CHAPTER XXXIIFLIGHT
Startled at the strange turn of events the three spectators stood, staring in doubt and fear at the unconscious figure. Was this collapse the stroke of death?
Before they had time to ascertain for themselves there came an insistent knocking at the door, as of someone attracted by the screaming.
Wilfrid walked forward and, opening the door just wide enough to ascertain who the new-comer was, beheld Beauvais standing without.
“The very man we want,” he said, pulling the surprised doctor within and locking the door. “The Czar requires your aid.”
Beauvais, being a wise man, spent no time in asking irrelevant questions. Hurrying forward he knelt down, and examined the body of the fallen emperor.
“An apoplectic stroke. Takes after his father Paul,” said Beauvais, as he loosened the Czar’s military collar and bade Wilfrid bring him a carafe of water.
“Is it serious?” asked Pauline.
“I think not, but one never knows.”
“How long will it be before consciousness returns?” she continued.
“I cannot say. He may recover in an hour; in two hours; five; perhaps more. It is impossible to tell. Let me have help, Baroness.”
With Wilfrid’s aid Beauvais laid the Czar upon the ottoman, while Pauline summoned two maids to assist the doctor’s ministrations.
This done she gently drew Wilfrid and the Empress to a small anteroom and, with downcast eyes and humble air, knelt before the latter.
“Your Majesty——” she began.
“Majesty!” exclaimed the other. It frightened her to see Pauline suppliant at her feet.
“Yes, for you are in truth the Czarina——”
“Is this a conspiracy to mock me, or is it really the truth? I cannot—Icannotbelieve it. It is so strange that I—that I should be—Ah! would to heaven that I were not! What do I gain by the change?—Would that I were dead!” she murmured with a look of unutterable anguish. “O Wilfrid, Wilfrid, we are lost to each other.”
If Pauline ever felt remorse, she felt it at that moment as she contemplated these two, with whose affections she had wantonly sported for the sake of her own ambition.
“Yes, reproach me,” she said, observing Wilfrid’s grave eyes set upon her. “I deserve your bitterest censure. My only excuse is that it was done for France—for France. I have acted wickedly, yet I repented, but—but it was too late! And I, too, have suffered—”
She swayed and would have fallen had not the Czarina held her up by the wrists. For a few moments they continued in this attitude, till the Czarina, pitying Pauline’s unhappy look, stooped and kissed her.
“I forgive you,” she murmured, raising the other.
“Alas! I cannot forgive myself,” murmured Pauline bitterly.
An embarrassing silence followed, broken at length by Marie.
“If I am Empress,” she said with a sad smile, addressing Wilfrid, “show your loyalty by doing my will. Aid me to escape. When the Czar recovers he will order your arrest and mine. I will not lose my liberty. I must fly at once.”
Wilfrid was quite alive to the necessity for her immediate flight. Her relation with the Czar was, in his opinion, a question to be decided at some other time; for the present she must not remain at Runö while the Czar’s anger and jealousy were still hot upon him.
Yet how could he give her aid when police and spies—as the Czar had said—were everywhere on the look-out for him? Should he be recognised, not only his own flight, but that of the Empress would be frustrated.
“Your Majesty,” said he after awhile, “the only asylum that I can think of is the British Embassy, which we can reach by water along the Neva and Fontanka Canal, and thus perchance elude the police. Lord St. Helens will be honoured by your confidence. Within the Embassy you may remain concealed till some plan be devised for your escape, or till friends shall have effected a reconciliation between you and the Czar.”—Marie shivered.—“Even supposing your presence at the Embassy should become known, you cannot be removed by force, nor can the Czar enter without leave. You will, in fact, be able to treat with him on equal terms.”
Marie caught eagerly at Wilfrid’s suggestion. To get away at once was her one desire. Pauline, too, approved of the scheme.
“A boat shall be ready at Silver Point within ten minutes,” she said, and gave an order to that effect.
It now occurred to Wilfrid that to accompany the Empress would give a tongue to scandal, and confirm the Czar in his suspicions. He whispered this much into Pauline’s ears.
“I have thought of that,” she murmured, “and the Czarina’s brother-in-law shall go with you, to see,” she added with an air of shame, “that there be no more love-making between you.”
“The Czarina’s brother-in-law!” said Wilfrid.
“I refer to Prince Ouvaroff,” explained Pauline, “who is now beneath my roof.”
“Ouvaroff will be more likely to intercept than to assist her flight.”
“Because he misjudges her. But I will undeceive him. Escort the Empress to the Silver Strand and wait there for me.”
Wilfrid, taking the Empress under his care, stepped through the French window and set off for the appointed place, while Pauline made her way to the entrance hall.
Here the Czar’s equerries, Princes Ouvaroff and Volkonski, were whiling away the time over a game of chess.
Upon her entering the two arose and bowed.
“The Czar——?” began Volkonski.
“Is taking a short sleep,” answered Pauline. “Prince Ouvaroff, may I have a word with you?”
The Prince was only too pleased at such an honour. She drew Ouvaroff, much to Volkonski’s surprise, from the entrance hall to the moonlight outside and began to whisper her tidings.
“Shehere!” muttered the Prince, confounded, “and preparing to fly.”
“She has been living in concealment here since the night of the Sumaroff Masquerade. Now before you pronounce her guilty read this.”—She handed him a letter.—“It is a confession written by Nadia, once maid at the Inn of the Silver Birch.”
By the light of the harvest moon Ouvaroff rapidly ran his eye over the document. His face wore at first an expression of surprise that finally merged into joy.
“This establishes her innocence,” he said looking up from the paper, “at least as regards the affair at the inn.” And then, with a look of deep dismay, he added in a stammering voice, “And I—it was I who accused her to Alexander——”
“Well, you can atone for that error by helping her now.”
“But—but,” exclaimed the perplexed Prince, as he handed back the letter, “since she can now prove her innocence what need is there for flight?”
“Because the Empress has lost her memory, and—But we’ve no time to lose. Come with me and I’ll explain matters as we go along.”
He followed Pauline, and, as they went, she put him in possession of the chief events of the story, finishing her recital just as they reached the Silver Strand.
Close to the shore with which it was connected by a broad plank, lay a handsome gondola,The Pauline, capable of holding eight or ten persons. Within it and resting upon their oars were four sturdy Finlanders, ready to undertake any charge, however perilous, at the bidding of their mistress.
Marie had no more recollection of Ouvaroff than she had of the Czar, and gazed wonderingly at him as he knelt before her upon the sands.
“Prince Ouvaroff,” whispered Wilfrid for her enlightenment.
“Your Majesty,” said the Prince, “I—I have done you a grievous wrong, for which I know not how to atone. If the taking of my life can afford you any satisfaction it is yours to take.”
The Empress put forth her hand and raised the Prince.
“Aid me to escape, good Ouvaroff, and you are forgiven.”
The Prince vowed that he would do all he could to further her wish, for he perceived that, till the recovery of her memory, it would be unjust and cruel to force her return to the Czar. For his part, zealous to retrieve his error, he desired nothing better than to die in her service.
“As I am of like mind with you,” said Wilfrid, addressing Ouvaroff, “what is to prevent us from being the best of friends as once we were?”
The Prince grasped Wilfrid’s outstretched hand and thus the two, so long estranged, were at one again.
“Are you not coming with us?” said Marie to Pauline.
The Baroness shook her head.
“Have you the courage,” continued the other, “to face the Czar’s anger when he awakes and finds us gone?”
“I must try to repair the wrong I have done. I remain to act as conciliator between you and the Czar.”
The Empress shook her head, kissed Pauline and, turning away, was guided across the plank by Ouvaroff and Wilfrid. She seated herself beside the latter in the bow of the boat, while the Prince took his place in the stern and busied himself with the tiller. The oars dipped, and the next moment the boat was shooting forward into deep water.
As Marie silently watched the castle fade in the distance and thought of the happy time spent there, her eyes suffused with tears.
Wilfrid, too, was silent. He was glad of the presence of Prince Ouvaroff and the four Finlanders; there could be no love-making so long as they were by. A beautiful woman is a beautiful peril and she becomes doubly perilouswhen in distress. Wilfrid, in spite of the claims of honour, felt that he durst not trust himself alone with her, lest passion should usurp the place of reason.
“Wilfrid,” said the Czarina softly. “How is this to end?”
“Your Majesty——” he began.
“Majesty!” she repeated reproachfully. “It was Marie once.”
“A treasonable word, for which I humbly ask your pardon.”
“Pardon, for giving me pleasure?”
There was fire in Wilfrid’s blood when she spoke like that, and he was gladder than ever that they were not alone.
“It must be our aim to do the right,” he remarked. “There is something higher in life than love—there is honour.”
“That means that you have ceased to love me,” she said; in her voice a pathos that thrilled him to the heart.
“Your Majesty, I would gladly resign life itself to ensure your happiness.”
“I know it and am grateful. But,” she faltered sorrowfully, “that feeling is loyalty, not love.” There was a brief interval of silence, and then she resumed:—
“The Czar loves Pauline; he will obtain a divorce and then—then—what is to prevent us from being—happy?”
“That were to justify men’s suspicions of our relations. Your fair name would be gone. No, your Majesty. You are an Empress and shall remain such. The Czar will forget his fancy for Pauline when he finds that she is set against him. He shall believe in your innocence—how, I do not at present know, but all will come right in the end.”
Deep down in her heart Marie was fain to confess the justice of what she felt was Wilfrid’s final decision, but—the hardness of it! Without Wilfrid the future seemed black and joyless. What was the diadem of an empress without Wilfrid’s love?
Under the vigorous strokes of the four oarsmenThePaulinemoved onwards at a fair pace, Ouvaroff keeping to mid-stream, the better to escape notice from the shore.
Heavy with thought the Empress took little heed of external things, but was roused from her reverie by a sudden whisper from Wilfrid.
“The Sumaroff Palace.”
With some show of interest she turned her eyes towards the broad extent of gardens stretching backwards from the river and gazed at the long marble terrace from which, according to what had been told her, she must have been flung on that dreadful night exactly four weeks ago. For the hundredth time she thought how strange it was that her mind should preserve no memory of that event.
With his eye still upon the terrace Wilfrid observed a tall figure standing at the head of a short flight of steps leading down to the water. He had an impression that it was none other than Prince Sumaroff, a personal friend, and a very great one, too, of the Czar. He had just taken leave of a gentleman, wrapped in a long cloak, who had entered a small boat that was now being vigorously pulled by two men, not in a transverse, but in an oblique line, that would bring them within a few minutes across the bows ofThe Pauline.
As the gondola drew near, the two rowers in the other boat, without any apparent reason, suddenly changed their course. With a warning yell Ouvaroff swung the rudder round as far as it would go. All too late! A snapping of oars and a grinding crash of woodwork, cries of men and a woman’s scream—and the next moment both boats turned completely over, their occupants being precipitated into the Neva, not, however, before Ouvaroff had recognised the cloaked figure in the other boat.
It was Count Baranoff.
Wilfrid, seated in the bow ofThe Paulinetalking with Marie, had not noticed the proximity of the other boat till roused by Ouvaroff’s shout. Turning his head and seeing the danger, he made a sudden clutch at Marie, but at that very moment came the shock of collision; her form eluded his fingers, and he went down into the water without her.
Being an excellent swimmer he rose at once to the surface and looked about for her. The two boats, keel uppermost, were a few yards away, moving off upon the fast-flowing current. Two of the Finlanders were clinging toThe Pauline; the two others were struggling desperately in the water; so, too, was one of the rowers in Baranoff’s boat. The five, unable apparently to swim, were uttering piteous cries.
These five were all that Wilfrid could see. There should be four more. Then, near by, arose the dripping head of Prince Ouvaroff. Like Wilfrid, a swimmer, it was no trouble for him to keep afloat.
“The Czarina!” he gasped, treading water and staring around.
“I’m looking for her. She hasn’t risen yet.”
Seeing that Marie, though tied hand and foot, had yet contrived to drift safely all the way to Runö, Wilfrid did not feel any alarm for a few seconds, but as the moments passed without sign of her, his easy feeling vanished.
Was she held a struggling captive, under one of the upturned boats? Hardly, he thought; so good a swimmer as she could surely extricate herself from such a position, unless she had been struck and rendered senseless.
Filled with this fear he was about to dash off after the two boats when a cry from Ouvaroff stopped him.
Looking where the Prince looked he saw a face, ghastly in the moonlight, the face of Arcadius Baranoff.
“Save me,” he gurgled, his mouth full of water. “I cannot swim; I’m drowning!”
“The Count must take his chance,” thought Wilfrid, and he was on the point of turning away when he caught a gleam as of floating gold locks beneath the hands of Baranoff. It was a sight that filled Wilfrid’s heart with horror and sent a cry of vengeance to his tongue.
The coward Count was clinging to the struggling Empress! Unable to swim, he was seeking to gain a foothold in the water by resting his hands upon the head and shoulders of the Czarina, indifferent as toherfate, providedhemight be rescued. But for this grip Marie could easily have made her way to the shore.
She slipped from his grasp and rose above the surface, fighting desperately for breath. A moment only was her white face visible; Baranoff had caught her again by the shoulders and the two immediately sank.
“The coward! He’ll drown her!” cried Wilfrid.
A few strokes brought him to the place of their disappearance. Fearing that she might rise no more Wilfrid swam downwards without coming upon either of them. Unable to hold his breath longer he rose to the surface and saw Baranoff, a few feet away, drifting with the current, still clinging to the Czarina.
“I’m drowning! I’m drowning!” he screamed in a paroxysm of terror.
In another moment Wilfrid and Ouvaroff were by his side.
“Let go your hold, or I’ll kill you!” said the furious Prince, and, clutching the Count by the back of his collar, he forced his head under the water, a diversion that caused Baranoff to relax his grasp, while at the same time Wilfrid seized the unconscious Czarina and holding her head above the surface, struck out immediately for the shore.
Prince Sumaroff, who had witnessed the catastrophe without being able to render any aid, descended the steps as Wilfrid drew near with his burden.
“I trust the lady lives,” he said preparing to assist her from the water.
“If not, Russia will mourn its Empress,” replied Wilfrid, revealing the Czarina’s face to the gaze of the petrified Prince.