Chapter Fourteen. The Lady of the Mantilla

Greenmantle

by John Buchan

Since that first night I had never clapped eyes on Sandy. He had
gone clean out of the world, and Blenkiron and I waited anxiously for
a word of news. Our own business was in good trim, for we were
presently going east towards Mesopotamia, but unless we learned more
about Greenmantle our journey would be a grotesque failure. And
learn about Greenmantle we could not, for nobody by word or deed
suggested his existence, and it was impossible of course for us to
ask questions. Our only hope was Sandy, for what we wanted to know
was the prophet's whereabouts and his plans. I suggested to
Blenkiron that we might do more to cultivate Frau von Einem, but he
shut his jaw like a rat-trap.

'There's nothing doing for us in that quarter,' he said.
'That's the most dangerous woman on earth; and if she got any kind
of notion that we were wise about her pet schemes I reckon you and I
would very soon be in the Bosporus.' This was all very well; but what
was going to happen if the two of us were bundled off to Baghdad with
instructions to wash away the British? Our time was getting pretty
short, and I doubted if we could spin out more than three days more
in Constantinople. I felt just as I had felt with Stumm that last
night when I was about to be packed off to Cairo and saw no way of
avoiding it. Even Blenkiron was getting anxious. He played Patience
incessantly, and was disinclined to talk. I tried to find out
something from the servants, but they either knew nothing or wouldn't
speak - the former, I think. I kept my eyes lifting, too, as I
walked about the streets, but there was no sign anywhere of the skin
coats or the weird stringed instruments. The whole Company of the
Rosy Hours seemed to have melted into the air, and I began to wonder
if they had ever existed.

Anxiety made me restless, and restlessness made me want
exercise. It was no good walking about the city. The weather had
become foul again, and I was sick of the smells and the squalor and
the flea- bitten crowds. So Blenkiron and I got horses, Turkish
cavalry mounts with heads like trees, and went out through the
suburbs into the open country.

It was a grey drizzling afternoon, with the beginnings of a sea
fog which hid the Asiatic shores of the straits. It wasn't easy to
find open ground for a gallop, for there were endless small patches
of cultivation and the gardens of country houses. We kept on the
high land above the sea, and when we reached a bit of downland came
on squads of Turkish soldiers digging trenches. Whenever we let the
horses go we had to pull up sharp for a digging party or a stretch of
barbed wire. Coils of the beastly thing were lying loose everywhere,
and Blenkiron nearly took a nasty toss over one. Then we were always
being stopped by sentries and having to show our passes. Still the
ride did us good and shook up our livers, and by the time we turned
for home I was feeling more like a white man.

We jogged back in the short winter twilight, past the wooded
grounds of white villas, held up every few minutes by transport-
wagons and companies of soldiers. The rain had come on in real
earnest, and it was two very bedraggled horsemen that crawled along
the muddy lanes. As we passed one villa, shut in by a high white
wall, a pleasant smell of wood smoke was wafted towards us, which
made me sick for the burning veld. My ear, too, caught the twanging
of a zither, which somehow reminded me of the afternoon in Kuprasso's
garden-house.

I pulled up and proposed to investigate, but Blenkiron very
testily declined. 'Zithers are as common here as fleas,' he said.
'You don't want to be fossicking around somebody's stables and find a
horse-boy entertaining his friends. They don't like visitors in this
country; and you'll be asking for trouble if you go inside those
walls. I guess it's some old Buzzard's harem.' Buzzard was his own
private peculiar name for the Turk, for he said he had had as a boy a
natural history book with a picture of a bird called the
turkey-buzzard, and couldn't get out of the habit of applying it to
the Ottoman people.

I wasn't convinced, so I tried to mark down the place. It
seemed to be about three miles out from the city, at the end of a
steep lane on the inland side of the hill coming from the Bosporus.
I fancied somebody of distinction lived there, for a little farther
on we met a big empty motor-car snorting its way up, and I had a
notion that the car belonged to the walled villa. Next day Blenkiron
was in grievous trouble with his dyspepsia. About midday he was
compelled to lie down, and having nothing better to do I had out the
horses again and took Peter with me. It was funny to see Peter in a
Turkish army-saddle, riding with the long Boer stirrup and the slouch
of the backveld.

That afternoon was unfortunate from the start. It was not the
mist and drizzle of the day before, but a stiff northern gale which
blew sheets of rain in our faces and numbed our bridle hands. We
took the same road, but pushed west of the trench-digging parties and
got to a shallow valley with a white village among the cypresses.
Beyond that there was a very respectable road which brought us to the
top of a crest that in clear weather must have given a fine prospect.
Then we turned our horses, and I shaped our course so as to strike
the top of the long lane that abutted on the down. I wanted to
investigate the white villa.

But we hadn't gone far on our road back before we got into
trouble. It arose out of a sheep-dog, a yellow mongrel brute that
came at us like a thunderbolt. It took a special fancy to Peter, and
bit savagely at his horse's heels and sent it capering off the road.
I should have warned him, but I did not realize what was happening,
till too late. For Peter, being accustomed to mongrels in Kaffir
kraals, took a summary way with the pest. Since it despised his
whip, he out with his pistol and put a bullet through its head.

The echoes of the shot had scarcely died away when the row
began. A big fellow appeared running towards us, shouting wildly. I
guessed he was the dog's owner, and proposed to pay no attention. But
his cries summoned two other fellows - soldiers by the look of them -
who closed in on us, unslinging their rifles as they ran. My first
idea was to show them our heels, but I had no desire to be shot in
the back, and they looked like men who wouldn't stop short of
shooting. So we slowed down and faced them.

They made as savage-looking a trio as you would want to avoid.
The shepherd looked as if he had been dug up, a dirty ruffian with
matted hair and a beard like a bird's nest. The two soldiers stood
staring with sullen faces, fingering their guns, while the other chap
raved and stormed and kept pointing at Peter, whose mild eyes stared
unwinkingly at his assailant.

The mischief was that neither of us had a word of Turkish. I
tried German, but it had no effect. We sat looking at them and they
stood storming at us, and it was fast getting dark. Once I turned my
horse round as if to proceed, and the two soldiers jumped in front of
me.

They jabbered among themselves, and then one said very slowly:
'He ... want ... pounds,' and he held up five fingers. They
evidently saw by the cut of our jib that we weren't Germans.

'I'll be hanged if he gets a penny,' I said angrily, and the
conversation languished. The situation was getting serious, so I
spoke a word to Peter. The soldiers had their rifles loose in their
hands, and before they could lift them we had the pair covered with
our pistols.

'If you move,' I said, 'you are dead.' They understood that all
right and stood stock still, while the shepherd stopped his raving
and took to muttering like a gramophone when the record is
finished.

'Drop your guns,' I said sharply. 'Quick, or we shoot.'

The tone, if not the words, conveyed my meaning. Still staring
at us, they let the rifles slide to the ground. The next second we
had forced our horses on the top of them, and the three were off like
rabbits. I sent a shot over their heads to encourage them. Peter
dismounted and tossed the guns into a bit of scrub where they would
take some finding.

This hold-up had wasted time. By now it was getting very dark,
and we hadn't ridden a mile before it was black night. It was an
annoying predicament, for I had completely lost my bearings and at
the best I had only a foggy notion of the lie of the land. The best
plan seemed to be to try and get to the top of a rise in the hope of
seeing the lights of the city, but all the countryside was so pockety
that it was hard to strike the right kind of rise.

We had to trust to Peter's instinct. I asked him where our line
lay, and he sat very still for a minute sniffing the air. Then he
pointed the direction. It wasn't what I would have taken myself, but
on a point like that he was pretty near infallible.

Presently we came to a long slope which cheered me. But at the
top there was no light visible anywhere - only a black void like the
inside of a shell. As I stared into the gloom it seemed to me that
there were patches of deeper darkness that might be woods.

'There is a house half-left in front of us,' said Peter.

I peered till my eyes ached and saw nothing.

'Well, for heaven's sake, guide me to it,' I said, and with
Peter in front we set off down the hill.

It was a wild journey, for darkness clung as close to us as a
vest. Twice we stepped into patches of bog, and once my horse saved
himself by a hair from going head forward into a gravel pit. We got
tangled up in strands of wire, and often found ourselves rubbing our
noses against tree trunks. Several times I had to get down and make
a gap in barricades of loose stones. But after a ridiculous amount
of slipping and stumbling we finally struck what seemed the level of
a road, and a piece of special darkness in front which turned out to
be a high wall.

I argued that all mortal walls had doors, so we set to groping
along it, and presently found a gap. There was an old iron gate on
broken hinges, which we easily pushed open, and found ourselves on a
back path to some house. It was clearly disused, for masses of
rotting leaves covered it, and by the feel of it underfoot it was
grass-grown.

We dismounted now, leading our horses, and after about fifty
yards the path ceased and came out on a well-made carriage drive. So,
at least, we guessed, for the place was as black as pitch. Evidently
the house couldn't be far off, but in which direction I hadn't a
notion.

Now, I didn't want to be paying calls on any Turk at that time
of day. Our job was to find where the road opened into the lane, for
after that our way to Constantinople was clear. One side the lane
lay, and the other the house, and it didn't seem wise to take the
risk of tramping up with horses to the front door. So I told Peter
to wait for me at the end of the back-road, while I would prospect a
bit. I turned to the right, my intention being if I saw the light of
a house to return, and with Peter take the other direction.

I walked like a blind man in that nether-pit of darkness. The
road seemed well kept, and the soft wet gravel muffled the sounds of
my feet. Great trees overhung it, and several times I wandered into
dripping bushes. And then I stopped short in my tracks, for I heard
the sound of whistling.

It was quite close, about ten yards away. And the strange thing
was that it was a tune I knew, about the last tune you would expect
to hear in this part of the world. It was the Scots air: 'Ca' the
yowes to the knowes,' which was a favourite of my father's.

The whistler must have felt my presence, for the air suddenly
stopped in the middle of a bar. An unbounded curiosity seized me to
know who the fellow could be. So I started in and finished it
myself.

There was silence for a second, and then the unknown began again
and stopped. Once more I chipped in and finished it. Then it seemed
to me that he was coming nearer. The air in that dank tunnel was
very still, and I thought I heard a light foot. I think I took a
step backward. Suddenly there was a flash of an electric torch from
a yard off, so quick that I could see nothing of the man who held
it.

Then a low voice spoke out of the darkness - a voice I knew well
- and, following it, a hand was laid on my arm. 'What the devil are
you doing here, Dick?' it said, and there was something like
consternation in the tone.

I told him in a hectic sentence, for I was beginning to feel
badly rattled myself.

'You've never been in greater danger in your life,' said the
voice. 'Great God, man, what brought you wandering here today of all
days?'

You can imagine that I was pretty scared, for Sandy was the last
man to put a case too high. And the next second I felt worse, for he
clutched my arm and dragged me in a bound to the side of the road. I
could see nothing, but I felt that his head was screwed round, and
mine followed suit. And there, a dozen yards off, were the acetylene
lights of a big motor-car.

It came along very slowly, purring like a great cat, while we
pressed into the bushes. The headlights seemed to spread a fan far
to either side, showing the full width of the drive and its borders,
and about half the height of the over-arching trees. There was a
figure in uniform sitting beside the chauffeur, whom I saw dimly in
the reflex glow, but the body of the car was dark.

It crept towards us, passed, and my mind was just getting easy
again when it stopped. A switch was snapped within, and the
limousine was brightly lit up. Inside I saw a woman's figure.

The servant had got out and opened the door and a voice came
from within - a clear soft voice speaking in some tongue I didn't
understand. Sandy had started forward at the sound of it, and I
followed him. It would never do for me to be caught skulking in the
bushes.

I was so dazzled by the suddenness of the glare that at first I
blinked and saw nothing. Then my eyes cleared and I found myself
looking at the inside of a car upholstered in some soft dove-coloured
fabric, and beautifully finished off in ivory and silver. The woman
who sat in it had a mantilla of black lace over her head and
shoulders, and with one slender jewelled hand she kept its fold over
the greater part of her face. I saw only a pair of pale grey-blue
eyes - these and the slim fingers.

I remember that Sandy was standing very upright with his hands
on his hips, by no means like a servant in the presence of his
mistress. He was a fine figure of a man at all times, but in those
wild clothes, with his head thrown back and his dark brows drawn
below his skull-cap, he looked like some savage king out of an older
world. He was speaking Turkish, and glancing at me now and then as
if angry and perplexed. I took the hint that he was not supposed to
know any other tongue, and that he was asking who the devil I might
be.

Then they both looked at me, Sandy with the slow unwinking stare
of the gipsy, the lady with those curious, beautiful pale eyes. They
ran over my clothes, my brand-new riding-breeches, my splashed boots,
my wide-brimmed hat. I took off the last and made my best bow.

'Madam,' I said, 'I have to ask pardon for trespassing in your
garden. The fact is, I and my servant - he's down the road with the
horses and I guess you noticed him - the two of us went for a ride
this afternoon, and got good and well lost. We came in by your back
gate, and I was prospecting for your front door to find someone to
direct us, when I bumped into this brigand-chief who didn't
understand my talk. I'm American, and I'm here on a big Government
proposition. I hate to trouble you, but if you'd send a man to show
us how to strike the city I'd be very much in your debt.'

Her eyes never left my face. 'Will you come into the car?' she
said in English. 'At the house I will give you a servant to direct
you.'

She drew in the skirts of her fur cloak to make room for me, and
in my muddy boots and sopping clothes I took the seat she pointed
out. She said a word in Turkish to Sandy, switched off the light,
and the car moved on.

Women had never come much my way, and I knew about as much of
their ways as I knew about the Chinese language. All my life I had
lived with men only, and rather a rough crowd at that. When I made my
pile and came home I looked to see a little society, but I had first
the business of the Black Stone on my hands, and then the war, so my
education languished. I had never been in a motor-car with a lady
before, and I felt like a fish on a dry sandbank. The soft cushions
and the subtle scents filled me with acute uneasiness. I wasn't
thinking now about Sandy's grave words, or about Blenkiron's warning,
or about my job and the part this woman must play in it. I was
thinking only that I felt mortally shy. The darkness made it worse.
I was sure that my companion was looking at me all the time and
laughing at me for a clown.

The car stopped and a tall servant opened the door. The lady
was over the threshold before I was at the step. I followed her
heavily, the wet squelching from my field-boots. At that moment I
noticed that she was very tall.

She led me through a long corridor to a room where two pillars
held lamps in the shape of torches. The place was dark but for their
glow, and it was as warm as a hothouse from invisible stoves. I felt
soft carpets underfoot, and on the walls hung some tapestry or rug of
an amazingly intricate geometrical pattern, but with every strand as
rich as jewels. There, between the pillars, she turned and faced me.
Her furs were thrown back, and the black mantilla had slipped down
to her shoulders.

'I have heard of you,' she said. 'You are called Richard Hanau,
the American. Why have you come to this land?'

'To have a share in the campaign,' I said. 'I'm an engineer,
and I thought I could help out with some business like
Mesopotamia.'

'You are on Germany's side?' she asked.

'Why, yes,' I replied. 'We Americans are supposed to be
nootrals, and that means we're free to choose any side we fancy. I'm
for the Kaiser.'

Her cool eyes searched me, but not in suspicion. I could see
she wasn't troubling with the question whether I was speaking the
truth. She was sizing me up as a man. I cannot describe that calm
appraising look. There was no sex in it, nothing even of that
implicit sympathy with which one human being explores the existence
of another. I was a chattel, a thing infinitely removed from
intimacy. Even so I have myself looked at a horse which I thought of
buying, scanning his shoulders and hocks and paces. Even so must the
old lords of Constantinople have looked at the slaves which the
chances of war brought to their markets, assessing their usefulness
for some task or other with no thought of a humanity common to
purchased and purchaser. And yet - not quite. This woman's eyes
were weighing me, not for any special duty, but for my essential
qualities. I felt that I was under the scrutiny of one who was a
connoisseur in human nature.

I see I have written that I knew nothing about women. But every
man has in his bones a consciousness of sex. I was shy and
perturbed, but horribly fascinated. This slim woman, poised
exquisitely like some statue between the pillared lights, with her
fair cloud of hair, her long delicate face, and her pale bright eyes,
had the glamour of a wild dream. I hated her instinctively, hated
her intensely, but I longed to arouse her interest. To be valued
coldly by those eyes was an offence to my manhood, and I felt
antagonism rising within me. I am a strong fellow, well set up, and
rather above the average height, and my irritation stiffened me from
heel to crown. I flung my head back and gave her cool glance for
cool glance, pride against pride.

Once, I remember, a doctor on board ship who dabbled in
hypnotism told me that I was the most unsympathetic person he had
ever struck. He said I was about as good a mesmeric subject as Table
Mountain. Suddenly I began to realize that this woman was trying to
cast some spell over me. The eyes grew large and luminous, and I was
conscious for just an instant of some will battling to subject mine.
I was aware, too, in the same moment of a strange scent which
recalled that wild hour in Kuprasso's garden-house. It passed
quickly, and for a second her eyes drooped. I seemed to read in them
failure, and yet a kind of satisfaction, too, as if they had found
more in me than they expected.

'What life have you led?' the soft voice was saying.

I was able to answer quite naturally, rather to my surprise. 'I
have been a mining engineer up and down the world.' 'You have faced
danger many times?'

'I have faced danger.'

'You have fought with men in battles?'

'I have fought in battles.'

Her bosom rose and fell in a kind of sigh. A smile - a very
beautiful thing - flitted over her face. She gave me her hand. 'The
horses are at the door now,' she said, 'and your servant is with
them. One of my people will guide you to the city.'

She turned away and passed out of the circle of light into the
darkness beyond ...

Peter and I jogged home in the rain with one of Sandy's skin-
clad Companions loping at our side. We did not speak a word, for my
thoughts were running like hounds on the track of the past hours. I
had seen the mysterious Hilda von Einem, I had spoken to her, I had
held her hand. She had insulted me with the subtlest of insults and
yet I was not angry. Suddenly the game I was playing became invested
with a tremendous solemnity. My old antagonists, Stumm and Rasta and
the whole German Empire, seemed to shrink into the background,
leaving only the slim woman with her inscrutable smile and devouring
eyes. 'Mad and bad,' Blenkiron had called her, 'but principally
bad.' I did not think they were the proper terms, for they belonged
to the narrow world of our common experience. This was something
beyond and above it, as a cyclone or an earthquake is outside the
decent routine of nature. Mad and bad she might be, but she was also
great.

Before we arrived our guide had plucked my knee and spoken some
words which he had obviously got by heart. 'The Master says,' ran
the message, 'expect him at midnight.'