There were a dozen men in the room in stained military overcoats and red armlets. One, evidently an officer, who carried a black portfolio under his arm, was leaning against the panelled wall, smoking and snapping his fingers to a dingy white terrier that leapt to his repeated invitations.
At the table, covered with documents, were two people, the man and the woman.
She, sprawling indolently forward, her head upon her arm, her strong brown face turned to the man, was obviously a Jewess. The papers were streaked and greasy where her thick black ringlets had rested, and the ashes of her cigarette lay in little untidy heaps on the table.
The man was burly, with a great breadth of shoulder and big rough hands. But it was his face which arrested the feet of Malcolm and brought him to a sudden halt the moment he came near enough to see and recognize the Commissary.
It was not by his bushy red beard nor the stiff, upstanding hair, but by the crooked nose, that he recognized Boolba, sometime serving-man to the Grand Duke Yaroslav. Malcolm, looking at the sightless eyes, felt his spine go creepy.
Boolba lifted his head sharply at the sound of an unfamiliar footfall.
"Who is this?" he asked. "Sophia Kensky, you who are my eyes, tell me who is this?"
"Oh, a boorjoo," said the woman lazily.
"A foreigner too—who are you, boorjoo?"
"A Britisher," said Malcolm.
Boolba lifted his chin and turned his face at the voice.
"A Britisher," he repeated slowly. "The man on the oil-fields. Tell me your name."
"Hay—Malcolm Hay," said Malcolm, and Boolba nodded.
His face was like a mask and he expressed no emotion.
"And the other?"
"Malinkoff!" snapped the voice at Malcolm's side, and Boolba nodded.
"Commanding an army—I remember. You drive a cab, comrade. Are there any complaints against this man?"
He turned his face to Sophia Kensky, and she shook her head.
"Are there any complaints against this man, Sophia?" he repeated.
"None that I know. He is an aristocrat and a friend of the Romanoffs."
"Huh!" The grunt sounded like a note of disappointment. "What do you want?"
"The stranger wishes permission to remain in Moscow until he can find a train to the north," said Malinkoff.
Boolba made no reply. He sat there, his elbows on the table, his fingers twining and untwining the thick red hair of his beard.
"Where does he sleep to-night?" he asked after awhile.
"He sleeps in my stable, near the Vassalli Prospekt," said Malinkoff.
Boolba turned to the woman, who was lighting a new cigarette from the end of the old one, and said something in a low, growling tone.
"Do as you wish, my little pigeon," she said audibly.
Again his hand went to his beard and his big mouth opened in meditation. Then he said curtly:
"Sit down."
There was no place to sit, and the two men fell back amongst the soldiers.
Again the two at the table consulted, and then Sophia Kensky called a name. The man in afaded officer's uniform came forward, his big black portfolio in his hand, and this he laid on the table, opening the flap and taking out a sheaf of papers.
"Read them to me, Sophia," said Boolba. "Read their names."
He groped about on the table and found first a rubber stamp and then a small, flat ink-pad. Sophia lifted the first of the papers and spelt out the names.
"Mishka Sasanoff," she said, and the man growled.
"An upstart woman and very ugly," he said. "I remember her. She used to whip her servants. Tell me, Sophia, my life, what has she done now?"
"Plotted to destroy the Revolution," said the woman.
"Huh!" grunted the man, as he brought his rubber stamp to the paper, passing it across to the waiting officer, who replaced it in his portfolio. "And the next?"
"Paul Geslkin," she said and passed the document to him. "Plotting to overthrow the Revolution."
"A boorjoo, a tricky young man, in league with the priests," he said, and again his stamp came down upon the paper, and again the paper went across the table into the portfolio of the officer.
The soldiers about Malcolm and his friend had edged away, and they were alone.
"What are these?" whispered Malcolm.
"Death warrants," replied Malinkoff laconically, and for the second time a cold chill ran down Malcolm's spine.
Name after name were read out, and the little rubber stamp, which carried death to one and sorrow to so many, thudded down upon the paper. Malcolm felt physically ill. The room was close and reeked of vile tobacco fumes. There was no ventilation, and the oil lamps made the apartment insufferably hot. An hour, two hours passed, and no further notice was paid to the two men.
"I can't understand it quite," said Malinkoff in a low voice. "Ordinarily this would mean serious trouble, but if the Commissary had any suspicion of you or me, we should have been in prison an hour ago."
Then suddenly Boolba rose.
"What is the hour?" he said.
A dozen voices replied.
"Half-past ten? It is time that the sweeper was here."
He threw back his head and laughed, and the men joined in the laughter. With a great yellow handkerchief, which reminded Malcolm ofsomething particularly unpleasant, Boolba wiped the streams from his sightless eyes and bent down to the woman at his side, and Malcolm heard him say: "What is his name—he told me," and then he stood up.
"Hay," he said, "you are a boorjoo. You have ordered many men to sweep your room. Is it not good that a house should be clean, eh?"
"Very good, Boolba," said Malcolm quietly.
"Boolba he calls me. He remembers well. That is good! I stood behind him, comrades, giving wine and coffee and bowing to this great English lord! Yes, I, Boolba!" he struck his chest, "crawled on my knees to this man, and he calls me Boolba now—Boolba!" he roared ferociously. "Come here! Do this! Clean my boots, Boolba! Come, little Boolba, bow thy neck that I may rest my foot!"
A voice from the door interrupted him.
"Good!" he said. "My sweeper has arrived, Hay. Once a day she sweeps my room and once a day she makes my bed. No ordinary woman will satisfy Boolba. She must come in her furs, drive in her fine carriage from the Nijitnkaya—behold!"
Malcolm looked to the doorway and was struck dumb with amazement.
The girl who came in was dressed better than heexpected any woman to be dressed in Moscow. A sable wrap was about her shoulders, a sable toque was on her head. He could not see the worn shoes nor the shabby dress beneath the costly furs; indeed, he saw nothing but the face—the face of his dreams—unchanged, unlined, more beautiful than he had remembered her. She stood stiffly in her pride, her little chin held up, her contemptuous eyes fixed upon the man at the table. Then loosing her wrap, she hung it upon a peg, and opening a cupboard, took out a broad broom.
"Sweep, Irene Yaroslav," said the man.
Malcolm winced at the word, and Malinkoff turned to him sharply.
"You know her?" he said. "Of course you do—I remember. Was that why Boolba kept us waiting?"
"He was butler in the Yaroslav household," said Malcolm in the same tone.
"That explains it," said Malinkoff. "All this is for the humiliation of the Grand Duchess."
"Sweep well, little one," scoffed Boolba from his table. "Does it not do your heart good, Sophia Kensky? Oh, if I had only eyes to see! Does she go on her knees? Tell me, Sophia."
But the woman found no amusement in the sight, and she was not smiling. Her high forehead wasknitted, her dark eyes followed every movement of the girl. As Boolba finished speaking she leant forward and demanded harshly:
"Irene Yaroslav, where is Israel Kensky?"
"I do not know," replied the girl, not taking her eyes from her work.
"You lie," said the woman. "You shall tell me where he is and where he has hidden his 'Book of All-Power.' She knows, Boolba."
"Peace, peace!" he said, laying his big hand on her shoulder. "Presently she will tell and be glad to tell. Where is your father, Irene Yaroslav?"
"You know best," she replied, and the answer seemed to afford him amusement.
"He was a religious man," he scoffed. "Did he not believe in miracles? Was there any saint in Kieff he did not patronize? He is with the saints this day," and then, in a fierce whisper to Sophia—"How did she look? Tell me, Sophia. How did she look when I spoke?"
"He died three weeks ago," said Irene quietly, "at the Fortress of Peter and Paul," and Boolba rapped out an oath.
"Who told you? Who told you?" he roared. "Tell me who told you, and I will have his heart out of him! I wanted to tell you that myself!"
"The High Commissary Boyaski," she replied,and Boolba swallowed his rage, for who dared criticize the High Commissaries, who hold power of life and death in their hands, even over their fellow officials? He sank down in his chair again and turned impatiently to Sophia.
"Have you no tongue in your head, Sophia Kensky!" he asked irritably. "Tell me all she does. How is she sweeping—where?"
"By the men, near the big bookcase," said the woman reluctantly.
"Yes, yes," and he nodded his great head.
He rose, walked round the table, and paced slowly to the girl as she stood quietly waiting. Malcolm had no weapon in his pocket. He had been warned by Malinkoff that visitors were searched. But on the table lay a sheathed sword—possibly the mark of authority which Boolba carried. But evidently this ceremony was a nightly occurrence. Boolba did no more than pass his hand over the girl's face.
"She is cool," he said in a disappointed tone. "You do not work hard enough, Irene Yaroslav. To-morrow you shall come with water and shall scrub this room."
The girl made no reply, but as he walked back to his seat of authority she continued her work, her eyes fixed on the floor, oblivious of her surroundings. Presently she worked round the roomuntil she came to where Malcolm stood, and as she did so for the first time she raised her head, and her eyes met his. Again he saw that little trick of hers; her hand went to her mouth, then her head went down, and she passed on as though she had never seen him.
"What did she do, Sophia? Tell me what she did when she came to the Englishman. Did she not see him?"
"She was startled," grumbled Sophia; "that is all. Boolba, let the woman go."
"Nay, nay, my little pigeon, she must finish her work."
"She has finished," said Sophia impatiently; "how long must this go on, Boolba? Is she not an aristocrat and a Romanoff, and are there none of your men who want wives?"
Malcolm felt rather than saw the head of every soldier in the room lift to these words.
"Wait a little," said Boolba. "You forget the book, my little pigeon—the 'Book of All-Power.' I would have that rather than that Irene Yaroslav found a good husband from our comrades. You may go, Irene Yaroslav," he said. "Serge!"
The officer who had taken the death warrants, and who stood waiting for dismissal, came forward.
"Take our little brother Malinkoff and the Britisher Hay and place them both in the prisonof St. Basil. They are proved enemies to the Revolution."
"I wonder who will feed my little horse to-night," said Malinkoff as, handcuffed to his companion, he marched through the streets in the light of dawn, en route, as he believed, to certain death.
The temporary prison called by Boolba "St. Basil," was made up of four blocks of buildings. All save one were built of grey granite, and presented, when seen from the courtyard below, tiers of little windows set with monotonous regularity in discoloured walls. The fourth was evidently also of granite, but at some recent period an attempt had been made to cover its forbidding facade with plaster. The workmen had wearied of their good intent and had left off when their labours were half finished, which gave the building the gruesome appearance of having been half skinned. Flush with the four sides of the square was an open concrete trench, approached at intervals by flights of half a dozen stone steps leading to this alley-way.
Malcolm Hay was pushed down one of these, hurried along the alley-way, passing a number of mailed iron doors, and as many barred windows, and was halted before one of the doors whilst thewarder who all the time smoked a cigar, produced a key. The door was unlocked, and Hay was thrust in. Malinkoff followed. The door slammed behind them, and they heard the "click-clock" of the steel lock shooting to its socket.
The room was a medium-sized apartment, innocent of furniture save for a table in the centre of the room and a bench which ran round the walls. Light came from a small window giving a restricted view of the courtyard and a barred transom above the doorway. An oblong slit of ground glass behind which was evidently an electric globe served for the night.
There were two occupants of the room, who looked up, one—a grimy, dishevelled priest—blankly, the other with the light of interest in his eyes.
He sat in his shirt-sleeves, his coat being rolled up to serve as a pillow. Above the "bed" hung a Derby hat—an incongruous object. He was short, stout, and fresh coloured, with a startling black moustache elaborately curled at the ends and two grey eyes that were lined around with much laughter. He walked slowly to the party and held out his hand to Malcolm.
"Welcome to the original Bughouse," he said, and from his accent it was impossible to discover whether he was American or English. "On behalf of self an' partner, we welcome you to BughouseLodge. When do you go to the chair—he's due to-day," he jerked his thumb at the crooning priest. "I can't say I'm sorry. So far as I am concerned he's been dead ever since they put him here."
Malcolm recognized the little man in a flash. It was his acquaintance of London.
"You don't remember me," smiled Malcolm, "but what is your particular crime?"
The little man's face creased with laughter.
"Shootin' up Tcherekin," he said tersely, and Malinkoff's eyebrows rose.
"You're—Beem—is that how you pronounce it?"
"Bim," said the other, "B-I-M. Christian name Cherry—Cherry Bim; see the idea? Named after the angels. Say, when I was a kid—I've got a photograph way home in Brooklyn to prove it—I had golden hair in long ringlets!"
Malinkoff chuckled softly.
"This is the American who held up Tcherekin and nearly got away with ten million roubles," he said.
Cherry Bim had taken down his Derby and had adjusted it at the angle demanded by the circumstances.
"That's right—but I didn't know they was roubles. Ishouldexcite my mentality over waste paper! No, we got word that it was French money."
"There was another man in it?" said Malinkoff, lighting a cigarette—there had been no attempt to search them.
"Don't let that match go out!" begged Cherry Bim, and dug a stub from his waistcoat pocket. "Yes," he puffed, "Isaac Moskava—they killed poor old Issy. He was a good feller, but too—too—what's the word when a feller falls to every dame he meets?"
"Impressionable?" suggested Malcolm.
"That's the word," nodded Cherry Bim; "we'd got away with twenty thousand dollars' worth of real sparklers in Petrograd. They used to belong to a princess, and we took 'em off the lady friends of Groobal, the Food Commissioner, and I suggested we should beat it across the Swedish frontier. But no, he had a girl in Moscow—he was that kind of guy who could smell patchouli a million miles away."
Malcolm gazed at the man in wonderment.
"Do I understand that you are a—a——" He hesitated to describe his companion in misfortune, realizing that it was a very delicate position.
"I'm a cavalier of industry," said Cherry Bim, with a flourish.
"Chevalier is the word you want," suggested Malcolm, responding to his geniality.
"It's all one," said the other cheerfully. "Itmeans crook, I guess? Don't think," he said seriously, "don't you think that I'm one of those cheap gun-men you can buy for ten dollars, because I'm not. It was the love of guns that brought me into trouble. It wasn't trouble that brought me to the guns. I could use a gun when I was seven," he said. "My dad—God love him!—lived in Utah, and I was born at Broke Creek and cut my teeth on a '45. I could shoot the tail-feathers off a fly's wing," he said. "I could shoot the nose off a mosquito."
It was the deceased Isaac Moskava who had brought him to Russia, he said. They had been fellow fugitives to Canada, and Isaac, who had friends in a dozen Soviets, had painted an entrancing picture of the pickings which were to be had in Petrograd. They worked their way across Canada and shipped on a Swedish barque, working their passage before the mast. At Stockholm Issy had found a friend, who forwarded them carriage paid to the capital, whereafter things went well.
"Have you got any food?" asked Cherry Bim suddenly. "They starve you here. Did you ever eatschie? It's hot water smelling of cabbage."
"Have you been tried?" asked Malinkoff, and the man smiled.
"Tried!" he said contemptuously. "Say, whatdo you think's goin' to happen to you? Do you think you'll go up before a judge and hire a lawyer to defend you? Not much. If they try you, it's because they've got something funny to tell you. Look here."
He leapt up on to the bench with surprising agility and stood on tiptoe, so that his eyes came level with a little grating in the wall. The opening gave a view of another cell.
"Look," said Cherry Bim, stepping aside, and Malcolm peered through the opening.
At first he could see nothing, for the cell was darker than the room he was in, but presently he distinguished a huddled form lying on the bench, and even as he looked it was galvanized to life. It was an old man who had leaped from the bench mumbling and mouthing in his terror.
"I am awake! I am awake!" he screamed in Russian. "Gospodar, observe me! I am awake!"
His wild yells shrunk to a shrill sobbing, and then, with a long sigh, he climbed back to the bench and turned his back to the wall. Malcolm exchanged glances with Malinkoff, who had shared the view.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Come down and I'll tell you. Don't let the old man hear you speak—he's frightened."
"What did he say?" he asked curiously.
Malcolm repeated the words, and Cherry Bim nodded.
"I see. I thought they were stuffing me when they told me, but it's evidently true. He's a Jew," he went on. "Do you think them guys don't kill Jews? Don't you make any mistake about that—they'll kill anybody. This old man has a daughter or a granddaughter, and one of the comrades got fresh with him, so poor old Moses—I don't know his name but he looks like the picture of Moses that we had in our Bible at home—shot at this fellow and broke his jaw, so they sent him to be killed in his sleep."
"In his sleep?" repeated Malcolm incredulously, and Cherry Bim nodded.
"That's it," he said. "So long as he's awake they won't kill him—at least they say so. I guess when his time comes they'll settle him, asleep or awake. The poor old guy thinks that so long as he's awake he's safe—do you get me?"
"It's hellish!" said Malcolm between his teeth. "They must be devils."
"Oh, no, they're not," said Cherry Bim. "I've got nothing on the Soviets. I bet the fellow that invented that way of torturing the old man thinks he's done a grand bit of work. Say, suppose you turned a lot of kids loose to govern the United States, why Broadway would be all cluttered upwith dead nursery maids and murdered governesses. That's what's happening in Russia. They don't mean any harm. They're doing all they know to govern, only they don't know much—take no notice of his reverence, he always gets like this round about meal times."
The voice of the black-coated priest grew louder. He stood before the barred window, crossing himself incessantly.
"It is the celebration of the Divine Mystery," said Malinkoff in a low voice, and removed his cap.
"For our holy fathers the high priests Basil the Great, Gregory the Divine, Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, for Peter and Alexis and Jonas, and all holy high priests," groaned the man, "for the holy wonder workers, the disinterested Cosmas and Damiauns, Cyrus and John, Pantaleon and Hermolaus, and all unmercenary saints...!
"By the intercession of these, look down upon us, O God!"
He walked back to his seat and, taking compassion upon this man with a white, drawn face, Malcolm went to him.
"Little father," he said, "is there anything we can do for you?"
He produced his cigarette case, but the pope shook his head.
"There is nothing, my son" he replied in a weary voice, which he did not raise above one monotonous tone, "unless you can find the means of bringing Boolba to this cell. Oh, for an hour of the old life!" He raised his hand and his voice at the same moment, and the colour came to his cheeks. "I would take this Boolba," he said, "as holy Ivan took the traitors before the Kremlin, and first I would pour boiling hot water upon him and then ice cold water, and then I would flay him, suspending him by the ankles; then before he was dead I would cut him in four pieces——"
"Phew!" said Malcolm, and walked away.
"Did you expect to find a penitent soul?" asked Malinkoff dryly. "My dear fellow, there is very little difference between the Russian of to-day and the Russian of twelve months ago, with this exception, that the men who had it easy are now having it hard, and those who had to work and to be judged are now the judges."
Malcolm said nothing. He went to the bench and making himself as comfortable as possible he lay down. It was astounding that he could be, as he was, accustomed to captivity in the space of a few hours. He might have lived in bondage all his life, and he would be prepared to live for ever so long as—he did not want to think of the girl, that sweeper of Boolba's.
As to his own fate he was indifferent. Somehow he believed that he was not destined to die in this horrible place, and prayed that at least he might see the girl once more before he fell a victim to the malice of the ex-butler.
To his agony of mind was added a more prosaic distress—he was ravenously hungry, a sensation which was shared by his two companions.
"I've never known them to be so late," complained Cherry Bim regretfully. "There's usually a bit of black bread, if there's nothing else."
He walked to the window and, leaning his arms on the sill, looked disconsolately forth.
"Hi, Ruski!" he yelled at some person unseen, and the other inmates of the room could see him making extravagant pantomime, which produced nothing in the shape of food.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and Malcolm was dozing, when they heard the grate of the key in the lock and the slipping of bolts, then the door opened slowly. Malcolm leapt forward.
"Irene—your Highness!" he gasped.
The girl walked into the cell without a word, and put the big basket she had been carrying upon the table. There was a faint colour in the face she turned to Malcolm. Her hands were outstretched to him, and he caught them in his own and held them together.
"Poor little girl!"
She smiled.
"Mr. Hay, you have made good progress in your Russian since I met you last," she said. "General Malinkoff, isn't it?"
The general stood strictly to attention, his hand at his cap—a fact which seemed to afford great amusement to the gaoler who stood in the doorway, and who was an interested spectator.
"It was Boolba's idea that I should bring you food," said the girl, "and I have been ordered to bring it to you every day. I have an idea that he thinks"—she stopped—"that he thinks I like you," she went on frankly, "and of course that is true. I like all people who fly into danger to rescue distressed females," she smiled.
"Can anything be done for you?" asked Malcolm in a low voice. "Can't you get away from this place? Have you no friends?"
She shook her head.
"I have one friend," she said, "who is in even greater danger than I—no, I do not mean you. Mr. Hay"—she lowered her voice—"there may be a chance of getting you out of this horrible place, but it is a very faint chance. Will you promise me that if you get away you will leave Russia at once?"
He shook his head.
"You asked me that once before, your Highness," he said. "I am less inclined to leave Russia now than I was in the old days, when the danger was not so evident."
"Highness"—it was the priest who spoke—"your magnificence has brought me food also? Highness, I served your magnificent father. Do you not remember Gregory the priest in the cathedral at Vladimir?"
She shook her head.
"I have food for you, father," she said, "but I do not recall you."
"Highness" he spoke eagerly and his eyes were blazing, "since you go free, will you not say a prayer for me before the miraculous Virgin? Or, better still, before the tomb of the holy and sainted Dimitry in the cathedral of the Archangel! And, lady," he seized her hand in entreaty, "before the relics of St. Philip the Martyr in our Holy Cathedral of the Assumption."
Gently the girl disengaged her arm.
"Father, I will pray for you," she said. "Good-bye!" she said to Malcolm, and again extended both her hands, "till to-morrow!"
Malcolm raised the hands to his lips, and stood like a man in a dream, long after the door had slammed behind her.
"Gee!" said the voice of Cherry Bim with along sigh. "She don't remember me, an' I don't know whether to be glad or sorry—some peach!"
Malcolm turned on him savagely, but it was evident the man had meant no harm.
"She is a friend of mine," he said sharply.
"Sure she is," said the placid Cherry, unpacking the basket, "and the right kind of friend. If this isn't caviare! Say, shut your eyes, and you'd think you were at Rectoris."
Malcolm was awakened in the night by a scream. He sprang from the bench, his face bathed in perspiration.
"What was that?" he asked hoarsely.
Malinkoff was sitting on the edge of the bench rubbing his eyes.
"I heard something," he yawned.
Only Cheery Bim had not moved. He was lying on his back with his knees up and his hands behind his head, wide awake.
"What was it, Cherry?" asked Malcolm.
Slowly the little man rose and stretched himself.
"I wonder what the time is," he said evasively.
Malcolm looked at his watch.
"Half-past three," he replied.
"He's asleep anyway," said Cherry, nodding towards the recumbent figure of the priest. "He might have been useful—but I forgot the old man's a Jew."
"Do you mean——?" said Malinkoff and glanced at the gate.
Cherry nodded again.
"I never thought they'd carry it out according to programme," he said, "but they did. I heard 'em come in."
There was the thud of a door closing.
"That's the door of his cell. They have taken him out, I guess. The last fellow they killed in there they hung on a hook—just put a rope round his neck and pushed him in a bag. He was a long time dying," he said reflectively, and Malcolm saw that the little man's lower lip was trembling in spite of his calm, matter-of-fact tone.
Malinkoff had walked across to the priest, and had shaken him awake.
"Father," he said, "a man has just died in the next cell. Would you not read the Office of the Dead?"
The priest rose with an ill grace.
"Why should I be awakened from my sleep?" he complained. "Who is this man?"
"I do not know his name," said Malinkoff, "but he is a Jew——"
"A Jew!"
The priest spat on the ground contemptuously.
"What, I speak an office for a Jew?" he demanded, wrath in his face.
"For a man, for a human fellow creature," said Malinkoff sternly, but the priest had gone back tohis hard couch, nor would he leave it, and Malinkoff, with a shrug of his shoulders, went back to his bed.
"That is Russia—eternal Russia," he said, and he spoke without bitterness. "Neither Czar nor Soviet will alter it."
They did not go to sleep again. Something was speaking to them from the next cell, something that whimpered and raised its hands in appeal, and they welcomed the daylight, but not the diversion which daylight brought. Again the door banged open, and this time a file of soldiers stood in the entrance.
"Boris Michaelovitch," said the dark figure in the entrance, "it is the hour!"
The priest rose slowly. His face was grey, the hands clasped together before him shook; nevertheless, he walked firmly to the door.
Before the soldiers had closed around him he turned and raised his hand in blessing, and Malinkoff fell upon his knees.
Again the door slammed and the bolts shot home, and they waited in silence.
There was no sound for ten minutes, then came a crash of musketry, so unexpected and so loud that it almost deafened them. A second volley followed, and after an interval a third, and then silence. Cherry Bim wiped his forehead.
"Three this morning," he said unsteadily. "Anyway, it's better than hanging."
There was a long pause, and then:
"Say," he said, "I'm sorry I said I was glad that guy was going."
Malcolm understood.
The day brought Irene at the same hour as on the previous afternoon. She looked around for the priest, and apparently understood, for she made no reference to the missing man.
"If you can get away from here," she said, "go to Preopojenski. That is a village a few versts from here. I tell you this, but——"
She did not complete her sentence, but Malcolm could guess from the hopeless despair in her voice.
"Excuse me, miss," interrupted Cherry Bim. "Ain't there any way of getting a gun for a man? Any old kind of gun," he said urgently; "Colt, Smith-Wesson, Browning, Mauser—I can handle 'em all—but Colt preferred."
She shook her head sadly.
"It is impossible," she said. "I am searched every time I come in through the lodge."
"In a pie," urged Cherry. "I've read in stories how you can get these things in a pie. Couldn't you make——"
"It's quite impossible," she said. "Even breadis cut into four pieces. That is done in the lodge."
Cherry Bim cast envious eyes on the tall guard at the doorway. He had a long revolver.
"I'll bet," said Cherry bitterly, "he don't know any more about a gun than a school-marm. Why, he couldn't hit a house unless he was inside of it."
"I must go now," said the girl hastily.
"Tell me one thing," said Malcolm. "You spoke yesterday of having one friend. Is that friend Israel Kensky?"
"Hush!" she said.
She took his hand in both of hers.
"Good-bye, Mr. Hay," she said. "I may not come to-morrow."
Her voice was hard and strained, and she seemed anxious to end the interview.
"Boolba told me this morning," she went on, speaking rapidly but little above a whisper, "that he had——certain plans about me. Good-bye, Mr. Hay!"
This time she shook hands with Malinkoff.
"Don't forget the village of Preopojensky," she repeated. "There is only the slightest chance, but if God is merciful and you reach the outside world, you will find the house of Ivan Petroff—please remember that." And in a minute she was gone.
"I wonder what was wrong," said Malcolm."She was not so frightened when she came in, then she changed as though——"
Looking round he had seen, only for the fraction of a second, a hand through the grating over the bench. Someone had been listening in the next cell, and the girl had seen him. He sprang upon a bench and peered through, in time to see the man vanish beyond the angle of his vision. Malinkoff was lighting his last cigarette.
"My friend," he said, "I have an idea that in the early hours of the morning you and I will go the same way as the unfortunate priest."
"What makes you think so?" asked Malcolm quickly.
"Not only do I, but the Grand Duchess thinks so also," said Malinkoff. "Possibly this is news."
Again the door was opened, and this time it was an officer of the Red Guard who appeared. He had evidently been chosen because of his knowledge of English.
"I want the thief," he said tersely in that language.
"That sounds remarkably like me," said Cherry.
He put on his Derby hat slowly and went forth in his shirt-sleeves. They watched him through the window being taken across the courtyard and through the archway which led to the prison offices and the outer gate.
"They haven't released him, I suppose?" asked Malcolm, and Malinkoff shook his head.
"He is to be interrogated," he said. "Evidently there is something which Boolba wants to know about us, and which he believes this man will tell."
Malcolm was silent, turning matters over in his mind.
"He won't tell anything that will injure us," he said.
"But the man is a crook," said Malinkoff; "that is the word, isn't it?"
"That's the word," agreed Malcolm grimly, "but he's also a man of my own race and breed, and whilst I would not trust him with my pocket-book—or I should not have trusted him before I came in here—I think I can trust him with my life, supposing that he has my life in his hands."
In twenty minutes Cherry Bim was back, very solemn and mysterious until the gaoler was gone. Then he asked:
"Who is Israel Kensky, anyway?"
"Why?" asked Malcolm quickly.
"Because I'm going to make a statement about him—a written statement," he said cheerfully. "I'm going to have a room all to myself," he spoke slowly as though he were repeating something which he had already told himself, "because I am not aquick writer. Then I am going to tell all that she said about Israel Kensky."
"You can tell that in a second," said Malcolm sternly, and the little man raised a lofty hand.
"Don't get up in the air."
"Why have they sent you back now?"
"To ask a question or two," said Cherry.
He put on his coat, examined the interior of his hat thoughtfully, and jammed it down on his head.
"Ten minutes are supposed to elapse," he said melodramatically, "passed in light and airy conversation about a book—the 'Book of—of——"
"'All-Power'?" said Malcolm.
"That's the fellow. I should say it's the history of this darned place. Here they come."
He pulled down his coat, brushed his sleeves and stepped forward briskly to meet the English-speaking officer.
They passed an anxious two hours before he returned, and, if anything, he was more solemn than ever. He made no reply to their questions, but paced the room, and then he began to sing, and his tune had more reason than rhyme.
"Look through the grating," he chanted, "see if anybody is watching or listening, my honey, oh my honey!"
"There's nobody there," said Malcolm after a brief inspection.
"He'll be back again in five minutes," said Cherry, stopping his song and speaking rapidly. "I told him I wanted to be sure on one point, and he brought me back. I could have done it, but I wouldn't leave you alone."
"Done what?" asked Malcolm.
"Saved myself. Do you know what I saw when I got into that room for the first time? The guy in charge was locking away in a desk three guns and about ten packets of shells. It sounds like a fairy story, but it's true, and it's a desk with a lock that you could open with your teeth!"
It was Malinkoff who saw the possibilities of the situation which the man described.
"And they left you alone in the room?" he asked quickly.
"Sure," said Cherry. "Lift my hat, and lift it steady."
Malcolm pulled his hat up, and the butt of a revolver slipped out.
"There's a Browning there—be careful," said Cherry, ducking his head and pulling off his hat in one motion. "Here's the other under my arm," he put his hand beneath his coat and pulled out a Colt.
"Here are the shells for the automatic. I'll take the long fellow. Now listen, you boys," said Cherry. "Through that gateway at the end of the yard,you come to another yard and another gate, which has a guard on it. Whether we get away or whether we don't, depends on whether our luck is in or out."
"Look!" he whispered, "here comes Percy!"
The door swung open and the officer beckoned Cherry forward with a lift of his chin. Cherry walked toward him and the officer half turned in the attitude of one who was showing another out. Cherry's hand shot out, caught the man by the loose of his tunic and swung him into the room.
"Laugh and the world laughs with you," said Cherry, who had an assortment of literary quotations culled from heaven knows where. "Shout and you sleep alone!"
The muzzle of a long-barrelled '45 was stuck in the man's stomach. He did not see it, but he guessed it, and his hands went up.
"Tie him up—he wears braces," said Cherry. "I'll take that belt of deadly weapons." He pulled one revolver from the man's holster and examined it with an expert's eye. "Not been cleaned for a month," he growled; "you don't deserve to be trusted with a gun."
He strapped the belt about his waist and sighed happily.
They gagged the man with a handkerchief, andthrew him ungently upon the bench before they passed through the open door to comparative freedom. Cherry locked and bolted the door behind them, and pulled down the outer shutter, with which, on occasions, the gaoler made life in the cells a little more unendurable by excluding the light. The cells were below the level of the courtyard, and they moved along the trench from which they opened.
Pacing his beat by the gateway was a solitary sentry.
"Stay here," whispered Cherry; "he has seen me going backward and forward, and maybe he thinks I'm one of the official classes."
He mounted the step leading up from the trench, and walked boldly toward the gateway. Nearing the man, he turned to wave a greeting to an imaginary companion. In reality he was looking to see whether there were any observers of the act which was to follow.
Watching him, they did not see exactly what had happened. Suddenly the soldier doubled up like a jack-knife and fell.
Cherry bent over him, lifted the rifle and stood it against the wall, then, exhibiting remarkable strength for so small a man, he picked up the man in his arms and dropped him into the trench which terminated at the gateway. They heard the thudof his body, and, breaking cover, they raced across the yard, joining Cherry, who led the way through the deep arch.
Now they saw the outer barrier. It consisted of a formidable iron grille. To their right was a gloomy building, which Malcolm judged was the bureau of the prison, to the left a high wall. On either side of the gateway was a squat lodge, and before these were half a dozen soldiers, some leaning against the gate, some sitting in the doorway of the lodges, but all carrying rifles.
"This way," said Cherry under his breath, and turned into the office.
The door of the room on his left was open, and into this they walked. It was empty, but scarcely had they closed the door than there were footsteps outside. Cherry, with a gun in each hand, a hard and ugly grin on his fat face, covered the door, but the footsteps passed.
There was a babble of voices outside and a rattle and creak of gates. Malcolm crept to the one window which the office held (he guessed it was here that Cherry had written his "statement"), and peeped cautiously forth.
A big closed auto was entering the gate, and he pulled his head back. Cherry was at his side.
"Somebody visiting—a fellow high up," whispered the latter hoarsely; "they'll come in here, the guywe left in the cell told me he'd want this room. Try that door!"
He pointed to a tall press and Malinkoff was there in a second. The press was evidently used for the storage of stationery. There was one shelf, half way up, laden with packages of paper, and Malinkoff lifted one end. The other slipped and the packets dropped with a crash. But the purring of the auto in the yard was noisy enough to drown the sound unless somebody was outside the door.
"Three can squeeze in—you go first, Mr. Hay."
It was more than a squeeze, it was a torture, but the door closed on them.
Malcolm had an insane desire to laugh, but he checked it at the sound of a voice—for it was the voice of Boolba.
"I cannot stay very long, comrade," he was saying as he entered the room, "but...."
The rest was a mumble.
"I will see that she is kept by herself," said a strange voice, evidently of someone in authority at the prison.
Malcolm bit his lips to check the cry that rose.
"Irene!"
"..." Boolba's deep voice was again a rumble.
"Yes, comrade, I will bring her in ... let me lead you to a chair."
He evidently went to the door and called, and immediately there was a tramp of feet.
"What does this mean, Boolba?"
Malcolm knew the voice—he had heard it before—and his relief was such that all sense of his own danger passed.
"Sophia Kensky," Boolba was speaking now, "you are under arrest by order of the Soviet."
"Arrest!" the word was screamed, "me——?"
"You are plotting against the Revolution, and your wickedness has been discovered," said Boolba. "Matinshka!Little mama, it is ordered!"
"You lie! You lie!" she screeched. "You blind devil—I spit on you! You arrest me because you want the aristocrat Irene Yaroslav! Blind pig!"
"Prekanzeno, dushinka!It is ordered, dear little soul," murmured Boolba. "I go back alone—listen! My auto is turning. I go back alone,drushka, and who shall be my eyes now that my little mama is gone?"
They heard the chair pushed back as he rose and the scream and flurry as she leapt at him.
"Keep her away, little comrade," roared Boolba. "Keep her away—I am blind; her father blinded me; keep her away!"
It was Cherry Bim who slipped first from the cupboard.
Under the menace of his guns the soldiers fell back.
"Auto Russki—hold up the guard, Hay," he muttered, and Malinkoff jumped through the doorway to the step of the big car in one bound.
Cherry held the room. He spoke no Russian, but his guns were multi-lingual. There was a shot outside before he fired three times into the room. Then he fell back, slamming the door, and jumped into the car as it moved through the open gateway.
Malcolm was on one footboard, Malinkoff by the side of the chauffeur on the other.
So they rocked through the ill-paved streets of Moscow, and rushed the suburban barricade without mishap.
"Preopojensky, but by a circuitous route," said Malinkoff, speaking across the chauffeur. "What about the wires?"
He looked up at the telegraph lines, looping from pole to pole, and Malcolm thrust his head into the window of the limousine to communicate this danger to the sybaritic Mr. Bim, who was spraying himself with perfume from a bottle he had found in the well-equipped interior of the car.
"Stop," said Cherry. "We're well away from Moscow."
At a word from Malinkoff the chauffeur brought the car to a standstill and Cherry slipped out, revolver in hand.
Then to the amazement of Malcolm and the unfeigned admiration of the general, Cherry Bim made good his boast. Four times his gun cracked and at each shot a line broke.
"To be repeated at intervals," said Cherry, climbing into the car. "Wake me in half an hour,"and, curling himself up in the luxurious depths of swansdown cushions, he fell asleep.
Happily Malinkoff knew the country to an inch. They were not able to avoid the villages without avoiding the roads, but they circumnavigated the towns. At nightfall they were in the depths of a wood which ran down to the edge of the big lake on which the holy village of Preopojensky stands.
"The chauffeur is not the difficulty I thought he would be," reported Malinkoff; "he used to drive Korniloff in the days when he was a divisional general, and he is willing to throw in his lot with ours."
"Can you trust him!" asked Malcolm.
"I think so," said Malinkoff, "unless we shoot him we simply must trust him—what do you think, Mr. Bim?"
"You can call me Cherry," said that worthy. He was eating bread and sour cheese which had been bought at a fabulous price in one of the villages through which they had passed. Here again they might have been compelled to an act which would have called attention to their lawless character, for they had no money, had it not been for Cherry. He financed the party from the lining of his waistcoat (Malcolm remembered that the little man had never discarded this garment, sleeping or waking) and made a casual reference to the diamonds whichhad gone to his account via a soi-disant princess and the favourite of a Commissary.
"Anyway," he said, "we could have got it from the chauffeur—he's open to reason."
They did not ask him what argument he would have employed, but were glad subsequently that these arguments had not been used.
What was as necessary as food was petrol. Peter the chauffeur said that there were big army supplies in Preopojensky itself, and undertook to steal sufficient to keep the car running for a week.
They waited until it was dark before they left the cover of the wood, and walked in single file along a cart-track to the half a dozen blinking lights that stood for Preopojensky.
The car they had pulled into deeper cover, marking the place with a splinter of mirror broken from its silver frame.
"Nothing like a mirror," explained Cherry Bim. "You've only to strike a match, and it shows a light for you."
The way was a long one, but presently they came to a good road which crossed the track at right angles, but which curved round until it ran parallel with the path they had followed.
"There is the military store," whispered the chauffeur. "I will go now, my little general."
"I trust you,drushka," said Malinkoff.
"By the head of my mother I will not betray you," said the man, and disappeared in the darkness.
After this they held a council of war.
"So far as I can remember, Petroff is the silk merchant," said Malinkoff, "and his house is the first big residence we reach coming from this direction. I remember it because I was on duty at the Coronation of the Emperor, and his Imperial Majesty came to Preopojensky, which is a sacred place for the Royal House. Peter the Great lived here."
Luck was with them, for they had not gone far before they heard a voice bellowing a mournful song, and came up with its owner, a worker in the silk mills (they had long since ceased to work) who was under the influence of methylated spirit—a favourite tipple since vodka had been ukased out of existence.
"Ivan Petroff, son of Ivan?" he hiccoughed.
"Yes, my little dove, it is there. He is a boorjoo and an aristocrat, and there is no Czar and no God!—prikanzerio—it is ordered by the Soviet!..."
And he began to weep
"No Czar and no God! Long live the Revolution! Evivo! No blessed saints and no Czar! And I was of the Rasholnik!..."
They left him weeping by the roadside.
"The Rasholniks are the dissenters of Russia—this village was a hotbed of them, but they'vegone the way of the rest," said Malinkoff sadly.
The house they approached was a big wooden structure ornamented with perfectly useless cupolas and domes, so that Malcolm thought at first that this was one of the innumerable churches in which the village abounded.
There was a broad flight of wooden stairs leading to the door, but this they avoided. A handful of gravel at a likely-looking upper window seemed a solution. The response was immediate. Though no light appeared, the window swung open and a voice asked softly:
"Who is that?"
"We are from Irene," answered Malcolm in the same tone.
The window closed, and presently they heard a door unfastened and followed the sound along the path which ran close to the house. It was a small side door that was opened, and Malcolm led the way through.
Their invisible host closed the door behind them, and they heard the clink of a chain.
"If you have not been here before, keep straight on, touching the wall with your right hand. Where it stops turn sharply to the right," said the unknown rapidly.
They followed his directions, and found the branch passage.
"Wait," said the voice.
The man passed them. They heard him turn a handle.
"Straight ahead you will find the door."
They obeyed, and their conductor struck a match and lit an oil lamp. They were in the long room—they guessed that by the glow of the closed stove they had seen as they entered.
The windows were heavily shuttered and curtained, and even the door was hidden under a thick portière. The man who had brought them in was middle-aged and poorly dressed, but then this was a time when everybody in Russia was poorly dressed, and his shabbiness did not preclude the possibility of his being the proprietor of the house, as indeed he was.
He was eyeing them with suspicion, not wholly unjustified, for the patent respectability of Cherry's Derby hat was no compensation for the armoury belted about his rotund middle.
But when the man's eyes fell upon Malinkoff, his whole demeanour changed, and he advanced with outstretched hand.
"General Malinkoff," he said, "you remember me; I entertained you at——"
"At Kieff! Of course!" smiled Malinkoff. "I did not know the Ivan Petroff of Moscow was the Ivan of the Ukraine."
"Now, gentlemen, what is your wish?" asked the man, and Malinkoff explained the object of the visit.
Petroff looked serious.
"Of course, I will do anything her Highness wishes," he said. "I saw her yesterday, and she told me that she had a dear friend in St. Basil." Malcolm tried to look unconcerned under Malinkoff's swift scrutiny and failed. "But I think she wished you to meet another—guest."
He paused.
"He has gone into Moscow to-night against my wishes," he said with trouble in his face; "such an old man——"
"Kensky?" said Malcolm quickly.
"Kensky." The tone was short. "I told him that no good would come of it—her Highness was married to-night."
Malcolm took a step forward, but it was an unsteady step.
"Married?" he repeated. "To whom was she married?"
Petroff looked down at the floor as though he dare not meet the eye of any man and say so monstrous a thing.
"To the servant Boolba," he said.