“My God, how they hate me!” I heard Loris say softly. Page 259“My God, how they hate me!” I heard Loris say softly.Page259
We pulled up, all four of us, and, turning in our saddles, looked back. We were nearing the verge of the great undulating plain, and the village from whence in daylight the first view of the castle, some eight versts distant, was obtained. Even now the long range of lights from the left wing could be seen distinctly, like a galaxy of stars near the horizon, but from the right wing, where the Duke’s apartments were, shone a faint reddish glow, which, as we looked, increased rapidly, revealing clouds of black smoke.
“An explosion,” grunted Mishka. “Some one has wrecked the state apartments, and they are afire. There will be a big blaze. If you had been there,—well, we are all well out of it!”
He rode on with his father; but Loris and I remained as if spellbound for a minute or more, staring at the grim light that waxed brighter every instant, till we could actually see the flames darting through the window spaces and up the outer walls. The place was already a raging furnace.
“My God, how they hate me!” I heard Loris say softly. “Yet, I have escaped them once again; and it is well; it could not be better. I am free at last!”
We rode on, avoiding the village, which remained dark and silent; the sleeping peasants had either not heard or not heeded the sound and shock of the explosion.
When we regained the road on the further side, two mounted men awaited us, who, after exchanging a few low-spoken words with the Pavloffs, fell in behind us; and later another, and yet another, joined us in the same way.
It must have been about one in the morning when we reached the village half-way between Zizcsky and Zostrov, where Mishka and I had got the last change of horses on our journey to the castle. Here again all was dark and quiet, and we rode round instead of through the place, Loris and I, with the Pavloffs, halting at a little distance, near a small farmhouse which I remembered as that of thestarosta, while our four recruits kept on.
Mishka rode up and kicked at the outer gate. A light gleamed in the yard and thestarosta, yawning and blinking, appeared, holding a lantern and leading a horse.
“The horses are ready? That is well, little father,” Mishka said approvingly.
“They have been ready since midnight, and the samovar also; you will drink a glass of tea, Excellencies.”
As he led out the other three horses in turn, a lad brought us steaming glasses of tea, and I was glad of mine, anyhow; for the night, though still and clear, was piercingly cold.
“The horses will come on, with four more recruits, after a couple of hours’ rest,” said Loris, as we started again.
We kept up an even pace of about ten miles an hour till we had traversed about half the remaining distance, picking up more silent men on little shaggy country horses till we rode a band of some fifteen strong.
I think I must have fallen half asleep in my saddle when I was startled by a quick exclamation from Loris.
“Look! What is yonder?”
I looked and saw a ruddy glow in the sky to northward,—a flickering glow, now paling, now flashing up vividly and showing luminous clouds of smoke,—the glow of a great fire.
“That is over Zizscky; it was to-night then, and we are too late!”
We checked instinctively, and the Pavloffs ranged alongside. We four, being better mounted, were well ahead, and the others came straggling in our rear.
“They were to defend the synagogue; we may still be in time to help,” said Pavloff.
“True, we four must push on; these others must follow as they are able, and tell the rest as they meet them. Give Stepán the word, Mishka,” commanded the Duke.
Mishka wheeled his horse and rode back, and wepressed forward, increasing the pace to a gallop. Within an hour we had covered the twenty versts and were on the outskirts of the town. Every instant that awful glow grew brighter, and when we drew near we saw that half the houses in the Jewish quarter were ablaze, while horrible sounds came to us,—the noise of a devils’ orgy, punctuated irregularly by the crackle of rifle shots.
“They are holding the synagogue,” Loris said grimly. “Otherwise the firing would be over by this time.”
The straggling street that formed this end of the town was quiet and deserted, save for a few scared women and children, who were standing in the roadway, and who scurried back to their houses at the first sound of our horses’ hoofs.
“Dismount, and turn the horses loose!” Loris commanded. “We shall find them later, perhaps; if not, well, we shall not!”
We hurried along on foot, and a minute or two later we entered the Jewish quarter and were in the midst of a hellish scene, lighted luridly by the glare of the burning houses. The road was strewn with battered corpses, some lying in heaps; and burlymoujiks, shrieking unsexed viragoes, and brutal soldiers, maddened with vodka, delirious with the lust of blood and pillage, were sacking the houses that were not yet ablaze, destroying, in insensate fury, what they were unable to carry off, fighting like demons over their plunder. Here and there were groups of soldiers, who, though they were not joining in the work of destruction, made no effort to check it, but looked on with grim jests. I saw one present his rifle, fire haphazard into the crowd, andyell with devilish mirth as his victim fell, and the confusion increased.
His laugh was cut short, for Loris knocked the rifle out of his hand, and sternly ordered him back to the barracks, if that was all he could do towards restoring order.
The man and his comrades stared stupidly. They did not know who he was, but his uniform and commanding presence had their effect. The ruffians stood at attention, saluted and asked for orders!
“Clear the streets,” he commanded sternly. “Drive the people back to their quarter and keep them there; and do it without violence.”
He stood frowning, revolver in hand, and watched them move off with sheepish alacrity and begin their task, which would not have been an easy one if the soldiers had been under discipline. But there was no discipline; I did not see a single officer in the streets that night.
“Are you wise?” Mishka growled unceremoniously, as we moved off. I saw now that he and his father were also in uniform, and I surmise that every one who saw us took the Grand Duke to be an officer in high command, and us members of his staff.
We had our revolvers ready, but no one molested us, and as we made our way towards the synagogue, Loris more than once repeated his commands to the idle soldiers, with the same success.
Barzinsky’s inn, where Mishka and I had slept less than a fortnight back, was utterly wrecked, though the fire had not yet reached it, and in a heap in the roadway was the corpse of a woman, clad in a dirty bedgown. Her wig was gone and her skull battered in, but Iknew it was the placid, capable, good-tempered landlady herself. The stumps of her hands lay palm down in a pool of blood,—all the fingers gone. She had worn rings, poor soul.
But that was by no means the most sickening sight I saw on that night of horror!
We reached the square where the synagogue stood, and found it packed with a frenzied, howling mob, who were raging like wolves round the gaunt weather-worn stone building. There was no more firing, either from within or without.
The glass of the two small windows above the doorway—whence, as I learned later, the defenders had delivered the intermittent fusilade that had hitherto kept the mob at bay—was smashed, and the space filled in with hastily fixed barricades. The great door was also doubtless strongly barricaded, since it still withstood an assault with axes and hammers that was in progress.
“They shoot no more; they have no more bullets,” shrieked a virago in the crowd. “Burn them out, the filthyzhits.”
Others took up the cry.
“Burn them out; what folly to batter the door! Bring straw and wood; burn them out!”
“Keep away,—work round to the left; there will be space soon,” growled Mishka, clutching me back, as I began to force my way forward. “Do as I say,” he added authoritatively.
I guessed he knew best, so I obeyed, and edged round on the outside of the crowd.
Something whizzed through the air, and fell bang among the crowd, exploding with a deafening report.
A babel of yells arose,—yells of terror now; and the mob surged back, leaving a clear space in which several stricken figures were writhing,—and one lay still.
“Fly!” shouted a stentorian voice. “They are making bombs and throwing them; fly for your lives. Why should we all perish?”
I was carried back in the rush, and found myself breathless, back against a wall. Three figures cleared themselves from the ruck, and I fought my way to them.
“Well done, Mishka,—for it was thou!” exclaimed Loris. “How was it done?”
“Pouf, it was but a toy,” grunted Mishka. “I brought it in my pocket,—on chance; such things are useful at times. If it had been a real bomb, we should all have entered Heaven—or hell—together.”
“Get to the steps; they are coming back,” cried Loris.
He was right. A section of the crowd turned, and made an ugly rush, only to halt in confusion as they found themselves confronted by levelled revolvers, held by four men in uniform.
“Be off,” Loris shouted. There was no anger in his voice; he spoke as sternly and dictatorially as one speaks to a fractious child. “You have done enough mischief for one night,—and the punishment is still to come. Back, I say! Go home, and see that you do no more evil.”
He strode towards them, and they gave back before him.
“Jèsu! It is the archangel Michel! Ah, but we have sinned, indeed,” a woman wailed hysterically.The cry was caught up, echoed in awestruck murmurs; and the whole lot of them quickened their flight, as we marched on their heels.
“A compliment to you, my Mishka,—you and your toy bomb; somewhat more like Jove and his thunderbolts though, eh?” said Loris, and I saw his eyes gleam for a moment with a flash of the quaint humor that cropped up in him at the most unexpected moments. “It was a good thought, for it achieved much, at very little cost. But these poor fools! When will they learn wisdom?”
We stood still, waiting for a brief space, to see if the mob would return. But the noise receded,—the worst was over; though the baleful glare of the burning houses waxed ever brighter, revealing all the horrors of that stricken town.
With a sigh Loris thrust his revolver back into his belt,—none of us had fired a shot,—and strode back to the door of the synagogue.
From within we could hear, now that the din had ceased, the wailing of frightened children, the weeping of women.
Loris drew his revolver again and beat on the door with the butt.
“Open within there!” he cried. “All is safe, and we are friends.”
“Who are you? Give the name, or the word,” came the answer, in a woman’s voice; a voice that I knew well.
“Open, Anna;à la vie et à la mort!” he called.
A queer dizziness seized me as I listened. She was within, then; in another minute I should meet her. But how could I hope that she would have a word, aglance, to spare for me, whenhewas there. I could not even feel jealous of him; he was so far above me in every way. For me there must still be only “the page’s part,” while he was the king, and she the queen.
There were lumbering noises within, as of heavy goods being moved; but at last the door swung back, and there on the threshold, with her hands outstretched, stood Anne Pendennis.
“
Iknew thou wouldst come,” she said in French, as he caught those outstretched hands in his.
She looked pale and worn, as was natural,—but lovelier than ever, as she stood, a shadowy figure in her dark gown against the gloom behind her, for there was no light within the synagogue. The lurid glare from without shed an unearthly radiance on her white face and shining hair.
“I am not alone,” he said. “Maurice Wynn is with me; and the good Mishka and his father.”
She glanced at me doubtfully, and then held out her hand, flashing at me the ghost of her old arch smile.
“It is Maurice, indeed; how the beard has changed you,—and the uniform! I did not know you,” she said, still in French. “But come; there is still much to do, and we must be gone before daylight. How did you drive them off? Will they make another attack?” she asked, turning to Loris.
“I think not; they have had enough for one time. You must thank Mishka here for putting them to the rout,” he answered. “Ah, Stepán, you are here also, as I expected,” he added to a young man of about my own age, whom I guessed to be Anne’s cousin, Count Vassilitzi, from the strong likeness between them, though his hair was much darker than hers, and he wore a small mustache.
“I knew thou wouldst come,” she said. Page 268“I knew thou wouldst come,” she said.Page268
What passed in the synagogue both before and after we came, I only learned later; for Mishka and I were posted on guard at the entrance of the square, while Pavloff went off to seek our horses and intercept the men who were following us. If he met them in time, they would make adétourround the town and wait for us to join them on the further side.
Our sentry-go business proved an unnecessary precaution, for no more rioters appeared; the excitement in the town was evidently dying out, thepogromwas over,—for the time.
Some of the bolder spirits among the Jews came from the synagogue, exchanging pious ejaculations of thanks to God for their deliverance. They slunk furtively by us; though one venerable-looking old man paused and invoked what sounded like a blessing on us,—in Hebrew, I think.
“You can keep all that for the gracious lady,” growled Mishka. “It is to her you owe your present deliverance.”
“It is, indeed,” he answered in Russian. “The God of our fathers will bless her,—yea, and she shall be blessed. And He will bless you, Excellencies,—you and your seed even to the third and fourth generation, inasmuch that you also have worked His will, and have delivered His children out of the hands of evil-doers.”
Mishka scratched his head and looked sheepish. This blessing seemed to embarrass him more than any amount of cursing would have done.
“They are harmless folk, these Jews,” he grunted. “And they are brave in their way, although they are forever cringing. See—the old man goes with theothers to try and check the course of the fires. They are like ants in a disturbed ants’ nest. They begin to repair the damage while it is yet being done. To-morrow, perchance even to-day, they will resume their business, and will truckle to those who set out to outrage and murder them this night! That is what makes the Jew unconquerable. But it is difficult to teach him to fight, even in defence of his women; though we are doing something in that way among the younger men. They must have done well to hold out so long.”
“How did they get arms?” I asked.
“They have not many so far, but there is one who comes and goes among them,—one of themselves,—who brings, now a revolver or two, now a handful of cartridges, now a rifle taken to pieces; always at the risk of his life, but that to him is less than nothing.”
“Yossof!” I exclaimed.
He nodded, but said no more, for Count Vassilitzi came across the square to us.
“All is quiet?” he asked. “Good. We can do no more, and it is time we were off. You are Monsieur Wynn? I have heard of you from my cousin. We must be friends, Monsieur!”
He held out his hand and I gripped it. I’d have known him anywhere for Anne’s kinsman, he was so like her, more like her in manner even than in looks; that is, like her when she was in a frivolous mood.
There was quite a crowd now on the steps of the synagogue, a crowd of weeping women—yes, and weeping men, too,—who pressed around Anne, jostling each other in the attempt to kiss her hands, or even the hem of her gown.
She looked utterly exhausted, and I saw,—not without a queer pang at heart,—that Loris had his arm round her, was indeed, rather carrying, than merely supporting her.
“Let us through, good people,” I heard him say. “Remember that her peril is as great as yours, even greater.”
As he spoke, her eyelids drooped, and she swayed back on to his shoulder. He swung her into his arms as I had seen him do once before, on that memorable summer night more than three months ago, when I thought I had looked my last on her; and, as the women gave way before him, he strode off, carrying his precious burden as easily as if she had been a little child.
We followed closely, revolvers in hand; but there was no need to use them. The few streets we traversed on the route Loris took were deserted; and though the houses on either side were smouldering ruins, we passed but few corpses, and some of those were Russians. The worst of the carnage had been in the streets further from the synagogue.
“You came just in time,” remarked Vassilitzi. “We were expecting the door to be burst in or burnt every moment; so we packed the women and children up into the women’s gallery again—we’d been firing from there till the ammunition was gone—and waited for the end. Most of the Jews were praying hard; well, I suppose they think their prayers were efficacious for once.”
“Without doubt,” I answered. His cynical tone jarred on me, somehow.
“They will need all their prayers,” he rejoined,shrugging his shoulders. “To-night is but a foretaste of what they have to expect. But perhaps they will now take the hint, and learn to defend themselves; also they will not have the soldiers to reckon with, if they can hold out a little longer.”
“How’s that?” I asked, because he seemed to expect the question; not because I was particularly interested; my mind was concentrated on those two in front.
“Why, because the soldiers will be wanted elsewhere, as I think you know very well,mon ami,” he laughed. “Well, I for one am glad this little affair is over. I could do with some breakfast, and you also, eh? Anna is worn out; she will never spare herself.Ma foi!she is a marvel; I say that always; and he is another. Now if I tried to do that sort of thing”—he waved his hand airily towards Loris, tramping steadily along. “But I should not try; she is no light weight, I give you my word! Still they make a pretty picture,—eh? What it is to be a giant!”
I’d have liked to shake him, and stop his irresponsible chatter, which seemed out of place at the moment. I knew he wouldn’t have been able to carry Anne half across the street; he was a little, thin fellow, scarcely as tall as Anne herself.
But I could have carried her, easily as Loris was doing, if I’d had the chance and the right.
Yet his was the right; I knew that well, for I had seen the look in her eyes as she greeted him just now. How could I have been such a conceited fool as to imagine she loved me, even for a moment! What I had dared to hope—to think—was love, was nothing of the kind; merely frankcamaraderie. It was in thatspirit she had welcomed me; calling me “Maurice,” as she had done during the last week or two of her stay at Mary’s; but somehow I felt that though we had met again at last, she was immeasurably removed from me; and the thought was a bitter one! She loved me in a way,—yes, as her friend, her good comrade. Well, hadn’t I told myself for months past that I must be content with that?
Our own horses were already at the appointed place, together with Pavloff and the Duke’s little band of “recruits;” sturdy youngmoujiksthese, as I saw now by the gray light of dawn, cleaner and more intelligent-looking than most of their class.
They were freshly horsed, for they had taken advantage of the confusion in the town to “commandeer” re-mounts,—as they say in South Africa. There were horses for Anne, and her cousin, too. Pavloff, like his son, was a man who forgot nothing.
Anne had already revived from the faintness that overcame her on the steps of the synagogue. I had heard her talking to Loris, as we came along; more than once she declared she was quite able to walk, but he only shook his head and strode on.
He set her down now, and seemed to be demurring about her horse. I heard her laugh,—how well I knew that laugh!—though I had already swung myself into the saddle and edged a little away.
“It is not the first time I have had to ride thus. Look you, Maurice, it goes well enough, does it not?” she said, riding towards me.
I had to look round at that.
She was mounted astride, as I’ve seen girls ride in the Western States. She had slipped off the skirt ofher dark riding-habit, and flung it over her right arm; and was sitting square in her saddle, her long coat reaching to the tops of her high riding-boots.
I felt a lump come to my throat as I looked at the gallant, graceful figure, at the small proud head with its wealth of bright hair gleaming under the little astrachan cap that she wore, at the white face with its brave smile.
I knew well that she was all but dead-beat, and that she only laughed lest she might weep, or faint again.
“It goes well indeed,capitaine,” I answered, with a military salute.
Pavloff, still on foot, came forward and stood beside her, speaking in a low growl; he was an elder edition of his son Mishka.
She listened, looking down at him gravely and kindly. I could not take my eyes from her face, so dear and familiar, and yet in one way so changed. I guessed wherein the change lay. When I had known her before she had only been playing a part, posing as a lovely, light-hearted, capriciously coquettish girl, without a real care in the world. But now I saw her without the mask, knew her for what she was, the woman who was devoting her youth, her beauty, her brilliant talents, to a great cause,—a well-nigh hopeless one,—and I loved her more than ever, with a passionate fervor that, I honestly declare, had no taint of selfishness in it. From that moment I told myself that it was enough for me merely to be near her, to serve her, shield her perhaps, and count, as a rich reward, every chance word or thought or smile she might bestow on me.
“Yes, it is well; your duty lies there,” I heard her say. “God be with you, old friend; and farewell!”
She slipped her right hand out of its loose leather glove, and held it out to him.
When I first saw her at Chelsea, I had decided that hers were the most beautiful hands in the world, not small, but exquisitely shaped,—hands that, in their graceful movements, somehow seemed to convey a subtle idea of power and versatility. She never wore rings. I remembered how Mary once remarked on this peculiarity, and Anne had answered that she did not care for them.
“But you’ve quite a lot in your jewel case, lovely old ones; you ought to wear them, Anne,” Mary protested, and Anne’s eyes had darkened as they always did in moments of emotion.
“They were my mother’s. Father gave them me years ago, and I always carry them about with me; but I never wear them,” she said quietly.
The remembrance of this little episode flashed through my mind as I saw her hold out her ringless hand,—begrimed now with dirt and smoke, with a purple mark like a bruise between the thumb and first finger, that showed me she had been one of the firing party.
Pavloff bared his shaggy head, and bent over the hand as if it had been that of an empress; then moved away and went plump on his knees before Loris.
“Where is he going?” I asked Anne, ranging my horse alongside.
“Back to his work, like the good man he is,” she said, her eyes fixed on Loris, who had raised the old steward and was speaking to him rapidly and affectionately. “He came thus far lest we should have need of him; perhaps also because he would say farewell to me,—sincewe shall not meet again. But now he will return and continue his duty at Zostrov as long as he is permitted to do so. That may not be long,—but still his post is there.”
“They will murder him, as some of them tried to murder the Duke last night,” I said. “You have heard of the explosion?”
She nodded, but made no comment, and, as Pavloff mounted and rode off alone, Loris also mounted and joined us with Vassilitzi, and the four of us started at a hand-gallop, a little ahead of the others. Loris rode on Anne’s right hand, I on her left, and I noticed, as I glanced at her from time to time, how weary and wistful her face was, when the transient smile had vanished; how wide and sombre the eyes that, as I knew of old, changed with every mood, so that one could never determine their color; at one moment a sparkling hazel, at another—as now—dark and mysterious as the sky on a starless night.
The last part of our route lay through thick woods, where the cold light of the dawn barely penetrated as yet, though the foliage was thin overhead, and the autumn leaves made a soft carpet on which our horses’ hoofs fell almost without a sound.
We seemed to move like a troop of shadows through that ghostly twilight. One could imagine it an enchanted forest, like those of our nursery tales, with evil things stirring in the brakes all about us, and watching us unseen. Once there came a long-drawn wail from near at hand; and a big wolf, homing to his lair at the dawning, trotted across the track just ahead, and bared his fangs in a snarl before he vanished. A few minutes later another sound rang weirdly above the stealthywhispers of the forest,—the scream of some creature in mortal fear and pain.
“That is a horse that the wolves are after—or they’ve got him!” exclaimed Vassilitzi. He and I were leading now, for the track was only wide enough for two to ride abreast. We quickened our pace, though we were going at a smart trot, and as a second scream reached our ears, ending abruptly in a queer gurgle, we saw in front a shapeless heap, from which two shadowy forms started up growling, but turned tail and vanished, as the other wolf had done, as we galloped towards them.
The fallen horse was a shaggy country nag, with a rope bridle and no saddle. The wolves had fastened on his throat, but he was not yet dead, and as I jumped down and stood over him he made a last convulsive effort to rise, glaring at me piteously with his blood-flecked eyes. We saw then that his fore-leg was broken, and I decided the best thing to do was to put the beast out of his misery. So I did it right then with a shot in his ear.
“He has been ridden hard; he was just about spent when he stumbled on that fallen trunk and fell, and that was some time since,” said Vassilitzi, looking critically at the quivering, sweat-drenched carcase. “Now, what does it mean? If the wolves had chased him,—and they are not so bold now as in the winter,—they would have had him down before, and his rider too; but they had only just found him.”
He stared ahead and shrugged his shoulders with the air of a man who dismisses an unimportant question to which he cannot find a ready answer.
The others caught up with us as I got into my saddleagain, and we made no delay, as the incident was not of sufficient moment.
We passed one or two huts, that appeared to be uninhabited, and came at last to the open, or rather to a space of a few hundred acres, ringed round by the forest, and saw in the centre of the clearing a low, rambling old house of stone, enclosed with a high wall, and near the tall gateway a few scattered wooden huts.
Some fowls and pigs were straying about, and a few dejected looking cows and a couple of horses were grazing near at hand; but there was no sign of human life.
“Diable!Where are they all?” exclaimed Vassilitzi, frowning and biting his mustache.
“What place is this?” I asked him.
“Mine. It was a hunting lodge once; now it represents all my—our—possessions. But where are the people?”
He rode to the nearest hut, kicked open the crazy door, and shouted imperatively; but there was no reply. The whole place was deserted.
Thence to the gateway, with its solid oak doors. He jumped down and tried them, petulantly muttering what certainly sounded like a string of oaths. But they were locked and barred.
The others rode up, Anne and Loris first, the men straggling after.
Anne was swaying in her saddle; her face was ashy pale. I think she would have fallen but that Loris steadied her with his arm.
“What now?” she gasped. “There has been no fighting;” she glanced wildly around, “and yet—where are they all? We left twenty to guard her, within,besides these others.” She stretched her hand towards the empty huts.
“Give the signal!” she continued, turning to Loris. “If there are any within they will answer that!”
He drew his revolver and fired five shots in the air; while we all sat, staring at him, and wondering what would happen next; at least that was what I was wondering. The silence was so uncanny!
At last there was a movement within. Halting footsteps approached the gates, and a man’s voice, hoarse and weak, demanded: “Who is there?”
“It is Yossof,” Anne exclaimed. “How comes he here alone? Where is my mother, Yossof?”
I started as I heard that. Her mother was alive, then, though Anne had said she could not remember her, and Treherne had told me she died soon after her arrest, more than twenty years back.
“She is within and safe; Natalya is with her,” came Yossof’s quavering voice, as he labored to unbar the gates. We heard him gasping and groaning as if the task was beyond his strength, but he managed it at last. The great doors swung open, and he stood leaning against one of them. In the chill morning light his face looked gray and drawn like that of a corpse, just as it had looked that first time I saw him on the staircase at Westminster. On the weed-grown path beside him lay a revolver, as if he had dropped it out of his hand when he started to unbar the gates.
“What has happened, Yossof?” Anne asked urgently.
“Nothing; all is well, Excellency,” he answered. “I rode and gave the word as the order was, and when I reached the town the madness had begun, so I didnot enter, but came on hither. My horse was spent, and I found another, but he fell and I left him and came on foot. I found none here save the Countess and Natalya; the others had fled, fearing an attack. So I closed the gates and kept guard.”
“God reward thee, friend; thou hast done well, indeed,” Anne said, and moved on to the house.
I felt a twitch on my sleeve, and Mishka muttered in my ear.
“Count our men in and then see the gate barred. We shall be safer so. I will look after Yossof, and find also what food is in the house for us all. We need it sorely!”
So I sat in my saddle beside the gateway, waiting till the last of our laggards had come in. I saw Loris lift Anne from her horse and support her up the short flight of wide stone steps that led up to the house.
An elderly peasant woman hurried out to meet them, and behind her appeared a weird unearthly figure; a tall woman, wearing a kind of loose white dressing-gown. Her gray hair was flying dishevelled about her shoulders; and her face, even seen from a distance as I saw it now, appeared like some horrible travesty of humanity. The wide open eyes were sightless, covered with a white film; the nose was flattened and distorted, the lips contracted, while the other features, forehead and cheeks and chin, were like a livid lined mask, grotesquely seamed and scarred.
The “Thing”—I could not think of it as a human being at that moment—flung out its hands, and shrieked in French, and in a voice that, though shrill with anguish, was piercingly sweet and powerful.
“They have come,—but they shall never take meagain; at least they shall not take me alive. Anthony—Anthony! Where are you, my husband? Save me! do not let them take me!”
Anne hurried towards her, but with a scream she turned and sped back into the house, and some one pushed the door to, so I saw no more; but for some minutes those dreadful screams continued. They sounded almost like the shrieks of Yossof’s horse when the wolves were on him.
The men had all ridden in and were muttering to each other, crossing themselves in superstitious fear. They seemed scared to approach the house; and I believe they’d have stampeded back into the forest if I hadn’t slammed the gates and barred them again.
“It is not good to be here, Excellency,” stammered one. “This place is haunted with ghosts and devils.”
“Nonsense,” I answered roughly. “Brave men you are indeed to be frightened of a poor mad lady who has suffered so cruelly!”
By judicious bullying I got them calmed down a bit; a Russian peasant is a difficult person to manage when he’s in a superstitious funk. Mishka joined me presently, and we marched our men round to the back of the house, and set them foraging for breakfast. Fortunately there was plenty of food; the place seemed provisioned for a siege. I stood about, watching and directing them. I didn’t feel in the least hungry myself, only rather dazed.
A hand fell on my shoulder, and I found Loris beside me.
“Come and eat and sleep, my friend; we have done well so far. Mishka will take charge here.”
He looked almost as fresh and alert after that tremendousnight we’d had, as if he’d just come out of his bedroom at Zostrov, when we joined him in a big dilapidated dining-room, where he’d planked some food and a couple of bottles of wine on the great oaken table, though I was as big a scarecrow as Vassilitzi, who was as used up as if he hadn’t been to bed for a week.
He had dropped his flippant manner, and was as cross and irritable as an over-tired woman.
“Think of thesecanaillethat we feed and clothe, and risk our lives for!” he exclaimed half hysterically. “We left twenty of them here, when Anna and I started for Zizscky yesterday,—twenty armed men. And yet at the first rumor of danger they sneak away to the woods, and leave their charge, that they had sworn to defend, so that we trusted them. And it is these swine, and others like them,—dastards all!—who clamor for what they call freedom, and think if they get their vote and their Duma, all will go well. Why should we throw our lives away for such as these? We are all fools together, you and I and Anna. And you,” he turned towards me, “you are the biggest fool of us all, for you have not even the excuse that is ours! You have no stake in this accursed country and its people.Nom du diable, why do you act as if you had? You are—”
“Calm yourself, Stepán,” Loris interposed. “Go and sleep; we all need that. And as for your cowardly servants, forget all about them. They are worth no more. Go, as I bid you!”
His level voice, his authoritative manner, had their affect, and Vassilitzi lurched away. He wasn’t really drunk; but when a man is famished and dead-tired,two or three glasses of wine will have an immense effect on him; though one glass will serve to pull him together, as it did me, to a certain extent anyhow. I was able to ask Loris about that horrible apparition I had seen.
“Yes, she is the Countess Anna Pendennis, or all that remains of her,” he answered sternly and sadly. “You have only seen her at a distance, but that was sufficient to show you what Siberia may mean to a delicately nurtured woman. If she had only died—as was given out! But she did not die. She worked as a slave,—in the prison in winter, in the fields in summer. She had frost-bite; it destroyed her sight, her face; it made her a horror to look upon. Yet still she did not die, perhaps because her mind was gone, and strength lingers in mad creatures!
“Yossof told all this. He was her fellow prisoner, and he made his escape two—no, three years or more, since. He made his way here, and Anna was good to him; as she is good to every creature in adversity. Until then she had always believed that her mother died at her birth; but when she learned the truth, she would have moved Heaven and earth to deliver her. It was accomplished at last; the Tzar was induced to sign an order for the release of this mad and maimed woman. Just when all hope seemed lost the deliverance came; and the wreck that remains of the Countess Anna Pendennis was brought here,—less than three months ago; and—”
He broke off as the woman servant Yossof had spoken of as Natalya hurried into the room and unceremoniously beckoned him out. He rose at once and followed her, but turned at the door.
“Get some sleep while you can,” he said, noddingtowards a great couch covered with a bear-skin rug. “None will disturb you here for a few hours; and we shall have either to fight or to travel again ere long.”
I sat for a minute or two, trying to think over the long tragedy that he had summed up in so few words, and wondering where Anthony Pendennis was. Surely he should have been here with his wife and daughter; and yet no one had mentioned him, and I had had no opportunity of asking about him,—had, in fact, forgotten his very existence till these last few minutes.
But consecutive thought was impossible, and I gave up the attempt, as I stumbled to the couch and fell fast asleep.
Into my dreams came voices that I knew, speaking in French, in low tones which yet reached my ears distinctly.
“I think we should tell him; it is not right, or just, to keep him in ignorance.”
“No,—no,—we must not tell him; we must not!” Anne said softly, but vehemently. “We shall need him so sorely,—there are so very few whom we can really trust. Besides, why should we tell him? It would break his heart! For remember, we do not know.”
They were not dream voices, but real ones, and as I found that out, I felt I’d better let the speakers,—Anne and Loris,—know I was awake; for I’d no wish to overhear what they were saying, especially as I had a queer intuition that they were talking of me. So I sat up under the fur rug some one had thrown over me, and began to stammer out an apology in English.
The room was almost dark, and through the window, with its heavy stone frame, I saw the last glow of a stormy sunset. Anne and Loris stood there, looking out, and as I moved and spoke she broke off her sentence and came towards me.
“You have slept long, Maurice; that is well,” she said, also in English, with the pretty, deliberate accent I had always thought so charming. “There is no need for apologies; we should have roused you if necessary,but all is quiet so far. Will you come to my boudoir presently? I will give you tea there. We have scarcely had one word together as yet,—and there is so much to say! I will send lights now; some of the servants have returned and will get you all you need.”
Loris opened the door for her, and crossed back to his former post by the window, while I scrambled up, as a scared-looking, shamefaced man servant entered with a lamp, and slunk out again.
“Those wretches! They deserve the knout!” Loris said grimly, when we were alone. “They were all well armed, and yet, at the first hint of danger, they took themselves into hiding, leaving those two women defenceless here. Well, they will have to take care of themselves in future, the curs! The countess is dead,” he added abruptly.
“Dead!” I exclaimed.
“Yes. Always, even in her madness, she remembered all she had suffered, and her terror of being arrested again killed her. It is God’s mercy for her that she is at peace,—and for us, too, for we could not have taken her with us, nor have left her in charge of Natalya and these hounds, as we had intended. We shall bury her out in the courtyard yonder. It is the only way, and later, if nothing prevents, we start for the railroad.”
“Where is Pendennis?” I asked. “Is he not here?”
“No; he may join us later; I cannot say,” he answered, staring out of the window. I felt that he was embarrassed in some way; that there was something he wished to say, but hesitated at saying it. That wasn’t a bit like him, for he had always been the personification of frankness.
“I wonder if there’s a bath to be had in the house,” I said inanely, looking at my grimy hands.
“Yes, in Vassilitzi’s dressing-room; the servant will take you up,” he answered abstractedly, and as I moved towards the wide old-fashioned bell-pull by the stove, he turned and strode after me.
“Wait one moment!” he said hurriedly. “Are you still determined to go through with us? There is still time to turn back, or rather to go back to England. It would not be easy perhaps, but it would be quite possible for you to get through, via Warsaw and Alexandrovo, if you go at once.”
“Why do you ask me that?” I demanded, looking at him very straight. His blue eyes were more troubled than I had ever seen them. “Do you doubt me?”
“No, before God I trust you as I trust none other in the world but Mishka and his father! But you are a stranger, a foreigner; why should you throw your life away for us?”
“I have told you why, before. Because I only value my life so far as it may be of service to—her. If I left her and you, now, as you suggest, smuggled myself back into safety,—man, it’s not to be thought of!”
“Well, I will urge you no more,” he said sadly. “But you are sacrificing yourself for a chivalrous delusion, my friend.”
“Where’s the delusion? I know she does not love me; and I am quite content.”
Long after, I knew what he had wished to tell me then, and I can’t even now decide what I’d have done if he had spoken, whether I would have gone or stayed; but I think I’d have stayed!
When I had bathed and dressed in Vassilitzi’s dressing-room,—he was still in bed and asleep in the adjoining one,—a servant took me to Anne’s boudoir, a small bare room that yet had a cosey homelike look about it.
She was alone, sitting in a low chair, her hands lying listlessly on the lap of her black gown. Her face was even whiter and more weary than it had looked in the morning, and she had been weeping, I saw, for her long lashes were still wet; but she summoned up a smile for me,—that brave smile, that was, in a way, sadder and more moving than tears.
“You have heard that my mother is dead?” she asked, in a low voice. “She died in my arms half an hour after we got in; and I am so glad,—so glad. I have been thanking God in my heart ever since. She never knew me; she knew none of us, but Yossof; and that only because he had been near her in that dreadful place. You saw her—just for a moment; you saw something of what those long years had made of her,—and we—my God, we had thought her dead all that time!”
She shuddered, and sat staring with stern, sombre eyes at the fire, her slender fingers convulsively interlaced.
She was silent for a space, and so was I, for I could find never a word to say.
Suddenly she looked straight at me.
“Maurice Wynn, if ever the time comes when you might blame me, condemn me,—justifiably enough,—think of my mother’s history. Remember that I was brought up with one fixed purpose in life,—to avenge her, even when I only thought her dead. Howmuch more should that vengeance be, now that I know all that she had to suffer! And she is only one among thousands who have suffered,—who are suffering as much,—yes, and more! There is but one way,—to crush, to destroy, the power that has done,—that is doing these deeds. It will not be done in our time, but we are at least preparing the way; within a few days we shall have gone some distance along it—with a rush—towards our goal. I tell you that to further this work I would—I will—do anything; sacrifice even those who are dearer to me than my own soul! Therefore, as I said, remember that, when you would condemn me for aught I have done, or shall do!”
“I can never condemn you, Anne; you know that well! The queen can do no wrong!”
The fire that had flashed into her eyes faded, dimmed, I thought, by a mist of tears.
“You are indeed a true knight, Maurice Wynn,” she said wistfully. “I do not deserve such devotion; no, don’t interrupt me, I know well what I am saying, and perhaps you also will know some day. I have deceived you in many ways; you know that well enough—”
“As I now know your purpose,” I answered. “But why didn’t you trust me at first, Anne? When we were in London? Don’t think I’m blaming you, I’m not, really; but surely you must have known, even then, that you might have trusted me,—yes, and Mary, too.”
She was not looking at me now, but at the fire, and she paused before she answered slowly.
“It was not because I did not trust you, and her; but I did not wish to involve either of you in my fortunes.You have involved yourself in them,—my poor, foolish friend! But she, have you told her anything?”
“No. She does not even know that I am back in Russia; and before I returned I told her nothing.”
“She thinks me dead?”
“She did not know what to think; and she fretted terribly at your silence.”
“Poor Mary!” she said, with a queer little pathetic smile. “Well, perhaps her mind is at rest by this time.”
“You have written to her?”
“No,—but she has news by this time.”
“And your father?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“You must ask me nothing of him; perhaps you will learn all there is to know one day. How strangely your fate has been linked with mine! Think of Yossof meetingyouthat night. He had heard of my danger from the League. Ah, that traitor, Selinski! How much his miserable soul had to answer for! And he did not know whom to trust, so he set out himself, though he speaks no word of any language but his own, and bribed and begged his way to London. He found out some of the League there, at a place in Soho, learned there where Selinski lived, stole the key to his rooms, and—met you. He is a marvel, the poor good Yossof!”
“Did you know it was he, when I described him that night?” I asked impulsively.
She looked up quickly.
“I have told you, I did not wish to entangle you in my affairs, and—”
The door opened and her cousin entered.
“Ah, you are engaged,” he exclaimed, glancing from one to the other of us.
“No, we have finished our chat,” said Anne. “Come and sit down, Stepán—for a few minutes only. We have much to do,—and far to go, to-night.”
How weary and wistful her face looked as she spoke!
Afew hours later we were on the road once more,—Anne and Natalya in a travelling carriage, the rest of us mounted. The old servant was sobbing hysterically as she followed her mistress down the steps, but Anne’s white face was tearless, though she turned it for a moment with a yearning farewell glance towards the fresh-made mound in the courtyard, the grave where we had laid the corpse of her mother, in the coffin which Mishka and some of the men had made during the day.
That hurried funeral was as impressive as any I’ve ever been at, though there was no service, for it would have been impossible to summon a priest in time. Besides, I doubt if they’d have got an orthodox Russian priest to come, for the Vassilitzis were Roman Catholics, as so many of the old Polish nobility are.
In dead silence the four of us, Loris and Stepán, Mishka and I, carried the coffin down, wrapped in an old curtain of rich brocade, and stood by with bowed heads, while, still in silence, it was lowered down, pall and all.
As we turned away, I saw a face at one of the windows and knew Anne had watched us at our task. Her self-control, her powers of endurance, were marvellous. I do not believe she had slept all that day, and yet when the carriage was ready she came out with a steady step;and I heard her speak soothingly to the weeping Natalya.
That was the last I saw or heard of her for several days, for it had been arranged that she should drive to Pruschan, escorted only by Loris and her cousin and a couple of our men, and travel thence by train to Warsaw, while Mishka and I with the others would ride the whole way. It meant a couple of days’ delay in reaching Warsaw, but it seemed the safest plan; and it worked without a hitch. By twos and threes we rode into Warsaw in the early morning of the day that saw the beginning of the great strike,—and of the revolution which will end only when the Russian Empire becomes a Free Republic; and God only knows when that will come to pass!
I have been through three regular campaigns in different parts of the world during the last ten years, and had a good many thrilling experiences, one way and another; but the weeks I spent in Warsaw in the late fall of the year 1905 were the strangest and most eventful I’ve ever gone through.
As I look back now, the whole thing seems like a long and vivid nightmare, of which some few incidents stand out with dreadful distinctness, and the rest is a mere blur, a confusion of shifting figures and scenes; of noise and dust and bloodshed. Strenuous days of street rioting and fighting, in which one and all of us did our share; and when the row was over for the time being, turned our hands to ambulance work. Nights that were even more strenuous than the days, for in the night the next day’s plan had to be decided on, funds and food given out, the circulars (reporting progress and urging the people to stand fast) to be drawnup, printed, and issued. Such publications were prohibited, of course; but Warsaw, like most of the other cities, was strewn with them. People read them, flaunting them openly before the eyes of the authorities; and though the police and the soldiers tried the plan of bayoneting or shooting at sight every one whom they saw with a revolutionary print, they soon had to reserve it for any defenceless woman or even child whom they might encounter. For the great majority of the strikers were armed, and they showed themselves even quicker with their revolvers and “killers” than the soldiers were with their rifles; while every soldier killed represented one more rifle seized.
We reported ourselves on arrival, as arranged, at a spacious old house in a narrow street near the University, which thenceforth became our headquarters; and, within a few hours, a kind of hospital, also, for there were soon many wounded to be cared for.
Anne organized a band of women as amateur nurses, with Natalya at the head of them, in our house, while others were on duty elsewhere. This quarter, as I found, was a stronghold of the League; and many houses were, like ours, turned into temporary hospitals. But I gathered that comparatively few of Anne’s most influential colleagues were in sympathy with her efforts to mitigate the horrors that surrounded us. In that way, we, her own chosen band, worked almost alone. Most of the revolutionists were as callous, as brutal, as the Cossacks themselves,—women as well as men. They would march in procession, waving banners and singing patriotic songs, and, when the inevitable collision with the soldiers came, they would fight like furies, and die with a laugh of defiance on their lips. Butthose who came through, unscathed, had neither care nor sympathy to bestow on the fallen.
“I join your band of nurses?” a handsome vivacious little woman—evidently one of her own rank—said to Anne one day, with a scornful laugh. “I am no good at such work. Give me real work to do, a bomb to throw, a revolver to fire; I have that at least”—she touched her fur blouse significantly. “I want to fight—to kill—and if I am killed instead, well, it is but the fortune of war! But nursing—bah—I have not the patience! You are far too tender-hearted, Anna Petrovna; you ought to have been a nun; but what would our handsome Loris have done then? Oh, it is all right,ma chère; I am quite discreet. But do you suppose I have not recognized him?”
Anne looked troubled.
“And others,—do they recognize him?” she asked quietly.
“Who knows? We are too busy these days to think or care who any one is or is not. Besides, he is supposed to be dead; it was cleverly planned, that bomb affair! Was it your doing, Anna? He is too stupidly honest to have thought of it himself. There! Do not look so vexed, and have no fear that I shall denounce him. He is far too good-looking! You have apenchantfor good-looking men,” she added, with an audacious glance in my direction.
It happened for once that Anne and I were alone together, until Madame Levinska turned up, in the room that was used as an office, and where between-whiles I did a good bit of secretarial work. That small untidy room represented the bureau from which the whole of this section of the League was controlled, practicallyby that slender, pale-faced girl in the black gown, who sat gravely regarding her frivolous acquaintance.
Her grasp of affairs was as marvellous as her personal courage in time of need; she was at once the head and the heart of the whole organization.
I felt angry with the Levinska woman for her taunt. She, and such as she, who were like so many undisciplined children, and whose ideas of revolution were practically limited to acts of violence committed in defiance or reprisal, could not even begin to understand the ideals not merely held, but maintained, by Anne and Loris, and the few others who, with them, knew that permanent good could never be accomplished by evil means. Those two were dreamers, dreaming greatly; theirs was the vision splendid, though they saw it only from far off, and strove courageously but unavailingly to draw near to it. That vision will some day become a reality; and then,—I wonder if any remembrance of those who saw it first and paved the way to its realization, will linger, save in the minds of the few who knew, and loved, and worked beside them, but who were not permitted to share their fate? I doubt it, for the world at large has a short memory!
Anne made no comment on Madame Levinska’s last remark, while I kept on with my work. I wished the woman would go, for we had much to get through this afternoon, and at any moment some serious interruption might occur; or the news we were awaiting might come.
The streets were unusually quiet to-day, hereabouts at any rate, and a few timid folk who had kept within doors of late had again ventured out. On the previousday several big meetings had been held, almost without opposition, for, although martial law was proclaimed, and thousands of soldiers had entered the city, “to repress disturbances” many of the troops, including a whole regiment of hussars from Grodno, had refused to fire on the people. Since then there was a decided abatement of hostilities; though one dared not hope that it meant more than a mere lull in the storm.
The railway and telegraph strikes were maintained, but plenty of news got through,—news that the revolution was general; that Kronstadt and Riga were in flames; Petersburg and Moscow in a state of anarchy; that many of the troops had mutinied and were fighting on the side of the revolutionists, while the rest were disheartened and tired out. During the last few hours persistent rumors had reached us that the Tzar was on the point of issuing a manifesto granting civil and political liberty to the people; a capitulation on all important points in fact. If the news were true it was magnificent. Such of us as were optimists believed it would be the beginning of a new and glorious era. Already we had disseminated such information as had reached us, by issuing broadcast small news-sheets damp from the secret printing-press in the cellar of the old house. A week or two ago that press would have had to be shifted to a fresh hiding-place every night; but in these days the police had no time for making systematic inquisitions; it was all they could do to hold their own openly against the mob.
And now we were waiting for fresh and more definite tidings, and I know Anne’s heart beat high with hope, though we had not exchanged a dozen words beforeMadame Levinska made her unwelcome appearance; and Anne, who had but just returned to the room after going the round of our amateur hospital, tackled her about the nursing.
She stayed for a few minutes longer, continuing her irresponsible chatter and then, to my relief, anyhow, took herself off, announcing airily that she was going to see if there was any fun stirring.
“Do not be reckless, Marie,” Anne called after her. “You do no good by that, and may do much harm.”
“Have no fear for me, little nun,” she retorted gaily, over her shoulder. “I can take care of myself.”
“She sees only,—cares only for the excitement, the poor Marie!” I heard Anne murmur with a sigh, as she crossed to the window and watched her friend’s retreating figure; a jaunty audacious little figure it was!
There was a clatter and jingle below, and three or four Cossacks cantered along. One of them called out something to Madame Levinska, and she turned and shrilled back an answer, her black eyes flashing.
He reined up and slashed at her with hisnagaika.
Even before the jagged lead caught her face, ripping it from brow to chin, she drew her revolver and fired pointblank at him, missed him, and fell, as he spurred his horse on to her and struck again and again with his terrible whip.
In an instant the street was in an uproar.