CHAPTER XXVA DESPERATE PLAN
THE death silence that broods over the sombre dungeons of Peter and Paul brooded also over the library of Sabatoff. Drexel and the Keeper of the Seals sat looking each at the other’s drawn face, or paced the room with frantic strides, now and then glancing at the cold impassive clock whose ticking seemed the relentless footsteps of the approaching hour when Sonya and Borodin must mount the scaffold. They had nothing to say to each other. They could do nothing. They could only dumbly wait till the clock knelled four.
And never a dream had either of them of the deadly intelligence Freeman was even now subtly drawing from the condemned pair—that at almost the same hour the end came in the Fortress, so Freeman planned, the end would also come here.
Eight!... Nine!... Ten!
As if revealed by lightning flashes, Drexel had swift visions of Sonya. He saw her in her dungeon, now and then lifting her head to listen to the slow pacing of the death watch at her door, or to the tower of the Fortress Cathedral, far up in the night, chiming “The Glory of God in Zion”; saw a lookof despair darken her face as she thought how near her end was, how little she had done, how desperate was her people’s need; saw her led forth from her cell and through the silent corridors of this great catacomb whose tenants were the living dead, and out to where waited the gallows-tree; saw her mount the steps, her face white but calm, and lighted with a glory as though granted a Mosaic vision of the land she might not enter. And then he saw——
He gave a low cry. Sabatoff glanced at him but did not speak.
“Can we not do something?” Drexel moaned.
“What?”
“Oh, anything! Anything!”
Sabatoff answered with the quiet of one long accustomed to tragedies such as this, who himself expected some day to be a victim. “The hope that General Valenko might save them was our last and only chance.”
“But we cannot just sit here and watch that clock creep round to four!” Drexel sprang up desperately. “Can’t we at least go out and publicly proclaim the identity of Sonya and Borodin? In hotels, restaurants, theatres!”
“What will that do?”
“Why, the roused public will never let the prince and princess of so great a family die on the scaffold!”
“Even if we succeeded in rousing the people, they could not move the Government.”
“But let’s try, man!”
“If so high an official as General Valenko tried to save them and was arrested, what can the people do? No, that plan would only be a vain waste of these last few hours.”
“But, God, there must be something we can do!”
“I wish there was!” groaned Sabatoff.
Drexel dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands, and tried with pure muscle to press an idea from his aching forehead. But he could not long sit thus. He paced the floor—thinking—thinking—wildly thinking. He looked at the clock. “Half past ten!” he breathed, and continued his frantic walk. Sabatoff’s eyes followed him in keen sympathy; deeply as he felt the impending tragedy on his own account, he felt an especial pang on Drexel’s, for it was easy guessing what lay behind Drexel’s agonized concern.
Suddenly Drexel paused. A tense excitement dawned upon his face.
His strange look drew Sabatoff to his feet. “What is it?”
Drexel tried to speak calmly. “Was not Borodin, when first arrested, held in some other prison?”
“Yes, in the Central Prison.”
“And the reason you did not know where he was, was because he had been secretly removed?”
“Yes.”
“These removals are common, are they not? Especially into a stronger prison?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a stronger prison in Russia than Peter and Paul?”
“None.”
“But are not prisoners sometimes transferred from Peter and Paul?”
“Many of the most feared life-prisoners are sent to Schlusselburg.”
“Yes—I remember now. And where is Schlusselburg?”
“Forty versts away, on an island in Lake Ladoga. But, Mr. Drexel—what are you driving at?”
Drexel clutched the other’s shoulder and the excitement he had repressed now blazed forth.
“We are going to remove Sonya and Borodin to Schlusselburg!”
Sabatoff stared. “Remove them to Schlusselburg?” he repeated blankly.
“Yes—to Schlusselburg!”
“Are you out of your head?”
“Or at least Schlusselburg is where we will pretend to start for. But once out of Peter and Paul we march solemnly along for a way, then——”
“Then disappear. I see that. Once out of Peter and Paul, the rest is easy. But how will you get them out?”
“By an order.”
“By an order?”
“Yes, by an order! You have all kinds of official blanks, you have copies of the signatures of all important officials. By an order made out by you.”
Sabatoff’s eyes opened wide. “You are thinking of a regular official removal?” he ejaculated.
“Of a removal that will appear so regular and official that it will deceive every one for a few hours.”
“You mean that you propose to walk calmly into the Fortress, calmly request the prisoners, and then calmly walk out with them?”
“As calmly as I can.”
“But there is not one chance in a hundred that the plan will succeed!”
“Perhaps not. But that hundredth chance is the only chance!”
“It’s either the idea of a madman—or a genius!” Sabatoff’s face caught the excited blaze of Drexel’s. “Yes, it’s the only chance!” he cried, and he held out his hand. “And who knows—we may succeed!”
For a moment they silently gripped hands upon the dangerous adventure; then their tongues fell busy about details. Would the governor of the prison accept the forged order without suspicion, and act upon it? Perhaps not; indeed, most likely not, for Colonel Kavelin was reputed an ideal jailer, shrewd, watchful, versed in the thousand tricks of caged people who long and scheme for liberty. But that he should not was one of the risks.
An escort would be necessary to act as guard to the prisoners, but the escort would be an easy matter. Sabatoff would provide the men, and there were secret stores of uniforms prepared for use in just such exigencies as this. It was decided that Drexelshould lead the adventure alone; not that Sabatoff lacked courage, but he lacked what was equally requisite in a daring venture like this, coolness and readiness of wit in a crisis.
At the last they had a moment of vivid dismay. Drexel, with his broken speech, could never pass as a Russian officer. But a second thought disposed of this difficulty. There were plenty of French officers in the Russian service, and they mutilated the native tongue quite as atrociously as he. He would be a Frenchman.
It was now eleven. Sabatoff hastened away to arrange for the escort, leaving Drexel with nothing to do but watch the clock hands. Twelve o’clock came—one. How time strode irresistibly on! Only three more hours! Suppose something had happened to Sabatoff—arrest, perhaps—and he should not return?
But presently Drexel heard a key in the outer door, then light footsteps, and then Sabatoff entered the library.
“There was difficulty about collecting the men at so late an hour,” he whispered. “But all is well.” He handed Drexel a bundle. “By the time you get into that uniform I’ll have everything in readiness.”
While Drexel was changing from civilian to gendarme officer, Sabatoff first wrote out the forged order, then took up the telephone on his desk and called a number.
“Is this Peter and Paul?” he asked after a moment.
“Yes.”
“I want to speak to the governor.”
There was another silence. “Is this Governor Kavelin?”
“Yes.”
Sabatoff’s voice had taken on a tone of cold, supercilious politeness. “This is the second secretary of General Pavloff, administrator of prisons. General Pavloff presents his compliments to Colonel Kavelin and begs to inform him that the Czar in his clemency has commuted the sentence of the prisoners Borodin and Sonya Varanova to life imprisonment.”
“Why, I’m all ready to execute them!” exclaimed the governor.
“The administrator also wishes me to inform you,” Sabatoff went on, “that it has been decided to remove these two prisoners, together with Razoff and the White One, to Schlusselburg.”
“Remove them to Schlusselburg!” cried the governor. “What does this mean?”
“I dare say that if General Pavloff had wished you to know the reason he would have instructed me to inform you,” was the cool response.
“Pardon me,” Colonel Kavelin returned angrily, “but it seems to me that General Pavloff, knowing my record, could have considered the prisoners perfectly safe in my charge!”
“I am not authorized to answer for GeneralPavloff. Do you know Captain Laroque of the gendarmerie?—who was recently transferred here from Moscow?”
“No.”
“Captain Laroque will be over within an hour with a guard and with an order for the prisoners. A special train will carry them to Schlusselburg. Have the prison van ready to take them to the station. The administrator asks that you make all haste when the captain comes.”
Sabatoff hung up the receiver.
“Weren’t you pretty high-handed with him?” suggested Drexel.
“I had to be; that’s the manner of the administrator’s office. And you have got to be high-handed, too, for this Captain Laroque is one of the most brutal men in all the gendarmerie.”
“Do I look the part?”
Sabatoff glanced over the well-set figure in the long gray coat and top boots, with sword and pistol at the belt.
“You’ll do very well if you remember to mix in plenty of scowls and curses.”
A minute later they softly opened the front door and peered out. The little street was as empty as the night overhead, save for a driverless sleigh beside the curb. This they got into, and choosing the obscurest streets they drove swiftly to the south. Here in a mean, unlighted street, Sabatoff drew up before the vaguely seen gateway of a court.
“Here we are,” he whispered.
He softly coughed twice. In a few seconds through the gateway filed a dozen shadowy figures. Despite the darkness Drexel could see they wore the uniform of gendarmes.
“Captain Laroque,” Sabatoff whispered to them.
They touched their caps.
“They know what to do,” Sabatoff whispered to Drexel. “When all is over, abandon the sleigh; there’s no clue connecting it with me. And all luck with you!”
They clasped hands, and Sabatoff stepped from the sleigh and disappeared into a cross street. Drexel started the horse into a walk and the men fell into double file behind him. As they passed a street lamp Drexel looked back to take the measure of his escort. Of the front pair one nodded at him, and the other gave him a wink and a grin.
“Nicolai—Ivan!” he breathed.
Nicolai responded with a formal salute. Ivan’s pock-marked face grinned again and his little eyes glinted with excitement. “Great business!” he whispered, nodding his head.
As they moved on Drexel’s suspense tightened. One chance in a hundred, Sabatoff had said, and on so desperate a hazard hung the life of Sonya. Yes, and Borodin’s life, and his own, and if not the lives at least the freedom of Razoff, The White One, and the dozen of his escort. And the slightest mistake,the slightest misfortune, would instantly be the ruin of all!
His foremost fear was that he might be intercepted before he reached the prison. The city was filled with soldiers, the gendarmerie were skulking everywhere; what more natural than that some squad should fall in with them, penetrate their deception and place them under arrest? Drexel expected some late-prowling company to rush out upon them as they passed every dark cross street—as they passed the huge pile of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, whose cavernous shadows seemed the lurking place of surprises—as they passed the Winter Palace of the Czar—as they traversed the long bridge that arched the Neva’s ice. But save for a few sleighs and a sleepy policeman or two, the streets were void and silent—as silent as though frozen by the bitter cold; and without having been once addressed they drew nigh the mighty Fortress.
Before the dark gateway—how many lofty souls had entered there never to come out!—he paused, almost choking with the nearness of the climax. Even the night seemed to hold its breath. Fifteen more minutes would decide it all. Fifteen more minutes and Sonya would be free—or he, too, would be a prisoner in the bowels of the Fortress.
Other fears suddenly assailed him. Suppose the governor should detect something wrong in the order for the prisoners? Or, worse still—and what more likely?—suppose the governor, desiringinstruction upon some detail of the transfer, had called up the real administrator of prisons and had thus laid bare the plot?—and even now was cunningly waiting for him to appear to snap the prison doors behind him like the doors of a trap?
A hundred chances against them? Standing beneath those frowning walls, the odds seemed worse a hundred times than that!