CHAPTER XVIII.FEODOR SERGHEIEVITCH RAMODANOFSKY.
I tooka step backward and stared at him in surprise. My feelings were strangely confused, and in that first moment I did not realize how completely the situation was transformed by this revelation; the only thought that presented itself to me was that I saw Zénaïde’s father. The boyar’s strong face was without its mask of repose, and was full of deep emotion. Before I had collected myself he spoke again.
“I am greatly indebted to you, M. le Vicomte,” he said. “I owe you my life, for it is probable that Polotsky would have murdered me that night; and now Von Gaden tells me that I owe you my daughter’s escape from a loathsome and degrading marriage.”
“I pray that she may have escaped,” I said, “but this disappearance alarms me greatly.”
“We have just learned it,” Von Gadenremarked. “Ramodanofsky had but now decided to announce his identity to his daughter, when my wife told us of your discovery.”
I explained to them my abortive attempt to learn something at the Ramodanofsky house, and of Pierrot’s suspicion that Polotsky knew more than the other servants, but would not reveal it.
“Polotsky must be secured, then,” Feodor said at once; “he is an abominable wretch, and deserves nothing so much as torture.”
Looking at the boyar’s face, I recognized the fact that his nerves were not so delicately strung as to shudder at the most refined cruelty, and fancied that the steward would find little mercy at his hands. Polotsky would be difficult to capture, however, for his experience with us had probably made him wary; nevertheless, we soon fixed upon a plan for securing him. Pierrot and Ramodanofsky’s servant, Michael, were deputed to lie in wait for the wretch and bring him to us; the only danger seeming to be Michael’s ferocious hatred of his enemy. The man had accompanied the boyar to my quarters, and he and Pierrot were at once despatched with instructions to secure Polotsky as soon as possible. Ramodanofsky went to the anteroom to give a last word ofwarning to his servant, and I found myself alone with the Jewish doctor.
“It appears that dead men rise at their pleasure in Russia,” I remarked dryly.
Von Gaden smiled. “It is a strange history, but I was not wrong in my supposition,” he replied; “Vladimir did nearly murder the boyar, and did compass his ruin.”
“Undoubtedly,” I returned; “but how has he hidden him all these years?”
“It is easy to obliterate a ruined man, M. de Brousson,” replied the boyar himself, for, entering unobserved, he had overheard my question. “My life has been checkered by black misfortunes, and my identity almost destroyed by the villainy of Vladimir.”
“I beg pardon, monsieur,” I said at once, “for the question that would have seemed unwarranted from a stranger if addressed to you; but Dr. von Gaden has told me of your apparent death, therefore your re-appearance naturally overwhelmed me with amazement.”
“I have been as good as dead,” replied Ramodanofsky, an expression of stern sadness coming over his face. “After I was stricken down in my own courtyard, by my brother’s hand, I lay in a trance, and on my recovery, found myself in a convict’s garb and in prison. My effortsto proclaim my identity and obtain justice were scouted as the vagaries of a madman. It was impossible to gain redress; impossible to reach the proper authorities with my complaint. I had not only ceased to be a free man, but it seemed as if I had ceased to be even a human being! I have eaten the bitter bread of humiliation and exile. If I am no longer merciful and just as other men, it is because I have received neither mercy nor justice. Hunted like a wild beast, and treated as one, it seems to me a marvel that I have retained the semblance of a man. There was no chance of escape for years, and when it came at last, so worn out and broken was I, that I would scarcely have embraced my opportunity but for the thought of my child. There was no hope of justice from the late czar or his father; but the Czarevna Sophia is willing to propitiate the older nobles, and I represent a class that has had little friendship for her.”
“Prince Galitsyn knows of your identity, does he not?” I asked, my mind full of the new possibilities.
“Prince Basil is my friend,” replied Ramodanofsky; “his father and I were comrades, and it is to him I owe the friendship of the czarevna.”
“You have come at the time when you are most needed, monsieur,” I said; “you, and you alone, can save your daughter.”
“If I had been earlier advised of her danger,” he replied, “I should have acted more decisively; as it stands, it is to you that I am beholden, M. de Brousson.”
I bowed in acknowledgment, not without a feeling of pleasure that Zénaïde’s father was already in my debt. As he stood before us now, in his true character, I was more than ever impressed by the man’s dignity, the stern resolution of his brow and mouth, the traces of a handsome youth lost by rugged usage and the disfiguring scar. Yet I was conscious too of a new feeling, which I could not analyze: I was no longer Zénaïde’s only chance of escape; here was her natural protector, the one who would have the first voice in deciding my fate. I could not but wonder how much he knew, or imagined, of my feeling for his daughter, meanwhile endeavoring to play the host with what grace I could summon in the midst of my anxiety. I invited my two guests to partake of a light repast, which I noticed the boyar ate calmly, like a man who was accustomed to facing anxieties and difficulties, and whose nerves could remain unshaken in themidst of disaster; even Von Gaden showed more excitement, and I only made a pretence of eating as a matter of courtesy.
“Your appetite is poor, M. le Vicomte,” Ramodanofsky remarked calmly, glancing at my plate.
I made some excuse, speaking of the anxiety of the moment.
“It makes no difference, M. de Brousson,” he replied quietly. “I am a good deal of a fatalist. If evil is to happen, it will happen; to eat or to fast will not avert it. If you had been through my bitter experience, you would face any crisis with more composure. Fear or suffering, in anticipation, is a poor method of borrowing trouble, and avails nothing. The only way to conquer misfortune is to meet it with indomitable will.”
Looking at his severe scarred face, I could readily fancy his manner of meeting adversity.
“M. de Brousson is young yet,” Von Gaden remarked, “and young blood is easily stirred.”
I heard footsteps on the stair, and rising from my chair, stood looking at the two men before me.
“Mon Dieu, gentlemen!” I exclaimed, “is it a light matter? I could face death, methinks, with a composure equal to your own, but hereis a terrible situation. Mademoiselle Ramodanofsky has disappeared, and we cannot tell what fate may have overtaken her!”
Ramodanofsky rose too, and a look of deep trouble swept over his hard features, refuting my momentary thought that all natural feeling was dead within him. While we stood thus, the door was flung open, and Pierrot, with a disordered and mud-splashed dress, stood upon the threshold.
“M. le Vicomte,” he said in a tone of great excitement, addressing me in French, and unconscious that both the other two understood him, “we have trapped the steward, and if you do not come down at once, that Russian devil will fricassee him alive before we can extract any information from him!”
Feodor laughed, startling Pierrot so that he stood staring.
“My good fellow,” the boyar said to him in French, “you would fricassee the steward too, if you had as heavy a debt against him as poor Michael has.”
Knowing Michael’s proclivities, neither Von Gaden nor I delayed, but hurried down the stairs, followed by the boyar. Pierrot directed us to a low room on the ground floor; and before we reached the door, sounds like suppressedgroans, greeting our ears, hastened our steps. When we arrived, a curious scene met our eyes. It was a low, bare room, which had probably been used as a dungeon before; there was a fire burning on the hearth, and over it hung the white-faced Michael, heating a poker red-hot. Tied in a chair before the fire was the cringing figure of the steward, a miserable heap of cowardice. His shoes and stockings having been removed, I had no doubt about his enemy’s intentions; the abject fear on one face and the fierce exultation on the other were both suggestive, not of men, but of beasts. Von Gaden and I paused on the threshold, arrested by the curious and revolting spectacle; but Ramodanofsky passed us, and going over to the hearth, checked his servant by a gesture. Michael stood transfixed at his order; but his fingers still clung lovingly to the handle of the red-hot poker, and his small, cruel eyes never left his enemy, seeming to feast on his agony. Feodor Sergheievitch took his position in front of the prisoner, and standing with his hands behind him, viewed him with cold contempt.
“Make a full confession, knave,” he said scornfully, “for equivocation will avail nothing now. Where has your master hidden my daughter? Answer, for you are at our mercy!”
“Ay!” ejaculated the steward, sullenly, and without looking up; “your hour has come, and it will be as easy to die one way as another, so you are quick.”
“But we will not be quick,” replied the Russian, calmly; “we will be slow,—extremely slow, Polotsky. You shall die as traitors ought to die—as thieves and assassins always die! And be sure it will be ten times more slow—more agonizing—more terrific—if you do not confess. Every moment that you delay adds an hour to your torture, delays just so long the blessed relief of death, which is too good for you!”
Von Gaden and I said nothing, but stood there, silent witnesses of a scene which suggested to both of us the barbarism of the Tartar. We could not doubt, looking at the Russian’s cold, composed face, that he would torture his victim if he thought that it was necessary to do so, to extract information,—would torture him as readily as he would look at him. Polotsky lay there before him, cringing like a stricken beast. There was no doubt of his making a full confession, if it was possible for him to tell the truth at all before such a tribunal: his old master looking at him without mercy, and behind him his bitterest foe with a livid face,as ferocious in its longing for his blood as any wolf’s.
“Speak, brute!” exclaimed the boyar, harshly, glancing aside at the red-hot poker in his servant’s hand.
“Have mercy on me!” shrieked the wretch, suddenly writhing in his bonds until he faced me. “Have mercy on me, Frenchman! save me, and I will confess all—all!”
Loathsome as the fellow was, I felt some pity. I have never loved the thought of torture; an equal fight, a swift and just retribution, but never such a scene as this! Beneath the Russian noble’s cold exterior I saw the savage goaded to hatred and revenge by bitter wrong: relentless, inexorable, resistless.
“Save me,” shrieked the wretched steward, “and you shall save her!”
“Do you hear that?” cried Ramodanofsky. “He admits his knowledge of my child’s fate! Confess, you villain, or I will burn you with fire!”
I came into the room and spoke to him in French.
“I pray your forbearance, monsieur,” I said; “the fellow is too miserable a coward to confess under such a pressure. Leave him to me but a moment, and I think I can promise you the whole truth.”
“It is easier to cut his throat if he refuses,” exclaimed the boyar, impatiently.
“Time presses, monsieur,” I said quietly, “and he is willing to confess to me.”
Ramodanofsky stood aside with a gesture of courtesy.
“It is your house, M. le Vicomte,” he said with dignity, and made Michael go with him, so that in a moment I was left alone with the prisoner, the red-hot poker gleaming lividly upon the hearthstone.