I moved to the door and locked it noiselessly. I dared not open it to see if the servant had gone, for if he had not that would have roused his suspicions at once. The Duke had already crossed to the further side of the room, and I joined him there.
He wasted no time in preliminaries.
“Mishka has told me all,” he began, speaking in English, though still in the hoarse low growl appropriate to his assumed character. “And I have learned much since. There is to be a meeting to-night, and if things are as I suspect she will be brought before the tribunal. We must save her if we can. Will you come? To say it will be at the risk of your life is to put it mildly. It will be a forlorn hope.”
“I’ll come; tell me how,” I said.
“You will go to the place where you met Mishka to-day, dine there, and change your clothes. They will have some for you, and you need not use the formula. They expect you already; I knew you would come! Mishka will join you, and will accompany you to the rank where I shall be waiting with my droshky. You will hire me in the usual way; and we will tell you my plans when we are clear of the city. Have you any weapon?”
“No.”
He felt in an inner pocket of his filthy greatcoat and brought out a revolver and a handful of spare cartridges.
“It’s loaded; you can have these, too, though if there’s any shooting I doubt if you’ll have the chance of reloading. Let’s hope you won’t fall in with the police for the third time to-day! Mishka will join you between nine and ten. We need not start till then,—these light nights are a drawback, but that cannot be helped. The meeting will be held as usual, after midnight. That is all now. I must not stay longer. Give me the note you spoke of. A blank sheet—anything—I will destroy it immediately.”
I put a sheet of note-paper into an envelope, and addressed it to Lieutenant Mirakoff at his barracks. His was the first name that occurred to me.
“You know him?” he asked, pointing to the name.
“Very slightly.”
He nodded and picked up the note, holding it carefully by one corner between his filthy thumb and finger.
I unlocked the door as quietly as I had locked it, and a moment later he opened it noisily and backed out, growling guttural and surly thanks; backed right up against the servant, who, as we both guessed, was waiting just outside. Even I was surprised at the altercation that followed. A Russian droshky driver has a bigger command of bad language than any other cabby in the world, and the Grand Duke Loris had evidently studied his part from life. He was letter perfect in it!
I strode to the door and flung it open.
“Here, stop that!” I shouted. “Be off with you, Ivan; you impudent rascal!”
He leered at me and shambled off, but I could hear the coarse voice growling ribaldries all the way down the staircase.
It was a masterpiece of impersonation!
I waited a while, till I judged it safe to start on the first stage of my expedition. I meant to take a circuitous route to the café, in case I was still being watched. I would run no unnecessary risks, not for my own sake, but I guessed that the success of our enterprise—whatever it was—would depend on the exercise of infinite caution, at the beginning, anyhow. I felt strangely elated, happier than I had done for many a long day; although I knew that the worst, or almost the worst, had come to pass, and that Anne was here, in the power of her enemies. But we were going to save her,—we would save her. “A forlorn hope” even Loris Solovieff had called it. Nothing of the kind. Could anything that such a man as he attempted be a forlorn hope; and together, working loyally side by side, what could we not dare, and accomplish? Nothing seemed impossible to-night.
“Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part!”
I kept a wary lookout as I made my way along the streets, most of them thronged at this hour of the summer evening. The air was sultry, and huge masses of cloud were piling up, ominous of a storm before long.
I reached the café eventually and, so far as I knew, unobserved, and came out of it an hour or so later, looking, I hope, as like a shabbily attired Russian student as the Grand Duke Loris looked like a droshky driver, accompanied by a man of the artisan type, who might have been my father,—none other than Mishka himself.
The sky was overcast, and already, above the rumble of the traffic, one could hear the mutter of distant thunder. It reminded me of that eventful night in London, little more than a month ago, though I had seemed to live a lifetime since then.
“The storm comes soon,” said Mishka. “That is well, very well.”
We came to a rank where several droshkys were standing; and he paused irresolute, fumbling in his pocket.
“We will drive, Paul,” he asserted aloud, with the air of a man who has just decided to indulge in an extravagance. “Yes, I say we will; the storm comes soon, and thy mother is alone.”
He began to haggle, after the usual fashion, with the nearest driver; and again I marvelled at the Duke’s disguise; for it was he, of course.
Once clear of the city Mishka unfolded the plan.
“Presently we turn across country and come to a house; there we leave the droshky; and there also will be horses for us in readiness if we should need them—later. Thence we go on foot through the forest to the meeting-place. We must separate when we get near it, but you will keep close to Ivan”—we spoke always of the Duke by that name—“and I will come alone. You will be challenged, and you will give the word, ‘For Freedom,’ and the sign I showed you. Give it to me, now.”
He held out his hand, palm upwards; and I touched it with my thumb and fingers in turn; five little taps.
“Good, you are a quick learner—Paul! The meeting will be in an old chapel,—or so we imagine; the place is changed many times, but it must be there, or in the clearing. Either way there will be little light, there among the pines. That is in our favor. If she is there, we shall know how to act; we must decide then. She will be accused—that is certain—but the five may acquit her. If that comes to pass—good; we shall easily get speech with her, and perhaps she may return with us. At least she will be safe for the moment. But if they condemn her, we must act quickly and all together. We must save her and get her away,—or—die with her!”
“Well said!” growled “Ivan.”
The rain was pattering down now in big drops, and the lightning flashes were more frequent, the thunder nearer each time. The horse shied as there came a more vivid flash than before, followed almost instantly by a crackling roll—the storm was upon us.
As the thunder ceased, I found “Ivan” had pulled the horse up, and was listening intently. I listened also, and above the faint tinkle of our bells and the slight movements of the horse, I heard, faint, as yet, but rapidly approaching, the thud of hoofs and the jangle of accoutrements.
“A patrol,” said “Ivan” quickly. “They are coming towards us; I saw them by the lightning flash. They will challenge us, and I shall drive on, trusting to the darkness and storm. If they follow—as they probably will—and shoot, you two must seize your opportunity, and jump. There is just the chance that they may not see you; I shall drive on. If I distance them, I will follow you. But we must not all be taken, and it will be better for me than for you.”
He started again on the instant, and another flash showed several mounted figures just ahead.
A challenge rang out, and “Ivan’s” reply was to lash the horse into a gallop. We charged through them, and they wheeled after us, and fired. I heard the “zsp” of a bullet as it ripped through the leather hood close to my ear; but in the darkness and confusion they fired wildly. And, for the present at any rate, our gallant little horse was more than a match for theirs, and was distancing them rapidly.
Another flash, and “Now!” roared “Ivan,” above the roar of the thunder. I had already sprung up, knowing that I must jump before the next flash came; and Mishka, as I found afterwards, did the same.
Steadying myself for a moment, I let myself drop, stumbled backward for a few steps, fell, and rolled into the ditch, just as the pursuers clattered past, in a whirlwind of oaths.
For the moment I, at least, had escaped; but where was Mishka?
As the sounds of flight and pursuit receded, I crawled out of the ditch, and called softly to my companion, who answered me, from the other side of the road, with a groan and an oath.
“I am hurt; it is my leg—my ankle; I cannot stand,” he said despairingly.
As the lightning flared again, I saw his face for a moment, plastered with black mud, and furious with pain and chagrin. I groped my way across to him, hauled him out of the ditch, and felt his limbs to try to ascertain the extent of his injury.
It might have been worse, for there were no broken bones, as I had feared at first; but he had a badly sprained ankle.
“Bind it—hard, with your handkerchief,” he said, between his set teeth. “We must get out of this, into the wood. They will return directly.”
His grit was splendid, for he never uttered a sound—though his foot must have hurt him badly—as I helped him up. Supporting him as well as I could, we stumbled into the wood, groping our way through the darkness, and thankful for every flash that gave us light, an instant at a time, and less dazzling—though more dangerous—here under the canopy of pine branches than yonder on the open road.
Even if Mishka had not been lamed, our progress must have been slow, for the undergrowth was thick; still, he managed to get along somehow, leaning on me, and dragging himself forward by grasping each slender pine trunk that he lurched up against.
He sank down at length, utterly exhausted, and, in the pause that followed, above the sound of our labored breathing and the ceaseless patter of the rain on the pines, I heard the jangle of the cavalry patrol returning along the road. Had “Ivan” eluded or outdistanced them? Were they taking him back with them, a prisoner; or, worst of all, had they shot him?
The sounds passed—how close we still were to the road!—and gradually died away.
“He has escaped, thanks be to God!” Mishka said, in a hoarse whisper.
“How do you know that?”
“If they had overtaken him they would have found the droshky empty, and would have sought us along the road.”
“Well, what now? How far are we from the meeting-place?”
“Three versts, more or less. We should have been there by this time! Come, let us get on. Have you the pocket lamp? We can use it now. It will help us a little, and we shall strike a track before long.”
The lamp was a little flash-light torch which I had slipped into my pocket at the last moment, and showed to Mishka when I was changing my clothes. It served us well now, for the lightning flashes were less frequent; the worst of the storm was over.
I suppose we must have gone about half a verst—say the third of an English mile—when we found the track he had mentioned, a rough and narrow one, trodden out by the foresters, and my spirits rose at the sight of it. At least it must lead somewhere!
Here Mishka stumbled and fell again.
“It is useless. I can go no further, and I am only a hindrance. But you—what will you do—?”
“I’m going on; I’ll find the place somehow.”
“Follow the track till you come to an open space,—a clearing; it is a long way ahead. Cross that to your right, and, if your lamp holds, or the storm passes, you will see a tree blazed with five white marks, such as the foresters make. There is another track there; follow it till you are challenged; and the rest will be easy. God be with you.”
We gripped hands and parted. I guessed we should not meet again in this world, though we might in the next,—and that pretty soon!
I pushed on rapidly. The track, though narrow, was good enough, and I only had to flash my torch occasionally. I was afraid of the battery giving out, which, as a fact, it did before I emerged in the clearing Mishka had mentioned. But the light was better now, for the storm had passed; and in this northern latitude there is no real night in summer, only “the daylight sick,” as Von Eckhardt would say. Out in the clearing I could see quite a distance. The air felt fresh and pleasant and the patch of sky overhead was an exquisite topaz tint. I stood to draw breath, and for a moment the sheer splendor of the night,—the solemn silence,—held me spellbound with some strange emotion in which awe and joy were mingled. Yes, joy! For although I had lost my two good comrades, and was undertaking, alone, a task which could scarcely have been accomplished by three desperate men, my heart was light. I had little hope, now, of saving Anne, as we reckon salvation in this poor earth-life; but I could, and would, die with and for her; and together, hand in hand, we would pass to the fuller, freer life beyond, where the mystery that encompassed her, and that had separated us, would vanish.
I was about to cross the clearing, keeping to the right and seeking for the blazed tree, as Mishka had told me, when I heard the faint sound of stealthy footsteps through the wet grass that grew tall and rank here in the open. In the soft light a shadowy figure came from the opposite side, passed across the space, and disappeared among the further trees, followed almost immediately by two more. The time was now, as I guessed, after midnight, and these were late comers, who had been delayed by the storm, or perhaps, like myself, had had to dodge the patrol.
I followed the last two in my turn, and at the place where they re-entered the wood I saw the gleam of the white blazes on the tree. I had struck the path right enough, and went along it confidently in the gloom of the trees, for perhaps a hundred yards, when a light flashed a few paces in front of me, just for a second, and I saw against the gleam the figures of the two men who were preceding me. They had passed on when I reached the place, and a hand grasped my shoulder, while the light was flashed in my face. I saw now it was a dark lantern, such as policemen carry in England.
“The password, stranger, and the sign,” a hoarse voice whispered in the darkness that followed the momentary flash of light.
I felt for his hand, gave both word and sign, and was allowed to go on, to be challenged again in a similar manner at a little distance. Here the picket detained me.
“You are a stranger, comrade; do you know the way?” he asked. All the questions and answers had been in Russian.
“No. I will follow those in front.”
He muttered something, and a second man stepped out on to the path, and bade me follow him. How many others were at hand I do not know. The wood seemed full of stealthy sounds.
My guide followed the path for only a short distance further, then turned aside, drawing me after him, his hand on my coat-sleeve.
“Be careful; the trees are thick hereabouts,” he said in a low voice, as he walked sideways. He seemed to know every inch of the way. I followed his example, and after a minute or two of this crab-like progress we emerged into a second clearing, smaller than the first, made round a small building, from which came the subdued sound of voices, though for a moment I could see no light. Then a door was partially opened, emitting a faint gleam, and two men passed in,—doubtless those whom I had seen in front of me just now.
Without a word my guide turned back into the darkness, and I walked forward boldly, pushed the door, which gave under my touch, and entered the place.
It was a small, ruinous chapel, the windows of which had been roughly boarded up; and, so far as I could see by the dim light cast by two oil lanterns hung on the walls, all those assembled inside were men,—about fifty in number I guessed, for the place was by no means crowded. There was a clear space at the further end, round the raised piece where the altar had once stood, and where four men were seated on a bench of some sort. I could not distinguish their faces, for they all wore their hats, and the lamplight was so dim that it only served to make the darkness visible. The atmosphere was steamy, too, for we were a drenched and draggled lot.
There was no excitement at present; one of the four men on the dais was speaking in a level monotonous voice; but, as I cautiously edged my way towards the front, I felt that this silent, sinister crowd was in deadly earnest, as was the man who was addressing it. He was speaking in Russian, and I could not make out quite all he said.
I gathered that some resolution was about to be passed, for just as I got sufficiently forward to peer round and convince myself that Anne was not there, each man present, except myself and two others, held up his right hand. I followed suit instantly, judging that to be wisest, and one of the other two—he was standing close beside me—put his up, after a momentary hesitation that I think was unnoticed save by myself. I took a sidelong glance at him. He was an elderly, distinguished looking man, with a short gray beard cut to a point, and an upturned gray mustache. He was listening intently, but, though I couldn’t see his face distinctly, I got the impression that he also was a stranger, and that he understood even less than I did what was going on.
The president spoke again.
“Are there any here who are against the election of Constantine”—I could not catch the other name, which was a long Polish one, I think—“to the place on the council, vacant since the murder of our comrade, Vladimir Selinski?”
Selinski! Cassavetti! He little guessed as he spoke that the man who found Cassavetti’s body was now within five paces of him!
Not a hand was raised, and the man who had not voted stepped on to the dais, in obedience to a gesture from the president, and took his seat in silence.
A hoarse murmur of approval went round; but that was all. The grim quietude of these men was more fearful than any amount of noise could have been, and, as the president raised his hand slightly, a dead silence fell.
“Remains now only that we do justice on the murderess of Selinski, the traitress who has betrayed our secrets, has frustrated many of our plans, has warned more than one of those whom we have justly doomed to death—her lover among them—with the result that they have escaped, for the present. We would not condemn her unheard, but so far she is obdurate; she defies us, endeavors once more to trick us. If she were other than she is, or rather than she has been, she would have been removed long since, when suspicion first fell upon her; but there are many of us who love her still, who would not believe her guilty without the evidence of their own eyes and ears; and therefore we have brought her here that she may speak for herself, defend herself if that is possible. It will rest with you to acquit or condemn her!”
He spoke quite quietly, but the cool, deliberate malignity of his tone was horrible; and somehow I knew that the majority of those present shared his animosity against the prisoner, although he had spoken of “many of us who love her.”
The man beside me touched my arm, and spoke to me in French.
“Do you understand him?”
“Yes, do you?”
“No.”
There was no time for more, for, at a signal from the president, a door at the side near the dais was opened, and a woman was led in by two men, each holding her by an arm. They released her, and she stepped back a pace, and stood against the wall, her hands pressed against it on either side, bracing herself like a royal creature at bay.
It was Anne herself, and for a moment I stood, unable to move, scarcely able to breathe. There was something almost unearthly about her beauty and courage. The feeble lamplight seemed to strengthen, and to concentrate itself on her face,—colorless save for the vivid red lips,—on her eyes, wide and brilliant with indignation, on the bright hair that shone like a queenly crown. Wrath, and scorn, and defiance were expressed by the beautiful face, the tense figure; but never a trace of fear.
They were all looking at her, as I was, in silence,—a curious hush that lasted but a few seconds, but in which I could hear the beating of my own heart; it sounded as loud as a sledge hammer.
The spell was broken by a cry from the man with the pointed beard next me who sprang forward towards her, shouting in English: “Anne! Anne! It is I, your father!”
I was only just less quick; we reached her almost together, and faced about, shielding her with our bodies, and covering those nearest us with our revolvers.
“Father! Maurice!” I heard her sob. “Oh, I knew, I knew you would come!”
“What is this devilry?” shouted Anthony Pendennis in French. “How comes my daughter here? She is a British subject, and you—you shall pay dearly—”
He got no further. Our action had been so swift, so unexpected, that the whole crowd stood still, as if paralyzed by sheer astonishment, for a few breathless seconds.
“Spies! Traitors! Kill them all!” shouted the president, springing forward, revolver in hand.
Those words were his last, for he threw up his arms and fell as my first shot got him. The rest came at us all together, like a mob of furious wild beasts. They were all armed, some with revolvers, others with the horrible little bludgeons they call “killers,”—a short heavy bar of lead set on a strong copper spring, no bigger than an ordinary round office ruler, but more deadly at close quarters than a revolver.
I flung up my left hand, tore down the lamp that hung just above us, and hurled it among them. It was extinguished as it fell, and that gave us a small advantage, for the other lamp was at the far end, and its faint light did not reach us, but only served to dimly show us our antagonists. I felt Anne sink down to the floor behind me, though whether a shot had reached her or she had fainted I did not know.
When I had emptied my revolver I dropped it, grabbed a “killer” from the hand of a fellow I had shot pointblank, and laid about me with that. I suppose Pendennis did the same. As Loris had warned me, when it came to shooting, there was no time for reloading; but the “killer” was all right. I wonder he hadn’t given me one!
We were holding our own well, in spite of the tremendous odds, and after a while—though whether it was five minutes or fifty I couldn’t say—they gave back a bit. There was quite a heap of dead and wounded round about us; but I don’t think Anne’s father was hurt as yet, and I felt no pain, though my left arm hung limp and useless, numbed by a blow from a “killer” that had missed my head; and something warm was dripping down my right wrist.
“What now?” I heard Pendennis say, in that brief lull in the pandemonium.
“God knows. We can’t get to the door; we must fight it out here; they’re coming on again. On guard!”
We swung up our weapons, but before the rush could reach us, there was a crash close at hand; the door through which Anne and her guards had entered the chapel was thrown open, and a big man dashed in,—Loris himself, still in his disguise. So he had reached us at last!
He must have grasped the situation at a glance, for he shouted: “Back; back for your lives! By the other door. We are betrayed; the soldiers are here. They are coming this way. Save yourselves!”
They were a craven crew,—bold enough when arrayed in their numbers against two men and one helpless girl, but terror-stricken at these fresh tidings.
That was my opinion of them at the time, but perhaps it was unjust. Every man who attended that meeting had done so at the deliberate risk of his life and liberty. Most of them had undoubtedly tramped the whole way to the rendezvous, through the storm and swelter of the summer night, and they were fatigued and unstrung. Also, the Russian—and especially the revolutionary Russian—is a queer psychological amalgam. Ordinarily as callous and stoical as a Chinaman in the infliction or endurance of death or torture, he is yet a bundle of high-strung nerves, and at any moment his cool cynicism is liable to give place to sheer hysteria.
Therefore at the warning shout, panic seized them, and they fled, helter-skelter, through the main door. In less than a minute the place was clear of all but ourselves and the dead and wounded on the floor.
Loris slammed the door, barred it, and strode back to us. Pendennis was kneeling beside Anne, calling her by her name, and I leaned against the wall, staring stupidly down at them. I was faint and dizzy all at once, incapable for the moment of either speech or action.
“Well done, my friend!” the Duke exclaimed. “You thought I had failed you, eh? Come, we must get out of this quickly. They will return when they find it is a ruse. Is she hurt?”
He pushed Pendennis aside unceremoniously, and lifted Anne in his arms, as easily as if she had been a child.
I think she must have been regaining consciousness, for I heard him say rapidly and tenderly:
“Courage, petite, thou shalt soon be safe.”
“Who are you?” demanded Pendennis, peering at him in perplexity. His disguise was palpable and incongruous enough, now that he was speaking in his natural voice.
“Her friend, as I presume you are; therefore follow if you would save her and yourself. There is no time for talk!”
With Anne in his arms he made for the door by which he had entered, and Pendennis rushed after him. Anne’s arms were round his neck; she was clinging to him, and her head lay on his shoulder. I saw the gleam of her bright hair as they passed through the doorway,—the last I was to see of Anne Pendennis for many a long day.
I staggered forward, trying to beat back the horrible faintness that was overwhelming me, and to follow them, stumbled over a corpse, and fell headlong. An agonizing pain shot through me, beginning at my left arm, and I knew now that it was broken. The pain dispelled the faintness for the time being, but I made no attempt to rise. Impossible to follow them now, or even if not impossible, I could be of no service; I should only hamper their flight. Better stay here and die.
I think I prayed that I might die soon; I know I prayed that they might yet reach safety. Where had Anne’s father sprung from? How could he have known of her capture, of this meeting in the heart of the woods? How had he made his way here?
Why, he must himself belong to this infernal society, as she did; that was it, of course. What an abominable din this was in my head,—worse to bear than the pain of my wounds. In my head? No, the noise was outside—shrieks and shouts, and the crackle of rifles. I dragged myself to a sitting posture and listened. The Duke had said that his tale of the soldiers was a mere ruse, but certainly there was a fight going on outside. Were the soldiers there, and had Loris unwittingly spoken the truth,—or had he himself betrayed the revolutionists as a last resource? Unanswerable questions, all of them; so why worry about them? But they kept whirling round maddeningly in my half delirious brain, while the din still raged without, though it seemed to be abating.
The remaining lamp had flickered out, but sufficient light came now through the gaps in the broken roof to enable me to see about me. The place was like a shambles round the spot where we had taken our stand; there were five or six bodies, besides the president, whom I had shot at first. It was his corpse I had stumbled over, so he had his revenge in a way.
I found myself wondering idly how long it would be before they would search the chapel, and if it would be worth while to try and get out by the door through which Loris had come and gone; but, though I made a feeble effort to get on my feet, it was no good. I was as weak as an infant. I discovered then that I was soaked with blood from bullet wounds in my right arm and in my side, though I felt no pain from them at the time; all the pain was concentrated in my broken left arm.
There came a battering at the barred door, to which my back was turned, and a moment afterwards the other door swung open, and an officer sprang in, sword in hand, followed by a couple of soldiers with fixed bayonets.
He stopped short, with an exclamation of astonishment, at the sight of the dead man, and I laughed aloud, and called:
“Hello, Mirakoff!”
It was queer; I recognized him, I heard myself laugh and speak, in a strange detached fashion, as if I was some one else, having no connection with the battered individual half sitting, half lying on the blood-stained floor.
“Who is it?” he asked, staying his men with a gesture, and staring down at me with a puzzled frown.
“Maurice Wynn.”
“Monsieur Wynn! Ma foi! What the devil are you doing here?”
“Curiosity,” I said. “And I guess I’ve paid for it!”
I suppose I must have fainted then, for the next thing I knew I was sitting with my back to a tree, while a soldier beside me, leaning on his rifle, exchanged ribald pleasantries with some of his comrades who, assisted by several stolid-faced moujiks, were busily engaged in filling in and stamping down a huge and hastily dug grave.
At a little distance, three officers, one of them Mirakoff, were talking together, and beside them, thrown on an outspread coat, was a heap of oddments, chiefly papers, revolvers, and “killers.” As I looked a soldier gathered these up into a bundle, and hoisted it on his shoulder. A watch and chain fell out, and he picked them up, and pocketed them.
I heard a hoarse word of command on the right, and saw a number of prisoners—the remnant of the revolutionists, each with a soldier beside him—file into the wood. They all looked miserable enough, poor wretches. Some were wounded, scarcely able to stand, and their guards urged them forward by prodding them with their bayonets.
I wondered why I wasn’t among them, and guessed if they tried to make me march that way, I’d just stay still and let them prod the life out of me!
I still felt dazed and queer, and my broken left arm hurt me badly. It hung helpless at my side, but my right arm had been roughly bandaged and put in a sling, and I could feel a wad over the other wound, held in place by a scarf of some kind. My mouth and throat were parched with a burning thirst that was even worse than the pain in my arm.
The group of officers dispersed, and Mirakoff crossed over to me.
“Well, you are recovering?” he asked curtly.
I moved my lips, but no sound would come, so I just looked up at him.
He saw how it was with me, and ordered the soldier to fetch water. He was a decent youngster, that Mirakoff, too good for a Russian; he must have had some foreign blood in him.
“This is a serious matter,” he said, while the man was gone. “Lucky I chanced on you, or you’d have been finished off at once, and shoved in there with the rest”—he jerked his head towards the new-made grave. “I’ve done the best I could for you. You’ll be carried through the wood, and sent in a cart to Petersburg, instead of having to run by the stirrup, as the others who can stand must do. But you’d have to go to prison. What on earth induced you to come here?”
The man came back with the water, and I drank greedily, and found my voice, though the words came slowly and clumsily.
“Curiosity, as I told you.”
“Curiosity to see ‘La Mort,’ you mean?”
“No; though I’ve got pretty close to death,” I said, making a feeble pun. (We were, of course, speaking in French.)
“I don’t mean death; I mean a woman who is called ‘La Mort.’ Her name’s Anna Petrovna. She was to have been there. Did you see her? Was she there?”
I forgot my pain for the instant, in the relief that his words conveyed. Surely he would not have put that question to me if she was already a prisoner. Loris must have got away with her, and, for the present, at least, she was safe.
“
There was a woman,” I confessed. “And that’s how I came to be chipped about. They were going to murder her.”
“To murder her!” he exclaimed. “Why, she’s one of them; the cleverest and most dangerous of the lot! Said to be a wonderfully pretty girl, too. Did you see her?”
“Only for a moment; there wasn’t much light. From what I could make out they accused her of treachery, and led her in; she stood with her back against the wall,—she looked quite a girl, with reddish hair. Then the row began. There were only two or three took her part, and I joined in; one can’t stand by and see a helpless girl shot or stabbed by a lot of cowardly brutes.”
I had found an air of apparent candor serve me before, and guessed it might do so again.
“Well, what then?”
“That’s all I remember clearly; we had a lively time for a few minutes, and then some one shouted that the soldiers were coming; and the next I knew I was sitting on the floor, wondering what had happened. I’d been there quite a while when you found me.”
“It is marvellous how she always escapes,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Still, we’ve got a good haul this time. Now, how did you get here? Some one must have told you, guided you?”
“That I can’t tell you.”
“You mean you won’t?”
“Well, put it that way if you like.”
“Don’t be a fool, Wynn; I am asking you for your own sake. If you don’t tell me, you’ll be made to tell later. You haven’t the least idea what you’ve let yourself in for, man! Come, did not Count Solovieff—you know well who I mean—bring you here?”
“No. I came alone.”
“At least he knew you were coming?”
“He may have done. I can’t say.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Have it your own way. You will regret your obstinacy later; remember, I have warned you.”
“Thanks,—it’s good of you, Mirakoff; but I’ve told you all I mean to tell any one.”
He paused, biting his mustache, and frowning down at me.
“Fetch more water,” he said abruptly to the soldier, who had heard all that passed, and might or might not understand; the Russians are a polyglot people.
“I have done what I could,” Mirakoff continued hurriedly in the brief interval while we were alone. “You had two passports. I took the false one,—it is yonder; they will think it belongs to one of the dead men. Your own is still in your pocket; the police will take it when you get to prison; at least it will show your identity, and may make things easier.”
“Thanks, again,” I said earnestly. “And if you could contrive to send word to the American or English Embassy, or both.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Give him the water,” he added, as the soldier again returned.
He watched as I drank, then turned on his heel and left me, without another word. He had, as I knew, already compromised his dignity sufficiently by conversing with me at all.
But he had cheered me immensely. I was sure now that those three—Anne, her father, and Loris—had got clear away, doubtless to the house Mishka had mentioned, where horses would be waiting for them; and by this time they might be far from the danger zone. Therefore I felt able to face what lay in store for myself, however bad it might be. It was bad enough, even at the beginning; though, as Mirakoff had said, it would have been worse but for his intervention. A few minutes after he left me, I was hoisted into a kind of improvised carrying chair, borne by a couple of big soldiers, who went along the narrow track at a jog-trot, and amused themselves by bumping me against every tree trunk that was conveniently near. They had been ordered to carry me, and they did so; but I think I’d have suffered less if I had marched with the others, even counting in the bayonet prods!
We reached the road at last, where horses were waiting, and a wagon, containing several wounded prisoners. I was thrown in on top of them, and we started off at a lumbering gallop, the guard of soldiers increasing in numbers as those who had followed on foot through the wood mounted and overtook us. I saw Mirakoff pass and ride on ahead; he did not even glance in my direction. More than once we had to stop to pick up a dead or dying man, one of the batch of prisoners who had been forced to “run by the stirrup,” with their hands tied behind them, and a strap passed round their waist, attaching them to the stirrup of the horse, which its rider urges to full speed,—that is part of the fun. It is a very active man who can maintain the pace, though it is marvellous what some can accomplish under the sharp incentives of fear and pain. He who stumbles is jerked loose and left by the wayside where he fell; as were those whom we found, and who were tossed into the wagon with as much unconcern as scavengers toss refuse into their carts.
It was during one of these brief halts I saw something that discounted the tidings I had heard from Mirakoff.
I was the least hurt of any of the wretched occupants of the wagon, and I had managed to drag myself to the far end and to sit there, in the off-side corner, my knees hunched up to my chin. My arms were helpless, so I could do nothing to assist my unfortunate companions, and could only crouch there, with my teeth set, enduring the pain that racked me, with as much fortitude as I could muster.
There was a clatter and jingle on the road behind us, and an instant later a droshky passed, at a comparatively slow pace,—the one horse seemed almost spent,—preceded and followed by a small escort of cavalry.
For the moment I forgot the torture I was enduring, as I recognized, with dismay, the Grand Duke Loris as one of the two occupants of the little carriage,—a bizarre, disreputable-looking figure, for he still wore the filthy clothes and the dirty face of “Ivan,” the droshky man, though the false beard and wig were gone. Yet, in spite of his attire and the remains of his disguise, he looked every inch a prince. His blue eyes were wide and serene, and he held a cigarette between two begrimed fingers. Beside him was a spick and span officer, sitting well back in his corner and looking distinctly uncomfortable; while the easy grace of the Duke’s attitude would have suited a state-carriage rather than this shabby little vehicle; though it suited that, too.
He glanced at the cart, and our eyes met. I saw a flash of recognition in his, but next instant the droshky, with its escort, had passed, and we were lumbering on again.
He also was a prisoner, then! But what of Anne and her father? Had they escaped? Surely, if they had been taken, he would not have sat there smoking so unconcernedly! But who could tell? I, at least, knew him for a consummate actor.
Well, conjecture was futile; and I was soon in a state of fever, consequent on pain and loss of blood, that rendered conjecture, or coherent thought of any kind impossible.
I don’t even recollect arriving at the prison,—that same grim fortress of Peter and Paul which I had mused on as I looked at it across the river such a short time back, reckoned by hours, an eternity reckoned by sensations! What followed was like a ghastly nightmare; worse, for it was one from which there was no awaking, no escape. Often even now I start awake, in a sweat of fear, having dreamed that I was back again in that inferno, racked with agony, faint with hunger, parched with thirst. For the Russian Government allows its political prisoners twelve ounces of black bread a day, and there’s never enough water to slake the burning thirst of the victims, or there wasn’t in those awful summer days, which, I have been told, are yet a degree more endurable than the iron cold of winter.
Small wonder that of the hundreds of thousands of prisoners who are flung into Russian jails only a small percentage are ever brought to trial, and executed or deported to Siberia. The great majority are never heard of again; they are dead to the outside world when the great gates clang behind them, and soon they perish from pain and hunger and privation. It is well for them if they are delicate folk, whose misery is quickly ended; it is the strong who suffer most in the instinctive struggle for life.
Whether I was ever interrogated I don’t know to this day, nor exactly how long I was in the horrible place; I guess it was about a fortnight, but it was a considerable time, even after I left it, before I was able even to attempt to piece things out in my mind.
I was lying on my bunk,—barely conscious, though no longer delirious,—when one of the armed warders came and shook me by the shoulder, roughly bidding me get up and follow him. I tried to obey, but I was as weak as a rat, and he just put his arm round me and hauled me along, easily enough, for he was a muscular giant, and I was something like a skeleton.
I didn’t feel the faintest interest in his proceedings, for I was almost past taking interest in anything; but I remembered later that we went along some flagged passages, and up stone stairs, passing more than one lot of sentries. He hustled me into a room and planked me down on a bench with my back to the wall, where I sat, blinking stupidly for a minute. Then, with an effort, I pulled myself together a bit, and was able to see that there were several men in the room, two of them in plain clothes, and the face of one of them seemed vaguely familiar.
“Is this your man, Monsieur?” I heard one of the Russians say; and the man at whom I was staring answered gravely: “I don’t know; if he is, you have managed to alter him almost out of knowledge.”
I knew by his accent that he was an Englishman, and a moment later I knew who he was, as he came close up to me and said sharply: “Maurice Wynn?”
“Yes, I’m Wynn,” I managed to say. “How are you, Inspector Freeman?”
Somehow at the moment it did not seem in the least wonderful that he should be here in Petersburg, and in search of me. I didn’t even feel astonished at his next words.
“Maurice Wynn, I have a warrant for your arrest on the charge of murdering Vladimir Selinski,—alias Cassavetti.”
The next I knew I was in bed, in a cool, darkened room, with a man seated in an easy-chair near at hand, smoking a cigarette, and reading what looked remarkably like an English newspaper.
I lay and looked at him lazily, for a few minutes. I hadn’t the least idea as to where I was, or how I came there; I didn’t feel any curiosity on the point. The blissful consciousness of cleanliness and comfort was quite sufficient for me at present. My broken arm had been set and put in rude splints while I was in the prison, by one of my fellow sufferers, I expect, and was now scientifically cased in plaster of Paris; the bullet wounds in my right arm and side were properly dressed and strapped, and felt pretty comfortable till I tried to shift my position a little, when I realized they were there.
At the slight movement the man in the chair laid down his paper and came up to the bed.
“Hello, Mr. Wynn; feel a bit more like yourself, eh?” he asked bluffly, in English.
“Why, yes, I feel just about ‘O. K.,’ thanks,” I responded, and laughed inanely. My voice sounded funny—thin and squeaky—and it jumped from one note to another. I hadn’t the least control over it. “Say, where am I, and who are you? I guess you’ve done me a good turn!”
“Humph, I suppose we have. Good Lord, think of an Englishman—you’re an American, but it’s all the same in this case—being treated like that by these Russian swine! You’re still in St. Petersburg; we’ve got to patch you up a bit before we can take you back to good old England.”
Now why should he, or any one else, be “taking me back to England?” I puzzled over it in silence before I put the question.
“Never you mind about that now,” he said with brusque kindliness. “All you’ve got to think about is getting strong again.”
But already I began to remember, and past events came jumping before my mind like cinematograph pictures.
“You fetched me out of prison,—you and Inspector Freeman,” I said slowly.
“Look here, don’t you worry,” he began.
“Yes, I must—I want to get things clear; wait a bit. He said something. I know; he came to arrest me for murder,—the murder of Cassavetti.”
“Just so; and a jolly good thing for you he did! But, as you’ve remembered that much, I must warn you that I’m a detective in charge of you, and anything you say will be used against you.”
More cinematograph pictures,—Cassavetti as I saw him, lying behind the door, his eyes open, staring; myself on the steps below Westminster Bridge, calling to Anne, as she sat in the boat. Anne! No more pictures, but a jiggery of red and black splashes, and then a darkness, through which I passed somehow into a pleasant place,—a garden where roses bloomed and a fountain plashed, and Anne was beside me; I held her hand in mine.
Now she was gone, she had vanished mysteriously. What was that man saying? “The Fraulein has not been here at all!” Why, she was here a moment ago; what a fool that waiter was! A waiter? No, he was a droshky driver; I knew it, though I could not see him. There were other voices speaking now,—men’s voices,—subdued but distinct; and as I listened I came back from the land of dreams—or delirium—to that of reality.
“Yes, he’s been pretty bad, sir. He came to himself quite nicely, and began to talk. No, I didn’t tell him anything, as you said I wasn’t to, but he remembered by himself, and then I had to warn him, and he went right off again.”
“You’re an ass, Harris,” said another voice. “What did you want to speak to him at all for?”
I opened my eyes at that, and saw Freeman and the other man looking down at me.
“He isn’t an ass; he’s a real good sort,” I announced. “And I didn’t murder Cassavetti, though I’d have murdered half a dozen Cassavettis to get out of that hell upon earth yonder!”
I shut my eyes again, settled myself luxuriously against my pillows, and went,—back to Anne and the rose-garden.
I suppose I began to pull round from that time, and in a few days I was able to get up. I almost forgot that I was still in custody, and even when I remembered the fact, it didn’t trouble me in the least. After what I had endured in the Russian prison, it was impossible, at present, anyhow, to consider Detective-Inspector Freeman and his subordinate, Harris, as anything less than the best of good fellows and good nurses. True, they never left me to myself for an instant; one or other of them was always in close attendance on me; but there was nothing of espionage in that attendance. They merely safe-guarded me, and, at the same time, helped me back to life, as if I had been their comrade rather than their prisoner. Freeman, in due course, gave me his formal warning that “anything I said with respect to the crime with which I was charged would be used against me;” but in all other respects both he and Harris acted punctiliously on the principle held by only two civilized nations in the world,—England and the United States of America,—that “a man is regarded as innocent in the eyes of the law until he has been tried and found guilty.”
“Well, how goes it to-day?” Freeman asked, as he relieved his lieutenant one morning. “You look a sight better than you did. D’you think you can stand the journey? We don’t want you to die on our hands en route, you know!”
“We’ll start to-day if you like; I’m fit enough,” I answered. “Let’s get back and get it over. It’s a preposterous charge, you know; but—”
“We needn’t discuss that, Mr. Wynn,” he interrupted hastily.
“All right; we won’t. Though I fancy I shouldn’t have been alive at this time if you hadn’t taken it into your heads to hunt me down as the murderer of a man who wasn’t even a naturalized Englishman. You came just in the nick of time, Mr. Freeman.”
“Well, yes, I think we did that,” he conceded. “You were the most deplorable object I’ve ever seen in the course of my experience,—and that’s fairly long and varied. I’d like to know how you got into their clutches; though you needn’t say if it has any connection with—”
“Why, certainly. It’s nothing to do with Cassavetti, or Selinski, or whatever his name was,” I said.
“I got wind of a Nihilist meeting in the woods, went there out of curiosity; and the soldiers turned up. There was a free fight; they got the best of it, took me prisoner with the others, and that’s all. But how did you trace me? How long had you been in Petersburg?”
“Only a couple of days. Found you had disappeared and the Embassies were raising Cain. It seemed likely you’d been murdered, as Carson was. The police declared they were making every effort to trace you, without success; and I doubt if they would have produced you, even in response to the extradition warrant, but that some one mysteriously telephoned information to the American Embassy that you were in prison—in the fortress—and even gave your number; though he would not give his own name or say where he was speaking from.”
Who was it, I wondered,—Loris or Mirakoff? It must have been one or the other. He had saved my life, anyhow.
“So acting on that, we simply went and demanded you; and good heavens, what a sight you were! I thought you’d die in the droshky that we brought you here in. I couldn’t help telling the officer who handed you over that I couldn’t congratulate him on his prison system; and he grinned and said:
“‘Ah, I have heard that you English treat your prisoners as honored guests. We prefer our own methods.’”