The floor swayed under my feet. The windows rattled with a violence beyond the strength of the storm. The dull boom of a heavy explosion blotted out the sounds of wind and falling water. The blast was not close at hand, but not far enough away to be off the island.
Crossing to the window, peering through the wet glass, I could see nothing. I should have seen a few misty lights far down the hill. Not being able to see them settled one point. The lights had gone out all over Couffignal, not only in the Hendrixson house.
That was better. The storm could have put the lighting system out of whack, could have been responsible for the explosion — maybe.
Staring through the black window, I had an impression of great excitement down the hill, of movement in the night. But all was too far away for me to have seen or heard even had there been lights, and all too vague to say what was moving. The impression was strong but worthless. It didn’t lead anywhere. I told myself I was getting feeble-minded, and turned away from the window.
Another blast spun me back to it. This explosion sounded nearer than the first, maybe because it was stronger. Peering through the glass again, I still saw nothing. And still had the impression of things that were big moving down there.
Bare feet pattered in the hall. A voice was anxiously calling my name. Turning from the window again, I pocketed my gun and snapped on the flashlight. Keith Hendrixson, in pajamas and bathrobe, looking thinner and older than anybody could be, came into the room.
“Is it—”
“I don’t think it’s an earthquake,” I said, since that is the first calamity your Californian thinks of. “The lights went off a little while ago. There have been a couple of explosions down the hill since the—”
I stopped. Three shots, close together, had sounded. Rifle-shots, but of the sort that only the heaviest of rifles could make. Then, sharp and small in the storm, came the report of a far-away pistol.
“What is it?” Hendrixson demanded.
“Shooting.”
More feet were pattering in the halls, some bare, some shod. Excited voices whispered questions and exclamations. The butler, a solemn, solid block of a man, partly dressed, and carrying a lighted five-pronged candlestick, came in.
“Very good, Brophy,” Hendrixson said as the butler put the candlestick on the table. “Will you try to learn what is the matter?”
“I have tried, sir. The telephone seems to be out of order, sir. Shall I send Oliver down to the village?”
“No-o. I don’t suppose it’s that serious. Do you think it is anything serious?” he asked me.
I said I didn’t think so, but I was paying more attention to the outside than to him. I had heard a thin screaming that could have come from a distant woman, and a volley of small-arms shots. The racket of the storm muffled these shots, but when the heavier firing we had heard before broke out again, it was clear enough.
To have opened the window would have been to let in gallons of water without helping us to hear much clearer. I stood with an ear tilted to the pane, trying to arrive at some idea of what was happening outside.
Another sound took my attention from the window — the ringing of the doorbell. It rang loudly and persistently.
Hendrixson looked at me. I nodded.
“See who it is, Brophy,” he said.
The butler went solemnly away, and came back even more solemnly.
“Princess Zhukovski,” he announced.
She came running into the room — the tall Russian girl I had seen at the reception. Her eyes were wide and dark with excitement. Her face was very white and wet. Water ran in streams down her blue waterproof cape, the hood of which covered her dark hair.
“Oh, Mr. Hendrixson!” She had caught one of his hands in both of hers. Her voice, with nothing foreign in its accents, was the voice of one who is excited over a delightful surprise. “The bank is being robbed, and the — what do you call him? — marshal of police has been killed!”
“What’s that?” the old man exclaimed, jumping awkwardly, because water from her cape had dripped down on one of his bare feet. “Weegan killed? And the bank robbed?”
“Yes! Isn’t it terrible?” She said it as if she were saying wonderful. “When the first explosion woke us, the general sent Ignati down to find out what was the matter, and he got down there just in time to see the bank blown up. Listen!”
We listened, and heard a wild outbreak of mixed gun-fire.
“That will be the general arriving!” she said. “He’ll enjoy himself most wonderfully. As soon as Ignati returned with the news, the general armed every male in the household from Aleksandr Sergyeevich to Ivan the cook, and led them out happier than he’s been since he took his division to East Prussia in 1914.”
“And the duchess?” Hendrixson asked.
“He left her at home with me, of course, and I furtively crept out and away from her while she was trying for the first time in her life to put water in a samovar. This is not the night for one to stay at home!”
“H-m-m,” Hendrixson said, his mind obviously not on her words. “And the bank!”
He looked at me. I said nothing. The racket of another volley came to us.
“Could you do anything down there?” he asked.
“Maybe, but—” I nodded at the presents under their covers.
“Oh, those!” the old man said. “I’m as much interested in the bank as in them; and, besides, we will be here.”
“All right!” I was willing enough to carry my curiosity down the hill. “I’ll go down. You’d better have the butler stay in here, and plant the chauffeur inside the front door. Better give them guns if you have any. Is there a raincoat I can borrow? I brought only a light overcoat.”
Brophy found a yellow slicker that fitted me. I put it on, stowed gun and flashlight conveniently under it, and found my hat while Brophy was getting and loading an automatic pistol for himself and a rifle for Oliver, the mulatto chauffeur.
Hendrixson and the princess followed me downstairs. At the door I found she wasn’t exactly following me — she was going with me.
“But, Sonya!” the old man protested.
“I’m not going to be foolish, though I’d like to,” she promised him. “But I’m going back to my Irinia Androvana, who will perhaps have the samovar watered by now.”
“That’s a sensible girl!” Hendrixson said, and let us out into the rain and the wind.
It wasn’t weather to talk in. In silence we turned downhill between two rows of hedging, with the storm driving at our backs. At the first break in the hedge I stopped, nodding toward the black blot a house made.
“That is your—”
Her laugh cut me short. She caught my arm and began to urge me down the road again.
“I only told Mr. Hendrixson that so he would not worry,” she explained. “You do not think I am not going down to see the sights.”
She was tall. I am short and thick. I had to look up to see her face — to see as much of it as the rain-grey night would let me see.
“You’ll be soaked to the hide, running around in this rain,” I objected.
“What of that? I am dressed for it.”
She raised a foot to show me a heavy waterproof boot and a woolen-stockinged leg.
“There’s no telling what we’ll run into down there, and I’ve got work to do,” I insisted. “I can’t be looking out for you.”
“I can look out for myself.”
She pushed her cape aside to show me a square automatic pistol in one hand.
“You’ll be in my way.”
“I will not,” she retorted. “You’ll probably find I can help you. I’m as strong as you, and quicker, and I can shoot.”
The reports of scattered shooting had punctuated our argument, but now the sound of heavier firing silenced the dozen objections to her company that I could still think of. After all, I could slip away from her in the dark if she became too much of a nuisance.