It occurred about a month after my return from Germany. A strange affair, assuredly; and stranger still that my life should have been spared to relate it.
After luncheon at the Trocadero I mounted into the car, a new forty six-cylinder “Napier” that we had purchased only a week before, to drive to Barnack, an old-world Northamptonshire village near Stamford, where I had to meet the audacious rascal Count Bindo. From Piccadilly Circus, I started forth upon my hundred-mile run with a light heart, in keen anticipation of a merry time. The Houghs, with whom Bindo was staying, always had gay house-parties, for the Major, his wife, and Marigold, his daughter, were keen on hunting, and we usually went to the meets of the Fitzwilliam, and got good runs across the park, Castor Hanglands, and the neighbourhood.
Through the grey, damp afternoon I drove on up the Great North Road, that straight, broad highway which you who motor know so well. Simmons, Bindo’s new valet, was suffering from neuralgia; therefore I had left him in London, and, sitting alone, had ample time for reflection.
The road surface was good, the car running like a clock, and on the level, open highway out of Biggleswade through Tempsford and Eaton Socon along to Buckden the speed-indicator was registering thirty-five and even forty miles an hour. I was anxious to get to Barnack before dark; therefore, regardless of any police-traps that might be set, I “let her rip.”
The cheerless afternoon had drawn to a close, and rain had begun to fall. In a week or ten days we should be on the Riviera again, amid the sunshine and the flowers; and as I drew on my mackintosh I pitied those compelled to bear the unequal rigour of the English winter. I was rushing up Alconbury Hill on my “second,” having done seventy miles without stopping, when of a sudden I felt that drag on the steering-wheel that every motorist knows and dreads. The car refused to answer to the wheel—there was a puncture in the near hind tyre.
For nearly three-quarters of an hour I worked away by the light of one of the acetylene head-lamps, for darkness had now fallen, and at last I recommenced to climb the hill and drop down into Sawtry, the big French lamps illuminating the dark, wet road.
About two miles beyond Sawtry, when, by reason of the winding of the road, I had slackened down to about fifteen miles an hour, I came to cross-roads and a sign-post, against which something white shone in the darkness. At first I believed it tobe a white dog, but next moment I heard a woman’s voice hailing me, and turning, saw in the lamp-light as I flashed past, a tall, handsome figure, with a long dark cloak over a light dress. She raised her arms frantically, calling to me. Therefore I put down the brakes hard, stopped, and then reversed the car, until I came back to where she stood in the muddy road.
The moment she opened her mouth I recognised that she was a lady.
“Excuse me,” she exclaimed breathlessly, “but would you do me a great favour—and take us on to Wansford—to the railway?” And looking, I made out that she held by the hand a fair-haired little lad about seven years of age, well dressed in a thick overcoat and knitted woollen cap and gloves. “You will not refuse, will you?” she implored. “The life of a person very dear to me depends upon it.” And in her voice I detected an accent by which I knew she was not English.
Seeing how deeply in earnest she was, and that she was no mere wayfarer desirous of a “lift,” I expressed my readiness to do her a favour, and, getting down, opened the door of thetonneau, removed the waterproof rug, and assisted the little lad and herself to get in.
“Ah, sir, this kindness is one for which I can never sufficiently thank you. Others may be able to render you some service in return,” she said, “but for myself I can only give you the heartfelt thanks of a distressed woman.”
In her refined voice there was a ring of deep earnestness. Who could she be?
The hood of her heavy, fur-lined cape was drawn over her head, and in the darkness I could not distinguish her features. The little boy huddled close to her as we tore on towards Wansford Station, her destination, fifteen miles distant. The ceaseless rain fell heavier as we entered the long, old-world village of Stilton, and noticing they had no mackintoshes, I pulled up before the “Bell,” that well-known inn of the coaching days where the York coaches changed horses.
“You are not surely going to make a stop here, are you? No one must see us. Let us go on!” she urged in apprehension.
“But you can’t go through this storm,” I said. “No one shall see you. There is a little sitting-room at the side that we may have until the rain has ceased.” And then, with apparent reluctance, she allowed me to lead her and the boy through the old stone hall and into the little, low, old-fashioned room, the window of which, with its red blind, looked out upon the village street.
As she seated herself in the high-backed arm-chair beside the fire, her dark, refined face was turned towards me, while the little lad stood huddled up against her, as though half afraid of me. That she was a lady was at once apparent. Her age was about twenty-two, and her countenance one of the most beautiful that I had ever gazed upon. Her dark, luminous eyes met mine with an expressionhalf of innate modesty, half of fear. The white hand lying in her lap trembled, and with the other she stroked the child’s head caressingly.
She had unhooked her dripping cloak, and I saw that beneath she wore a well-cut travelling-gown of pale-grey cloth that fitted admirably, and showed off her neat figure to perfection. Her dress betrayed her foreign birth, but the accent when she spoke was only very slight, a rolling of the “r’s,” by which I knew that she was French.
“I’m so afraid that someone may see me here,” she said, after a slight pause.
“Then I take it, mademoiselle, that you are leaving the neighbourhood in secret?” I remarked in French, with some suspicion, still wondering who she might be. The boy was certainly not her child, yet he seemed to regard her as his guardian.
“Yes, m’sieur,” was her brief reply; and then in French she said, after a pause, “I am wondering whether I can trust you further.”
“Trust me?” I echoed. “Certainly you can, mademoiselle.” And taking out a card, I handed it to her, declaring my readiness to serve her in any way in my power.
She was silent for some moments.
“To-morrow, or the next day, there will be a sensation in the neighbourhood where I joined you,” she said at last.
“A mystery, you mean?” I exclaimed, looking straight into her handsome face.
“Yes,” she answered in a deep, hoarse voice. “A mystery. But,” she added quickly, “you will not prejudge me until you know—will you? Recollect me merely as an unhappy woman whom you have assisted, not as——” She sighed deeply, without concluding the sentence.
I saw that her splendid eyes were filled with tears—tears of regret, it seemed.
“Not as what?” I inquired softly. “May I not at least know your name?”
“Ah!” she said bitterly. “Call me Clotilde, if you like. The name will be as good as any other—until you know the truth.”
“But, mademoiselle, you are in distress, I see. Cannot I do anything else for you now than merely dropping you at the roadside station? I am on my way to Stamford.”
“No,” she sighed; “you can do nothing more at present. Only deny that you have ever met me.”
Her words puzzled me. At one moment I wondered if she were not some clever woman who was abducting the lad, and by whose plausible tale I was being led into rendering her assistance. And yet as I stood with my back to the fire gazing at her as she sat, I recognised a something about her that told me she was no mere adventuress.
Upon her finger was a magnificent ring—a coronet of fine diamonds that flashed and sparkled beneath the lamp-light, and when she smiled at meher face assumed a sweet expression that held me in fascination.
“Cannot you tell me what has occurred?” I asked at last, in a quiet, earnest voice. “What is the nature of the sensation that is imminent?”
“Ah no!” she answered hoarsely. “You will know soon enough.”
“But, mademoiselle, I confess I should like to meet you again in London, and offer you my services. In half an hour we shall part.”
“Yes, we shall part; and if we do not meet again I shall always remember you as one who performed one of the greatest services a man can perform. To-night, m’sieur, you have saved my life—andhis,” she added, pointing to the little lad at her side.
“Saved your lives? How?”
“You will know one day,” was her evasive reply.
“And who is he?”
“I regret that I am not permitted to tell you,” she answered.
At that instant heavy footsteps sounded in the hall, and gruff voices exchanged greetings.
“Hark!” she gasped, starting to her feet in alarm. “Is the door locked?”
I sprang to it, and, as the waiting-maid had left it slightly ajar, I could see the new-comers. I closed it, and slid the bolt into its socket.
“Who are they?” she inquired.
“Two men in dark overcoats and soft felt hats. They look like foreigners.”
“Ah! I know!” she gasped, terrified, her face blanched in an instant. “Let us go! They must not see me! You will help me to escape, won’t you? Can I get out without them recognising me?”
Was it possible that she had committed some crime, and they were detectives? Surely this adventure was a strange and mysterious one.
“Remain here,” I exclaimed quickly. “I’ll go out and prepare the car. When all is ready, I will keep watch while you and the boy slip out.”
I went forth into the pelting rain, took off the rugs from the seats, and started the motor. Then returning, and finding no one in the passage—the two men having evidently passed on into the tap-room—I beckoned to her, and she and the lad stole softly along and out into the roadway.
In a moment they were both in the car, and a few seconds later we were tearing along the broad road out of Stilton village at a pace that might have cost me a five-pound fine.
What was the forthcoming “sensation”? Why was she flying from the two strangers?
She feared we might be followed, therefore I decided to drive her to Peterborough. We tore on through the biting wind and driving rain, past Water Newton and Orton, until we drew up at the Great Northern Station at Peterborough, whereshe descended, and for a moment held my hand in a warm grasp of heartfelt thankfulness.
“You must thank this gentleman,” she said to the lad. “Recollect that to-night he has saved your life. They meant to kill you.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the little lad simply, holding out his hand.
When they had gone I remounted and drove away to Barnack, utterly dumbfounded. The fair stranger, whoever she was, held me in fascination. Never in all my life had I met a woman possessed of such perfect grace and such exquisite charm. She had fled from her enemies. What startling event had occurred that evening to cause her and the lad to take to the road so ill-prepared?
What was the “sensation” which she had prophesied on the morrow? I longed for day to dawn, when I might learn the truth.
Yet though I chatted with the grooms and other outdoor servants at Barnack during the next day, I heard nothing.
Over the dinner-table that evening, however, old Colonel Cooper, who had driven over from Polebrook, near Oundle, related to the guests a strange story that he had heard earlier in the day.
“A mysterious affair has happened over at Buckworth, near the Great North Road, they say,” he exclaimed, adjusting his monocle and addressing his hostess and Bindo, who sat on her right. “It seems that a house called ‘The Cedars,’ about a mile out of the village, has been rented furnished by someforeigners, a man named Latour and his wife and son, whose movements were rather suspicious. Yesterday they received three visitors, who came to spend a week; but just before dinner one of the servants, on entering the drawing-room, was horrified to find both her master and mistress lying upon the floor dead, strangled by the silken cords used to loop up the curtains, while the visitors and the little boy were missing. So swiftly and quietly was it all done,” he added, “that the servants heard nothing. The three visitors are described as very gentlemanly-looking men, evidently Frenchmen, who appeared to be on most intimate terms of friendship with their hostess. One of them, however, is declared by the groom to be a man he had met in the neighbourhood two days before; therefore it would seem as though the affair had been very carefully planned.”
“Most extraordinary!” declared Bindo, while a chorus of surprise and horror went around the table. “And the boy is missing with the assassins?”
“Yes; they have apparently taken him away with them. They say that there’s some woman at the bottom of it all—and most probably,” sniffed the old Colonel. “The foreigners who live here in England are mostly a queer lot, who’ve broken the laws of their own country and efface their identity here.”
I listened at the open door with breathless interest as the old fellow discussed the affair with youngLady Casterton, who sat next him, while around the table various theories were advanced.
“I met the man Latour once—one day in the summer,” exclaimed Mr. Molesworth, a tall, thin-faced man, rector of a neighbouring parish. “He was introduced to me at the village flower-show at Alconbury, when I was doing duty there. He struck me as a very pleasant, well-bred man, who spoke English perfectly.”
I stood in the corridor like a man in a dream. Had I actually assisted the mysterious woman to abduct the child? Every detail of my adventure on the previous night arose vividly before me. That she had been aware of the terrible tragedy was apparent, for without doubt she was in league with the assassins. She had made me promise to deny having seen her, and I ground my teeth at having been so cleverly tricked by a pretty woman.
Yet ought I to prejudge her when still ignorant of the truth, which she had promised to reveal to me? Was it just?
Next day, making excuse that I wished to test the car, I ran over to the sleepy little village of Buckworth, which lay in a hollow about two miles from the sign-post where I had been stopped by Clotilde. “The Cedars” was a large, old-fashioned house, standing away from the village in its own grounds, and at the village inn, where I called, I learned from the landlord many additional details of how the three mysterious visitors had arrivedin a station-fly from Huntingdon, how eagerly Mr. Latour had welcomed them, and how they had disappeared at nightfall, after accomplishing their object.
“I hear it said that a woman is at the bottom of it all,” I remarked.
“Of course we can’t say, sir,” he replied; “but a little while ago Mr. Latour was seen several times by men working in the fields to meet, down at Alconbury Brook, a rather handsome, dark young lady, and walk with her.”
Was that lady Clotilde? I wondered.
The inquest, held two days later, revealed nothing concerning the antecedents of the Latours, except that they had taken “The Cedars” furnished a year before, and very rarely received visitors. Mr. Latour was believed to be French, but even of that nobody was certain.
A week afterwards, after taking Bindo up to Nottingham, I returned to London, and watched daily for some communication, as Clotilde had promised. Weeks passed, but none came, and I gradually became more and more convinced that I had been the victim of an adventuress.
One afternoon, however, I received at my rooms in Bloomsbury a brief note in a woman’s handwriting, unsigned, asking me to call at an address in Eccleston Street, Pimlico, that evening, at half-past nine. “I desire to thank you for your kindness to me,” was the concluding sentence of the letter.
Naturally, I kept the appointment, and on ringing at the door was shown up by a man-servant to a sitting-room on the first floor, where I stood prepared again to meet the woman who held me entranced by her beauty.
But instead of a woman there appeared two dark-faced, sinister-looking foreigners, who entered without a word and closed the door behind them. I instantly recognised them as those I had seen in the passage of the “Bell” at Stilton.
“Well? So you have come?” laughed the elder of the two. “We have asked you here because we wish to know something.” And I saw that in his hand he held some object which glistened as it caught my eye. It was a plated revolver. I had been trapped!
“What do you want to know?” I inquired, quickly on the alert against the pair of desperate ruffians.
“Answer me, Mr. Ewart,” said the elder of the two, a man with a grey beard and a foreign accent. “You were driving an automobile near Alconbury on a certain evening, and a woman stopped you. She had a boy with her, and she gave you something—a packet of papers, to keep in safety for her. Where are they? We want them.”
“I know nothing of what you are saying,” I declared, recollecting Clotilde’s injunction. “I think you must be mistaken.”
The men smiled grimly, and the elder madea signal, as though to someone behind me, and next instant I felt a silken cord slipped over my head and pulled tight by an unseen hand. A third man had stepped noiselessly from the long cupboard beside the fireplace, to which my back had been turned.
I felt the cord cutting into my throat, and tried to struggle and shout, but a cloth was clapped upon my mouth, and my hands secured by a second cord.
“Now,” said the elder man, “tell us the truth, or, if not, you die. You understand? Where is that packet?”
“I know nothing of any packet,” I gasped with great difficulty.
“It’s a lie! She gave it to you! Where did you take her to?”
I was silent. I had given my promise of secrecy, and yet I was entirely helpless in their unscrupulous hands. Again and again they demanded the papers, which they said she had given me to keep for her, and my denial only brought upon me the increased torture of the cord, until I was almost black in the face, and my veins stood out knotted and hard.
I realised, to my horror, that they intended to murder me, just as they had assassinated Latour and his wife. I fought for life, but my struggles only tightened the cord, and thus increased my agony.
“Tell us where you have put those papers,”demanded the younger of the villainous, black-eyed pair, while the third man held me helpless with hands of steel. “Where is the boy?”
“I have no idea,” I replied.
“Then die,” laughed the man with the grey beard. “We have given you a chance of life, and you refuse to take it. You assisted her to escape and you will share the fate of the others.”
I saw that to save myself was impossible, but with a superhuman effort I succeeded in slipping the noose from my hands and hooking my fingers in the cord around my throat. The fellow behind placed his knee in my back, and drew the cord with all his might to strangle me; but I cried hoarsely for help, and clung to the fatal cord.
In an instant the two others, joined by a fourth, fell upon me, but by doing so the cord became loosened, and I ducked my head. For a second my right hand was freed, and I drew from my belt the long Italian knife which I often carry as a better weapon in a scrimmage than a revolver, and struck upward at the fellow who had sentenced me to death. The blade entered his stomach, and he fell forward with an agonised cry. Then slashing indiscriminately right and left, I quickly cleared myself of them. A revolver flashed close to me, but the bullet whizzed past, and making a sudden dash for the door I rushed headlong down the stairs and out into the Buckingham Palace Road, still holding my knife, my hands smeared withthe blood of my enemies, and the cord still around my neck.
I went direct to the police-station, and within five minutes half a dozen constables were on their way round to the house. But on arrival they found that the men, notwithstanding their severe wounds, had fled, fearing the information I should give. The owner of the house knew nothing, save that he had let it furnished a fortnight before to the grey-bearded man, who had given the name of Burton, although he was a foreigner.
The shock had upset my nerves considerably, but, accompanied by Blythe and Bindo, I drove the car down to Dover, took her across to Calais, and then drove across France to Marseilles, and along the Riviera to Genoa and Pisa, and on to Florence—a delightful journey, which I had accomplished on three previous occasions, for we preferred the car to the stuffywagon-litof the Rome express.
Times without number I wondered what was the nature of those documents, and why the gang desired to obtain possession of them. But it was all a mystery, inscrutable and complete. And I told the Count nothing.
Our season at Florence was a gay one, and there were many pleasant gatherings at Bindo’s villa. The season was, however, an empty one as far ascoupswere concerned. The variousfestashad succeeded one another, and the month of May, the brightest and merriest in Italy, was nearly at an end, when one afternoon I was walking in theCascine, the Hyde Park of the Florentines, idly watching the procession of carriages, many of whose fair occupants were known to me. Of a sudden there passed a smart victoria-and-pair, among the cushions of which lolled the figure of a well-dressed woman.
Our eyes met. In an instant the recognition was mutual, and she gave an order to stop. It was the sweet-faced wayfarer of the Great North Road—the woman who had enchanted me!
I stood in the roadway, hat in hand, as Italian etiquette requires.
“Ah! I am so pleased to meet you again,” she said in French. “I have much to tell you. Can you call on me—to-night at seven, if you have no prior engagement? We have the Villa Simoncini, in the Viale. Anyone will direct you to it. We cannot talk here.”
“I shall be delighted. I know the villa quite well,” was my answer; and then, with a smile, she drove on, and somehow I thought that the idlers watching us looked at me strangely.
At seven o’clock I was conducted through the great marble hall of the villa, one of the finest residences on the outskirts of Florence, and into the beautiful salon, upholstered in pale-green silk, where my pretty companion of that exciting run on the Great North Road rose to greet me with eager, outstretched hand; while behind her stood a tall, white-headed, military-looking man, whom she introduced as her father, General Stefanovitch.
“I asked you here for seven,” she said, with a sweet smile; “but we do not dine until eight, therefore we may talk. How fortunate we should meet to-day! I intended to write to you.”
I gathered from her subsequent conversation that we might speak frankly before her father, therefore I described to her the exciting adventure that had happened to me in Eccleston Street, whereupon she said—
“Ah! it is only to-day that I am able to reveal to you the truth, relying upon you not to make it public. The secret of the Latours must still be strictly kept, at all hazards.”
“What was their secret?” I inquired breathlessly.
“Listen, and I will tell you,” she said, motioning me to a seat and sinking into a low lounge-chair herself, while the General stood astride upon the bear-skin stretched before the English fire-grate. “Those men sought the life of one person only—the boy. They went to England to kill him.”
“And would have done so, Clotilde, had you not saved him,” declared her father.
“It was not I,” she said quickly. “It was Mr. Ewart, who snatched us from them. They were following, and we both should have shared the fate of the Latours had he not taken us up and driven us away. The thanks of the State are due to Mr. Ewart.” And at that moment the little lad entered shyly, and, walking towards her, took her hand.
“The State—what do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.
“The truth is this,” she said, smiling. “Little Paul, here, lived in England incognito as Paul Latour, but he is really His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Paul of Bosnia, heir to the throne. Because there was a conspiracy in the capital to kill him, he was sent to England in secret in the care of his tutor and his wife, who took the name of Latour, while he passed as their son. The revolutionists had sworn to kill the King’s son, and by some means discovered his whereabouts in England; whereupon four of them were chosen to go there and assassinate him. By good fortune I learnt the truth, and as maid-of-honour to the Queen resolved to say nothing, but to go alone to England in secret and rescue the Crown Prince. The four conspirators had already left our capital; therefore I went in hot pursuit, travelling across Europe, and reaching London on the day before we met. I managed to overtake them, and, watching their movements, I travelled by the same train down to Huntingdon. On arrival there, while they were bargaining with a fly-man to take them on their fateful errand, I got into a cab and drove with all speed out to Buckworth. I had been there before, and knew the place well. I crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room by the French window, and found little Paul alone. The Latours were out, he said; so I induced him to leave the place with me without the knowledge of the servants. I desired to see theLatours, and also to watch the movements of the assassins; therefore we hid in the wood close to the house at a spot where I had once met Latour secretly with a message from Her Majesty, who somehow mistrusted Latour’s wife. In half an hour three of the men arrived, and were met by Latour, who had returned almost at the same moment. They entered, carrying some hand-baggage with them, and I was compelled to remain in hiding, awaiting an opportunity to speak with him. At half-past seven, however, to my great surprise I saw them slip out one by one, and disappear into the wood close to where little Paul and I were hiding in the undergrowth. Then, suspecting something was wrong by the stealthiness of their movements, I crept across the grounds and re-entered the drawing-room from the lawn, where, to my horror, I found Latour and his wife lying dead. I saw that a tragedy had been enacted, and, regaining the wood, hastened on with little Paul in the opposite direction, until I came to the Great North Road, and there met you driving your car. They had heard from Latour that the child had wandered out somewhere, and were, I knew, scouring the country for him. Only by your aid the Crown Prince was saved, and we came here into hiding, the King sending my father to meet me and to live here as his son’s protector.”
“But why did they kill the Latours?”
“It was part of the conspiracy. Latour, who had recently been back in Bosnia, had, they discovered, given information to the chief of police regarding a plot against the Queen, and they, the revolutionists, had condemned both him and his wife to death.”
“And the packet which they demanded of me?”
“It contains certain papers concerning the royal family of Bosnia, secrets which the revolutionists desire to obtain and publish,” she explained. “The King, distrustful of those about him, gave the packet into the hands of his faithful subject Latour, in England, and he, in preference to putting it into a safe, which might attract the spies of the conspirators, kept it in a small cavity behind the wainscoting in the drawing-room at Buckworth—a spot which he showed me, so that if any untoward event occurred I should at least know where the documents were secreted. When I realised the terrible fate of the unfortunate Latour and noticed the disordered state of the room and study beyond, I suspected that search had been made for them, and going to the spot I pressed the spring, and, finding them still safe, secured them. The revolutionists undoubtedly saw us leaving the inn at Stilton together, and believed that I had secured the documents as well as the boy, and that I had probably, in my flight, handed them to you for safe keeping.”
“And the assassins? What has become of them?”
“They returned to Bosnia when they had recovered from the wounds you inflicted, but were at once arrested on information supplied by me, and have all four been condemned to solitary confinement for life—a punishment which is worse than death.”
Since that evening I have been a frequent visitor at the Stefanovitchs’, who still live in Florence under the name of Darfour, and more than once has the little Crown Prince thanked me. The pretty, dark-eyed Clotilde and her father are quite popular in society, but no one dreams that little Paul, who is so carefully guarded by the old General and his trusty soldier-servant, is heir to a European throne, or that his life was saved in curious circumstances by “the Count’s chauffeur.”
As chauffeur to one of the most ingenious adventurers who ever staked a louis at the tables, and travelling constantly up and down Europe, as I did, I frequently came across strange romances in real life—stranger by far than any in fiction. My profession often took me amid exciting scenes, for wherever there was a centre of unusual excitement on the Continent, and consequent opportunities for pilfering, there we generally were.
I have acquaintances in every capital; I chatter in half a dozen tongues; I have the reputation of being an authority on hotels and the best routes hither and thither; while I believe I am known in most of the chief garages in the capitals.
Yes, mine was a strange life, full of romance, of constant change, of excitement—sometimes of peril.
The latter was quickly apparent when last winter, after two days of hard travelling over those endless frozen roads and through the dark forests of Eastern Poland, I pulled up before a small inn on the outskirts of the dismal-looking town of Ostrog. Theplace, with its roofs covered with freshly fallen snow, lay upon the slight slope of a low hill, beneath which wound the Wilija Goryn, now frozen so hard that the bridge was hardly ever used. It was January, and that month in Poland is always a cold one.
I had come up from Budapest to Tarnopol, crossed the frontier at the little village of Kolodno, and thence driven the “forty” along the valleys into Volynien, a long, weary, dispiriting run, on and on, until the monotony of the scenery maddened me. Cramped and cold I was, notwithstanding the big Russian fur shuba I wore, the fur cap with flaps, fur gloves, and fur rug. The country inns in which I had spent the past two nights had been filthy places, where the stoves had been surrounded by evil-smelling peasantry, where the food was uneatable, and where a wooden bench had served me as a bed.
I was on my way to meet Bindo, who was to be the guest of a Russian countess in Ostrog. Whenever I mentioned my destination, the post-house keepers held up their hands. The Red Rooster was crowing in Ostrog, they said significantly.
It was true. Russia was under the Terror, and in no place in the whole empire were the revolutionists so determined as in the town whither I was bound.
As I stood up and descended unsteadily from the car my eyes fell upon something upon the snow near the door of the inn. There was blood. It told its own tale.
From the white town across the frozen river I heard revolver shots, followed by a loud explosion that shook the whole place.
Inside the long, low common room of the inn, with its high brick stove, against which half a dozen frightened-looking men and women were huddled, I asked for the proprietor, whereupon an elderly man with shaggy hair and beard came forth, pulling his forelock.
“I want to stay here,” I said.
“Yes, your Excellency,” was the old fellow’s reply in Polish, regarding the car in surprise. “Whatever accommodation my poor inn can afford is at your service;” and he at once shouted orders to a man to bring in my kit, while the women, all of them flat-faced peasants, made room for me at the stove.
From where I stood I could hear the sound of desultory firing across the bridge, and inquired what was in progress.
But there was an ominous silence. They did not reply; for, as I afterwards discovered, they had taken me for a high police official from Petersburg, thus accounting for the innkeeper’s courtesy.
“Tell me,” I said, addressing the wrinkle-faced old Pole, “what is happening over yonder?”
“The Cossacks,” he stammered. “Krasiloff and his Cossacks are upon us! They have just entered the town, and are shooting down people everywhere. The fight for freedom has commenced, Excellency. But it is horrible. A poor woman was shot deadbefore my door half an hour ago, and her body taken away by the soldiers.”
Terrible reports of the Russian revolution had filtered through to England, but I had no idea when I started that I was bound for the disturbed district. I inquired for the house of the Countess Alexandrovsky, and was directed to it—across the town, they said. With a glance to see that my revolver was loaded, I threw aside my shuba, and leaving the inn walked across the bridge into a poor narrow street of wretched-looking houses, many of them built of wood. A man limped slowly past me, wounded in the leg, and leaving blood-spots behind him as he went. An old woman was seated in a doorway, her face buried in her hands, wailing—
“My poor son!—dead!—dead!”
Before me I saw a great barricade composed of trees, household furniture, paving-stones, overturned carts, pieces of barbed wire—in fact, everything and anything the populace could seize upon for the construction of hasty defence. Upon the top, silhouetted against the clear, frosty sky, was the scarlet flag of the Revolution—the Red Rooster was crowing!
Excited men were there, armed with rifles, shouting and giving orders. Then I saw that a small space had been left open against the wall of a house so that persons might pass and repass.
As I approached, a wild-haired man shouted tome and beckoned frantically. I grasped his meaning. He wished me to come within. I ran forward, entered the town proper, and a few moments later the opening was closed by a dozen slabs of stone being heaped into it by as many willing hands.
Thus I, an inoffensive chauffeur, found myself in the very centre of the Revolution, behind the barricades, of which there were, it seemed, six or seven. From the rear there was constant firing, and the streets in the vicinity were, I saw to my horror, already filled with dead and wounded. I wondered why Count Bindo should come there—except, perhaps, that the Countess owned certain jewels that my master intended to handle. Women were wailing over husbands, lovers, brothers; men over their daughters and wives. Even children of tender age were lying helpless and wounded, some of them shattered and dead.
Ah! that sight was sickening. It was wholesale butchery.
Above us bullets whistled as the Cossacks came suddenly round a side street and made a desperate attack upon the barricade I had entered only a few minutes before. A dozen of those fighting for their freedom fell back dead at my feet at the first volley. They had been on top of the barricade, offering a mark to the troops of the Czar. Before us and behind us there was firing, for behind was another barricade. We were, in fact, between two deadly fires.
Revolver in hand, I stood ready to defend my own life. In those exciting moments I disregarded the danger I ran from being struck in that veritable hail of lead. Men fell wounded all around me, and there was blood everywhere. A thin, dark-haired young fellow under thirty—a Moscow student I subsequently heard—seemed to be the ringleader, for above the firing could be heard his shouts of encouragement.
“Fight, my comrades!” he cried, standing close to me and waving the red flag he carried—the emblem of the Terror. “Down with the Czar! Kill the vermin he sends to us! Long live freedom! Kill them!” he shrieked. “They have killed your wives and daughters. Men of Ostrog, remember your duty to-day. Set an example to Russia. Do not let the Moscow fiasco be repeated here. Fight! Fight on as long as you have a drop of life-blood in you, and we shall win, we shall win. Down with the Autocrat! Down with the——”
His sentence was never finished, for at that instant he reeled backwards, with half his face shot away by a Cossack bullet.
The situation was, for me, one of greatest peril. The whole place was in open revolt, and when the troops broke down the defences, as I saw they must do sooner or later, then we should all be caught in a trap, and no quarter would be given.
The massacre would be the same as at Moscow,and many other towns in Eastern Russia, wherein the populace had been shot down indiscriminately, and official telegrams sent to Petersburg reporting “Order now reigns.”
I sought shelter in a doorway, but scarcely had I done so than a bullet embedded itself in the woodwork a few inches from my head. At the barricade the women were helping the men, loading their rifles for them, shouting and encouraging them to fight gallantly for freedom.
A yellow-haired young woman, not more than twenty, emerged from a house close by where I stood, and ran past me to the barricade. As she passed I saw that she carried something in her hand. It looked like a small cylinder of metal.
Shouting to a man who was firing through a loophole near the top of the barricade, she handed it up to him. Taking it carefully, he scrambled up higher, waited for a few moments, and then raising himself, he hurled it far into the air, into the midst of an advancing troop of Cossacks.
There was a red flash, a terrific explosion which shook the whole town, wrecking the houses in the immediate vicinity, and blowing to atoms dozens of the Czar’s soldiers.
A wild shout of victory went up from the revolutionists when they saw the havoc caused by the awful bomb. The yellow-haired girl returned again, and brought another, which, after some tenminutes or so, was similarly hurled against the troops, with equally disastrous effect.
The roadway was strewn with the bodies of those Cossacks which General Kinski, the governor of the town, had telegraphed for, and whom Krasiloff had ordered to give no quarter to the revolutionists. In Western Russia the name of Krasiloff was synonymous with all that was cruel and brutal. It was he who ordered the flogging of the five young women at Minsk, those poor unfortunate creatures who were knouted by Cossacks, who laid their backs bare to the bone. As everyone in Russia knows, two of them, both members of good families, died within a few hours, and yet no reprimand did he receive from Petersburg. By the Czar, and at the Ministry of the Interior, he was known to be a hard man, and for that reason certain towns where the revolutionary spirit was strongest had been given into his hands.
At Kiev he had executed without trial dozens of men and women arrested for revolutionary acts. A common grave was dug in the prison-yard, and the victims, four at a time, were led forward to the edge of the pit and shot, each batch being compelled to witness the execution of the four prisoners preceding them. With a refinement of cruelty that was only equalled by the Inquisition, he had wrung confessions from women and afterwards had them shot and buried. At Petersburg they knew these things,but he had actually been commended for his loyalty to the Czar!
And now that he had been hurriedly moved to Ostrog the people knew that his order to the Cossacks was to massacre the people, and more especially the Jewish portion of the population, without mercy.
Where was Bindo? I wondered.
“Krasiloff is here!” said a man whose face was smeared with blood, as he stood by me. “He intends that we shall all die, but we will fight for it. The Revolution has only just commenced. Soon the peasants will rise, and we will sweep the country clean of the vermin the Czar has placed upon us. To-day Kinski, the Governor, has been fired at twice, but unsuccessfully. He wants a bomb, and he shall have it,” he added meaningly. “Olga—the girl yonder with the yellow hair—has one for him!” and he laughed grimly.
I recognised my own deadly peril. I stood revolver in hand, though I had not fired a shot, for I was no revolutionist. I was only awaiting the inevitable breaking down of the barricade—and the awful catastrophe that must befall the town when those Cossacks, drunk with the lust for blood, swept into the streets.
Around me, men and women were shouting themselves hoarse, while the red emblem of terror still waved lazily from the top of the barricade. The men manning the improvised defence keptup a withering fire upon the troops, who, in the open road, were afforded no cover. Time after time the place shook as those terrible bombs exploded with awful result, for the yellow-haired girl seemed to keep up a continuous supply of them. They were only seven or eight inches long, but hurled into a company of soldiers their effect was deadly.
For half an hour longer it seemed as though the defence of the town would be effectual, yet of a sudden the redoubled shouts of those about me told me the truth.
The Cossacks had been reinforced, and were about to rush the barricade.
I managed to peer forth, and there, sure enough, the whole roadway was filled with soldiers.
Yells, curses, heavy firing, men falling back from the barricade to die around me, and the disappearance of the red flag, showed that the Cossacks were at last scaling the great pile of miscellaneous objects that blocked the street. A dozen of the Czar’s soldiers appeared silhouetted against the sky as they scrambled across the top of the barricade, but next second a dozen corpses fell to earth, riddled by the bullets of the men standing below in readiness.
In a moment, however, other men appeared in their places, and still more and more. Women threw up their hands in despair and fled for their lives while men—calmly prepared to die in the Cause—shoutedagain and again, “Down with Krasiloff and the Czar! Long live the Revolution! Victory for the People’s Will!”
I stood undecided. I was facing death. Those Cossacks with orders to massacre would give no quarter, and would not discriminate. Krasiloff was waiting for his dastardly order to be carried out. The Czar had given him instructions to crush the Revolution by whatever means he thought proper.
Those moments of suspense seemed hours. Suddenly there was another flash, a stunning report, the air was filled with débris, and a great breach opened in the barricade. The Cossacks had used explosives to clear away the obstruction. Next instant they were upon us.
I flew—flew for my life. Whither my legs carried me I know not. Women’s despairing shrieks rent the air on every hand. The massacre had commenced. I remember I dashed into a long, narrow street that seemed half deserted, then turned corner after corner, but behind me, ever increasing, rose the cries of the doomed populace. The Cossacks were following the people into their houses and killing men, women, and even children.
Suddenly, as I turned into a side street, I saw that it led into a large open thoroughfare—the main road through the town, I expect. And there, straight before me, I saw that an awful scene was being enacted.
I turned to run back, but at that instant awoman’s long, despairing cry reached me, causing me to glance within a doorway, where stood a big brutal Cossack, who had pursued and captured a pretty, dark-haired, well-dressed girl.
“Save me!” she shrieked as I passed. “Oh, save me, sir!” she gasped, white, terrified, and breathless with struggling. “He will kill me!”
The burly soldier had his bearded face close down to hers, his arms clasped around her, and had evidently forced her from the street into the entry.
For a second I hesitated.
“Oh, sir, save me! Save me, and God will reward you!” she implored, her big dark eyes turned to mine in final appeal.
The fellow at that moment raised his fist and struck her a brutal blow upon the mouth that caused the blood to flow, saying with a savage growl—
“Be quiet, will you?”
“Let that woman go!” I commanded in the best Russian I could muster.
In an instant, with a glare in his fiery eyes, for the blood-lust was within him, he turned upon me and sneeringly asked who I was to give him orders, while the poor girl reeled, half stunned by his blow.
“Let her go, I say!” I shouted, advancing quickly towards him.
But in a moment he had drawn his big army revolver, and ere I became aware of his dastardlyintention, he raised it a few inches from her face.
Quick as thought I raised my own weapon, which I had held behind me, and being accredited a fairly good shot, I fired, in an endeavour to save the poor girl.
Fortunately my bullet struck, for he stepped back, his revolver dropped from his fingers upon the stones, and stumbling forward he fell dead at her feet without a word. My shot had, I saw, hit him in the temple, and death had probably been instantaneous.
With a cry of joy at her sudden release, the girl rushed across to me, and raising my left hand to her lips, kissed it, at the same time thanking me.
Then, for the first time, I recognised how uncommonly pretty she was. Not more than eighteen, she was slim and petite, with a narrow waist and graceful figure—quite unlike in refinement and in dress to the other women I had seen in Ostrog. Her dark hair had come unbound in her desperate struggle with the Cossack and hung about her shoulders, her bodice was torn and revealed a bare white neck, and her chest heaved and fell as in breathless, disjointed sentences she thanked me again and again.
There was not a second to lose, however. She was, I recognised, a Jewess, and Krasiloff’s orders were to spare them not.
From the main street beyond rose the shoutsand screams, the firing and wild triumphant yells, as the terrible massacre progressed.
“Come with me!” she cried breathlessly. “Along here. I know of a place of safety.”
And she led the way, running swiftly, for about two hundred yards, and then turning into a narrow, dirty courtyard, passed through an evil, forbidding-looking house, where all was silent as the grave.
With a key, she quickly opened the door of a poor, ill-furnished room, which she closed behind her, but did not lock. Then, opening a door on the opposite side, which had been papered over so as to escape observation, I saw there was a flight of damp stone stairs leading down to a cellar or some subterranean regions beneath the house.
“Down here!” she said, taking a candle, lighting it and handing it to me. “Go—I will follow.”
I descended cautiously into the cold, dank place, discovering it to be a kind of unlighted cellar hewn out of the rock. A table, a chair, a lamp, and some provisions showed that preparation had been made for concealment there, but ere I had entirely explored the place my pretty fellow-fugitive rejoined me.
“This, I hope, is a place of safety,” she said. “They will not find us here. This is where Gustave lived before his flight.”
“Gustave?” I repeated, looking her straight in the face.
She dropped her eyes and blushed. Her silence told its own tale. The previous occupant of that rock chamber was her lover.
Her name was Luba—Luba Lazareff, she told me. But of herself she would tell me nothing further. Her reticence was curious, yet before long I recognised the reason of her refusal.
Candle in hand, I was examining the deepest recesses of the dark cavernous place, while she lit the lamp, when, to my surprise, I discovered at the farther end a workman’s bench upon which were various pieces of turned metal, pieces of tube of various sizes, and little phials of glass like those used for the tiny tabloids for subcutaneous injections.
I took one up to examine it, but at that instant she noticed me and screamed in terror.
“Ah! sir, for Heaven’s sake, put that down—very carefully. Touch nothing there, or we may both be blown to pieces! See!” she added in a low, intense voice of confession, as she dashed forward, “there are finished bombs there! Gustave could not carry them all away, so he left those with me.”
“Then Gustave made these—eh?”
“Yes. And see, he gave me this!” and she drew from her breast a small shining cylinder of brass, a beautifully-finished little object about four inches long. “He gave this to me to use—if necessary!” the girl added, a meaning flash in her dark eyes.
For a moment I was silent.
“Then you would have used it upon that Cossack?” I said slowly.
“That was my intention.”
“And kill yourself as well as your assailant?”
“I have promised him,” was her simple answer.
“And this Gustave? You love him? Tell me all about him. Remember, I am your friend, and will help you if I can.”
She hesitated, and I was compelled to urge her again and again ere she would speak.
“Well, he is French—from Paris,” she said at last, as we still stood before the bomb-maker’s bench. “He is a chemist, and being an Anarchist, came to us, and joined us in the Revolution. The petards thrown over the barricades to-day were of his make, but he had to fly. He left yesterday.”
“For Paris?”
“Ah! how can I tell? The Cossacks may have caught and killed him. He may be dead,” she added hoarsely.
“Which direction has he taken?”
“He was compelled to leave hurriedly at midnight. He came, kissed me, and gave me this,” she said, still holding the shining little bomb in her small white hand. “He said he intended, if possible, to get over the hills to the frontier at Satanow.”
I saw that she was deeply in love with the fugitive, whoever he might be.
Outside, the awful massacre was in progress we knew, but no sound of it reached us down in that rock-hewn tomb.
The yellow lamp-light fell upon her sweet, dimpled face, but when she turned her splendid eyes to mine I saw that in them was a look of anxiety and terror inexpressible.
I inquired of her father and mother, for she was of a superior class, as I had, from the first moment, detected. She spoke French extremely well, and we had dropped into that language as being easier for me than Russian.
“What can it matter to you, sir, a stranger?” she sighed.
“But I am interested in you, mademoiselle,” I answered. “Had I not been, I should not have fired that shot.”
“Ah yes!” she cried quickly. “I am an ingrate! You saved my life;” and again she seized both my hands and kissed them.
“Hark!” I cried, startled. “What’s that?” for I distinctly heard a sound of cracking wood.
The next moment men’s gruff voices reached us from above.
“The Cossacks!” she screamed. “They have found us—they have found us!” and the light died out of her beautiful countenance.
In her trembling hand she held the terrible little engine of destruction.
With a quick movement I gripped her wrist, urging her to refrain until all hope was abandoned,and together we stood facing the soldiers as they descended the stairs to where we were. They were, it seems, searching every house.
“Ah!” they cried, “a good hiding-place this! But the wall was hollow, and revealed the door.”
“Well, my pretty!” exclaimed a big leering Cossack, chucking the trembling girl beneath the chin.
“Hold!” I commanded the half-dozen men who now stood before us, their swords red with the life-blood of the Revolution. But before I could utter further word the poor girl was wrenched from my grasp, and the Cossack was smothering her face with his hot, nauseous kisses.
“Hold, I tell you!” I shouted. “Release her, or it is at your own peril!”
“Hulloa!” they laughed. “Who are you?” and one of the men raised his sword to strike me, whilst another held him back, exclaiming, “Let us hear what he has to say.”
“Then, listen!” I said, drawing from my pocket-book a folded paper. “Read this, and look well at the signature. This girl is under my protection;” and I handed the document to the man who held little Luba in his arms. It was only my Foreign Office passport, but I knew they could not read English and that it was a formidable screed, with its coat-of-arms and visa.
The men, astounded at my announcement, read what they took to be some all-powerful ukase beneath the lamp-light, and took counsel among themselves.
“And who, pray, is this Jewess?” inquired one.
“My affianced wife,” was my quick reply. “And I command you at once to take us under safe escort to General Krasiloff—quickly, without delay. We took refuge in this place from the Revolution, in which we have taken no part.”
I saw, however, with sinking heart, that one of the men was examining the bomb-maker’s bench, and had recognised the character of what remained there.
He looked at us, smiled grimly, and whispered smoothly to one of his companions.
Again, in an authoritative tone, I demanded to be taken to Krasiloff; and presently, after being marched as prisoners across the town, past scenes so horrible that they are still vividly before my eyes, we were taken into the chief police-office, where the hated official, a fat, red-faced man in a general’s uniform—the man without pity or remorse, the murderer of women and children—was sitting at a table. He greeted me with a grunt.
“General,” I said, addressing him, “I have to present to you this order of my sovereign, King Edward, and to demand safe conduct. Your soldiers found me and my——”
I hesitated.
“Your pretty Jewess—eh?” and a smile of sarcasm spread over his fat face. “Well, go on;” and he took the paper I handed him, knittinghis brows again as his eyes fell upon the Imperial arms and the signature.
“We were found in a cellar where we had hidden from the revolt,” I said.
“The place has been used for the manufacture of bombs,” declared one of the Cossacks.
The General looked my pretty companion straight in the face.
“What is your name, girl?” he demanded roughly.
“Luba Lazereff.”
“Native of where?”
“Of Petersburg.”
“What are you doing in Ostrog?”
“She is with me,” I interposed. “I demand protection for her.”
“I am addressing the prisoner, sir,” was his cold remark.
“You refuse to obey the request of the King of England? Good! Then I shall report you to the Minister,” I exclaimed, piqued at his insolence.
“Speak, girl!” he roared, his black eyes fixed fiercely upon her. “Why are you in Ostrog? You are no provincial—you know.”
“She is my affianced wife,” I said, “and in face of that document she need make no reply to any of your questions. Read what His Majesty commands.”
“Thank you, sir. I have already read it.” But I knew he could not read English.
A short, stout little man, shabbily dressed, pushed his way forward to the table, saying—
“Luba Lazareff is a well-known revolutionist, your excellency. The French maker of bombs, Gustave Lemaire, is her lover—not this gentleman. Gustave only left Ostrog yesterday.” The speaker was, it was plain, an agent of secret police.
“And where is Lemaire now? I gave orders for his arrest some days ago.”
“He was found this morning by the patrol on the road to Schumsk, recognised and shot.”
At this poor little Luba gave vent to a piercing scream, and burst into a torrent of bitter tears.
“You fiends!” she cried. “You have shot my Gustave! He is dead—dead!”
“There was no doubt, I suppose, as to his identity?” asked the General.
“None, your Excellency. Some papers found upon the body have been forwarded to us with the report.”
“Then let the girl be shot also. She aided him in the manufacture of the bombs.”
“Shot!” I gasped, utterly staggered. “What do you mean, General? You will shoot a poor defenceless girl—and in face of that ukase before you—in face of my demand for her protection! I have promised her marriage,” I cried in desperation, “and you condemn her to execution!”
“My Emperor has given me orders to quellthe rebellion, and all who make bombs for use against the Government must die. His Majesty gave me orders to execute all such,” said the official sternly. “You, sir, will have safe-conduct to whatever place you wish to visit. Take the girl away.”
“But, General, reflect a moment whether this is not——”
“I never reflect, sir,” he cried angrily; and rising from his chair with outstretched hand, he snapped—
“How much of my time are you going to lose over the wench? Take her away—and let it be done at once.”
The poor condemned girl, blanched to the lips and trembling from head to foot, turned quickly to me, and in a few words in French thanked me and again kissed my hand, with the brief words, “Farewell, you have done your best. God will reward you!”
Then, with one accord, we all turned, and together went mournfully forth into the street.
A lump arose in my throat, for I saw, as the General pointed out, that my pretended ukase did not extend beyond my own person. Luba was a Russian subject, and therefore under the Russian martial law.
Of a sudden, however, just as we emerged into the roadway, the unfortunate girl, at whose side I still remained, turned, and raising her tearful face to mine, with sudden impetuosity kissed me.
Then, before any of us were aware of her intention, she turned, and rushed back into the room where the General was still sitting.
The Cossacks dashed back after her, but ere they reached the chamber there was a terrific explosion, the air was filled with débris, the back of the building was torn completely out, and when, a few minutes later, I summoned courage to enter and peep within the wrecked room, I saw a scene that I dare not describe here in cold print.
Suffice it to say that the bodies of Luba Lazareff and General Stephen Krasiloff were unrecognisable, save for the shreds of clothing that still remained.
Luba had used her bomb in revenge for Gustave’s death, and she had freed Russia of the heartless tyrant who had condemned her to die.
An hour later I found the blackened ruins of the house of Countess Alexandrovsky, but hearing no news of Bindo I returned to the car, and set out again towards the Austrian frontier.
Yes, that brief run in Russia was full of excitement.