It is time to return to Stanislas McKay, whose life, forfeited under the ruthless laws of a semi-barbarous power, still hung by a thread.
He had been taken into Sebastopol by his escort at a rapid pace. It was a ride of half-a-dozen miles, no more, and the greater part of it, when once they regained the Tchernaya, followed the low ground that margins both sides of the river.
McKay could see plainly the English cavalry vedettes in the plain; but, fast bound as he was, it was impossible for him to make any signal to his friends. It was as well that he could not try, for he would certainly have paid the penalty with his life.
They watched him very closely, these wild, unkempt,half-savage horsemen; watched him as though he were a captive animal—a beast of prey which might at any time break loose and rend them.
But the rough uncivilised Cossacks of the Don were not bad fellows after all.
Although they at first looked askance at him when he spoke to them, these simple boors were presently won over by the distress and sufferings of their prisoner.
McKay was in great pain; his bonds cut into his flesh, he was exhausted by the night's work, dejected at the ruin of his enterprise, uneasy as to his fate.
No food had crossed his lips for many hours, his throat was parched and dry under the fierce heat of the sun.
He begged piteously for water, speaking in Russian, and using the most familiar style of address. The men who rode on each side of him soon thawed as he called them "his little fathers," and implored them to give him a drink.
"Presently, at the first halt," they said.
And so he had to battle with his thirst while they still hurried on.
Suddenly the officer in command called a halt—they had now reached the picket-house at Tractir Bridge—and rode out to the flank of the party. He seemed perturbed, anxious in his mind, and raised his hand to shroud his eyes as he peered eagerly across the plain.
"Here!" he shouted, rising in his stirrups and turning round. "Bring up the prisoner."
McKay was led to his side.
"What is the meaning of that?" asked the officer haughtily, speaking in French, as he pointed to a cloud of dust in the distant plain.
"How can I tell you?" replied McKay, shortly: but in his own mind he was certain that this was the contemplated extension of the French and Sardinian lines towards the Tchernaya. For a moment his heart beat high with the hope that this movement might help him to escape.
"You know, you rogue! Tell me, or it will be the worse for you."
"I don't know," replied McKay stoutly; "and if I did I should not tell you."
"Dirty spy! You would have sold us for a price, do the same now by the others. You owe them no allegiance; besides, you are in our power. Tell me, and I will let you go."
"Your bribe is wasted on me. I am a British officer—"
"Pshaw! Officer?" and the fellow raised his whip to strike McKay, but happily held his hand.
"Here! take him back," he said angrily, and McKay was again placed in the midst of the party.
He renewed his entreaties for a drink, and a Cossack, taking pity on him, offered him a canteen.
It was full ofvodkhi, an ardent spirit beloved by the Russian peasant, half-a-dozen drops of which McKay managed to gulp down, but they nearly burned his throat.
"Water! water!" he asked again.
And the Cossack, evidently surprised at his want of taste, substituted the simpler fluid; but the charitable act drew down upon him the displeasure of his chief.
"How dare you! without my permission?" cried the officer, as he dashed the water from McKay's lips, and punished the offending Cossack by a few sharp strokes with his whip.
"Come, fall in!" the officer next said. "It won't do to linger here." And the party resumed their ride, still in the valley, but as far as possible from the stream.
Every yard McKay's hopes sank lower and lower; every yard took him further from his friends, who were advancing, he felt certain, towards the river. Large bodies of troops, columns of infantry on the march, covered by cavalry and accompanied by guns, were now perfectly visible in the distant plain.
"Look to your front!" cried the Russian officer peremptorily to Stanislas, as he stole a furtive, lingering glance back. "Faster! Spur your horses, or we may be picked up or shot."
All hope was gone now. This was the end of the Tchernaya valley. Up there opposite were the Inkerman heights, the sloping hills that a few months beforeMcKay had helped to hold. This paved, much-worn causeway was the "Sappers' Road," leading round the top of the harbour into the town.
No one stopped the Cossacks.
They passed a picket in a half-ruined guard-house, the roof of which, its door, walls, and windows, were torn and shattered in the fierce and frequent bombardments. Even at that moment a round shot crashed over their heads, took the ground further off, and bounded away. The sentry asked no questions. Some one looked out and waved his hand in greeting to the Cossack officer, who replied, pointing ahead, as the party rode rapidly on.
Time pressed; it promised to be a warm morning. The besiegers' fire, intended no doubt to distract attention from the movements in the Tchernaya, was constantly increasing.
"What dog's errand is this they sent me on?" growled the Cossack officer, as a shell burst close to him and killed one of the escort.
"Faster! faster!"
And still, harassed by shot and shell, they pushed on.
All this time the road led by the water's edge; but presently they left it, and, crossing the head of a creek, mounted a steep hill, which brought them to the Karabel suburb, as it was called, a detached part of the main town, now utterly wrecked and ruined by the besiegers' fire.
The Cossack officer made his way to a large barrackoccupying a central elevated position, and dismounted at the principal doorway.
"Is it thou, Stoschberg?" cried a friend who came out to meet him. "Here, in Sebastopol?"
"To my sorrow. Where is the general? I have news for him. The enemy are moving in force upon the Tchernaya."
"Ha! is it so? And that has brought you here?"
"That, and the escort of yonder villain—a rascally spy, whom we caught last night in our lines."
"Bring him along too; the general may wish to question him."
McKay was unbound, ordered to dismount, and then, still under escort, was marched into the building. It was roofless, but an inner chamber had been constructed—a cellar, so to speak—under the ground-floor, with a roof of its own of rammed earth many feet thick, supported by heavy beams. This was one of the famous casemates invented by Todleben, impervious to shot and shell, and affording a safe shelter to the troops.
McKay was halted at the door or aperture, across which hung a common yellow rug. The officers passed in, and their voices, with others, were heard in animated discussion, which lasted some minutes; then the one called Stoschberg came out and fetched McKay.
He found himself in an underground apartment plainly but comfortably furnished. In the centre, under a hanging lamp, was a large table covered with maps and plans, and at the table sat a tall, handsomeman, still in the prime of life. He was dressed in the usual long plain great-coat of coarse drab cloth, but he had shoulder-straps of broad gold lace, and his flat muffin cap lying in front of him was similarly ornamented. This personage, an officer of rank evidently, looked up sharply, and addressed McKay in French.
"What is the meaning of this movement in the Tchernaya?" he asked. "You understand French of course? People of your trade speak all tongues."
"I speak French," replied McKay, "but English is my native tongue. I am a British officer—"
"I have told you of his pretensions, Excellency," interposed the Cossack officer.
"Yes, yes! this is mere waste of time. What is the meaning of this movement in the Tchernaya, I repeat? Tell me, and I may save your life."
"You have no right to ask me that question, and I decline to answer it, whatever the risk."
"An obstinate fellow, truly!" said the general, half to himself. "What do you call yourself?"
Then followed a conversation very similar to that which had taken place at Tchorgoun.
"I, too, knew your father," said the general, shaking his head. "It is a bad case; I fear you must expect the worst."
"I shall meet it as a soldier should," replied McKay, stoutly. "But I shall always protest, even with my dying breath, that I have been foully and shamefullyused. I appeal to you, a Russian officer of high rank, of whose name I am ignorant—"
"My name is Todleben, of the Imperial Engineers."
McKay started, and, notwithstanding the imminent peril of his position, looked with interest upon the man who was known, even in the British lines, as the heart and soul of the defence.
"I appeal to you, sir," he pleaded, "as a general officer, a man of high honour and known integrity, to protect me from outrage."
"I can do nothing," replied Todleben, gravely, shrugging his shoulders. "The Prince himself will decide. Take him away. I cannot waste time with him if he is not disposed to speak. Let him be kept a close prisoner until the Prince is ready to see him."
The general then bent his head over his plans, and took no further notice of McKay.
Our hero was again marched into the yard, made to remount, re-bound, and led off towards the principal part of the town. They now skirted the ridge of the Karabel suburb, and began to descend. Half way down they came upon a series of excavations in the side of the hill. These were old caves that had been enlarged and strengthened with timbers and earth. Each had its own doorway, a massive piece of palisading. They were used as barracks, casemated, and practically safe during the siege. Into one of these McKay was taken; it was empty; the men who occupied it were on dutyjust then at the Creek Battery below. In one corner lay a heap of straw and old blankets, filthy, and infested with the liveliest vermin.
One of the escort pointed to this uninviting bed, and told the prisoner he might rest himself there. McKay, weary and disconsolate, gladly threw himself upon this loathsome couch. They might shoot him next morning, but for the time at least he could forget all his cares in sleep.
We have seen how the news of Stanislas McKay's capture by the Russians was communicated to his uncle, Mr. Faulks.
Next day the brief telegram announcing it was published in the morning papers, with many strong comments. Although some blamed the young officer for his rashness, and others held Lord Raglan directly responsible for his loss, all agreed in execrating the vindictive cruelty of the uncompromising foe.
General sympathy was expressed for Mr. McKay; the most august person in the land sent a message of condolence to his mother through Lord Essendine, who added a few kindly words on his own account.
"What curse lies heavy on our line? It seems fatal to come within reach of heirship to the family-honours.Ere long there will be no Wilders left, and the title of Essendine will become extinct," wrote the old peer to Mrs. McKay. "Your boy, a fine, fearless young fellow, whom I neglected too long and who deserved a nobler fate, is the latest victim. Pray Heaven he may yet escape! I will strive hard to help him in his present dire peril."
Lord Essendine was as good as his word. He had great influence, political and diplomatic: great friends in high place at every court in Europe. Among others, the Russian ambassador at Vienna was under personal obligations to him of long standing, and did not hesitate when called upon to acknowledge the debt.
Telegrams came and went from London to Vienna, from Vienna to St. Petersburg, backwards and forwards day after day, yet nothing was effected by Lord Essendine's anxious, energetic advocacy. The Czar himself was appealed to, but the Autocrat of All the Russias would not deign to intervene. He was inexorable. The law military must take its course. Stanislas McKay was a traitor and the son of a traitor; he had been actually taken red-handed in a new and still deeper treachery, and he must suffer for his crime.
At the end of the first fortnight McKay's relations and friends in England had almost abandoned hope. This was what Mr. Faulks told Mrs. Wilders, who called every day two or three times, always in the deepest distress.
"Poor boy! poor boy!" she said, wringing herhands. "To be cut off like this! It is too terrible! And nothing—you are sure nothing can be done to save him?"
"Lord Essendine is making the most strenuous efforts; so are we. Even Sir Humphrey Fothergill has been most kind; and the War Minister has repeatedly telegraphed to Lord Raglan to leave no stone unturned."
"And all without effect? It is most sad!" She would have feigned the same excessive grief with the Essendine lawyers, to whom she also paid several visits, but the senior partner's cold eye and cynical smile checked her heroics.
"You will not be the loser by poor McKay's removal," he said, with brutal frankness, one day when she had rather overdone her part.
"As if I thought of that!" she replied, with supreme indignation.
"It is impossible for you not to think of it, my dear madam. It would not be human nature. Why shouldn't you? Mr. McKay was no relation."
"He was my dear dead husband's devoted friend. Nursed him after his wound—"
"I remember to have heard that, and indeed everything that is good, of Mr. McKay. I feel sure he would have made an excellent Earl of Essendine; more's the pity."
"I trust my son, if he inherits, will worthily maintain the credit of the house."
"So do I, my dear madam," said old Mr. Burt, with a bow that made the speech a less doubtful compliment.
"When will it be settled? Why do they hesitate? Why delay?" she said to herself passionately, as she went homewards to Thistle Grove. Her friend Mr. Hobson was there, waiting for her; and she repeated the question with a fierce anxiety that proved how closely it concerned her.
"How impatient you grow! Like every woman. Everything must be done at once."
"I am not safe yet. I begin to doubt."
"Can't you trust me? I have assured you it will end as you wish. When have I disappointed you, Lady Lydstone?"
She started at the sound of this name, once familiar, but surrounded now by memories at once painful and terrible.
"It is the rule in your English peerage that when a son becomes a great peer, and the mother is only a commoner, to give her one of the titles. Your Queen does it by prerogative."
"I might have been Lady Lydstone by right, if I had waited," she said slowly.
"And you repent it? Bah! it is too late. Be satisfied. You will be rich, a great lady, respected—"
She made a gesture of dissent.
"Yes; respected. Great ladies always are. You can marry again—whom you please; me, for instance—"
Again the gesture: dissent mixed with unmistakable disgust.
"You are not too flattering, Cyprienne. Do not presume on my good-nature, and remember—"
"What, pray?"
"What you owe me. I am entitled to claim my reward. You must repay me some day."
"By marrying you?"
Her voice, as usual, began to tremble when she found herself in antagonism with this man.
"If that be the price I ask. Why not? We ought to be happy together. We have so much in common, so many secrets—"
"Enough of this!" she said shortly, but not bravely.
"And to be Lady Lydstone's husband would give me a certain status—a sufficient income. I could help you to educate the boy, whom, by-the-way, I have never seen. Yes; the notion pleases me. I will be your second—I beg your pardon, your third husband, probably your last."
"I must beg of you, Hippolyte, to be careful; I hear some one coming."
It was the Swiss butler, who entered rather timidly to say a gentleman had called on important business.
"What business? Surely you have not admitted him? If so, you shall leave my service. You know it is contrary to my express orders."
"He said you would see him, madam; that he cameon the part of a friend, a very ancient friend, whose name I had but to tell you—"
"What name? Go on, François."
"The name—it is difficult. Ru—" he spoke very slowly, struggling with the strangeness of the sounds. "Ru—pert—Gas—"
"Who can this be?" Mrs. Wilders had turned very white and now beckoned Hobson to step out into the garden. "Is it a message from beyond the grave?"
"Coward!" cried her companion contemptuously. "The Seine seldom surrenders its prey. Rupert Gascoigne is dead—drowned, as you know, fourteen years ago."
"But this visitor knew him—he knows of my connection with him. Else why come in his name? Oh, Hippolyte, I tremble! Help me. Support me in my interview with this strange man."
"No; it would not be safe. If he knew Rupert Gascoigne, he may, too, have known Ledantec. I will not meet him."
"Who is the coward now?"
"I do not choose to run unnecessary risks. But I will help you—to this extent. See the man, if you must see him, in the double drawing-room. I will be within call."
"And earshot? I understand."
"Well, what can I overhear—about you, at least—that I do not know already? In any case I could help you."
It was so arranged. Mrs. Wilders bade her servant introduce the stranger, and presently joined him in the adjoining room.
"Mr. Hyde," she began, composedly and very stiffly, "may I inquire the meaning of this intrusion? You are a perfect stranger—"
"Look well at me, Cyprienne Vergette. Have years so changed me—?"
"Rupert? Impossible!" she half-shrieked. "Rupert is dead. He died—was drowned—when—"
"You deserted him, and left him, you and your vile partner, falsely accused of a foul crime."
"I cannot—will not believe it. You are an impostor; you have assumed a dead man's name."
"My identity is easily proved, Cyprienne Vergette, and the relation in which I stand to you."
"What brings you here to vex me, after all these years? I always hated you. I left you—Why cannot you leave me in peace?"
"God knows I had no wish to see or speak to you again. The world was wide enough for us both. We should have remained for ever apart, but for your latest and foulest crime."
"What false, lying charge is this you would trump up against me?"
"The murder of my dearest friend and comrade. Murder twice attempted. The first failed; the second, I fear, will prove fatal. If so, look to yourself, madam."
"What can you do?" she said, impudently, having regained much of her old effrontery.
"Prevent you from reaping the fruits of your iniquity. You know you were never General Wilders's wife; you were always mine. Worse luck!"
"You cannot prove it. You are dead. You dare not reappear."
"Wait and see," he replied, very coolly.
"You have no proofs, I say, of the marriage."
"They are safe at the Mairie, in Paris. French archives are carefully kept. I have only to ask for a certificate; it's easy enough."
"For any one who could go there. But how will you dare to show yourself in Paris? You are proscribed; a price is set on your head. Your life would be forfeited."
"I will risk all that, and more, to ruin your wicked game."
"Do so at your peril."
"You threaten me, vile wretch? Be careful. The measure of your iniquity is nearly full. Punishment must soon overtake you; your misdeeds are well known; your complicity with—"
Why should he tell her? Why warn her of the net that was closing round her, and thus help her to escape from the toils?
But she had caught at his words.
"Complicity?" she repeated, anxiously. "With whom?"
"No matter. Only look to yourself. It is war, war to the knife, unquenchable war between us, remember that."
And with these words he left the house.
Although she had shown a bold front, Mrs. Wilders, as we shall still call her, was greatly agitated by this stormy scene, and it was with a blanched cheek and faltering step that she sought her confederate in the next room.
Mr. Hobson was gone.
"Coward! he has easily taken alarm. To desert me at the moment that I most need advice and help!"
But she did her friend injustice, as a letter that came from him in the course of a few hours fully proved.
"I heard enough," wrote Mr. Hobson, "to satisfy me that the devil is unchained and means mischief. I never thought to see R. G. again. We must watch him now closely, and know all his movements. If he goes to Paris, as I heard him threaten, he will give himself into our hands. I shall follow, in spite of the risks I run. One word of warning to the Prefecture will put the police on his track. Arrest, removal to Mazas, Cayenne, or by the guillotine—what matter which?—will be his inevitable fate. The French law is implacable. Hisdossier(criminal biography) is in the hands of the authorities, and will be easily produced. There must be numbers of people still living in Pariswho could identify him at once, in spite of his beard and bronzed face. I can, if need be, although I would rather not make myself too prominent just now. Be tranquil; he will not be able to injure us. It is his own doom that he is preparing."
Years had passed since Hyde—he was Rupert Gascoigne then—had last been in Paris. The memory of that last sojourn and the horrors of it still clung to him—his arrest, unjust trial, escape. His bold leap into the swift Seine, his rescue by a passing river steamer, on which, thanks to a plausible tale, in which he explained away the slight flesh-wound he had received from the gendarme's pistol, he found employment as a stoker, and so got to Rouen, thence to Havre and the sea.
Willingly he would never have returned to the place where he had so nearly fallen a victim. But he was impelled by a stern sense of duty; he came now as an avenging spirit to unmask and punish those who hadplotted against him and his friend—unscrupulous miscreants who were a curse to the world.
He took up his quarters in a large new hotel upon the Boulevards.
Paris had changed greatly in these years. The Second Empire, with its swarm of hastily-enriched adventurers, had already done much to beautify and improve the city. Life was more than ever gay in this the chief home of pleasure-seekers. Luxury of the showiest kind everywhere in the ascendant; smart equipages and gaily-dressed crowds, the shop-fronts glittering with artistic treasures, everyone outwardly happy, and leading a careless, joyous existence.
Englishmen, officers especially, were just now welcome guests in Paris. Mr. Hyde, of the Royal Picts, as he entered himself upon the hotel register, with his soldierly air, his Crimean beard, and his arm in a sling, attracted general attention. He was treated with extraordinary politeness everywhere by the most polite people in the world. When he asked a question a dozen answers were ready for him—a dozen officious friends were prepared to escort him anywhere.
But Rupert Hyde wanted no one to teach him his way about Paris. Within an hour of his arrival, after he had hastily changed the garments he had worn on the night journey, had sallied forth, and, entering the long Rue Lafayette, made straight to the headquarters of the 21starrondissement. Urgent business of a publicnature had brought him to Paris, but this was a private matter which he desired to dispose of before he attended to anything else.
The place he sought was easily found. It was a plain gateway of yellowish-white stone, over which hung a brand-new tricolour from a flag-staff fixed at an angle, and on either side a striped sentry-box containing aGarde de Paris.
The gateway led into a courtyard, in which were half-a-dozen loungers, clustered chiefly around the entrance to a handsome flight of stone steps within the building.
Just within this second entrance was a functionary, half beadle, half hall-porter, wearing a low-crowned cocked hat and a suit of bright blue cloth plentifully adorned with buttons, to whom Hyde addressed himself.
"The office of M. the Mayor, if you please."
"Upstairs; take the first turn to the right, and then—"
"But surely I know that voice!" said some one behind Hyde, who had turned round quickly.
"What, you!" went on the speaker; "my excellent English comrade—here in Paris! Oh, joyful surprise!"
"Is it you? M. Anatole Belhomme, of the Voltigeurs? You have left the Crimea? Is Sebastopol taken? the Russians all massacred, then?"
"It is I who was massacred—almost. I received aball, here in my leg, and was invalided last month. But you also have suffered, comrade." And Anatole pointed to Hyde's arm in a sling.
"Nothing much. Only the kick of a horse; it does not prevent me moving about, as you see."
"But what brings you to Paris, my good friend?"
"I am seeking some family documents—to substantiate an inheritance. They are here in the archives of the Mairie."
"How? You were seeking the office of M. the Mayor? You?" And M. Anatole proceeded to scrutinise Hyde slowly and minutely from head to foot. "You, a veteran with your arm in a sling, and that brown beard—brown mixed with grey. It is strange—most strange."
"Well, comrade," replied Hyde, laughing a little uneasily, "you ought to know me again."
"Lose no time, friend, in getting what you want from the Mairie. Come: I will go with you. Come: you may be prevented if you delay."
These words aroused Hyde's suspicions. Had Cyprienne warned the French police to be on the look-out for him?
"But, Anatole, explain. Why do you lay such stress on this?" he asked.
"Do as I tell you—first, the papers. I will explain by-and-by."
There was no mistaking Anatole, and Hyde accordingly hastened upstairs. Anatole indicated the door ofan antechamber, which Hyde entered alone. It was a large, bare room, with a long counter—inside were a couple of desks, and at them sat several clerks—small people wielding a very brief authority—who looked contemptuously at him over their ledgers, and allowed him to stand there waiting without the slightest acknowledgment of his existence for nearly a quarter of an hour.
"I have come for a certificated extract from the registers of a civil marriage contracted here on the 27th April, 184—" he said, at length, in a loud, indignant voice.
The inquiry had the effect of an electrical shock. Two clerks at once jumped from their stools; one went into an inner room, the other came to the counter where Hyde stood.
"Your name?" he asked, abruptly. "Your papers, domicile, place of birth, age. The names of the parties to the contract of marriage."
Hyde replied without hesitation, producing his passport, a new one made out in the name of Hyde, describing his appearance, and setting forth his condition as an officer in Her Britannic Majesty's Regiment of Royal Picts.
While he was thus engaged, an elderly, portly personage, wearing a tricolour sash which was just visible under his waistcoat, came out from the inner room, and, taking up the passport, looked at it, and then at Hyde.
"Is that your name? Yes? It is different," he went on, audibly, but to himself, "although the description tallies. You are an English officer, domiciled at the Hôtel Impérial, Boulevard de la Madeleine. I do not quite understand."
"Surely it is only a simple matter!" pleaded Hyde. "Monsieur, I seek a marriage certificate."
"For what purpose?"
"As a claim for an inheritance."
"Nothing more, eh!" said the Mayor, suspiciously. "Have you any one, any friend, who will answer for you, here?"
"No one nearer than the British Embassy, except—to be sure—" he suddenly thought of Anatole, who still waited outside, and who came in at the summons of his friend.
"Oh, you are with Monsieur?" The official's face brightened the moment he saw Anatole. "It is all right, then. Give the gentleman the certificate. This friend"—he laid the slightest stress on the word—"will be answerable for him, of course."
"Now, Anatole, tell me what all this means," said Hyde, as he left the Mairie with the document he deemed of so much importance in his pocket.
"Not here," said the Frenchman, looking over his shoulder, nervously. "Let us go somewhere out of sight."
"The nearest wine-shop—I have not breakfasted yet, have you? A bottle of red seal would suit you,I dare say," said Hyde, remembering Anatole's little weakness.
"It is not to be refused. I am with you, comrade. At the sign of the 'Pinched Nose' we shall find the best of everything," replied Anatole, heartily, and the pair passed into the street.
It was barely a dozen yards to the wine-shop, and they walked there arm-in-arm in boisterous good-fellowship, elbowing their way through the crowd in a manner that was not exactly popular.
"Take care, imbecile!" cried one hulking fellow whom Anatole had shouldered off the path.
"Make room, then," replied our friend, rudely.
"Would you dare—" began the other, in a menacing voice, adding some words in a lower tone.
"Excuse. I was in the wrong," said Anatole, suddenly humbled.
"You are right to avoid a quarrel," remarked Hyde, when they were seated at table. He had been quietly amused at his companion's easy surrender.
"I could have eaten him raw. But why should I? He is, perhaps, a father of a family—the support of a widowed mother: if I had destroyed him they might have come to want. No; let him go."
"All the same, he does not seem inclined to go. There he is, still lurking about the front of the shop."
"Truly? Where?" asked Anatole, in evident perturbation. "Bah! we will tire him of that. By the time we have finished a second bottle—"
"Or a third, if you will!" cried Hyde, cheerfully.
They had their breakfast—the most savoury dishes; ham and sour crout, tripe after the mode of Caen, rich ripe Roquefort cheese, and had disposed of three bottles of a rather rough but potent red wine, before Anatole would speak on any but the most common-place topics. The Crimea, the dreadful winter, the punishment administered to their common enemy, occupied him exclusively.
But with the fourth bottle he became more communicative.
"You owe a long candle to your saint for your luck to-day in meeting me," he said, with a slight hiccup.
"Ah! how so?"
"Had not I been there to give you protection you would now be under lock and key in the depôt of the Prefecture."
Hyde, in spite of himself, shuddered as he thought of his last detention in that unsavoury prison.
"What, then, have you done, my English friend?" went on Anatole, with drunken solemnity. "Why should the police seek your arrest?"
"But do they? I cannot believe it."
"It is as I tell you. I myself am in the 'cuisine' (the Prefecture). Since my return from the war my illustrious services have been rewarded by an appointment of great trust."
"In other words, you are now a police-agent, and you were set to watch for some one like me."
"Why not you?" asked Anatole, trying, but in vain, to fix him with his watery eyes. "In any case," he went on, "I wish to serve a comrade—at risk to myself, perhaps."
"You shall not suffer for it, never fear, in the long run. Count always upon me."
"They may say that I have betrayed my trust; that I put friendship before duty. That has always been my error; I have too soft a heart."
Anatole now began to cry with emotion at his own chivalrous self-sacrifice, which changed quickly into bravado as he cried, striking the table noisily—
"Who cares? I would save you from the Prefect himself."
At this moment the big man who had been watching at the window returned, accompanied by two others. He walked straight towards the door of the wine-shop.
"Sacré bleu! le patron(chief). You are lost! Quick! take me by the throat."
Hyde jumped to his feet and promptly obeyed the curious command.
"Now struggle; throw me to the ground, bolt through the back door," whispered Anatole, hastily.
All which Hyde executed promptly and punctiliously. Anatole suffered him to do as he pleased, and Hyde escaped through the back entrance just as the other policemen rushed in at the front.
"After him! Run! Fifty francs to whoever stops him!"
But Hyde had the heels of them. He ran out and through a little courtyard at the back communicating with the street. There he found afiacre, into which he jumped, shouting to the cabman—
"Drive on straight ahead! A napoleon for yourself."
In this way he distanced his pursuers, and half-an-hour later regained his hotel by a long detour.
Rather agitated and exhausted by the events of the morning, Hyde went upstairs to his own room to rest and review his situation.
"It is quite evident," he said to himself, "that Cyprienne has tried to turn the tables on me. I was too open with her. It was incautious of me to show my hand so soon. Of course the police have been set upon me—the accused and still unjudged perpetrator of the crime in Tinplate Street—by her. But has she acted alone in this?
"I doubt it. I doubt whether she would have come to Paris with that express purpose, or whether the police would have listened to her if she had.
"But who assisted her? Some one from whom she has no secrets. Were it not that such a woman is likely to have set up the closest relations with other miscreants in these past years, I should say that her agent and accomplice was Ledantec. Ledantec is still alive; I know that, for I saw him myself on the field of the Alma, rifling the dead.
"Ledantec! We have an old score to settle, heand I. What if he should be mixed up in this business that brings me to Paris? It is quite likely. That would explain his presence in the Crimea, which hitherto has seemed so strange. I never could believe that so daring and unscrupulous a villain had degenerated into a camp-follower, hungry for plunder gained in the basest way. It could not have been merely to prey upon the dead that he followed in the wake of our army. Far more likely that he was a secret agent of the enemy. If so then, so still, most probably. What luck if these damaging clues that I hold should lead me also to him!
"But it is evident that I shall do very little if I continue to go about as Rupert Hyde. The police are on the alert: my movements would soon be interfered with, and, although I have no fear now of being unable to prove my innocence, arrest and detention of any kind might altogether spoil my game.
"I must assume some disguise, and to protect myself and my case I will do so with the full knowledge of the Embassy. It will do if I go there within an hour. By this evening at latest the police will certainly be here after Rupert Hyde."
It must be mentioned here that the police of Paris are supposed to be acquainted with the names of all visitors residing in the city. The rule may be occasionally relaxed, as now, but under the despotism of Napoleon III. it was enforced with a rigorous exactitude.
Hyde had been barely half-a-dozen hours in Paris, but already his name was inscribed upon the hotel-register awaiting the inspection of the police, who would undoubtedly call that same day to note all new arrivals.
Before starting for the Embassy, Hyde sat down and wrote a couple of rather lengthy letters, both for England, which he addressed, and himself posted at the corner of the Rue Royale.
Thence he went on, down the Faubourg St. Honoré, not many hundred yards, and soon passed under the gateway ornamented with the arms of Great Britain, and stood upon what, by international agreement, was deemed a strip of British soil.
He saw anattaché, to whom he quickly explained himself.
"You wish to pursue the investigation yourself, I gather? Is it worth while running such a risk? Why not hand over the whole business to the Prefecture? I believe they have already put a watch upon the persons suspected."
"I have no confidence in their doing it as surely as I would myself."
Hyde, it will be understood, had his own reasons for not wishing to present himself at the Prefecture.
"You propose to assume a disguise? As you please; but how can we help you?"
"By giving me papers in exchange for my passport,which you can hold, and by sending after me if I do not reappear within two or three days."
"You anticipate trouble, then; danger, perhaps."
"Not necessarily, but it is as well to take precautions."
"Is there anything else?"
"Yes; I should like to bring my disguise and put it on here. In the porter's lodge, a back office—anywhere."
Theattachépromised to get the ambassador's permission, which was accorded in due course, and that same afternoon Hyde entered the Embassy a well-dressed English gentleman, and came out an evil-looking ruffian, wearing the blue blouse and high silk cap of the working classes. One sleeve of the blouse hung loose across his chest, as though he had lost his arm, but his injured limb was safe underneath the garment. His beard was trimmed close, and on either side of his forehead were two great curls, plastered flat on the temple, after the fashion so popular with French roughs.
In this attire he plunged into the lowest depths of the city.
Amongst the papers seized at the Maltese baker's in Kadikoi were several that gave an address in Paris. This place was referred to constantly as the headquarters of the organisation which supplied the Russian enemy with intelligence, and at which a certain mysterious person—the leading spirit evidently of the whole nefarious company—was to be found.
"I'll find out all about him and his confederates before I'm many hours older," said Hyde, confidently, as he presented himself at the porter's lodge of a tall, six-storied house, of mean and forbidding aspect, close to the Faubourg St. Martin. It was let out in small lodgings to tenants as decayed and disreputable as their domicile.
"M. Sabatier?" asked Hyde, boldly, of the porter.
"On the fifth floor, the third door to the right," was the reply.
Hyde mounted the stairs and knocked at the door indicated.
"Well?" asked an old woman who opened it.
"The patron—is he here? I must speak to him."
"Who are you? What brings you?" The old woman still held the door ajar, and denied him admission.
"I have news from the Crimea—important news—from the Maltese."
"Joe?" asked the old woman, still suspicious.
Hyde nodded, and said sharply—
"Be quick! The patron must know at once. You will have to answer for this delay."
"He is absent—come again to-morrow," replied the old woman, sulkily.
"It will be worse for him—for all of us—if he does not see me at once."
"I tell you he is absent. You must come again;" and with that the woman shut the door in his face.
What was Hyde to do now? Watch outside? That would hardly be safe. The police, he knew, were on the look-out already, and they would be suspicious of any one engaged in the same game.
There was nothing for it but to take the old woman's reply for truth and wait till the following day. Hyde knew his Paris well enough to find a third-class hotel or lodging-house suitable for such a man as he now seemed, and here, after wandering through the streets for hours, dining at a low restaurant and visiting the gallery of a theatre, he sought and easily obtained a bed.
Next day he returned to the Faubourg St. Martin and was met with the same answer. The patron was still absent.
Hyde was beginning to despair; but he resolved to wait one more day, intending, if still unsuccessful, to surrender the business to other hands.
But on the third day he was admitted.
"The patron will see you," said the old woman, as she led him into a small but well-lighted room communicating with another, into which she passed, locking the door behind her.
They kept him waiting ten minutes or more, during which he had an uncomfortable feeling he was being watched, although he could not tell exactly how or from where.
There was really a small eye-hole in the wall opposite, of the kind called in French a "Judas," and such as is used in prisons to observe the inmates of the cells. Through this, Hyde had been subjected to a long and patient examination.
It was apparently satisfactory; for presently the inner door was unlocked, and the old woman returned, followed by a man whom we have seen before.
It was Mr. Hobson in person; Ledantec really, as Hyde immediately saw, in spite of the smug, smooth exterior, the British-cut whiskers, and the unmistakable British garb.
"Here is the patron," said the old woman; "tell him what you have to say."
Hyde, addressing himself to Mr. Hobson, began his story in the most perfect French he could command. He spoke the language well, and had no reason to fear that his accent would betray him.
"The patron speaks no French," put in the old woman. "You ought to know that. Tell me, and I will interpret."
Mr. Hobson played his part closely, that was clear. A Frenchman by birth, he could hardly be ignorant of or have forgotten his own tongue.
Hyde, following these instructions, told his story in the briefest words. How Valetta Joe had been seized, his shop ransacked, and many compromising papers brought to light.
"Ask him how he knows this," said Mr. Hobson quietly.
"My brother has written to me from the Crimea. He was in the camp when the baker was seized."
"What is his brother's name?"
"Eugène Chabot, of the 39th Algerian battalion."
This was a name given in the papers seized.
"Was it he who gave this address? How did the fellow come here? Ask him that."
"Yes," Hyde said; he had learned the patron's address from his brother, who had urged him to come and tell what had happened without a moment's delay.
Mr. Hobson,aliasLedantec, had listened attentively to this friendly message as it was interpreted to him bit by bit, but without betraying the slightest concern. Suddenly he changed his demeanour.
"Ecoutez-moi!"he cried in excellent French, looking up and darting a fierce look at the man in front of him. "Listen! You have played a bold game and lost it. You did not hold a sufficiently strong hand."
Hyde stood sullenly silent and unconcerned, but he felt he was discovered.
"In your charming and for the most part veracious story there is only one slight mistake, my good friend."
"I do not understand."
"I will tell you. Eugène Chabot, your brother?—yes; your brother. Well, he could not have written to you as you tell me—"
"But I assure you—"
"For the simple reason, that, just one week before the seizure of Valetta Joe, Chabot was killed—in a sortie from the enemy's lines."
"Impossible! I—"
"Have been lying throughout and must take the consequences. You have thrust your head into the lion's jaw. Hold!"
Seeing that Hyde had thrust his one hand beneath his blouse, seeking, no doubt, for some concealed weapon, Hobson suddenly struck a bell on the table before him.
Four men rushed in.
"Seize him before he can use his arm! Seize him, and unmask him!"
The ruffians, laying violent hands on Hyde, tore off his blouse and dragged the wig with its elaborate curls from his head. In the struggle he gave a sharp cry of pain. They had touched too roughly the still helpless arm which hung in its sling beneath the blouse.
"Ah! I knew I could not be mistaken. It is you, then, Rupert Gascoigne! I thought I recognised you from the first, although it is years and years since we met."
"Not quite, villain! Cowardly traitor, murderer, despoiler of the dead!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"That I saw you at your craven work just after theAlma; you ought to have been shot then. The world would have been well rid of a miscreant."
"Pretty language, truly, Mr. Gascoigne! I must strive to deserve it."
"What are you going to do with me?"
"I am not sure. Only do not hope for mercy. You know too much. I might make away with you at once—"
"But why spill blood?" he went on, musing aloud. "The guillotine will do your business in due course if I hand you over to the law. That will be best, safest; the most complete riddance, perhaps."
There was a pause.
"You see you are altogether in my power," said Ledantec, "either way. But I am not unreasonable. I am prepared to spare you—for the present," he said, with an evil smile—"only for the present, and according as you may behave."
"On what conditions will you spare me—for the present?" asked Hyde, elated at the unexpected chance thus given him.
"Tell me how you came to know of this address. Who sent you here?"
"Valetta Joe, the Maltese baker at Kadikoi."
"Describe him to me," asked Ledantec, to try Hyde.
Hyde had seen Joe more than once in his rides through the hut-town, and his answer was perfectly satisfactory.
"Did he send any message?"
"Just what I have told you. I was to let you know of his arrest and of the danger you would run."
Ledantec was deceived by the straightforward and unhesitating way in which Hyde told his story.
"It may be so. At any rate, the warning must not be despised. Whether or not you are to be trusted remains to be seen. But I will keep you safe for a day or two longer and see what turns up. In any case you cannot do much mischief to Cyprienne while shut fast here."
"Cyprienne?" said Hyde, quite innocently.
"I am quite aware of one reason that brought you to Paris, but, as I have said, you cannot well execute your threats so long as we hold you tight."
Hyde shook his head as though these remarks were completely unintelligible. But he laughed within himself at the thought that he had already outwitted both Cyprienne and her accomplice, and that, wherever he was, a prisoner or at large, events would work out her discomfiture without him.
He had no fears for himself. They had promised him at the British Embassy that he should be sought out if he did not reappear within three days. Besides, the French police had their eyes on the house. The tables would presently be turned upon his captors in a way that they little expected.
When, therefore, he was led by Ledantec's orders into a little back room dimly lighted by a windowlooking on to a blank wall, he went like a lamb. But physically he was not particularly comfortable; there were pleasanter ways of spending the day than tied hand and foot to the legs of a bedstead, and Ledantec's farewell speech was calculated to disturb his equanimity.
"Don't make a sound or a move, mind. If you do—" and he produced a glittering knife, with a look that could not be misunderstood.
McKay must have slept for many hours. Daylight was fading, and the den he occupied was nearly dark, when he was aroused by the voices of his Russian fellow-lodgers coming off duty for the night.
They were rough, simple fellows most of them: boorish peasants torn from their village homes, and forced to fight in their Czar's quarrel, which he was pleased to call a holy war. Coarse, uncultivated, but not unkindly, and they gathered around McKay, staring curiously at him, and plying him with questions.
His command of their language soon established amicable relations, and presently, when supper was ready, a nauseous mess ofkasha, or thick oatmeal porridge, boiled with salt pork, they hospitably invited him to partake. He was a prisoner, but an honouredguest, and they freely pressed their flasks ofvodkhiupon him when with great difficulty he had swallowed a few spoonfulls of the black porridge.
They talked, too, incessantly, notwithstanding their fatigue, always on the same subject, this interminable siege.
"It's weary work," said one. "I long for home."
"They will never take the place; Father Todleben will see to that. Why do they not go, and leave us in peace?"
"It is killing work: in the batteries day and night; always in danger under this hellish fire. This is the best place. You are better off, comrade, than we" (this was to McKay); "for you are safe under cover here, and in the open a man may be killed at any time."
"He has dangers of his own to face," said the under-officer in charge of the barrack, grimly. "Do not envy him till after to-morrow."
McKay heard these words without emotion. He was too wretched, too much dulled by misfortune and the misery of his present condition, to feel fresh pain.
Yet he slept again, and was in a dazed, half-stupid state when they fetched him out next morning and marched him down to the water's edge, where he was put into a man-of-war's boat and rowed across to the north side of the harbour.
Prince Gortschakoff, the Russian commander-in-chief, had sent for him, and about noon he was takenbefore the great man, who had his headquarters in the Star Fort, well out of reach of the besiegers' fire.
The Prince, a portly, imposing figure, of haughty demeanour, and speaking imperiously, accosted McKay very curtly.
"I know all about you. Whether you are spy or traitor matters little: your life is forfeited. But I will spare it on one condition. Tell me unreservedly what is going on in the enemy's lines."
"I should indeed deserve your unjust epithets if I replied," was all McKay's answer.
"What reinforcements have reached the allies lately?" went on the Prince, utterly ignoring McKay's refusal, and looking at him fiercely. "Speak out at once."
Our hero bore the gaze unflinchingly, and said nothing.
"We know that the French Imperial Guard have arrived, and that many new regiments have joined the English. Is an immediate attack contemplated?"
McKay was still silent.
"Ill-conditioned, obstinate fool!" cried the Prince, angrily. "It is your only chance. Speak, or prepare to die!"
"You have no right to press me thus. I refuse distinctly to betray my own side."
"Your own side! You are a Russian—it is your duty to tell us. But I will not bandy words with you. Let him be taken back to a place of safety and await my orders."
Once more McKay gave himself up for lost. When he regained the wretched casemate that was his prison he hardly hoped to leave it, except when summoned for execution.
But that day passed without incident, a second also, and a third. Still our hero found himself alive.
Had they forgotten him? Or were they too busily engaged to attend to so small a matter as sending him out of the world.
The latter seemed most probable. Another bombardment, the most incessant and terrible of any that preceded it, as McKay thought. Although hidden away, so to speak, in the bowels of the earth, he plainly heard the continuous cannonade, the roar of the round-shot, the murderous music of the shells as they sang through the air, and presently exploded with tremendous noise.
He was to have a still livelier experience of the terrible mischief caused by the ceaseless fire of his friends.
Late in the afternoon of the fourth day he was called forth, always in imminent peril of his life, and taken round the head of a harbour which was filled with men-of-war, past the Creek Battery, and up into the main town. They halted him at the door of a handsome building, greatly dilapidated by round-shot and shell. This was the naval library, the highest spot in Sebastopol, a centre and focus of danger, but just now occupied by the chiefs of the Russian garrison.
McKay waited, wondering what would happen tohim, and in a few minutes narrowly escaped death more than once. First a shell burst in the street close to him, and two bystanders were struck down by the fragments; then another shell struck a house opposite, and covered the neighbouring space with splinters large and small; next a round-shot tore down the thoroughfare, carrying everything before it.
It was no safer inside than out. Yet McKay was glad when they marched him in before the generals, who were seated at the open window of the topmost look-out, scanning the besiegers' operations with their telescopes.
"What is the meaning of this fire? Have you any idea?" It was Todleben who asked the question. "Does it prelude a general attack?"
"I cannot tell you," replied McKay.
"Was there no talk in the enemy's lines of an expected assault?" asked another.
"I do not know."
"You must know. You are on the headquarter-staff of the British army."
"Who told you so? You have always denied my claim to be treated as an English officer."
"Because you are a traitor to your own country. But it is as I say. We know as a fact that you belong to Lord Raglan's staff; how we know it you need not ask."
The fact was, of course, made patent by the English commander-in-chief, in his repeated attempts to secureMcKay's release and exchange. But the prisoner had been told nothing of these efforts, or of the peremptory refusal that had met Lord Raglan's demands.
"I told you it would be no use," interrupted a third. "He is as obstinate as a mule."
"Stay! what is that?" cried Todleben, suddenly. "Over there, in the direction of the Green Mamelon."
Three rockets were seen to shoot up into the evening sky.
"It is some signal," said another. "Yes; heavy columns are beginning to climb the slopes away there to our left."
"And the British troops are collecting in front of the Quarries."
At this moment the besiegers' fire, which had slackened perceptibly, was re-opened with redoubled strength.
"Let everyone return to his station without delay," said Todleben, briefly. "A serious crisis is at hand. The attack points to the Malakoff, which, as you all know, is the key of our position."
"Hush!" said one of the other generals, pointing to McKay.
"What matter?" replied Todleben. "He can hardly hope to pass on the intelligence."
But the words were not lost upon our hero, although he had but little time then to consider their deep meaning.
"What shall we do with the prisoner?" asked his escort.
"Take him back to his place of confinement."
McKay's heart was lighter that evening than it had been at any time since his capture. He remembered now that this was the 7th of June, the day settled for the night attack upon the Mamelon and Quarries, and he hoped that if these succeeded, as they must, they would probably be followed by a further assault upon the principal inner defences of the town.
He spent the evening and the greater part of the night in the deepest agitation, hoping hourly, momentarily, for deliverance.
None came, no news even; but that the struggle was being fought out strenuously he knew from the absence of the men that occupied his casemate, all of whom were doubtless engaged. But towards daylight one or two dropped in who had been wounded and forced to retire from the batteries. From them he learnt something of what had occurred.
The French had stormed the works on the left of the Russian front, and had carried them once, twice, three times. The Russians had returned again and again to recover their lost redoubts, but had been obliged to surrender them in the end.
In the same way the English had attacked the ambuscades—what we call the Quarries—and between night and dawn the Russians had made four separateattempts to recover what had been lost at the first onslaught.
"And now it is over?"
"No one can say. We have suffered fearfully; we are almost broken down. If the enemy presses we shall have to give up the town."
"Pray God they may come on!" cried McKay, counting the moments till relief came.
But bitter disappointment was again his portion. The day grew on, and, instead of renewed firing, perfect quiet supervened. There was a truce, he was told, on both sides, to bury the dead.
Now followed several dreary days, when hope had sunk again to its lowest ebb, and all his worst apprehensions revived. It was like a living death; he was a close prisoner, and never a word reached him that any of his friends were concerning themselves with his miserable fate.
Again there came a glimpse of hope. Surely there was good cause: in the renewal of the bombardment, which, after an interval of a few days, revived with yet fiercer intention and unwavering persistence.
Surely this meant another—possibly the final—and supreme attack?
The firing continued without intermission for four days. It was increased and intensified by an attack of the allied fleet upon the seaward batteries. This new bombardment made itself evident from the direction ofthe sounds, and the merciless execution of the fiery rockets that fell raging into the town.
At length, in the dead of night, McKay was aroused from fitful sleep by the beating of drums and trumpets sounding the assembly.
It was a general alarm. Troops were heard hurrying to their stations from all directions, and in the midst of it all was heard—for a moment there had been a lull in the cannonade—a sharp, long-sustained sound of musketry fire.
Evidently an attack, but on what points it was made, and how it fared, McKay at first could have no idea. But, as he listened anxiously to the sounds of conflict, it was clear that the tide of battle was raging nearer to him now than on any previous occasion.
He waited anxiously, his heart beating faster and faster, as each minute the firing grew nearer and nearer. He was in ignorance of the exact nature of the attack until, as on the last occasion, the Russian soldiers came back by twos and threes and re-entered the casemate.
"What is going on in the front?" McKay asked.
"The enemy are advancing up the ravine. We have been driven out of the cemetery, and I doubt whether we shall hold our ground."
"They are coming on in thousands!" cried a new arrival. "This place is not safe. Let us fall back to the Karabel barrack."
"You had better come too," said one soldier thoughtfully to McKay, as he gathered up the long skirts of his grey great-coat to allow of more expeditious retreat.
"All right," said McKay, "I will follow."
And taking advantage of the confusion, during which the sentries on the casemate had withdrawn, he left his prison-chamber and got out into the main road.
The fusilade was now close at hand; bullets whistled continually around and pinged with a dull thud as they flattened against the rocky ground.
The assailants were making good progress. McKay, as he crouched below a wall on the side of the road, could hear the glad shouts of his comrades as, with short determined rushes, they charged forward from point to point.
His situation was one of imminent peril truly, for he was between two fires. But what did he care? Only a few minutes more, if he could but lie close, and he would be once more surrounded by his own men.
While he waited the dawn broke, and he could watch for himself the progress the assailants made. They were now climbing along the slopes of the ravine on both sides of the harbour, occupying house after house, and maintaining a hot fire on the retreating foe. It was exciting, maddening; in his eagerness McKay was tempted to emerge from his shelter and wave encouragement to his comrades.