CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
IT is one thing to embark on adventure and another thing to carry it through. Though the first step costs more than any other one step, it does not cost more than the aggregate of the rest, and certainly does not cost more than the period of suspense that inevitably comes in any prolonged enterprise. All of which serves as an introduction to the statement that though Florence began well, she soon sickened of her venture.
The conditions were against her. She had always been used to a good share of the world’s comforts. Even in New York, hanging on the ragged edge of the bottomless pit, she had never been penniless, and had never held back from anything she wanted through fear of becoming penniless. Like a cat, she loved warmth and the cream of life.
When she placed the red light in her port on theSea Spumeand dropped over the side into the arms in which Wilkins willingly received her, she contemplated nothing more unpleasant than a sail by night over the dancing waves to a safe port. The danger that menaced her not being visible, she disregarded it; or felt it only as giving a zest to a romantic flight.
But things did not turn out as she had anticipated. They seldom do. Scarcely had the sloop gained the open sea when it became apparent that it was too heavily laden. The wind was only ordinarily fresh, and the waves were not at all dangerous to an ordinary craft; yet they broke continually over the rail. Soon it was evident that to attempt to run across the open channel to the Swedish coast would be suicidal, and to run for Copenhagen even more so. Much against his will, Wilkins was forced to keep south around the lee of the islands, and finally to run for a Russian port. Even on this tack, the trip was very dangerous, and for more than three hours Florence, who had never before done any work harder than carrying a spear in the front rank of the chorus, had to toil strenuously helping to pump out the water that poured in unceasingly.
When a girl is cold and wet and exhausted beyond expression for several hours, during all of which Death sits grinning over her shoulder, it is not exactly surprising if she wonders whether the game is worth the candle.
Nor were matters greatly improved when at last the sloop won to the port of Helsingfors and dropped anchor along with other fishing-smacks in the bay, where her passengers hoped to lie unnoticed while Bill Wilkins, who alone spoke Russian, ran up to St. Petersburg to try to find a steamer whose captain would consent, for a sufficiently large remuneration, to clear for a foreign port and then run out of hiscourse close to Helsingfors, to take the gold on board. Such a captain once found, and signals arranged, Bill would return to Helsingfors to join the others and help take the schooner out to meet the vessel.
Tom Wilkins stood the monotony of waiting very well. Used to the loneliness of the plains, his own thoughts sufficed. But Florence had no resources in herself. Accustomed to the clatter of New York, she had been bored even by the quietness of the life on theSea Spume, and this was ten times worse. Day after day she did nothing but twirl her fingers and think about Baron Demidroff and his wonderful tale of Princess Yves Napraxine.
Such was her mood on the third afternoon of her imprisonment, when Wilkins, with a fatuity scarcely credible, attempted to cheer her up by making love to her. Florence promptly went into hysterics, and Wilkins had the time of his life in quieting her. That night, after pretending to go to bed, she slipped away, rowing herself ashore in the only small boat belonging to the sloop, and took the night train for St. Petersburg. By the time that Wilkins missed her she was at the office of Baron Demidroff.
Even when there, however, she found it none too easy to reach the Baron. Totally ignorant of the language, and unable to ask her way, she had to trust to luck, and luck did not favor her. It was late in the afternoon—the afternoon of the same day and at about the same hour when Caruth and Marie were leaving Gatchina—that she at last foundher way to the Baron’s office and sent in a card inscribed with Olga’s name, but with the additional words, “Princess Yves Napraxine,” pencilled in the corner.
But after that events moved fast. Scarcely had her card vanished when the door was flung open and the Baron rushed in, both hands extended.
“Ah,Madame la Princesse!” he exclaimed. “To think of seeing you here! Come in! Come in!” Eagerly he urged her toward the inner office, pouring out the while a flood of welcomings. “Well! Well!” he exclaimed. “To think of it. Where did you come from, Princess? Where have you been all these days?”
Florence seated herself and stared at him with cool insolence. Instinctively she knew that she would gain no more from him by softness than she had gained in former days from the “Johnnies” in New York. Men were all alike, she decided, and the weeping, clinging girl was a back number.
“Back off! Back off!” she ordered. “I’m not telling where I’ve been yet.”
“But the gold, Princess! The gold!”
“The gold is all to the downy. It’s where I can put my hand on it. You see, Baron, I’m one of the new woman push, and I ain’t trusting anybody. You might play fair if I turned the stuff over to you, and you might not. It’s me for the sure thing every time. That’s why I got me suitors to carry the gold off and hide it away till I got guarantees.”
Instead of showing vexation, the Baron chuckled. Such impudence from one altogether in his power was refreshing. Florence had made no mistake in her treatment of him. The Baron admired any one who was clever enough to see through him. Besides, the girl was very handsome.
“What guarantees do you want, Princess?” he asked soberly.
Florence hesitated; she did not know what to ask. “I want to see the proofs,” she declared vaguely. “You hand me a jolly about strawberry mark and me lost ancestors and ask me to turn over five million dollars in return. It ain’t good enough! See? I’d rather keep the five million dollars meself, if there’s any doubt about the thing.”
“Quite reasonable! Quite reasonable!” The Baron nodded. “The proofs are largely documentary. I will send for them. Meanwhile——”
The Baron paused for a moment; then went on. “Princess!” he said, “I will be frank with you. I see that you are not one to be deceived. To a fair face you unite the cool head of a man——”
“Cut it out! Cut it out!”
“It is the truth. But you do not know Russia. Here every man has his price. Every one is making himself rich. What you call graft flourishes. You are the Princess Yves Napraxine; that is true. You are heiress to enormous wealth; that also is true. But if you think that all you have to do is to come forward and show who you are, in order to get thatrank and wealth, you know little of Russia. Your estates are in the hands of a trustee who has grown rich in caring for them. Think you he will readily give them up? Not so! He is a powerful man—one who stands in a high place. Once he hears of you, you will disappear, unless protected by a power as strong or stronger than his—in fact, Princess, unless protected by me.”
Florence nodded. The Baron’s words were really a relief to her. It was quite believable that a man who had had the control of twenty millions for ten years would fight to retain that control, and that they could easily dispose of a lone woman, irrespective of the fact that she was really an impostor. But if the Baron were ready to back and protect her, as he seemed to imply, the situation would be changed.
“You’re all to the good, Baron,” she agreed. “Go on and tell me. I’m from Missouri, you know.”
“This trustee is my enemy, Princess,” went on Demidroff. “For years he has been trying to ruin me. In the effort, he has used the power of your millions unscrupulously. A year ago I concluded that I must wrest the control of those millions from him, or he would destroy me. I set on foot inquiries which led me to you. The nihilists thought they had you brought to Russia. Well, so they did, but it was I that pulled the strings. I brought you here to wrest Count Strogoff’s wealth from him. By my aid, you can win money and place; by youraid, I shall triumph over the Count. United, we shall win everything; divided, we both lose. But I must help you before you will be able to help me. It is really I that should demand guarantees, Princess.”
Florence did not answer for a moment. The Baron’s words seemed reasonable enough, and she felt somehow that he was telling her the truth. The mist of intrigue, plot, and counterplot in the midst of which she found herself, was exactly the sort of thing she had always understood was characteristic of Russia. To her dramatic instincts the whole thing seemed logical and feasible, supposing her to be the real Olga Shishkin. Well, she might as well go on pretending. Obviously nothing was to be gained by confession.
“And theOrkney’sgold?” she questioned.
“TheOrkney’sgold? I want it! Yes, but only to aid me to aid you. If I recover it, I win my imperial master’s favor and I pave the way for your recognition. On the other hand, failure will lose me that confidence, and make it harder for me to triumph over Count Strogoff and help you. Except for this, the gold counts for comparatively little. Your estates are worth five times as much.”
“I see.”
“Now, Princess, I will make you a proposal. You are a woman, clever, young, and beautiful, but weak; I am a bachelor, not very young, but not yet very old, and I am powerful, and power is what you need.Madame la Princesse, will you do me the honor to become my wife?”
Florence’s breath was taken away with a vengeance. That she, the variety actress of a month before, should be receiving a proposal of marriage from the chief of the Russian secret police was past belief. “Gee!” she muttered. “What’s coming next? If the pipe don’t go out and I don’t wake up, the first thing I know the Czarski’ll be asking me to share his bomb-proof cottage with him.”
Scarcely she heard the Baron’s following words:
“I know that it is presumption for me to address you, Princess,” he was saying. “My family, though noble, is by no means on a par with yours. Still, I assure you that your union with me cannot be termed amesalliance. The position I have won makes it possible for me to mate with any one outside of the blood royal. Will you not accept me, Princess?”
The daze was passing away, and Florence was regaining command of herself. “Gee!” she muttered desperately. “Gee! He’s a nice old fellow, any way, and I don’t know but what—oh, gee!” she exploded. “I’m afraid! I’m afraid!” She looked up at the Baron. “I must think! I must think!” she cried.
“Assuredly, Princess! Think all you like. And remember that, though I do not talk of sentiment, for you might think me deceitful, yet I feel it, Princess. I am not so old that I cannot admire and love—yes, love, Princess. But I will leave that till later. Just now remember that I can give you everything,and that I offer myself as a guarantee of my truth. Can I say more?”
“No! No!” Florence had found her tongue at last. “No! No! You can’t say more. And I will accept if I can. I will, honest. But I must think. I must talk to my friends on theSea Spume.”
“Certainly! Yet do not forget that time flies. Will the gold stay safe while you think?”
Florence paled. “Gracious!” she cried. “I forgot the gold!”
“Perhaps I can save you the necessity of going on board the yacht.” Demidroff touched a bell. “I will send for some one whom you will be glad to see,” he explained.
“Who is it?”
“You shall see.” Demidroff touched a bell and gave an order in Russian. An instant later the door was pushed open.
Professor Shishkin stood on the threshold!