from her window in the train,
weary with twelve hours of traveling, and saw the city set against
the pale sky, unreal and remote like a scene in a theatre, while
about it the flat land stretched vacant and featureless. The light
was behind it, and it stood out in silhouette like a forced effect,
and Truda, remarking it, frowned, for of late she found herself
impatient of forced effects. She was a pale, slender, brown-haired
woman, with a small clear, pliant face, and some manner of languor in
all her attitudes that lent them a slow grace of their own and did
not at all impair the startling energy she could command for her
work. While she looked out at the city there came a tap at the door
of her compartment, and her maid entered with tea. Behind her, a
little drawn in that early hour, came Truda's manager, Monsieur
Vaucher.

"Madame finds herself well?" he asked solicitously, but shivering
somewhat. "Madame is in the mood for further triumphs?"

Truda gave him a smile. Monsieur Vaucher was a careful engineer of
her successes, a withered little middle-aged Parisian, who had grown
up in the mechanical service of great singers and actors. There was
not a tone in his voice, not a gesture in his repertory, that was not
an affectation; and, with it all, she knew him for a man of sterling
loyalty and a certain simplicity of heart.

"We are on the point of arriving," went on Monsieur Vaucher. "I come
to tell Madame how the ground lies in this city. It is, you see, a
place vexed with various politics, an arena of trivialities. In other
words, Madame, the best place in the world for one who is--shall we
say?--detached."

Truda laughed, sipping her warm tea.

"Politics have never tempted me, my friend," she replied.

Monsieur Vaucher bowed complaisantly.

"Your discretion is frequently perfect," he said. "And if I suggest
that here is an occasion for a particular discretion, it is only
because I have Madame's interests at heart. Now, the chief matters of
dispute here are----"

Truda interrupted him. "Please!" she said. "It does not matter at
all. And think! Politics before breakfast. I am surprised at you,
Monsieur Vaucher."

The little man shrugged. "It is as Madame pleases," he said.
"However, here we are at the station; I will go to make all ready."

Truda had a wide experience of strange towns, and preserved yet some
interest in making their acquaintance. At that early hour the streets
were sparsely peopled; the city was still at its toilet. A swift
carriage, manned by a bulky coachman of that spacious degree of
fatness which is fashionable in Russia, bore her to her hotel along
wide monotonous ways, flanked with dull buildings. It was all very
prosaic, very void of character; it did not at all engage her
thoughts, and it was in weariness that she gained her rooms and
disposed herself for a day of rest before the evening's task.

Another woman might have gathered depression and the weakness of
melancholy from this dullness of arrival, following on the dullness
of travel; but a great actress is made on other lines. A large
audience was gathered in the theatre that night to make acquaintance
with her, for her coming was an event of high importance. Only one
box was empty--that of the Governor of the city, a Russian Prince
whom Truda had met before; it was understood that he was away, and
could not return till the following day.

But for the rest the house was full; its expectancy made itself felt
like an atmosphere till the curtain went up and the play began to
shape itself. Audiences, like other assemblies of people, have their
racial characteristics; it was the task of Truda to get the range, as
it were--to find the measure of their understanding; and before the
first act was over she had their sympathy. The rest was but the
everyday routine of the stage, that grotesque craft wherein delicate
emotions are handled like crowbars, and only the crude colors of life
are visible. It was a success--even a great success, and nobody save
Truda had an inkling that there was yet something to discover in the
soul of a Russian audience.

At her coming forth, the square was thick with people under the
lights, and those nearest the stage-door cheered her as she passed to
her carriage. But Truda was learned in the moods of crowds, and in
her reception she detected a perfunctory note, as though the people
who waved and shouted had turned from graver matters to notice her.
She saw, as the carriage dashed away, that the crowd was strongly
leavened with uniforms of police; there was not time to see more
before a corner was turned and the square cut off from view. She sat
back among her cushions with a shrug directed at those corners in her
affairs which always shut off the real things of life.

The carriage went briskly towards her hotel, traversing those wide
characterless streets which are typical of a Russian town. The
pavements were empty, the houses shuttered and dark; save for the
broad back of the coachman perched before her, she sat in a solitude.
Thus it was that the sound which presently she heard moved her to
quick attention, the noise of a child crying bitterly in the
darkness. She sat up and leaned aside to look along the bare street,
and suddenly she called to the coachman to halt. When he did so, the
carriage was close to the place whence the cry came.

"What is it? What is it?" called Truda, in soft Russian, and stepped
down to the ground. Only that shrill weeping answered her.

She picked her way to the pavement, where something lay huddled
against the wall of the house, and the coachman, torpid on his box
behind the fidgety horses, started at her sharp exclamation.

"Come here!" she called to him. "Bring me one of the lamps. Here is a
horrible thing. Be quick!"

He was nervous about leaving his horses, but Truda's tone was
compelling. With gruntings and ponderously he obeyed, and the
carriage-lamp shed its light over the matter in hand. Under the wall,
with one clutching hand outspread as though to grip at the stones of
the pavement, lay the body of a woman, her face upturned and vacant.
And by it, still crying, crouched a child, whose hands were closed on
the woman's disordered dress. Truda, startled to stillness, stood for
a space of moments staring; the unconscious face on the ground seemed
to look up to her with a manner of challenge, and the child,
surprised by the light, paused in its weeping and cowered closer to
the body.

"Murder?" said Truda hoarsely. It was a question, and the coachman
shuffled uneasily.

"I think," he stammered, while the lamp swayed in his gauntleted hand
and its light traveled about them in wild curves--"I think, your
Excellency, it is a Jew."

"A Jew!" Truda stared at him. "Yes." He bent to look closer at the
dead woman, puffing with the exertion. "Yes," he repeated, "a Jew.
That is all, your Excellency."

He seemed relieved at the discovery. Truda was still staring at him,
in a cold passion of horror.

"My God!" she breathed; then turned from him with a shudder and knelt
beside the child. "Go back to the carriage! Wait!" she bade him, with
her back turned, and he was fain to obey her with his best speed.
There, ere his conventional torpor claimed him again, he could hear
her persuading and comforting the child in a voice of gentle murmurs,
and at last she returned, carrying the child in her arms, and bade
him drive on. As he went, the murmuring voice still sounded, gentle
and very caressing.

Truda paused to make no explanations at all when the hotel was
reached, but passed through the hall and up to her own rooms with the
frightened child in her arms. But what the coachman had to say, when
questioned, presently brought her manager knocking at her door. He
was hot and nervous, and Truda met him with the splendid hauteur she
could assume upon occasion to quell interference with her actions.
Behind her, upon a couch, the child was lying wrapped in a shawl,
looking on the pair of them and Truda's hovering maid with great
almond eyes set in a little smooth swarthy face.

"Madame, Madame!" cried M. Vaucher. "What is this I hear? How are we
to get on in Russia--in Russia of all places--if you go in the face
of public opinion like this?"

"I do not know," replied Truda very calmly. She took a chair beside
the child, leaving him standing, and put a long white hand on the
little tumbled head.

"It is incredible!" he said. "Incredible! And at such a time as this,
too. What do you propose to do with the child?"

"I do not know," answered Truda again.

"It will be claimed," he said, biting his nails. "These Jews are
never short of relatives."

"If it is claimed by a relative, that will be the end of the matter,"
replied Truda. "If not--we shall see."

"Then let us hope it will be claimed," he said quickly. He gazed
absently at the child, and shook his head. "Ah, Madame," he said, "if
only one could cut an actress's heart out! The worst of them is, they
are all woman, even the greatest."

Truda smiled a little. "That is inconvenient, no doubt," she
suggested.

"Inconvenient!" He hoisted his shoulders in a mighty shrug. "It is
devastating, Madame. See now! Here is this city--a beastly place, it
is true, but with much money, and very busy exterminating Jews. Which
will you, Madame--its money or its Jews? You see the choice! But I
will weary you no longer; the child will assuredly be claimed."

He bowed and took his departure; it was not well, he knew, for any
manager to push Truda Schottelius too far. Therefore he went to make
it known that a Jewish baby of two or thereabouts was to be had for
the asking, at the hotel; and Truda went to work to make her newly-
found responsibility comfortable. For that night she experienced what
a great artist must often miss--something with a flavor more subtle
than the realization of a strong role, than passion, than success. It
was when the baby was sleeping in her own bed, its combed head
dinting one of her own white pillows, that she looked across to her
deft, tactful maid.

"I believe I have found a new sensation, Marie," she remarked.

The maid smiled. "I had little sisters," she answered
inconsequently.

"Yes?" said Truda. "I had nothing--not even a little sister."

The new sensation remained with her that night, for the baby
slumbered peacefully in her arms; and several times she awoke to bend
above it and wonder, with happiness and longing, over the miracle of
that little dependent life cast away on the shores of the world. By
morning its companionship had so wrought in her that she could have
given the manager a clear answer if he had come again to ask what she
proposed to do with the child in the event of no one claiming it. But
he did not come. Instead, there came a big red-haired young Jew,
asserting that he was the child's uncle.

Truda was at breakfast in her room when he arrived and was shown in;
opposite to her at the table, the baby was making the most of various
foods. It greeted him with shouts and open welcome; no further proof
was needed to establish his claim. Truda, delicate and fragile in a
morning wrapper, a slender vivid exotic of a woman, shaped as though
by design to the service of art, looked up to scan him. He stood just
within the door, his peaked cap in his hand, great of stature, keen-
faced, rugged, with steady eyes that took her in unwinkingly. The
pair of them made a contrast not the less grotesque because in each
there was strength. For some moments neither spoke, while the baby
gurgled happily.

Truda sighed. "She knows you," she said. "She is a dear little
thing."

The Jew nodded. "She is dear to us," he said. "And we are very
grateful to you, Excellency."

He was still watching her with a shrewd scrutiny, as though he made
an estimate of her worth.

"That was her mother?" asked Truda. "The dead woman in the street, I
mean?"

"Yes," answered the man. "That was her mother. Her father went the
same way six months ago, but in another street."

Truda's lips parted, but she said nothing.

"Ah, perhaps your Excellency does not understand?" suggested the man.
The cynical humor in his face had no resemblance to mirth. "They were
Jews, you see--Jews."

"Judenhetze?" asked Truda. She had heard of old of that strange fever
that seizes certain peoples and inflames them with a rabid lust for
Jewish blood.

"Yes," answered the Jew. "That is what they call it. But a local
variety. Here it is not sudden passion, but a thing suggested to the
mob, and guided by police and officers. It is an expedient of
politics."

He spoke with a restraint that was more than any, emphasis.

"And therefore," he went on, "the kindness of your Excellency is the
greater, since you saved the child not from law-breakers, but from
authority itself."

"I have done nothing," said Truda. "The child is a dear little thing.
I--I wish she were mine."

"She, too, is a Jew," said the other.

"I know," answered Truda. The steadiness of his gaze was an
embarrassment by now. She flushed a little under it.

"I am wondering," she said, "if nothing can be done. I think--I
believe--that the world does not know of this persecution. Perhaps I
could say a word--in some high quarter----"

"Why should you concern yourself?" asked the Jew evenly. "Why should
you take this trouble?"

"Why?" Truda looked up at him, doubtful of his meaning.

He nodded. "Why?" he repeated. "It cannot be good for Truda
Schottelius to stand on the side of Jews?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Truda.

He continued to look at her steadily, but made no answer. She rose
from her chair and took one step towards him; then paused. A tense
moment of silence passed, and Truda Schottelius sighed.

"How did you know?" she asked, in a matter-of-fact tone.

The big young man smiled. "How did I know that you, too, were a Jew--
is that what you mean?" Truda nodded. "Ah, Excellency, there is an
instinct in this thing, and, besides, who but a Jew is a great artist
nowadays? Believe me, there is not one of us from whom you could hide
it."

"Is it as plain as that?" asked Truda.

"As plain as that," he replied. She laughed frankly, meeting his eyes
with unabashed mirth, till he perforce smiled in sympathy.

"Then," she cried, "what, does it matter? Here I am, a Jewess. I
cannot hide it. The first Jewish baby that cries for me wins me over;
and there are worse things--yes, many worse things--than being
knocked on the head by a drunken Christian. You didn't know that, did
you?"

"I do not doubt what you say," he answered.

"You do not doubt!" repeated Truda, with quick contempt. "I tell you
it is so, and I know. Yes!" For a moment her face darkened as though
with memories. "But," she went on, "I have a place. I have a name.
What I say will be heard."

"Yes," said the Jew simply. "What you say will be heard."

She nodded two or three times slowly. "Wait!" she said. "I know the
Governor of this place; he is by way of being a friend of mine. And
beyond him there are greater men all easy of access--to me. And
beyond them is the sentiment of Europe, the soft hearts of the world,
easiest and nearest of all. I tell you, something can be done;
presently there will be a reckoning with these gentle Christians."

She had stirred him at last. "And you will acknowledge that you are a
Jewess?" he asked.

She laughed. "I will boast of it," she cried. "And now, this is the
time to take the baby away, while I am nerved for sacrifices. Soon I
shall have nothing left at all."

The young Jew looked over to the child, who was getting new effects
out of a spoon and a dish of jam. "The child is in good hands," he
said. "We shall know she is safe with you."

"Ah!" Truda turned to him with a light in her wonderful eyes. "I
shall not fail you, if it were only for this."

"I am sure you will not fail your own people," he answered; "you do
not come of traitors."

He patted the baby's cheek with a couple of big fingers and turned to
the door.

"You do not come of traitors," he repeated, and then Truda was alone
again with the child. But she did not go to it at once, to make sure
of its company. She stood where the Jew had left her, deep in
thought. And the manner of her thinking was not one of care; for the
first time she seemed to taste a sense of freedom.

Of the wrath and bewilderment of her manager there is no need to
speak; a long experience of famous actresses and singers had not
exhausted that expert's capacity for despair. His pessimism gained
some color that evening, when Truda had to face a house that was
plainly willing to be unsympathetic; applause came doubtfully and in
patches, till she gained a hold of them and made herself their master
by main force of personality. Monsieur Vaucher, the manager, was
still a connoisseur of art. Years of feeling the public pulse through
the box-office had not stripped him of a certain shrewd perception of
what was fine and what was mean in drama; and he chuckled and wagged
his head in the wings as minute by minute the spell of Truda's genius
strengthened, till there came that tenseness of silence in the great
theatre which few actors live to know, and Truda, vibrant, taut-
nerved, and superb, plucked at men's hearts as if they had been harp-
strings. It was not till the curtain was down that the spell broke,
and then crash upon crash roared the tumultuous applause of the
audience.

It was Vaucher who rushed forward, as Truda came from the stage, to
kiss her hand extravagantly.

"Ah! Madame!" he cried, looking up to her with his shrewd face
working; "it is not for me to guide you. Do as you will by day, but
be a genius at night. At this rate you could unman an army."

Truda smiled and withdrew her hand.

"That was Prince Sarasin in the great box," she said. "Presently he
will send his card in."

Vaucher nodded. "That was he," he said. "He is Governor of this town.
Madame will receive him? Or not?"

"Oh yes; let him in to me," she answered. "He is an old friend of
mine."

Vaucher bowed. "What a happiness for him, then!" he said gravely, and
opened the door of her dressing-room for her.

Prince Sarasin lost no time in making Truda's word good. By the time
she was ready to receive him, he was waiting for admission. He strode
in, burly in his uniform, and bowed to her effusively, full of
admiration. He was a great dark Russian, heavy and massive, with a
big petulant face not without intelligence, and Truda had known him
of old in Paris. She looked at him now with some anxiety, trying to
gauge his susceptibility. He had the spacious manners of a man of
action, smiled readily and with geniality; but Truda realized that
she had never before made him a request, and the real character of
the man was still to find.

"Superb! Magnificent!" he was saying. "You have ripened, my friend;
your power has grown to maturity. It is people like you who make
epochs."

"Sit down!" she bade him. "I am a little tired, as you may think.
Your town is hard on one's nerves, Prince."

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