B
By the second week in March I was back in Petersburg.
On the long journey across Asia, I had had time to mature my plans, with the advantage of knowing that the real enemy I had to fight was neither M. Petrovitch nor the witching Princess Y——, but the Power which was using them both as its tools.
It was a frightful thing to know that two mighty peoples, the Japanese and Russians, neither of which really wished to fight each other, had been locked in strife in order to promote the sinister and tortuous policy of Germany.
So far, the German Kaiser had accomplished one-half of his program. The second, and more important, step would be to bring about a collision between the Russians and the English.
Thus the situation resolved itself into an underground duel between Wilhelm II. and myself, a duel in which the whole future history of the world, and possibly the very existence of the British Empire, hung in the balance.
And the arbiter was the melancholy young man who wandered through the vast apartments of his palace at Tsarskoe-Selo like some distracted ghost, wishing that any lot in life had been bestowed on him rather than that of autocrat of half Europe and Asia.
It was to Nicholas that I first repaired, on my return, to report the result of my mission.
I obtained a private audience without difficulty, and found his majesty busily engaged in going through some papers relating to the affairs of the Navy.
“So they have not killed you, like poor Menken,” he said with a mixture of sympathy and sadness.
“Colonel Menken killed!” I could not forbear exclaiming.
“Yes. Did you not hear of it? A Japanese spy succeeded in assassinating him, and stealing the despatch, just before Mukden. A lady-in-waiting attached to the Dowager Czaritza happened to be on the train, and brought me the whole story.”
I shook my head gravely.
“I fear your majesty has been misinformed. Colonel Menken committed suicide. I saw him put the pistol to his head and shoot himself. His last words were a message to your majesty.”
The Czar raised his hand to his head with a despairing gesture.
“Will these contradictions never end!” he exclaimed.“Really, sir, I hope you have made a mistake. WhomcanI trust!”
I drew myself up.
“I have no desire to press my version on you, sire,” I said coldly. “It is sufficient that the Colonel was robbed, and that he is dead. Perhaps Princess Y—— has also given you an account of my own adventures?”
Nicholas II. looked at me distrustfully.
“Let us leave the name of the Princess on one side,” he said in a tone of rebuke. “I have every reason to feel satisfied with her loyalty and zeal.”
I bowed, and remained silent.
“You failed to get through, I suppose,” the Czar continued, after waiting in vain for me to speak.
“I beg pardon, sire, I safely delivered to the Emperor of Japan your majesty’s autograph on the cigarette paper. I was robbed of the more formal letter in the house of M. Petrovitch, before starting.”
Nicholas frowned.
“Petrovitch again! Another of the few men whom I know to be my real friends.” He fidgeted impatiently.
“Well, what did the Mikado say?”
I had intended to soften the reply of the Japanese Emperor, but now, being irritated, I gave it bluntly:
“His majesty professed to disbelieve in your power to control your people. He declared that he couldnot treat a letter from you seriously unless you were able to send it openly, without your messengers being robbed or murdered on the way across your own dominions.”
The young Emperor flushed darkly.
“Insolent barbarian!” he cried hotly. “The next letter I send him shall be delivered by the commander of my army on the soil of Japan.”
I was secretly pleased by this flash of spirit, which raised my respect for the Russian monarch.
A recollection seemed to strike him.
“I hear that you were blown up in attempting to bring some coal into Port Arthur,” he said in a more friendly tone. “I thank you,Monsieur V——.”
I bowed low.
“Some of my admirals seem to have been caught napping,” Nicholas II. added. “I have here a very serious report about Admiral Stark at Vladivostok.”
“You surprise me, sire,” I observed incautiously. “Out in Manchuria I heard the Admiral praised on all hands for his carefulness and good conduct.”
“Carefulness! It is possible to be too careful,” the Czar complained. “Admiral Stark is too much afraid of responsibility. We have information that the English are taking all kinds of contraband into the Japanese ports, and he does nothing to stop them,for fear of committing some breach of international law.”
I began to see what was coming. The Emperor, who seemed anxious to justify himself, proceeded:
“The rights of neutrals have never been regarded by the British navy, when they were at war. However, I have not been satisfied with taking the opinion of our own jurists. I have here an opinion from Professor Heldenberg of Berlin, who of course represents a neutral Power, and he says distinctly that we are entitled to declare anything we please contraband, and to seize English ships—I mean, ships of neutrals—anywhere, even in the English Channel itself, and sink them if it is inconvenient to bring them into a Russian port.”
The insidious character of this advice was so glaring that I wondered how the unfortunate young monarch could be deceived by it.
But I saw that comment would be useless just then. I must seek some other means of opening his eyes to the pitfalls which were being prepared for him.
I came from the Palace with a heavy heart. The next day, Petersburg was startled by the publication of a ukase recalling Vice-Admiral Stark and Rear-Admiral Molas, his second in command, from the Pacific.
Immediately on hearing this news I sent a telegram in cipher to Lord Bedale. For obvious reasonsI never take copies of my secret correspondence, but to the best of my recollection the wire ran as follows:
Germany instigating Russian Navy to raid your shipping on the pretext of contraband. Object to provoke reprisals leading to war.
Germany instigating Russian Navy to raid your shipping on the pretext of contraband. Object to provoke reprisals leading to war.
As the reader is aware, this warning succeeded in defeating the Kaiser’s main design, the British Government steadily refusing to be provoked.
Unfortunately this attitude of theirs played into German hands in another way, as English shippers were practically obliged to refuse goods for the Far East, and this important and lucrative trade passed to Hamburg, to the serious injury of the British ports.
But before this development had been reached, I found myself on the track of a far more deadly and dangerous intrigue, one which is destined to live in history as the most audacious plot ever devised by one great Power against another with which it proposed to be on terms of perfect friendship.
I
Ihad last seen the strange, beautiful, wicked woman known as the Princess Y—— bending in a passion of hysterical remorse over the body of the man she had driven to death, on the snow-clad train outside Mukden.
I have had some experience of women, and especially of the class which mixes in the secret politics of the European Courts. But Sophia Y—— was an enigma to me. There was nothing about her which suggested the adventuress. And there was much which tended to support the story which had won the belief of her august mistress—that she was an involuntary agent, who had been victimized by an unscrupulous minister of police, by means of a false charge, and who genuinely loathed the tasks she was too feeble to refuse.
I had not been back in Petersburg very long when one afternoon the hotel waiter came to tell me that a lady desired to see me privately. The lady, he added, declined to give her name, but declared that she was well known to me.
I had come back to the hotel, I should mention, in the character of Mr. Sterling, the self-appointed agent of the fraternity of British peace-makers. It was necessary for me to have some excuse for residing in Petersburg during the war, and under this convenient shelter I could from time to time prepare more effectual disguises.
I was not altogether surprised when my mysterious visitor raised her veil and disclosed the features of the Princess herself.
But I was both surprised and shocked by the frightened, grief-stricken look on the face of this woman whom I had come to dread as my most formidable opponent in the Russian Court.
“Mr. Sterling!—Monsieur V——?” she cried in an agitated voice that seemed ready to break down into a sob. “Can you forgive me for intruding on you? I dare not speak to you freely in my own house. I am beset by spies.”
“Sit down, Princess,” I said soothingly, as I rolled forward a comfortable chair. “Of course I am both charmed and flattered by your visit, whatever be its cause.”
With feminine intuition she marked the reserve in my response to her appeal.
“Ah! You distrust me, and you are quite right!” she exclaimed, casting herself into the chair.
She fixed her luminous eyes on me in a deep look, half-imploring, half-reproachful.
“It is true, then, what they have been telling me? You were the man, dressed as an inspector of the Third Section who traveled on the train with me? And you saw the death”—her words were interrupted by a shudder—“of that unhappy man?”
It was not very easy to preserve my composure in the face of her emotion. Nevertheless, at the risk of appearing callous, I replied:
“I cannot pretend to understand your question. However, even if I did it would make no difference.
“Since you know my name is A. V——, you must know also that I never allow myself to talk about my work.”
The Princess winced under these cold words almost as though she had been physically rebuffed. She clasped her delicately-gloved hands together, and murmured as though to herself:
“He will not believe in me! He will not be convinced!”
I felt myself in a very difficult position. Either this woman was thoroughly repentant, and sincerely anxious to make some genuine communication to me, or else she was an actress whose powers might have excited envy in the Bernhardt herself.
I concluded that I could lose nothing by encouraging her to speak.
“You must pardon me if I seem distrustful,” I said with a wholly sympathetic expression. “I have my principles, and cannot depart from them. But I have every wish to convince you of my personal friendship.”
She interrupted me with a terrible glance.
“Personal friendship! Monsieur, do you know what I have come here to tell you?”
And rising wildly to her feet, she spread out her hands in a gesture of utter despair:
“They have ordered me to take your life!”
I am not a man who is easily surprised.
The adventures I have passed through, some of them far more extraordinary than anything I have recorded in my public revelations, have accustomed me to meet almost any situation with diplomatic presence of mind.
But on this occasion I am obliged to admit that I was fairly taken aback.
As the lovely but dangerous woman whom I had cause to regard as the most formidable instrument in the hands of the conspirators, avowed to my face that she had been charged with the mission to assassinate me, I sprang from my chair and confronted her.
She stood, swaying slightly, as though the intensity of her emotion was about to overpower her.
“Do you mean what you say? Do you know what you have said?” I demanded.
The Princess Y—— made no answer, but she lifted her violet eyes to mine, and I saw the big tears welling up and beginning to overflow.
I was dismayed. My strength of mind seemed to desert me. I have looked on without a tear when men have fallen dead at my feet, but I have never been able to remain calm before a woman in tears.
“Madame! Princess!” I was on the point of addressing her by a yet more familiar name. “At least, sit down and recover yourself.”
Like one dazed, I led her to a chair. Like one dazed, she sank into it in obedience to my authoritative pressure.
“Come,” I said in a tone which I strove to render at once firm and soothing, “it is clear that we must understand each other. You have come here to tell me this, I suppose?”
“At the risk of my life,” she breathed. “What must you think of me!”
I recalled the fate of poor Menken, whom the woman before me had led to his doom, though she had not struck the blow.
In spite of myself, a momentary shudder went through me.
The sensitive woman saw or felt it, and shook in her turn.
“Believe me or not, as you will,” she exclaimeddesperately. “I swear to you that I have never knowingly been guilty of taking life.
“Never for one moment did I anticipate that that poor man would do what he did,” the Princess went on with passionate earnestness. “I tempted him to give me the Czar’s letter, and I destroyed it—I confess that. Are not such things done every day in secret politics? Have you never intercepted a despatch?”
It was a suggestive question. I thought of more than one incident in my own career which might be harshly received by a strict moralist. It is true that I have always been engaged on what I believed was a lawful task; but the due execution of that task had sometimes involved actions which I should have shrunk from in private life.
“I will not excuse myself, Madame,” I answered slowly. “Neither have I accused you.”
“Your tone is an accusation,” she returned with a touch of bitterness. “Oh, I know well that men are ready to pardon many things in one another which they will not pardon in us.”
“I am sorry if I have wounded you,” I said with real compunction. “Let us say no more about the tragedy that is past. Am I right in thinking that you have come to me for aid?”
“I do not know. I do not know why I am here. Perhaps it is because I am mad.”
I gazed at her flushed face and trembling hands, unable to resist the feeling of compassion which was creeping over me.
What was I to think? What was this woman’s real purpose in coming to me?
Had her employers, had the unscrupulous Petrovitch, or the ruthless Minister of Police, indeed charged her to remove me from their path; and had her courage broken down under the hideous burden?
Or was this merely a ruse to win my confidence; or, perhaps, to frighten me into resigning my task and leaving the Russian capital?
Did she wish to save my life, or her own?
I sat regarding her, bewildered by these conjectures.
I saw that I must get her to say more.
“At least you have come to aid me,” I protested. “You have given me a warning for which I cannot be sufficiently grateful.”
“If you believe it is a genuine one,” she retorted. Already she had divined my difficulties and doubts.
“I do not doubt that you mean it genuinely,” I hastened to respond. “There is, of course, the possibility that you yourself have been deceived.”
“Ah!”
She looked up at me in what I could not think was other than real surprise.
“You think so?” she cried eagerly. The next momenther head drooped again. “No, no. I have known them too long. They have never trifled with me before. Believe me, Monsieur, when they told me that you were to be murdered they were not joking with me.”
“But they might have meant to use you for the purpose of terrifying me.”
She stared at me in unaffected astonishment.
“Terrify—you!” She pronounced the words with an emphasis not altogether unflattering. “You are better known in Russia than you imagine, M.V——.”
I passed over the remark.
“Still they must have foreseen the possibility that you would shrink from such a task; that your womanly instincts would prove too much for you. At least they have never required such work of you before?”
Against my will the last words became a question. I was anxious to be assured that the hands of the Princess were free from the stain of blood.
“Never! They dared not! Theycouldnot!” she cried indignantly. “You do not know my history. Perhaps you do not care to know it?”
Whatever I knew or suspected, I could make only one answer to such an appeal. Indeed, I was desirous to understand the meaning of one word which the Princess Y—— had just used.
“Listen,” she said, speaking with an energy and dignity which I could not but respect, “while I tell you what I am. I am a condemned murderess!”
“Impossible!”
“Impossible in any other country, I grant you, but very possible in Russia. You have heard, I suppose, everybody has heard, of the deaths of my husband and his children. The first two deaths were natural, I swear it. I, at all events, had no more to do with them than if they had occurred in the planet Saturn. Prince Y—— committed suicide. And he did so because of me; I do not deny it. But it was not because he suspected me of any hand in the deaths of his children. It was because he knew I hated him!
“The story is almost too terrible to be told. That old man had bought me. He bought me from my father, who was head over ears in debt, and on the brink of ruin. I was sold—the only portion of his property that remained to be sold. And from the first hour of the purchase I hated, oh, how I loathed and hated that old man!”
There was a wild note in her voice that hinted at unutterable things.
“And he,” she continued with a shiver, “he loved me, loved me with a passion that was like madness. He could hardly bear me out of his sight.
“I killed him, yes, morally, I have no doubt I killed him. He lavished everything on me, jewels,wealth, all the forms of luxury. He made a will leaving me the whole of his great fortune. But I could not endure him, and that killed him. I think,” she hesitated and lowered her voice to a whisper, “I think he killed himself to please me.”
Hardened as I am, I felt a thrill of horror. The Princess was right; the story was too terrible to be told.
“Then the police came on the scene. From the first they knew well enough that I was innocent. But they were determined to make me guilty. The head of the secret service at that time was Baron Kratz. He had had his eye on me for some time. The Czar, believing in my guilt, had ordered him not to spare me, and that fatal order gave him a free hand.
“How he managed it all, I hardly know. The servants were bullied or bribed into giving false evidence against me. But one part of their evidence was true enough; even I could not deny that I had hated Prince Y——, and that his death came as a welcome relief.
“There was a secret trial, and I was condemned. They read out my sentence. And then, when it was all over, Kratz came to me, and offered me life and liberty in return for my services as an agent of the Third Section.”
“And to save your life you consented. Well, I do not judge you,” I said.
The Princess glanced at me with a strange smile.
“To save my life! I see you do not yet know our Holy Russia. Shall I tell you what my sentence was?”
“Was it not death, then?”
“Yes, death—by the knout!”
“My God!”
I gazed at her stupified. Her whole beauty seemed to be focussed in one passionate protest. Knouted to death! I saw the form before me stripped, and lashed to the triangles, while the knotted thong, wielded by the hangman’s hands, buried itself in the soft flesh.
I no longer disbelieved. I no longer even doubted. The very horror of the story had the strength of truth.
For some time neither of us spoke.
“But now, surely, you have made up your mind to break lose from this thraldom?” I demanded. “And, if so, and you will trust me, I will undertake to save you.”
“You forget, do you not, that you yourself are not free? You surely do not mean that you would lay aside your work for my sake?”
It was a question which disconcerted me in more ways than one. In a secret service agent, suspicion becomes second nature. I caught myself asking whether all that had gone before was not merely intendedto lead up to this one question, and I cursed myself for the doubt.
“My duty to my present employer comes first, of course,” I admitted. “But as soon as I am freeagain——”
“If you are still alive,” she put in significantly.
“Ah! You mean?”
“I mean that when they find out that I am not to be depended on, they will not have far to look for others.”
“It is strange that they should have chosen you in the first place,” I said thoughtfully. “You said theycouldnot ask you.”
“They did not offer me this mission. I volunteered.”
“You volunteered!”
She shook herself impatiently.
“Surely you understand? I heard them deciding on your death. And so I undertook the task.”
“Because?”
“Because I wished to save you. I had great difficulty. At first they were inclined to refuse me—to suspect my motives. I had to convince them that I hated you for having outwitted me. And I persuaded them that none of their ordinary instruments were capable of dealing with you.”
“And you meant to give me this warning all along?”
“I meant to save you from them. Do you not see, as long as we are together, as long as you are visiting me, and I am seen to be following you up, they will not interfere. If I manage the affair skilfully it may be weeks before they suspect that I am playing them false. I shall have my excuse ready. It is no disgrace to be foiled by A. V.”
Again there was an interval of silence. The Princess prepared to go.
“Stay!” I protested. “I have not thanked you. Indeed, I do not seem to have heard all. You had some reason, surely, for wishing to preserve my life.”
“And what does my reason matter?”
“It matters very much to me. Perhaps,” I gave her a searching look, “perhaps the Dowager Czaritza has enlisted you on our side?”
The beautiful woman rose to her feet, and turned her face from me.
“Think so, if you will. I tell you it does not matter.”
“And I tell you it does matter. Princess!”
“Don’t! Don’t speak to me, please! Let me go home. I am not well.”
Trembling violently in every limb, she was making her way toward the door, when it was suddenly flung open, and the voice of the hotel servant announced:
“M. Petrovitch!”
The head of the Manchurian Syndicate walked in with a smile on his face, saw the Princess Y—— coming toward him, and stopped short, the smile changing to a dark frown.
W
Whether because he saw that I was watching him, or because he placed his own interpretation on the circumstances, the war plotter changed his frown into a smile.
“I am glad to see, Princess,” he said to the trembling woman, “that you have so soon found our good friend Mr. Sterling again.”
The Princess Y—— gave him a glance which seemed to enjoin silence, bowed with grace, and left the room in charge of the servant who had announced M. Petrovitch.
The latter now advanced to greet me with every appearance of cordiality.
The last time I had met this well-dressed, delicate scamp, he had drugged and robbed me. Now I had just been told that he was setting assassins on my track.
But it is my rule always to cultivate friendly intercourse with my opponents. Few men can talk for long without exposing something of their inner thoughts. I wanted M. Petrovitch to talk.
Therefore I returned his greeting with equal cordiality, and made him sit down in the chair from which the Princess Y—— had just risen.
“You will be surprised to hear, no doubt, Mr. Sterling, that I have brought you an invitation from the Emperor.”
“From what Emperor?” was the retort on the tip of my tongue. Fortunately I suppressed it; there is no accomplishment so fatal to success in life as wit, except kindness.
I simply answered,
“I am not readily surprised, M. Petrovitch. Neither, I imagine, are you.”
The financier smiled.
“May I call you M. V——?” he asked. “His majesty has told me who you are.”
“Were you surprised by that?” I returned with sarcasm.
Petrovitch fairly laughed.
“I hear you have been denouncing me to Nicholas,” he said lightly. “Can’t I persuade you to let our poor little Czar alone. I assure you it is a waste of breath on your part, and you will only worry a well-meaning young man who has no head for business.”
This was plain speaking. It argued no ordinary confidence on the part of the intriguer to speak in such a fashion of the Autocrat of All the Russias.
Already the interview was telling me something. Petrovitch must have some strong, secret hold on Nicholas II.
I shrugged my shoulders as I answered in my friendliest manner,
“I have no personal feeling against you, my dear Petrovitch. But to use drugs—come, you must admit that that was a strong measure!”
“I apologize!” laughed the Russian. “All the more as I find you were too many for us after all. I would give something to know how you managed to hide the letter you got through.”
It was my turn to laugh. I had reason to feel satisfied. Weak as the Russian Emperor might be, it was evident that he had not betrayed my secret.
“Well, now,” the promoter resumed, “all that being over, is there any reason why we should not be friends? Be frank with me. What end have you in view that is likely to bring us into collision?”
“There is no reason why I should not be frank with you,” I answered, racking my brain for some story which the man before me might be likely to believe, “especially as I do not suppose that either of us is likely to report this conversation quite faithfully to his imperial majesty. I am a Japanese spy.”
Petrovitch gave me a glance in which I thought I detected a mingling of incredulity and admiration.
“Really, you are a cool hand, my dear V——!”
“Why, is there anything in that to make us enemies? You are not going to pose as the zealous patriot, I hope. I thought we had agreed to be frank.”
The financier bit his lip.
“Well, I do not deny that I am before all things a man of business,” he returned. “If your friends the Japanese can make me any better offer than the one I have had from another quarter, I do not say.”
“I will see what I can arrange for you,” I answered, not wholly insincerely. “In the meantime, I think you said something about an invitation?”
“Oh, yes, from Nicholas. He wants to see you. He has some scheme or other in which he thinks that you and I can work together, and he wants us to be friends, accordingly.”
“But we are friends, after to-day, I understand?”
“It is as you please, my dear V——,” replied the conspirator with a slightly baffled air. “You have made a good beginning, apparently, with the PrincessY——.”
I put on the self-satisfied air of the man who is a favorite with women.
“The Princess has been extremely kind,” I said. “She has pressed me to visit her frequently. Oh, yes, I think I may say we are good friends.”
Petrovitch nodded. I had purposely prepared his mind for the story which I anticipated he would hearfrom my beautiful protector. Evidently it would be necessary for her to tell the Syndicate that she was feigning affection for me in order to draw me into a trap.
“Then, as my carriage is outside, may I take you to the Winter Palace?”
“That seems the best plan,” I acquiesced. “It will convince the Czar that we are on good terms.”
We drove off together, sitting side by side like two sworn friends. I do not know what thoughts passed through his mind; but I know that all the way I kept my right hand on the stock of my revolver, and once, when one of the horses stumbled, M. Petrovitch was within an instant of death.
At the Palace he put me down and drove off. I was admitted to the Czar’s presence without difficulty, and found him, as usual, surrounded by piles of state papers.
Nicholas II. looked up at my entrance with evident pleasure.
“Ah, that is right, M. V——. I hope that, since you have come so promptly in response to the message I gave that worthy M. Petrovitch, you and he are now good friends.”
I could only bow silently. I was a Japanese, related to the sovereign with whom he was at war, and I was acting in the service of Great Britain. Petrovitch had just forced on the war which Nicholas hadwished to avert, and he was still acting secretly in the interests of Germany. And the Czar was congratulating himself that we were friends. It was useless to try to undeceive him.
“Sit down, if you please, M. V——. I have something of the greatest importance to tell you. Stay—Perhaps you will be good enough to see first that the doors are all secured. I dislike interruptions.”
I went to the various entrances of the room, of which there were three, and turned the keys in the doors.
“Even M. Petrovitch does not know what I am going to tell you,” Nicholas said impressively as I returned to my seat.
“Your majesty does not trust him entirely, then?” I exclaimed, much pleased.
“You mistake me. I do not distrust M. Petrovitch; but this is a matter of foreign politics, with which he is not familiar. He admits frankly that he knows nothing about diplomacy.”
I gazed at the benevolent young monarch in consternation. It was the spy of Wilhelm II., the agent of the most active diplomatist in the world, of whom he had just spoken!
There was no more to be said.
The Emperor proceeded to put a most unexpected question.
“Are you a believer in spirits, M. V——?”
“I am a Roman Catholic, sire. Whatever my Church teaches on this subject, I believe. I am rather neglectful of my religious duties, however, and do not know its attitude on this subject.”
“I honor your loyalty to your communion, M. V——. But as long as you do not know what is the attitude of your Church on this subject, you cannot feel it wrong to listen to me.”
I perceived that if his majesty was no politician, he was at least something of a theologian.
The Czar proceeded:
“There is in Petersburg one of the most marvelous mediums and clairvoyants who has ever lived. He is a Frenchman named Auguste. He came here nearly a year ago—just when the difficulty with Japan was beginning, in fact; and he has given me the most valuable information about the progress of events. Everything he has foretold has come true, so far. He warned me from the first that the Japanese would force me into war, just as they have done. In short, I feel I can rely on him absolutely.”
This was not the first time I had heard of the spiritualist who had established such an extraordinary hold on the Russian ruler’s mind. The common impression was that he was a mystic, a sort of Madame Krüdener. At the worst he was regarded as a charlatan of the ordinary spirit-rapping type, cultivating the occult as a means of making money.
But now, as I listened to the credulous monarch, it suddenly struck me what an invaluable tool such a man might prove in the hands of a political faction, or even of a foreign Power astute enough to corrupt him and inspire the oracles delivered by the spirits.
I listened anxiously for more.
The Emperor, evidently pleased with the serious expression on my face, went on to enlighten me.
“Last night M. Auguste was here, in this room, and we held a privateséance. He succeeded in getting his favorite spirit to respond.”
“Is it permissible to ask the spirit’s name?” I ventured respectfully.
“It is Madame Blavatsky,” he answered. “You must have heard of her, of course. She was practically the founder of rational psychical knowledge, though she died a victim to persecution.”
I nodded. I had heard of this celebrated woman, who still numbers many followers in different parts of the world.
“Last night, as soon as we found that the spirit of Madame Blavatsky was present, I asked Auguste to question it about the Baltic fleet.
“I had been holding a preliminary review of the fleet in the morning, as you may have seen from the papers. The officers and men seemed thoroughly nervous, and very doubtful whether it would ever be in a condition to sail. Even the Admiral, Rojestvensky,did not seem quite happy, and he found great fault with the stores and equipments.
“I had to authorize a delay of another month, and the Marine Department would not promise to have the fleet ready even then.
“Naturally, I wished to know what would become of the fleet when it did sail. Auguste questioned the spirit.”
His majesty broke off to feel in his pocket for a small slip of paper.
“I took down the answer myself, as the spirit rapped it out.” And he read aloud:
Baltic Fleet threatened. Japanese and English plotting to destroy it on the way to Port Arthur.
Baltic Fleet threatened. Japanese and English plotting to destroy it on the way to Port Arthur.
I started indignantly.
“And you believe that, sire! You believe that the British Government, which has been straining every nerve to maintain peace, is capable of planning some secret outrage against your Navy?”
“It does not say the Government,” he announced with satisfaction. “The spirit only warns me against the English. Private Englishmen are capable of anything. At this very moment, two Englishmen are arranging to run a torpedo boat secretly out of the Thames, disguised as a yacht, and to bring her to Libau for us.”
This piece of information silenced me. It was nodoubt possible that there might be Englishmen daring enough to assist the Japanese in some secret enterprise against a Russian fleet. But I felt I should like to have some better authority for the fact than the word of Madame Blavatsky’s spirit.
“The warning is a very vague one, sire,” I hinted.
“True. But I hope to receive a more definite message to-morrow night. I was going to ask you if you would have any objection to be present. You might then be able to put pressure on the British Government to prevent this crime.”
Needless to say I accepted the imperial invitation with eagerness.
And I retired to send the following despatch to Lord Bedale:
When Baltic Fleet starts prepare for trouble. Have all ports watched. It is believed here that attack on it is preparing in England.
When Baltic Fleet starts prepare for trouble. Have all ports watched. It is believed here that attack on it is preparing in England.
W
Who was M. Auguste?
This was the question that kept my mind busy after my singular interview with the Russian Emperor.
In accordance with my rule to avoid as much as possible mentioning the names of the humbler actors in the international drama, I have given the notorious medium a name which conceals his true one.
He appeared to be a foreigner, and the Czar’s weakness in this direction was too well known for his patronage of the quack to excite much attention; apparently it had occurred to no one but myself that such a man might be capable of meddling in politics.
In his more public performances, so far as I could learn, the revelations of the spirits were confined to more harmless topics, such as the nature of the future state, or the prospect of an heir being born to the Russian crown.
In my quest for further light on this remarkable personage, my thoughts naturally turned to the PrincessY——.
I have not concealed that at our first meeting the charming collaborator of M. Petrovitch had made a very strong impression on me. Her subsequent conduct had made me set a guard on myself, and the memory of the Japanese maiden whose portrait had become my cherished “mascot,” of course insured that my regard for the Princess could never pass the bounds of platonic friendship.
But the strange scene of the day before had moved me profoundly. Vanity is not a failing of which I am ever likely to be accused by my worst detractor, yet it was impossible for me to shut my eyes or ears to the confession which had been made with equal eloquence by the looks, the blushes and even the words of the beautiful Russian.
Was ever situation more stupid in all the elements of tragedy! This unhappy woman, spurred to all kinds of desperate deeds by the awful fear of the knout, had been overcome by that fatal power which has wrecked so many careers.
In the full tide of success, in the very midst of a life and death combat with the man it was her business to outwit and defeat, she had succumbed to love for him.
And now, to render her painful situation tenfold more painful, she was holding the dagger at his breast as the only means of keeping it out of the clutch of some more murderous hand.
Had I the pen of a romancer I might enlarge on this sensational theme. But I am a man of action, whose business it is to record facts, not to comment on them.
I sought the mansion on the Nevsky Prospect, and asked to see its mistress.
Evidently the visit was expected. The groom of the chambers—if that was his proper description—led me up-stairs, and into a charming boudoir.
A fire replenished by logs of sandalwood was burning in a malachite stove, and diffusing a dream-like fragrance through the chamber. The walls of the room were panelled in ivory, and the curtains that hung across the window frames were of embroidered silk and gold. Each separate chair and toy-like table was a work of art—ebony, cinnamon, and other rare and curious woods having been employed.
But the rarest treasure there was the mistress of all this luxury. The inmate of the sumptuous prison, for such it truly was, lay back on a leopard-skin couch, set in the frame of a great silver sea-shell.
She had dressed for my coming in the quaint but gorgeous costume of ancient Russia, the costume worn by imperial usage at high State functions like coronations, weddings and christenings.
The high coif above her forehead flamed with jewels, and big, sleepy pearls slid and fell over her neck and bosom.
At my entrance she gave a soft cry, and raised herself on one white arm. I stepped forward as though I were a courtier saluting a queen, and pressed my lips to her extended hand.
“I expected you, Andreas.”
Only two women in my life have I ever allowed to call me by my Christian name. One was the ill-starred lady who perished in the Konak in Belgrade. The other—but of her I may not speak.
But it was not for me to stand on ceremony with the woman who had interposed herself as a shield between me and the enemies who sought my death.
“You knew that I should come to thank you,” I said.
“I do not wish for thanks,” she answered, with a look that was more expressive than words. “I wish only that you should regard me as a friend.”
“And in what other light is it possible for me to regard you, dear Princess?” I returned. “Only this friendship must not be all on one side. You, too, must consent to think of me as something more than a stranger whose life you have saved.”
“Can you doubt that I have done so for a long time?”
It needed the pressure of the locket against my neck to keep me from replying to this tenderly-spoken sentiment in a way which might have led to consequences, for the Russian Empire as well as for thePrincess and myself, very different to those which have actually flowed from our conjunction.
Conquering my impulses as I best could, I sought for a reply which would not wear the appearance of a repulse.
“You misunderstand me,” I said, putting on an expression of pride. “You little know the character of Andreas V—— if you think he can accept the humiliating position of the man who is under obligation to a woman—an obligation which he has done nothing to discharge. Not until I can tell myself that I have done something to place me on a higher level in your eyes, can my thoughts concerning you be happy ones.”
A shade of disappointment passed over Sophia’s face. She made a pettish gesture.
“Does not—friendship do away with all sense of obligation?” she complained.
“Not with me,” I answered firmly. “No, Sophia, if you really care for me—for my friendship—you must let me do what I have sworn to do ever since I first saw you and heard some rumors of your tragic story.”
“You mean?”
“You must let me break your odious bondage. I can deliver you, if you will only trust me, from the power of the Russian police, or any other power, and set you free to live the life of fascination and happiness which ought to be yours.”
The Princess seemed plunged in meditation. At length she looked up——
“You would undertake a hopeless task, my dear Andreas. Not even you can fathom all the ramifications of the intrigues in which I find myself an indispensable puppet. Those who control my movements will never let go the strings by which they hold me, and least of all, just now.”
I was distressed to see that the Princess was disposed to evade my appeal for confidence. I answered with a slightly wounded air:
“I may know more than you think, more even than you know yourself on certain points. But of course you are not willing to confide in mefully——”
“There can be no perfect trust without perfect”—The Princess, who spoke this sentence in Russian, concluded it with a word which may mean either friendship or love according to circumstances. As she pronounced it, it seemed like love.
“There can be no perfect love without perfect trust,” I responded quickly, striving to assume the manner of an exacting lover.
And then, a happy thought striking me, I added in an aggrieved voice,
“Do you think it is nothing to me that you should be associated with other men in the most secret enterprises, holding private conferences with them, receiving them in your house, perhaps visiting them intheirs; that you should appear to be on intimate terms with the Grand Duke Staniolanus, with M. Petrovitch, with a man like this M.Auguste——”
At the sound of this last name, to which I had artfully led up, Sophia sprang into a sitting posture and gave me a look of anger and fear.
“Who told you anything about M. Auguste?” she demanded in hoarse tones. “What has he to do with me?”
“Nay, it is not you who ought to ask me that,” I returned. “You may be a believer in his conjuring tricks, for aught I know. He may be more to you than a comrade, or even a prophet—more to you than I.”
“Who told you that he was my comrade, as you call it?” the Princess insisted, refusing to be diverted from her point.
“No one,” I said quite truthfully. “I should be glad to know that he was only that. But it is natural for me to feel some jealousy of all your friends.”
The Princess appeared relieved by this admission. But this relief confirmed all my suspicions. I now felt certain that the medium was an important figure in the plot which I was trying to defeat. I saw, moreover, that however genuine my beautiful friend might be in her love for me and her desire to save my life, she had no intention of betraying the secrets of her fellow conspirators.
Her character presented an enigma almost impossible to solve. Perhaps it is not the part of a wise man ever to try to understand a woman. Her motives must always be mysterious, even to herself. It is sufficient if one can learn to forecast her actions, and even that is seldom possible.
“Then you refuse my help?” I asked reproachfully.
“You cannot help me,” was the answer. “At least, that is, unless you possess some power I have no idea of at present.”
It was an ingenious turning of the tables. Instead of my questioning the Princess, she was questioning me, in effect.
I made what was perhaps a rash admission.
“I am not wholly powerless, at all events. There are few sovereigns in Europe whom I have not obliged at some time or other. Even the German Emperor, though I have more than once crossed his path in public matters, is my personal friend. In spite of his occasional political errors, he is a stainless gentleman in private life, and I am sure he would hear with horror of your position and the means by which you had been forced into it.”
Sophia looked at me with an expression of innocent bewilderment which I could scarcely believe to be real.
“The German Emperor! But what has he to do with me?”
“He is said to have some influence with the Czar,” I said drily.
My companion bit her lip.
“Oh, the Czar!” Her tone was scathing in its mixture of pity and indifference. “Every one has some influence with the Czar. But is there any one with whom Nicholas has influence?”
It was the severest thing I had ever heard said of the man whom an ironical fate has made master of the Old World.
Suddenly the manner of the Princess underwent a sudden change.
She rose to her feet and gave me a penetrating glance, a glance which revealed for the first time something of that commanding personality which had made this slight, exquisite creature for years one of the most able and successful of secret negotiators, and a person to be reckoned with by every foreign minister.
“You do not trust me, Andreas V——. It is natural. You do not love me. It is possible that it is my fault. But I have sworn to save your life, and I will do it in your own despite. In order that I may succeed, I will forget that I am a woman, and I will forget that you regard me as a criminal. Come here! I will show you into my oratory, into which not even my confidential maid is ever allowed to penetrate. Perhaps what you will see there may convinceyou that I am neither a traitor nor a Delilah.”
With the proud step of an empress, she led the way into the adjoining room, which was a bedroom sumptuously enriched with everything that could allure the senses. The very curtains of the bed seemed to breathe out languorous odors, the walls were hung with ravishing groups of figures that might have come from a Pompeiian temple, the dressing-table was rich with gold and gems.
Without pausing for an instant the mistress of the chamber walked straight across it to a narrow door let into the farther wall, and secured by a tiny lock like that of a safe.
Drawing a small key from her bosom, the Princess inserted it in the lock, leaving me to follow in a state of the most intense expectation.
The apartment in which I found myself was a narrow, white-washed cell like a prison, lit only by the flames of two tall wax candles which stood on a table, or rather an altar, at the far end.
Besides the altar, the sole object in the room was a wooden step in front of it. Over the altar, in accordance with the rule of the Greek Church, there hung a sacred picture. And below, between the two candlesticks, there rested two objects, the sight of which fairly took away my breath.
One was a photograph frame containing a portrait of myself—how obtained I shall never know. Theportrait was framed with immortelles, the emblems of death, and the artist had given my face the ghastly pallor and rigidity of the face of a corpse.
The other object on the altar was a small whip of knotted leather thongs.
Without uttering a word, without even turning her head to see if I had followed, the Princess Y—— knelt down on the step, stripped her shoulders with a singular determined gesture, and then, taking the knout in one hand, began to scourge the bare flesh.