CHAPTER XVTHE MAN IN THE SHEEPSKIN COAT
DREXEL sank down in the fine snow, his back against a patriarch pine that rose without a branch far up towards the stars; and he sat there amid that vast white silence, breathing heavily, and considering what he should next do.
He had to get back to St. Petersburg, and soon, else lose the prized chance of working on at Sonya’s side. But he dared not make straight for the railroad. The countess’s advice on that point he knew was sound; those bullets which had grazed him as he rolled in the snow were grim and indisputable evidence that the pursuit of him was a most serious matter. He thought of walking the fifty miles, of riding in a relay of sleighs hired from peasants; but he quickly realised that either method offered little if any chance of escaping the hundreds who would be sent out to scour the country for him, and his mind returned to the railroad. After all, he would go by train, and since he dared not go as Henry Drexel, he would go in the one disguise the country offered him. He would find a village, secretly buy peasant clothing, and ride backto St. Petersburg under the very nose of spies and police.
This settled, he found the North Star, calculated the course he wished to follow through this unknown country, and set out. Now that the spur of pursuit was gone, he made but slow progress. Walking is not easy in a huge fur coat through unbroken snow a foot deep, and when your path is a series of semi-circles round wide, earth-sweeping hemlocks, and when every moment you have to set your course anew by a star. At length, however, he came out into the open. He was tired, but he kept on, heavily, doggedly. He was beginning to fear that he might walk on all night and find no village, having steered an accurate course between them all, when he saw in the distance a group of faint white mounds.
Soon he was at the head of the village street, with its two lines of night-capped cottages. The village lay in universal silence; not a window winked with light. He determined to try the first cottage, and toward this he instinctively went on tip-toe, lest some slight noise should betray his presence to the village.
His precaution was in vain. Suddenly the yelp of a dog broke upon the silence; then a relay of yelps ran from the village’s one end to the other. One lean dog, then another and another and another, came leaping out at him, looking fiercely ravenous in the ghostly moonlight. Drexel seized a stake from the wicker-work fence of a barnyard, and kept the white-fanged brutes at bay.
But these dogs he feared less than another danger. Momently he expected the village to rush out, and thus ruin his plans of escape. But not a cottager stirred. They had grown used to these canine serenades; the barking no more disturbed their rustic sleep than a street-car’s rattle does the city dweller’s.
Keeping the snarling pack without the circle of the swinging stake, Drexel knocked at the door—and had to knock again and again before he heard a stir. Finally there came a hesitant, “Who’s there?”
“A friend! Let me in!” he called in a low tone.
He heard voices consulting. One said that perhaps it was the police or soldiers, and if the door was not opened they would burst it in or fire the house. Whereupon the door swung open.
“Come in,” said the voice of the tactician.
Drexel followed through a dark room, which a sleepy rustling told him was inhabitated by hens, into the peasants’ one living room—a room with an earthen floor, walls of mud-plastered logs and a ceiling that brushed the head. A well-built, shaggy old man, and a younger man and woman, evidently his son and daughter-in-law, received Drexel. They were dressed practically as by day, for the Russian peasant is too poor to possess many bedclothes and he perforce sleeps in his day garments for the sake of warmth.
“Will my lord sit down?” quaveringly asked the old man, pulling forward a rough-hewn bench. Allwere agitated by the strangeness of a richly-dressed city man calling at their house at dead of night; and they wavered between the peasant’s natural courtesy and fear of some disaster this visit might portend.
Drexel’s exhausted body collapsed upon the rude seat, and the three formed a staring semi-circle. His eyes fixed upon the father as being nearest his size.
“I want you,” said he, “to sell me a suit of your clothes.”
“Sell you this suit of clothes!” cried the old man.
“No, not that suit,” said Drexel wearily, eyeing with disfavour the worn and greasy sheepskin coat. “I want your other suit.”
“But this is the only suit I have.”
Drexel shuddered. “Then I guess I’ll have to buy it. How much did it cost?”
“Ten rubles, my lord—when it was new.”
Drexel drew out his purse and laid down a note. “There’s a hundred rubles.”
The three stared in an even greater amazement.
The old man shook his head. “If I had so large a note,” he said at length, “people would think I stole it.”
Drexel took out several smaller bills that totalled the same, and restored the first note to his purse.
The three hesitated—looked at one another—then withdrew for a conference into the chickens’ apartment. When they returned, the old man said:
“Pardon, my lord—but if we do this, may we not get into trouble?”
“Isn’t it worth running a little risk to get twenty times a thing’s value?” Drexel returned sharply.
They conferred again. “But if I sell this, what shall I wear?” asked the old man.
“Oh, Lord!” groaned Drexel in exasperation. “Can’t you take ten rubles of the hundred and buy a new suit?”
“No—I dare not buy new clothes. All the village knows we are very poor, knows we have hardly a single ruble. If I get a new suit all the village will ask questions and be suspicious. My lord knows how the police look into everything; they would take it up and make trouble.” He shook his head. “No, I dare not sell.”
The old man was right about the new suit, Drexel had to admit. His situation seemed hopeless. But as they talked on a way opened, and finally they settled upon a plan. Drexel was to have the clothes—the old man was to remain in bed for a day on pretense of illness—the son was to accompany Drexel to St. Petersburg to bring back the suit—and on the day after the morrow the father could go about in his accustomed garb. Tired as he was, Drexel had to laugh at all this complicated caution to give him a few hours’ use of a suit hardly worth its weight in rags.
The young woman delicately provided them privacy by lying down on the broad low wooden shelf that is the peasant’s only bed and turning her face to the wall. A moment later the old man wasunder a tattered blanket on the same bed, and his clothes were on the earthen floor. Drexel, not without some shrinking of the flesh, changed into the old shirt of homespun linen, the tattered trousers, and the greasy coat with the fleece turned inward. Instead of boots or shoes there were slippers of woven grass, and these the son tied on with cords, having first swathed Drexel’s feet and calves in rags. Drexel roughened his moustache, touselled his hair and put on a fur cap which settled upon his ears. He still did not look a typical village peasant, but he counted on passing for a peasant workingman who fluctuated between country and city.
He offered his discarded garments as a gift to the family for he dared not take them with him. But the old man refused; such fine clothes would surely get them into trouble. There was only one other course. In one corner, filling a third of the room, stood a great, clay-built oven. Drexel opened the door of this, and into the fire went the dangerous raiment.
Two minutes later Drexel and the young man stepped out into the white, starry night; and after following a beaten sleigh-track for an hour, and when Drexel was feeling that his straw-shod feet had turned to ice, they came at last to the station.
They entered the third-class waiting-room. A broad passage ran through into the first- and second-class room, and through this, with a show of stupidpeasant curiosity, Drexel cautiously peeped. As he had half expected, there stood Captain Nadson, his left arm in a sling. He threw himself upon the floor, among the other waiting passengers a-sprawl in sleep, and drew his cap over his face. The peasant dropped down beside him.
Presently the captain entered, saw the new figures, crossed and kicked Drexel’s side.
“Wake up—you!” he called.
Drexel moved slightly. “What you want?” he asked sleepily.
“Have you seen a man in a fine-looking coat walking through the country?”
“Haven’t seen anybody,” said Drexel in a half snore.
The captain kicked the guide, and Drexel, peering from beneath his cap, saw the poor fellow was trembling with terror—in a state of nerves to make some catastrophic blunder.
To him the captain repeated his question.
“I—I—” began the peasant.
“We came here together,” put in Drexel. “Neither of us saw anyone.”
The captain thrust his toe into Drexel’s side by way of thanks, and walked out.
Soon the train arrived. Drexel, with his guide, hurried out upon the platform, when to his surprise and vast concern he saw come out of the first-class waiting-room the imposing person of General Valenko, and leaning upon him andhalf supported by his arm, a well-wrapped, half-tottering figure. He needed not the company of the general to tell him who she was.
He was torn with keenest apprehension over Sonya’s obvious illness. What was the cause of this sudden seizure? Was it a distemper, prostrating while it lasted, but harmless and swift to run its course? Or did it promise to be dangerous and of a long duration?—and was she hastening away in this its incipient stage that she might have the superior care of home and St. Petersburg?
And since she was ill, should he see her again?
The train started up. Drexel slipped aboard, leaving the captain standing on the platform looking for a fugitive dressed in clothes that were now ashes in a peasant’s earthen stove.
A Russian train is a creature with a fine disdain for speed, and a third-class coach makes each mile seem five—but at length, toward morning, the train drew into St. Petersburg. All the suffocating journey Drexel had thought of little else but Sonya’s weak figure swaying across the platform upon her father’s arm; and when he got off the train, it was to hasten to where stood the coach that he had seen her enter. He saw her limp body carried out, placed in a wheeled chair and pushed swiftly away. He followed, and saw her lifted into a closed carriage, and saw the horses tear away at full gallop. Of a certainty, it was a serious illness indeed.
Drexel sat in the third-class waiting-room till asullen dawn began to creep over the city. Having arranged that his companion was to remain in the station, his cap wrongside out upon his left knee as a sign whereby a messenger might know him, he started for the house where lived Ivan and Nicolai in obedience to Sonya’s command. Weary as he was, he dared not ride the long four miles; no peasant such as he looked would spend forty kopeks for a sleigh.
The city was only beginning to rub sleep from its eyes when he slipped unnoticed across the court to the house he so well remembered, and rapped at the door. Presently it opened a few inches and he saw the boarding-house keeper.
“Good-morning,” said Drexel. “I want to see Ivan and Nicolai.”
“They’ve got nothing for beggars. If you want bread, here’s five kopeks. Now get away with you!” He tried to close the door in Drexel’s face.
But Drexel’s shoulder went against the door. “Hold on, friend. I’m not a beggar.”
“Either you or your clothes lie. Who are you then?”
“A man who wishes humbly to apologize for having done violence to your stomach four days ago.” And he lifted his eclipsing cap.
The man stared. “Hey?—what’s that?” Then with a sudden flash in his eyes he swung open the door, and, when Drexel had entered, he swiftly slammed it behind him and shot the bolt. “You’ll not escape again!” he said grimly.
“I don’t wish to,” Drexel lightly returned. But it went through him with a chilling uneasiness that, with Sonya sick, and no other to set him right with the household, he would be prisoner here for so long a time as they desired to hold him.
“I’ll announce myself,” Drexel continued and went up the stairway. The outer door was unlocked, and he crossed the empty room and knocked at the second door. There was a sleepy cry of “Who’s there?” to which Drexel responded by more knocking, whereupon the door opened and revealed the square figure of Ivan.
“What do you want?” snapped the little fellow.
“I want to come in, comrade,” cried Drexel, doing so. “And I want food—sleep—clothes!”
The undershot jaw of Ivan fell loose. “The American!” he ejaculated.
He turned to the bed. “Look at him, Nicolai—in those clothes! The American!”
Nicolai was already sitting up in bed, and there was a revolver in his hand and it was pointing at Drexel. “I see,” he said quietly.
“Well, if that isn’t a cordial way to say good-morning! Put down that gun.”
“Not just yet,” returned Nicolai. “How do you happen to be in those clothes? And how do you come to be here?”
“Cheer me up with the sight of food and I’ll talk. But first put away that gun. Oh, I had forgotten the first formality guests are subjectedto in this establishment.” He held up his hands. “Here, Ivan—get busy.”
The little fellow quickly searched him and announced no weapons.
“Now breakfast,” said Drexel.
Still staring, Ivan brought the black bread and bologna from the window-sill, and started the samovar going. While the tea was being prepared, and the breakfast being devoured, Drexel told them as much as he thought wise of what had happened in the three days since he had fled this room.
“And now I want some clothes. I dare not go out in this dress and buy civilized garments. One of you must do it for me.” He laid money on the table and made a note of his sizes. “And now I’m going to sleep.”
With that he stretched himself upon the couch, the revolver of the wary Nicolai upon him. Not again would they be caught off their guard and tricked! For a time his mind was filled with painful fears for Sonya; but his weariness was overpowering, and soon he slipped off into deep slumber.
It seemed to him that scarce fifteen minutes had passed when hushed voices from far, far above vaguely penetrated his sleep. He seemed to float slowly up out of bottomless depths to consciousness. One voice now sounded like a woman’s voice. That a woman should be here seemed curious. He opened his eyes.
The next instant he was on his feet.
“Sonya!” he cried.