The Wolf Woman

Taranaki Daily News, 17 December 1926, Page 6 (Supplement)

The Wolf Woman

BY

C REBEL

(copyright)

AN ESCAPE FROM RUSSIA. AND ITS AFTERMATH. Featherstonhaugh dropped his book ami started forward in his chair as he heard that ebbing cry across the night. Thin, mournful, and wavering strangely, he recognised it as the cry uf a wolf. Or so his suddenly aroused senses all told him. But, a wolf, out there in the quiet frostiness of an English Christmas Eve, a wolf belling near a placid village? A wolf? The thing was incredible. He was dreaming, he muttered to the jumbled ashes of the half-dead fire, dreaming. He sighed and pressed his book pages downwards, on the arm of his chair. He re-filled his pipe and poked the tire up to a blaze. A wolf? Lord, he must be mad! And yet, as he put a match light to his tobacco that sobbing and moaning howl, thin and indistinct, cut through the night once again. Featherstonhaugh, one-time diplomatic courier and accomplished man of the world, now a gloomy recluse living alone with his books on the outskirts of the tiny village of Paignton-Magna, stalked through his eqttage to the door. He flung this wide and scanned the countryside. Naught save peaceful snowy hills and gauntly silent tree clumps met his gaze. The river down in the vale was half frozen and ran sluggishly between fringes of dark ice. Fields were whited spaces, hedges and roads flashed up a brilliance of gem points to the staring moon. For the third time came that lonely cry! And with its sound it took him br.rk across the years to a Christmas Eve of seven years before. ♦ ’ * =» * He had been seated that night in a cafe in Belgrade, longing for the sights and sounds of England, hating the garish futility of the celebrations all around him. To mark the eve of Christmas —or so it seemed to his cynical mind—all in the place were determined on drunkenness, and worse. The gypsy musicians up on the dais aped abominably, yet played superbly. This was “Carnival.” Men and women flung paper streamers around the dining place. Some blared on long cardboard trumpets; others rattled tattoos «>n tables and on plates. Ever moving, ever re-a<senibling. parties passed from table to table eating of ’their neighbours’ foods, drinking of their neighbours’ wines. Al! was madness to his English mind; much was vile. Sickened and wearied by the F< atherstonhangh half turned his Kick on it. He would have gone out had there been any other place for him to dine. Tn the Belgrade of that day onh one hotel-cafe supplied foods lit for cultivated palates. At that moment she came, drifting as a darkly lioautiful bird, from out the gyrating wo of danders and buffoons. H« r face was masked in velvet; a long dark cloak, ruffed at the neck by orange f-ilk and cuffed in similar manner, enveloped her. She liowed towards him i»:n kingly, and beneath her mask Tier Jnv'lv li|c= twitched into wry lines that she had meant to portray a happily t ' a Pending smile. She wished him good < vening in a ripple of languages that 1 :*iran in Russian and checked in French. Six tongues she had spoken. He arose and poured her out a measure of wine. Summoning up a dreary nretenee of gallantry, he Inclined his head, wished her good-evening also, and passed her the sullenly glinting glass of Karlowifzer. She laughed. “The compliments of the season, to he utterlv banal.** she returned a® she took the wine. “Merry Christmas, and all

I that kiud of thing!” ! Derek Featherstonhaugh's diplomatic I training stood him in good stead. He ! did not show any surprise at her use ; of English and smiled disarmingly. For [all that he could not prevent a blush [stealing up past his neck, for his 1 thoughts. This disguised stranger 1 woman —was English. And he had addressed her merely as a Viennese light o’ love, crafting in a capital where eom- , petition was not strenuous. As such he had treated her; by passing her the ' wine from his table, deliberately holding her at bay. , "Thank you, ma dame,'’ lie murmured, “and, I beg your pardon!” He signed to a waiter“Will —er —you join me, : please.? I think we must be the only j two of our race in here to-night—say 'yes!” “Delighted,” mocked madame. and she I took ’ the chair. Another place was ! swiftly laid for her. Then—“ You are ’Featherstonhaugh of [the Legation?” She ripped out the [words of that question, fearfully. I “Y-yes,” he was surprised; “that is ' my name.” j “Then, for God’s sake, help me! Get 1 me to England, and at once, else I will ; be dead before the New Year!” He toyed with his glass. “As a matter of fact, madame,” he murmured, “I never was noted for a sense of humour. I’m sorry.” he smiled, ! vaguely, “but I quite lose the point of ! “Of my joke? Of my joke, you think?*’ She swiftly ripped up one ; side of her mask and showed her face. • An exquisite oval, pale and beautiful •as a perfect Greuze; twin stars that j were eyes, and a tendril of gold that spun down past one temple to coil [about the white tip of a tiny ear. “I am? and she dropped the mask, “the •Princess Maria Gallitzerovna.” Derek Featherstonhaugh's glass, pressbed hard to the table, splintered at the foot. Yet his suddenly steadied hand did not allow one drop of wine to stain i the cloth. He poured the contents out, i and sighed. “You start for England within one hour. Princess,” said he. * * * * i Derek Featherstonhaugh’s great car i droned out across the yellow plains am! ’past the parks of Topschider, cut back ion its tracks to find a road at the juncition of the Save ami Danube; then headed with terrific speed out due west for Agram in Croatia, two hundred miles away. Muff led in furs, Princess Maria [Gallitzerovna crouched low in the seat j beside him as he drove. The night was black and biting with an awful frost. The way was dangerous and the journey long. Past half filled shell holes, wreck'll houses, twisted girders and shattered beams on and on the great car fled. And Featherstonhaugh. not speaking, thought. He knew the story of this fugitive Princess. He knew that on the seat beside him was not alone a treasure in the form of a woman, but also nearly half a million pounds’ worth of gems—pearls! These, so he had heard, were wrapped in strings around her body. ' The Princess Maria Gallitzerovna. a Russian fugitive, had entered Jugo-Sla-via some five weeks previously. In all that time she had been missing. The Legation had instituted a search for her. She was a British subject who had married into a senii-Royal liouse of • Russia. They could not find her. although she very well knew that by letting her whereabouts be known .her ■ safety would be assured, as also would .be her repatriation to England. All the searchers found, on the various tracks they had pursued, were four dead

men. And each had been a Russian. One held within his stony grasp a black pearl of the Gallitzerovna treasure. He was the last they found. He had been shot. No one sought the Princess Maria further; she had passed outside the pale of law. Featherstonhaugh realised that this beautiful woman had deliberately concealed herself in Belgrade, conducting by marvellous stealth a kind of vendetta levied on certain Russian agents lurking in that easy capital. In the eases of three of these dead Russians (laid os-

tentatiously at their sides) proved them to have been concerned in the murder of ithe Princess’s husband. It was evii dent that they had followed the fugitive . wife, and her treasures in pearls, to j wreak on her the vengeance of their I new regime. “A has I’ aristo” was their service and their hideous creed. I Vengeance and guilt had been met by vengeance and guilt. as great. Yet I Featherstonhaugh found that he could jnot altogether hold this woman whom he was taking across a night-bound line

of danger altogether guilty. God alone (knew what horrors she had endured, land from what horrors she had saved I herself by pitiless shot and steel. He {alone eould judge. Featherstonhaugh | merely served in the greatest of human causes, helping in a time of danger. The old Croatian capital of Agram was reached with the last hour of the night. Here Featherstonhaugh filled up with petrol and with oil and changed a dubious tyre. Knocking up an English i resident he asked hospitality for himself and the Princess. And the hoped-

j for host grew pale at her name. i “Maria Gallitzerovna,” he gasped; I ’'you!” ' The Princess said sueh was the truth, j “And 1 say, Feathers, you’re trying to get her out of the country? Then, for God's sake don’t stay for food or anything else!' This place was full of Russian agents last night, and every filthy little cubby hole for miles around was searched—be turned to the Princess —for you, madame!;” ■ 1- The English resident dashed back into

; his house and brought out an armful of I food and two bottles of wine. “Armed?” he snapped to Featherstonhaugh. “Hell, that's no use! Wolves are out all along the mountains, and there’ll be the devil to play if you get in among ’em! Besides that, these Russies will hound you worse than any wolves, if they can drop across your scent!” The resident, for the second time, entered his I house and searched. Ho reappeared I carrying two high-powered rifles and a ' bag of cartridges. “Here, you may need

these, Featheis, old man, ’specially if you take my advice as to your route. Where are you making for?” “Vienna,” said Featherstonhaugh. “That’s about the safest place. My papers will take us both across the frontier without any trouble.” “Good! You couldn’t have chosen better! But here I say Feathers, eut out of Agram and pass 'by the mountain road around the western fringes of the Sleme Geh, so on, through Cavniola; bringing up at the nearest point you

are at, from Austria, therefore safety. Klegenfurt. But, for heaven's sake, look after yourselves on that road! There’s the devil to play about Sleme. The wolves are down, harrying everything and everyone! Well, good-bye, and the best of luck to you both!” A quarter on an hour later: “I think,” said ‘Featherstonhaugh, “we ll risk those wolves, Princesh!’’ She smiled and looked back. “I think so, too!” A peculiar expression came to her lovely face. “Four-legged ones I can deal with; those with only two are more difficult, and they’re on our track already 1 ” “Eh, what d’you mean?” “Shut off the engine, and you'll hear.” The coughing thunders of the ’ great Mercedes died away. Far from the cold silences of the plain, where bleak and dreary Agram had its place, sounded the humming of another ear. “They are not to be .shaken off, you see,” the Princess murmured. “Half a million pounds and revenge on my ineffable self, is thfcir urge. They'll get us, I fear, in the end!” * “Will they? I think not, Princess,” Featherstonhaugh laughed grimly. “Not if you know how to handle a rifle.” He paused, “and I believe you can shoot!” She looked at him swiftly and a little in terror. “Then, you know?” she whispered. “I suspect, let me rather say,” he answered. “The four of them?” “The four of them,” she tonelessly answered. “They killed my husband and my mother! The four of them; there are three more.” Silence for a while and then: “But now you’re on your way to England and security you must forget them, Princess.” “There are three more”—and her voice sounded like a doom. No more was said. On into the blue white dawn the Mercedes sped. Now the horrid darknesses of pine upon the great mountain range of Sleme showed up. Far below them curved the icebound mountain road. And low beneath the trees —between them and the road—were wolves. Unafraid, rendered fearless and vengeful by hunger, troops of the mange mottled beasts ranged the white slopes. On the sound of the car reaching them they slunk away, only to assemble. Behind Featherstonhaugh and the Princess came tearing three men in a ear as powerful as their own, and one with chain bound tyres; one that made two kilometres for every one and a half that Featherstonhaugh’s machine eould lap.. Culmination, the pursuing car was only five hundred yards behind when a whimpering and yawping mass of wolves shot from forests to the road. These beasts, known to attack trains, no more feared the car than they would a horse. Shot after shot was pumped at them; beast after beast went down beneath bullets and grinding wheels. But the Princess Maria alone did the firing. Featherstonhaugh, grim and white-faeed, had all his work cut out to keep the machine on even wheels and from skidding over the precipice at their left. The pursuing Russians, not heeding the wolves, drew nearer. Three hundred yards—two hundred —one! The distances had lessened to that small margin. They fired, and the shot, passing between Featherstonhaugh and the | women he had set out to save, shattered the wind-screen to splinters.

| And now came mystery. Princess I Maria stood upright, clutching at the . broken wind-screen’s guard with lacerated fingers. She had dropped her rifle and had closed her eyes. Her face i was turned to the on-coming car. Her [throat and mouth worked strangely; the wolves, emboldened, leapt more savagely up at her. “Sit down, get down!” Featherstonyelled. ‘We’ll get through! Stand up like that and—and you’ll either get shot else those beasts will claw you down!” From the mouth of Maria Princess, Gallitzerovna issued, the most wird cry

that ever Featherstonhaugh’s ears had heard from a human being. Again and again it mooned and welled. It was tlie calling of wolves; the language of beasts! One by one the shaggy forms drew back; slinking, hesitating, whining, they drew back! And all their terrible eyes were averted from the face of this human who could howl as they howled — with a knowledge of what that howling meant 1 The pack had halted and were far I behind. Tlie second car was on them I before they had recovered from stupor I and terror. But, recovering, they leapt |—a hundred ns one—straight for the I three men who had followed this strange | woman 1 I Featherstonhaugh reeled, sick and | weak, at the wheel. He heard despairing cries and curses; he heard sounds; I splintering, crunching, snarling sounds. | Tlie Russian's ear, with one great crash, fell from the precipice road and was lost. A score of wolves went with it. The frontier, Klagenfurt and Vienna, came in the day and peace after storm. Then she had left him. # a « # Derek Featherstonhaugh thought on, while he stood' there in the lowly calm of that English night, the Eve of Christ- | mas. I Maria Gallitzerovna had told him that ] the wolf-call she had learned from an I old Russian hunting servant attached |to her late husband’s household. When jin danger from a pack—so the hunter had said —that cry, used in extremis I alone, would command the ravening I beasts and drive them oil. The secret had been handed down for generations in the hunter’s family. And Featherstonhaugh knew this was truth. He had lived in “wolf lands” and knew the uncanny bond that sound can wrap about the fiercest of all vulpine beasts. He believed.

So he had left her in Vienna—saved. He saw her train start across country to take her to Ostend and so to London; had watched it slide out of the West Bnhnhof with an ache in his throat and her kisses of gratitude hot on his lips. And lie had seen her glorious eyes shining back at him—in love. That night cost Derek Featherstonliaugh his whole career. He was “returned” to England a broken man. He had not seen Maria any more, nor heard of her. And now a tall figure, dressed in furs came out of the peaee of the English country lanes-—and it was she, more beautiful than ever he had known her to be. The moonlight flushed its silver glory across her smiling face. “You heard my cry again.” she whispered, “and you remembered me ?” z He took her in his arms. “I have always remembered yon, my beloved, 'Marin. Seven years.” “Seven years are but the Russian span of mourning, and my husband loved me greatly, Derek. Could Ido more than crown its loss with honour? Those seven years are ended.” "And a newer life time is beginning, wolf-woman, Maria!”