Irene Yaroslav came back to the home which had always been associated in her mind with unhappy memories, to meet the culminating disaster which Fate had wrought. Whatever thoughts of escape she may have treasured in secret were cut into by the sure knowledge that she was watched day and night, and were now finally terminated by the discovery that the big apartment house, a suite of which Boolba had taken for her disposal when he had ousted her from her father's house, was practically in possession of the Soviet Guard.
She drove to the palace with an undisguised escort of mounted men, one on either side of the carriage, one before and one behind, and went up the stairs—those grim stairs which had frightened her as a child and had filled her nights with dreams, passing on her way the now empty bureau which it had been Boolba's whim for her to keep.
Maria Badisikaya, an officer of the Committeefor the Suppression of the Counter-Revolution, formerly an operative in the Moscow Cigarette Company, was waiting in the small drawing-room which still retained some of its ancient splendour. Maria was a short, stumpy woman with a slight moustache and a wart on her chin, and was dressed in green satin, cut low to disclose her generous figure. About her stiff, coal-black hair was a heavy diamond bandeau. She was sitting on a settee, her feet hardly touching the ground, cleaning her nails with a little pocket-knife as the girl entered. Evidently this was her maid of honour, and she could have laughed.
The woman glowered up at her and jumped briskly to her feet, closing the knife and slipping it into her corsage.
"You are late, Irene Yaroslav," she said shrilly. "I have something better to do than to sit here waiting for a boorjoo. There is a committee meeting at ten o'clock to-night. How do you imagine I can attend that? Come, come!"
She bustled into an ante-room.
"Here is your dress, my little bride. See, there is everything, even to stockings—Boolba has thought of all, yet he will not see! La! la! What a man!"
Numerous articles of attire were laid out on chairs and on the back of the sofa, and the girl,looking at them, shuddered. It was Boolba's idea—nobody but Boolba would have thought of it. Every garment was of red, blood red, a red which seemed to fill the room with harsh sound. Stockings of finest silk, shoes of russian leather, cobweb underwear—but all of the same hideous hue. In Russia the word "red" is also the word "beautiful." In a language in which so many delicate shades of meaning can be expressed, this word serves a double purpose, doing duty for that which, in the eyes of civilized people, is garish, and that which is almost divine.
Maria's manner changed suddenly. From the impatient, slightly pompous official, conscious of her position, she became obsequious and even affectionate. Possibly she remembered that the girl was to become the wife of the most powerful man in Moscow, whose word was amply sufficient to send even Gregory Prodol to the execution yard, and Gregory's position seemed unassailable.
"I will help you to dress, my little dear," she said. "Let me take your hat, my little dove."
"I would rather be alone," said the girl. "Will you please wait in the next room, Maria Badisikaya?"
"But I can help you so, my little darling," said the woman, fussing about. "A bride has no luck for thirty years if she puts on her own stockings."
"Go!" said the girl imperiously, and the woman cringed.
"Certainly, Excellenz," she stammered, and went out without another word.
The girl changed quickly, and surveyed herself in the pier glass at the end of the room. It was striking but horrible. There came a tap at the door and the agitated Maria entered.
"He has sent for you, my little dove," she said. "Come, take my arm. Do not tremble, my little pretty. Boolba is a good man and the greatest man in Moscow."
She would have taken the girl's arm, but Irene waved her aside, and walked swiftly from the drawing-room into the grand saloon. She wanted the ordeal over as soon as possible.
The room was crowded, and though many of the electric lamps in the great glass chandelier were not in working order and a broken fuse had put half the wall brackets in darkness, the light was almost dazzling. This wonderful saloon, where ten Czars had eaten bread and salt with ten generations of Yaroslavs, was thick with humanity. Some of the men were in uniform, some were in a nondescript costume which was the Soviet compromise between evening-dress and diplomatic uniform. One man wore a correct evening-jacket and a white waistcoat with a perfectly starched shirt, over uniformtrousers and top-boots. The women were as weirdly clothed. Some were shabby to the point of rags, a few wore court dresses of the approved pattern, and there was one woman dressed like a man, who smoked all the time. The air was blue with tobacco smoke and buzzing with sound.
As she came into the saloon somebody shouted her name, and there was vigorous applause, not for her, she knew, nor for the name she bore, but for the novelty and the "beauty" of her wedding gown.
At the farther end of the room was a table covered with a red cloth, and behind it sat a man in evening-dress, whom she recognized as one of the newly-appointed magistrates of the city. Nudged behind by Maria, she made her way through the press of people, whose admiring comments were spoken loud enough for her to hear.
"What a little beauty! Too good for a blind man, eh?"
"We have knelt for her many times, now she shall kneel for us."
"Such a dress! This Boolba is a wonderful fellow."
She halted before the table, her hands clasped lightly in front of her. Her head was high, and she met every glance steadily and disdainfully.
The clock struck a quarter after ten when Boolba made his entrance amidst a storm of applause.
They had never seen him in such a uniform before. Some thought it was a new costume which had been sanctioned by the supreme Soviet for its Commissaries; others that it had been planned especially for the marriage. Irene alone knew it, and a cold, disdainful smile lit for a moment her expressionless face.
She had seen Boolba in knee-breeches and white silk stockings before; she knew the coat of green and gold which the retainers of the house of Yaroslav wore on state occasions. Boolba was marrying her in his butler's livery—a delicate piece of vengeance.
The ceremony was short, and, to the girl, unreal. Religious marriages, though they had not altogether been banned, were regarded by the official Russia as unnecessary, and a new marriage service had been designed, which confined the ceremony to the space of a few minutes. The attempts to abolish marriage altogether had been strenuously opposed, not so much by the public women who were on the innumerable councils and committees, but by the wives of the more important members of the organization.
Boolba was led to her side, and reached out his hand gropingly, and in very pity of his blindness she took it. Questions were asked him, to which he responded and similar questions were asked her, towhich she made no reply. The whole ceremony was a farce, and she had agreed to it only because it gave her a little extra time, and every minute counted. From the moment the magistrate pronounced the formula which made them, in the eyes of the Soviet law at any rate, man and wife, Boolba never loosened his hold of her.
He held her hand in his own big, hot palm, until it was wet and her fingers lost all feeling. From group to group they moved, and when they crossed the dancing space of the saloon, the revellers stepped aside to allow the man to pass. She noticed that in the main they confined themselves to country dances, some of which were new to her. And all the time Boolba kept up a continuous conversation in an undertone, pinching her hand gently whenever he wanted to attract her attention.
"Tell me, my new eyes, my little pigeon of God, what are they doing now? Do you see Mishka Gurki? She is a silly woman. Tell me, my little pet, if you see her. Watch her well, and tell me how she looks at me. That woman is an enemy of the Revolution and a friend of Sophia Kensky.... Ah! it is sad about your poor friends."
The girl turned cold and clenched her teeth to take the news which was coming.
"They tried to escape and they were shot down by our brave guard. I would have pardoned themfor your sake, all but the thief, who broke the jaw of comrade Alex Alexandroff. Yes, I would have pardoned them to-night, because I am happy. Else they would have died with Sophia Kensky in the morning.... Do I not please you, that I put away this woman, who was my eyes and saw for me—all for your sake, my little pigeon, all for your sake!... Do you see a big man with one eye? He has half my misfortune, yet he sees a million times more than Boolba! That is the butcher Kreml—some day he shall see the Kreml[A]," he chuckled.... "Why do you not speak, my darling little mama? Are you thinking of the days when I was Boolba the slave? Na, na,stoi! Think of to-day, to-night, my little child of Jesus!"
There were times when she could have screamed, moments of madness when she longed to pick up one of the champagne bottles which littered the floor, and at intervals were thrown with a crash into a corner of the room, and strike him across that great brutal face. There were times when she was physically sick and the room spun round and round and she would have fallen but for the man's arm. But the hour she dreaded most of all came at last, when, one by one, with coarse jests at her expense,the motley company melted away and left her alone with the man.
"They have all gone?" he asked eagerly. "Every one?"
He clutched more tightly.
"To my room. We have a supper for ourselves. They are pigs, all these fellows, my little beautiful."
The old carpet was still on the stairs, she noticed dully. Up above used to be her own room, at the far end of the long passage. She had a piano there once. She wondered whether it was still there. There used to be a servant at the head and at the foot of these stairs—a long, green-coated Cossack, to pass whom without authority was to court death. The room on the left had been her father's—two big saloons, separated by heavy silken curtains; his bureau was at one end, his bedroom at the other.
It was into the bureau that the man groped his way. A table had been set, crowded with bottles and glasses, piled with fruit, sweetmeats, and at the end the inevitable samovar.
"I will lock the door," said Boolba. "Now you shall kiss me on the eyes and on the mouth and on the cheeks, making the holy cross."
She braced herself for the effort, and wrenched free. In a flash he came at her, and his hands caught the silken gown at the shoulder. She twisted under his arm, leaving a length of tattered and torn silkin his hand, and the marks of his finger-nails upon her white shoulder. He stopped and laughed—a low, gurgling laugh—and it was to the girl like the roar of some subterranean river heard from afar.
"Oh, Highness," he mocked, "would you rob a blind man of his bride? Then let us be blind together!"
He blundered to the door. There was a click, and the room was in darkness.
"I am better than you now," he said. "I hear you in the dark; I can almost see you. You are by the corner of the table. Now you are pushing a chair. Little pigeon, come to me!"
Whilst he was talking she was safe because she could locate him. It was when he was silent that she was filled with wild fear. He moved as softly as a cat, and it seemed that his boast of seeing in the dark was almost justified. Once his hand brushed her and she shrank back only just in time. The man was breathing heavily now, and the old, mocking terms of endearment had changed.
"Come to me, Irene Yaroslav!" he roared. "Have I not often run to you? Have I not waited throughout the night to take your wraps and bring you coffee? Now you shall wait on me by Inokente! You shall be eyes and hands for me, and when I am tired of you, you shall go the way of Sophia Kensky."
She was edging her way to the door. Once she could switch on the light she was safe, at any rate for the time being. There was a long silence, and, try as she did, she could not locate him. He must have been crouching near the door, anticipating her move, for as her hand fell on the switch and the lights sprang into being, he leapt at her. She saw him, but too late to avoid his whirling hands. In a second he had her in his arms. The man was half mad. He cursed and blessed her alternately, called her his little pigeon and his little devil in the same breath. She felt the tickle of his beard against her bare shoulder, and strove to push him off.
"Come, my little peach," he said. "Who shall say that there is no justice in Russia, when Yaroslav's daughter is the bride of Boolba!"
His back was to the curtain, and he was half lifting, half drawing her to the two grey strips which marked its division, when the girl screamed.
"Again, again, my little dear," grinned Boolba. "That is fine music."
But it was not her own danger which had provoked the cry. It was that vision, twice seen in her lifetime, of dead white hands, blue-veined, coming from the curtain and holding this time a scarlet cord.
It was about Boolba's neck before he realized what had happened. With a strangled cry hereleased the girl, and she fell back again on the table, overturning it with a crash.
"This way, Highness," said a hollow voice, and she darted through the curtains.
She heard the shock of Boolba's body as it fell to the ground, and then Israel Kensky darted past her, flung open the door and pushed her through.
"The servants' way," he said, and she ran to the narrow staircase which led below to the kitchen, and above to the attics in which the servants slept.
Down the stairs, two at a time, she raced, the old man behind her. The stairway ended in a square hall. There was a door, half ajar, leading to the kitchen, which was filled with merrymakers, and a second door leading into the street, and this was also open. She knew the way blindfolded. They were in what had been the coach-yard of the Palace, and she knew there were half a dozen ways into the street. Israel chose the most unlikely, one which led again to the front of the house.
A drosky was waiting, and into this he bundled her, jumping in by her side, holding her about the waist as the driver whipped up his two horses and sped through the deserted streets of Moscow.
FOOTNOTE:[A]"Kreml" is literally Kremlin, one of the places of detention in Moscow.
[A]"Kreml" is literally Kremlin, one of the places of detention in Moscow.
[A]"Kreml" is literally Kremlin, one of the places of detention in Moscow.
Malcolm was the first to hear the sound of wheels on the roadway, and the party listened in silence till a low whistle sounded and their host darted out of the room.
"What was that?" asked Malinkoff. "Somebody has come to the front door."
A few minutes later Petroff staggered through the doorway, carrying the limp figure of Irene. It was Malcolm who took the girl in his arms and laid her upon the sofa.
"She is not dead," said a voice behind him.
He looked up; it was Israel Kensky. The old man looked white and ill. He took the glass of wine which Ivan brought him with a shaking hand, and wiped his beard as he looked down at the girl. There was neither friendliness nor pity in his glance, only the curious tranquillity which comes to the face of a man who has done that which he set out to do.
"What of Boolba?" asked Petroff eagerly
"I think he lives," said Kensky, and shook his head. "I am too weak and too old a man to have killed him. I put the cord about his neck and twisted it with a stick. If he can loosen the cord he will live; if he cannot, he will die. But I think he was too strong a man to die."
"Did he know it was you?" asked Petroff.
Kensky shook his head.
"What is the hour?" he asked, and they told him that it was two o'clock.
"Sophia Kensky dies at four," he said, in such a tone of unconcern that even Malinkoff stared at him.
"It is right that she should die," said Kensky, and they marvelled that he, who had risked his life to save one of the class which had persecuted his people for hundreds of years, should speak in so matter-of-fact tones about the fate of his own blood. "She betrayed her race and her father. It is the old law of Israel, and it is a good law. I am going to sleep."
"Is there a chance that you have been followed?" asked Malinkoff, and Kensky pulled at his beard thoughtfully.
"I passed a watchman at the barricade, and he was awake—that is the only danger."
He beckoned to Malcolm, and, loth as the young man was to leave the girl's side, now that she wasshowing some signs of recovering consciousness, he accompanied the old man from the room.
"Gospodar," said Israel Kensky (it sounded strange to hear that old title), "once you carried a book for me."
"I remember." Malcolm smiled in spite of himself.
"'The Book of All-Power,'" repeated the Jew quietly. "It is in my room, and I shall ask you to repeat your service. That book I would give to the Grand Duchess, for I have neither kith nor child, and she has been kind to me."
"But surely, Kensky," protested Malcolm, "you, as an intelligent man, do not believe in the potency of books or charms of incantations?"
"I believe in the 'Book of All-Power,'" said Kensky calmly. "Remember, it is to become the property of the Grand Duchess Irene. I do not think I have long to live," he added. "How my death will come I cannot tell, but it is not far off. Will you go with me now and take the book?"
Malcolm hesitated. He wanted to get back to the girl, but it would have been an ungracious act not to humour the old man, who had risked so much for the woman he loved. He climbed the stairs to the little bedroom, and waited at the door whilst Kensky went in. Presently the old man returned; thebook was now stitched in a canvas wrapping, and Malcolm slipped the book into his pocket. The very act recalled another scene which had been acted a thousand miles away, and, it seemed, a million years ago.
"Now let us go down," said Kensky.
"Lord," he asked, as Malcolm's foot was on the stair, "do you love this young woman?"
It would have been the sheerest affectation on his part to have evaded the question.
"Yes, Israel Kensky," he replied, "I love her," and the old man bowed his head.
"You are two Gentiles, and there is less difference in rank than in race," he said. "I think you will be happy. May the Gods of Jacob and of Abraham and of David rest upon you and prosper you. Amen!"
Never had benediction been pronounced upon him that felt so real, or that brought such surprising comfort to the soul of Malcolm Hay. He felt as if, in that dingy stairway, he had received the very guerdon of manhood, and he went downstairs spiritually strengthened, and every doubt in his mind set at rest.
The girl half rose from the couch as he came to her, and in her queer, impulsive way put out both her hands. Five minutes before he might have hesitated; he might have been content to feel thewarmth of her palms upon his. But now he knelt down by her side, and, slipping one arm about her, drew her head to his shoulder. He heard the long-drawn sigh of happiness, he felt her arm creep about his neck, and he forgot the world and all the evil and menace it held: he forgot the grave Malinkoff, the interested Cherry Bim, still wearing his Derby hat on the back of his head, and girt about with the weapons of his profession. He forgot everything except that the world was worth living for. There lay in his arms a fragrant and a beautiful thing.
It was Petroff who put an end to the little scene.
"I have sent food into the wood for you," he said, "and my man has come back to tell me that your chauffeur is waiting by the car. He has all the petrol that he requires, and I do not think you should delay too long."
The girl struggled to a sitting position, and looked with dismay at her scarlet bridal dress.
"I cannot go like this," she said.
"I have your trunk in the house, Highness," said Petroff, and the girl jumped up with a little cry of joy.
"I had forgotten that," she said.
She had forgotten also that she was still weak, for she swayed and would have stumbled, had not Malcolm caught her.
"Go quickly, Highness," said Petroff urgently."I do not think it would be safe to stay here—safe for you or for Kensky. I have sent one of my men on a bicycle to watch the Moscow road."
"Is that necessary?" asked Malinkoff. "Are you suspect?"
Petroff nodded.
"If Boolba learns that Kensky passed this way, he will guess that it is to me that he came. I was in the service of the Grand Duke, and if it were not for the fact that a former workman of mine is now Assistant Minister of Justice in Petrograd, I should have been arrested long ago. If Boolba finds Israel Kensky here, or the Grand Duchess, nothing can save me. My only hope is to get you away before there is a search. Understand, little general," he said earnestly, "if you had not the car, I would take all risks and let you stay until you were found."
"That seems unnecessary," said Malinkoff. "I quite agree. What do you say, Kensky?"
The old man, who had followed Malcolm down the stairs, nodded.
"I should have shot Boolba," he said thoughtfully, "but it would have made too much noise."
"You should have used the knife, little father," said Petroff, but Kensky shook his head.
"He wears chain armour under his clothes," he said. "All the commissaries do."
Preparations for the journey were hurriedlymade. The girl's trunk had proved a veritable storehouse, and she came down in a short tweed skirt and coat, her glorious hair hidden under a black tam o' shanter, and Malcolm could scarcely take his eyes from her.
"You have a coat," said the practical Malinkoff. "That is good—you may need it."
Crash!
It was the sound of a rifle butt against the door which struck them dumb. Muffled by the thick wood, the voice of the knocker yet came clearly: "Open in the name of the Revolution!"
Petroff blinked twice, and on his face was a look as though he could not believe his ears. The girl shrank to Malcolm's side, and Malinkoff stroked his beard softly. Only Cherry Bim seemed to realize the necessities of the moment, and he pulled both guns simultaneously and laid them noiselessly on the table before him.
"Open in the name of the Revolution!"
A hiss from Kensky brought them round. He beckoned them through the door by which they had made their original entry to the room, and pointed to the light. He gripped Petroff by the shoulder.
"Upstairs to your bedroom, friend," he said. "Put on your night-shirt and talk to them through the window."
Down the two passages they passed and came to the little door, which Kensky unchained and opened. He put his lips close to Malinkoff's ears.
"Do you remember the way you came?" he asked, and the general nodded and led the way.
Last but one came Cherry Bim, a '45 in each hand. There were no soldiers in view at the back of the house, but Malinkoff could hear their feet on some unknown outside road, and realized that the house was in process of being surrounded, and had the man who knocked at the door waited until this encirclement had been completed, there would have been no chance of escape.
They struck the main road, and found the cart track leading to the wood, and none challenged them. There was no sound from the house, and apparently their flight had not been discovered.
Kensky brought up the rear in spite of Cherry's frenzied injunctions, delivered in the four words of Russian which he knew, to get a move on. They had reached the fringe of the wood when the challenge came. Out of the shadow rode a horseman, and brought his charger across the path.
"Halt!" he cried.
The party halted, all except Cherry, who steppedfrom the path and moved swiftly forward, crouching low, to give the sentry no background.
"Who is that?" asked the man on the horse. "Speak, or I'll fire!"
He had unslung his carbine, and they heard the click of the bolt as the breech opened and closed.
"We are friends, little father," said Malinkoff.
"Give me your names," said the sentry, and Malinkoff recited with glib ease a list of Russian patronymics.
"That is a lie," said the man calmly. "You are boorjoos—I can tell by your voices," and without further warning he fired into the thick of them.
The second shot which came from the night followed so quickly upon the first that for the second time in like circumstances the girl thought only one had been fired. But the soldier on the horse swayed and slid to the earth before she knew what had happened.
"Go right ahead," said the voice of Cherry Bim.
He had caught the bridle of the frightened horse, and had drawn him aside. They quickened their steps and came up to the car, which the thoughtful chauffeur had already cranked up at the sound of the shots.
"Where is Kensky?" asked Malcolm suddenly, "did you see him, Cherry?"
A pause.
"Why, no," said Cherry, "I didn't see him after the lamented tragedy."
"We can't leave the old man," said Malcolm.
"Wait," said the little gun-man. "I will go back and look for him."
Five minutes, ten passed and still there was no sign or sound of Israel Kensky or of Cherry. Then a shot broke the stillness of the night, and another and another.
"Two rifles and one revolver," said Malinkoff. "Get into the car, Highness. Are you ready, Peter?"
There was another shot and then a fusillade. Then came slow footsteps along the cart track, and the sound of a man's windy breathing.
"Take him, somebody," said Cherry.
Malinkoff lifted the inanimate figure from Cherry's shoulder and carried him into the car. A voice from the darkness shouted a command, there was a flash of fire and the "zip" of a bullet.
"Let her go, Percy," said Cherry, and blazed away with both guns into the darkness.
He leapt for the footboard and made it by a miracle, and only once did they hear him cry as if in pain.
"Are you hit?" asked Malcolm anxiously.
"Naw!" drawled his voice jerkily, for the road hereabouts was full of holes, and even speechwas as impossible as even riding. "Naw," he said. "I nearly lost my hat."
He spoke only once again that night, except to refuse the offer to ride inside the car. He preferred the footboard, he said, and explained that as a youth it had been his ambition to be a fireman.
"I wonder," he said suddenly, breaking the silence of nearly an hour.
"What do you wonder?" asked Malinkoff, who sat nearest to the window, where Cherry stood.
"I wonder what happened to that boy on the bicycle?"
Israel Kensky died at five o'clock in the morning. They had made a rough attempt to dress the wound in his shoulder, but, had they been the most skilful of surgeons with the best appliances which modern surgery had invented at their hands, they could not have saved his life. He died literally in the arms of Irene, and they buried him in a little forest on the edge of a sluggish stream, and Cherry Bim unconsciously delivered the funeral oration.
"This poor old guy was a good fellow," he said. "I ain't got nothing on the Jews as a class, except their habit of prosperity, and that just gets the goat of people like me, who hate working for a living. He was straight and white, and that's all you can expect any man to be, or any woman either, with due respect to you, miss. If any of you gents would care to utter a few words of prayer, you'll get a patient hearing from me, because I am naturally a broad-minded man."
It was the girl who knelt by the grave, the tears streaming down her cheeks, but what she said none heard. Cherry Bim, holding his hat crown outward across his breast, produced the kind of face which he thought adequate to the occasion; and, after the party had left the spot, he stayed behind. He rejoined them after a few minutes, and he was putting away his pocket-knife as he ran.
"Sorry to keep you, ladies and gents," he said, "but I am a sentimental man in certain matters. I always have been and always shall be."
"What were you doing?" asked Malcolm, as the car bumped along.
Cherry Bim cleared his throat and seemed embarrassed.
"Well, to tell you the truth," he said. "I made a little cross and stuck it over his head."
"But——" began Malcolm, and the girl's hand closed his mouth.
"Thank you, Mr. Bim," she said. "It was very, very kind of you."
"Nothing wrong, I hope?" asked Cherry in alarm.
"Nothing wrong at all," said the girl gently.
That cross over the grave of the Jew was to give them a day's respite. Israel Kensky had left behind him in the place where he fell a fur hat bearing his name. From the quantity of bloodwhich the pursuers found, they knew that he must have been mortally wounded, and it was for a grave by the wayside that the pursuing party searched and found. It was the cross at his head which deceived them and led them to take the ford and try along the main road to the south of the river, on the banks of which Kensky slept his last dreamless sleep.
The danger for the fugitives was evident.
"The most we can hope," said Malinkoff, "is to escape detection for two days, after which we must abandon the car."
"Which way do you suggest?" asked Malcolm.
"Poland or the Ukraine," replied the general quickly. "The law of the Moscow Soviet does not run in Little Russia or in Poland. We may get to Odessa, but obviously we cannot go much farther like this. I have—or had," he corrected himself, "an estate about seventy versts from here, and I think I can still depend upon some of my people—if there are any left alive. The car we must get rid of, but that, I think, will be a simple matter."
They were now crossing a wide plain, which reminded Malcolm irresistibly of the steppes of the Ukraine, and apparently had recalled the same scene to Irene and Malinkoff. There was the same sweep of grass-land, the same riot of flowers;genista, cornflour and clover dabbled the green, and dwarf oaks and poverty-stricken birches stood in lonely patches.
"Here is a Russia which the plough has never touched," said Malinkoff. "Does it not seem to you amazing that the Americans and British who go forth to seek new colonies, should lure our simple people to foreign countries, where the mode of living, the atmosphere, is altogether different from this, when here at their doors is a new land undiscovered and unexploited?"
He broke off his homily to look out of the window of the car. He had done that at least a dozen times in the past half-hour.
"We're going fairly fast," said Malcolm. "You do not think anything will overtake us?"
"On the road—no," said Malinkoff, "but I am rather nervous crossing this plain, where there is practically no cover at all, and the car is raising clouds of dust."
"Nervous of what?"
"Aeroplanes," said Malinkoff. "Look, there is a pleasant little wood. I suggest that we get under cover until night falls. The next village is Truboisk, which is a large market centre and is certain to hold local officers of the Moscow Soviet."
Both his apprehensions and his judgment werejustified, for scarcely had the car crept into the cover of green boughs, than a big aeroplane was sighted. It was following the road and at hardly a hundred feet above them. It passed with a roar. They watched it until it was a speck in the sky.
"They are taking a lot of trouble for a very little thing. Russia must be law-abiding if they turn their aeroplanes loose on a party of fugitive criminals!"
"Boolba has told his story," said Malinkoff significantly. "By this time you are not only enemies of the Revolution, but you are accredited agents of capitalistic Governments. You have been sent here by your President to stir up the bourgeois to cast down the Government, because of British investments. Mr. Bim will be described as a secret service agent who has been employed to assassinate either Trotsky or Lenin. If you could only tap the official wireless," said Malinkoff, "you would learn that a serious counter-revolutionary plot has been discovered, and that American financiers are deeply involved. Unless, of course," corrected Malinkoff, "America happens to be in favour in Petrograd, in which case it will be English financiers."
Malcolm laughed.
"Then we are an international incident?" he said.
"You are an 'international incident,'" agreed Malinkoff gravely.
Cherry Bim, sitting on the step, smoking a long cigar, a box of which Petroff had given him as a parting present—looked up, blowing out a blue cloud.
"A secret service agent?" he said. "That's a sort of fly cop, isn't it?"
"That's about it, Cherry," replied Malcolm.
"And do you think they'll call me a fly cop?" said the interested Cherry.
Malinkoff nodded, and the gun-man chewed on his cigar.
"Time brings its revenges, don't it?" he said. "Never, oh never, did I think that I should be took for a fellow from the Central Office! It only shows you that if a guy continues on the broad path that leadeth to destruction, and only goes enough, he'll find Mrs. Nemesis—I think that's the name of the dame."
Malinkoff strolled to the edge of the wood and came back hurriedly.
"The aeroplane is returning," he said, "and is accompanied by another."
This time neither machine took the direct route. They were sweeping the country methodically from side to side, and Malinkoff particularly noticed that they circled about a smaller wood two miles away and seemed loth to leave it.
"What colour is the top of this car?" he asked, and Bim climbed up.
"White," he said. "Is there time to put on a little of this 'camelflage' I've heard so much about?"
The party set to work in haste to tear down small branches of trees and scraps of bushes, and heap them on to the top of the car. Cherry Bim, who had the instinct of deception, superintending the actual masking of the roof, and as the sun was now setting detected a new danger.
"Let all the windows down," said Cherry. "Put a coat over the glass screen and sit on anything that shines."
They heard the roar of the aeroplane coming nearer and crouched against the trunk of a tree. Suddenly there was a deafening explosion which stunned the girl and threw her against Malcolm. She half-rose to run but he pulled her down.
"What was it?" she whispered.
"A small bomb," said Malcolm. "It is an old trick of airmen when they are searching woods for concealed bodies of infantry. Somebody is bound to run out and give the others away."
Cherry Bim, fondling his long Colt, was looking glumly at the cloud of smoke which was billowing forth from the place where the bomb had dropped. Round and round circled the aeroplane, butpresently, as if satisfied with its scrutiny, it made off, and the drone of the engine grew fainter and fainter.
"War's hell," said Cherry, wiping his pallid face with a hand that shook.
"I can't quite understand it," said Malinkoff. "Even supposing that Boolba has told his story, there seems to be a special reason for this urgent search. They would, of course, have communicated——"
He fell silent.
"Has Boolba any special reasons, other than those we know?" he asked.
Malcolm remembered the "Book of All-Power" and nodded.
"Have you something of Kensky's?" asked Malinkoff quickly. "Not that infernal book?"
He looked so anxious that Malcolm laughed.
"Yes, I have that infernal book. As a matter of fact, it is the infernal book of the Grand Duchess now."
"Mine?" she said in surprise.
"Kensky's last words to me were that this book should become your property," said Malcolm, and she shivered.
"All my life seems to have been associated with the search for that dreadful book," she said. "I wonder if it is one of Kensky's own binding. You know," she went on, "that Israel Kenskybound books for a hobby? He bound six for me, and they were most beautifully decorated."
"He was a rich man, was he not?" asked Malcolm.
She shook her head.
"He was penniless when he died," she said quietly. "Every store of his was confiscated and his money was seized by order of the new Government. I once asked him definitely why he did not turn to his 'Book of All-Power' for help. He told me the time had not yet come."
"May I see the book?"
Malcolm took the volume with its canvas cover from his pocket, and the girl looked at it seriously.
"Do you know, I have half a mind to throw it into the fire?" she said, pointing to the smouldering wood where the bomb had fallen. "There seems something sinister, something ominous about its possession that fills me with terror."
She looked at it for a moment musingly, then handed it back to Malcolm.
"Poor Israel!" she said softly, "and poor Russia!"
They waited until darkness fell before they moved on. Malinkoff had an idea that there was a crossroad before the town was reached, and progress was slow in consequence, because he was afraid of passing it. He was determined now not to gothrough the village, which lay directly ahead. The fact that the aeroplane had been able to procure a recruit, pointed to the existence of a camp of considerable dimensions in the neighbourhood and he was anxious to keep away from armed authority.
It was a tense hour they spent—tense for all except Cherry Bim, who had improvised a cushion on the baggage carrier at the back of the car, and had affixed himself so that he could doze without falling off. The side road did not appear, and Malinkoff grew more and more apprehensive. There were no lights ahead, as there should be if he were approaching the village. Once he thought he saw dark figures crouching close to the ground as the car passed, but put this down to nerves. Five hundred yards beyond, he discovered that his eyes had not deceived him. A red light appeared in the centre of the road, and against the skyline—for they were ascending a little incline at the moment—a number of dark figures sprang into view.
The chauffeur brought the car to a halt with a jerk, only just in time, for his lamps jarred against the pole which had been placed across the road.
Malcolm had drawn his revolver, but the odds were too heavy, besides which, in bringing his car to a standstill, the driver had shut off his engine and the last hope of bunking through had disappeared.
A man carrying a red lamp came to the side of the car, and flashed the light of a torch over the occupants.
"One, two, three, four," he counted. "There should be five."
He peered at them separately.
"This is the aristocrat general, this is the American revolutionary, this is the woman. There is also a criminal. Did any man jump out?" he asked somebody in the darkness, and there was a chorus of "No!"
Footsteps were coming along the road; the guard which had been waiting to close them in from the rear, was now coming up. The man with the lamp, who appeared to be an officer, made a circuit of the car and discovered the carrier seat, but its occupant had vanished.
"There was a man here, you fools," he shouted. "Search the road; he cannot have gone far. Look!"
He put the light on the road.
"There are his boots. You will find him amongst the bushes. Search quickly."
Malcolm, at the girl's side, put his arm about her shoulder.
"You are not afraid?" he said gently, and she shook her head.
"I do not think I shall ever be afraid again,"she replied. "I have faith in God, my dear. Cherry has escaped?" she asked.
"I think so," he replied in a guarded tone. "He must have seen the soldiers and jumped. They have just found his boots in the roadway."
The officer came back at that moment.
"You have weapons," he said. "Give them to me."
It would have been madness to disobey the order, and Malcolm handed over his revolver and Malinkoff followed suit. Not satisfied with this, the man turned them out in the road whilst he conducted a search.
"Get back," he said after this was over. "You must go before the Commissary for judgment. The woman is required in Moscow, but we shall deal summarily with the foreigner and Malinkoff, also the little thief, when we find him."
He addressed the chauffeur.
"I shall sit by your side, and if you do not carry out my instructions I shall shoot you through the head, little pigeon," he said. "Get down and start your machine."
He gave an order to the soldiers, and the barrier was removed, then he struck a match and lit a flare which burnt a dazzling red flame for half a minute.
"A signal," said Malinkoff, "probably to notify our capture."
A few minutes later, with a soldier on either footboard, and the officer sitting beside the chauffeur, the car sped through the night, checking only before it came to the cross-roads which Malinkoff had sought for. Turning to the left, the car swung into a road narrower and less comfortable for the passengers.
"I wonder if they will catch our brave friend," said the girl.
"They will be sorry if they do," replied Malcolm dryly. "Cherry will not be caught as we were."
Ahead of them and to the right apparently, on a hill by their height, a dozen fires were burning, and Malinkoff judged that the camp they wereapproaching was one of considerable size. He guessed it was a concentration camp where the Reds were preparing for their periodical offensive against the Ukraine. It must be somewhere in this district that the Polish Commissioners were negotiating with the Supreme Government—an event which had set Moscow agog.
An eerie experience this, riding through the dark, the figures of the soldier guards on either footboard gripping to the posts of the car. Bump, bump, bump it went, swaying and jolting, and then one of the guards fell off. They expected him to jump on the footboard again, for the auto was going at a slow pace, but to their surprise he did not reappear. Then a similar accident happened to the man on the other footboard. He suddenly let go his hold and fell backwards.
"What on earth——" said Malcolm.
"Look, look!" whispered the girl.
A foot and a leg had appeared opposite the window, and it came from the roof of the car. Then another foot, and the bulk of a body against the night.
"It's Cherry!" whispered the girl.
Swiftly he passed the window and came to the side of the officer, whose head was turned to the chauffeur.
"Russki," said Cherry, "stoi!"
"Stop!" was one of the four Russian words he knew, and the chauffeur obeyed, just at the moment when the car came to where the road split into two, one running to the right and apparently to the camp, the other and the older road dipping down to a misty valley.
The Red officer saw the gun under his nose and took intelligent action. His two hands went up and his revolver fell with a clatter at the chauffeur's feet. Deftly Cherry relieved him of the remainder of his arms.
By this time Malcolm was out of the car, and a brief council of war was held.
To leave the man there would be to ask for trouble. To shoot him was repugnant even to Cherry, who had constituted himself the official assassin of the party.
"We shall have to take him along," said Malinkoff. "There are plenty of places where we can leave him in the night, and so long as he does not know which way we go, I do not think he can do us any harm."
The Red officer took his misfortune with the philosophy which the chauffeur had displayed in similar circumstances.
"I have no malice, little general," he said. "I carry out my orders as a soldier should. For my part I would as soon cry 'Long live the Czar!' as'Long live the Revolution!' If you are leaving Russia I shall be glad to go with you, and I may be of service because I know all the latest plans for arresting you. There is a barrier on every road, even on this which you are taking now, unless," he added thoughtfully, "it is removed for the Commissary Boolba."
"Is he coming this way?" asked Malcolm.
"You saw me fire a flare," said the man. "That was a signal to the camp that you were captured. The news will be telegraphed to Moscow, and Boolba will come to sentence the men and take back his wife."
He evidently spoke in the terms of his instructions.
"What road will he take, little soldier?" asked Malinkoff.
"The Tver road," said the man. "It is the direct road from Moscow, and we shall cross it very quickly. At the crossing are four soldiers and an under officer, but no barricade. If you will direct me I will tell them a lie and say that we go to meet Boolba."
"We're in his hands to some extent," said Malinkoff, "and my advice is that we accept his offer. He is not likely to betray us."
The car resumed its journey, and Cherry, who had taken his place inside, explained the miracle which had happened.
"I saw the first lot of soldiers we passed," he said, "and when the car stopped suddenly I knew what had happened. I took off my boots and climbed on to the roof. I only made it just in time. The rest was like eating pie."
"You didn't shoot the soldiers who were standing on the footboard, did you?" asked Malcolm. "I heard no shots."
Cherry shook his head.
"Why shoot 'em?" he said. "I had only to lean over and hit 'em on the bean with the butt end of my gun, and it was a case of 'Where am I, nurse?'"
Half an hour's drive brought them to the cross-roads, and the four apathetic sentries who, at the word of the Red officer, stood aside to allow the car to pass. They were now doubling back on their tracks, running parallel with the railroad (according to Malinkoff) which, if the officer's surmise was accurate, was the one on which Boolba was rushing by train to meet them. So far their auto had given them no trouble, but twenty miles from the camp both the front tyres punctured simultaneously. This might have been unimportant, for they carried two spare wheels, only it was discovered that one of these was also punctured and had evidently been taken out of use the day on which they secured the car. There was nothing to do but to push themachine into a field, darken the windows and allow the chauffeur to make his repairs on the least damaged of the tubes. They shut him into the interior of the car with the Red officer who volunteered his help, furnished him with a lamp, and walked down the road in the faint hope of discovering some cottage or farm where they could replenish their meagre store of food.
Half an hour's walking brought them to a straggling building which they approached with caution.
"It is too large for a farm," said Malinkoff; "it is probably one of those monasteries which exist in such numbers in the Moscow Government."
The place was in darkness and it was a long time before they found the entrance, which proved to be through a small chapel, sited in one corner of the walled enclosure. The windows of the chapel were high up, but Malcolm thought he detected a faint glow of light in the interior, and it was this flicker which guided them to the chapel. The door was half open, and Malinkoff walked boldly in. The building, though small, was beautiful. Green malachite columns held up the groined roof, and the walls were white with the deadly whiteness of alabaster. A tiny altar, on which burnt the conventional three candles, fronted them as they entered, and the screen glittered withgold. A priest knelt before the altar, singing in a thin, cracked voice, so unmusically that the girl winced. Save for the priest and the party, the building was empty.
He rose at the sound of their footsteps, and stood waiting their approach. He was a young and singularly ugly man, and suspicion and fear were written plainly on his face.
"God save you, little brother of saints!" said Malinkoff.
"God save you, my son!" replied the priest mechanically. "What is it you want?"
"We need food and rest for this little lady, also hot coffee, and we will pay well."
Malinkoff knew that this latter argument was necessary. The priest shook his head.
"All the brethren have gone away from the monastery except Father Joachim, who is a timid man, Father Nicholas and myself," he said. "We have very little food and none to spare. They have eaten everything we had, and have killed my pretty chickens."
He did not say who "they" were, and Malinkoff was not sufficiently curious to inquire. He knew that the priests were no longer the power in the land that they were in the old days, and that there had been innumerable cases where the villagers had risen and slaughtered the men whose words hithertohad been as a law to them. A third of the monasteries in the Moscow Government had been sacked and burnt, and their congregations and officers dispersed.
He was surprised to find this beautiful chapel still intact, but he had not failed to notice the absence of the sacred vessels which usually adorned the altar, even in the midnight celebration.
"But can you do nothing for our little mama?" asked Malinkoff.
The priest shook his head.
"Our guests have taken everything," he said. "They have even turned Brother Joachim from the refectory."
"Your guests?" said Malinkoff.
The priest nodded.
"It is a great prince," he said in awe. "Terrible things are happening in the world, Antichrist is abroad, but we know little of such things in the monastery. The peasants have been naughty and have broken down our wall, slain our martyred brother Mathias—we could not find his body," he added quickly, "and Brother Joachim thinks that the Jews have eaten him so that by the consecrated holiness of his flesh they might avert their eternal damnation."
"Who is your prince?" asked Malcolm, hope springing in his breast.
There were still powerful factions in Russia which were grouped about the representatives and relatives of the late reigning house.
"I do not know his name," said the priest, "but I will lead you to him. Perhaps he has food."
He extinguished two of the candles on the altar, crossing himself all the while he was performing this ceremony, then led them through the screen and out at the back of the chapel. Malcolm thought he saw a face peering round the door as they approached it, and the shadow of a flying form crossing the dark yard. Possibly the timid Father Joachim he thought. Running along the wall was a low-roofed building.
"We are a simple order," said the priest, "and we live simply."
He had taken a candle lantern before he left the chapel, and this he held up to give them a better view. Narrow half-doors, the tops being absent, were set in the face of the building at intervals.
"Look!" he said, and pushed the lamp into the black void.
"A stable?" said Malinkoff.
He might have added: "a particularly draughty and unpleasant stable." There were straw-filled mangers and straw littered the floor.
"Do you keep many horses?"
The priest shook his head.
"Here we sleep," he said, "as directed in a vision granted to our most blessed saint and founder, St. Basil the Leper. For to him came an angel in the night, saying these words: 'Why sleepest thou in a fine bed when our Lord slept lowly in a stable?'"
He led the way across the yard to a larger building.
"His lordship may not wish to be disturbed, and if he is asleep I will not wake him."
"How long has he been here?" asked Malcolm.
"Since morning," repeated the other.
They were in a stone hall, and the priest hesitated. Then he opened the door cautiously, and peeped in. The room was well illuminated; they could see the hanging kerosene lamps from where they stood.
"Come," said the priest's voice in a whisper, "he is awake."
Malcolm went first. The room, though bare, looked bright and warm; a big wood fire blazed in an open hearth, and before it stood a man dressed in a long blue military coat, his hands thrust into his pockets. The hood of the coat was drawn over his head, and his attitude was one of contemplation. Malcolm approached him.
"Excellenz," he began, "we are travellers who desire——"
Slowly the man turned.
"Oh, you 'desire'!" he bellowed. "What do you desire, Comrade Hay? I will tell you whatIdesire—my beautiful little lamb, my pretty little wife!"
It was Boolba.