CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AS the train drew away from Gatchina, Caruth drew a long breath of relief. Running express, it would make no stops on the way to St. Petersburg, scarcely an hour distant, and little was likely to happen in an hour. Humanly speaking, he felt that Marie was safe.
Quickly the speed increased as the suburbs of the town whisked by, and almost in a moment the train was running through open fields. Then might the peasants along the track, if gifted with sufficiently quick eyesight, have seen in one of the compartments a fashionably dressed young man ecstatically embracing what seemed to be a workingman.
Marie wore the dress of a laborer. Her lovely hair, coiled on top of her head, was concealed beneath a rough cap. Her coat collar, turned up around her neck, hid her slim throat, while a heavy beard, hastily affixed, concealed the outlines of her oval face. With her nether limbs thrust into a pair of workingman’s trousers, and her feet hidden in heavy boots, she bore no resemblance to the fashionably dressed woman for whom the police were watching so eagerly.
Caruth, however, did not seem to mind hercostume, even when her beard tickled his nose and made him sneeze. Only muttering something about insisting that she should shave as soon as she became Mrs. C., he continued to kiss and hug her as though he would never be satisfied.
“To think I’ve got you at last!” he cried. “After all these days and days of doubt and anxiety. To think that soon we’ll be on our own yacht, bound for our own country, away from all this horrible plotting and counterplotting. Oh, I can’t believe it!”
The girl shuddered slightly. “I can’t either,” she sighed. “I’m afraid—oh, I’m horribly afraid that something will happen yet to prevent. I didn’t use to be afraid of anything! I always thought that I could face whatever came without quailing, but now—now I’m a very woman, dear! Love has made me timid. I don’t think I could bear it if I were caught now.”
“Caught! You can’t be and shan’t be. Why, we are half way to St. Petersburg already.”
“Not quite yet! And even if we were—oh, I’m afraid. Lermantoff is not an alarmist. He never speaks without good reason. No one else could have persuaded me to wear this ridiculous disguise.”
Caruth grinned. “We’ll keep it as a memento of our honeymoon,” he observed. “Don’t worry. A good many wives don the trousers after marriage; you are only anticipating a little. And I don’t think you need be afraid. I can’t see a cloud on the——”
He broke off as a shadow fell across the compartment, darkening the window, and a voice, rough and strained, flung a brief sentence into the interior—a sentence that made Marie spring up in terror.
A man was standing on the running board, hanging to the casement. A glance at the cap he wore told that he was one of the guards (or brakemen) of the train. Volubly he sputtered in harsh-sounding Russian and eagerly Marie drank in his words. Then as suddenly as he had come, he was gone.
Marie sank back on the cushions, and Caruth could see that she had grown deathly white.
“It wasn’t to be, dear love,” she gasped. “It wasn’t to be.”
Caruth gazed at her in consternation. This cowering woman was not the brave girl he remembered. Love had indeed robbed her of her courage.
“What is it? What is it?” he importuned, sinking down beside her. “Lermantoff shall not back out now. He shall not take you away from me. If he tries——”
“It isn’t Lermantoff. It’s the police. They know I am here. They know my disguise. They know I am on this train. They are only waiting till it stops to seize me. The guard is one of our men. He came along the footboard at the risk of his life to warn me. It’s all over, dear. I’ll never see America again.”
For an instant the girl sobbed on; then she buried her hot face in her hands. “Oh!” she wailed, “Icannot bear it! I had not realized it! Save me! For God’s sake, save me!”
All his life Caruth had been noted for the speed with which he came to decisions, and the rapidity with which he acted upon them, and this, his most exciting experience, furnished no exception to the rule. Before the last words had fallen from the girl’s lips, he was slipping out of his light spring overcoat.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he exclaimed. “You cut it fine, Marie. Why”—with a fleeting glance out the window—“we’re in the city now!”
They were, but fear, like love, has wings, and before the train reached the station the girl had been disguised afresh. Shorn of her beard, and clothed in Caruth’s stylish overcoat, with his cap drawn down over her ears, she made a very presentable boy.
Caruth looked her over critically. “You’ll do,” he decided.
“Oh, I hope so! But aren’t you going to——” She glanced at her discarded hat and coat.
“Neverlee.” The joy of the game was mounting to Caruth’s head like wine. “Neverlee! That would be ruin sure enough. I’ve got a scheme worth two of that. You’ve got a pistol, haven’t you? Let’s see it.”
“Yes.” The girl drew it out wonderingly.
“Good!” He sat down and leaned forward. “Now,” he said, “hit me with the butt of your revolver. Here.” He laid his finger on his forehead just at the bottom of the hair. “Hit hard,” he concluded,“and when the train gets into the station put out for the American Embassy and stay there till I come. Hit! Hit hard!”
The girl shrank back. “I can’t,” she breathed.
“You must. You’ve got to have time to escape from the railway station, and this is the only thing that would explain my delay and lend artistic verisimilitude to a bald and unconvincing narrative, as our friend, theMikado, once said. Don’t be afraid; my skull is thick, and won’t be seriously hurt. Quick! We are getting into the station. Think that I am General Somebodyoffski and hit—hit hard. Quick!”
The girl’s eyes grew big with tears. “I did not think there lived such a man as you,” she breathed. “Now I understand why your great country is free. Such men as you must be free. Oh, God! Is there no other way?”
“None. The train is stopping. Quick!” Despairingly, the girl glanced around. Then she lifted the heavy revolver and struck as Caruth had directed. Without a moan he sank back, unconscious, in his seat.
For a moment Marie stood gazing at her handiwork. Then a great sob shook her frame, and she bent down and pressed her lips to the purpling wound.
“Forgive, forgive!” she cried. “If it had been life alone—— Oh, love, forgive, forgive!”
The next moment she was gone.