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Gibbs George
The Secret Witness

CHAPTER XXV
THE RIFT IN THE ROCK

Hugh Renwick in his borrowed plumage, strode forth before dawn, and reaching a spot where the valley narrowed into the gorge and marked the grim outline of Schloss Szolnok against the lightening East, slowly climbed the rugged slope of the mountain on his left which faced it. He meant to spend the morning in a study of the approaches to the castle, and if possible devise some means by which he could inspect it unobserved at closer range. Daylight found him perched in a crevice of rock among some trees, through the leaves of which he could clearly see the distant mass of stone which rose in solitary dignity, an island above the mists of the valley, a grim relic of an age when such a situation meant isolation and impregnability.

Indeed, it scarcely seemed less impregnable now, for upon two sides at least, the cliffs rose sheer from the gorge until they were joined by the heavy buttresses which tapered gracefully until they joined the walls of the crenelated towers and bastions. In the center of the mass of buildings rose the square solid mass of the keep, with its crenelated roof and small windows commanding every portion of the space enclosed within the gray walls. He marked the dim lines of a road which ascended from the valley upon the further mountain, now scarcely visible because of the vegetation which grew luxuriantly on the hillsides, and he studied this approach to the castle most attentively—the straight reach of wall, built to span a branch of the gorge beyond, perhaps two hundred feet deep and six hundred wide. This was the main entrance to the castle, a narrow causeway, that terminated at the gate where he marked a drawbridge now raised, which hung by chains to the heavy walls above.

The only means of access? Perhaps, and if the gate were guarded, impassable by night as well as day. But Renwick was not sure that there was no other means of ingress. To the left of the keep, and on a level with the top of the long curtain of wall, the building fell away in ruins, for portions of old bastions were missing, and there was a breach in the northern wall, which had tumbled outward over the precipice into the ravine below.

As daylight came Renwick watched the windows and ramparts intently. There was no sign of life, but remembering that here there was no need for early rising, he waited patiently, gazing steadily through the leaves across the valley. At last his patience was rewarded, for from a building in the courtyard near the central mass, he made out a thin pale blue line which ascended straight into the sky. Smoke! Breakfast was cooking. His heart gave a leap. There were no devils in Schloss Szolnok—but Goritz! In a short while, still watching intently, he saw a figure pass from the gate toward the main buildings, where it disappeared. Renwick would have given the remainder of his hundred-kroner notes for a good pair of field glasses, by which it might have been possible to distinguish the identity of any figure that could be seen. But he realized that he had accomplished the object of his visit, for the raised drawbridge indicated that whoever occupied the castle, seclusion was important to him. Deciding that he knew enough to warrant closer investigation, Renwick moved slowly along the mountain side into the gorge, under the cover of rocks and undergrowth, slowly descending toward the road, with the idea of crossing the stream and climbing the rugged cliff beyond, from which he could gain a nearer view of the northern and ruined end of the castle.

But after an hour of careful progress, as he reached a projection of rock which hung over the road below, he crouched, suddenly listening. For he heard the sound of voices, a rumble of wheels, and the creaking and clanking of heavy metallic objects. The sounds came nearer, swelling in proportion, now clearly distinguishable; and so lying flat upon his stomach, he parted the bushes at the edge of the rock and peered over. There was a cloud of dust and the clatter of iron-shod boots against the flints of the road, and in a moment he made out long ranks of soldiers, marching rapidly to the northward into the Pass. Renwick knew that the northern end of the Pass was already strongly guarded, for his host had told him that many soldiers had gone through during the weeks before; but the sight of these hurrying men, the shrouded guns which lumbered amidst them, and the long line of motor trucks and wagons which followed, gave Renwick a notion that events of military importance were pending in the Galician plain beyond. He tried to form some idea of the number of men that passed. A regiment—two, three, four—artillery—three batteries at least. For an hour or more they passed, and then at last, silence and solitude.

Although adequately disguised, Renwick was in no position to be stopped and searched, for if he wore no marks of identification, his automatic, and the money pinned in his trousers lining, would have made him an object of suspicion, the more so in a country where soldiers were moving in so precarious a military situation.

And so he descended slowly, hiding in a copse at the base of the rocks where he waited for a while listening, and then peered cautiously out. Then matching his footsteps to those of the soldiers, he crossed the road obliquely and plunged through the bushes down over the rocks to the bed of the Dukla, where he waited and listened again, crossing the stream at last by a fallen tree and reaching the protection of the undergrowth upon the farther bank.

Though he had been able to learn little in Budapest of the military situation, even from Herr Koulos, the sight of Austrian soldiers marching toward the northern end of the Pass assured him that the Russians must have won important victories in Galicia, thus placing all the passes of the Carpathians in jeopardy. But whatever his interest in conjectures regarding the possibility of victory or defeat, his own business was too urgent to admit of other issues, and so he made his way forward cautiously through the underbrush, which in places was almost impenetrable. Four-footed things, startled by this unusual invasion of their hunting ground, started up almost beside him and fled—rabbits, squirrels, a wolf, and a brown bear, which rocked upon its four legs dubiously for a moment, and then lumbered comically away. These creatures and the pathless woods advised him that however frequented the mountain road below, the inhabitants hereabout were not in the habit of traversing the wooded mountain sides. Moving forward slowly he climbed the hills in the general direction of the castle, the sunlit bastions of which suddenly appeared through the foliage above him and to the right.

He moved more warily now, for if Goritz were in hiding within Schloss Szolnok, he would of course take pains that every avenue of approach should be watched. But a careful inspection of the crag upon which the castle was perched, and from this new angle, led Renwick to the conclusion that Goritz might be so sure of its inaccessibility from the north that no guard at the ruined end would be thought necessary. At first glance, indeed, Renwick was inclined to that opinion himself, for the rocks, though fissured and scarred as though by the blasts of winter, though not so high, were scarcely less precipitous than upon the southern side. At his very feet, perhaps already buried for years in the loam and moss, were the huge blocks of stone which had fallen from the northern towers and rolled down the steep slope of the natural counterscarp which the conformation of the mountain provided.

Renwick scrutinized the beetling wall of rock above the incline with a dubious eye, seeking a possible path or succession of footholds by means of which he might make his way to the breach in the stone rampart above. The task seemed hopeless, but he knew that the most formidable difficulties are often solved by the simplest devices, and so he studied the wall patiently, his gaze suddenly focusing upon a fissure in the cliff, a little to his right, which went upward at an angle, its apex passing a projection of the rock which extended for a hundred feet or more to the southward. Above that precarious platform, the cliff was splintered and torn as though the agencies which had devastated the wall above had wreaked their vengeance here too. But there were finger holds and footholds, a desperate climb even in the daylight to a member of an Alpine club. But Renwick from his ambush studied the face of that rock foot by foot, and at last decided that when night came, the possibilities of entrance having been denied him elsewhere, he would make the effort.

He did not know what he would find among the ruins above, their connection with the habitable part of the castle having probably been walled up by Baron Neudeck, and granting that Renwick succeeded in making his way to the top, his chances of reaching the main buildings might be slim indeed. And suppose after all this effort, that Marishka were not here—that Goritz had gone on—!

But how could he have gone on? Surely not by a road guarded by an army at its other end. And it was only last night that he had seen Goritz's fellow assassin and hireling. Marishka was within, and Renwick had not permitted a doubt of it to enter his mind since yesterday.

But to make certain of the matter he decided upon further investigation, retracing his steps for some hundred yards down the declivity, making sure of his landmarks as he went, until he reached the lower level of the valley, where crossing a brook he began climbing the steeper slope of the northern mountain. Here a greater degree of caution was required, for the rock upon which the Schloss was built was close to the northern slope and it was over the eastern reaches of the northern crags that the road passed which led to the causeway. To make his investigation more difficult of accomplishment, most of the mountain side was in bright sunlight while the castle was in shadow. And so, it being now the middle of the afternoon, he decided to move slowly at first, find a secluded spot and eat of the bread and cheese which was to be both his breakfast and supper.

From his position, well up among the rocks, he had a view of the tree-tops of the valley below with a glimpse of the road a short distance from the spot where he had crossed it in the morning. The ruined end of the castle he commanded, too, from a new angle. He was now above the level of the crag and made out among the twisted mass of stone the vestiges of what had once been a chapel, and a watchtower. There was an arch which seemed to lead into a vaulted structure, but from his position he could not see within it.

Renwick's eyes were good and they searched the valley below him ceaselessly. He thought he heard a rumble as of thunder in the distance, but as the sky was clear he knew that he must have been mistaken, but after a while along the road below him more soldiers passed, riding rapidly and silently—into the deeper shadows of the gorge. Their clattering wagons followed, and this, Renwick decided, was the cause of the distant sound that he had heard. Once or twice he thought that he saw motion among the undergrowth at some distance below him, but decided that he had been mistaken. Again—nearer and to his right. There was no doubt of it now. Renwick crawled deeper into his place of concealment and peered out.

Some one was climbing up over the rocks below him, mounting slowly a little farther up the gorge. He heard the crackling of twigs and the sound of voices in a subdued murmur. There were two of them. Venturing his head beyond the leaves he got a glimpse through the trunks of the pine-trees—a tall man and a shorter, stouter one. They were more than a hundred yards away and moving up the mountain side away from him, but to Renwick's mind, fixed only upon the men he sought and those who sought himself, the figures, though wearing rough clothing like his own, seemed strangely like those of Herr Windt and Spivak. Of course he might have been mistaken, for within two miles of this spot at least two hundred people lived, but the profusion of game in the valley confirmed the report of his host of last night that the peasants who lived in the vicinity of Dukla were not in the habit of venturing into the Pass. And if not peasants and not the men he had imagined them to be, who were they and what were they doing here? He lay quietly, listening for the sound of their footsteps which seemed to pass toward the castle above him and at last died away in the distance.

Windt here? It seemed incredible that he had traced Renwick so quickly. Or was it as Herr Koulos had said, that the same sources of information which had been open to Renwick had been open to Herr Windt also? Was he seeking Goritz or Renwick or both, trusting to the relations between Renwick and Marishka to bring all trails to this converging point? If the strangers among the rocks above him were Windt and Spivak, he was indeed in danger of detection and capture, and the fate of an Englishman taken armed in a region where Austrian troops were massing was unpleasant to contemplate. And yet Renwick decided that before he made the rash attempt to mount the cliff he must further investigate. And so he lay silent until nightfall when with drawn automatic he emerged from his hiding place and quietly made his way along the mountain side. He searched the undergrowth eagerly, as a man only can when his life depends upon the keenness of his senses, and without mishap reached a point opposite the castle where he commanded both the courtyard and the mass of buildings around the central tower. The distance across the narrow gorge at this side of the castle was perhaps two or three hundred yards, and Renwick from the shelter of a bush could see the windows quite distinctly. As the night grew dark two lights appeared—both, he noted, upon the side of the buildings toward where he sat—lights which could not be visible from the deeper, wider valley upon the other side or from the road below. He saw figures moving—the small bent figure of a woman in the building upon the left which seemed to be the kitchen, a man in the courtyard near the gate which Renwick had seen from the other side. The room upon the right near the keep, seemed to be the Hall, for the windows were longer than any others and denoted a high ceiling within. There was a light here too, and Renwick watched the windows, his heart beating high with hope. In his anxiety to see who was within the apartment he forgot the strangers upon the mountain side, the danger of his position, the hazardous feat before him—all but the hope that Marishka was here.

He had almost given up hope of seeing her when she appeared. He knew her instantly, though he could not easily distinguish her features. She sat in a chair at a table, conversing with some one whom he could not see. A pang of jealousy shot through him. Goritz—!

What if believing him dead Marishka had learned to tolerate the German agent, even to the point of friendship. There they were, sitting face to face at table, as they had done for two months or more. What were their relations? Prisoner and captive? And which was which? How could he have blamed Marishka,—Renwick, a dead man?

He knew that she had grieved, that she must have hated the man who had done him to death—perhaps still hated him as Renwick did. He peered at the fragment of Marishka's white dress, the only part of her that was visible to him, and upbraided himself for his unworthy thoughts of her.

And when the dead came to life what would she say to him?

Hedged about with difficulties and dangers as he was, the sight of the girl so near him and yet so inaccessible was maddening. Now that he had discovered her, every impulse urged him to the feat of scaling the wall. And yet, as though fascinated, he still sat, his gaze fixed on the bit of white drapery which was a part of Marishka. He tried to imagine what Goritz was saying to her, for he seemed to know that Goritz was her companion, seemed to hear the murmur of their voices. He waited long and then the white drapery vanished, reappeared, and Marishka's figure stood in the window, leaning with one hand upon the casement, in silhouette against the light. And now quite distinctly against the velvety soft background of the breathless night the sound of her voice, refined by the distance between them, but fearful in its tone and significance.

"I—I am not afraid to die, Herr Goritz," it said.

Renwick started to his feet as though suddenly awaking from a dreadful dream into a still more dreadful reality. Marishka still stood in the window motionless, but the words that she had spoken seemed to be ringing endlessly down the silent gorge and in his brain, which was suddenly empty of all but its echoes. He wanted to shout to her a cry of encouragement—and hope, but he remained silent, grimly watching and listening.

Marishka said something else and then turned into the room, while through another window he saw the dark figure of Goritz pass away from her toward the outward wall. Of Marishka he saw no more, but at intervals he saw Goritz pacing to and fro....

How much longer Renwick watched he did not know, but after a while he found himself stumbling along the face of the mountain, descending by the way that he had come, Marishka's words singing their message through and through him. It was as though the words had been meant for him instead of Goritz, that Renwick even in death should know of her danger and come to her aid. He was coming now, not as an avenging spirit, but in the flesh, armed with righteous wrath and a fearful lust for vengeance. He understood what the message meant. Hers was not a cry of despair but of defiance.... What had happened? He had not seen.

"I am not afraid to die." Nor was Renwick—but to live were better—to live at least for tonight. Fury gave him desperation, but for the task before him he needed coolness, too. And realizing that haste might send him hurtling to the bottom of the gorge, he moved more cautiously, stepping down with infinite pains until he reached the brook, which he crossed carefully, and then moved back up the declivity toward the castle.

The night was clear, starlit but moonless, and the cliff as he reached it looked down upon him with majestic and sullen disdain. The ages had passed over and left it scarred and seared but still defiant and inaccessible. Renwick paused a moment to be sure of his ground and then boldly crawled up over the chaos of tumbled bowlders and broken masonry, until he reached the wall of solid rock, where he stopped again to regain his breath and examine the fissure that he had studied earlier in the day. It was a cleft in the rock, the result of some subterranean upheaval which had caused the whole crag to settle into its base; a fissure, originally a mere crack which had been widened and deepened by the erosion of time. Upon closer inspection, it was larger than it had appeared from below, perhaps ten feet in width at the outside, and tapering gradually as it rose.

He entered and ran his fingers along its sides, penetrating to its full depth until there was just room enough in which to wedge his bent body. Then rising cautiously, seated, so to speak, upon the incline which seemed to be about thirty degrees from the vertical, he dug the iron-shod toes of his peasant's boots into the roughnesses of the wall before him and rose, pushing with elbows and arms where the wall was too smooth for a foothold. It was hard work, and at the end of ten minutes, perspiring profusely, and leg and arm weary, he stopped upon a projecting ledge, where he found a perfect balance for his entire body, and relaxed. But he had gained fifty feet.

Above him was the long streak of pallid light shimmering against the gloom of the rock like the blade of a naked sword, with its point far above him among the stars. For a full five minutes he rested, and then went upward again, feeling with his finger ends while he braced his body, taking advantage of every foothold before and behind. At one spot the fissure widened dangerously, but he struggled inward; at another it went almost straight upward, requiring sheer strength of fingers; but at last he found another ledge and braced himself with his feet for another rest. He did not dare to look downward now, for fear of dizziness, but he knew that he had already come high. The sword blade was shorter, curved now more like a scimitar at its tip, which showed that the angle was greater.

But what if before he reached the rocky platform, the cleft should grow too narrow to admit the passage of his body? It was too late now to think of any such impediment. He struggled upward again, slipping back at times, clawing like a cat, with toes and fingers, fighting for his breath, but always mounting higher, his gaze upward toward a star in the heavens near the point of the scimitar. Would he ever reach the top? Bits of the rock crumbled, broke off and flew out into space, and once he slipped and slid outward, only saving himself from destruction by the aid of a jutting piece of jagged rock which caught in his clothing. A desperate venture—but successful, for with one final effort, with fingers torn, and knees and elbows bruised and bleeding, he hauled himself up to the level of the flat projection of rock upon which he dragged himself, exhausted and breathless, but so far, safe.

He lay there for a long time, flat on his back, his eyes dimmed with effort, his gaze on the stars, which now seemed to blink in a friendly way upon his venture. To succeed so far—failure was now impossible. Fearfully he peered over the edge of the cliff upon the velvety tree-tops of the valley below. Three hundred feet, four perhaps, and beyond to the left where the crag fell down to the very bed of the Dukla itself, black void—vacancy.

Above him still was the hazardous climb up the broken face of the rocks, but he did not fear it. His nerves were iron now. There were roots growing here, and small bushes, stunted trees, growing in the interstices of the rocks, and he climbed steadily, always looking upward, toward the breach in the wall now so very near, fifty feet, forty—and then the wall seemed to hang over him smooth and bare. So he hung there by a sturdy branch, one foot clinging, and studied the surface, descending a few feet carefully and then rising again to the left in a fissure, swinging himself along a narrow ledge where the masonry of the bastion joined the rock. Over this he climbed, finding solid footing at last, and then rest and a breathing space within the broken walls.

He lay behind a pile of rocks which had fallen from the walls of the watchtower, recovering his breath again, and the strength of his fingers, every bone of which was crying out in protest. He peered over into the depths below, trying to measure the distance he had come—three hundred feet—perhaps more. Could he find a rope of that length within the castle—? After a while he straightened in the shadow of the wall and peered cautiously up at the dark bulk of the keep and the tower, beyond the ruined chapel, searching its roofs and window for a sign of life. Silence. The ruin was deserted. For half an hour he watched and waited, and then sure that there was no chance that he had been observed, rose to his feet and moved forward stealthily into the shadows of the chapel. The roof had long since fallen in and been removed, but Renwick stumbled over a dusty tomb, toward the fragment of altar with the reredos still showing traces of sculpture, partially protected by a fragment of roof over the apse which had been spared by the wind and storm. To the right of the altar was a Gothic door, which had at one time led into the building adjoining, but upon investigation he found that it had been built in with solid blocks of stone. The other arch of the vaulted structure outside which he had noted from the mountain side was also filled by a wall. So far as Renwick could see, the ruined part of Schloss Szolnok was isolated, with no mode of egress from the habitable part.

Renwick had screened his movements as far as possible from view of the windows in the keep and other buildings, and now discovered that the lowest one was at least fifteen feet above the level of this rampart; and so before planning any action, he investigated the guardhouse, a fallen ruin upon the north bastion. He seemed to make out the forms of what had once been the stone treads of a circular stair in a tumbled mass. At first the appearance of the place discouraged him, for it seemed too far away from the main mass of buildings to furnish any communication with them, but as he peered among the fallen masonry he thought he detected a darker spot in the obscurity, and bending forward was aware of a heavy smell, as of mold and dampness. Upon investigation he discovered an irregular hole under the mass of stone, a little wider than his body.

He dared not strike a match for fear the glow of it might be observed from one of the windows of the keep, but testing the balance of the heavy stone steps, he decided to investigate, and so lowering his legs into the dark aperture he let himself hang from his waist and found that his toes encountered solidity. He tested his footing with his weight, and then let go, descending into the hole, which seemed to be a stairway, leading from the tower into the bowels of the rock. With a touch of fingers upon the efflorescent walls he moved cautiously down, step by step, sure now that this was the ancient corridor by which the men-at-arms passed from the guardhouse to the other rampart. Sixty-two steps down he counted, and then he reached a level, where he paused a moment to look at the vague blotch of gray which was the starlight. Even with eyes that had now grown accustomed to the darkness he could see nothing, and so deeming himself safe from observation, he struck a match, which struggled a moment against the foul air and then went out. But in the brief moment of partial illumination, Renwick made out a corridor extending straight before him, slightly downward. He followed it cautiously his hands stretched out, his toes feeling for pitfalls, and at last came to a rough wall.

Was this the end—a wall which shut off communication with the ruins? Emptiness to the right. He turned and followed the wall blindly, down its tortuous way, aware of a difficulty in breathing, and a throbbing at his temples down which the moisture was pouring profusely. In a while which seemed hours, the rough wall stopped, and his fingers encountered a wooden upright—a doorway—open. And testing the stone floor carefully he passed through it, the echoes of footfalls advising him that he was in a larger space. He peered in all directions, seeking a sign of light within, for it seemed that the air had now grown fresher, but he saw nothing, and so striking a third match which burned more brightly, he held it over his head for a moment and looked about him.

It was a kind of crypt in a good state of preservation, octagonal in shape, about twelve feet high, and the ceiling was supported by arches which sprang from dwarf columns of stone at the angles. From the center of the ceiling by a heavy chain hung an ancient iron lamp which still contained the remnants of a candle. There was a heavy wooden table at one side, and two heavy chairs, but Renwick's gaze passed these quickly to a partition of rough boards in one of the walls opposite, and then his match burnt his fingers and expired.