I felt as though the heat of hell were burning in my veins as I lay on the floor with the remembrance of Devinsky's blow and his words turning my blood to fire. If ever I were free again, I swore to myself over and over again, I would have his life for that blow. My anguish and rage that he should have Olga in his power were infinite tortures, and all the less endurable because of my abject helplessness.
The one chance I had of deliverance was that someone, perhaps Essaieff, should hear of the matter and follow me. But the hope was so feeble as to be little more than tantalising; fool-like, I had rushed off without leaving any intimation of what had happened. If he did follow me, indeed, it would be only after a long interval, and not until Devinsky would have had time either to get far away or to carry out his purpose.
Then I began speculating as to what he meant to do. He would scarcely dare to try and make Olga his wife against her will and consent; though he was evidently villain enough to go to great lengths. In this way my thoughts ran over the ground trying to ferret out a means of escape as well as seeking a key to the man's motives; and thus another hour or two slipped away without my hearing a sound or getting a sign of anyone.
The strain of suspense was enough to turn one's brain.
But a wholly unexpected and most welcome interruption came to break in upon my reverie. Outside I heard the tramp of horses being ridden at a sharp trot into the courtyard of the house, with a jingling of arms and accoutrements that told me the riders were either soldiers or mounted police. A sharp word of command brought them to the halt; and as soon as that happened, I let out such a lusty yell for help as made the walls ring again and again. Then my door was opened and two men rushed in and ordered me to be silent, under pain of instant death, and clapped revolvers to my head. But I knew they dared not fire with such visitors at the door and I continued to yell with all my lung power until, throwing down their weapons, they first clapped their hands on my mouth and then thrust a gag into my jaws.
Some five minutes passed and the tension of my impatience was unendurable. Meanwhile the two men held me and cut the bonds from my legs and got ready to slip the gyves from my wrists.
Presently the tramp of feet approached the door of my room and when it was opened an officer of the mounted police entered with a file of men at his heels. Devinsky was shewing the way and speaking as they all came in.
"As I have told you, he made an attack on the house in the night; my men secured him. When I saw him, I recognised him, of course, and should have released him, but he tried to murder me—angry, I presume, at having been discovered and recognised at such work. I then had him bound again and was going to send to-day into the city for the police, when you came. If you'll take him away, that's all I want."
The man in command of the police listened to this in silence and with a face that shewed no more expression than a stone gargoyle.
"Release him," he said to his men, and in another moment I was at liberty. As soon as I was free, I began to edge my way inch by inch toward where Devinsky stood. I would have him down, police or no police, thought I, even if it were my last act before entering a gaol. I guessed of course that some Nihilist blabber had told the facts, and that I was bound for Siberia, or worse.
"Lieutenant Petrovitch, you are to accompany me, if you please," said the leader; and a sign to his men set two of them at each side of me.
"I have first one word to say to that—gentleman," I said, pointing to Devinsky.
"Excuse me. My instructions are peremptory. I must ask you to go with me at once—without a minute's delay."
I saw Devinsky's face brighten at the thought of thus getting rid of me: and my fingers itched and tingled to be at his throat.
"Am I arrested?" I asked. "For what?"
"I can say nothing, Lieutenant," replied the man.
"Do you know why I'm here?"
"If you please, we must go, and at once," was the stolid reply.
I saw Devinsky grin again at this.
"This man has carried off my sister," I cried. "She is in his power now, and it was when I came to find her that he tricked me and then had me bound as you see. Send your men to find her. She must return with us."
"I have no instructions to that effect," replied the man curtly.
"Damn your instructions," I burst out hotly. "Are you a man—to leave a young girl in this plight?" My reply stirred only anger.
"I cannot do what I am not ordered to do," said the officer again curtly.
"Then I won't go without her. Go back and—or better, send one of your men for permission to do this and stay here and keep guard over me and my sister at the same time."
"It is impossible. My instructions are peremptory and nothing will let me swerve from them."
I began to lose all self-command, and only by the most strenuous efforts did I prevent myself from heaping reproaches upon him for his cold-blooded officialism.
"Will you leave a couple of men here then, to protect her?"
"I can say no more, Lieutenant, and do no more than I have said. And now, we must go."
It maddened me beyond all telling to think that I was to be carried away in this ruthless, heartless, implacable fashion at the very moment when the rescue of the girl I loved more than my life was but a matter of walking into another room and bringing her out. I was staggered by the blow.
"Do you know that I would ten thousand times rather that you had left me here bound and helpless as I was than take me away in this fashion. I must see my sister. I must save her—why man, are you lost to every sense of feeling? Take her away first—make her safe; and then I swear to Heaven, you or this man can do with me what you please."
The stolid stony impassiveness of the man's face crushed every hope out of me. I could have struck him in my baffled rage.
"I have twenty men in the troop here, Lieutenant My instructions are to take you at once to Moscow. I prefer to use no force; but I have it here, if necessary."
I wrung my hands in despair; and then with a wild dash I rushed to the door to try and find Olga for myself. It was useless. They closed on me in an instant, and I was helpless. Then they marched me out to the horses, venting as I went bitter reproaches and unavailing protests, mingled with loud curses, laments, and revilings.
"Will you give me your parole to go quietly, Lieutenant?" asked the leader.
"On one condition. That we ride at full speed all the way."
"I can make no condition," replied this block of official stolidity; "but my instructions are to act with all haste. One question—have you been illtreated here?"
"Only as I told you."
Then he went back into the house for a moment, saying he would speak to Devinsky about it. I saw the latter change colour when he received the police report and he made a gesture of seeming repudiation, lifting his hands and shrugging his shoulders. After that he threw me a malicious look from his angry evil face that almost made me clamber down from the saddle to try and have a reckoning with him there and then.
"When I'm out of this, I'll hunt you out," I cried, between my teeth.
"When!" he answered: and the sneer in which he shewed his teeth as he uttered the word, was in my eyes for half that long, wild ride.
The police leader kept his word; and we rode at a hard gallop nearly all the way, the whole country side turning out as we thundered by.
The man would not say a word to me on the journey, except that he had been ordered to hold no communication at all with me; and thus I did not know where they were taking me, or whether I was arrested or rescued, until we drew rein at the Police head-quarters in Moscow and I was ushered straight into the presence of Prince Bilbassoff, all dirty, dishevelled, bruised, and travel-stained as I was.
He rose and met me, holding out his hand.
"My dear Lieutenant, you are really giving me an unconscionable amount of trouble. As much, indeed, as if you were already a member of my family."
"What does all this mean?" I asked. "Am I arrested?"
"What an impatient fellow you are! It will all come in time," he returned, with an indescribable blending of good nature and suggestive threat. "Is this all the thanks one gets for rescuing you from what, judging by your appearance, has been a very ugly mess. This harum-scarum business will really have to stop—when you marry." He seemed almost to laugh behind his grizzled moustache in the pause that emphasised the last three words.
"Will you tell me the real meaning of this? I have already asked you."
"Sit down;" and he sat down himself, and lounged back easily in his chair. "By the way, have you lunched?"
"For God's sake man, don't trifle in this way. If you know the facts, as I suppose you do, you'll know I'm in no mood for bantering courtesy. Why am I torn away by your men by force at the very moment when my sister is in danger at the hands of the brute who has carried her off. I suppose you know all this. What does it mean, I repeat."
"You can understand, perhaps, Lieutenant, that as it is two days since my sister referred you to me, and you had left Moscow hastily, she was growing a little anxious. You know something of women in love and their insistent moods."
"To hell with all these plots and intrigues," I cried, furiously. "If you mean that that devil Devinsky is to have my sister in his power and I am to sit down coolly and bear it while you talk to me about marriage, you don't know me. I'll think of nothing, talk of nothing, do nothing, till I have either saved her and killed that villain, or am killed myself."
"Do you mean that you will set me at defiance?" cried the Prince, in stern ringing tones, his eyes flashing at me. "That you dare to flout the offers we have made you, and have the hardihood to set the needs of the country below your own little petty personal feelings and wishes? Do you know what that means, sir?"
"I care not what it means," I answered, recklessly. "I tell you this to your face. If my sister be not saved at once, I'll never set eyes on you or your sister again, unless it be that you make me grin at you from behind the bars of some one of your cursed gaols. That is my last word, if it costs me my life."
He rose and looked at me so sternly that I could almost have flinched before him if my stake in the matter had not been so great. I never met such a look of concentrated power before.
"If you dare to repeat that, Lieutenant Petrovitch, I will send you straight to the Mallovitch," he said, with positively deadly intensity of tone, pointing his finger through the window to where the gloomy frowning tower of the great prison was visible.
"I care not if you send me to hell," I cried. "Save my sister, or my hand shall rot at the wrist before I lift it in your service."
We stood staring intently dead into each other's eyes; and he stretched forward a hand to summon those who would carry out his threat.
Then he breathed deeply, smiled, and offered me his hand instead.
"By God, you're the man we want, in all truth. Now, I'll tell you what you ask."
He had only been testing me after all, and my wits were so blunt in my agitation that I had not seen through him.
"Have no fear for your sister," he continued. "She is quite safe. My man gave that Devinsky a message when he was leaving that puts all doubt on that score aside. She is part of our bargain, and the arm of the State is over her. If you accept my offer at once, your sister herself shall decide that man's punishment. My object in all this is twofold—to let you feel something of the substance of power that will be yours when you have consented; and secondly to test a little more thoroughly your staunchness. I am satisfied, Lieutenant. And I hope you are."
"Where is my sister now?" I asked, after a moment's consideration.
"Where you left her, of course. Decide how you wish her to come to Moscow. Shall my men fetch her? Shall that man bring her back himself? Or will you ride out. It is a matter of the merest form—but as yet, of course, you are unaccustomed to your influence and power."
He was the devil at tempting; and though he had told me his motive, and I knew the rank impossibility of doing what he wanted—I could not help a little thrill of pleasure at the consciousness that this power lay within my grasp.
"I will ride out and bring her in myself," I said, with a flush of pleasant anticipation at the thought.
"As you will. This will do everything," he said, as he wrote me an order in the name of the Emperor. I knew its power well enough. "One condition, by the by. You must not fight this Devinsky; nor do anything to provoke a fight."
"I won't promise," I answered.
"Then I give no order. Your life is ours, not yours to play with. That is the essence of the matter."
"I will promise," I said, changing suddenly as I thought of Olga and the delight of seeing her under the circumstances. "My word on it. I do nothing except in self-defence, or in defence of my sister."
"Well, be off with you then," he said, rising and shaking hands, and speaking as lightly as if I were a schoolboy being sent off for a ride; and as though there were not between us a jot or tittle of a plan in which life and death, fortune and marriage were the stakes.
I hurried back to make preparations for riding back at once; and half an hour later I had had my first meal for twenty-four hours and was again in the saddle, pricking at top speed along the northern road, followed by one of the Prince's confidential servants, sent as the former said to me, with especial instructions to look after the welfare of one who was soon to be a member of the family.
There is no need to describe with what different emotions and thoughts I made that journey. It is enough to say that I dashed along at top speed, haunted by half a fear that something might yet go wrong with the plans and that Olga might still be in some danger; while a desire more keen than words can express came upon me to have her once more under my own care.
At the same time the sense of power to which the appeal had been so astutely made was roused, and I was conscious of an unusual glow of pride.
When I reached the house where I had had the ugly experience of the previous night I looked out for any sign of hostility. But there was none. A man came immediately in answer to my summons, and Devinsky was waiting for me in the large hall, which I scanned curiously after my night's experience in it.
The sight of Devinsky roused me, but I put the curb on my temper.
I handed him the order in silence. He read it and sneered.
"It is a good and safe thing to shelter behind Government powers," he said. "Your sister is upstairs. This way." He led and I followed, my heart beating fast.
We passed up the stairs and then turned along a corridor to the right, and after turning again to the right, and entering, as I thought the right wing of the rambling old house, we went up another short and very narrow flight of stairs. Then he opened the door of a room in silence—indeed we had not spoken a word all the time—and stood aside for me to pass.
Olga was sitting at the far end of the room looking out of the window, which was on the side away from the courtyard, with a woman attendant near her; and she did not even turn round when the door opened.
But when I uttered her name and she saw me, she sprang up, speaking mine in reply with such a glad cry, and ran to me with a look of such rare delight on her face that I think she was going to throw herself into my arms and I was certainly going to let her, oblivious of all but the rush of love that moved our hearts simultaneously.
When she was close to me, she checked herself, however, and put her hands in mine, as a sister might. But the glances from her eyes told me all I cared to know at that moment, while her gaze roamed over me as if in bewilderment.
"How is it you are better—and out? Where is your wound? What is that mark on your face? I don't understand. They told me you were lying dangerously wounded and that you wished me to remain here until you could bear to see me."
"There is a good deal you don't understand yet, Olga," I said. "The story of the duel was a lie from start to finish."
"Then you're not wounded? Oh, I'm so glad, Alexis" and, moving her hands up my arm after a timid glance at the woman, she looked her thankfulness and solicitude into my eyes.
The look made me speechless. Had I tried to answer it in words, I must have told her my love.
"You are to come with me, Olga," I said, presently, recovering myself. "The aunt is all impatience to have you back again."
"Why? I explained all to her in my messages."
"Your messages got lost on the way," I answered, and she saw by my tone how things were. She got ready to come with me without another word; and I could feel my heart thumping and lurching against my side as I watched her and caught her turn now and again to look at me and send me a little smile of trust and pleasure.
There was no need for us to speak much; we were beginning to understand each other well enough without words.
We went out of the room together, and I was surprised and glad to see on a chair close by the door the sword which I had dropped the previous night. I took it up, and as I did so Olga cried out in great and sudden fear.
I looked up and saw Devinsky at the narrow head of the short stairway.
"I've complied with the order," he said, his voice vibrating with anger. "And I've given your sister freely into your hands. You are at liberty to pass—alone." He said this to her and then turned to me: "But not you, till you and I have settled our old score."
"As you will," replied I, readily. "Nothing will please me more. But stay," I cried, remembering my promise. "I cannot now. I have passed my word. Stand aside, please, and let us pass."
"Not if you were the Czar himself," he answered, hotly. "And I'm not going to let you shield yourself either behind the Government—you spy!—or behind your sister's petticoats. If she doesn't choose to go when she has the chance, let her stop and see the consequence."
"Olga, you had better go on," I whispered. "This may be an ugly business, and not fit for you to be here."
"Where you are, I stop—come what may!" she answered, firmly.
"I've not come here to fight now," I said to Devinsky. "I'll meet you willingly enough another time, God knows. But now, I've passed my word;" and with that I raised my voice and shouted with all my strength to Prince Bilbassoff's servant, who was below, to come to my assistance.
For answer Devinsky called on a couple of men who until then had been hidden, and with drawn swords and a loud shout the three rushed forward to throw themselves upon me.
A glance round told me the attack had been shrewdly planned indeed. The spot in which we all were was a large square anteroom or landing place, lighted from above. Four or five doors opened from it into the rooms on either side, and the narrow stairway was the only means of communication with the rest of the house. I was caught like a rat in a trap, and unless I could beat off the men who were thus attacking me at such dangerous odds, I was as good as a dead man.
I whipped out my sword and pushed Olga back into the room we had left, just in time to parry the first wild lunges Devinsky made at me; and at the first touch of the steel all my coolness came to me.
Everything must turn on the first minute or two; and knowing my man I set all my skill to work to keep him so engaged as to hamper the attempts of the other two to get to close quarters with me.
I worked back into a corner of the place, close to the door of the room, and then as I darted out lunge after lunge with the swiftest dexterity, my three opponents were compelled to get into each other's way in their hurried manoeuvres to avoid my strokes. By this means I hampered their fighting strength and lessened it by at least one man, since all three could not possibly get to strike at me at the same time. But even thus the odds were too heavy.
Devinsky was nothing like my equal with the sword, and his rage and mad hate now rendered him less deadly than usual: but with two others to help him, I could hardly hope to win in the end. For this reason as I fought I uttered shout after shout to the man below to come to my assistance.
These cries had also the effect of disconcerting my opponents.
Then a lucky chance happened.
One of the men in jumping back out of the way of one of my thrusts stumbled over the second, and sent this one for a moment into Devinsky's way. I saw my chance and seized it in an instant. In a trice I rushed at the half prostrate man and disdaining to kill him when his guard was down, I kicked him with my heavy riding boot with all my force in the face, and sent him reeling back, groaning and half choked with the blood that came gushing out of his nose and mouth, while his sword, went rattling across the floor to where Olga stood, looking on aghast, breathless and open mouthed in her fear.
But the chance nearly cost me dear, for the man's companion turned on me and thrust at me with such directness and rapidity as all but ended the fight; for his sword went through the fleshy part of my arm, just above the elbow. An inch or so nearer the body would have sent it right through my heart. It was the last thrust he ever made, however. The next instant my blade had found his heart, and with a groan he dropped.
Before I could withdraw it, however, Devinsky uttered a cry of hate, and dashing at me thrust at my heart with all his strength.
He must have killed me but for Olga.
That splendid girl had picked up the fallen man's sword and now, seeing my plight, she sprang forward, at the hazard of her life, crying out "Coward!" and struck down Devinsky's sword with all her force.
"Good," I cried; and the next instant, I had wrenched my weapon free and held the man.
"Take care. Back to the room, or behind me, child," I cried, when I heard my opponent curse in his foiled attempt to kill me and saw him turn as if to attack Olga. "Now, you butcher, it's you and I alone; and you or I, to live."
"As you will," he said, and I saw him clench his teeth and set his face in the way men do who know that they are face to face with a risk where failure means death.
My blood was up now, and I meant death too. He had given up all right to expect anything else, and I had no mind to let him off. If ever a man had earned death he had. He had heaped on me every indignity that one man could put on another, and to crown it all he had just tried to murder me. I would kill him with less compunction than one kills a dog; and I set about the task with the coolest deliberation and purpose.
The scene was a grim and ghastly one enough. The floor was all slippery in places with the blood of the man I had killed, whose body lay huddled up against the wall, as well as of the other who sat on the ground still spitting and coughing and mumbling and cursing from the fearful effects of my kick. In the middle we two stood fighting to the death, watching one another with the fire of hate and blood lust in our eyes and on our set faces: while Olga, all eagerness excitement and tension, stood in the doorway watching us with white drawn face and dilated eyes; the deeply drawn breath coming in spasms through her distended nostrils and slightly parted lips.
I forced the fight with all my power, and my blade flashed about my antagonist until all his skill was useless even to defend himself against my point, while any offensive tactic was out of the question. I wounded him three times, once so close to the heart that Olga cried out: and at length recalling the knack with which I had disarmed him in our former encounter, I used it now; and after a few more swift and cunning passes I whipped his sword from his grasp and sent it rattling to the other end of the place.
My eye flashed as I drew back my arm for the death thrust.
"Ah, don't, Alexis," cried Olga, in a sort of whisper of horror. "Don't kill him!"
It stopped me instantly, and my arm fell.
"As you will," I answered readily; "but he doesn't deserve it. You owe your life to the woman you've tried to wrong, not to me," I said to him, shortly. "Stand out of the way and let us pass."
He moved aside doggedly, eyeing us with surly sullen hate, as Olga, trembling violently now that the excitement was over, went on first, and I followed her through the stairway and down and out of the house.
When we reached the courtyard, the postchaise which I had ordered to follow us from the inn had arrived, and Olga and I entered it at once.
"Thank God, we are out of the house," was my companion's fervent exclamation, as the carriage turned into the road and we left the gloomy place behind us.
"Would to God we were out of Russia!" said I, speaking from my heart. "Then..." I paused and looked into her face.
"All may yet come right," answered Olga, meeting my eyes and putting her hand in mine. My clasp closed on it, and we sat thus for some moments, just hand in hand, each silently happy in the knowledge of the other's love.
Then I bent toward her and gradually drew her to me, my eyes all the time lighted with the light from hers.
"It is love, Olga; lovers' love?" I asked in a passionate whisper.
For answer she smiled and whispered back:
"It has always been, Alexis;" and she met my betrothal kisses with warmth equal to mine. And after that we did not care to say a word, but leant back in the carriage as it flew through the country in the gathering gloom of the evening, bumping, jolting, rolling, and creaking. What cared we for that? Olga was fast in my arms her head on my breast and her face close to mine, so close that we were tempted ever and again to let the story of our love tell itself over and over again in our kisses; and neither Olga nor I had a thought of resisting the temptation.
This would have gone on for hours, so far as I was concerned; I was in a veritable Palace of Delight with freshly avowed love as my one thought. But Olga roused herself suddenly with a start and a little cry.
"Oh, Alexis, what have you made me do? Your wound."
I had forgotten all about it, but now when she mentioned it my left arm felt a little stiff.
"I am ashamed of myself," she cried. "What a love must mine be, that I want to dream of it with selfish pleasure when you are wounded. You make me drink oblivion with your kisses."
"Love is a fine narcotic," replied I, laughing. "I felt no wound while you looked at me. But now that you bring me down to earth with a rush, I begin to remember it. But it is nothing much, and will best wait till we are in Moscow."
"Do you think I will let anyone see that wound before I do? Why, it was gained for my sake. And you love me? And now"—"now" was a long loving kiss and a lingering look into my face as she held it between her hands, while her eyes were radiant with delight. Then she sighed—"Now, I am all sister again."
I was looking my doubts of this and meant to test them, shaking my head in strong disbelief, when the carriage stopped suddenly. Looking out I saw that we were at the inn, and must therefore have been driving long over two hours. It had seemed scarce a minute.
"Will you get out while we change horses, sir?" asked the Prince's servant, who had come with the carriage on horseback.
"My brother is wounded and must have attendance at once," said Olga, in so self-possessed a tone that I smiled.
"Only a scratch," said I, as if impatiently. "But my sister is always fidgety."
We went into the house then, and Olga insisted upon examining the wound, and when she saw the blood I had lost, not much, but making brave shew on my white linen, she was all solicitude, and anxiety. She sent the maids flying this way and that, one to fetch hot water, another bandages, a third lint, and altogether made such a commotion in the place that one would have thought I had been brought there to die.
She bathed the little spot so tenderly and delicately too, asking every moment if her touch hurt me; and she washed it and then covered it, and bandaged it and bound it up, and did everything with such infinite care that I was almost glad I had been wounded.
And the whole process she accompanied with a running fire of would-be scolding comment upon the trouble that brothers gave, the obstinate creatures they were, the rash and foolish things they did, how much more bother they were than sisters, and a great deal more to the same effect—till I thought the people would see through the acting as clearly as I did, assisted as I was by the thousand little glints and glances she threw to me when the others were not looking our way.
Then she held a long consultation with the landlady—a large woman who seemed as kindly in heart as she was portly in body—whether it would be safe for me to go on to the city that night, or whether a doctor had not better be brought out to me there: and it took the persuasion and assurances of us all to win her consent to my going on.
I tried to punish her for this when we were in the carriage again, by telling her I supposed she was unwilling to travel on with me. But I wasted my breath and my effort, as she was all the way in the highest spirits.
"I don't quite know which I like best," she said, laughing. "Being sister with a knowledge of—of something else, as I was just now at the inn, or—or..."
"Or what?"
"Or riding with Hamylton Tregethner," she answered, laughing again, gleefully. "Do you notice how easily I can say that dreadful name?"
"I notice I like it better from your lips than from any others."
"I've practised it—and it was so difficult. But I might even get to like it in time, you know."
"By the way, I remember you once told me you didn't like Hamylton Tregethner."
"Ah, yes. That was my brother's old friend. A very disagreeable person. He wanted to take my brother away from Moscow. A person must be very unpleasant who wishes to divide brother and sister. Don't you think so?"
"That depends on the rate of exchange," said I.
"Perhaps; but at that time there was no talk of exchange at all."
"And no thought of it?"
"Ah!" And for answer she nestled to me again and merged the sister in the lover with a readiness and pleasure that shewed what she thought of that particular exchange.
And with these little intervals of particularly sweet and pleasant light and shade we travelled the miles to Moscow, in what seemed to us both an incredibly short time.
It was not until a night's rest had somewhat redressed the balance of my emotions and had rendered me again subject to the pressure of actualities that I fully realised how the avowal of my love had rather increased than diminished the difficulties of our position.
Despite my fatigue and wound I was stirring in good time, and had had the doctor's report and seen the Colonel to get leave from regimental work, in time to get round to see Olga pretty early. I wished to see her and discuss the whole position before going to report to Prince Bilbassoff the result of things with Devinsky.
The manner in which Olga met me was one of the sweetest things imaginable and the presence of the good aunt, Countess Palitzin, added to its effect. They were sitting together when I entered.
"It is Alexis, aunt," said Olga rising. She was a mixture of laughing love and sisterly indifference.
"Alexis, you are a good lad, a dear lad," said the old lady, usually very stately and punctilious. "Come here, boy, and kiss me and let me kiss you. You have done splendidly and bravely in this matter of Olga. She has told me all about it."
"All?" I echoed, looking at Olga, who tried to keep the smile that was dancing in her eyes from travelling to her lips.
"All that a sister need tell," she said.
"Olga, I have no patience with you," exclaimed the aunt. "You have a brother in a thousand—in ten thousand, and yet you speak in that way. And I see you never kiss him now. I should like to know why. Are you ashamed of him? Here he has saved you from all this trouble, and you give him the points of your finger nails to touch. Yet you are not cold and feelingless in other things."
"I am glad that you speak to her like this," I said, gravely. "She seems to think that a sister should never kiss such a brother as I am."
"Do you mean to say you think I have given you no reason to believe I am thankful for what you have done?" she retorted, fencing cleverly.
"I don't echo our aunt's words, that you are cold and feelingless, Olga—she is not that, Aunt Palitzin. But I do find that as a sister she places a strong reserve on her feelings."
"To hear you speak," said Olga, laughing lightly, "one might think I had two characters: in one of which I was all warmth and affection; in the other all coldness and reserve."
"And I believe that would be about right, child," said the Countess. "For when the boy is not here your tongue never tires of praising him; and yet the moment he comes, he might be a stranger instead of your own nearest and dearest."
Olga blushed crimson at this.
"Brothers have to be treated judiciously," she said.
"'Judiciously,' Olga. Why, what on earth do you mean? How could you love a brave fellow like Alexis injudiciously?"
"Love is often best when it is most injudicious," said I, sententiously, coming to Olga's rescue; but she betrayed me shamefully. Looking innocently at me she asked:—
"Would you like us to be a pair of injudicious lovers, then, Alexis?"
"If I never shew more lack of judgment than in my love for you, I shall get well through life, Olga," I retorted.
"You are certainly a most unusual brother, I can tell you," she said, smiling slily.
"If every brother had such a sister, the tie that binds us two would be a much more usual one," I answered.
"You are incorrigible," she laughed and turned away.
"I am glad you speak so seriously, Alexis," said my aunt. "I'll be no party to any deception. She does love you, boy, however much she may try to hide it when you are here;" and with this, which set us both laughing again, the old lady went away.
"Does she?" I asked; and the question brought Olga with a happy look into my arms.
But I had not come to make love, sweet though it was to have the girl's arms about me; and as soon as I could, I began in talk seriously about the position.
In the first place I told her everything that had happened; and there was one thing that amused her, despite the tremendously critical state of our affairs. It was about the great suitor the Prince had promised for her.
"What, another?" she said, with a comical crinkling of her forehead. "Upon my word what with brothers and lovers, I am sorely plagued. This makes the..." she stopped.
"How many?"
"I don't think I know. Either two or three, according as we reckon you. While you're my brother, two I suppose. Otherwise three."
"'Otherwise' is a good deal shaky, I'm afraid," said I, shaking my head. "And I begin to question whether he'll ever count."
"He may not; but in that case no other ever will," returned Olga earnestly. "Did you say that on purpose to get another assurance from me?"
"No, indeed. I only spoke out of the reality of my doubts;" and then we went on threshing the thing out.
"There is but one possible chance," said I, after I had told her all. "It's a remote one, perhaps, but such as it is, we must use it. You must go...."
"I won't leave Moscow unless you go," she broke in. "I wouldn't have done it before when you wanted, but now...." she paused and blushed and her eyes brightened—"wild horses shan't tear me away."
"There are stronger things than wild horses, child; and I shall appeal to one in your case. You must go in order to try and get me out of the muddle here."
"Yes, I'll go for that, if it's necessary," she declared as readily as a moment before she had declined.
"It is necessary. Shortly, my idea is this. We can't get away together at the same time. We are shut in here in the very centre of Russia; and if we left together we could not hope to reach the frontier for many hours after we had been missed from here; while if we were missed only ten minutes before we got to the barrier, it would be long enough for us to be stopped. Besides, there are ten thousand things that come in the way. But that doesn't apply to your travelling alone; and if I can get a passport or a permit for you, I believe you will be able to get across the frontier before anyone has an idea that you have even left the city. In my case that would be impossible. There are three separate sets of lynx eyes on me. The Prince's police—the most vigilant of all; the Nihilists—the most dangerous; and Paula Tueski's—the most vengeful. I shall have the most difficult task to evade them, and I believe it will be only possible, if at all, by a sort of double cunning. But there is one way you can help."
"What is that?" asked Olga, whose interest was breathless.
"I have a friend, Balestier; you've heard of him—the Hon. Rupert Balestier. He saw your brother in Paris and believes that some devilment is on foot. If you can find him and tell him all that has happened and the mess that things are in, I believe, in fact I know, that he would exhaust every possible means of helping me. It is possible that our Foreign Office might be moved by the influence he could bring to bear; and I know that in such a task he'd stir up every friend and relative he has in the world. My plan is simply this. You must go with all possible speed to Paris: find him, tell him all, and get him to do what he thinks best and use what efforts he can. In the meantime if I can't escape I shall either have to feign consent with this wretched duel and marriage business and wait on events: or if I get a chance of leaving, slip off in an altogether different direction."
"It is a terrible trouble I have brought you to, Alexis," said the girl sadly.
"I would pay a far bigger price for this trouble," I answered, taking her hand and kissing it. "And when we are once out of this too hospitable land of yours, we shall laugh at it all together."
"Yes, when?" she said; and her tone suggested a hopelessness which responded only too well with that which I felt secretly.
While we were together, however, it was impossible for us to feel downcast for long. There was such infinite pleasure in mere companionship, that the grim troubles which surrounded us were shut out of our thoughts. The present was so bright that it seemed impossible the gloom could soon close in on us.
But when I had left her and was alone in my rooms, I was gloomy enough; and my spirits were certainly not raised when my new servant ushered in Paula Tueski.
"You would not come to me, Alexis, so I have to come to you," was her greeting. "You neglect me. I suppose because of the great friends you have made."
"Great friends?" For the moment not understanding her.
"Yes. I hear that you are finding great pleasure in the society of a certain great lady."
"Oh, you mean the Princess Weletsky?" I laughed as I spoke.
"It does not make me laugh," she said, frowning.
"You are in mourning, and laughter sounds ill with tears," I returned. I hated the woman worse every time I saw her.
"If I am in mourning it is you who are the cause," she cried, stamping her foot, angrily. "I want to know what this new—new friendship, shall I call it?—means."
"You may call it what you like. The Princess is nothing to me," said I, thinking more of my affections than of the facts.
"And never will be?" said my companion abruptly.
"And never will be, I hope," I agreed, with the accents of unmistakable sincerity.
But my visitor was suspicious and did not believe me. She got up and came close to me, and stared hard into my eyes as if searching there for the truth.
"Then why are you so cold to me? Not a kindly word, not a gesture, not a glance that you mightn't have thrown to the veriest beggar in the street have you given me. You, who used always to brighten when I came near you. I have seen your eyes light up a hundred times, Alexis, when you have let them rest on me, praising, pleasing, and loving me. And now you are as cold as a tombstone. Will you swear to me you have no love for this other woman—this Princess?"
"Most certainly I will."
"Ah, what is the use of an oath in which there is no fire, no life, nothing but dead cold ashes! What has changed you? Are you thinking of marrying this woman?"
"If she waits till I wish to marry her, she'll die unmated," I returned.
"Why can't you say yes or no to my questions?" she cried, stamping her foot again, irritated by the little evasion. "Are you thinking of marrying her?"
"No. Is that answer blunt enough for you?"
"It sounds like a forced lie more than anything else. Do you know what I would do, Alexis, if I thought you meant to try and deceive me?"
"I can pretty well guess," I answered, calmly. "Probably go round and have afternoon tea with her and tell her that little fable which you told me the other day. You weary me with these constant threats, Paula. They get like a musket that's held so long at one's head that it rusts at the lock and the trigger can't be pulled. It would be so much more interesting if you'd go and do something."
With that I turned away and lighted a cigarette, almost wishing in my heart that I could offend her sufficiently to drive her away; and yet sick at the knowledge of her power over Olga and me.
"I like that tone better," she said, with a laugh. "At least it shews some kind of feeling. I hate a log. You will find I can 'do something,' as you say, when the time comes, if you drive me. My muskets don't miss fire."
"No, nor your daggers blunt their points. I admit you can be deadly enough where you hate."
"Don't make me hate you, then," she retorted, quickly.
"Is that possible, Paula?" I replied, turning to her with a smile.
The instant change in this most remarkable woman at this one slight touch of tenderness was wonderful. She was hungering for the love I could no more give her than I could have given her the Crown of Russia, and at this little accent of kindness she turned all softness and smiling love.
"Ah, God! You can do as you like with me, Alexis," she cried, excitedly. "Just then you were rousing all the devil there is in me; and now no more than a smile drives out of my heart every thought save of my love for you. If it is so easy to make me happy why kill me with your coldness? Kiss me, Alexis." She came to throw her arms round me but wishing to avoid this caress, I remembered my wound and stepping back, kept her off.
"Mind, I have a little hurt here;" and I pointed to the place.
Little did I think of the consequences of that most simple action, or of the price I should have to pay for shirking a few distasteful kisses. She was at once all anxiety.
"A hurt? A wound? Tell me what it is. Have you—was it in consequence of rescuing your sister? Have you had some fight or other?"
I told her in as few words as I could, glad to turn her thoughts from the wish to caress me. When I had to admit that it was a slight sword thrust, however, she insisted upon seeing the wound as well as the places where I had torn my arm in the efforts to get rid of my bonds.
No one could fail to see her care was prompted by deep feeling.
I took off my coat and just turned up my sleeve to satisfy her curiosity, and held out my arm for her to see, laughing half shamefacedly as I did so, to assure her there was no cause for real anxiety, and that she was making much of nothing.
But the effect it had on her was startling indeed.
After glancing at the marks which were fast dying away, for my skin always heals very rapidly, she smoothed them gently and kissed them.
"It is the left arm, Alexis, always the left arm," she said, glancing up with a smile, and speaking as if there were some special significance in the fact—though what that could be I could not even guess, of course.
The chief mark was on the lower part of the upper arm, just above the elbow, and when she had kissed it and had turned it round so that the front part of the forearm, where the muscles are broadest was in full view, I felt her start violently, and heard her catch her breath quickly, as if with a gasp of surprise.
She stared at it for fully a minute without raising her eyes, her only gesture being to pass her fingers across the muscles twice.
When she raised her eyes and looked at me, there was an astounding change in her face. She was as white as death, and trembled so violently that even her face quivered, while her eyes were fixed on me with an expression of wildness and mingled emotions such as I could not read or even guess at.
"Are you ill?" I asked.
She started again as I spoke; and her lips merely moved very slightly as she moistened them with her tongue.
And all the time she kept the same staring, strained, frowning, questioning look fixed on me.
"What's the matter?" I cried again. "Are you ill?" I thought she was in for a fit of some kind.
But all she did was to continue to stare with the same indescribable intensity, the heavy brows closing together as the frown deepened on her forehead.
"My God!"
The exclamation seemed to be wrung from her in sheer pain of thought.
She took hold of my arm again and examined the same place once more with briefer but no less fierce scrutiny.
Then looking up again into my face she let the arm fall. She seemed to shrink from me as she drew in one long deep shivering breath that sounded between her teeth. Next she turned away and sat down, pressing both her hands to her face.
Every vestige of feeling and passion had passed, leaving only the close, concentrated, strained tension. The colour had left her cheeks: and the roundness and beauty of her face appeared to have been transformed in a moment into a veritable presentment of lean, haggard, vigilant doubt.
Many minutes passed before either of us spoke. Then she got up and again came quite close to me and staring right into my eyes, asked in a voice all changed and unmusical—a sort of keen piercing whisper, that seemed to send a chill through me—while she pointed to my arm:—
"What does it mean? Who are you?"
I returned the look steadily, but bit my lip nearly through as I guessed well enough the discovery she had made. I answered lightly:—
"Excellently acted. But what is it all about?"
"Who are you? That tells me who you are not." She spoke in the same hard discordant whisper, and pointed to my arm again.
"Are you mad?" I cried sternly. "What do you mean by this pretence?"
Her only answer was to stare with the same stony intensity right into my eyes.
"Shall I send for my own sister to identify me?" I cried, with what I intended as sarcastic emphasis. But the effect of my question quite disconcerted me.
It broke her down and with a cry that was almost a scream, she threw herself into a chair and gave vent to emotions that were no longer controllable.
For an hour she was in this semi-hysterical condition; and I could guess the leading thought of her frenzy. If I was not the man she had believed, she would jump to the thought that Olga and I were lovers, and not brother and sister. Her jealousy made her a madwoman.
By the time she had recovered from her frenzy I had resolved on my course. The only thing possible was to hold strenuously to the old deception. What had shaken her belief in me, I could not, of course, even guess. If by any means she could make her words good, it was clear she carried my life in her hands. Strong as the story which she had concocted as to my supposed crime would have been against the real Alexis, it was a hundred times stronger as told against someone impersonating Alexis for what she would of course declare were Nihilist purposes. The mere fact of the impersonation would be accepted as proof of guilt in everything: while Olga's share in the conspiracy would render her liable to a punishment only less in extent than mine.
As I thought of all this, my rage against the woman passed almost beyond control; but I forced it back and listened when she spoke—telling me of all the things which had made me seem so different. My conduct to her; my manner; my lack of love; the difference in looks, in gestures, and in what I said and the way I said it; the thousand things that had set her wondering at the change in me.
Then she spoke of the change in my sister's conduct; how a word from me had made her friendly where a thousand words before had failed. And when she spoke and thought of Olga, she seemed to lose again all self-control; declaring she had been made a tool and a dupe of for some purposes of our own.
My protestations were of no avail. She brushed them aside with abrupt contempt, and when I tried to find out indirectly what her proof was, she laughed angrily and would not tell me.
"I will tell you when I bid you good-bye for Siberia, or see you for the last time in the condemned cell. You shall not die in ignorance," she said: and then she went on to dwell with horrible detail upon the punishments that were in store for both Olga and myself.
But she overdid it all; and shewed me her weak point. She thus gave me a clue to my best tactics. Her feeling was not hate of me, but jealousy of Olga. This strange and most impulsive woman had had her love tricked as well as her judgment; and the love which she had had for Olga's brother was now transferred to me. Her chief fear was lest Olga was really to come between us. When she stopped, I tested her.
"You have found a ridiculous mare's nest," I said, with a short laugh. "And I have something more important to do than to listen to your fictions. If you think there is any truth in the thing, by all means tell all you know. But I warn you beforehand you will fail—fail ignominiously: and what is more, lose all you have said you wish to gain. My great object now is to get Olga out of the country, so that I may be free to carry out my plans."
She looked up as I spoke, and I saw the light of hope in her eyes.
"That you may follow her, I suppose you mean?"
"You can suppose what you please," I answered, shortly. "If you wish to break off all between us by this ridiculous story, do so. But bear in mind, it is your act, not mine; and when once done, done irrevocably."
She wrung her hands in indecision.
"Can I trust you?"
"Can you get me a permit for Olga to leave the country? That's more to the point."
"Yes—alone." There was a world of meaning in that single word.
"Then get it; and as soon as a railway engine can drag her across the frontier, she will be out of Russia, and out of my way, much to my relief."
She sat silent in perplexity.
"You can't go! You shan't go!" she cried. "You have made me do these things, whoever you are, and you must stay—for me."
I smiled. I had won. Then I changed as it were to a rather fanatical Nihilist, and cried warmly:—
"The ties that keep me here, Paula, are ties of death and blood; and such as no woman's hand can either fashion or destroy."
She looked at me long and intently and put her hands on my arms and her face close up to mine and said in a soft seductive tone:—
"If I get that permit, all shall be as it was?"
"All shall be as it was, Paula," I answered, adopting her equivocal phrase, and bent and kissed her on the forehead. But I was playing for a big stake: Olga's life probably, and my own certainly: and I could not afford the luxury of absolute candour at that crisis of the game.
But I did not win without conditions.
"I will get it," she said; "but you remember what I told you before. I repeat it now. You are more surely mine than ever; more surely than ever in my power, Alexis." She emphasized the word and a glance shewed me her meaning. "And we must be married secretly within three days from now. I will make the arrangements."
"As you will," I replied; and I felt glad that in a measure her resort to this compulsion gave me a sort of justification for misleading her.
In less than three days' the Czar's visit would be over and I should either be dead or out of Russia.
But Olga would be saved; and that would be much.