The Dark Star

"A Cossack is a Cossack," said the Princess, "be he Terek or Kuban,

Don or Astrachan, and they all know as much about diplomacy as Prince

Erlik--or Izzet Bey's nose.... James, you are unusually silent, dear

friend. Are you regretting those papers?"

"It's a pity," he said. But he had not been thinking of the lost

papers; Rue Carew's beauty preoccupied him. The girl was in black,

which made her skin dazzling, and reddened the chestnut colour of her

hair.

Her superb young figure revealed an unsuspected loveliness where the

snowy symmetry of neck and shoulders and arms was delicately accented

by the filmy black of her gown.

He had never seen such a beautiful girl; she seemed more wonderful,

more strange, more aloof than ever. And this was what preoccupied and

entirely engaged his mind, and troubled it, so that his smile had a

tendency to become indefinite and his conversation mechanical at

times.

Captain Sengoun drained one more of numerous goblets; gazed

sentimentally at the Princess, then with equal sentiment at Rue

Carew.

"As for me," he said, with a carelessly happy gesture toward the

infinite, "plans are plans, and if they're stolen, tant pis! But

there are always Tartars in Tartary and Turks in Turkey. And, while

there are, there's hope for a poor devil of a Cossack who wants to

say a prayer in St. Sophia before he's gathered to his ancestors."

"Have any measures been taken at your Embassy to trace the plans?"

asked Neeland of the Princess.

"Of course," she said simply.

"Plans," remarked Sengoun, "are not worth the tcherkeske of an

honest Caucasian! A Khirgize pony knows more than any diplomat; and my

magaika is better than both!"

"All the same," said Rue Carew, "with those stolen plans in your

Embassy, Prince Erlik, you might even gallop a sotnia of your

Cossacks to the top of Achi-Baba."

"By heaven! I'd like to try!" he exclaimed, his black eyes ablaze.

"There are dongas," observed the Princess dryly.

"I know it. There are dongas every twenty yards; and Turkish gorse

that would stop a charging bull! My answer is, mount! trot! gallop!

and hurrah for Achi-Baba!"

"Very picturesque, Alak. But wouldn't it be nicer to be able to come

back again and tell us all about it?"

"As for that," he said with his full-throated, engaging laugh, "no

need to worry, Princess, for the newspapers would tell the story. What

is this Gallipoli country, anyway, that makes our Chancellery wag its

respected head and frown and whisper in corners and take little notes

on its newly laundered cuffs?