The Empress's court of Secret Chancery soon decided on the fate of Basil Mierowitz; the Count, his father, and his cousin Mariolizza, who had been passive, though suspected in the matter, had their cases taken into future consideration, so they were kept close prisoners while their properties and possessions were given up to pillage and military execution. Basil was condemned to be broken alive upon the wheel; but the Empress, who had a particular tenderness for handsome men, "mitigated his punishment to the less severe one of being beheaded."
A brief paragraph in theLondon Gazetteof the 23rd October records this brave fellow's death, just fourteen days after his rash affair at Schlusselburg:
"M. Mierowitz, in pursuance of his sentence, was publicly beheaded on Wednesday last; he behaved at his execution, as he had done throughout the whole transaction, with the greatest resignation. Six of the soldiers and under-officers who were engaged with him ran the gantelope the same day; they were so severely whipped that it is said three of them are since dead. Many more are to be punished. One, Usakoff, a Lieutenant in the Regiment of Welikolutz (sic) who was privy to the design, was accidentally drowned."
Notwithstanding his rank and years, old Count Mierowitz was retained in a dungeon among a number of miserable Russian rogues and Polish prisoners, clad in filthy sheepskin shoubahs, many of them being afflicted with the terrible disease known asplica polonica, or matted hair, which hung over their necks in clotted lumps, every tube being swollen and dilated with globules of blood.
The lower vaults of Schlusselburg were those built by Ivan the Terrible, for the reception of a few of the revolters of Novgorod, after he had put twenty-five thousand of her citizens to the sword. They were such prisons as—let us hope—are no longer in use, even in Russia, although the London press has asserted that, until lately, exactly suchoubliettesor dungeons were in active operation, and never without tenants, under the royal rule of the deposed Francis II., and prior to the remodelling of Italy by Victor Emmanuel.
They were like the frightful cells of the Bastile, which Victor Hugo has described in "Notre Dame;" those of the Inquisition at Goa or Madrid, or of old castles of the middle ages; but apart from the happily departed horrors of such places, even English jails have been little better than living graves within the memory of many now alive; for one of the greatest glories of modern civilisation, in all countries, has been the amelioration of prisons and their government, and the substitution of mercy and protection in their general economy for that irresponsible despotism and wanton cruelty which have formed such ample materials for the romancer and novelist to excite compassion and even dismay.
Yet it is exactly such a place—a prison of the middle ages—a rival to that Chillon to which Byron's genius has given a greater name than ever its terrors won it—we are now about to describe: one of the lower vaults of Schlusselburg, a den, the floor of which was below the rocks whereon the seals of Ladoga basked in the sunshine, and which was consequently liable to be flooded during those inundations that at certain seasons, overflow all the country for a great way north, so that no crops will grow save upon the eminences.
Vaulted with stone, it was nearly square, and measured twelve feet each way, with a floor that sloped down at one end, having been unevenly hewn out when the rock was pierced; and from a portion of this rock sprang the solid arch of granite blocks which formed the roof. A narrow slit, six inches broad by twelve high, and having even in that small space a thick iron bar, admitted to the interior a feeble ray of light. This slit was partly built of stone, but its sill was the living rock of Schlusselburg. It opened towards the lake, but gave no prospect save the clouds, for it was high up in the wall; yet the melancholy cries of the waterfowl and of the seabirds, which often came up the Neva from the Baltic, were heard through it at times.
The prisoner, when seated on the stone bench which formed a bed or seat alternately, could only see the changing hues of the sky and patches of cloud, and know by the darkness which gradually obscured this mere shot-hole that day was passing away, and that another night, chill, dark, dreary, and hopeless, was at hand.
As the floor sloped down some twelve inches or more, the lower end was always full of water, into which the slime that gathered on the vault of the arch fell at intervals with a regular plash that, to the silent and apparently forgotten prisoner, became maddening in its monotony of sound, by day and night, by morning and evening, by dawn and sunset. Then, as the tides rose and fell, or as the waters of the vast inland lake of Ladoga are affected by the Baltic stopping the downward flow of the Neva, or by rains flooding the many tributaries that join them, so did this dark pool in the dungeon rise and fall, when the current oozed through secret and unknown channels or crannies in the granite rocks.
It was in this vault, or one of those adjoining—such a den as that in which Dante placed his Demon—that the betrayed wife of Count Orloff, the beautiful daughter of the Empress Elizabeth, was drowned, ten years after the date of this history, when the waters of the Neva rose ten feet; and, as they subsided, bore her body to the Gulf of Finland.
No one could live very long in such a place—low, damp, cold, and horrible. And well did Bernikoff know this, when, in the blind transports of rage and agony resulting from his double wounds, he barbarously consigned Natalie Mierowna to such a place—ay, even Natalie, the soft and delicate, the highly-bred and tenderly-nurtured daughter of Count Mierowitz; and she had now been in the underground vault for three days and nights,—seventy-two hours,—which to her had resembled a horrible and protracted nightmare.
She was ignorant as yet of her brother's execution, a week before. Betrayed by one of their most trusted adherents as the price of his own liberty, she and Katinka had been taken. Of the fate of the latter she knew nothing: a mere Polish waiting-maid, a pretty soubrette, she had too probably become the lawful prey of the Cossacks, whom Natalie had last seen in the forest, with terrible significance rattling their dice on a kettle-drum head.
For herself, the poor girl only knew that she was placed there to await the pleasure of the Empress and the Grand Chancellor.
Hope was dead completely in her heart; and though the desire to live was strong, her former life seemed all a dream, or something that had happened long, long ago!
Crouching on a damp pallet that lay on the couch of stone, her hair dishevelled, her dress more than ever torn, discoloured, and disordered, her snowy arms and hands stripped of every ornament and ring, her tender feet well-nigh shoeless, her eyes half closed and surrounded by dark inflamed circles, her cheeks sunk and haggard,—it would be difficult to recognise in her the once beautiful and brilliant Natalie, whose coquetry had excited the ready jealousy of Catharine in that fatal Mazurka; the Natalie of the imperialsalonsat Moscow, at Oranienbaum, or the palace of Tsarsky Selo; or the Natalie of that princely old château near the Louga—the proud, bright-eyed, and beautiful girl whom Charlie Balgonie had loved, and worshipped as a goddess.
As she crouched in a species of stupor beside a wooden bowl of stale water and a mouldy loaf of black bread, there seemed to be no breath in her tender nostrils, no sound in those little ears over which the black hair rolled in unheeded masses—no sound save the monotonous plash of the dropping slime. She was pale as white marble,—cold as death,—a prey to utter confusion rather than profound grief. There were times when she felt and thought and knew of nothing: but there were others when all the past—the memory of her ruined house, her shattered love, her slaughtered friends, their fatal project, and her lost position in society—brought a cruel and keen pang to her heart, and made her writhe and start and wring her hands, but not weep; for she had not a tear left; and her hard dry eyeballs were the only warm part of her shuddering frame.
Seventy-two hours had she been there, yet the time seemed so long already, that she knew not whether it were seventy-two days or the same number of weeks.
When she did rouse herself to steady reflection and the realities of her position, thought well-nigh drove her mad.
Her old father—his sturdy figure, his venerable beard and white eyebrows, his silver hair queued by a simple ribbon, his quaint old-fashioned costume of the first Peter's time, rose vividly before her; and with a gush of memory came all his peculiarities of disposition, his warmth of heart and temper, his kindness and irritability, his pride of race and family. Where were all these now?
Her lover too—his voice, and eyes, and gentle manner came next, to add to her pangs; for him too must she relinquish for ever: no shelter was there now for her save the cold grave, which was perhaps to receive them all! Basil, Usakoff, and Mariolizza—alas! terrible though her own sufferings, she little knew those to which the fairer beauty and more unwary tongue of Mariolizza had subjected that unhappy girl.
The excellent taste, the polished education, and high accomplishments of Natalie, which were so far superior to those of most ladies of her own rank and country then, gave a greater poignancy to the horrors of reality and imagination; yet imagination could supply no horror but what was real and sternly so.
Their princely old dwelling amid the pine forests—never more would she see its dome of polished copper shining in the sun, or the wooded domain that stretched for uncounted versts around it; or her father's patrimonial village, nestling by the Louga, which bore his rafts of timber to the sea, and by night reflected the glare of those furnaces which were another source of his vast wealth, and the means of procuring a thousand luxuries.
Better would it have been, had she and they and all succumbed to Catharine's iron rule, than sought the freedom of Ivan IV; but it was too late—too late, now!
Was it all a dream from, which she must awaken? Strange it was, that as weariness, sleep, or a stupor stole over her, scraps of songs, frivolous ones especially, airs from operas, and so forth, occurred to her drowsy ear, as if her brain was turning; and to these the filtering plash and the sound of the rising waves and wind without seemed to mark a cadence.
Suddenly a scream escaped her: she was in total darkness. Amid her sleep or stupor, a fourth night had come on—a night of storm too; for she heard the roar of the autumn rain, as it descended like a vast sheet upon the lake without.
Cold and slimy things had often crossed her slender ankles, making her shrink and shudder: but now she became sensible that her feet were completely immersed in water; that the wind was bellowing without and rolling the waves against the rocks; and that the current of the lake was flooding the floor of her vault, and rising fast within it.
It rose with appalling rapidity: and now the terror of a dreadful death made Natalie utter a succession of piercing shrieks, mingled with prayers to heaven. But her cries were unheard; for the same cold, icy tide that flooded her cell, filled all the corridors by which it and others on the same floor were approached.
Rapidly it rose, this dark, silent, and terrible tide—rapidly and without a sound.
She sprang upon her stone couch, but already the pallet was floated away. Up yet rose the invading water, and it was soon nearly to her waist; and gasping and shuddering cries were mingled with her prayers. A little more, and the narrow slit through which she could hear the bellowing wind and see the black clouds careering past one red and fiery northern star—the last gleam of life and of the outer world—would vanish from her eyes, as she perished in that miserable tomb: even as the Princess Orloff and many others have done, helpless and unheeded in their dying agony—drowned miserably, like the prison rats that swam around them.
In the last energies of her despair, she made her way to the enormously thick door which closed this trap of stone, and, applying her lips to the joints, shrieked loudly again and again for succour, and beat wildly and fruitlessly with her tender hands upon its massive planks and iron bolts.
Her brain seemed bursting, for she was suffocating as the air lessened. She thought she saw a red light shining through the crannies of the doorway; but whether this were fancy or reality, it was impossible to say, as a faintness came over her, and she sank down choking and drowning in the dark flood that rose within the walls and against the door of the prison.
Heavy and sad was the heart of Charlie Balgonie when, on the evening of the 16th September, that which was subsequent to the episode at Schlusselburg, he saw the domes and towers of St. Petersburg glittering in gold and bronze, in green and fiery or fantastic colours, amid the rich glow of a ruddy sunset; and where rising from the haze of the vast city, the polished cupola of St. Isaac's Cathedral, and the slender spire of the Admiralty, like a needle of flame, seemed to float in mid air.
As he entered the first guarded barrier, he met a party of Lancers riding at a trot, their tall fur caps having scarlet kalpecs and large plumes, their lances, each with a long bannerole of the same colour, waving in the wind. They escorted a covered kabitka, or waggon, and were led by the Count de Balmain, a Scottish officer, who, in after years, stormed Kaffa, in the Crimea.
"Whither go you, Count?" he asked.
"For Schlusselburg—the place of sorrow."
"With a prisoner, of course?"
"Yes, I regret to say, with the niece of Count Mierowitz, with Mademoiselle Mariolizza. She is to be confined under a warrant from the Grand Chancellor—poor girl!"
Sadder and heavier grew the honest heart of Balgonie, as the escort and its hearse-like carriage passed on; and, as he looked after it, the fair merry face, the full and voluptuous figure, the gay manner, and remarkablefinesse d'espritof the betrothed of poor Basil, as he had last seen her at Louga, came back vividly to memory now.
Balgonie was at St. Petersburg when Mierowitz was executed, and when other horrors followed. Moreover, he was closely and repeatedly interrogated by the Grand Chancellor, the Privy Councillor, Count Panim, by Count Orloff (the present lover of the Empress), and by General Weymarn, as to all he knew and had seen of the conspirators—so closely, that nothing surprised him so much as to find that no suspicion was attached to himself. But being a soldier of fortune, who possessed nothing in the world but his sword and his epaulettes, he was not worth suspecting by the Imperial Government.
Ere long, the name of Natalie came before the Secret Chancery, as a prisoner in Schlusselburg; and, like the rest, she was tried and condemned in absence, undefended and unheard; and sentenced, too, amid the solitude of her prison.
To Balgonie the charm of life seemed to have passed away; and, during the week or two that followed his return to St. Petersburg, dreary, weary, and unmeaning, indeed, seemed the routine of his duties as aide-de-camp at the vast parades, the brilliant receptions, the courts-martial, and other public affairs to which he followed hischef, General Weymarn, at the palaces of Tsarsky Selo or Oranienbaum, and elsewhere, while ignorant of the fate of Natalie—while the very life of her he loved hung in the balance.
When compared with their fate, how happy seemed those lovers, who, though separated for a period, could look confidently forward through the long succession of hours, of days and nights, of weeks, and months, or even years, and reckon with certainty on the time of reunion! With him and Natalie, time stretched into a length that seemed interminable: their future had no background; their separation was one without hope.
Charlie, in his desperation, applied to the Marquis de Bausset and to Sir George Macartney, then the Ambassadors from France and Britain; and both received his verbal prayers—he dared not write on such a subject—for mercy to the Count's family: but they were unheeded; and the Ministers replied only by bows, grimaces, and shrugs of their diplomatic shoulders. Their interference was impossible—quite; and, unfortunately, his old patron, Admiral Thomas Mackenzie, was with the fleet in the Black Sea.
The suspicions excited against his Regiment and the Grenadiers of Valikolutz, might procure the banishment of both; he feared it in the form of service in Siberia, or at the Crimean lines of Perecop. In either case, unless Weymarn stood his friend, how could he hope to succour Natalie!
At every tea-house, hotel, and café, his uniform of the Smolensko Infantry, and the knowledge that he was the staff officer who had been in Schlusselburg, and who brought the first tidings of the late affair, made him an object of special interest; but the subject was alike a perilous and painful one. Walls have many ears in Russia; so he was compelled to be silent, or discreet, even to rudeness, though the following declaration, which was issued by the Empress, might have allayed his fears:—
"We, Catharine the Second, by the Grace of God, Empress and Sovereign of all the Russias, &c., &c., make known to our Regiment of Smolensko Infantry that, according to the equity which we exert towards our faithful subjects, we cannot represent to ourselves, without profound grief, how much that regiment must be afflicted, for having among its officers a wretch in the person of Mierowitz: nevertheless, as the crime of one man cannot affect those who had no part in it, and that, besides, we know the bravery with which the regiment has distinguished itself upon all occasions, its attachment to strict discipline, and its exactness in the military duty of our empire; therefore we grant it, through our imperial good-will, the same assurances of protection which it has in all times deserved. In consequence, we forbid all and every one, to reproach or upbraid the said regiment concerning the treason of Mierowitz, under pain of incurring our indignation, and drawing on themselves the effects of our just resentment.
(Signed) "CATHARINE."
Hope seemed to revive a little after the issue of this conciliatory oukaz; but it was speedily dashed, when Balgonie, on returning from Cronstadt, whither he had been sent by General Weymarn, suddenly met Captain Vlasfief face to face, near the palace of the favourite Lanskoi.
This personage he would have avoided like a toad or a leper; but from him only might he learn something of her he loved in Schlusselburg, that hateful place to which the Captain was returning; so, overcoming, or rather concealing, his repugnance, he adjourned with him to a café, and ordered wine.
"I dare say you have heard," said Vlasfief, with a strange leer in his eyes, as he tossed his hat and sabre on one sofa and deposited his jack-booted limbs on another, "how the estates of the Count and those of Usakoff have been sold or gifted away; pillaged and ravaged by Lanskoi with a party of Tchernemoski Cossacks; and that the plunder has been stored up in Schlusselburg?"
"Something of all this I have heard," replied Balgonie, when the waiter had filled their glasses and withdrawn, "and—and—but you have there two ladies of the Count's family?"
"True—Mademoiselle Mariolizza, who was engaged to Mierowitz, and the Count's daughter: one beautifully fair, the other black-haired like a Pole. Poor girls!" he continued, while leisurely filling the large china bowl of a tasselled pipe, which suspiciously resembled one Charlie had often seen the old Count smoking, "I remember them both in happier and brighter times; but those who play with fire will, you know, be burned. The sentences on all have been found, recorded, and, in two instances, executed; and they are truly terrible!"
"Executed—the sentence!" repeated Balgonie, in a faint voice.
"Yes; you have been four days at Cronstadt: well, in those four days many things have been done—a light; thank you. The Count is now travelling towards Tobolsk under an escort of Balmain's Lancers. There he will have to hunt the ermine, cultivate asafœtida, or dig in the mines, with a collar at his neck, for the remainder of his days; but for the ladies of his family, a more severe punishment was reserved: ah! he is a stern fellow, old Panim!"
"How—what? Vlasfief, you jest?"
"'Tis no jest: we don't jest on such matters in Russia," replied Vlasfief, who was too thorough aroué—too "used up," in fact—to care for what any woman might suffer or undergo; for every human emotion and sympathy were dead in this man now.
"What new horrors am I to hear?" exclaimed Balgonie, with passionate vehemence, as he dashed his heavy Turkish sabre on the table.
Vlasfief smiled sourly, and his cunning eyes twinkled.
"You are a Scot, like Balmain," said he disdainfully; "and as the Turks—those accursed unbelievers—say, but truly, 'Those who have never seen the world think it is all like their father's house.' Pass the bottle—'tis Cracow wine this, and not worth four ducats the flask. In short, the—the two ladies of the Count's family, in the wildness of their grief,—Mariolizza especially,—on hearing of the death of Mierowitz, permitted their tongues to run riot, and to say such things of Her Imperial Majesty and some of her favourites, such as Count Orloff, Lanskoi, the Grenadier, and so forth, as no woman would pardon, you understand; so they are to be given in succession tole maître d'entre les épaules—the master of the shoulders," added Vlasfief, with a species of laugh at the strange expression which he saw gathering in Balgonie's face.
"Explain, I implore you, explain!" asked the latter, with quivering lips, as he set down a crystal goblet of Hungarian wine untasted on the table.
"Mademoiselle Mariolizza—but you don't drink fairly, Ivanovitch—has received six blows of the knout. The torturer is a new man, and mangled her cruelly. She has had her tongue cut out, and her forehead branded with the executioner's mark;* and she goes to Siberia as soon as she recovers: but she will never reach it alive, even if she escapes the fever that has now seized her; for as the whole family has been degraded,—declared infamous and without protection,—being tongueless, she will become the prey of the Cossacks en route. Once beyond the Volga, we never know what happens. The Count's daughter will undergo exactly similar punishment; and, if she survives it, they will be mercifully permitted to travel together: and there ends the House of Mierowitz, which boasts of its descent from Ruric of Kiev—Ruric the Varagian of Old Ladoga!"
* The latter punishment is abolished now.
With wonderful coolness of manner, over his wine and pipe, almost with an occasional jest, the cruel and snakelike Vlasfief—who, as a parvenu of the foundling hospital (the son of a goat), hated the hereditary aristocracy—detailed these matters; and Balgonie felt as if a black cloud enveloped him. He heard the Captain talking; but his mind and thoughts were far, far away; and, after a time, he found himself alone.
Vlasfief had mounted and ridden off; and mechanically, like an automaton, Balgonie had bidden him adieu at the portico of the café, and returned to finish his wine, as one in a waking dream: nor was it until the bell of St. Isaac's tolled midnight, when the lights were burned low, the fire in the peitchka had died away, the decanters were empty, and he saw a drowsy waiter hovering near him, that he rose to depart; for to him, now, all places seemed alike.
In the street a shower of tears revived him; and he wept unseen, like a great boy, while grinding his teeth and twisting his mustaches like a furious and desperate man. Russia, her laws, her rulers, her very air, he loathed and detested. But what was he to do?—which way was he to turn?—was he to permit these horrors, and live?
He had been present when the Regiment of Smolensko guarded the punishment of Madame Lapouchin, one of the most beautiful women of the Imperial Court, where she shone like a planet, was loved, admired, and more than once was fought for. An alleged conspiracy brought her to the knout in all her nude loveliness, in the light of open day; and Charlie remembered that sickening scene, before the eyes of assembled thousands, and how, as the Abbé d'Anterroche records, "in a few moments all the skin of her tender back was cut away in small slips, most of which remained hanging on her shift. Her tongue was cut out immediately after; and she was banished into Siberia."
"Oh Natalie, Natalie!" he could but repeat, while he wrung his hands; and thus the dawn of day found him.
After mature consideration of his position, his powerlessness, and the difficulties that beset him, with the horrors impending over Natalie, poor Charlie Balgonie felt maddened, crushed, and heart-broken. Could he see her perish without a struggle, an effort, however reckless, fruitless, and futile, on her behalf, even if he pistoled the executioner? Could he know that she too, probably, would die, in agony and mutilation, a horrible and ignominious death,—she, so gentle, delicate, and pure,—and would he survive it?
"Hearts will break in this life," says a recent writer; "it is the nature of them; but if God wills it, and it were possible, it is honester, braver, and nobler to live than to die." Most true; but to live is to hope. Balgonie vaguely, but sternly, resolved that he would do something, or—like the hero of a melodrama—"die in the attempt;" but being a poor, bewildered, loving young fellow, he could in no way practically see what that something might be.
Let not the reader flatter himself or herself that their own beloved country was entirely free from legal barbarism at this time; for in the very year of Ivan's murder,—the fourth year of the reign of His Majesty George III.,—a woman was burned at the stake in Ilchester for poisoning her husband. During the reign of his son, more than one head was chopped off for treason; and women were flogged by tap of drum, for petty theft, at the Market Cross of Edinburgh. Neither need the superstitions of the poor Muscovites excite surprise, when we find, in 1867, Highlanders in Scotland putting clay figures into running streams to bring consumption and wasting upon their enemies; burying a living cock (as the Pagan sacrificed to Hermes) to cure epilepsy; and a woman in Somersetshire* cooking toads in a pan, exactly as the "black and midnight hags" did in the days of Macbeth, for the amiable purpose of bewitching her neighbours. So truly does the world reproduce itself, in spite of its boasted civilisation.
* Western Gazette, September, 1867.
The next day was not far advanced when Balgonie was summoned by General Weymarn, whose staff he had been resolving to quit; but for what purpose, or whither to go, he knew not. With something of a shudder, he beheld the Stepniak—the comrade and confederate of the late Nicholas Paulovitch—leaving the General's quarters.
Save that he wore the scarlet livery of his new trade,—torture and death,—he was unchanged, and was the same hideous and ill-visaged giant—with square shoulders, enormous beard, mouse-like eyes, hair shorn off straight across the beetlebrows, and the pine-apple shaped head—whom Balgonie had seen in the hut where the wretched Podatchkine perished. He was now public executioner of St. Petersburg: under his felon hands had poor Mierowitz and Mariolizza been, and erelong would Natalie be!
Weymarn was a grave and stern, yet not unkind, old soldier; and, on perceiving that his young aide-de-camp looked pale, he spoke to him with unusual kindness, and added:—
"I am sorry to say, that I have a new duty of importance for you to perform."
"Thanks, General; any excitement is better than—than idleness."
"True. You will have to ride to Schlusselburg with an escort, composed of six Cossacks of the Imperial Guard, and bring hither in a kabitka the sum of eighty thousand roubles, which are there in canvas bags,sealed. They have been levied on the estates of the Count Mierowitz. You will receive them from the officer commanding there: give a signed receipt, and deliver them into the Imperial Treasury."
Balgonie bowed in silence.
The General, who, of course, knew well the corrupt venality of the Russian service, added:—
"If the sum is brought entire to the Treasury, Carl Ivanovitch, a reasonable gratuity will, of course, be paid you."
"Excellency, I require none for doing my duty, either in this or any other matter," replied Balgonie coldly, even haughtily.
"As you please, sir,—as you please. Some among us might be less particular," said the old General, tugging his grisly mustaches. "And stay; by-the-bye, there is a prisoner in Schlusselburg, whose sentence is to be executed to-morrow, in presence of the assembled troops and people here——"
Balgonie thought of butoneprisoner there; and an icy chill came over him, as Weymarn said—
"With the escort and the kabitka, Captain, you will, at the same time, bring the culprit here."
"And—and this pris—on—oner, Excellency?" faltered the poor fellow.
"Is Jagouski, the Cossack, who so severely wounded Colonel Bernikoff when in the execution of his duty."
Charlie breathed more freely.
"An order will be necessary for you—a special order: since the affair of that wretched young fellow Mierowitz, we cannot be too particular, so take this:—
"'To the officer commanding in Schlusselburg.
"'You are hereby directed to deliver to Captain Carl Ivanovitch Balgonie, of the Smolensko Regiment, the prisoner who is to be executed to-morrow.
"'WEYMARN,Lieutenant-General.'
"For the delivery of the money, here is a separate order from the Treasurer—adieu."
As Balgonie left the presence of General Weymarn, a sudden light broke through the darkness of his mind—an unlooked-for thought and hope suddenly inspired him, and a prayer of thanks to Heaven rose to his lips therefore. No prisoner was actually designated by name in the written order of the General!
Thus, in lieu of the Cossack Jagouski, he would demand that Natalie Mierowna be given into his custody; and with her he would escape, quit Russia and the service of the Empress at all risks.
He had no papers—no leave of absence, or passport; but, as the epaulette is an all-powerful badge in Russia, his uniform and his sabre would be passports enough. For the rest, he must trust to his own love and courage, and to his knowledge of the country. But then there was the Cossack escort—how was he to rid himself of it? The same kind Heaven which favoured and inspired him now, would not fail to do so, he hoped, when the crisis came.
While his best horse was being saddled and accoutred, and even when the escort was at the door, he consulted, till the last moment, the map of Russia, and also that of Finland, which was not ceded to the latter till forty-four years after; and he made notes of his proposed route. Escape by sea, by the Lake of Ladoga, or by the shores of the Gulf, were alike impossible.
There was no way for it but to ride, at all hazards, towards the frontier of Finland, or the shores of the Lake of Saima; they would there be safe beyond pursuit—safe among the hospitable Swedes, who are always hostile to the grasping and aggressive Russians. And so for nearly an hour he sat, compass in hand, calculating the chances and measuring the distances, while his brain grew giddy, and his heart was sick, with mingled hope, anxiety, and a love that was full of terror and compassion.
At last he saw his way clearly, as he thought, through Viborg, from Schlusselburg, north-westward, in safety. He put all the money he possessed—not much, certainly—about his person in gold; filled his cartridge-box with ammunition, and buckled on his sabre.
"By this time to-morrow," he muttered, as he glanced at his watch, "the game will have been won or—lost!"
He then mounted, with a resolute heart, and set forth, having with him a light kabitka, or covered waggon, drawn by a single horse, and attended by his escort—six Malo-Russian Cossacks who wore the uniform of Hussars, and who were all stout, athletic, and noble-looking fellows, whose clean-limbed, active, and hardy little horses, unmatched for strength and speed, made Balgonie speculate painfully and anxiously on his slender chance of outstripping them, if pursued.
It was considerably past the noon of an October day—a dark, lowering, and ominous day—when they set out for Schlusselburg, and erelong the rain began to fall heavily, soaking the Hussar finery of the Cossacks of the Guard; but Charlie Balgonie rode silently on at their head, heedless of the blinding torrents and the bellowing wind; though he little knew that as the darkness increased, and the early night drew on, that the waters of the lake and river were rising fast, and that a peril, of which he had no conception, already menaced the existence of Natalie.
But her voice seemed to be ever whispering in his ear—
"Carl, Carl—my beloved Carl, come to my aid—save me—help me, if you love me!"
When they were mid-way to Schlusselburg, the kabitka driver, who was either sleepy or tipsy, fell awkwardly from his seat, and broke his right arm. What was to be done now?
No Cossack of the Guard would condescend to supply his place, and for more than an hour the party remained halted in a desolate spot, near a pine wood, while looking about to capture the first peasant, serf, or civilian of any kind, whom they might meet, and press him into the service, as a temporary whip, in the employ of the Empress.
A skulking and somewhat sulky boor, in a fur cap and canvas caftan, leather leggings and bark shoes, who had been smoking his pipe under a great tree, was, erelong, discovered, dragged forward, and, with sundry oaths and threats, commanded to mount the shaft and act as driver, which he did, with a reluctance he was at no pains to conceal.
Knowing how necessary it was to control or to conciliate this new acquisition, Balgonie asked him a few questions, with sternness, but yet with politeness.
The serf was a singularly handsome young man, with eagle-like eyes, and an aquiline nose, that was almost hooked; he was without his mustache, which seemed to have been recently shaved off; but he had a curly red beard, with a complexion of well-nigh Asiatic darkness.
"Trust me, dear Carl Ivanovitch," said he, in a low and impressive voice, that was strangely familiar to Balgonie. "My disguise, I find, is complete indeed, when it deceives even you; but speak in French."
"Your disguise—yours?"
"Yes,—I am Apollo Usakoff," he added through his teeth.
"Heaven be blessed for this new omen of success!" exclaimed Balgonie, in French. "And you were not drowned?"
"No; I swam down the Neva, under water, escaping many a bullet—got ashore, and reached the old place in the wood, where Olga, the gipsy, stained my face, trimmed and dyed my beard, as you see. She is quite an artist, that girl! Even Mariolizza would not know me now."
Balgonie sighed as the poor fellow spoke. Mutilated and disfigured as she was now, would he have knownher? He evidently knew nothing of the barbarities to which she had been subjected, so Balgonie resolved, mercifully, to keep him in ignorance; and they proceeded at an easy pace together, he keeping his horse close by the shaft of the kabitka, on which the pretended peasant rode; and, as they spoke in French, a language unknown to their ignorant and half-savage escort, Usakoff, in referring to the late event and its failure, poured out all the bitterness, the hate, and fury of his soul, against the Government, the Councillors, and the rule of the Empress; and, of course, entered with fervour into the scheme of an escape with Natalie. But still their ultimate plans were undecided, when they saw the red flash of the evening gun, as it pealed from Schlusselburg, amid the murky haze of a wet and stormy sunset; and erelong they saw the lights that glittered at times from amid the massive towers and black outline of that old castle (the scene of so many terrors, sufferings, and atrocities) streaming and wavering on the turbulent waters of the lake, and the wet slime of the sluices and ditches.
When, all dripping and jaded, the escort halted and dismounted under the castle arch, Balgonie found that some changes were taking place in the executive of the fortress.
Bernikoff, whose wounds had been inflamed to gangrene, by passion, rage, and vodka, was at that moment actually on his death-bed, with Father Chrysostom kneeling by his side. The old sinner was in all the agonies and terrors of reviewing his past life on one hand, and anticipating the coming change on the other. Many pounds of perfumed wax candles were flaming now round the effigy of St. Sergius, whom, in weak and querulous accents, he implored for intercession, alternately with the Chaplain, to whose cassock he clung tenaciously, and to whom he was mingling threats of punishment, if he permitted him to fare ill in the other world, or omitted masses for his soul's repose. And that superstition and absurdity might not be wanting amid this solemn but repulsive scene, from which Balgonie hurried away with more disgust than pity, Bernikoff was dying in the habit of afriar, with cowl, cord, beads, and sandals, hoping even on his death-bed, as Ivan the Terrible hoped, when similarly arrayed and disguised, to cheat the devil, if that dread personage came for his sinful soul.
The cowl and other paraphernalia he had obtained from the Chamberlain, or wardrobe-keeper, of the Troitza monastery near the Louga—a cowl that had lain on the mummy of the uncorrupted saint in the silver shrine;—and almost with his last breath, he threatened Father Chrysostom with a drum-head court-martial for venturing to hint that this attempt to mask his past life was vain without true repentance.
Leaving this scene, Balgonie presented the order of General Weymarn and that of the Treasurer, to Captain Vlasfief, who was now in command, and to whom he stated that "the prisoner referred to was Mademoiselle Natalie Mierowna."
"Carl Ivanovitch," said the Captain, "you cannot think of leaving to-night in such a storm of wind and rain?"
"I've seen worse in Silesia," said Balgonie, looking to the locks of his pistols.
"What of that?"
"But theverbalorder of the General was most peremptory."
"Ah!—and you have brought a kabitka for the money?"
"A kabitka for the prisoner also—so be quick, Captain."
"'Tis a large sum in roubles," mused the other.
"I am in haste to be gone!—the prisoner—you hear me, sir?" said Balgonie impatiently.
"By all the devils, you seem more anxious about the prisoner than the treasure!" responded Vlasfief sulkily, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe, but still delayed to move.
"You have my orders—I come in the name of the Empress—let there be no delay, Captain Vlasfief," was the curt reply.
"Bring in two Cossacks of the escort; the money is here in seventy bags, each containing a thousand roubles."
"Excuse me, but the order of the Imperial Treasurer says expresslyeightysealed bags of a thousand each," said Balgonie, trembling with anxiety, yet compelled to appear to take an interest when he really felt none.
"Ten thousand are missing," said Vlasfief, leisurely, refilling his pipe.
"Missing!"
"Yes. Suppose," he added in a whisper, "suppose we divide the lost sum between us, and offer a thousand to the Treasurer."
"Impossible, sir!" said Balgonie, with a fiery and impatient manner.
"Well, well—there are the other ten sealed bags," added Captain Vlasfief, with a dark and stealthy frown of greed and hate, as the Cossacks tossed the whole among the straw of the kabitka: "it matters little; but I hope you may not find the road beset, and so lose the whole."
"To be forewarned, sir, is to be forearmed," said Balgonie, touching his pistols; for he quite understood the treachery implied, and only trembled lest it might mar his dearest plans. "And now, sir, for my prisoner."
"If she be not drowned; for the lower vaults are apt to be flooded on such a night as this," said Vlasfief spitefully.
Writhing under the keen glances of this low-born Muscovite, Balgonie felt that all now depended upon his outward and assumed bearing of coolness and carelessness. Night favoured him in this, and his face was almost concealed. Could any one then have read his heart, as he, Usakoff, two Cossacks, and two soldiers of the main-guard made their way down, down through dark and slimy passages and stairs, till they were foot deep and then knee deep in the water that flooded the low and humid corridors, off which were the arched doors of numerous cells—corridors where spiders spun their webs, rats were swimming, and terrified bats flew wildly to and fro!
Erelong they reached the door, through the crannies of which despairing cries and painful gaspings had been heard, and, after unlocking, forced it open by main strength.
"A great flood of water poured from the aperture amid the darkness," says theUtrecht Gazette, "and with it came the body of the poor lady, who was well-nigh drowned."
So the red light seen by Natalie was no fancy, but that of the lamp which was borne by one of those who came just in time to save her from the same terrible death by which the Princess Orloff perished.
Lest all might be perilled by a recognition, Balgonie was compelled to retire and leave her in the Chaplain's hands till she was restored to consciousness, to warmth, and till she was habited anew; and he passed three dreadful hours of doubt and anxiety, while pacing to and fro in the cold and gloomy archways of the fortress, and having to conceal his face when she was brought forth and supported into the kabitka, to which twofreshhorses were now traced. Usakoff sprang on the shaft and flourished his whip; then the Cossacks and Balgonie put spurs to their chargers, and clattered over the wet drawbridge, just as the passing bell for the departure of Bernikoff's tortured spirit rang ominously and solemnly on the stormy gusts of that black and gloomy night.
Balgonie, instead of proceeding by the way he had come, avoided the town of Schlusselburg, and wheeled off to the right, committing himself partly to the guidance of Usakoff, and quite in ignorance that, about an hour before, Vlasfief, who could by no means let so many roubles escape without paying toll, had beset two of the roads by chosen followers of his own—men whom he hoped might pass for some of the adherents of the late Prince Ivan, rescuing the daughter of the exiled Count Mierowitz.
A strange incident occurred before the interment of old Bernikoff, who had a pompous military funeral. The bottom of his grave was found to be on fire!
A Scottish doctor (named Rogerson, we believe) at Catharine's Court attempted to explain this phenomenon, as resulting from a species of ironstone which was saturated with the phosphorus supplied by the bones of old interments, and which had been ignited by the friction of the sexton's shovel; but the superstitious Russians took a very different and much more diabolical view of the matter, and laughed to scorn the learned opinion of the Scottish pundit.
Their horses were tolerably refreshed by the halt at Schlusselburg, and the nags which drew the light kabitka had been quite unused, so the whole party pushed on at a brisk pace, by the road towards the frontiers of Finland, the Cossacks of the escort, whatever they thought, making neither remark nor inquiry, as they trusted obediently and implicitly to the officer who led them; but the darkness of the October morning, the deep and muddy, stony and rough, nature of the roads, and the violence of the storm, erelong began to have a severe effect upon their cattle, and, to the great satisfaction of Balgonie, two of the troopers gradually dropped to the rear, and were seen no more.
Now the Corporal of the Cossacks ventured to hint, that "perhaps they were not pursuing the way they had come, as the lights in St. Isaac's Cathedral must have been visible long ago;" but Balgonie replied, haughtily and briefly, that he "hadspecialorders."
Then the Corporal urged a short halt, as the horses were sinking; but again Balgonie replied, that he "had peculiar orders, and must push on."
After passing a little village with a windmill, several miles from the shore of the Lake of Ladoga, the road dipped down into a dark hollow, between impending crags of granite, the grey faces of which were already beginning to brighten in the first light of the lagging October sun. The rain and wind were over; the hollow way was fall of rolling and perplexing mist; but Usakoff affirmed with confidence that he knew the country well.
Out of the grey vapour, from both sides of the path, there flashed, redly and luridly, five or six muskets! One bullet struck white splinters from the kabitka eliciting a shriek from its occupant; another whistled through the mane of Charlie's horse; and a third killed one of the Cossacks, who died without a groan, for it passed fairly through his temples.
The way was beset by armed men, whose numbers and disposition the dim light, or, rather, the darkness and the mist, alike served to conceal.
"Make way, in the name of the Empress!" cried Balgonie, dashing forward, with his sabre drawn; "Nay, I command you, on your peril and allegiance!" he added, as the threatening words of Vlasfief occurred to him; and, to his astonishment and dismay, he saw that personage actually appear, mounted and armed, wearing a regimental hat and plume, with a kind of dark green tunic, or patrol jacket, richly braided with gold, and trimmed heavily with black fur. His party, who seemed all on foot, were clad like peasants, but were armed with muskets, which they were rapidly casting about and reloading.
"Halt, in the name of the Empress—halt, I command you! for this isnotthe way to St. Petersburg, whither the prisoner and treasure were to be conveyed. Treason! treason!" shouted the Staff Captain Vlasfief.
Balgonie fired a pistol at his head; but the Captain's horse reared, or was compelled to do so by bit and spur, for the bullet pierced its throat; and with an oath, Vlasfief fell on the pathway, entangled in the stirrups as the animal sank under him.
The three remaining Cossacks, who were somewhat bewildered by the attack, by the appearance of Vlasfief, whom they knew, and whose confident bearing confirmed certain gathering suspicions that something was wrong as to their route, now drew their sabres, aimed several blows at Usakoff's head, and endeavoured to cut the reins of his horse, or stab it between the shafts, as he lashed the animal almost to racing speed, and the light kabitka jolted, rolled, and bounded along the rough road behind it.
By another pistol-shot Balgonie rid himself of the Cossack Corporal, whose bridle arm he broke, while facing about and galloping in rear of the kabitka; and now with wild hallooes, the entire party of armed men followed it on foot, with all speed, up a steep slope, over which the path wound.
Usakoff ground his teeth, for he was without weapons, and passive in the flying combat; but, being fertile in expedients, he tore open a bag of roubles, and scattered them on the upland road with a ready and reckless hand.
The bright silver coins proved too exciting for the cupidity of the pursuers, who loitered to pick them up, tumbling, scrambling, rising and falling over each other, with shouts, curses, and maledictions, their fire-arms sometimes exploding the while; and so the whole were speedily left behind, as the kabitka, guarded now by Balgonie alone, was driven along a lonely and unfrequented road, that led to the little town of Pomphela.
"Thanks, dear Usakoff—thanks for your presence of mind," said Balgonie; "I had forgot all about those roubles."
"Silver has achieved for us what neither our lead or steel would have done!"
"But, to lighten the kabitka, let us throw out those remaining bags—this perilous lumber, the intended recapture of which has nearly cost us our lives—honour—all, at the hands of Vlasfief."
"Nay, nay, never! Lumber, say you? The roubles are Natalie's—hers and mine—hers and yours, when you wed her; they have saved us once, and may do so again," replied Usakoff cheerfully, as the sun burst forth in his clear October splendour, and they saw the dome-shaped cupola of the Church of Pomphela rising with a golden gleam from amid the white morning haze.
There Balgonie's uniform and a display of gold and roubles operated powerfully on the Postmaster, who, without asking for passports or other papers, at once, and in the name of the Empress, supplied them with fresh horses for the frontier, towards which, after procuring some proper nourishment and restoratives for Natalie, they pushed on without a moment of unnecessary delay.
"Ah," thought Balgonie, with a shudder and a prayer; "had Jagouski's name not been omitted in that order of Weymarn, where would she have been now?"
Pale with sorrow and long suffering, her face was still beautiful, though sorely wasted; the deep thoughtful eyes had yet a wealth—a world of tenderness in their liquid depths; and the long dark hair was thick, soft, and wavy as ever, as it fell in masses behind the small, compact, and finely-formed head.
Yet withal, her wretchedness had been extreme, having been so suddenly and rudely rent from all those habits of luxury and tender nurture, which had become, as it were, a second nature; and often, very often, had it occurred to her in her later misery of soul "that the repose of the grave is sweet, and that there cometh after death a levelling and making even of things which would at last cure all her evils."
But all was changed now; and, as she laid her head on Charlie's breast, she felt content—almost happy; and the horrors that hung over her family alone prevented her, as yet, from being completely so.
No trace of pursuers were behind them now, though their flight must by this time have been known both in the capital and at Schlusselburg. But in those days there were neither railroads nor electric telegraphs; so, riding on more leisurely, Balgonie changed horses again near Viborg, and erelong the great Lake of Saima appeared before them, with the distant hills of Swedish Finland beyond its friendly waters.
A boat was procured there; the kabitka was abandoned; and, with a shout of joy, Usakoff assisted the Finnish boatman to hoist the great lug-sail to catch the breeze of a balmy and beautiful evening, as they bade a long farewell to Russia and all its terrors.
In a quaint old Church of Finland, by the eastern shore of the Lake of Saima, and in view of its little archipelago of granite isles,—a lonely little fane, buried amid groves of plum and cherry trees, built of wood and painted red, with a little holy bell jangling in its humble belfry,—Charlie Balgonie and his fugitive bride were united by the old Curate, with the consent of the Lutheran Bishop of Heinola; and there a thousand roubles spent among the poor spread in the primitive district a happiness, the tradition of which is still remembered with many a grateful exaggeration.
After this, poor Usakoff, finding himself perhaps, as a third person, rather in the way, left them to become a soldier of fortune; and he is supposed to have perished in one of the Polish struggles for freedom; at least, they heard of him no more, after their final journey to Scotland.
Two years before these events, it would appear that Charlie's uncle, "the godly and upright" Gamaliel Balgonie, merchant, magistrate, and elder, had departed in peace to sin no more, leaving the lands and possessions of Balgonie unimpaired; and a long tombstone in that famous city of the dead, the Howff of Dundee, records at length all the virtues which his contemporaries in general and the Presbytery in particular believed him to possess.
So Carl Ivanovitch became once more Balgonie of that Ilk; and the roubles of Natalie added many a turret and many an acre to his patrimonial dwelling in beautiful Strathearn.
To convince the reader how nearly History has been followed in the previous pages, we shall take the liberty of inserting the subsequent manifesto, published with reference to the death of Ivan IV.
"By the Grace of God, we, Catharine the Second, Empress and Autocratrice of all the Russias, &c., &c., to all whom these presents may concern:
When by the divine will, and in compliance with the unanimous desires of our faithful subjects, we ascended the throne of Russia, we were not ignorant that Ivan, son of Anthony, Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, and of the Princess Anne of Mecklenburg was still alive. This Prince, as is well known, was immediately after his birth unlawfully declared heir to the imperial crown;but, by the decrees of Providence, he was soon after irrevocably excluded from that high dignity, and the sceptre was placed in the hands of the lawful heiress, Elizabeth (daughter of Peter the Great), our beloved aunt of glorious memory.
"After we had ascended the throne, and offered up to Heaven our just thanksgivings, the first object that employed our thoughts, in consequence ofthat humanity which is so natural to us, was the unhappy situation of that Prince, who wasdethronedbydivine Providence, and had been unfortunate since his birth.
"To prevent, therefore, ill-intentioned persons from giving him any trouble, or from making use of his name to disturb the public tranquillity, we gave him a guard, and placed about his person two officers, in whose fidelity and integrity we could confide. These were Captain Vlasfief and Lieutenant Tschekin, who by their long military services deserved a suitable recompense, and a station in which they might pass quietly the remainder of their days. They were accordingly charged with the care of the Prince, and were strictly enjoined to let none approach him. Yet all these precautions were not sufficient....
"APut-parooschick(a sub-lieutenant) of the Regiment of Smolensko, a native of the Ukraine, Basil Mierowitz (grandson of the first rebel that followed Mazeppa), took it into his head to make use of this Prince, to advance his fortune at all events, without being restrained by a consideration of the bloody scene that such an attempt might occasion. In order to execute this detestable, dangerous, and desperate project, he contrived, during our absence in Livonia, to be upon guard in the fortress of Schlusselburg, where the guard is relieved every eight days; and the 15th of last month, about two in the morning, he called out the main guard, formed it in line, and ordered the soldiers to load with ball. Bernikoff, Governor of the fortress, came out of his apartment, and asked Mierowitz the reason of the disturbance, but received no other answer from this rebel than a blow with the butt-end of his musket.
"Captain Vlasfief and Lieutenant Tschekin seeing that it was impossible to resist such a superior force, and considering the unhappy consequences that must ensue from the deliverance of THE PERSOX who was committed to their care, after deliberating together, took the only step that they thought proper to maintain public tranquillity, which was tocut short the days of the unfortunate Ivan. Mierowitz, on seeing the dead body of the Prince, was so confounded by a sight he so little expected, that he acknowledged his temerity and guilt, and discovered his repentance to the troops, whom, about an hour before, he had seduced from their duty, and rendered the accomplices of his crime.
"Then it was that the two officers who had nipped this rebellion in the bud, joined the Governor of the fortress in securing this rebel, and bringing back the soldiers to their duty. They also sent to our Privy Councillor Count Fanin,under whose orders they acted, a relation of this event, which, though unhappy, has nevertheless,under the protection of Heaven, prevented still greater calamities. This Senator despatched immediatelyPulovnick(Colonel) Caschkin, with sufficient instructions to maintain tranquillity on the spot (or where the assassination was committed), and sent us, at the same time, a circumstantial account of the whole affair. In consequence of this, we ordered Lieutenant-General Weymarn, of the division of St. Petersburg, to take the necessary information on the spot; and the confession of the villain himself, who has acknowledged his crime.
"Sensible of its enormity and consequences with regard to the peace of our country, we have referred the whole affair to the consideration of our Senate, which we have ordered, jointly with the Synod, to invite the three first classes and the Presidents of all the Colleges to hear the verbal relation of General Weymarn, who has taken the proper informations, to pronounce sentence in consequence thereof, and to present it to us, for confirmation of the same.
"CATHARINE."
By a singular species of sophistry, the guilt of Ivan's death is thus, by a subsequent document, transferred to Basil Mierowitz:—
"As the violent death of the unfortunate Prince Ivan was the immediate consequence of the desperate attempt of Mierowitz, so must this officer be considered as the principal cause of this assassination—nay, even regarded asthe murderer of that unhappy Prince."
To this, five Russian Bishops appended their signatures.
Vlasfief was made a General, and his Lieutenant a Colonel, in the following year, with a pension of ten thousand roubles each.
THE END.
PRINTED BY W. H. SMITH AND SON, 186, STRAND, LONDON.9-8-69.