OUT OF RUSSIACHAPTER ONE
OUT OF RUSSIA
THE PROFESSOR was pottering about his laboratory. He called it a laboratory, this work-room down in New Jersey, where he was peacefully ending his days, but it was not such in the ordinary acceptation of the term. The brightly burning lights shone on no apparatus for distilling evil-smelling gases, no glass retorts, no long lines of bottles. What instruments it disclosed were of a kind more likely to appeal to a sailor than to a chemist, though many of them would probably have seemed odd to both. A lead-line with “marks” and “deeps,” various scoop nets, a long sectional aquarium in which various sea creatures moved, barometers, anemometers, and other “meters” for measuring winds and waters, a great globe, and piles of charts, were some of the articles the room contained, for this was the workshop of Professor Shishkin, the great Russian physicist, member of scores of learned societies, and the ultimate authority on the waves, winds, currents, flora, and fauna of the ocean.
The Professor had come to America about twentyyears before, bringing with him a young daughter, a working knowledge of the English language, and a profound acquaintance with the ocean. He had secured a post in a small school, from which he had gone from one college to another, all the while growing in reputation until he came to be probably the best known physicist in the world. When he came to America, he was apparently about fifty years of age, but where and how he had passed those fifty years he never told. Obviously, he must have been a student if not a professor, and it seemed strange that one with his attainments could have lived for half a century unnoticed; yet of his early life no trace was to be had. His name did not appear on the rolls of any of the great European universities; and even after he grew to distinction, no alma mater claimed him for her own. Deliberately he had cut himself off from his early life. To him, the past was dead.
But the past is never really dead. Its beginnings are untraceable, and its ending must ever be unknown. Men put their finger on some turning point in their lives and say, “Here this began,” or, “Here that ended.” Wrong in both assertions! The beginning began long before, and the ending will not end even when R.I.P. is graven on their tombstones. At the very moment when Professor Shishkin was congratulating himself on the peaceful afternoon of his life, strenuous fate was on its way in the darkness of that March evening to call him again to action.
The avatar of fate was one who would attract attention even in New York, that melting pot of the nations. Carelessly dressed, dark, with high cheek-bones and glowing eyes, even the casual might pronounce him a fanatic who was living on his nerves and declare that some day the nerves would burn out and the man collapse.
At the door he gave his name to Olga Shishkin, the Professor’s daughter, now grown to womanhood, and she took it to the Professor in his laboratory.
The Professor was puzzled. “Maxime Gorloff,” he repeated doubtfully. “I don’t recall the name. Did he say what he wanted, Olga?”
Olga shook her head. “No,” she answered. “Only that he wanted to see the distinguished Professor. He seemed very much in earnest. He speaks English well, but with an accent. I think he must be an immigrant.”
“An immigrant! Eh?” The Professor did not measure men by the price of their steamer passages. “Well, show him in. I am always glad to talk with strangers, especially if they are very much in earnest. They usually have a new point of view and can teach me something. Show him in.”
The man came in. If a shade of disappointment crossed his face as he noted the Professor’s white hair and wasted limbs, it disappeared as he returned the latter’s courteous greeting. “I have come many miles to see you, Professor,” he declared quietly, as he took the chair proffered.
“So!” The Professor preened himself with harmless vanity. People often came many miles to see and consult him. “Many miles!” he repeated. “That means so different a thing to-day than it did when I was young. Fifty miles were very many in those days.”
The man Maxime nodded understandingly. “And four thousand is many to-day; yes! Moscow is four thousand miles away.”
“You come from Moscow?” The Professor’s tone expressed only polite interest. Moscow was indeed very far from him, mentally as well as geographically.
“Yes, from Moscow! From the House of the Seven Feathers—Brother.”
The Professor sat rigid, the smile fading slowly from his lips. His hands slowly tightened on the arms of his chair until the knuckles showed white. “I—I—did not catch—that is, what—the House of the Seven Feathers, did you say?”
Pity showed in the young man’s eyes, but he did not waver. “Yes, I said that—Brother,” he reiterated.
“I—I don’t understand.”
Maxime leaned forward. “What shall I say to remind you?” he asked. “Shall I recite the oath of brotherhood or call the names of the Defenders of the Cause? Shall I adjure you by fire or steel or rope? I come from the House of the Seven Feathers, Brother. Make answer!”
The Professor’s dry lips moved. “What is their color, Brother?” he asked, the words dropping unwillingly from his lips.
“Red!” The man touched his hand to his forehead.
“May they prosper!” The Professor stroked his beard. The first shock was past, and the words came easier. After all, the visit could portend little. He was too old. “Very well,” he said. “I acknowledge the call. What will you?”
“The Brotherhood has need of you.”
“The Brotherhood has no longer a claim on me. I did it good service once. I gave it my youth and my early manhood, and I paid for it to the full. That was twenty years ago. For twenty years I have had no intercourse with it. My obligation is ended.”
“So long as fire burns and water flows; so long as steel cuts and grass grows; till death and after it,” quoted the other softly.
“But I am no longer a Russian; I am an American citizen.”
“Adoption does not free a man from his mother’s call. Your long exemption only adds to your obligation.”
The Professor moved uneasily in his chair. Fear was growing on him, but he tried to shake it off. “I am not in sympathy with the present aims of the Brotherhood,” he protested. “I have lived too long in the outer world. No cause was ever helped by murder. Besides, Russia is not fitted for self-government.”
Maxime shrugged his shoulders. “We will not discuss it,” he declared. “The Brotherhood calls you. Will you obey, or must I first remind you of what it did for you twenty years ago, just before you fled secretly by night from the palace of the Grand Duke in St. Petersburg, bearing in your arms——”
“Stop! Stop!”
But the man went on pitilessly. “Twenty years ago,” he said, as one repeating a lesson, “you were known by the name of Lladislas Metrovitch. You were a subordinate member of the Brotherhood, and rendered it good though not material service. You were married twice, the second time to an American lady who had been the governess of your nieces. You had one child by her. You were well known for your scientific attainments. One day you were arrested, charged with sedition. You disappeared. Your property was confiscated, your household scattered.
“Three years went by, during which you rotted in the dungeons of the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. Then, by the aid of the Brotherhood, you escaped—old before your time, broken, feeble. You sought for your wife, your family. You could learn little of them. At last you heard that your wife was dead, and that her child and yours was being brought up in the household of the Grand Duke Ivan. You did not dare to claim the child openly, but, aided by the Brotherhood, you stole her and escaped with her to America.”
The Professor raised his head. His shouldersshook. The forgotten horror of those by-gone days had all come back as if it had been but yesterday. He was about to speak when the man interposed.
“I have more to tell,” he said. “When you fled from Russia you thought your wife was dead. You were deceived. She did not die until about a year ago.”
“Not dead! Not dead!” The Professor’s face flushed red, then changed to a ghastly pallor. “Not dead!” he muttered.
“No, not dead!” The worst was over, and the man hurried on. “There was much connected with your arrest that you did not know. You believed that it was due to your association with the Brotherhood. You were wrong. You were arrested because the Grand Duke Ivan admired your wife.”
The Professor’s shoulders shook, but he said no word. Age dulls the capacity to feel; cools the passions as well as the affections. The old man had borne much; no further shock could greatly move him.
“You disappeared. Ivan was kind to your wife, but declared that your arrest had been ordered by the Emperor himself, and that he could do nothing. Soon you were reported dead. Not long after he married her—morganatically, of course. She is not to be too much blamed. She was penniless, alone, in a strange land, with a child to support. She married him. When you stole your child you stole it from her.”
The Professor’s dry lips moved. “I did not know,” he murmured.
“No, you did not know. The fault was not yours, but that of the system we are trying to destroy. So much for the past! Now for the future. Will you obey the orders of the Brotherhood?”
Maxime’s voice dropped, and he sat silent, watching the older man dumbly fighting through the shock. Pity was in his eyes, but relentlessness was there also—the relentlessness of the priest who pities the victim, but does not drop the sacrificial knife. Patiently he waited for the other to speak.
At last the words came, and Maxime’s face flushed with triumph as he heard them.
“What does the Brotherhood require?” the Professor asked hollowly.
The younger man stretched out his hand to the great globe that stood beside him and twirled it on its axis. “In March, just two years ago,” he began, “the shipOrkneysailed from London for St. Petersburg with five millions in gold on board, consigned to the Russian government. It was the people’s gold, borrowed on the people’s credit, to aid in enslaving the people. We swore it should never reach St. Petersburg. We kept our word. TheOrkneywas wrecked in the night in the Gulf of Bothnia—no one survived to tell where. Russia long sought for it in vain. We ourselves sought for it in vain. But now, at last, a clue has reached our hands.”
“Well?”
“It is not perfect yet, but it will be. Marie Fitzhugh, our agent, will be here in a few hours, and will forge the last links. Her task is difficult, but she will succeed. By one means or another, she will succeed. I would have waited till she had finished her part before seeing you, but I have been ordered to another duty and must leave to-night. So she herself will send you word—perhaps to-morrow. If not to-morrow, soon after.”
“Well?”
“If she succeeds, we shall be able to go to the spot and get the gold. If she fails, we nevertheless shall know approximately where to look for it. But, as you are aware, no vessel can dredge in the Baltic without being watched. We do not want to find the gold for Russia to seize. So we come to you for help.”
“What?” Amazement showed in Professor Shishkin’s face and voice. “Are you serious?” he demanded.
“Why not? You have spent a lifetime studying the sea. You have made a specialty of the Baltic. You have won a great name by your work there. What more natural then than that you should revisit your chosen field? What more natural than that you should take divers with you to explore the sea-bottom? You, and you alone, of all the Brotherhood, can do this without suspicion. You, and you alone, can get the gold safely on board after it is found.”
“But——”
“There are no buts when the Brotherhood speaks,and it has spoken. If the task be difficult, the more honor in accomplishing it. A ship will be provided, manned, and equipped. Your sole duty is to prepare such apparatus as you may need for your scientific work, and to spread abroad the alleged object of your trip. Probably you had better send an announcement of it to the newspapers. Of course you will not do this until Marie notifies you.”
“Very well.”
“One thing more,” went on the messenger, gravely. “I am instructed to command you to take your daughter with you. Her presence will add force to your declaration that the trip is purely scientific.”
The Professor shook his head. “I cannot do it,” he declared. “I cannot and will not take Olga to Russia, under any circumstances. You know why.”
“The Brotherhood commands it.”
“I will appeal.”
“There is no appeal, as you know.”
“Then I refuse.”
The man sprang to his feet. “Refuse, do you?” he cried, in a sibilant hiss that seemed to fill the room. “Refuse? Have you forgotten the penalty of disobedience? Have you forgotten the oath you took?—‘If I fail in obedience, may I be cut off, I and my children and my children’s children, and my name live no more forever.’ Do you remember, Professor Shishkin?”
The man paused, and his voice changed. “Believeme, I am sorry,” he murmured; “but I, like yourself, am a subordinate. It is the Brotherhood that speaks, not I. And the Brotherhood speaks for the people—do not forget that—speaks for the great, inarticulate Russian people, struggling to burst their age-long shackles. While we sit here, men are sacrificing their lives and women their honor for the cause. Who are you to hold back? No harm will come to your daughter, but even if the risk were ten times greater, still she must take it. You and she both owe it to Russia.” He paused. “What shall I say to the Brotherhood?” he demanded.
The old man bowed his head. “I will obey,” he muttered. “I must obey. I have no choice.”