“Is she wronged? To the rescue of her honourMy heart!Is she poor? What costs it to be styled a donorMerely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!”
“Is she wronged? To the rescue of her honourMy heart!Is she poor? What costs it to be styled a donorMerely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!”
Yes, I must for the future “choose the page’s part,” and, if she should ever have need of me, I would serve her, and take that for my reward!
I fell asleep on that thought, and only woke—feeling fairly fit, despite the dull ache in my head and the throbbing of the flesh wound in my shoulder—when we reached Dunaburg, and the cars were shunted to a siding.
Mishka turned up again, and insisted on valeting me after a fashion, though I told him I could manage perfectly well by myself. I had come out of the affair better than most of the passengers, for my baggage had been in the rear part of the train, and by the time I got to the hotel, close to the station, was already deposited in the rooms that, I found, had been secured for me in advance.
I had just finished the light meal which was all Dr. Nabokof would allow me, when Mishka announced “Count Solovieff,” and the Grand Duke Loris entered.
“Please don’t rise, Mr. Wynn,” he said in English. “I have come to thank you for your timely aid. You are better? That is good. You got a nasty knock on the head just at the end of the fun, which was much too bad! It was a jolly good fight, wasn’t it?”
He laughed like a schoolboy at the recollection; his blue eyes shining with sheer glee, devoid of any trace of the ferocity that usually marks a Russian’s mirth.
“That’s so,” I conceded. “And fairly long odds; two unarmed men against a crowd with knives and bludgeons. Why don’t you carry a revolver, sir?”
“I do, as a rule. Why don’t you?”
“Because I guess it would have been confiscated at the frontier. I’m a civilian, and—I’ve been in Russia before! But if you’d had a six-shooter—”
“There would have been no fight; they would have run the sooner,—all the better for some of them,” he answered, and as he spoke the mirth passed from his face, leaving it stern and sad. “I ought to have had a revolver, of course, but I was pitched out of bed without any warning, as I presume you were. By the way, Mr. Wynn, in the official report no mention is made of our—how do you call it?”
“Scrimmage?” I suggested.
“Ah, that is the word. Our scrimmage. Your name is in the list of those wounded by the explosion of the bomb. It was a bomb, as perhaps you have learned. Believe me, as you are going to Petersburg, and expect to remain there for some time, you will be the safer if no one—beyond myself and the few others on the spot, most of whom can be trusted—knows that you saved my life. Ah, yes, indeed you did that!” he added quickly, as I made a dissentient gesture. “I could not have kept them off another minute. Besides, you saw them first, and warned me; otherwise we should both have been done for at once.”
“Do you know who they were?” I asked.
He shrugged his broad shoulders.
“I have my suspicions, and I do not wish others to be involved in my affairs, to suffer through me. Yet it is the others who suffer,” he continued, speaking, as it seemed, more to himself than to me. “For I come through unscathed every time, while they—”
He broke off and sat for a minute or more frowning, and biting his mustache.
A sudden thought struck me. I rose and crossed to the French window which stood open. Outside was a small balcony, gay with red and white flowers. I nippedoff a single blossom, closed the window, and returned to where he sat, watching my movements intently.
“I, too, have my suspicions, sir,” I said significantly. “I wonder if they coincide with yours.”
I laid the flower on the table beside him, flattening out the five scarlet petals, and resumed my seat.
I saw instantly that he recognized the symbol, and knew what it meant, doubtless better than I did.
He glanced from it to me, then round the room, crossed to the door, opened it quickly, saw Mishka was standing outside, on guard, and closed it again.
“Now, who are you and what do you know?” he asked quietly. “Speak low; the very walls have ears.”
“I know very little, but I surmise—”
“It is safer to surmise nothing, Mr. Wynn. I only ask what you know!”
“Well, I know that some member of the League, the organization, that this represents,” I pointed to the flower, “murdered an Englishman.”
“Mr. Carson, a journalist. You knew him?” he exclaimed.
“Yes, and I am going to Petersburg as his successor.”
“Then you have great need to act with more caution than—pardon me—you have manifested so far,” he rejoined. “Well, what more?”
“One of the heads of the League, a man named Selinski, who called himself Cassavetti, was murdered in London a week ago.”
That startled him, I saw, though he controlled himself almost instantly.
“Are you sure of that?”
“I found him,” I answered, and thereupon gave him the bare facts.
“And the English police, they have the matter in hand? Whom do they suspect?” he demanded.
“I cannot tell you, though they say they have a clue.”
He paced to the window and stood there for a minute or more with his back towards me. Then he returned and looked down at me.
“I wonder why you have told me this, Mr. Wynn,” he said slowly. “And how you came to connect me with these affairs.”
“I was told that your Highness was also in danger, and I wished to warn you.”
“I thank you. Who was your informant?”
“I am not at liberty to say. But—there is another who is also in danger.”
I paused. My throat felt dry and husky all at once; my heart was thumping against my ribs. I had told myself that I was not jealous of him, but—it was hard to speak of her to him!
He misconstrued my hesitation.
“You may trust me, Mr. Wynn,” he said gravely. “This person, do I know him?”
I stood up, resting my hand on the table for support.
“It is not a man. It is the lady whom some speak of asLa Mort,—others asLa Vie.”
Adusky flush rose to his face, and his blue eyes flashed ominously. I noticed that a little vein swelled and pulsed in his temple, close by the strip of flesh-colored plaster that covered the wound on his forehead.
But, although he appeared almost equally angry and surprised, he held himself well in hand.
“Truly you seem in possession of much information, Mr. Wynn,” he said slowly. “I must ask you to explain yourself. Do you know this lady?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know she is in danger?”
“Chiefly from my own observation.”
“You know her so well?” he asked incredulously. “Where have you met her?”
“In London.”
The angry gleam vanished from his eyes, and he stood frowning in perplexed thought, resting one of his fine, muscular white hands on the back of a tawdry gilt chair.
“Strange,” he muttered beneath his mustache. “She said nothing. By what name did you know her—other than those pseudonyms you have mentioned?”
“Miss Anne Pendennis.”
“Ah!”
I thought his face cleared.
“And what is this danger that threatens her?”
“I think you may know that better than I do,” I retorted, with a glance at the flower—the red symbol—that made a vivid blot of color like a splash of blood on the white table-cloth.
“That is true; although you appear to know so much. Therefore, why have you spoken of her at all?”
Again I got that queer feeling in my throat.
“Because you love her!” I said bluntly. “And I love her, too. I want you to know that; though I am no more to her than—than the man who waits on her at dinner, or who opens a cab door for her and gets a smile and a coin for his service!”
It was a childish outburst, perhaps, but it moved Loris Solovieff to a queer response.
“I understand,” he said softly in French.
He spoke English admirably, but in emotional moments he lapsed into the language that is more familiar than their mother-tongue to all Russians of his rank.
“It is so with us all. She loves Russia,—our poor Russia, agonizing in the throes of a new birth; while we—we love her, the woman. She will play with us, use us, fool us, even betray us, if by so doing she can serve her country; and we—accept the situation—are content to serve her, to die for her. Is that not so, Monsieur?”
“That is so,” I said, marvelling at the way in which he had epitomized my own ideas, which, it seemed, were his also. Yet Von Eckhardt had asserted that she—Anne Pendennis—loved this man; and it was difficult to think of any woman resisting him.
“Then we are comrades?” he cried, extending his hand, which I gripped cordially. “Though we werehalf inclined to be jealous of each other, eh? But that is useless! One might as well be jealous of the sea. And we can both serve her, if she will permit so much. For the present she is in a place of comparative safety. I shall not tell you where it is, but at least it is many leagues from Russia; and she has promised to remain there,—but who knows? If the whim seizes her, or if she imagines her presence is needed here, she will return.”
“Yes, I guess she will,” I conceded. (How well he understood her.)
“She is utterly without fear, utterly reckless of danger,” he continued. “If she should be lured back to Russia, as her enemies on both sides will endeavor to lure her, she will be in deadly peril, from which even those who would give their lives for her may not be able to save her.”
“At least you can tell me if her father has joined her?” I asked.
“Her father? No, I cannot tell you that; simply because I do not know. But, as I have said, so long as she remains in the retreat that has been found for her she will be safe. As for this—” he took up the blossom and rubbed it to a morsel of pulp, between his thumb and finger, “you will be wise to conceal your knowledge of it, Mr. Wynn; that is, if you value your life. And now I must leave you. We shall meet again ere long, I trust. I am summoned to Peterhof; and I may be there for some time. If you wish to communicate with me—”
He broke off, and remained silent, in frowning thought, for a few seconds.
“I will ask you this,” he resumed. “If you shouldhave any news of—her—you will send me word, at once, and in secret? Not openly; I am surrounded by spies, as we all are here! Mishka shall remain here, and accompany you to Petersburg. He will show you where and how you can leave a message that will reach me speedily and infallibly. For the present good-bye—and a swift recovery!”
He saluted me, and clanked out of the room. I heard him speaking to Mishka, who had remained on guard outside the door. A minute or two later there was a bustle in the courtyard below, whence, for some time past, had sounded the monotonous clank of a stationary motor car.
I went to the window, walking rather unsteadily, for I felt sick and dizzy after this strange and somewhat exciting interview. Two magnificent cars were in waiting, surrounded by a little crowd of officers in uniform and soldiers on guard. After a brief interval the Grand Duke came out of the hotel and entered the first car, followed by the stout rubicund officer I had seen in attendance on him at Wirballen. A merry little man he seemed, and as he settled himself in his seat he said something which drew a laugh from the Duke. Looking down at his handsome debonnaire face, it was difficult to believe that he was anything more than a light-hearted young aristocrat, with never a care in the world. And yet I guessed then—I know now—that he was merely bluffing an antagonist in a game that he was playing for grim stakes,—nothing less than life and liberty!
Three days later I arrived, at last, in Petersburg, to find letters from England awaiting me,—one from my cousin Mary, to whom I had already written,merely telling her that I missed Anne at Berlin, and asking if she had news of her. There could be no harm in that. Anne had played her part so well that, though Jim had evidently suspected her,—I wondered now how he came to do so, though I’d have to wait a while before I could hope to ask him,—Mary, I was certain, had not the least idea that her stay with them was an episode in a kind of game of hide and seek. To her the visit was but the fulfilment of the promise made when they were school-girls together. And I guessed that Anne would keep up the deception, which was forced upon her in a way, and that she would write to Mary. She would lie to her, directly or indirectly; that was almost inevitable. But she would write, just because she loved Mary, and therefore would not willingly cause her anxiety. I was sure of that in my own mind; and I hungered for news of her; even second-hand news. But she had not written!
“I am so anxious about Anne,” my cousin’s letter ran. “We’ve had no word from her since that post-card from Calais, and I can’t think why! She has no clothes with her, to speak of, for she only took her dressing-bag; and I don’t like to send her things on till I hear from her; besides, I hoped she would come back to us soon! Did you see her at Berlin?”
I put the letter aside; I could not answer it at present. Mary would receive mine from Dunaburg, and would forward me any news that might have reached her in the interval.
And meanwhile I had little to distract my mind. Things were very quiet, stagnant in fact, in Petersburg during those hot days of early summer; even the fashionable cafés in the Nevski Prospekt were practicallydeserted, doubtless because the heat, that had set in earlier than usual, had driven away such of their gay frequenters as were not detained in the city on duty.
I slept ill during those hot nights, and was usually abroad early. One lovely June morning my matutinal stroll led me,—aimlessly I thought, though who knows what subtle influences may direct our most seemingly purposeless actions, and thereby shape our destiny—along the Ismailskaia Prospekt,—which, nearly a year back, had been the scene of the assassination of De Plehve, the man who for two years had controlled Petersburg with an iron hand.
There were comparatively few people abroad, and they were work-people on their way to business, and vendors setting out their wares on the stalls that line the wide street on either side.
Suddenly a droshky dashed past, at a pace that appeared even swifter than the breakneck rate at which the Russian droshky driver loves to urge his horses along. It was evidently a private one, drawn by three horses abreast, and I glanced at it idly, as it clattered along with the noise of a fire-engine. Just as it was passing me one of the horses slipped on the cobblestones, and came down with a crash.
There was the usual moment of confusion, as the driver objurgated vociferously, after the manner of his class, and a man jumped out of the vehicle and ran to the horse’s head.
I stood still to watch the little incident; there was no need for my assistance, for the clever little beast had already regained his footing.
Then a startling thing occurred.
A woman’s voice rang out in an agonized cry, in which fear and joy were strangely blended.
“Maurice! Maurice Wynn! Help! Save me!”
On the instant the man sprang back into the droshky, and it was off again on its mad career; but in that instant I had caught a glimpse of a white face, the gleam of bright hair; and knew that it was Anne—Anne herself—who had been so near me, and was now being whirled away.
Something white fluttered on the cobblestones at my feet. I stooped and picked it up. Only a handkerchief, a tiny square of embroidered cambric, crumpled and soiled,—her handkerchief, with her initials “A. P.” in the corner!
In that instant I had caught a glimpse of a white face. Page 102In that instant I had caught a glimpse of a white face.Page102
With the handkerchief in my hand, I started running wildly after the fast disappearing droshky, only to fall plump into the arms of a surly gendarme, a Muscovite giant, who collared me with one hand, while he drew his revolver with the other, and brandished it as if he was minded to bash my face in with the butt end, a playful little habit much in vogue with the Russian police.
“Let me go. I’m all right; I’m an American,” I cried indignantly. “I must follow that droshky!”
It was out of sight by this time, and he grunted contemptuously. But he put up his weapon, and contented himself with hauling me off to the nearest bureau, where, in spite of my protestations, I was searched from head to foot roughly enough, and all the contents of my pockets annexed, as well as the handkerchief. Then I was unceremoniously thrust into a filthy cell, and left there, in a state of rage and humiliation that can be better imagined than described. I seemed to have been there for half a lifetime, though I found afterwards it was only about two hours, when I was fetched out, and brought before the chief of the bureau,—a pompous and truculent individual, with shifty bead-like eyes.
My belongings lay on the desk before him,—withthe exception of my loose cash, which I never saw again.
He began to question me arrogantly, but modified his tone when I asserted that I was an American citizen, resident in Petersburg as representative of an English newspaper; and reminded him that, if he dared to detain me, he would have to reckon with both the American and English authorities.
“That is all very well; but you have yet to explain how you came to be breaking the law,” he retorted.
“What law have I broken?” I demanded.
“You were running away.”
“I was not. I was running after a droshky.”
“Why?”
“Because there was a woman in it—a lady—an Englishwoman or American, who called out to me to help her.”
“Who was the woman?”
“How should I know?” I asked blandly. I remembered what Von Eckhardt had told me,—that the police had been on Anne’s track for these three years past. If the peril in which she was now placed was from the revolutionists, as it must be, I could not help her by betraying her to the police.
“You say she was English or American? Why do you say so?”
“Because she called out in English: ‘Help! Save me!’ I heard the words distinctly, and started to run after the droshky. Wouldn’t you have done the same in my place? I guess you’re just the sort of man who’d be first to help beauty in distress!”
This was sarcasm and sheer insolence. I couldn’t help it, he looked such a brutal little beast! But hetook it as a compliment, and actually bowed and smirked, twirling his mustache and leering at me like a satyr.
“You have read me aright, Monsieur,” he said quite amiably. “So this lady was beautiful?”
“Well, I can’t say. I didn’t really see her; the droshky drove off the very instant she called out. One of the horses had been down, and I was standing to look at it,” I explained, responding diplomatically to his more friendly mood. I wanted to get clear as soon as possible, for I knew that every moment was precious. “I just saw a hat and some dark hair—”
“Dark, eh? Should you know her again?”
“I guess not. I tell you I didn’t really see her face.”
“How could she know you were an American?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Perhaps she can’t speak any language but English.”
“What is this?” He held up the handkerchief, and sniffed at it. It was faintly perfumed. How well I knew that perfume, sweet and elusive as the scent of flowers on a rainy day.
“A handkerchief. It fell at my feet, and I picked it up before I started to run.”
“It is marked ‘A. P.’ Do you know any one with those initials?”
Those beady eyes of his were fixed on my face, watching my every expression, and I knew that his questions were dictated by some definite purpose.
“Give me time,” I said, affecting to rack my brains in an effort of recollection. “I don’t think,—why, yes—there was Abigail Parkinson, Job Parkinson’s wife,—a most respectable old lady I knew in the States,—the United States of America, you know.”
His eyes glinted ominously, and he brought his fat, bejewelled hand down on the table with a bang.
“You are trifling with me!”
“I’m not!” I assured him, with an excellent assumption of injured innocence. “You asked me if I knew any one with those initials, and I’m telling you.”
“I am not asking you about old women on the other side of the world! Think again! Might not the initials stand for—Anna Petrovna, for instance?”
So he had guessed, after all, who she was!
“Anna what? Oh—Petrovna. Why, yes, of course they stand for that, but it’s a Russian name, isn’t it? And this lady was English, or American!”
He was silent for a minute, fingering the handkerchief, which I longed to snatch from the contamination of his touch.
“A mistake has been made, as I now perceive, Monsieur,” he said smoothly, at last. “I think your release might be accomplished without much difficulty.”
He paused and looked hard at my pocket-book.
“I guess if you’ll hand me that note case it can be accomplished right now,” I suggested cheerfully. I don’t believe there’s a Russian official living, high or low, who is above accepting a bribe, or extorting blackmail; and this one proved no exception to the rule.
I passed him a note worth about eight dollars, and he grasped and shook my hand effusively as he took it.
“Now we are friends,hein?” he exclaimed. “Accept my felicitations at the so happy conclusion of our interview. You understand well that duty must be done, at whatever personal cost and inconvenience. Permit me to restore the rest of your property, Monsieur; this only I must retain.” He thrust the handkerchiefinto his desk. “Perhaps—who knows—we may discover the fair owner, and restore it to her.”
His civility was even more loathsome to me than his insolence had been, and I wanted to kick him. But I didn’t. I offered him a cigarette, instead, and we parted with mutual bows and smiles.
Once on the street again I walked away in the opposite direction to that I should have taken if I had been sure I would not be followed and watched; but I guessed that, for the present at least, I would be kept under strict surveillance, and doubtless at this moment my footsteps were being dogged.
Therefore I made first for the café where I usually lunched, and, a minute after I had seated myself, a man in uniform strolled in and placed himself at a table just opposite, with his back to me, but his face towards a mirror, in which, as I soon discovered, he was watching my every movement.
“All right, my friend. Forewarned is forearmed; I’ll give you the slip directly,” I thought, and went on with my meal, affecting to be absorbed in a German newspaper, which I asked the waiter to bring me.
In the ordinary course I should have met people I knew, for the café was frequented by most of the foreign journalists in Petersburg, but the hour was early fordéjeuner, and the spy and I had the place to ourselves for the present.
I knew that I should communicate the fact that Anne was in Petersburg to the Grand Duke Loris as soon as possible; in the hope that he might know or guess who were her captors, and where they were taking her; but it was imperative that I should exercise the utmost caution.
After we reached Petersburg, and before he left me, Mishka had, as his master had promised, given me instructions as to how I was to send a private message to the Duke in case of necessity. He took me to a house in a mean street near the Ismailskaia Prospekt—not half a mile from the place where I was arrested this morning—of which the ground floor was a poor class café frequented chiefly by workmen and students.
“You will go to the place I shall show you,” he had informed me beforehand, “and call for a glass of tea, just like any one else. Then as you pay for it, you drop a coin,—so. You will pick it up, or the waiter will,—it is all one, that; any one may drop a coin accidentally! Now, if you were just an ordinary customer, nothing more would happen; the waiter would keep near your table for a minute or two, and that is all. But if you are on business you will ask him, ‘Is Nicolai Stefanovitch here to-day?’ Or you may say any name you think of,—a common one is best. He will answer, ‘At what hour should he be here?’ and you say, ‘I do not know when he returns—from his work.’ Or ‘from Wilna,’ or elsewhere; that is unimportant, like the name. But the questions must be put so, and there must be the pause, between the two words ‘returns from’ just for one beat of the clock as it were, or while one blows one’s nose, or lights a cigarette. Then he will know you are one of us, and will go away; and presently one will come and sit at the table, and say, ‘I am so and so,—’ the name you mentioned. He will drink his tea, and you will go out together; and if it is a note you will pass it to him, so that none shall see; or if it is a message, you will tell it him very quietly.”
We rehearsed the shibboleth in my room. I did itright the first time, much to Mishka’s satisfaction; and when we reached the café he let me be spokesman. Within three minutes a cadaverous looking workman in a red blouse lounged up to our table, ordered his glass of tea, nodded to me as if I was an old acquaintance, and muttered the formula.
He and I had gone out together, leaving Mishka in the café,—since in Russia three men walking and conversing together are bound to be eyed suspiciously,—and my new acquaintance remarked:
“There is no message, as I know; this is but a trial, and you have done well. If there should be a letter, a cigarette, with the tobacco hanging a little loose at each end,—” he rolled one as he spoke and made a slovenly job of it,—“is an excellent envelope, and one that we understand.”
We had separated at the end of the street, and Mishka rejoined me later at my hotel. But I had not needed to try the shibboleth since, though I had dropped into the café more than once, and drank my glass of tea,—without dropping a coin. And now the moment had come when I must test the method of communication as speedily as possible.
Ipaid my bill, strolled out, and in the doorway encountered a man I knew slightly—a young officer—with whom I paused to chat, thereby blocking the doorway temporarily, with the result that I found my friend the spy—as I was now convinced he was—at my elbow. My unexpected halt had pulled him up short.
“Pardon!” I said with the utmost politeness, stepping aside, so he had to pass out, though I guessed he was angry enough at losing my conversation, for I was telling Lieutenant Mirakoff of my arrest,—as a great joke, at which we both laughed uproariously.
“They should have seen that you were a foreigner, and therefore quite mad,—and harmless,” he cried.
“Now, I ought to call you out for that!” I asserted.
“At your service!” he answered, still laughing, as we separated.
The spy was apparently deeply interested in the contents of a shop window near at hand, and I went off briskly in the other direction; but in a minute or two later, when I paused, ostensibly to compare my watch with a clock which I had just passed, I saw, as I glanced back, that he was on my track once more.
This was getting serious, and I adopted a simple expedient to give him the slip for the present. I hailed a droshky and bade the fellow drive to a certain street, not far from that where Mishka’s café was situated.We started off at the usual headlong speed, and presently, as we whirled round a corner, I called on the driver to stop, handed him a fare that must have represented a good week’s earnings, and ordered him to drive on again as fast as he could, and for as long as his horse would hold out.
He grinned, “clucked” to his horse, and was off on the instant, while I turned into a little shop close by, whence I had the satisfaction, less than half a minute after, of seeing a second droshky dash past, in pursuit of the first, with the spy lolling in it. If my Jehu kept faith—there was no telling if he would do that or not, though I had to take the risk—monsieur le mouchardwould enjoy a nice drive, at the expense of his government!
In five minutes I was at the café, where I dropped my coin; it rolled to a corner and the waiter picked it up, while I sipped my tea and grumbled at the scarcity of lemon. I asked the prescribed question when he restored the piece; and almost immediately Mishka himself joined me. This was better than I had dared to hope, for I knew I could speak to him freely; in fact I told him everything, including the ruse by which I had eluded my vigilant attendant.
“You must not try that again,” he said, in his sulky fashion. “It has served once, yes; but it will not serve again. When he finds that you have cheated him he will make his report, and then you will have, not one, but several spies to reckon with; that is, if they think it worth while. Still you have done well,—very well. Now you must wait until you hear from my master.” Mishka never mentioned a name if he could avoid doing so.
“But can’t you give me some idea as to where she is likely to be?” I demanded. To wait, and continue to act my part, as if there was no such person as Anne Pendennis in the world and in deadly peril was just about the toughest duty imaginable.
“I can tell you nothing, and you, by yourself, can do nothing,” he retorted stolidly. “If you are wise you will go about your business as if nothing had happened. But be in your rooms by—nine o’clock to-night. It is unlikely that we can send you any word before then.”
Nine o’clock! And it was now barely noon! Nine mortal hours; and within their space what might not happen? But there was no help for it. Mishka had spoken the truth; by myself I could do nothing.
It was hard—hard to be bound like this, with invisible fetters; and to know all the time that the girl I loved was so near and yet so far, needing my aid, while I was powerless to help her,—I, who would so gladly lay down my life for her.
Who was she? What was she? How was her fate linked with that of this great grim land,—a land “agonizing in the throes of a new birth?” If she had but trusted me in the days when we had been together, could I have saved her then? Have spared her the agony my heart told me she was suffering now?
Yes,—yes, I said bitterly to myself. I could have saved her, if she had trusted me; for then she would have loved me; would have been content to share my life. A roving life it would have been, of course, for we were both nomads by choice as well as by chance, and the nomadic habit, once formed, is seldom broken. But how happy we should have been! Our wanderingswould never have brought us to Russia, though. Heavens, how I hated—how I still hate it; the greatest and grandest country in the world, viewed under the aspect of sheer land; a territory to which even our own United States of America counts second for extent, for fertility, for natural wealth in wood and oil and minerals. A country that God made a paradise, or at least a vast storehouse for the supply of human necessities and luxuries; but a country of which man has made such a hell, that, in comparison with it, Dante’s “Inferno” reads like a story of childish imaginings.
Yes, Russia was a hell upon earth; and Petersburg was the centre and epitome of it, I said in my soul, as I loitered on one of the bridges that afternoon, and looked on the swift flowing river, on the splendid buildings, gleaming white, as the gilded cupolas and spires of the churches gleamed fire red, under the brilliant sunshine. A fair city outwardly, a whited sepulchre raised over a charnel-house. A city of terror, wherein every man is an Ishmael, knowing—or suspecting—that every other man’s hand is against him.
There was a shadow over the whole land, over the city, over myself, the stranger within its gate; and in that shadow the girl I loved was impenetrably enveloped.
I raised my eyes, and there, fronting me across the water, sternly menacing, were the gray walls of the fortress-prison, named, as if in grim mockery, the fortress of “Peter and Paul.” Peter, who denied his Lord, though he loved Him; Paul, who denied his Lord before he knew and loved Him! Perhaps the name is not so inconsistent, after all. The deeds thatare done behind the walls of that fortress-prison by men who call themselves Christians, are the most tremendous denial of Christ that this era has witnessed.
Sick at heart, I turned away, and walked moodily back to my hotel. The proprietor was in the lobby, and the whole staff seemed to be on the spot. They all looked at me as if they thought I might be some recently discovered wild animal, and I wondered why. But as no one spoke to me, I asked the clerk at the bureau for my key.
“I have it not; others—the police—have it,” he stammered.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” I said. “They’re up there now? All right.”
I went up the stairs—there was no elevator—and found a couple of soldiers posted outside my door.
“Well, what are you doing here?” I asked, in good enough Russian. “This is my room, and I’ll thank you to let me pass.”
The one on the right of the door flung it open with a flourish, and motioned me to enter.
As I passed him he said, with a laugh to his fellow, “So—the rat goes into the trap!”
Inside were two officials busily engaged in a systematic search of my effects. Truly the secret police had lost no time!
I had already decided on the attitude I must adopt. It was improbable that they would arrest me openly; that would have involved trouble with the Embassies, but they could, if they chose, conduct me to the frontier or give me twenty-four hours’ notice to quit Russia, as they had to Von Eckhardt, and that was the very last thing I desired just now.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” I said amiably. “You seem to be pretty busy here. Can I give you any assistance?”
I spoke in French, as I didn’t want to air my Russian for their edification, though I had improved a good deal in it.
One of them, who seemed boss, looked up and said brusquely, though not exactly uncivilly: “Ah, Monsieur, you have returned somewhat sooner than we expected. We have a warrant to search your apartment.”
“That’s all right; pray continue, though I give you my word you won’t find anything treasonable. I’m a foreigner, as of course you know; and I haven’t the least wish or intention to mix myself up with Russian affairs.”
“And yet you correspond with the Grand Duke Loris,” he said dryly.
“I don’t!” I answered promptly. “I’ve never written a line to that gentleman in my life, nor he to me.”
“There are other ways of corresponding than by writing,” he retorted. I guessed I had been watched to the café after all, but I maintained an air of innocent unconcern, and, after all, his remark might be merely a “feeler.” I rather think now that it was. One can never be sure how much the Russian Secret Police do, or do not, know; and one of their pet tricks is to bluff people into giving themselves away.
So I ignored his remark, selected a cigarette, and, seeing that he had just finished his—I’ve wondered sometimes if a Russian official sleeps with a cigarette between his lips, for I fear he wouldn’t sleep comfortably without!—handed him the case, with an apology for my remissness. He accepted both the apology and the cigarette, and looked at me hard.
“I said, Monsieur, that there are other ways of corresponding than by writing!” he repeated with emphasis.
“Of course there are,” I assented cheerfully. “But I don’t see what that has to do with me in the present instance. I only know the Grand Duke very slightly. I was hurt in that railway accident last month, and his Highness was good enough to order one of his servants to look after me; and he also called to see me at an hotel in Dunaburg. I thought it very condescending of him. Though I don’t suppose I’d have the chance of meeting him again, as there are no Court festivities now; or if there are, we outsiders aren’t invited to them. Won’t your friend accept one of my cigarettes?”
This was addressed to the other man, who seemed to be doing all the work, and was puzzling over some pencil notes in English which he had picked out of my waste-paper basket. They were the draft of my yesterday’s despatch to theCourier, a perfectly innocuous communication that I had sent openly; it didn’t matter whether it arrived at its destination or not. As I have said, Petersburg was quiet to stagnation just now; though one never knew when the material for some first-class sensational copy might turn up.
“I’ll translate that for you right now, if you like,” I said politely. “Or you can take it away with you!”
I think they were both baffled by my apparent candor and nonchalance; but the man who was bossing the show returned to the charge persistently.
“Ah, that railway accident. Yes. But surely you have made a slight mistake, Monsieur? You incurred your injuries, from which, I perceive, you have so happily recovered.”
He bowed, and I bowed. If I hadn’t known all that lay behind, this exchange of words and courtesy—a kind of fencing, with both of us pretending that the buttons were on the foils—would have tickled me immensely. Even as it was I could appreciate the funny side of it. I was playing a part in a comedy,—a grim comedy, a mere interlude in tragedy,—but still comic.
“You incurred these, I say, not in the accident, but while gallantly defending the Grand Duke from the dastards who assailed him later!”
I worked up a modest blush; or I tried to.
“I see that it is useless to attempt to conceal anything from you, Monsieur; you know too much!” I confessed, laughing. “But I’m a modest man; besides, I didn’tdo very much, and his Highness seemed quite capable of taking care of himself.”
I saw a queer glint in his eyes, and I guessed then that the attempt on the life of the Grand Duke had been engineered by the police themselves, and not, as I had first imagined, by the revolutionists.
My antagonist waved his hand with an airy gesture of protestation.
“You underrate your services, Monsieur Wynn! I wonder if you would have devoted them so readily to his Highness if—”
He paused portentously.
“If?” I inquired blandly. “Do have another cigarette!”
“If you had known of his connection with the woman who is known asLa Mort?”
That wasn’t precisely what he said. I don’t choose to write the words in any language; but I wanted to knock his yellow teeth down his throat; to choke the life out of him for the vile suggestion his words contained! I dared not look at him; my eyes would have betrayed everything that he was seeking to discover. I looked at the end of the cigarette I was lighting, and wondered how I managed to steady the hand that held the match.
“I really do not understand you!” I asserted blandly.
“Perhaps you may know her as Anna Petrovna?” he suggested.
“Anna Petrovna!” I repeated. “Now, that’s the second time to-day I’ve heard the lady’s name; and I can’t think why you gentlemen should imagine it means anything to me. Who is she, anyhow?”
I looked at him now, fair and square; met and held the gimlet gaze of his eyes with one of calm, interested inquiry. We were fighting a duel, to which a mere physical fight is child’s play; and—I meant to win!
“You do not know?” he asked.
“I do not; though I’d like to. The officer at the bureau this morning—I don’t suppose I need tell you that I was arrested and detained for a time—seemed to think I should know her; but he wouldn’t give me any information. You’ve managed to rouse my curiosity pretty smartly between you!”
“I fear it must remain unsatisfied, Monsieur, so far as I am concerned,” he said suavely. “Well, we will relieve you of our presence. I congratulate you on the admirable order in which you keep your papers.”
His subordinate had risen, with an expressive shrug of his shoulders. I knew their search must be futile, since I had fortunately destroyed Mary Cayley’s letter the day I received it; and there was nothing among my papers referring either directly or indirectly to Anne.
“You’ll want to see this, of course,” I suggested, tendering my passport. He glanced through it perfunctorily, and handed it back with a ceremonious bow. So far as manners went, he certainly was an improvement on the official at the bureau; and of course he already knew that my personal papers were all right.
He gave me a courteous “good evening,” and the other man, who hadn’t uttered a syllable the whole time, saluted me in silence. I heard one of them give an order to the guards outside, and then the heavy tramp of their feet descending the staircase.
I started tidying up; it would help to pass the time until I might expect some message from the GrandDuke. Mishka had said nine o’clock, and it was not yet seven.
Presently there came a knock at my door. I wondered if this might be another police visitation; but it was only one of the hotel servants to say a droshky driver was below, demanding to see me. He produced a dirty scrap of paper with my name and address scrawled on it, which the man had brought. I thought at once of the man who had driven me in the morning, and wondered how on earth he got my name and address. I was sure it must be he when I heard that he declared “the excellency had told him to call for payment.” This was awkward; the fellow must be another police spy, probably doing a bit of blackmailing on his own account. Well, I’d better see him, anyhow. I told the man to bring him up.
“He is a dangerous looking fellow,” he demurred.
“That’s my lookout and not yours,” I said. “If he wants to see me he’s got to come up. I’m certainly not going down to him.”
He went off unwillingly, and a minute or two later returned, showing in my queer visitor, a big burly chap who seemed civil and harmless enough.
I didn’t think at first sight he was the man who drove me, but they all look so much alike in their filthy greatcoats and low-crowned hats. He had a big grizzled beard and a thatch of matted hair, from which his little swinish eyes peered out with a leer. Yes, he looked exactly like any other of his class, but—
As he entered behind the servant, touched his greasy hat, and growled a guttural greeting, he opened his eyes full and looked at me for barely a second, but it was sufficient.
“Oh, it is you, Ivan; why didn’t you send your name up?” I said roughly. “How much is it I owe you? Here, wait a minute; as you are here, you can take a message for me. Wait here while I write it. It’s all right; I know the fellow,” I added to the servant. “You needn’t wait.”
He went out, and for a minute my visitor and I stood silently regarding each other. His disguise was perfect; I should never have penetrated it but for the warning he had flashed from those bright blue eyes, that now, leering and nearly closed, looked dark and pig-like again.
The droshky driver was the Grand Duke Loris himself.
Imoved to the door and locked it noiselessly. I dared not open it to see if the servant had gone, for if he had not that would have roused his suspicions at once. The Duke had already crossed to the further side of the room, and I joined him there.
He wasted no time in preliminaries.
“Mishka has told me all,” he began, speaking in English, though still in the hoarse low growl appropriate to his assumed character. “And I have learned much since. There is to be a meeting to-night, and if things are as I suspect she will be brought before the tribunal. We must save her if we can. Will you come? To say it will be at the risk of your life is to put it mildly. It will be a forlorn hope.”
“I’ll come; tell me how,” I said.
“You will go to the place where you met Mishka to-day, dine there, and change your clothes. They will have some for you, and you need not use the formula. They expect you already; I knew you would come! Mishka will join you, and will accompany you to the rank where I shall be waiting with my droshky. You will hire me in the usual way; and we will tell you my plans when we are clear of the city. Have you any weapon?”
“No.”
He felt in an inner pocket of his filthy greatcoat and brought out a revolver and a handful of spare cartridges.
“It’s loaded; you can have these, too, though if there’s any shooting I doubt if you’ll have the chance of reloading. Let’s hope you won’t fall in with the police for the third time to-day! Mishka will join you between nine and ten. We need not start till then,—these light nights are a drawback, but that cannot be helped. The meeting will be held as usual, after midnight. That is all now. I must not stay longer. Give me the note you spoke of. A blank sheet—anything—I will destroy it immediately.”
I put a sheet of note-paper into an envelope, and addressed it to Lieutenant Mirakoff at his barracks. His was the first name that occurred to me.
“You know him?” he asked, pointing to the name.
“Very slightly.”
He nodded and picked up the note, holding it carefully by one corner between his filthy thumb and finger.
I unlocked the door as quietly as I had locked it, and a moment later he opened it noisily and backed out, growling guttural and surly thanks; backed right up against the servant, who, as we both guessed, was waiting just outside. Even I was surprised at the altercation that followed. A Russian droshky driver has a bigger command of bad language than any other cabby in the world, and the Grand Duke Loris had evidently studied his part from life. He was letter perfect in it!
I strode to the door and flung it open.
“Here, stop that!” I shouted. “Be off with you, Ivan; you impudent rascal!”
He leered at me and shambled off, but I could hear the coarse voice growling ribaldries all the way down the staircase.
It was a masterpiece of impersonation!
I waited a while, till I judged it safe to start on the first stage of my expedition. I meant to take a circuitous route to the café, in case I was still being watched. I would run no unnecessary risks, not for my own sake, but I guessed that the success of our enterprise—whatever it was—would depend on the exercise of infinite caution, at the beginning, anyhow. I felt strangely elated, happier than I had done for many a long day; although I knew that the worst, or almost the worst, had come to pass, and that Anne was here, in the power of her enemies. But we were going to save her,—we would save her. “A forlorn hope” even Loris Solovieff had called it. Nothing of the kind. Could anything that such a man as he attempted be a forlorn hope; and together, working loyally side by side, what could we not dare, and accomplish? Nothing seemed impossible to-night.
“Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part!”
I kept a wary lookout as I made my way along the streets, most of them thronged at this hour of the summer evening. The air was sultry, and huge masses of cloud were piling up, ominous of a storm before long.
I reached the café eventually and, so far as I knew, unobserved, and came out of it an hour or so later, looking, I hope, as like a shabbily attired Russian student as the Grand Duke Loris looked like a droshky driver, accompanied by a man of the artisan type, who might have been my father,—none other than Mishka himself.
The sky was overcast, and already, above the rumble of the traffic, one could hear the mutter of distant thunder. It reminded me of that eventful night in London, little more than a month ago, though I had seemed to live a lifetime since then.
“The storm comes soon,” said Mishka. “That is well, very well.”
We came to a rank where several droshkys were standing; and he paused irresolute, fumbling in his pocket.
“We will drive, Paul,” he asserted aloud, with the air of a man who has just decided to indulge in an extravagance. “Yes, I say we will; the storm comes soon, and thy mother is alone.”
He began to haggle, after the usual fashion, with the nearest driver; and again I marvelled at the Duke’s disguise; for it was he, of course.
Once clear of the city Mishka unfolded the plan.
“Presently we turn across country and come to a house; there we leave the droshky; and there also will be horses for us in readiness if we should need them—later. Thence we go on foot through the forest to the meeting-place. We must separate when we get near it, but you will keep close to Ivan”—we spoke always of the Duke by that name—“and I will come alone. You will be challenged, and you will give the word, ‘For Freedom,’ and the sign I showed you. Give it to me, now.”
He held out his hand, palm upwards; and I touched it with my thumb and fingers in turn; five little taps.
“Good, you are a quick learner—Paul! The meeting will be in an old chapel,—or so we imagine; the place is changed many times, but it must be there,or in the clearing. Either way there will be little light, there among the pines. That is in our favor. If she is there, we shall know how to act; we must decide then. She will be accused—that is certain—but the five may acquit her. If that comes to pass—good; we shall easily get speech with her, and perhaps she may return with us. At least she will be safe for the moment. But if they condemn her, we must act quickly and all together. We must save her and get her away,—or—die with her!”
“Well said!” growled “Ivan.”
The rain was pattering down now in big drops, and the lightning flashes were more frequent, the thunder nearer each time. The horse shied as there came a more vivid flash than before, followed almost instantly by a crackling roll—the storm was upon us.
As the thunder ceased, I found “Ivan” had pulled the horse up, and was listening intently. I listened also, and above the faint tinkle of our bells and the slight movements of the horse, I heard, faint, as yet, but rapidly approaching, the thud of hoofs and the jangle of accoutrements.
“A patrol,” said “Ivan” quickly. “They are coming towards us; I saw them by the lightning flash. They will challenge us, and I shall drive on, trusting to the darkness and storm. If they follow—as they probably will—and shoot, you two must seize your opportunity, and jump. There is just the chance that they may not see you; I shall drive on. If I distance them, I will follow you. But we must not all be taken, and it will be better for me than for you.”
He started again on the instant, and another flash showed several mounted figures just ahead.
A challenge rang out, and “Ivan’s” reply was to lash the horse into a gallop. We charged through them, and they wheeled after us, and fired. I heard the “zsp” of a bullet as it ripped through the leather hood close to my ear; but in the darkness and confusion they fired wildly. And, for the present at any rate, our gallant little horse was more than a match for theirs, and was distancing them rapidly.
Another flash, and “Now!” roared “Ivan,” above the roar of the thunder. I had already sprung up, knowing that I must jump before the next flash came; and Mishka, as I found afterwards, did the same.
Steadying myself for a moment, I let myself drop, stumbled backward for a few steps, fell, and rolled into the ditch, just as the pursuers clattered past, in a whirlwind of oaths.
For the moment I, at least, had escaped; but where was Mishka?
As the sounds of flight and pursuit receded, I crawled out of the ditch, and called softly to my companion, who answered me, from the other side of the road, with a groan and an oath.
“I am hurt; it is my leg—my ankle; I cannot stand,” he said despairingly.
As the lightning flared again, I saw his face for a moment, plastered with black mud, and furious with pain and chagrin. I groped my way across to him, hauled him out of the ditch, and felt his limbs to try to ascertain the extent of his injury.
It might have been worse, for there were no broken bones, as I had feared at first; but he had a badly sprained ankle.
“Bind it—hard, with your handkerchief,” he said, between his set teeth. “We must get out of this, into the wood. They will return directly.”
His grit was splendid, for he never uttered a sound—though his foot must have hurt him badly—as I helped him up. Supporting him as well as I could, we stumbled into the wood, groping our way through the darkness, and thankful for every flash that gave us light, an instant at a time, and less dazzling—though more dangerous—here under the canopy of pine branches than yonder on the open road.
Even if Mishka had not been lamed, our progress must have been slow, for the undergrowth was thick; still, he managed to get along somehow, leaning on me, and dragging himself forward by grasping each slender pine trunk that he lurched up against.
He sank down at length, utterly exhausted, and, in the pause that followed, above the sound of our labored breathing and the ceaseless patter of the rain on the pines, I heard the jangle of the cavalry patrol returning along the road. Had “Ivan” eluded or outdistanced them? Were they taking him back with them, a prisoner; or, worst of all, had they shot him?
The sounds passed—how close we still were to the road!—and gradually died away.
“He has escaped, thanks be to God!” Mishka said, in a hoarse whisper.
“How do you know that?”
“If they had overtaken him they would have found the droshky empty, and would have sought us along the road.”
“Well, what now? How far are we from the meeting-place?”
“Three versts, more or less. We should have been there by this time! Come, let us get on. Have you the pocket lamp? We can use it now. It will help us a little, and we shall strike a track before long.”
The lamp was a little flash-light torch which I had slipped into my pocket at the last moment, and showed to Mishka when I was changing my clothes. It served us well now, for the lightning flashes were less frequent; the worst of the storm was over.
I suppose we must have gone about half a verst—say the third of an English mile—when we found thetrack he had mentioned, a rough and narrow one, trodden out by the foresters, and my spirits rose at the sight of it. At least it must lead somewhere!
Here Mishka stumbled and fell again.
“It is useless. I can go no further, and I am only a hindrance. But you—what will you do—?”
“I’m going on; I’ll find the place somehow.”
“Follow the track till you come to an open space,—a clearing; it is a long way ahead. Cross that to your right, and, if your lamp holds, or the storm passes, you will see a tree blazed with five white marks, such as the foresters make. There is another track there; follow it till you are challenged; and the rest will be easy. God be with you.”
We gripped hands and parted. I guessed we should not meet again in this world, though we might in the next,—and that pretty soon!
I pushed on rapidly. The track, though narrow, was good enough, and I only had to flash my torch occasionally. I was afraid of the battery giving out, which, as a fact, it did before I emerged in the clearing Mishka had mentioned. But the light was better now, for the storm had passed; and in this northern latitude there is no real night in summer, only “the daylight sick,” as Von Eckhardt would say. Out in the clearing I could see quite a distance. The air felt fresh and pleasant and the patch of sky overhead was an exquisite topaz tint. I stood to draw breath, and for a moment the sheer splendor of the night,—the solemn silence,—held me spellbound with some strange emotion in which awe and joy were mingled. Yes, joy! For although I had lost my two good comrades, and was undertaking, alone, a task which could scarcely havebeen accomplished by three desperate men, my heart was light. I had little hope, now, of saving Anne, as we reckon salvation in this poor earth-life; but I could, and would, die with and for her; and together, hand in hand, we would pass to the fuller, freer life beyond, where the mystery that encompassed her, and that had separated us, would vanish.
I was about to cross the clearing, keeping to the right and seeking for the blazed tree, as Mishka had told me, when I heard the faint sound of stealthy footsteps through the wet grass that grew tall and rank here in the open. In the soft light a shadowy figure came from the opposite side, passed across the space, and disappeared among the further trees, followed almost immediately by two more. The time was now, as I guessed, after midnight, and these were late comers, who had been delayed by the storm, or perhaps, like myself, had had to dodge the patrol.
I followed the last two in my turn, and at the place where they re-entered the wood I saw the gleam of the white blazes on the tree. I had struck the path right enough, and went along it confidently in the gloom of the trees, for perhaps a hundred yards, when a light flashed a few paces in front of me, just for a second, and I saw against the gleam the figures of the two men who were preceding me. They had passed on when I reached the place, and a hand grasped my shoulder, while the light was flashed in my face. I saw now it was a dark lantern, such as policemen carry in England.
“The password, stranger, and the sign,” a hoarse voice whispered in the darkness that followed the momentary flash of light.
I felt for his hand, gave both word and sign, and wasallowed to go on, to be challenged again in a similar manner at a little distance. Here the picket detained me.
“You are a stranger, comrade; do you know the way?” he asked. All the questions and answers had been in Russian.
“No. I will follow those in front.”
He muttered something, and a second man stepped out on to the path, and bade me follow him. How many others were at hand I do not know. The wood seemed full of stealthy sounds.
My guide followed the path for only a short distance further, then turned aside, drawing me after him, his hand on my coat-sleeve.
“Be careful; the trees are thick hereabouts,” he said in a low voice, as he walked sideways. He seemed to know every inch of the way. I followed his example, and after a minute or two of this crab-like progress we emerged into a second clearing, smaller than the first, made round a small building, from which came the subdued sound of voices, though for a moment I could see no light. Then a door was partially opened, emitting a faint gleam, and two men passed in,—doubtless those whom I had seen in front of me just now.
Without a word my guide turned back into the darkness, and I walked forward boldly, pushed the door, which gave under my touch, and entered the place.