CHAPTER TWENTY
BRISTOW’S efforts to secure Caruth an audience before the Inner Circle proved more successful than the reporter had dared to hope. His request, once started on its way, was transmitted with what seemed to him amazing rapidity: so quickly, in fact, did the answer come back that he would have questioned its authenticity had not the proof of this been unimpeachable.
The Inner Circle, it appeared, was as anxious to see Caruth as Caruth was to see it. The answer fixed the very next afternoon for the interview. Caruth was notified to go for a stroll on the Nevski Prospekt, and to submit himself to the guidance of a man who would accost him there and utter certain pass-words.
Accordingly, the next afternoon saw Caruth strolling along the designated roadway, staring at the brilliant equipages that crowded that fashionable drive, and rubbing shoulders with the cosmopolitan crowd that passed and repassed.
The season was over, and gay St. Petersburg was fleeing away from the capital over which the annual shadow of malaria was slowly growing. Enough remained, however, to illustrate Russian life; andmany tourists still lingered, lending color to the scene. Not often, Caruth thought, had he seen so many ornamental women gathered together.
His thoughts, however, were not on women, but on the guide who was to meet him and lead him before the council. Which of the tall, bearded men that pressed by him, he wondered, would turn out to be the messenger?
“Trouble you for a light, mister?”
Caruth turned. A young fellow, by all signs an American tourist, was reaching out his hand for the cigar Caruth held between his lips.
“Thank you,” continued the young man lightly, as he returned the weed. “I spotted you for an American the minute I saw you. I can always tell. Everybody can’t. I’m an American, too. Did you guess? Whence did you come, brother?”
Caruth started. The words were part of the prescribed ritual whereby he was to know his guide. But could this——
“From the land of the free and the home of the brave,” he answered unwillingly. Never before had the patriotic words seemed to him quite so bombastic.
“I’m from the House of the Three Feathers myself,” returned the stranger jauntily, completing the ritual. “Come and have a wet. They’ve got a bar over here where you can get drinks like the eagle used to make. Come along!”
Caruth dropped into line beside his interlocutor,who, still talking loudly and volubly, led him into a café, around a partition, and then with an admonitory “Look sharp now,” darted down a flight of stairs, followed a long passage, and finally came out into another street, where a cab was waiting. Into this he jumped, Caruth following.
Before the door was closed, the driver whipped up his horses and the cab darted off at the breakneck speed characteristic of the Russian jehus. As it began to move, the young man turned to Caruth and spoke quietly, without a trace of his former levity. “We are going to the railway station,” he explained, “and will have just time to catch a train. Be ready to follow me promptly.”
Conversation was difficult in the swaying cab, and indeed there was little time for it, for in less than ten minutes the cab drew up before the railway station and the young man leaped out and tore toward the gate, Caruth at his heels. Scarcely had they passed through when it clanged behind them.
“Close shave that,” remarked the other, when the two were seated and the train was rolling southward. “I came mighty near cutting it too fine. However, all’s well that ends well. Now, we’ve got an hour’s ride before us, and might as well make ourselves comfortable.”
Caruth’s lips opened. He was about to ask a question, when the other interposed. “Curiosity killed a cat,” he murmured. “Where ignorance is bliss, etc. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you nolies. Talk about the weather if you can’t think of anything else, but don’t be inquisitive. Pretty country this—if you don’t mind what you say!”
Thus adjured, Caruth made no attempt to question his mentor, but chatted on indifferent subjects till the train stopped at Gatchina, where the two left it and entered a cab, which at once started off at the usual speed. “I’ll leave you in a moment now,” said the other quietly. “Stay in the cab. The driver has his orders and has been paid. When he stops in front of a house, No. 351, go up to the door and walk in without ringing. You will be expected.”
His instructions finished, the young fellow turned the handle of the door. “Au revoir,” he said, and leaped out as the cab swung round a corner.
Caruth caught and closed the swinging door, and sat back to await events. Evidently the men he was to see took good precautions to keep their meeting place secure.
The drive did not last long. It ended in a street of cheap looking houses, over the door of one of which Caruth descried the number 351. Promptly he dismounted and walked up the steps, noting that his cab drove away the moment he left it. The next instant he had opened the door and stepped into a dimly lighted hall.
A man seated on the foot of a flight of stairs that led upward rose as Caruth entered and glanced at him sharply, then made way for him to pass, jerking his thumb over his shoulder as a direction. He addedsomething, probably a word of instruction, but as it was in Russian the American could not profit by it.
At the head of the stairs Caruth hesitated for a moment, then tapped at a doorway whence came the low sound of voices. Some one answered, presumably in invitation to enter, and Caruth opened the door and went in.
Half a dozen men seated around a table looked up as he entered, and the one at the head addressed him in fair English.
“Mr. Caruth?” he questioned. “Yes? I am Sergius Lermantoff. Take a seat, please, Mr. Caruth.”
Caruth sat down with a strong feeling of disappointment. Could these be the members of the famous Inner Circle, before which the mighty Czar quailed, and under whose menace the atrocities formerly perpetrated on helpless prisoners had recently come to an end? Certainly they did not look it! Four of them appeared to be stolid peasants, and the other two, including the leader, while more intelligent-looking, did not look at all above the grade of the average immigrant whom Caruth had often seen trailing up town from Castle Garden. Could it be that such men as this held the destinies of a girl like Marie in their hands?
Lermantoff addressed him again. “The Brotherhood wishes to thank you, Mr. Caruth, for your kindness in placing your yacht at its disposal in the endeavor to regain the treasure of theOrkney. Itwould be glad if you would answer it some questions about the circumstance at Burndo. I am the only one here who speaks English, so I must act as interpreter.”
Caruth nodded, glad enough to give any information that might dispose the Circle favorably toward him later in the proceedings.
“I’ll answer them with pleasure,” he responded.
Then followed a series of questions regarding the trip of theSea Spume, and the details of her stay at Burndo, all tending to elucidate every phase of the proceedings. Taken together, they amounted to a cross-examination as keen and searching as any he had ever known in a New York court-room. Under their spur, Caruth felt his respect for the other rising and began to understand why he had attained his present power.
At last the examination ended. Lermantoff translated the last answer to his companions; then turned back to Caruth. “Now, Mr. Caruth——” he said.
During the questioning Caruth had studied every detail of the room, hoping to find something that would show the presence near at hand of the girl on whom he had set his heart; but he had looked in vain. Now at last, with a tightening around his heart, he realized that his time had come, and he summoned all his faculties for the contest.
“Mr. Lermantoff,” he began, “you understand, of course, that I embarked in this enterprise forselfish motives. I make no pretenses. I sympathize with the Russian people in their fight for liberty, but I did not and do not sympathize with them enough to risk my life and liberty for their sake. I came to Russia simply and solely because I hoped to aid the lady whom I know only as Marie Fitzhugh.”
The leader nodded. “Most men have selfish or partly selfish motives for what they do,” he agreed, with a suspicion of a smile. “Your motive is quite clear; I take it you expected Marie Fitzhugh to reward you.”
“I hoped she might. From the moment I saw her, I wanted her for my wife. That was why I kept silence in New York when my valet was murdered, and thereby saved your scheme from being wrecked at the outset. That was why I came to Russia. That is why I am here.”
“Well, what did she tell you? Why do you come to us?”
Caruth threw out his hands. “Don’t fence with me,” he protested. “You know what she told me. You know you took her vows—the vows of a mere child—to devote her life and her beauty to your cause. You know that you are holding her practically for sale to the highest bidder—to him who will do most for that cause. It isn’t fair! It is an outrage on womanhood. It is trafficking in all that is holiest and highest in life. No cause will prosper that depends on such methods. Be advised! She has doneher best for you. She has done more than most women could do. Release her! Let her marry me—if she will.”
Caruth’s breath came quick and fast. His words tumbled over each other. With outflung hands, he leaned forward across the heavy table.
Thoughtfully Lermantoff studied his face. “Mr. Caruth,” he said slowly, “all your life you have had everything you wanted. This is probably the first time you have had to fight and wait and hope for anything. You find it hard. Further, you are young. Your own happiness and the girl’s seem to you the most important things in the world. Really, they are not. What difference will it make to the world one hundred years from now whether you two marry or not? But it will make a great difference one hundred years from now whether the Russian people have won their freedom or not. We have trained Marie Fitzhugh for the work she has to do. We have no one in all the Brotherhood who can do that work so well. To give her up—to surrender this tool that we have fashioned so carefully—is to set back the cause by no one knows how many years. Consider a moment, Mr. Caruth! She went to New York and enlisted your coöperation with all your wealth and influence within an hour after she had landed. And do not think that it was all her beauty; it was more—it was her personality. Do I not know it? Have I not felt it myself?”
The speaker paused. Caruth, reading an unsuspectedmeaning in his last words and foreseeing complications, caught his breath, but Lermantoff gave him no time to consider. With unmistakable, though suppressed, emotion, he went on:
“Such powers as hers are mighty, not to be thrown lightly away. They have been reserved for some great end, for some moment when they might turn the scale of Russia’s destiny. For this reason I have denied myself.”
“What?”
“Yes! I tell you! Myself!” The man leaned forward, face aglow. His sinewy hands, clinched, thundered on the table. “What! Think you I have lived beside her and not loved her? Am I a dolt or a stone? Am I less a man because I am pledged to the Brotherhood? No, no, Mr. Caruth! I love her, love her—and I have denied myself. Shall I now yield her to you?”
Both men had forgotten the others. They might have been alone in a wilderness, for all heed they took of listeners. The one subject in their minds swallowed up all else.
Caruth moistened his dry lips. “She does not love you,” he muttered despairingly.
Lermantoff sank back, the fire dying from his eyes. “No,” he answered sadly; “she does not love me. Perhaps that was why. Oh, we are poor creatures, we men! We do not even know our own motives.” He brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over his brow. “She does not love me, andshe does love you. Therefore—oh, I am a sentimentalist after all—therefore, I would give her to you, were it even at Russia’s expense, if I alone had the power. But I have not. I am only one. The interests of the Brotherhood must be consulted.”
“What does the Brotherhood demand?” Caruth’s tones were firmer now. Hope had begun to glimmer.
“The Brotherhood has fashioned a tool for its use; you want that tool. The Brotherhood will not—dare not—give it to you. But the Brotherhood is poor, and you are rich. It will sell it to you—at a great price. What will you give?”
Caruth moved restlessly. It was shocking to him that Marie should be made a subject of bargain and sale. “I cannot chaffer over such a subject,” he cried. “Tell me what you want, and I will pay it if it is in my power. You say right. I am rich—not rich like many of my countrymen, but rich by ordinary standards. Tell me what you want, and I will pay it if I can.”
“The Brotherhood wants a million dollars.”
Caruth did not hesitate. “You shall have it,” he answered. “But you will have to give me time to get it for you. I have not a tithe of the sum in ready cash. I shall have to go to New York and sell property. It may take two months. I will give you my note for the sum at two months if you will take it.”
Lermantoff bowed. “We will take it,” he answered.
“And—and—you will trust me? I may take her away with me?”
“Assuredly! But the Brotherhood trusts no one; it has no need to do so. Marie Fitzhugh will be as much within its reach in New York as she is in this house. No one can betray or deceive the Brotherhood and live to enjoy it.”
Caruth’s face grew stern. “I understand that this million dollars buys the lady’s release absolutely. You will give up all hold on her, all claim over her. You will tell her so, and release her from her vows in my presence?”
Lermantoff nodded. “That is the understanding,” he said. Turning, he said a few words to the man by his side, and that individual rose and went out. “I have sent for Marie,” he explained.
Caruth sprang to his feet. “You—you will not tell her that I have—have bought her?” he pleaded.
The other shook his head. “Have no fear,” he answered gently. “Remember! I love her too.”
In a moment the man was back. With him came Marie. When she saw Caruth, she stopped short, gasping, with distended eyes. “You!” she muttered. “You here!”
Caruth caught both her hands in his. “Yes!” he cried. “Yes! And it’s all right! All right! The Brotherhood has given you to me.”
With joy dawning in her frightened eyes, the girl turned to the others.
“YOU!” SHE MUTTERED, “YOU HERE!”“YOU!” SHE MUTTERED, “YOU HERE!”
“YOU!” SHE MUTTERED, “YOU HERE!”
“YOU!” SHE MUTTERED, “YOU HERE!”
Lermantoff caught her glance and nodded.“Marie Fitzhugh,” he said solemnly, “for reasons that seem good to it, the Brotherhood has decided to send you to America to aid in creating sympathy for the Russian people there. You will go with Mr. Caruth to St. Petersburg, to the American Embassy, and marry him there, and go with him to the United States. You are hereby released from all obligations to the Brotherhood and from all your vows. Such service as you may render hereafter will be purely voluntary. As chief of the Brotherhood, I tell you this in Mr. Caruth’s presence. The other members of the Circle will now confirm it to you.”
He turned and spoke a few words in Russian, and one by one each of the other members repeated what seemed to Caruth to be a set form of words. When they had finished, Lermantoff spoke again.
“You are not entirely out of danger yet, Mr. Caruth,” he warned. “Baron Demidroff is making desperate efforts to capture Marie, and she will be arrested if found. That is why she has remained concealed here. Once you have made her your wife at the American Embassy, she will be measurably safe. Until then, she will be in danger. I think, therefore, that she had better go with you in disguise. Tell me good-by now, my child, and go and get ready. I hope you will be very, very happy.”