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Title: The Samovar Girl
Author: Moore, Frederick F. (Frederick Ferdinand)
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Samovar Girl" ***
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THE SAMOVAR GIRL
FREDERICK MOORE
═════════════════════
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SAMOVAR GIRL
BY
FREDERICK MOORE
AUTHOR OF
“SAILOR GIRL,” “SIBERIA TO-DAY,” “THE DEVIL’S ADMIRAL,”
“ISLE O’ DREAMS,” ETC.
[Illustration]
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK :: 1921 :: LONDON
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1921, by Frederick Moore
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO
ROBERT H. DAVIS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PROLOGUE: THE VALLEY OF DESPAIR 1
I. TWENTY YEARS AFTER 17
II. THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER 32
III. THE FIRING SQUAD 44
IV. THE PLACE OF THE VOW 60
V. THE ATAMAN’S DECISION 69
VI. THE PRISON ON THE HILL 79
VII. OLD RIMSKY THINKS 94
VIII. PETER LAYS HIS PLANS 105
IX. ILYA USES HIS WITS 111
X. “AN AMERICAN HAS COME!” 121
XI. THE FLIGHT 131
XII. HIDDEN AGAIN 140
XIII. KATERIN PLANS TO MEET THE AMERICAN 151
XIV. THE SAMOVAR GIRL 160
XV. THE TRAP SHUTS 174
XVI. KATERIN’S STRATAGEM 182
XVII. SETTING THE SNARE 195
XVIII. THE TRAIL GROWS HOT 206
XIX. FACE TO FACE 217
XX. THE BLOW 232
XXI. THE CAT’S PAW HAS CLAWS 244
XXII. THE OFFICER FROM THE ATAMAN 254
XXIII. A LIFE FOR A LIFE 265
XXIV. A NEW TUNE ON AN OLD FIDDLE 274
XXV. THE FINAL RECKONING 285
XXVI. FAREWELL 294
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SAMOVAR GIRL
PROLOGUE
THE VALLEY OF DESPAIR
_Clank! Clank! Clank!_
It was the music of chains. A column of unfortunates from the big prison
on the hill swung down the road and turned into the wide street between
the log houses. They were on their way out into the _taiga_ to cut wood
and hew timbers under a guard of Cossacks. The chains hanging from the
wrists of the convicts to their ankles, crossed in front of them but
hidden under the _khalats_—long gray capes worn by exiles—made the
doleful music as the long line of marchers, gray as the cold fog of the
morning, moved up the Czar’s road and was lost in the frozen mists that
masked the edge of the wilderness.
The sun was up, but it was only a patch of weak yellow light against the
dull sky which roofed the Valley of Despair. Lowering wisps of fog still
shrouded the hills about the exile settlement—fog that had lifted from
the frozen and desolate reaches of the Ingoda, from the smoking huts of
the tiny plain, from the snow-streaked slopes on which squatted like a
hideous monster the great low, rambling prison of yellow-painted logs.
The morning was bitter cold. The streets were almost deserted. The
windows of the log buildings still glowed with the dim yellow light of
guttering candles behind the frost-bound panes. White smoke from the
chimneys of the houses and huts rose straight up into the air, for there
was not even the ghost of a breeze. And the cold still air carried
sounds with startling clearness—the tolling of a bell at lazy intervals,
the barking of a dog, the distant cry of a wolf, and now the ringing
clatter of axes being driven into frost-laden wood by the invisible
exiles.
Shadows appeared at the windows frequently. For the Czar’s mail was due
this morning from Irkutsk, and the house-huddled people were waiting for
the first tinkle of the sledge-bells. The mail! The mail from Moscow,
from Petersburg, from Tambov, from the Valley of the Beloved Volga, so
many heartbreaking versts away! The mail would bring life and death, joy
and sorrow, sentence and pardon to Chita, in the Valley of Despair. The
mail would bring the Czar’s word, the heaven-sent mercy, or the curt
condemnation. The mail, by the relays of sledges, was the reach of the
scepter from the throne of majesty to the Valley of Despair in Siberia.
None listened more eagerly for the first jingle of the mail-sledges that
morning than Peter, son of Peter, in the tiny hut of Gorekin the
bootmaker, an exile but by the gracious compassion of the governor a
member of the “free gang.” Peter, son of Peter, was only ten years old.
He worked with his father in the boxlike hut on the Sofistkaya, helping
to make boots for the officers of the Czar and the Cossacks.
Peter’s blue eyes were set deeply in his head, for he had never had
enough to eat—not even enough sticky black bread, or enough _eèkrah_
which is the raw, red eggs of the big salmon. Peter was a tall boy for
his age, but not very sturdy. His yellow hair was clipped close to his
scalp, and his little round head was bent low while his hammer
_tap-tapped_ at the wooden pegs in the boot soles by the candlelight.
Peter’s father was a political. He had been sent to Siberia for
thinking—thinking about government, and inducing others to think. Which
was foolish, for the Czar and his ministers settled all affairs of
government for the good of the people. Yet God was good, for Peter’s
father had been admitted to the free gang because he could make boots,
and so did not have to stay in the big prison on the hill. And Michael
Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff, Excellence, and Czar’s Governor, allowed Peter
and his father to have a tiny hut to themselves—a place of one room, one
window, a fire-pit with a stone chimney, and shelves against the log
wall on which to sleep. They even had a battered brass samovar in which
to boil water for their tea.
Peter’s father was not old, though his back was bent by years in chains
before Peter was born, and then by more years of stooping over a
stitching-frame sewing boots. “Gorekin the old bootmaker,” everybody
called him, partly because his face was covered with a long and heavy
beard, and partly because his eyes had such an old look in them—eyes
which looked past everybody far into the future and seemed to be waiting
for some strange vision to appear.
Peter was proud of his father, and loved him beyond expression. For his
father knew everything—even knew how many versts it was to Moscow,
information which many people gave money to know, and knowing, kept the
secret for themselves. There are many things in an exile colony which it
is forbidden to know, so whisper talk is bought and sold, some dealing
in secrets of a certain kind, and some selling coming news about
revolutions.
Peter’s little round head was always being puzzled, and his blue eyes
were always full of questions. He loved the Czar, just as everybody else
loved the Czar—only when there were no soldiers listening, or no secret
police of the Third Division, men would swear bitter oaths in whispers
against majesty. It was not easy to tell who might be secret police, for
your friend to-day, talking against the government of the Czar, might
to-morrow prove to be one of the Third Division, and then doors of the
big prison on the hill would open for you, and dawn would meet you with
an execution squad.
Peter could not remember his mother. She had followed his father into
exile, and Peter had been born in The Street of the Dames. His mother
had died that day. Peter’s father said now it was just as well, for life
was really death in the Valley of Despair. And though Peter was only
ten, he already knew something of the bitterness of life. Had he not
seen a man with a back all raw from whipping, who had escaped from the
prison? Yes, he had come crawling to the bootmaker’s hut, too weak to go
on into the wilderness with the others who had escaped, and could only
lie all night close to the fire-pit, waiting for the soldiers to come in
the morning and take him away.
But there were pleasant things in life for Peter. There were the ladies
who came from The Street of the Dames. They spoke Czar’s Russian and
were grand ladies. They came to have boots mended, but they stayed long
and whispered much with Peter’s father, winking and nodding their heads
about nothing at all. Sometimes they brought little cakes with spices in
them, or a handful of dry tea, or a bit of sugar from China, or
sweetened ginger-root. And sometimes they gave Peter as much as a ruble.
Their husbands were up in the big prison on the hill, and the grand
ladies had followed to the Valley of Despair and had built for
themselves with their own hands a whole street of log houses.
And for some reason which Peter could never fathom, after these ladies
from The Street of the Dames came to have their shoes mended, Peter’s
father always remembered that he had to go up to the prison with a pair
of new boots for an officer, or to measure feet for a new pair, or to
get some leather—always an errand. And the ladies would wait till he
returned, when they cried quietly into their handkerchiefs, and after
much whispering went away to their log houses.
But the greatest puzzle of all to Peter was that his father had been
exiled for reading books, yet his father now read the Bible, which was a
book, and told all about God and the Czar. But, of course, the Bible was
always hidden behind the pile of wood close to the fire-pit.
And Peter’s father read the almanacs which came every year from Moscow,
and everybody knows an almanac is nothing more nor less than a book.
Everybody had a new almanac every year, and wonderful books they were
too, for they told about the sun, moon, and stars, the holy days of Holy
Russia, the goodness and greatness of the Czar, the names and name days
of grand dukes and grand duchesses and all the wonderful things they had
done for the poor people, and had pictures of saints, and depictions of
miracles, pictures of watches which might be purchased in Moscow or
Petrograd by people who were rich, and pictures of skeletons of dead
men! Oh, the almanacs were wonderful!
Peter had worn his last year’s one out from much reading of it by the
fire of nights with his father. And now the new one from Moscow was two
months late. That was why Peter watched so anxiously every morning for
the mail-sledges from Irkutsk, which was on the Petersburg side of Lake
Baikal.
So this morning he was pegging away fast with his hammer, his father
working near by and whispering to himself, a way he had when busy. The
candle was still guttering between them, the fire in the pit was smoking
comfortably, and the old brass samovar was singing merrily on a shelf.
Peter leaned over from his bench every few minutes, to blow a hole in
the frost on the windowpane, and look up the Sofistkaya in the direction
of the post-house. But he could not see far yet, from the fog, though he
did see the column of unfortunates going out into the wilderness with
the Cossack soldiers.
Peter rather feared the Cossacks. They were “free men”—big swaggering
fellows with blue breeches and yellow stripes on their tunics and some
of them with colored tops in their tall _shlapkas_—round caps of fuzzy
wool. And though Peter feared the Cossacks, he was also proud of them,
for they were a part of Holy Russia and the power of the Czar flashed
from the points of their lances as they galloped over the plains. And
the Czar was Ataman of all the Cossacks, just as he was Emperor of all
Russians. And there were more Russians in the world than all other
peoples put together, counting the barbarians of far lands across the
seas.
Peter longed for the day when he would be big enough to become a soldier
of majesty, and wear on his cap the little oval button—“The Eye of the
Czar.” Then he would know all things. His father always smiled sadly at
such ideas.
“Peter Petrovitch Gorekin, a soldier of the Czar!” Peter’s father would
say. “A soldier against the people, a soldier to bind our chains the
tighter! Oh, Peter Petrovitch! The day will come when your eye will see
and understand!”
Which was a surprising thing for Peter’s father to say, for Peter could
see well enough with his eyes, except when the smoke from the fire-pit
blew down the stone chimney and got into his eyes while he was reading
from the almanac and learning new words.
Peter’s father was most anxious for Peter to learn to read as well as
the priest—yes, even as well as Michael Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff, the
Colonel Governor. Peter could have made many kopecks in the evenings,
helping to skin sheep for the butcher, but Peter’s father insisted upon
lessons with the almanac by the fire.
“The labor of a man’s hands can be forced to do the will of a master,”
his father would say gravely, “but the labor of a man’s head is his own,
and no man can control it.”
Peter could not understand that, because it was impossible to drive pegs
with one’s head—it could only be done with hands and the hammer. And his
father worked with his hands, too, and never did a thing with his head,
or so Peter supposed.
It was not long after the column of unfortunates and Cossacks had
disappeared into the _taiga_ that Peter saw two black spots rise on the
little hill across the Ingoda River, and drop again out of sight.
“Ee-yah!” cried Peter joyfully. “The mail comes!”
His father lifted his head and looked up from his stitching-frame to
listen.
“I hear nothing but the music of the samovar,” he said.
“They have crossed the bend to the river,” insisted Peter. “I heard the
bells and I saw the sledges! The horses are coming fast!”
Both sat still and listened, with only the snapping of the fire and the
song of the samovar in their ears. Though they waited in silence, the
sound of the bells did not come to them down the chimney.
“Watch the road,” said his father, and returned to his stitching. Peter
put his eye to the hole in the frost and watched the street up beyond
the post-house. But he saw only an occasional Buriat, or a Cossack
striding along, with now and then a Tartar hunter coming in from the
hills with raw fur thrown over his shoulders, and soldiers hurrying down
from the prison above the settlement.
Then, the bells! The first faint jingle came to Peter’s ears, and at the
same time he saw the galloping horses of the leading sledge come up into
the road from the river hollow, running free for the post-house.
“Now!” cried Peter. “The post is here! With the new almanacs! Please!
Give me the kopecks! And may I run to see if the new almanac has come
for sure?”
Peter’s father stopped work and filled his glass from the samovar, threw
on the fire a fresh chunk of wood and dug some kopecks from his pocket.
“Go, little son, but dress warmly—it is too cold outside for a Tartar.”
Peter shoved his rag-bound feet into pink felt boots, whirled his long
muffler about his neck and got into his gray coat. Pulling his cap over
his head and ears, he took the kopecks from his father and flew out
through the door in a cloud of white steam made by the warm air from
inside the hut as it escaped into the frigid atmosphere outside.
Already the sledges had arrived in front of the post-house. The street
was filled with people and there was a great to-do and gabbling. Peter
could see the Cossack guards who had come with the sledges dismounting
from their horses. The half-frozen drivers of the sledges were rolling
stiffly out of their blankets, to clump through the icicle-fringed door
of the post-house for their hot bowls of _borsht_ and their drams of
vodka.
Peter ran up to the crowd surrounding the sledges and breathlessly
pushed in between the legs of the soldiers and onlookers. Surely, he
thought, this month the almanacs must have come! Twice before he had
been disappointed by the monthly mail and now he was shaking with
eagerness. He wanted to cry out at once to those about the sledges, “Has
the new almanac come?”
But there were no mail sacks on the first sledge. Instead it had five
travelers—an old woman, an officer who was an aide of the Colonel
Governor, two fur-buyers, and a little girl—a pretty little girl, who
was about the same age as Peter. She had pulled back her beautiful cap
of ermine, and Peter could see the pink of her cheeks, her laughing blue
eyes and the scarlet silk lining of her coat of sables where she had
turned the collar away from her chin. She was standing up in the sledge
and looking over the heads of the crowd and chattering with her old
nurse in delight at having arrived back at her home.
Peter stared at the little girl. He knew who she was—Katerin Stephanovna
Kirsakoff, daughter of the Colonel Governor. Peter had seen her many
times driving through the settlement with her Cossack outriders guarding
her. He knew she was kind to the poor people and to the unfortunates. On
Butter Weeks she always threw silver kopecks from her carriage to the
crowds at the fair. It was said that she knew even the Czar himself.
Peter thought Katerin was as beautiful as a picture in a holy icon. He
almost forgot about his beloved almanacs as he stood and gazed at the
beauty of Katerin. Her furs were so rich and gorgeous, her skin was so
clear and rosy, her eyes were so sparkling bright. She had plenty of
good things to eat, he was sure—and the cold did not hurt her, the
guards of Cossacks protected her from the gaunt tigers in the hills, the
officers bowed to her, the soldiers worshiped her, and she lived in the
great and grand house of her father, the Colonel Governor, Michael
Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff.
“The Governor comes!” rose the warning cry from those on the outer
fringes of the throng about the sledges. The soldiers at once began to
drive the people back from the sledge in which Katerin was standing to
clear the way for the droshky of the Colonel Governor.
Peter was inside the ring of people about the sledge. He was pushed away
roughly. His heart sank, for he felt that he was to be cheated out of
the news for which he had run to the post-house—news about the almanacs.
He could restrain his eagerness no longer, and fearing that he would be
left in doubt about the almanacs if the soldiers hustled him up the
street with the other people, he ran from a soldier in toward the
sledge, and making an obeisance to Excellence, raised his arms and cried
out to Katerin, “Did your Excellence bring the almanacs of the new
year?”
But Katerin did not hear him. She was standing up and clapping her hands
as she saw her father’s droshky come whirling down the street toward
her.
The officer in the sledge got out of the robes wound round him, and to
the ground. He commanded the soldiers to drive the people away farther
so the Colonel Governor might not be delayed in getting to his daughter.
Peter turned to run from this officer, but slipped and fell. And before
he could regain his footing on the hard and slippery snow, the officer
came hurrying from the sledge and tripped and fell over the boy—fell
flat in the road before the post-house.
“Fool!” cried the officer, glaring at Peter. “Get away with you! You
dare address Excellence, and now you are in my road!”
Peter stood up. The officer struck the boy in the face, and Peter fell
again, almost stunned by the blow. He saw the officer’s boots stride
away and recognized them as boots which he and his father had made.
There was a forest of boots in all directions, and the sound of voices
reached Peter’s ears in a confused medley.
Peter was ashamed. The blood was flowing from his nose and making a mess
on his chin and muffler. The tears which came into his eyes from the
pain were freezing on his cheeks and his eyelids were freezing together,
making a film through which he could see but dimly.
The crowd had drawn away from the sledge now, leaving Peter lying in the
dirty snow. Such a sight to make of himself, he thought, in view of
Katerin! And how angry she would be to see that he had gotten in the way
of the officer and had made him fall down like a clumsy bear.
Peter heard the voice of his father calling to him.
“Little son! Get up quickly and run! The Governor comes! Do not let the
Excellence see you there!”
But Peter could not move quickly for his arms and legs seemed strangely
stiff and numb and helpless. His father ran out into the open space just
as Governor Kirsakoff got out of his carriage to hasten to his little
daughter in the sledge. He was a tall man, ruddy of face, with white
teeth showing in a smile under black mustaches. He wore a high cap of
sable with a badge of the Czar upon it. His longskirted coat of black
was lined with fur which stuck out in fringes at the edges, and he wore
a belt with silver doubleheaded eagles at the buckle. A scarlet strap
depended from one shoulder and crossed his breast, and he wore a saber
at his side—a saber with a gold hilt, bearing upon it the initials of
his Emperor.
Governor Kirsakoff held out his arms toward his daughter as he
approached the sledge. The officer who struck Peter was beside the
Governor, with watchful eyes for the safety of his chief and the little
girl.
Peter’s father lifted him to his feet, and Peter brushed the icy film
from his eyes.
“Get away, you and that boy!” the officer growled as the Governor strode
swiftly to the sledge.
“The boy meant no harm, Excellence,” said Peter’s father, pulling off
his cap and making a deep bow, as he tried to push Peter on before him.
“Who is this here?” demanded the Governor, catching sight of Peter and
his father, and seeing that the boy’s face was bleeding. Governor
Kirsakoff’s smile vanished, and he scowled angrily, sensing something in
the nature of a calamity in the presence of his daughter.
“Excellence, this boy yelled at Katerin Stephanovna,” explained the
officer. “And he tripped my feet when I came down from the sledge.”
Peter’s father swept his cap to the ground in an abject bow.
“Pardon, Excellence—I will take the boy away.”
“What now!” exclaimed Kirsakoff, with a close look at the bootmaker. “Is
this Gorekin? Is this what I put you into the free gang for? to be under
the feet of your Governor?”
Peter’s father bowed once more.
“True, Excellence, I am Peter Pavlovitch Gorekin, the bootmaker.”
“Then you should be at your boots and not under my feet!” raged
Kirsakoff. “Do I give you the liberty of the settlement to have you in
the way with a bloody-nosed youngster when my little daughter comes
home?” The Governor turned wrathfully to the commander of the Cossack
guard about the sledges. “Take this Gorekin away to the prison!” he
commanded.
“Excellence, my son!” cried Peter’s father, stricken to his soul by the
disaster in the Governor’s order. “Oh, Excellence, I beg—if I go to the
prison, what is to become of my son?”
“You should have prized your liberty and kept your son out of the way,”
said the Governor. “You think nothing of ruining the happiness of my
little daughter! So your son must learn his place.——Take them both to
the prison!”
And Kirsakoff turned away and hurried to the sledge.
“What has happened to the poor people?” asked Katerin, her face troubled
as she watched Peter and his father. She saw that the boy had been hurt
and was crying, and that the soldiers now menaced them.
“Do not look at them, little daughter,” said Kirsakoff. “They have
disobeyed the rules. Was it cold coming from Irkutsk? And did you bring
me many kisses?”
The Governor lifted her out of the sledge and smothered her in his arms.
At this moment a Cossack interposed himself between the bootmaker and
the Governor, and two soldiers closed in on Peter and his father, their
bayonets fixed upon their rifles.
Gorekin held up his hand in a plea to speak once more to the Governor.
The bootmaker had dropped his cap, his face showed the agony of his
despair, and the tears streamed down his face. His mouth was open and
his lips trembled with the chagrin and horror of what had befallen him.
“Excellence! I submit!” he pleaded. “But by the mercy of God, condemn
not my son to the prison too!”
One of the Cossacks pushed him back violently so that he spun round and
staggered blindly in an effort to keep his footing on the slippery snow.
Then he turned with a cry and thrust the Cossack aside, to run after the
Governor, hands stretched out in supplication.
“Mercy for my son!” he called after Kirsakoff.
A Cossack’s saber flashed, and Gorekin received its point in the
back—once, twice—and with a scream, fell writhing on the snow-packed
street before the post-house.
Kirsakoff ran with little Katerin in his arms toward the near-by droshky
which was awaiting them. The crowd closed in at once about the stricken
bootmaker and his son.
Little Peter fell to his knees beside his father, who had been rudely
rolled upon his back by the Cossack with the saber. This Cossack
searched hastily through the pockets of the greatcoat of Gorekin. Peter,
screaming in terror, supposed that all this was being done to help his
father.
The Cossack found the curved leather-knife of Gorekin in a pocket of the
dying man’s coat, and flung the knife upon the ground. “He held this
knife in his hand!” cried the Cossack. “It is the knife with which he
would have killed the Governor!”
Peter could not realize yet the disaster which had come to him and his
father. He knew only that the one human being who loved him, and whom he
loved above everything in the world, was hurt and bleeding. The slowly
reddening snow beside his father gave the boy a vague idea of a wound
which might in time be cured.
And it might not be real at all, this tragic morning, but a dream. Peter
saw about him the black circle of boots like the trees of a forest; he
saw the print of nails in the hard snow; he noted a small round stone
close by his father’s head—the world appeared to be full of trifling
things, yet suddenly all trifles were invested with terror. He prayed
even as he screamed, that he might wake to find his father reading from
the new almanac beside the fire in their little hut.
“Little father! Little father!” he cried in his agony.
The bootmaker coughed harshly.
“He tried to kill the Governor,” said a voice. “There lies the knife—and
I ran him through with my saber.”
Peter recognized the voice as that of the Cossack who had struck down
his father.
“Little son—” gasped Gorekin, his dimming eyes on Peter, and his hand
moving slowly toward the boy.
“Thou whom I love!” cried Peter, “come quickly for the man who has
medicine and can cure you! Come to the watch-fixer who has the charms
and the herbs!”
“God’s blessing on you—I go—to meet—the—dead!” whispered Gorekin.
“You are not to die!” cried Peter, and flung himself down upon his
father and kissed him. Then he sat back on his heels, moaning wildly as
he saw his father’s face graying to the color of the trampled snow.
“I shall kill Kirsakoff!” Peter shouted. “I shall kill—the Governor——!”
“Pray!” said his father weakly. “Pray to God for—power and—” but he
could say no more, and making an effort to cross himself with both hands
he died, staring up into the leaden sky.
“He is dead,” said a voice. “Take the boy to the prison. It is the order
of the Governor.”
And Peter, sobbing and kicking out against the soldiers who grasped him
and dragged him away, left his father lying in the snow before the
post-house.
The soldiers dragged Peter up the Sofistkaya. His eyes clung to the mail
bags being carried into the post-house, and though he was crying
bitterly, he wondered if the almanacs had come from Moscow after all.
Next he knew he found himself in the sandy snow of the Sofistkaya,
passing his own little hut, and saw the white smoke rising from the
crude stone chimney. He thought of the samovar inside singing on a
shelf, of the warmth and comfort that he would never know again, of his
beloved father who somehow, by some terrible fate which had descended
upon him out of the skies, was gone forever from the bench and the
stitching-frame.
The two soldiers drove Peter on and in time they went over the wooden
bridge across the frozen Ingoda, and up a hill. The tears on his face
and frozen in his lids gave him great pain from cold. But he brushed his
eyes clear of the ice particles and looked ahead. Before him were the
yellow upright logs of the great prison stockade—and the great gate
waiting to receive him into the Gethsemane of the Valley of Despair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I
TWENTY YEARS AFTER
KATERIN was awake before dawn. She lay still, listening in the dark for
sounds of conflict in the city. For months she had been accustomed to
the rattle of rifle-fire through day and night, and now she found it
hard to realize that the looting and burning had ceased.
The windows of Katerin’s room were hung with heavy blankets to conceal
the candlelight by night, even though in the winter the glass of the
panes was always nearly covered with heavy frost. She had no way of
knowing how near it was to dawn, or if the day had come.
Katerin Stephanovna Kirsakoff—that was her full name. And she was hiding
in an old log house with her father, who had been retired from the army
of the Czar with the rank of general. And her father was Michael
Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff, once Governor in the Valley of Despair, as it
was known in the exile days before the revolution. And the log house was
in Chita, where Kirsakoff had ruled his Cossacks, but Kirsakoff and his
daughter were now hiding from the Cossacks.
Katerin rose from her bed, and guided by the dim, shaded flame burning
before the icon in the corner of the room, she held out her arms to the
image of the Virgin Mother, and whispered, “Save us, Mother of God,
again this day, from those who beset us, and bring to us help from our
enemies in our time of danger!”
She continued to whisper her prayers while she dressed in the dark. Then
she went to one of the windows and pulled aside the blanket. She scraped
a tiny hole in the frost so that she might look down into the courtyard,
to the end of the street and out over the plains which stretched away
from the city toward the border of Manchuria, many versts away. In that
direction lay safety, but Katerin knew that she could not get out of the
city, much less cross those frozen plains.
The subdued light of morning coming in through the white frost on the
panes revealed her as a woman of medium height, of figure slender and
supple, and clad in a trailing velvet house-dress of wine-red. Thrown
over her shoulders, and partly covering the faded velvet of the dress,
was a sleeveless coat of sable. She had the oval, high-bred face of the
untitled nobility of Russia. The Kirsakoffs were one of the old boyar
families who had always served their emperors as officers and
administrators in the empire which spanned half the world.
Katerin had inherited all the best qualities of her race and her class.
As the daughter of General Kirsakoff she had grown up like an Imperial
princess. Educated by tutors from Paris and Petersburg, she had also
learned to ride like a Cossack. And as her mother had died when Katerin
was a small girl, she had the poise of a woman, who, though still young,
had presided over her father’s table in the Governor’s palace—the
Government house. So all her life she had been accustomed to a deference
which was akin to that granted to royalty.
Now Katerin and her father were fugitives. The fighting between the
various factions in Chita was over; the Cossacks were in control of the
city—and controlling the Cossacks was a Mongol chieftain who had set
himself up as the ruling prince and ruled with firing squads.
Months of terrorism in the city had made Katerin pale and wan. Her blue
eyes were sad and deep set, and she had an expression of melancholy. The
pallor of her cheeks was accentuated by her black hair, which was drawn
down over her ears tightly. Her long neck, with its delicate lines,
suggested pearls. She had pearls, but she did not dare wear them in
these days. They were buried in the courtyard of the old log house.
When she walked it was with a slow and languorous grace. The carriage of
her beautiful head was reminiscent of the portraits of the members of
the Imperial family which had once hung on the walls of the home from
which she had fled. It was now only a charred ruin.
Katerin remained at the window, peering out with anxious eyes. A trio of
Cossack soldiers were huddled about the glowing remnants of their
night-fire in the street. These were men in the army of the Ataman
Zorogoff, the half-Mongol, half-Cossack _hetman_ who ruled the Valley of
Despair. The Ataman, in spite of his pretensions to leadership, was only
a brigand with an army of adventurers and conscripts at his back, bent
upon enriching himself by levying upon the fortunes of all the rich
people in his territory. And he collected the tribute which he exacted
from them under threats of death—and by executions.
Katerin watched the gray light of the new day grow over the frozen and
desolate landscape. A thin mantle of snow covered the plains below the
hills which walled in the valley on three sides. There were a few rude
peasants’ huts out on the flats, with white smoke rising up from stone
chimneys. A long column of staggering telegraph poles ran off beyond a
spur of hill and marked the line of the railroad in this direction.
She saw a small band of Cossacks come galloping in toward the city. They
were racing to the warmth of the barracks after a night spent on patrol.
These men belonged to the outer cordon—the chain of mounted soldiers
which Zorogoff kept about the city to make sure no one entered without
his knowledge, and to insure that none escaped. Before he had organized
his power, some of the wealthy citizens had escaped by the railroad, but
now the Ataman had his troops on guard at the railroad station. And his
spies were busy in the city. It was impossible to leave if he did not
grant permission. The Kirsakoffs did not dare to ask for it.
The room in which Katerin stood looking out of the window was filled
with a queer mingling of rich furnishings and crudely built peasant
household goods. The floor was covered with a thick blue carpet, thrown
down hastily after being smuggled by night from her old home before the
building had been burned. Faithful servants had brought it, but there
had been no attempt to put it down properly—it was merely tucked in at
the sides of the room in order to make the fabric fit.
The walls were covered with an ancient and faded paper. The ceiling had
once been covered with colorful decorations, but now the plaster was
cracked, and leaks in the roof had turned the paint of the figures into
grotesque patterns.
The bed was hidden by a Chinese screen of carved leather, also saved
from the old home before the looters had plied the torch; a great
samovar of chased and filigreed silver stood upon an old wooden bench
brought from the kitchen on the floor below; a table of rough boards was
covered by purple silk, and on it stood an ornate candelabra of marble
and bronze with the arms sadly bent, so that the candles could not stand
erect; blankets of fur covered chairs rudely cut with an ax and
fashioned with a primitive hammer; and a monstrous black stove built
into the wall reached to the ceiling.
Katerin pulled the blanket away from the window and made it fast to the
casing with a string. Just then a gentle tapping came at one of the
doors of the room. She laughed cheerily and opened the door. Her father
stood before her.
General Kirsakoff was tall, but thin and bent with age. His face was
gaunt, but the bones of his cheeks were partly concealed by a white
beard which was indifferently trimmed to a point at the chin. His gray
eyes were dim, yet held some of their old fire and the look of an
eagle—stern eyes looking out from under gray brows and a forehead
furrowed by worries and his years. His head was covered with sparse
white hair, which had a tendency to stand straight up, and waved when he
moved his head quickly.
“Ah, the cold is like a wolf!” said Michael, his hands clasped together
as he shivered. “Has not Wassili come up with the fire? My teeth ache
from the cold!”
Katerin gave him a look of solicitude, and then took his hands and
rubbed them.
“I thought you would sleep longer, so I did not call for Wassili. And
here you are dressed—but you should have a blanket over your shoulders.”
“It is only my feet and my hands—and my teeth—that are cold. Let us have
the samovar singing, and something hot. My poor old bones cannot stand
the cold so well as they did. And this old house is damp—we must have a
good fire to-day, happen what will.”
He looked at Katerin closely, searching her face for signs of anxiety,
but her whole manner had changed at his entrance to the room, and now as
she went to the door to the hallway to call down to Wassili, the
servant, she hummed a tune. She knew her father well enough to
understand that his spirit must be kept up. He had been giving way
recently to long spells of despondency.
Michael was wearing one of his old uniforms of a general. It had been
Katerin’s idea that he resume the discarded garments of authority, for
she knew that he gained some comfort from it and that it helped him to
forget the dark days which had come upon them. But Michael was only a
shadow of his former self. His knees bent under him, his attenuated form
did not fill the tunic, his hands were white and withered. They shook,
as did his head at times, with the palsy of his age and feebleness. Yet
the old general was still a striking figure in the gray tunic with the
white cross hanging from its collar, the wreath and sword of another
order of the Czar on his breast. A leather strap crossed his shoulder
and came down athwart the front of the tunic. The heavy gold straps on
his shoulders marked his rank. His trousers were blue with a pair of
narrow gold stripes at the sides, and the belt about him had a silver
buckle in front with the double-headed eagle of the Romanoffs.
“So this is another day, little daughter,” said Michael, as he sat down
upon a bench and stroked his beard. “Another day of waiting—waiting till
these devils have lost their power to the army of the Emperor.”
“Another day of hope, my father,” said Katerin. “What! Does not the day
at the windows give you courage. Perhaps the Americans will come up from
Vladivostok and save us. It is then that Zorogoff will have to change
his ways.”
“Poof! The Americans will not come,” said Michael wearily. “Do not put
your hopes in the foreigners. Nothing will happen from that direction
which will be of any good to us.”
“Something is bound to happen that is good for us,” insisted Katerin.
“The forces of evil cannot always be in power. Have we not sent word to
our friends who escaped? Will they not get our letters? Will they not do
something to get us away from the city? All we must do is to have
patience and be brave. God is with the brave.”
“Yes, the young are brave,” said Michael. “And it is you who are brave,
my daughter. I am too old to have much heart left. But there are two
things against us—one of them is our accursed money. I wish we had never
saved it, but for that you will need it.”
“And what is the other thing that is against us?” asked Katerin with
surprised eyes, as she turned to the door to look below for Wassili.
“Your beauty, Katerin Stephanovna,” said her father. “How many times in
the old days have I thanked the holy saints for your beauty! Yet I mourn
now that you are so beautiful, for it may be your curse. I have had a
dream of evil omen, yet I cannot remember it—though it left me downcast.
If these devils of Zorogoff dare lay a hand upon you——”
Katerin ran to him and kissed him hastily.
“Oh, nonsense! I will not be so beautiful, and you will not be so
depressed as soon as the samovar sings and you have had your tea. You
make much of little things—and you must not keep dreams in your mind.
Now! Here comes Wassili with the fire for the samovar!”
Wassili came in, a whiskered _moujik_ in clumsy boots, bearing fire on a
shovel. Some of the burning coals he put into the stove, and with the
scattered remnants fired the samovar and went below again for water.
“It is more dangerous to give the money than to keep it,” went on
Michael musingly. He seemed bent on studying out the problems which
confronted him, as if the dream which he had mentioned had driven him
into making some decision.
“If we could buy our way out of the city,” suggested Katerin, “I would
be willing to give it up to see you in comfortable surroundings.” She
was before a little mirror on a table, combing out her hair.
“Once Zorogoff had the money, he would destroy us so there would be no
witness against him—no claim against him in future,” said Michael. “That
is what happened to Rioumines—he gave up his money willingly—and then he
was killed. So there is no safety for us in beggaring ourselves. By the
Holy Saints! I would rather burn all the rubles than give them to
Zorogoff—but even then he would not believe that they had been
destroyed, and would kill us for refusing to surrender them. And I would
sooner die a beggar than have your fortune fall into the hands of this
Mongol!”
“Come! Sit by the fire and warm yourself,” said Katerin, pushing a bench
toward the front of the stove, which was now crackling merrily with the
wood. “We are safe enough here till the Americans come.”
“Oh, the Americans will never come,” said Michael, as he settled himself
before the fire and held out his hands to the heat. “We must use our
wits and get away from Chita—to Harbin or Vladivostok. Others have done
it. We might send Wassili to Harbin for help.”
“That would do no good. Our friends cannot come back here to help us. If
they did, they could not fight Zorogoff’s army. We must keep up good
hope for whatever the future holds for us, and——”
There came a hammering at the outer gate of the courtyard. Katerin
checked her words and stood immovable, her eyes on her father in sudden
fear of what the summons below might mean. The noise outside stopped as
abruptly as it had begun, and then was resumed—insistent, compelling,
ruthless. It sounded like the thumping of rifle butts against the planks
of the gate. Whoever it was that demanded admittance was not to be
denied. There was in the noise a peremptoriness which indicated that if
there happened to be any appreciable delay in opening the gate, it would
be smashed down without further ado.
“What is that?” asked Michael. “By the Holy Saints! The soldiers of the
Ataman have come upon us!”
He sprang up and went to the window, where he put his eye to the hole in
the frost, and looked out. Katerin pressed close to him.
“Soldiers at the gate!” whispered Michael, and as he stood staring at
his daughter, they heard Wassili shouting in the hall below.
“Master! Master!”
Katerin crossed herself and bowed her head in the direction of the icon
as she ran to the door and called down to Wassili, asking what it was
that he wanted.
“The soldiers are outside—pounding to get in!”
“Then let them in,” commanded Katerin. “We cannot fight them.” She ran
back across the room to the window and looked down to the court—she
could see the tops of the tall Cossack caps over the upper edge of the
paling. There were at least a dozen of them, and above them here and
there was the glittering point of a bayonet.
“We are in God’s hands!” cried Katerin.
“We shall know what fate holds for us now,” said her father, drawing up
toward the stove. “We have been in doubt long enough. It was the smoke
from our chimney which drew them, without doubt.”
“They will want the money,” said Katerin. “It may as well go to
them—enough to stop their greed.”
Michael went to her and put his hands upon her shoulders. He looked into
her face, tears in his own eyes. “We will not give them the money,” he
whispered. “Let them kill me if they will. I doubt that they will dare
to do it—but my time is short at best. This is my dream! But you must
think of yourself and know that if they take all we have, you will be
helpless—a beggar in a land that is beggared, to die of hunger or by
your own hand. Make no bargain with them between me and the money! I
command you! Do not give a ruble of it to keep me alive a minute!”
“If you die, I shall not live,” said Katerin, and taking his face
between her hands, kissed him tenderly on the forehead and threw her
arms about his neck, dry-eyed in her anguish.
“I should like to reach the sky, but my arms are too short,” said
Michael, expressing his helplessness by the old Russian proverb. “I
think of having an army at my back—I, an old man, weak and already
looking into my own grave. It is of you I think, Katerin Stephanovna! I
would sell my soul to save you—yet the money must be kept if you are to
live!”
“I can hear the soldiers in the yard,” said Katerin. “What can we do? We
have a few rubles in the Chinese casket—five thousand in fives and tens.
They make a fat bundle. We can give them up—and say they are all we
have.”
“Do not be too ready to surrender the money,” said Michael. “But that is
what we shall do. If they demand more——”
“Hush! They are coming up the stairs. Come! Quick! Sit here by the
table! And take your saber! Be bold with them, as befits your rank and
your old place, but remember that we cannot resist!”
As she talked, Katerin grabbed from a chest her father’s saber and
snapped it into the old general’s belt. Then she pulled him to the table
and sat him on a bench so that he faced toward the fire. This was no
more than done when a man could be heard mounting the top of the stairs,
and presently the visitor looked in cautiously at the open door.
The intruder was a Cossack officer. He wore a tall cap of white, shaggy
wool, thrust back on his head. A lock of his black hair hung down
athwart his forehead. His eyes were black and small, his mouth heavily
lipped, his cheeks inclined to swartness from exposure, though the cold
of the morning had given his skin a ruddy glow. He wore a long greatcoat
with the cream-colored skin of the sheep outside and the wool inside
visible at the edge in front and at the bottom of the skirt. On his
shoulders were tin stars—he was a captain in Zorogoff’s army. From the
skirt of his coat on one side hung the toe of a heavy saber-scabbard.
The captain stepped into the room after a sharp glance at Katerin and
her father. Then he looked about the room suspiciously, and having made
sure that no others were present, he bowed politely, at the same time
clicking the spurred heels of his black boots.
“You are Kirsakoff,” said the officer abruptly. “I am Captain Shimilin,
and I have come from the Ataman Zorogoff.”
Michael, his hand on the hilt of his saber, sitting erect, turned his
head and surveyed the Cossack coldly. Finally, he said, “Captain, you
are speaking to General Kirsakoff.”
Shimilin shrugged his shoulders, and a smile lurked on his lips. “You
were once a general—but the Czar is dead. I do not have to be told who
you are, Kirsakoff.”
“Oh, you have heard of the Czar!” said Katerin.
Shimilin stared at her, and then took off his cap. He seemed willing to
ignore her irony, but his look conveyed an appreciation of her beauty,
and he allowed his eyes to linger upon her. But there was no disrespect
in his manner.
Katerin met his steady gaze without any indication that the Cossack
captain’s scrutiny meant anything more than the usual deference and
adulation due her person and position as in the old days. She made a
pretty picture, standing beside her father—the superb carriage of her
head, the slashes of red velvet of her sleeves, the gray of the sable
coat and the swirl of the red trailing skirt about her feet. She
suggested a queenly consort at an audience by royalty.
Shimilin stood as if waiting for something to happen. In a short time
two men came in with rifles. Their faces were rotund, their noses short
and flat, and they were dark enough to be full-blood Mongols—Buriats,
these were, descendants of the men who had followed Genghis Khan as his
conquering hordes swept over Asia. They were poorly dressed in ragged,
old coats, with boots reinforced with skins and furs wrapped about their
tops. But they wore the high caps of Cossacks, which made them appear to
be taller than they really were. This pair appraised the contents of the
room, and having judged the value of its visible loot, turned their
beadlike eyes upon Katerin—eyes full of menace, eyes like the eyes of
wolves upon a quarry.
“Have you come with a message from the Ataman?” asked Katerin, when she
saw that the Cossack did not seem to know how to proceed with his
business. She wanted to hold the situation in her own hands as well as
she could, and so far she felt that Shimilin had not shown himself to be
particularly dangerous. She did not intend to betray to him that she and
her father were in any way perturbed by an informal call on the part of
soldiers from the Ataman Zorogoff. To show fear would be fatal and only
her wits could save her.
The Cossack did not reply at once, but strode across the room, threw off
his greatcoat, and sat down on a bench opposite Michael. Shimilin seemed
in no hurry, but acted as if he wished to impress father and daughter
with his own importance as expressed in his uniform. He wore a gray
tunic with gold shoulder straps, a brace of pistols in his belt, a fine
saber with a hilt of silver, and blue riding breeches.
“Yes, I bring a message from the Ataman,” he began, elbows on knees, and
leaning forward and staring at the floor. “You know, of course, that the
Ataman’s army has been protecting the city from looters.”
“Beggars are always safe from robbers,” said Michael.
Shimilin lifted his head and looked at the general in surprise.
“Beggars! I like a joke, Kirsakoff.”
“It is no joke being a beggar,” put in Katerin.
“You have millions of rubles,” said Shimilin.
“It is easy to count the money in the pockets of other people,” said
Katerin. “We were robbed of all we had long before the Ataman Zorogoff
began to rule.”
Shimilin’s face took on a sly look. “Is it that you do not like the
Ataman Zorogoff? Are you opposed to his rule?”
“I suppose Zorogoff would give up his power if we said we preferred
another ruler,” retorted Katerin. “If you came here to trick us into
saying anything against Zorogoff, it will not be said. And it takes
little of your breath to talk of millions of rubles. Does the Ataman
expect us to hand over to him a fortune which does not exist?”
“You talk like all the others,” said Shimilin wearily. “Partridges are
killed with silver bullets—and so are robbers. An army cannot live on
air. The Ataman needs money.”
“Protection from bandits! What difference does it make whether bandits
and looters take our money, or Zorogoff?” asked Michael sharply. “If we
had the money—what would it matter to us who got it if we lost it?”
“The Ataman asks a loan,” said Shimilin. “His government will repay you.
Am I to tell the Ataman that you regard him as a robber?”
“We have but a few rubles,” said Katerin hastily, to prevent her father
from saying something which would draw the wrath of the captain, for the
old man was showing his anger and was ready to defy Shimilin. “It is all
the money we have left.”
“How much?” asked Shimilin.
“Probably ten thousand rubles,” said Katerin. “I have not counted it
lately, but it is all we have to buy our food. What shall we eat if you
take it?”
Shimilin smiled. “That is not my problem. You can find more money, or
borrow. But we know you have plenty. Ten thousand rubles will not
satisfy the Ataman. I will take it, but only with the understanding that
it is mine—to intercede with the Ataman for you. You might find it
difficult to argue with his soldiers—in his military prison.”
Katerin shrugged her shoulders. “True. If the Ataman should want to send
us to prison, we could not prevent him. At least, he would have to feed
us there.”
“And is that the way Zorogoff will protect us from robbers?” demanded
Michael. “If we have no more money, we must go to prison, eh! And that
is what Zorogoff calls ruling, I presume. Hah!”
Katerin went behind the screen which shielded her bed and returned with
a large lacquered cabinet. She opened it and took out several packets of
rubles of the old Imperial issue.
“This is our fortune,” she said, with a gesture at the casket, and
turned away.
“Do you expect the Ataman to believe that?” asked Shimilin, as he stood
up and looked into the casket.
“I cannot do the Ataman’s thinking,” she retorted. “I do not give it—you
must take it.”
Shimilin got into his greatcoat, and leisurely stuffed his pockets with
the packets. When he had taken the last, he bowed to the glowering
Michael in a show of politeness.
“I will do what I can with the Ataman in your behalf,” he said. “But I
doubt if I will be able to alter his intentions toward you—and I am sure
that we shall meet again.”
And Shimilin made a gesture to his two soldiers, walked through the
door, and the trio clumped down the stairs.
“This means war with the Ataman,” said Michael, as they heard the gate
creak on its ancient hinges as their visitors went into the street.
“Before prison, we shall take the poison together, my daughter.”
“We shall not die by our own hands till the last minute,” said Katerin.
“We must pray that the Americans will come.”
“If they come at all it will be too late,” said Michael. “We, who have
conquered Asia, will be destroyed by Asia—we shall be lost in a yellow
flood. The Mongol rules now.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
II
THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
AN American army transport came lurching out of the Japanese sea, and,
following the lead of a gray and gaunt destroyer which had come out to
meet the troopship, she swung slowly into the Gulf of Peter the Great.
The cliffs of the shore line of Siberia looked bleak and wind-whipped,
desolate and snow-slashed. The first blasts of winter had swept the
land. Brown and dull it looked, sullenly waiting the onset of northern
winds with smothering cold from the Pole.
The transport seemed reluctant to approach the shore of such an
inhospitable land. Her gray war-painted sides were festooned with
sea-grime from the Pacific. Her pace was slow, as if she mistrusted the
hills overhanging Vladivostok. She was all for caution, though the
tumbling destroyer drove ahead of her like a terrier leading the way for
a suspicious mastiff.
Among the officers crowding the upper deck of the transport was a young
man wearing single silver bars on the shoulders of his khaki tunic. On
his collar were little circles of bronze enclosing eagles fashioned from
the same metal. To those who understood such things, they proclaimed him
to be a First Lieutenant of the Intelligence Division of the General
Staff of the United States Army.
Lieutenant Gordon was a sturdy chap, of good height. His cleanly shaven
face was inclined to ruddiness. His chin was generously molded, his jaw
had a squat squareness to it which gave the lower half of his face a
suggestion of grimness, but the good-natured twinkle of his blue eyes
belied this grimness. Still, he was reserved—perhaps too serious for one
of his age, too moodily self-contained.
He had kept to himself a good deal on the passage of the transport from
San Francisco. While others of his age had been romping the decks and
singing and making gay, he had clung to his cabin. He said that he was
studying Russian.
When the transport began to draw near to the coast of Siberia, Gordon
had stood nearly all day alone in a sheltered nook at the head of the
upper deck where the shrouds came down to the rail and prevented more
than one person’s getting into the corner. He seemed always to gravitate
to spots in the ship which would insure his being alone or cut off in
some way from the crowds. Then he would stand motionless, gazing out
over the bows to the horizon ahead, busy with his own thoughts.
Yet for all his aloofness, Lieutenant Gordon was an affable chap. And he
was keenly interested in all things Russian—showed a most laudable
ambition to learn all he possibly could about the country in which he
was to serve. There was a captain at Gordon’s table who had a cabin full
of books about Russia, and Gordon listened most attentively to the
informal lectures by the well-read captain.
And there was a major who had been military attaché in Petrograd. He
spoke Russian well, and gave lessons in the language to the other
officers. Gordon attended some of the lessons, but his progress in
learning the language was distressingly slow. Still, Gordon did
extremely well at times. One day the major had asked the class to repeat
a Russian sentence. Gordon was the only one to repeat the words with
anything approaching correctness.
“Splendid!” exclaimed the major enthusiastically.
“You are getting a good accent. That’s really excellent, Mr. Gordon. And
somehow you resemble Russians—if it were not for your uniform, you might
easily be taken for a Russian.”
The class laughed. Gordon reddened. When he was asked to repeat another
sentence in Russian, he rather bungled it. And that day he quit the
Russian class, saying that he could learn faster alone with his grammar.
And he kept more to himself after that.
So no one thought it strange that Lieutenant Gordon preferred to stand
by himself at the head of the upper deck as the transport was nosing
into the harbor of Vladivostok. He scanned the islands sliding past, and
he watched the boat which came out flying the white and blue flag of the
Czar’s navy—the old Cross of St. Andrew. He watched the shattered hulks
of the navy of the Second Nicholas, lying in on the beach like the bones
of dead sea birds. And he saw the warships of Britain, of France, of
Japan, of the United States, all spick and span at anchor below the
city.
Many strange flags flew from the tops of buildings on the terraced
streets over the bay. The green spires of churches glistened in the
afternoon sun. Soon the gashes running down to the water were seen to be
streets with people moving in them—carriages, motor cars, and hurrying
throngs of civilians and soldiers.
On the hills above the city was a queer fringe of flat white piles, some
of them sheeted with canvas. These were vast stores of things gathered
to the port from all the world for the war against Germany—acres of
goods and metals, all idle and wasting because the throne of the
Romanoffs had toppled and the Czar himself was dead in a well.
The transport moved up to a dock at the end of the bay, past the city.
Gordon stood in his nook, watching Vladivostok pass in review before
him, and listening to the comments of the other officers who crowded the
upper deck for their first sight of this far port of a shattered
dynasty.
As the troopship warped in, Russians in belted blouses and great boots
stood on the dock and stared up at the ship and its soldiers in khaki
from a distant land. These Russians loafed and gossiped and ate
sunflower seeds. Cossack soldiers in high woolly caps swaggered about
with sabers jingling at their sides. German prisoners of war labored
with heavy cases. These men were still clad in the dirty finery of gaudy
uniforms, sorry-looking specimens of what had been once smart soldiers.
Shaggy horses in rude wagons, driven by peasant girls with shawls over
their heads and wearing men’s heavy boots, did the work of strong men
with sacks and bales, loading the carts. The Russians could find nothing
else to do but gossip.
Gordon watched the people on the dock with interest. When the hawsers
were fast to the pier, he left the deck and went to his cabin. There,
alone, he loaded his automatic pistol. He filled extra magazines with
the blunt-nosed bullets, and distributed the magazines through his
pockets in such way that they would not be noticeable through the fabric
of his garments.
He looked at himself in the mirror on the bulkhead. His face had
increased its grimness, and the blue of his eyes had taken on a steely
sheen. He seemed to be angry about something. But he forced a smile at
himself—a tight-lipped smile of satisfaction.
“Speed is good for nothing but catching fleas,” he whispered to his
image in the glass.
Soon an orderly came to tell him that an automobile waited on the dock
to take all officers who had to report direct to Headquarters to the
building in the city where the Commanding General and his staff were
housed. Gordon followed the orderly, and stepping from the end of the
gangplank, saluted the land.
The car bumped away up the street with a group of officers. Gordon was
silent, while the others chattered. The water-front streets were muddy
and unpaved. Squalid buildings with crude signs in Russian announced
that within many of the buildings might be had tea and food and liquors.
Pigs were loose in the streets, scratching themselves amiably on
house-corners. Old Russian songs were being bawled from lusty throats of
roisterers inside the _kabaks_. Russians wandered about aimlessly,
staring at all the strange things which had come to Siberia—the American
army mules, the motor cycles whizzing about among the pigs and wagons,
and the honking car with the party of American officers.
Everybody seemed on holiday but the Chinese. They trotted about with
burdens on their backs, working like ants, apparently unaware that
freedom had come to Russia and that no one need work. Military motors
were shooting about in all directions, dilapidated trolley cars packed
with humanity creaked over bad rails, droshkies careened crazily among
the burden-bearing Chinese coolies.
The car carrying Gordon rolled into the Svetlanskaya, the main street of
Vladivostok, and began to climb one of the many hills. There was a great
stream of confused traffic, and mixed in it were strange men in
uniforms—black Annamites in French blue, yellow Japanese in buff,
bronzed Czechs in brown, Cossacks in natural gray; Canadians in brown
short coats, and Americans in snuff-colored khaki. On them all were the
musty odors and the ancient dust of Asia.
The city was a place of swarming tangles of people—beggars and princes,
vagabonds and viceroys, generals and stragglers, friends and enemies,
conquerors and conquered, all whirling about in mad antics and hurrying
as if they expected the end of the world to come with sundown. Refugees
from the interior carrying their few poor possessions in old blankets
mingled with nobles of the old régime who still tried to keep up a
semblance of importance; poor women in rags with frightened red eyes and
crying children clustered about them stood on the curbs and stared at
foreign-looking ladies lolling in carriages and clad in suspicious
grandeur. The human parasites had gathered from all the ports of the
Orient to this land where people were starving in the streets.
Adventurers seeking command and harpies hoping to get their fingers into
stolen jewels, pushed aside blind beggars to get into the cafés.
The crisp cold air of winter was seething with joy. There were flags
everywhere. The restaurants were crowded with people who lacked
lodgings, gabbling, whispering, gaming. But there was something sinister
lurking in the background of the mad show, glimpsed now and then in a
squad of soldiers with bayonets fixed to their rifles and marching from
some mysterious place to some other mysterious place with an attitude of
deadly earnestness. The temper of the people was fickle. They were ready
to rally to any leader who presented some dramatic ideal, or to submit
to any ruler who was strong enough to subdue them by force of arms. But
just now they were occupied with having a grand celebration and believed
that life from now on would be nothing but a carnival.
The car carrying Gordon and the other officers arrived at the big
building overlooking the bay where flew the flag of the United
States—American Staff Headquarters. Gordon found the Chief of
Intelligence in a large room filled with map-makers, translators,
clerks, officers, busy orderlies. But Gordon did not approach the desk
of his chief at once. The grave-faced colonel with spectacles was busy
just then, and Gordon lingered among the office workers. There was a
great buzzing of conversation and a mighty clacking of typewriters.
Gordon was keenly interested in everything. The walls were covered with
maps of the Russian empire stuck full of tacks with colored heads—the
fever spots of a sick nation, showing where the disease was most rampant
and dangerous. And Gordon listened to the talk of the Russians, who
discussed the Americans frankly, knowing that they were not understood
by the strangers.
In time Gordon presented himself at the colonel’s desk, saluted, gave
his name, and turned over certain papers. The colonel looked him over
casually, not especially interested that another Intelligence officer
had been added to his staff by Washington.
“You’ll want to look about the city, Mr. Gordon, after your month in a
transport. You’ll be quartered in this building. Report to me again in
the morning,” said the colonel.
So Lieutenant Gordon spent the afternoon in the teeming cafés along the
Svetlanskaya. He mingled with the various factions scattered through the
city—monarchists, anarchists, nihilists out of a job, German secret
agents, and the adherents of new men and new parties intriguing for
power with the next throw of the national dice. It was all a great orgy
of talking and whispering and singing. Gordon could make neither head
nor tail of it. But he watched the throngs closely. Every man got a
scrutiny from the American lieutenant. An observer might think that
Gordon was looking for some particular person in all that motley throng.
At the officers’ mess that evening Gordon overheard a conversation in
which the necessity of sending an Intelligence officer to Irkutsk was
discussed. And Gordon was on the alert at once. He said nothing, but he
watched the Chief of Intelligence up at the head of the table and
followed him from the mess-room to his desk upstairs.
“Sir,” began Gordon, “I understand that an officer will be sent up
toward Lake Baikal—Irkutsk—to look into the situation there.”
The colonel looked at Gordon wonderingly. It struck the chief that this
new arrival was dipping into things rather hastily. There was enough to
learn around Vladivostok for a stranger, thought the colonel.
“Yes, it has been mentioned,” said the colonel. “We need an observing
officer up there. That country is controlled now by Zorogoff, the Ataman
of the Cossacks, and we don’t know any too much about Zorogoff. What do
you know about him?”
“Nothing, sir. But I would like to—see the country.”
“You ought to have a little more time to get acquainted with the
situation here before you go into the interior. The Baikal region is a
long way from here.”
“Yes, sir,” said Gordon. “I don’t want to appear too confident of my own
abilities, but it strikes me, sir, that the back country explains what
is going on here, rather than what you see here explains the country.”
The colonel smiled. “You like to travel, young man.”
“Yes, sir. Frankly, I’d like to see all I can.”
“Have you been assigned to any duty here yet?”
“No, sir. Perhaps when I got back from the Baikal region I’d be more
valuable—have a better understanding of the situation as a whole.”
“I’ll think it over,” said the colonel, and reached for his ringing
telephone.
And the colonel evidently did think it over, for within an hour
Lieutenant Gordon was handed his orders to leave at once for Irkutsk in
a train carrying Czech soldiers and supplies toward Omsk and that place
known so vaguely as “the front.” And an American soldier who was a
native of Russia was detailed to accompany Lieutenant Gordon as an
orderly and interpreter.
Gordon did not delay. He went at once to the Trans-Siberian station to
find his train, leaving the Russian orderly to bring on baggage and
bedding-roll. Gordon found the station filled to overflowing with
refugees from the interior—sick and well, women and children, lame and
blind, hungry and unclean. They lay on the floors, cooking and eating,
begging and filching food wherever they could find it. They were like a
dirty froth thrown up on a beach after a tidal wave, a pitiful human
wreckage fighting for existence after having survived a typhoon which
had destroyed a nation. The sights, the smells, the misery were
appalling. It almost made Gordon ill. He longed to find some one person
who could be blamed for it. A wrath began to grow in his soul.
He stumbled down the railroad yards in the growing dark, seeking the
train among a labyrinth of box cars. Though he was already in his furs
and his sheepskin-lined coat against the wolf of winter which was
howling across the landscape, the wind from the bay chilled him to his
bones.
Candles gleaming through the windows of an old fourth-class car drew
him. He found soldiers within—Czechs cooking their supper of stew over
crude heating stoves amid clouds of yellow sulphurous smoke from the
awful Manchurian coal.
The interior of the car was so jammed with men that there seemed to be
no more room. The shelves were full of soldiers, and the floor was
littered with coal and wood and boxes and bundles. It was like a pen on
wheels, that car. It was filthy, battered, and broken. But it belonged
to the train leaving for the front, and Gordon was content.
Presently the orderly came, laden with baggage. He explained to the
Czechs that the American officer was to travel in that car by order of
the Czech commandant. The soldiers smiled and provided two shelves. And
in a few minutes the train began to grind slowly away from Vladivostok,
to carry Lieutenant Gordon and his orderly some two thousand versts
away.
They reached Nikolsk-Ussurisk the next morning. An American captain came
to the train. His orderly had been sent back to Vladivostok, ill. The
captain was without an interpreter.
“Look here,” said Gordon. “You can’t go on here without an
interpreter—and I’ll not need mine till I get to Irkutsk. You’ll have a
new interpreter sent up to you by that time. I’m all right on this
train—for a week or two. Send mine along to me when I telegraph where I
am.”
“Well, that’s an idea!” said the captain. “A most pious idea! Perhaps I
can send your man along after you in a couple of days. He can catch this
train all right, on a passenger train.”
“Hold my man, sir, till you hear from me,” said Gordon. “I’ll wire when
I need him. There is a Czech in this car who speaks fairly good English.
I’ll get on all right.”
“Now that’s mighty decent of you,” said the captain. “What’s your
name—so there won’t be any hitch about sending your man on?”
“Gordon, sir—Peter Gordon.” And the train rumbled on, leaving behind the
native of Russia who had been detailed as interpreter for Lieutenant
Peter Gordon.
The railroad followed old caravan trails into Manchuria and Mongolia,
over plains and up through mountains in which yellow _bonzes_ hid
themselves from the world on sky-kissing peaks in secret monasteries.
Then, winding down through the passes, the train traversed the millet
plains where the conquerors of ancient Tartary and China recruited their
hordes of warriors—and on into the wilderness of Siberia where wolves
still ruled.
The land was now held in the grip of a desperate cold. The wheels whined
as they ground along on frosty rails. Bridges lay in ruins across
rivers, replaced by shaky structures of logs that swayed and groaned
under the weight of the train.
And at every station Peter found mobs of refugees fighting to get aboard
anything that moved. Some were trying to get to Vladivostok, some wanted
to go in the opposite direction to Perm, or Ufa, or Samara. They wanted
to get anywhere but where they were. Long strings of box cars in the
sidings were packed with men, women, and children, ragged, filthy,
hungry, dying, dead. Those alive threshed grain by hand from the rotting
piles in the fields, or fished in the rivers with wooden spears. And
there were trains coming back from the front filled with human
derelicts—in cattle cars festooned with crimson icicles!
Yet the people seemed patient in their misery. They waited patiently
while first one faction rose to power only to fall again. And usurpers
gambled for power with bands of brigands which their leaders called
armies. The people had destroyed one government. Now they waited for
some one to create another for them.
Lieutenant Peter Gordon watched day by day in silence. At times, his
eyes flamed with anger. But he smiled sometimes, too, when he mixed with
peasants in the station restaurants and ate cabbage soup with a wooden
spoon. For the peasants had many queer and amusing things to say about
the _Americansky_ after they had assured themselves that the stranger
could speak but a few words of Russian, and understood less. But Peter
understood enough to know that these peasants were not at all friendly
to officers, no matter what country they came from. They wanted no
aristocrats in Siberia, American or otherwise. They were going to kill
all the aristocrats, and be free men. They were not going to leave all
the land to aristocrats, and pay taxes so that their rulers could make
slaves of them. Not any more.
One evening Peter strolled up toward the engine while the train was
stopped in a station.
“When will we get to Chita?” he asked the engineer.
“Perhaps to-morrow.”
“Are you sure we won’t go through Chita sometime to-night?”
“No, not to-night. Not till long after daylight.”
“Thank you,” said Peter, and walked away. The Russian engineer stared
after the American officer in bewildered surprise, for the American
officer was speaking in perfect Russian. There was something queer about
it, the engineer knew—but, of course, Americans are educated and speak
all languages. Still, that was the first one the engineer had ever heard
who could speak the Czar’s Russian—as good as the conductor.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
III
THE FIRING SQUAD
AFTER Captain Shimilin’s demand for a million rubles for the Ataman
Zorogoff, Katerin and her father knew that they were no longer safe.
They had a fortune hidden in the old log house. It consisted of packets
of Imperial rubles which had been smuggled from Kirsakoff’s bank before
the looters had begun their raids in the city. The soldiers would come
now and strip the house of all its contents to find the money. And if
they did find the money, Michael and Katerin would be accused of
opposing Zorogoff’s government and dealt with as many of the friends of
the Kirsakoffs had already been dealt with—a secret firing squad in a
prison yard at dawn.
As Michael had said, to surrender the fortune would not mean safety.
Others had done that, only to be destroyed so that no embarrassing
claims might be made against Zorogoff in the future. Zorogoff was but a
brigand chief, maintaining an army at the expense of the wealthy people
in his district and using the peasants and former workmen to build up
his new autocracy—destroy the aristocrats with the workers and then
enslave the workers who had done the business for him. Thus he played
the poor against the rich and controlled both. And it was his purpose to
leave none living who understood his aims.
In Michael’s room there was a stove of tile built into the wall. It
reached to the ceiling, and stuck out into the room like the half of a
supporting pillar—a great black column faced with blackened zinc sheets
of half-cylinders. At the bottom was a small iron door to admit the
wood, with a circular damper through which the flames might be seen when
there was fire in the stove. But the Kirsakoffs did not use this stove.
They used their scant supply of fuel in the stove in Katerin’s room, not
only to conserve their heat in the most comfortable room, but to reduce
the amount of smoke visible from the chimneys outside during the day.
The stove in Michael’s room had been selected as the hiding place for
the Imperial notes which had been smuggled from the bank weeks before.
It was Katerin’s idea that the packets could be stacked against the
tiles on the outside of the stove, and the sheets of zinc replaced. And
unless a fire was maintained in the stove for a time long enough to heat
the tiles to the danger point, the paper money would not be injured. If
the Cossacks came to search for the money, she planned to light a
smoldering fire in the stove. And by night, a couple of candles in
behind some pieces of charred wood, would throw out light through the
damper so that it would appear that the stove was burning.
The packets of rubles were now concealed in a lot of discarded peasants’
clothing. The various garments had been distributed through the house,
but Katerin had gathered them in her father’s room, and was ripping them
open, while Michael was preparing the stove for the money by removing
the zinc facing against the tiles.
It was the evening of the day on which Shimilin had visited them.
Katerin was ripping open old gray coats which smelled of stables and
were covered with patches, breeches contrived out of cloth and the old
skins of animals, uncouth jerkins which had originally been padded with
cotton against the cold of many long-gone Siberian winters.
The windows were blanketed to keep the candlelight from being seen in
the street below, and father and daughter talked in low tones as they
worked, while Wassili and the old woman below in the kitchen kept a
sharp watch against intruders.
Michael stood on a bench and worked out the screws which held the zinc
plates in place against the wall. It was now so cold in the room that
his breath showed white in the light of the candles, for they had let
the fire in his room die early, and the door to Katerin’s room was kept
closed so that the heat might not escape from it.
“Be careful lest the metal sheets fall and make a clatter,” warned
Katerin as she stripped open an old coat, and released a shower of
packets of rubles of large denomination, from which the face of the dead
Czar smiled up at her wistfully from the engraving. The rubles made a
colorful pile at her feet—blues, crimsons, and yellows, some worth a
hundred rubles, some worth a thousand.
“Now!” said Michael, as he lifted off the top plate. “We are ready for
the hiding—and my back is nearly broken, too. May Zorogoff break his
neck if he ever finds where it is hidden!”
Katerin got to her feet and looked up at the rude clay tiles and the
stone blocks mortared in behind them. The fire did not touch the
tiles—they merely retained the heat and radiated it slowly into the
room. And between the stone blocks and the tiles there was an air space,
wider in some places than in others, so that the thickness of the
packets of money would have to be gauged for the crevices they were to
fill.
Katerin began filling the spaces under the zinc plates above the stove
door. Then the plate above was put into place, and the aperture behind
it packed with money. They worked more than an hour before they had
disposed of the bulk of the packets. They could hear the calling of the
sentries in the streets. At times Michael and Katerin stopped and
listened to the cracking of the frost in the timbers of the house, and
once they put out the candles when they thought they heard the gate to
the courtyard being opened cautiously. But the noise proved to be but a
whim of the wind with the boards hanging loosely from the roof of the
old wagon-shed.
When all the zinc plates were back in place, Katerin took a piece of
candle, and putting charred sticks of wood back into the stove, she so
arranged the candle that when she lighted the wick and closed the iron
door, a flickering light appeared through the holes in the door.
“We have a fire in the stove,” she said to her father. “Who is to look
for paper rubles in a burning stove? When the soldiers come to search,
you have a fire going in an instant. And the wood can burn and not harm
the rubles.”
“We could not do better,” said Michael. “Your wits will save us yet. And
that money is all that stands between you and beggary—even I, alive,
without the fortune, could not save you from hunger and cold. There is
your treasure! It must be saved to you, my daughter, at all cost.”
“I care only for you, my father,” said Katerin. “And now you are tired
and worn—to bed, for we must keep our strength and have our sleep, even
though disaster crouches in the future.”
She kissed him, and went to her own room to get behind the blankets
which curtained the window and to blow a tiny hole in the frost coating
the pane. Outside, the night was brilliant, with a haloed moon throwing
a silvery sheen over the glistening plains, with a tree here and there
doubly black from its shadow on the powdery snow. Out in the end of the
street the fire of the sentries was burning redly. It threw into heavy
relief the black forms squatting about the glowing coals.
“Merciful God!” she whispered in prayer. “Are we to be saved? Help must
come to us, or we perish!”
She closed the blankets and went back to her father’s room. She made
sure that he was properly covered, kissed him tenderly, and took away
the candle, for she had known him to lie all night smoking cigarettes
till the dawn by candle light.
In her own room once more, she prayed before the icon, and prepared for
bed. Worn out with the worry of the day and anxiety for what the new day
might bring, she finally fell asleep.
But the next day came and went without any word or sign from the Ataman
that he was dissatisfied with the report of Captain Shimilin. Several
days passed, and still there was nothing to indicate that Zorogoff would
annoy them again. Michael began to have hopes that something would
happen which might distract the attention of the usurper from them. But
every hour they lived in expectation of another visit from Captain
Shimilin—and no news came that the American troops were moving up the
railroad to give protection to the people.
Michael seemed to grow weaker as time passed. He fretted under the
restraint of what was practically imprisonment. He worried constantly
about the future for Katerin’s sake. He devised many a scheme by which
they were to escape from the city, only to abandon each one when Wassili
returned from buying food in the market and reported that Zorogoff’s
soldiers were guarding every outlet from Chita.
Among other plans, Michael had thought of getting a droshky or a sledge
and attempting to dash through fog or darkness, down the line of the
railroad to the Manchurian border. He thought it might be possible to
get into some Manchurian city, or to board a train bound toward
Vladivostok at some point along the railroad which was outside the zone
controlled by Zorogoff.
But while it might be possible to get through the cordons of Cossacks
around the city, either by eluding them or bribing them, Michael knew
that he might be betrayed before leaving the house at all. To carry out
such a plan, it would be necessary to take a droshky driver into
confidence, and though he might accept a large sum in payment, he might
also betray Michael. For Zorogoff’s spies were everywhere.
Then it was that Captain Shimilin returned to the house where the
Kirsakoffs were concealed. His soldiers came pounding at the gate of the
courtyard one day just before noon, and the Cossack captain once more
faced Michael and Katerin in the room with the blue carpet, the silver
samovar, and the battered candelabra.
Shimilin was frankly arrogant now, and he looked at Katerin with an air
of bold assurance that, no matter what she might say, it would be of no
avail to her. His pair of Mongol soldiers came with him, their eyes
hungrier than ever for the things in the room. Katerin involuntarily
pulled her sable coat closer about her when she saw the greedy gaze of
the precious pair upon it. She had decided to be outwardly gracious as
long as she could. But she was ready to stand out against the demands of
the Ataman, as expressed by Shimilin, as long as she could, and then
abide by the consequences.
Shimilin entered without a word, threw off his coat, and lighted a
cigarette. It was plain that his course of action was settled, and that
he knew perfectly what he would do from first to last. And his air
indicated that he would stand no trifling.
Michael sat by the table. He had been playing at solitaire when Shimilin
arrived, and the cards were still spread out on the board. Katerin had
agreed with her father that she should handle the situation, for the old
man might be trapped by Shimilin into saying something which would be
used by the Cossack as an excuse for arresting the old general. Zorogoff
had his own methods for giving a tinge of legitimacy to his unwarranted
actions and justifying himself in the eyes of his soldiers. And Shimilin
knew what Zorogoff demanded now.
“And what have you come for this time?” asked Katerin, as Shimilin
continued to sit silently and smoke his cigarette.
“The Ataman will take no more excuses,” said Shimilin. “I talked with
him about you and your father, but he would heed neither me nor your
protests that you have no money for him.”
“You mean that the Ataman expects us to provide a fortune for him? And
that having taken all we possess, you come back wanting more money?”
demanded Katerin.
“That is what I have come for. I am sorry that I have to put you to the
trouble, but——”
“Perhaps if I should talk to Zorogoff,” suggested Katerin.
“You can only talk to the Ataman with money,” said Shimilin. He spoke
without belligerency, almost apologetically, yet there was no doubt that
he was completely in earnest.
“My answer to that—I am dumb,” said Katerin. She sat down near her
father, and folded her hands in an attitude of helpless resignation.
“You know of some of the things that have happened here since the Ataman
began to rule,” replied Shimilin. “I can tell you that the dumb have
been made to speak for Zorogoff. This is a matter that you would do well
to consider with great care.”
Michael picked up one of the cards before him, and resumed his game, as
if what was being said held no interest for him.
Katerin leaned forward from the bench and looked into the black eyes of
the Cossack.
“This is a matter that I have considered,” she said slowly. “I have
given thought to it much longer than you suppose—and I have considered
that you, who are a Cossack, might even kill Russians by order of a
Mongol chief. I am wondering if you have thought of that, Captain
Shimilin, and——”
Shimilin sprang to his feet, his face flushed and his eyes menacing.
“Take care what you say about the Ataman!”
Katerin smiled.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I also understand what you seek. It is to have it
to say that we insult the Ataman. If calling him a Mongol is an insult,
that is his affair—we only speak the truth, and if the truth be against
him as he sees it and he resents it, we have nothing to do with that. I
am not making little of him for his blood or his race. There have been
many great men among his people, and he is of royal line. But it is to
you, Captain Shimilin, that I am speaking. My father and I have always
been friends of the Cossacks. Now you put a Mongol into power here. Do
you expect him to give you what we Russians have always given you? The
rank of free men? Even our Czar was Ataman of all the Cossacks. Have you
not learned to rule in your own way?”
As Katerin went on, her confidence grew. She saw that there was shame as
well as anger in Shimilin.
“We Cossacks held up the throne on the ends of our lances,” said
Shimilin doggedly. “We have our own master now, and we ask no advice
from you or your father.”
“Your own master?” Asked Katerin with gentle irony. “If you are your own
masters—why not a Cossack?”
“This is our country, and we shall rule it as we wish.”
“As you wish now? And how long before the Mongol will be ready to
dispense with Cossack lances and turn your country, as you call it now,
over to those who are closer to him in blood?”
“You forget,” raged Shimilin, “that the Ataman protects you—and that you
must give him help with money, as there is none in your family who can
aid him with a sword!”
“Tribute or death!” cried Katerin. “Is that protection? And if a Russian
cannot pay, the Mongol gets a Cossack to kill us! Do you think that if I
could wear a sword I would take service under Zorogoff at those
terms—and help to destroy my own race?”
“Your father ruled here with the help of Cossacks,” retorted Shimilin.
“We paid for the bread of majesty with our lives and our service—and
killing Russians is no new business for us—eh, Michael Kirsakoff? How of
that, old one? Did we not get well schooled in killing Russians in your
time?”
“True!” cried Michael, turning to look at Shimilin. “But you were in the
service of Russians. Think well of that. And those you killed broke the
law, or had killed in their own turn, with their hand lifted against
their fellow Russians or against the throne. The law is the law and
justice is justice. Men are not all just, as we were not always just.
But what law have we broken here in this house against your Ataman, that
you should threaten us because we have no fortune?”
Shimilin gave no reply.
“Do you see no difference between the Czar and a Mongol princeling?”
asked Katerin.
Shimilin turned to his soldiers. “Wait outside for me,” he commanded
with a gesture of dismissal. “I will call you when you are needed.”
The two men with rifles went outside and closed the door behind them.
Shimilin sat down again in an effort to compose himself. “I did not wish
my men to hear the Ataman insulted,” he began. “I have come here by
order of Zorogoff to take your money—all of it. It is only to be a loan
and you will lose nothing in the end. This is my advice—give your money
to me. I will promise you safety.”
He was frankly conciliatory. It appeared that he wished to cover his
chagrin over what Katerin and her father had said and to put himself in
a better light with them by a tacit agreement with them that he had no
stomach for the business.
“And if we had money and we gave it,” said Katerin, “how do we know that
we would not be destroyed to hide the debt, as has happened to others?”
“Then it is that you do not trust Zorogoff,” said Shimilin.
Katerin laughed lightly. “Those who have trusted him are dead. He has
taken fortunes before—and then the firing squad. What need has he to
destroy us? We should be safe because we are poor.”
Shimilin glanced at the door. He leaned forward and whispered, “Then
trust me. Turn over your money to me—and I promise safety. On my word as
a Cossack! Come!”
Michael turned quickly and looked at Shimilin in surprise, but Katerin
gave her father a glance of caution. She suspected that Shimilin was
trying to trap them.
“You must trust us, Captain Shimilin. We have no fortune for Zorogoff or
any other man.”
Shimilin scowled in disappointment, and seemed to have more to say, but
evidently thought better of it.
“You will have a glass of tea with us,” said Michael. “My house is poor,
but no man goes from it without——”
“No!” shouted Shimilin. “I will not have it from you. You do not trust
me!” and he stepped to the door and flung it open. The two soldiers came
back into the room.
“Kirsakoff, you must go with these men,” said Shimilin.
“What!” cried Michael. “I am to go? Where am I to go?”
“Before the Ataman. It is his orders,” said Shimilin quietly, and folded
his arms.
“Does this mean that my father has been arrested?” gasped Katerin,
staring in horror at the Cossack.
“Call it what you like,” grunted Shimilin.
“But arrested for what? For being poor? You mean that my father is to be
taken away by soldiers and no charge is made against him?” pressed
Katerin, now aware that disaster had come.
“Get ready to go, and say no more, Kirsakoff,” said Shimilin. “I shall
stay here with your daughter.”
“But I shall go with my father,” insisted Katerin, doing her best to
conceal the agony which possessed her. She knew that if her father were
taken she might never see him again. “Please! I shall go with my father!
Surely, there can be nothing against my going.”
“Have no fear,” said Shimilin. “Zorogoff wishes to talk with your
father, that is all. No harm will come to him. And I shall see that no
harm comes to you here while we wait. It will be better for you, and
easier for your father if you do not make any trouble about it. You will
only have to submit in the end.”
“I shall go,” said Michael, rising unsteadily to his feet. “I have no
wish to oppose the Ataman if he desires to talk with me. Come, my
daughter—fetch me my coat and my cap. The sooner this is over, the
sooner we shall know what the Ataman expects of me.”
Katerin hesitated, scanning the face of Shimilin as if hunting out some
secret motive behind the taking of her father from her. Then with sudden
resolution she went and brought her father’s cap and coat from his room,
and put them on him with loving care. When she had pulled the fur cap
down about the old general’s ears, she threw her arms about his neck and
kissed him, her heart torn with anguish at the parting, but determined
not to give way to her fears and doubts before him.
“God go with you and may you return to me soon,” she said. “And do not
worry for me, my father.” She smiled at him.
“And God be with you, Katerin Stephanovna, the brave one,” said Michael.
Then turning to Shimilin, he said, “I am ready to obey your commands and
I submit myself to your soldiers.”
“Take Michael Kirsakoff to the Ataman,” said Shimilin to his men, and
they fell in on each side of Michael. Between the two, Michael marched
across the room, doing his best to keep his weak old legs from betraying
the unsteadiness of his age. At the door he crossed himself twice, and
turning back, said to Katerin, “Hope is mightier than fear—remember that
you are the daughter of a soldier and that we do not fear death, but
only the loss of honor. Think not of me, but of yourself, and God’s
blessing and mercy upon you.”
He turned and was gone, leaving Katerin standing with folded arms
staring at the open door through which he had passed. Her face was
white, her lips drawn tightly together. She remained thus, listening to
the footfalls of her father and of the soldiers going down the stairs.
When she could hear them no more, Wassili came up and peered in at the
door, his eyes full of terror, and by his look silently questioning the
truth of the scene he had just witnessed below.
“See that the doors are properly closed, Wassili,” said Katerin, and the
_moujik_ went below again. She walked to a bench and sat down facing the
stove, partly turned away from Shimilin who stood in the center of the
room. She ignored his presence, but sat watching the flames dancing
inside the stove behind the iron door, her hands gripped together in her
lap.
Shimilin walked to the window and smoothed away the frost to look into
the courtyard and the street. Soon he turned from the window and looked
at Katerin.
“You may as well tell me where the money may be found,” he said. “There
is nothing to be gained by keeping it—and much to lose. I gave you your
chance, but you preferred to trust Zorogoff. You would not give it to
me—Zorogoff will take it. Where is the money to be found?”
“Where?” she asked, speaking as if in a dream, and not looking at him.
“Where is the money to be found? That is a question.”
“I do not enjoy this business,” said Shimilin, cajolery in his voice.
“If you would trust me——”
“I trust only in God,” she said. “We trusted the Cossacks and they have
turned against us. We are in your hands.”
Shimilin walked across the room, passing behind Katerin, and drew a
glass of water from the samovar and poured into it some tea from the pot
on the top of the samovar. He stood examining the things on the table,
drinking the hot tea noisily.
There came the sharp crack of a board being broken in the courtyard
below. Katerin turned her head in an attitude of listening, startled by
the noise, and conscious that its meaning might hold some import of
terrible significance. She had supposed that her father had gone from
the house with the soldiers. She stood up to go to the window.
Shimilin stepped quickly in her way. “You are not to look out,” he said
calmly. “All that you are to do is to tell me where the money may be
found. Why do you make all this trouble about it? I tell you it is bad.
You could be happy and gay if you would trust me.”
“Perhaps you will have another glass of tea,” suggested Katerin. She
returned to the bench and sat down to mask her worry over the noise she
had heard in the court.
“Do you wish to see your father again?” asked Shimilin.
Katerin looked at him, unable to conceal the swift terror which struck
at her heart with the Cossack’s words. He returned her look with steady
eyes.
“I wish to see my father again, if it be God’s will,” she said.
“Zorogoff is God,” said Shimilin.
She gave no reply.
“I warn you—you must submit to Zorogoff’s will.”
Still she gave no answer. The frost from the upper part of the window
had melted away in the heat of the room, and the ridge of ice across the
bottom of the panes was dripping water to the floor, like the ticking of
a clock.
Katerin turned to the fire again. Her face was drawn as if she were
crying but her eyes were free from tears and she made no sound.
There came the sound of dull thuds from the courtyard. Something was
striking frozen ground with regular blows, and soon could be heard the
sharp rasping of metal on stone.
Katerin moved as if she would get up to look out of the window, but
seeing Shimilin standing in front of her as if he intended to block the
way, she sank back on the bench. Her terror grew as she began to
understand the meaning of the sounds outside.
“What is that?” she whispered to Shimilin. “Tell me! What is happening?”
“Come and see for yourself,” said Shimilin, and moved aside so that she
might pass to the window.
She got up and started to cross so that she might look out. But she had
not gone half the distance, when she stopped at hearing Wassili
screaming below stairs.
“Mistress! Mistress! The soldiers are——”
But Wassili’s cries were checked. There were sounds of a scuffle,
followed by harsh warnings from soldiers that the _moujik_ must be
still.
Katerin ran to the window. As she looked below, she gave a gurgling cry
as if she had been struck in the mouth, and put her hands up to her face
to shut out the sight of what she saw. For below in the courtyard her
father was working with a shovel and throwing up broken, frozen, brown
earth. A soldier was breaking the ground with a pick. And about the
workers stood a large group of soldiers with their rifles, watching
Kirsakoff dig a grave!
Katerin backed away from the window, sobbing, and threw herself upon a
bench.
“You submit to Zorogoff or you die—both of you!” said Shimilin. “There
is yet time to save your father.”
Katerin stood up and faced Shimilin.
“You have betrayed us!” she cried. “There is no truth in you, you are
not worthy of trust! Death is better than life where there is no honor,
no truth, no faith in any man!” She turned her back upon the Cossack,
and held out her arms to the icon of the Virgin Mother. “Mercy on the
soul that goes to greet you—mercy, mercy, oh Mother of God!”
A whistle broke shrilly on the cold air outside. Shimilin leaped at
Katerin, and grasping her by the shoulders, swung her round and thrust
her at the window.
“Look!” he commanded. “If you can be so stubborn! Look, and see if you
still wish to disobey the orders of the Ataman!”
Katerin saw her father standing with his back to the old wall of the
court and six soldiers before him with their rifles upraised and aimed
at the old general.
She fell back against Shimilin, half fainting, but recovering herself,
staggered away from the window and fell upon her knees, her head bent
toward the icon, moaning prayers.
“Your father can be saved,” warned Shimilin. “Would you send him to
execution? Tell me where the money is hidden—or when I lift my hand to
the window, the soldiers will fire!”
“We are ready for death. I commend my soul and the soul of my father to
God! Better death than life under the cruelty of a Mongol and the
treachery of our Cossacks!”
“You will not trust me,” said Shimilin. “I could save you both. Fools! I
am ready to risk my own life to save you, yet you will not believe!” He
raised his hand to the window.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IV
THE PLACE OF THE VOW
A NEW conductor boarded the train in the night. He was a big fellow,
with a body round as a bear’s and covered with many coats. He wore a big
sheepskin cap, and carried a smoking lantern which was made of tin and
was square, with a red circular glass in one side, a blue one in the
other, and white ones on opposite sides. He held the lantern aloft and
studied the sleepers on the shelves, making rainbows in the dim light of
the car as he turned his prismatic lantern.
Snicking the ice from his whiskers, he waited till the train moved out
again, when he promptly lay down in the passage between the
sleeping-shelves and began snoring into the red light of the lantern on
the floor beside him.
Lieutenant Peter Gordon, who was on a lower shelf, was awake with the
first glimmer of gray light through the frosted windows. And as he
looked out upon the floor of the car, he was startled by the sanguinary
face of the new conductor in the red glow of the lantern as it rattled
with the jolting of the car. Peter studied the queer figure prone on the
floor, and observed the booted feet stretched out toward the cold stove
in the corner.
Before long the conductor sat up, rubbed his eyes and yawned a chasm of
a yawn. He dug into his clothing with a burrowing motion of his arm and
brought forth through many strata of coats a watch fit for a giant. He
put it to his ear, tilting his great cap to one side, and listened to
the ticking. Then he squinted at it in the red light, and having assured
himself that the new day had arrived on time, he buried the watch
somewhere in Pliocene recesses and hove himself to his feet and
attempted to look out of the window.
There was a remnant of candle stuck to the dirty window-sill by its own
frozen cataract of tallow. The conductor fumbled for a match, struck it,
and lighted the candle. The heat from its flame began to melt a widening
oval in the frost. The jumping flame revealed more of the interior of
the car—rifles hanging to the walls and rattling against the boarding
with every lurch of the train, shoes hung on nails, garments swinging
from the upper shelves, bare feet sticking out from blankets, outlandish
bundles tied with bits of rope and twisted cloths, cartridge belts
toothed with the brass tops of cartridges. And above the complaints of
the laboring train could be heard the snores and sleep-mutterings of the
Czech soldiers—men of an improvised army which had fought its way across
Siberia and was now on the back trail to fight again that their comrades
might be saved from annihilation by treacherous enemies.
The conductor studied the frozen wilderness through the window. Having
satisfied himself with the landscape, he stared at the cold stove. He
took the big ax which braced the door of the car shut and attacked a
chunk of wood on the floor with crashing blows. With the splinters split
off he started a fire and dumped in slabs of Manchurian coal, which
crackled like a line of musketry and threw out into the car ribbons of
yellow stifling smoke.
All the sleepers began to cough as the smoke penetrated the car. Soon
there was a chattering and a rattling of mess gear, and some one at the
other end of the car started the other stove—and a counter smoke-screen
against the conductor’s. Another day had begun in the filthy
rabbit-hutch of a car. And the gallant Czechs, content to endure their
Valley Forge of Siberia, chanted the songs of their homeland.
Peter threw off his blankets and sat up. The conductor smiled at him and
reached Peter’s boots up to him from the floor.
“The fire will make it warm soon,” he said, not knowing that Peter was
an American officer and not supposed to understand or speak Russian.
“How soon will we get to Chita, my friend?” asked Peter.
“To Chita? Oh, soon.”
“And how soon?”
“Perhaps half an hour. But you are going to Omsk?”
“Only to Irkutsk,” said Peter. He broke the ice in his canvas bucket and
washed his face, while the conductor looked on awe-struck at any person
who could be so mad as to wash in ice water. He scanned Peter’s tunic,
which hung from the shelf.
“Are you Czech?” he asked finally.
“No, I am an American—an officer.”
The conductor opened his mouth wide and crossed himself with both hands.
“But you speak Russian,” he said. “It is not right that you should speak
Russian like a Russian and be an American!”
“I am really Russian,” said Peter. “But it is that I have been in
America a long time. I came from Petersburg, and now I have come back to
help Russia to be free. Do you know Chita well?”
“I? Yes, a little. My wife’s cousin died there in the time of the
pestilence. He was a fur-hunter, but he was a stingy. I am not sorry
that he died. He ate much when he came to see us, and never had an extra
kopeck for the children.”
“Who is the governor of Chita now?”
The conductor gave a snort of disgust. “How could there be a governor in
this time of freedom? That is the old way. But we are free men now, as
good as anybody. Am I not as good as an officer?”
“Better,” said Peter. “But there was a governor in the old days. Every
place had a governor for the Czar. You know that as well as I, my
friend.”
“True, I know it. But what does it matter now? This is not the old
time.”
“There was a prison in Chita—or was there?”
“True, there was a prison. A big one on a hill. You shall see it in time
as we come to the city. But it is empty now, and the devil may live in
it for all I care.”
“I have heard that there was a Colonel Governor in Chita with one eye.
He lost the other in a fight with a tiger, but he killed the tiger.”
“Poosh!” said the conductor. “That is somebody’s vodka-story. I have
been on the railroad from the time it began, and I never heard of any
Colonel Governor who killed a tiger, or who had one eye. The last
governor at Chita was named Kolessow, and he had a bad leg, not a bad
eye. He ran away when the revolution came. Before that was Kirsakoff,
and I can tell you Kirsakoff had both his eyes. I never saw him—and a
good thing, too, or——”
“There never was a governor here named Kirsakoff,” said Peter.
“No!” cried the conductor. “You have been in foreign lands, but you know
more than I about this, do you? I say that there was a governor—Michael
Alexandrovitch, and a general!”
“Perhaps I am wrong after all. Forgive me. But I had forgotten, because
Kirsakoff went to Odessa.”
“Perhaps he did. I don’t know,” said the conductor. “Are you looking for
him?”
“Oh, no,” said Peter. “I am looking for my brother. All I know is that
my brother was in a place where a Colonel Governor with one eye
lived—the fellow who had a fight with a tiger. But it was not Kirsakoff,
surely.”
“No,” said the conductor. “It could not be he. So you have lost your
brother? It is always the same story. Since we got freedom everybody is
lost. I have not had my pay for six months, and I have seven children
living and my wife is sick. My children cannot eat freedom, but it is
the capitalists who are keeping us poor. In the old days I had a cow.
And now the Americans have come. It is said that they want to steal our
railroad and take our work away from us.”
“That is a lie,” said Peter. “The Americans are your friends.”
“What kind of friend comes to steal your work? I don’t know anything
about politics, but my children have nothing to eat but cabbage. I know
that, and they know it. I think it was better with the Czar. These
fellows who come and talk politics—they are smart men—and good men. They
gave us a lot of rubles. But with freedom it costs a hundred rubles for
a loaf of bread, and I get no pay. And those fellows who talked politics
ate my cow, and nobody wants the rubles they gave me. What kind of
business is that? Not to take rubles after my cow has been eaten!”
Peter shook his head, helpless for an answer, and finished his dressing.
He went out on the platform between cars. The cold air assailed him
witheringly, for it was more than sixty degrees below zero that morning.
He pulled the fur strap of his cap across his nose and leaned out from
the car steps to scan the snow-streaked plain.
In the distance were low hills covered with sparse fringes of pines and
larches. At the base of the hills, huddled against them like a flock of
sheep seeking shelter, were primitive huts of the aboriginal Buriats,
and stray Mongol herdsmen in winter quarters.
The train made a detour on temporary trackage to get round the wreck of
a bridge that had been blown up. The little river was frozen and
peasants were cutting a hole in the ice to get water for a pair of
scraggly little Siberian ponies with coats of long frost-covered hair
and icicles hanging from their nostrils. The men stopped to watch the
train go past, and flailed their bodies with their arms to keep warmth
in their blood.
Once more the slowly moving train changed direction and drew near to low
hills ahead, their crests serrated by timber and their sides slashed
with snow which was held in the frozen water courses. As it rounded
these hills and ran in through a low pass, a city of bizarre appearance
was unmasked. It lay in a great cup between hills—in a wide valley,
level as a plain.
At first sight the city looked more like the smoldering ruin of a vast
settlement that had recently been destroyed by fire. Rising from a sea
of small huts was what appeared to be a forest of gigantic white
fungi—columns of ivory smoking from the tops, or some poisonous growths
like giant toadstools, or a land filled with tiny craters from which
rose gray fumes that spread high in air into motionless clouds. These
queer pillars were nothing but smoke rising from the buildings of the
city and the warm air from chimneys rising straight up in the still,
frigid air.
Through the pillars of steam and smoke could be seen taller buildings,
and here and there minaretlike spires lifted out of the ruck, and
catching the morning sun, reflected the light with tints of gold and
bluish green. And there were great blue domes marking the synagogue,
while a cross and a crescent glinted with gilt from the top of a Moslem
mosque. The old exile settlement of Chita—the Valley of Despair—had
grown to a city and filled the plain.
On the slopes of the hill above, Peter saw a great yellowish stockade
built of upright logs which enclosed low, rambling buildings. The sun
flashed from tiny windows which were smaller than the gun ports of a
frigate, or where the tiny windows were broken there were black holes
like eye sockets in a skull. Many stubby chimneys built of stone gave
the low buildings the appearance of castellated walls. But no smoke
issued from the chimneys.
In contrast with the smoking city below, the place of the stockade
seemed to be deserted. The scant snow all about it was unbroken by any
path, showing that if there was a road leading to the stockade, it was
not in use. The yellow color of the walls suggested an unhealthiness—a
place shut away from the population of the city. The lines of the place
were clearly etched upon the slope like the skeleton of some monstrous
animal which had died upon the dreary and deserted hillside. And it was
a dead thing—the wreck of the old prison of the Valley of Despair.
The train puffed into the station. The platform was thronged with a
surging mob of people making a mad clamor to get into the cars filled
with soldiers. They pleaded to be allowed to ride to any place, but
there was no room for them in the stifling train and the Czechs refused
to allow the refugees aboard. So they gathered up their pitiful
belongings and swarmed back into the station out of the cold to wait for
other trains which might take them away.
Peter gathered up his blanket-roll and his bag and slipped out of the
car. He got a porter at the station, a big _moujik_ in a dirty white
apron, to take the things to a droshky in the square.
Once free of the mob, and with the station between him and the train,
Peter looked across the square. Some soldiers were drilling in the open
place—short chaps, of heavy build and awkward movements, learning to
march and countermarch under the commands of Cossack officers.
There were many brick buildings of three and four stories. But between
them were the low, squat log houses of old times, battered and unkempt,
run-down pioneers now relegated to the position of poor relations and
long neglected.
Peasant women trotted round and round their crude carts, selling blocks
of frozen soup and loaves of black bread to refugees from the station.
The cold air was laden with sour odors. There was a great gabbling
between buyers and sellers. The women and men kept running round in
circles for warmth, their breath bearding them with steam from their
nostrils. To the half-clad and hungry, merely keeping alive in such cold
was an agony.
A group of boys with tattered newspapers gathered about Peter, noting
his furs and his brown field-boots with curious eyes. These boys were
wrapped with long woolen scarfs, and wore uncouth clothes and men’s
boots long since thrown away by the original owners—boots lacking soles
except for rags bound round the feet. If the lads stood still for but a
minute, it was to shiver violently, so they kept jumping up and down
like marionettes moved by a string. Peter’s eyes filled with tears at
the sight of them, and he threw them a handful of paper rubles and
kopecks that they might have hot cabbage soup.
“Poor little chaps!” he said, and, getting into a droshky, told the
_iswostchik_ to drive to the best hotel. The horses broke into a gallop
at once, straight across the square, and it was then that Peter noticed
an ancient building in the line of the street ahead. It was built of
logs in the old style.
“Is that the old post-house?” he shouted to the driver.
“Yes, that is it,” said the driver.
“Then stop! In front of the post-house!” cried Peter, slapping the
driver on the back with a lusty thump. “Turn, please—and stop!”
“But it is a restaurant now,” said the driver. He seemed bewildered, but
he swung his horses into the street before the old building and brought
them up abruptly, muttering in his whiskers.
“You said to go to a hotel, and this is a restaurant,” he complained.
“How am I to know what you want, when you say two different things to me
about where you want to go?”
“I wish to stop here but a minute,” said Peter. He jumped out of the
droshky, and, standing in the street, looked up and down its length, and
turned to survey the old post-house. Sure enough, the sign over it said
it was a restaurant, and through the tops of the partly clear windows he
could see the gaudy colors of curtains hanging within.
“The Sofistkaya!” whispered Peter. “I would never have known it.” He
studied the square, the big white station, and the buildings of the
street. He walked through the loose sand to a spot directly in front of
the door of the old post-house, but well out from it, and crossed
himself twice with both hands in the old way.
He looked down at the sand and dirty snow.
“Blood of my father!” he whispered. “I have come back to keep the vow! I
pray that I am not too late—that Kirsakoff still lives!”
He stood there a few minutes, the tears streaming down his cheeks and
freezing on the flesh. He uttered prayers, and then strode back to the
droshky, entered it, and was once more rolling up the Sofistkaya.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
V
THE ATAMAN’S DECISION
WHEN Captain Shimilin raised his hand to the window, there was a sharp
command in the courtyard below, followed by the crash of a volley from
the rifles of the soldiers Katerin had seen standing before her father.
Katerin, kneeling in front of the icon, fell forward upon the floor at
the sound of the volley. Shimilin, still at the window, stood gazing
across the room at her, a puzzled look upon his face, as if he did not
know what to do next. He heard Wassili wailing in the kitchen below, and
from the court came the sounds of metal being thrust into flinty soil
and laughter and joking comments from soldiers.
Katerin lay still for several minutes. Then she sat up, and stared at
Shimilin as if she had just been awakened from a dream and was still in
doubt about her surroundings and why she should be there.
“It is finished,” said Shimilin. “Your father is dead. I am sorry for
you, but the Ataman must be obeyed. If you will give up the money now, I
will protect you.”
She did not answer him, but continued to stare at him, attempting to
grasp what had happened.
“You have killed my father!” she whispered, putting her hands up to her
cheeks. “You have killed my father! And now you want me to pay you for
it!”
“It is Zorogoff who has killed your father,” said Shimilin. “I obey his
orders—as you must.”
He walked over to Katerin and held out his hand to help her to her feet.
But she evaded him, and stood up.
“You are a murdering dog,” she said quietly, hatred and revulsion in her
look as she shrank away from him. “You lied to us—and you lie now! You
are no better than the Mongol—worse than Zorogoff, for he would not kill
his own kind for you!”
“Take care!” he warned, moving toward her threateningly. “Take care! My
soldiers are still below.”
She cried out with rage against him, and sprang at him and struck him in
the face with her open hand. Then she threw up her arm and whirled away
from him, to run behind the screen of her bed as if to get a weapon. But
Shimilin grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her back into the
center of the room. She tore away from him.
“Kill me!” she cried. “There is nothing left in life for me now. Kill
me, too!”
“No, I will not kill you,” said Shimilin suavely. “We do not kill women
like you too soon, Katerin Stephanovna.”
“You are swine!” she raged. “You told us my father was to go to the
Ataman. Talk to me no more, but kill me here!”
Shimilin said nothing, but stood looking at her with every sign of being
on the verge of complying with her command. But he did not put hand to
pistol. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled, went to the bed
behind the screen and pulled off a blanket. He threw it to her but she
let it fall upon the floor.
“Take the blanket,” he said gruffly. “You may have death if you want it,
but not by my hand. Take the blanket and come with me to the soldiers
below.”
Katerin kicked the blanket aside.
“I do not fear the cold any more than I fear death,” she said quietly,
and moved to the door. “Come! I will show you how a Russian woman can
die!”
Shimilin followed her down the stairs to the hall below. The old woman
in the kitchen who did the cooking was crying in a room beyond the
kitchen, out of sight. Katerin felt impelled to call a farewell to the
old woman, and to Wassili, but she refrained because she suspected that
the two servants might protest to the soldiers and draw ill treatment
and probably death.
So she passed down the hall and out through the double doors into the
courtyard. The place was full of soldiers, and her eyes lit at once upon
a pile of fresh, brown earth near the wagon-shed. That, she knew, was
her father’s grave. She walked straight to the mound, and stopping
beside it, turned and faced the soldiers.
The heavily clad men stood about with their rifles, looking like great
beetles, their heads topped with big caps, their faces wrapped in fur or
rags, their bodies rotund with many garments, and the breath from their
nostrils making what might have been inverted white horns as the air
they breathed out turned to steam and spurted out from their faces
behind the straps over their noses. They were not in ranks, these men,
but gathered in groups as if waiting for some one to tell them what they
should do next.
Captain Shimilin followed Katerin halfway across the yard, where he
stopped to speak to a tall soldier in a long coat. The pair talked
together quietly, looking at Katerin. Shimilin carried a towel which he
had snatched up as he had passed out of the hall. He whipped the towel
against his coat while he talked with the other soldier, and it was
plain that the Cossack was in bad humor.
Katerin glanced at the spade and the old pickax which had been cast
aside from the mound of earth. She lifted her eyes to the upper windows
of the house. Then she threw open her sable coat, revealing the dull
crimson of her velvet gown and the white of her throat. Gray and white
and crimson, she made a striking picture against the dull background of
the old buildings. The morning breeze which whipped in gustily over the
courtyard wall and rattled the dead vines along its top, lifted wisps of
her hair about her ears. The cold tortured her, but she gave no
indication of her suffering. She looked like a beautiful flower which
had grown in a drab garden now infested by wild things which had broken
in for destruction and hated all things beautiful.
She let her hands fall to her sides. The cold was numbing her.
“I am ready!” she called to Captain Shimilin.
The Cossack moved to her, and held out the towel. “I shall cover your
eyes so that you shall not see the rifles,” he said.
“Please do not touch me,” she begged. “It is all I ask. Let them shoot!”
The soldier who had been talking to Shimilin walked up to Katerin and
peered into her face. His features were concealed by a strap of fur.
Katerin knew by his manner that he must be an officer, though he wore no
insignia. After a casual glance at him, she looked beyond him and fixed
her gaze upon the house.
“Do you understand that you can save your life if you will follow the
advice of Captain Shimilin?” asked the stranger.
“I do not seek the advice of Captain Shimilin—nor any other person,”
said Katerin.
“You prefer to die?”
“I have done with life.”
“You talk like a brave woman,” went on the stranger.
“Oh, be done! I am cold!” said Katerin. She noted that a group of
soldiers had fallen into line before her, and that the others about the
yard gathered closer, regarding her with curious eyes.
The tall officer drew apart again with Shimilin, and they carried on a
low conversation once more. The men in line began to examine their
rifles to be in readiness. Both Shimilin and the other officer returned
and stood before her again.
“Because your father, General Kirsakoff, was Governor here in the old
days, is no reason why you should expect to oppose the new ruler,” said
the officer.
Katerin did not answer.
The officer threw open his long coat, showing a uniform of gray tunic
and blue breeches. He pulled the strap from his face and revealed the
dark face of a Mongol. Sparse mustaches fell from the ends of his upper
lip, clinging to his jowls as they drooped past the side of his mouth.
His black eyes were set in close to a wide flat nose. Yet his face had a
proud and serious mien—the face of an Asiatic of high degree, the face
of a stoical and cruel man.
“I am the Ataman Zorogoff,” he said. “I rule. Your father would not loan
his fortune to my government. That is all I ask of you. I give you your
choice—submit or die.”
Katerin looked at him scornfully.
“I am nobody,” she said. “I submit only to God and the saints of heaven.
I do not recognize your right to rule, even though you take my life.
Tell your brave soldiers to shoot.”
Zorogoff laughed harshly.
“You have the spirit of the devil, mistress.”
“Speak of the devil and we see his tail,” retorted Katerin, using an old
Russian proverb.
“You are a brave woman,” repeated Zorogoff. “You have the blood of good
ancestors—a fighting, ruling breed—as were mine.”
“My ancestors have never feared death.”
“Do you know that I am a prince in Mongolia?” asked Zorogoff tartly. He
seemed nettled by Katerin’s way of looking at him, rather than by her
scornful words.
“I do not doubt it, sir. And you belong there.”
“Ah! Is that true? Though your father is governor no longer, you still
tell people where they belong. My people ruled this land before your
people came, and once more we shall rule. But if you will give up your
money to the government, in time you shall have it back. My soldiers
need food and clothing. What is your answer, mistress?”
A tremor of cold shook Katerin’s body. The air was stifling her, and she
was chilled till she no longer felt pain.
“Death!” she answered through quivering lips.
Zorogoff turned to Shimilin.
“The better the horse the worse his bite,” said the Ataman. “But once he
is broken, you have a good horse. I do not want to kill a woman so brave
as this one.” Turning to Katerin, he went on, “Your sons would know how
to rule, mistress.”
“I leave no sons,” she said, now too chilled to care or perceive what
the Ataman’s meaning might be.
“I was thinking of what your sons might be like,” went on Zorogoff. “Do
not be too sure about sons.”
Katerin gave a cry of agony. She knew now what Zorogoff meant—and she
feared now that she might not die after all. She looked at Zorogoff, as
he stood before her, peering into her face.
“Kill me!” she cried, and then realizing that unless she angered him by
insults, he might not give the order to the soldiers, she spoke with
infinite loathing, loud enough so that the soldiers might hear. “You are
a lowborn dog! Your mother was a scullion and your father a mover of
dead bodies! You are neither Cossack nor Mongol, but vermin from mud
huts and a disgrace to both white and yellow!”
“Ah!” said Zorogoff. “Now I know that there is fear in you, and fear for
what, my lady! You prefer the rifles to a palace. What if I should give
you the fate you dislike?”
“Go to the market place for your women, you swine!” cried Katerin.
The Ataman stepped aside and beckoned Shimilin after him. “Let us see
how brave she is,” whispered Zorogoff, and he made a gesture to the men
with the rifles. The muzzles lifted promptly and the men took aim at
Katerin.
“I will show you who rules now,” called Zorogoff.
“And I will show you how a woman of the nobility can die, lowborn one!”
“Fire!” commanded Zorogoff, throwing up an arm in a gesture of command.
But the rifles did not speak, though they remained leveled at Katerin.
She began a prayer, gazing steadily into the muzzles which faced her,
and waiting for the impact of the bullets.
Seconds passed. They became minutes. Katerin closed her eyes against the
cold. After a wait she opened her eyes again and eight rifles still
pointed straight at her.
“Shoot!” she pleaded. “Please shoot!”
She closed her eyes once more. The minutes passed, and Katerin’s body
wavered, swayed, and she collapsed in a faint across the fresh mound of
earth.
“Take her up and carry her into the house,” commanded the Ataman. “She
is a brave woman—but stubborn. She shall submit.”
The soldiers picked Katerin up and carried her through the hall to the
kitchen. Wassili and the old serving woman began to scream, thinking
that their mistress had been killed.
Zorogoff and Shimilin walked out of the yard and into the street.
Shimilin whistled on his fingers. Soon the troika of the Ataman swung
out of a side street and the horses came galloping up. There were three
men in the troika—two soldiers—and Michael.
“Where is my daughter?” demanded the old general. “What have you done
with her? Does she still live?”
“You will find her inside the house,” said Shimilin. “She is not dead.”
“God is good,” said Michael, at once careful of his words.
“Go back to your house,” said Zorogoff, “and wait till I return.”
“So?” asked Michael. “And why do you return?”
“You shall know then. There has been too much talk to-day.”
Michael got out of the troika and the Ataman got in with Shimilin.
Already the soldiers were marching out from the yard, and swinging back
into the city.
“Take care that you do not leave the house,” warned Zorogoff, as Michael
stood waiting for the soldiers to be clear of the gate. “I do not wish
to have you and your daughter run the danger of being fired upon by the
sentries. I wish you both to live as long as God lets you.”
Michael, afraid that there was still a trap and that the Ataman had no
intention of leaving, though he had been covered by the robes in the
troika and had swathed his face and head in furs, did not dare turn his
back upon the precious pair in the vehicle.
“I thank you for your consideration,” said the old general. “I thought I
was to die, but I still live and my daughter is safe.”
Zorogoff leaned out and spoke earnestly. “If the cat wants a fish, let
her wet her feet,” he said. And then added with taunting irony, “You are
proud of your rank and your race, Michael Alexandrovitch—you and your
daughter hold yourselves superior to a Mongol who is of the blood of
rulers, and who rules. But I, too, have pride. You should know more of
me and mine, and to that purpose you and your daughter shall live in my
palace. I go to prepare for you, and you shall both live under my roof.”
“What?” cried Michael. “That is a new string to the fiddle! Why should
we live in your palace?”
“So that I may take care of your health, Michael. And I shall need your
advice in government.”
“My advice in your government! You come with a firing squad to kill me
and now you talk of taking me to your palace! Surely, this is a day of
madness, and I do not understand!”
“You will in time,” replied the Ataman. “You have a lesson to learn. It
is that you must not hold yourselves superior to Mongol princes. For
your grandchildren, Michael, are to be Mongols, and you and your
daughter shall hold them in your arms. You both shall love them—though
they be of Mongol blood.”
Zorogoff spoke to the driver and the horses galloped away, leaving
Michael cursing under his breath. Then he ran into the yard as fast as
his cold-stiffened legs could carry him, and entered the house, calling
for Katerin.
Wassili burst through the door of the kitchen into the hall, and cried
out in terror at sight of the master whom he supposed to be dead. The
_moujik_ fell to his knees, crossing himself and making the sign to ward
off devils.
“Katerin! Katerin!” shouted Michael, as he saw the form of his daughter
stretched upon an old bench that had been turned into a couch. The old
serving woman was giving her mistress restoratives and attempting to
warm her—but she fled, screaming, as Michael entered.
Katerin opened her eyes and shivered violently. She stared at her
father, who stood over her, and then closed her eyes again and began to
cry. She supposed that she was delirious and that her father was not
really there.
“Have they tortured you?” cried Michael. “Oh, Katerin Stephanovna, you
are spared to me—and I live! Look, my daughter!”
He lifted her up from the bench and kissed her, crying to her again and
again that he was not dead.
“Oh, God! Thou art good!” she moaned, and then she was swept by sobs of
joy and fell back upon the bench.
Michael collapsed upon the floor, and when Wassili and the old woman
overcame their fears and entered the kitchen again they found father and
daughter crying quietly and clinging to each other consolingly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VI
THE PRISON ON THE HILL
PETER did not stop at the Hotel Dauria to see the room which a
sleepy-eyed youth said might be had. There was a red-hot stove in the
entrance-hall, a dirty stairway leading to an upper floor, a pair of
stuffed bears standing among pots of rubber plants, and a few old
benches on which in better days the droshky-drivers, the fur-hunters and
the gossips of the city gathered of nights. The front windows were
boarded up and the place still bore signs of the work of looters—leather
hinges on the double doors, wall-paper ripped off in great gashes which
exposed the rough plaster, and here and there the mark of a bayonet
point or the pock marks of wild bullets.
Peter simply dumped his baggage in the entrance-hallway and went out
again to pay off the _iswostchik_. Where he went, Peter wanted no one
watching, so he set out as if on a casual ramble through the almost
deserted streets.
He knew the way to the old prison. It would be up the Sofistkaya and
over the little bridge which spanned the frozen stream running through
the city. But it was not the same old wooden bridge which Peter expected
to find. It proved to be a sturdy arch of concrete, level and wide.
Some of the buildings near by had been half wrecked or burned. One big
building was but a shell, a black ruin streaked with snow, with the
windows out and the interior walls revealing old log pillars and a few
crazy rafters. From a lower window there fluttered a bit of curtain,
like a distress signal from an abandoned derelict. It was the old house
of the governor—Kirsakoff.
Peter lingered and studied this building. There were few people in the
streets, and they paid no attention to him, for in his furs there was
little about him to mark him as a foreign officer, or a soldier at all,
for that matter, because he wore his pistol under his outer coat in such
way that he could reach it through a pocket.
Water-carts hauled by ponies passed, bringing water from the city wells.
They were shrouded in ice. A few peasants were on their way to the
station bazaar with bundles of vegetables or partridges. Chinese trotted
about with packs on their backs, smugglers in sugar and tea, or traders
in luxuries brought in by hand over the railroad—such luxuries as
candles, buttons, cigarettes, and salt.
Peter went on till he could see above him on the hill the yellow walls
of the old stockade. He mounted the slope, but headed as if to pass the
prison far below, and walking as if he had no other intention than to
wander up the hill and look back upon the city. He stopped at times, and
looked behind him.
As he went up the slope he managed to draw in closer to the stockade.
The old road had no tracks upon it, proof that the prison must be
deserted. And, in fact, the city itself seemed to be deserted as he
looked down into it from the upper land. Though smoke came from the
chimneys, the people kept mostly indoors. There was an ominous hush in
the air, as if the inhabitants were afraid to be seen. The forests gave
off no sound of woodsmen or hunters. Away on the side of the plains
toward Manchuria Peter could see groups of three and four horsemen on
patrol. But the Valley of Despair seemed like a place in which a
pestilence raged, so bare was it of living beings except around the
station.
“The place is accursed!” said Peter, as he stood and gazed out over the
valley and the city. “After America, I know now what this all means. And
there is something which has brought me back. My father, can it be you?
Can you know? Have you guided me so that justice may be done? I pray
that Kirsakoff be still alive!”
And Peter did know the meaning of it all. Chita was a ghastly city built
from the weeping of women and the curses of men doomed to chains and
living deaths in dark cells. The very soil reeked with the blood of
exiles.
And Peter Gordon, the American, was once more Peter Petrovitch Gorekin,
the Russian. During the three weeks that he had been on the train from
Vladivostok, he had become more Russian every day. He knew now that the
Russians were not free, though the throne had been overturned. There was
still work to do.
Peter went on, now straight for the entrance to the prison, where he
found the heavy gate lying in the snow, torn from its iron hinges and
covered with the dents of logs and rocks which had battered it down.
He entered the prison yard. There were broken tables and piles of half
burned records among charred logs. The sentry platforms had been dragged
down from the inner wall and made a clutter of wrecked timbers. The
little windows gaped open and the iron bars across them had been bent
outward. Fine, hard snow covered the wreckage like a powder, gathered
here and there in the cracks of the stone walks and in the holes where
the flat stones had been ripped out and overturned.
The place was without life. Yet it seemed to throb with life. Peter half
expected to find people inside the long galleries of the prison
buildings, though he knew that there could be no living person in such a
place of horrors.
The door opening to the inner guardroom was also down, a thing of planks
strapped together with iron bars. It lay askew across the stone
threshold, and Peter walked over its side. It gave out a dull, hollow
sound, which set the echoes going through the long inner galleries of
the cell-wings. A vile odor assailed him as he stepped inside, and he
shivered.
He knew this place well. There were broken desks here, and gun-racks on
the walls had been ripped from their supports. It was here that he had
been taken the morning after his father had been cut down by the Cossack
before the post-house. And Peter saw again in his mind’s eye the
commandant with the gold bars on his shoulders, he heard again the
careless questions snapped at him. Then he saw himself, a terrified
little boy, led down the long gallery and thrust into a dark cell.
He pushed on now into the gallery with its battered cell doors lying
half inside and half outside the cells, some swinging crazily on bent
hinges, some partly burned and lying in bits of charred wood, others
splintered and their fragments strewn along the stone-floored passage.
His feet made dull echoes. There was a sound of frightened things
scampering into dark holes before him. And to Peter it seemed that there
were thousands of men in the place—men who peered out at him derisively
and gave long hooting laughs at him.
It was colder inside the prison than outside in the clean air—a dark,
dank, penetrating cold combined with the sickly smell of an old cage in
which frozen white shoots of growing vegetation killed and preserved by
the cold glimmered uncannily in the rank air.
He found the cell that had been his—sixth on the right side. The big
door was swung inward. The stone benches inside were black and polished
with years of dirt and years of being sat upon. The stained log walls
were covered with thousands of marks which recorded days and years spent
in the cell by exiles. Among these rows of time-keeping scratches were
also etched words of hate and messages of comfort and the scribbled
jeers of men who had made a jest of going from such a place to the
execution yard.
One line on the wall caught Peter’s eye under the searching beam of his
pocket flash light. “God curse Kirsakoff,” Peter read. The letter had
been formed by his own boyish fingers with a nail—fingers stiff with
cold. He laughed at the sight of it now, and slapped the pistol on his
hip under his greatcoat. His laugh came back to him multiplied a hundred
times from the cells of the long galleries stretching away in the
darkness. The echoes sounded like a scornful chorus from ghosts.
He sat down on the stone bench and looked at the dirty hole in the door
through which food had been passed in to him—black bread and greasy soup
made from the refuse of cabbages. He sat there several minutes, and
threw his memory back to the days and nights which he had spent there
buried alive, doubting at times that he existed till food was brought
and the rats gathered round him, squeaking for their share.
Fear gripped him. He sprang up and ran, his boots making a clatter over
the planks of the broken doors in the passage. He gained the prison yard
and his whole body was laved in a sweat of agony. He got out into the
open, and stopping an instant to scan the slopes below to see if he had
been observed or followed, he turned away to the left to the fenced-in
grove which was the old burial ground of the prison.
It was in there that his father had been buried, but Peter did not know
where. A few rotten boards lay upon the ground; a few weather-beaten
crosses scored and twisted out of shape, littered the ground. Peter
stood with tears in his eyes and looked over the rough ground.
“Peter Petrovitch has come back, my father,” he said. And crossing
himself, he said a prayer. Then he turned and descended the slopes
toward the city, bearing off to the right and trying to make it appear
to any watcher that he had been wandering about aimlessly. The thought
struck him that he had been unwise in going to the prison. It might lead
to gossip, especially when it became known in the city that he was an
American. Why should an American officer go prowling about the old
prison of a city which——
Peter checked his thoughts in that direction. It seemed strange that he
should refer to himself as an American. America was now very far away, a
dim vista in his memory, hard to realize, like an old dream faintly
remembered. It seemed odd that America had receded so far into the
background of his mind. For was he not a Russian? Yes, he knew that he
was Russian to the core. His Americanism had never been anything but an
outer shell, a readjustment to new conditions, a learning of new things,
and a new life. But he had not changed—only the clothes upon his back.
True, he thought, the clothes would serve a purpose. Who would ever
suspect that an American officer had come to Chita to do what he hoped
to do? Who would ever suspect that the American lieutenant, Peter
Gordon, could be Peter Petrovitch Gorekin, the son of an unfortunate?
He entered the city again, this time far to the right of where he had
gone up the slope, and rambled along the Sofistkaya till he came to the
old post-house again—the restaurant. He went in, and found a few
soldiers sitting about tables talking and playing games. He took a table
to himself and when the gypsy girl came for his order, he called for
vodka. He was chilled by his walk on the hill and his spirits were
depressed by the prison. The liquor warmed him.
The restaurant was a dirty place. The old plank floors were spotted with
mud where the ice-balls from the heels of patrons had melted, and the
blackened log rafters were cobwebby and sooty. There was an ancient icon
in the corner. The walls had been partly stripped of a moldy old paper
so that the yellow plaster showed through the gashes. And here, as in
the hotel, there were bullet craters.
Peter finished his glass of vodka and went out again. He hurried back
toward the hotel, but he had not gone far when he espied in between two
modern buildings and well back from the street, an old hut—an _isba_ of
the old days. He stopped in his tracks and stared at it. The building
was not more than eight feet square, of single story, with a small
window under the eaves. There was a rude chimney of stones at one end. A
sign over the door told that cigarettes, matches, and holy cards were
sold within.
Peter went in between the two buildings and pushed open the low and
sagging door of the hut. There was an old man sitting on a bench under
the window with a newspaper—a thin old hulk of a graybeard with a face
shrouded in white whiskers that were stained yellow about his hidden
mouth. He wore a tiny black skullcap on his head which brought out the
bleached whiteness of his whiskers and the pallor of his crinkled
forehead. His hands were tucked in the sleeves of his ragged old coat,
and he huddled up toward the smoldering fire in the ancient fire-pit.
Startled by Peter’s entrance, the old man thrust the newspaper behind
him quickly. As he got to his feet he kicked the paper out of sight
behind a box. He stood looking at Peter with questioning eyes, knowing
that there was something strange about the visitor but not being able to
tell what in the vague light coming through the frosted window.
“Do you sell cigarettes here?” asked Peter.
“Yes, I sell cigarettes here,” croaked the graybeard. “Is it that you
have come for cigarettes to this poor place—you, who are dressed in odd
clothes?”
“What else should I come for?” asked Peter pleasantly. “Do you think I
have come to rob you?”
The old one appeared relieved, but he was still on his guard.
“We never know what a man comes for these days. And you are not a man of
Chita, I can tell that.”
“What does it matter where I came from, if I pay for what I take? Come!
Let me see some cigarettes!”
The graybeard grunted and shuffled across the room to a shelf and took
down some packets of tin covered with a faded paper.
Peter looked the room over. It was hard to believe that this tiny hut
was the place in which he had worked with his father. In his memory it
had taken on vaster proportions, yet in reality it was but a boxlike
hovel. There was the same old adz-hewn plank bench well polished by
years of use; the floor near the fire-pit had the very depressions worn
into the wood by the legs of his father’s stitching-frame. And the same
stone in the chimney on which his father had whetted the leather-knives!
By that fire-pit Peter had spent many nights studying out Russian
letters and words in battered almanacs. The place still smelled of
leather—or Peter fancied it did.
“Here are cigarettes of the best quality from Harbin, _gospodeen_,” said
the old man, proffering a long tin box. “I keep them for such as are of
the upper class. I must pay grease to Chinese for bringing these
cigarettes in, and if you buy, you will be back for more—and twenty
rubles for the box.”
Peter sat down on the bench and pretended to examine the packet of
cigarettes. But he was really looking at the little battered samovar on
the little wooden table. Beside the samovar was a blackened piece of tin
which was used to transfer hot coals from the fire-pit to the samovar.
And the rude shelves with their packages of “Moscow biscuits,” matches,
cigarettes, and holy cards for the holidays and the name days of
children drew Peter’s eyes. The stock in trade was smoke-blackened and
fly-specked by countless summers and winters. And the room reeked with
smoke, which made the old man’s eyes red and watery.
Peter saw that the cigarettes were of the cheapest grade.
“Why do you double the price because I am a stranger?” asked Peter. “You
know that half a ruble would buy these in the old days, and now with the
money bad, ten is enough for them?”
“God protect us! You speak the Czar’s Russian, though you wear a foreign
coat! Have you come here to buy from me, or to find who is smuggling?
There is no duty now, true, but I have to pay grease, as I said. I would
say the same to the Ataman himself.”
“But I know something about the price of cigarettes,” said Peter. He was
willing enough to pay the price but he knew that reluctance would draw
the old man out, and that an argument would probably develop an
acquaintance which might be useful.
“But the troubles have come and that makes the price high,” whined the
old man. “Am I to starve among my cigarettes? There are few enough to
buy these days, I tell you.”
“I will pay, but you are an old robber,” said Peter, going into his
pockets and fetching out two ten-ruble notes of Imperial money. The old
man’s eyes danced, for he knew Imperials to be worth twice again the new
paper money on which his prices were based.
“Did you come here for a _ruganie_?” demanded the old man, meaning a
mutual slandering of each other in Russian in which both parties to the
argument call names of an import so evil as to chill the marrows of
respectable listeners. “And you! You look like a gentleman. From what
place have you come?”
“From the place I go back to. Have you been in Chita long, little
grandfather?”
“I?” asked the old man, stroking his whiskers. “Yes. What does it
matter? I shall be here all time. See the hills outside? My bones shall
build them higher,” and he broke out into a cackling laugh as if the
joke were one that he used often and still liked its flavor.
“You were here in the old days?” pressed Peter.
The old one gave Peter a keen look, and sat down on the end of the
bench, hiding the precious ten-ruble notes away somewhere under his
arms.
“I? Why not?”
“You were here when the prison was full of unfortunates?”
“I was here when it was emptied, too,” and he laughed again and bent to
poke the fire with an old cane. But he was getting cautious again, as if
he suspected that there might be more behind the twenty rubles than he
had bargained for.
“What happened when the prison was emptied? It must have been a joyful
time.”
Graybeard made a noise in his throat which might have been a chuckle,
and turning from the fire stood up and straightened his back, to gaze
frankly at Peter as if to ask why so many questions were being asked. It
was plain that he disapproved of giving gossip extra with what he sold.
“You should have been here if you wanted to know,” he said.
“I suppose they killed the soldiers,” went on Peter.
“No, the unfortunates did not kill the soldiers—except, perhaps, the bad
soldiers who had been cruel. Were not the soldiers made free also by
revolution? As well as the unfortunates?”
“True,” assented Peter. “But the officers? Many of the officers were
killed, eh?”
“The square down there by the station,” and graybeard threw out his arm
and his eyes took on a reminiscent look, “the square is full of dead
folks—old and young, officers and all, rich and poor, high and low,
witches and holy men. But the unfortunates did not harm me. I am Rimsky
and the friend of all, though many were drunk and did not know who were
friends. But I got into a potato-cellar till the worst was over, though
I was stiff in the legs a good month after. But I was out in time to see
them all go off to Petersburg to kill the Little Father, the fools!”
“Would you have the Czar back? Is that what you mean?” asked Peter.
“I? Why do you ask me that? Is it not enough to know that in the old
days there was peace—and that I would have peace in which to die. Should
not a man have peace in which to meet the dead? That is all I ask you.”
“But are not the new times better than the old?” asked Peter. “Would you
have the old times back—and the prison on the hill full of people?”
Rimsky lighted the fragment of an old cigarette and smoked a minute
before he replied, pulling at his whiskers.
“New times, new troubles,” he said with tired voice. “We knew in the old
times what to do to be happy, and likewise what not to do. It was all
put down plain in the laws and the rules of the governors. Those who
wanted better government did not know that bad government is better than
none. Now it is all fighting, and no man trusts another. But I am not
afraid, for my life is behind me. Now, when the railroad came here, it
was said that everybody would be rich and happy. Before then we had only
the mail-sledges, with their bells and horses. The people were happy
enough, but for these educated fools always talking about what should be
done with government and getting themselves and poor people into
trouble. Now what do we have? All night an accursed ringing of railroad
bells and screeching whistles till a man wakes in his bed, thinking the
devil is calling. And people and cows get killed by the railroad—and mad
soldiers come to kill and burn honest people. Is that good? Who is made
rich thereby, and who is made happy?”
“Then you think you would be happier if the Czar were back,” suggested
Peter.
“Is that what you have come to ask me?” demanded Rimsky, giving Peter a
shrewd look. “Is it that you are counting those who want the Czar back?”
“No, no,” said Peter. “I have nothing to do with the government. I will
not say to any one what you say.”
“I cannot be too sure of that,” said Rimsky, and blew the smoke from his
cigarette upward. “But when the Czar ruled, I had a watch.”
“Do you want a Czar back?” asked Peter.
“_Tchuk!_” cried Rimsky. “The Czar is in a well, they tell me. But how
do I know what to believe? First it is one lie, and then another, till
our heads whirl and we get drunk to forget so much talk about nothing.
How do I know but that the Czar is on his throne and eating fish-pie for
his dinner?”
“But suppose a new Czar should come to the throne?”
“Ah, now you are trying to have me talk politics and get into prison. It
does not matter. I want only a fire, my tea, a good soup with meat and
bones in it, and a pair of boots—and men who can be trusted, even if
they be Czar’s governors and cruel. Who is a man to appeal to now if he
is robbed, as was I last month? In the old days robbers were hanged, and
it taught them something, too.”
“But you are speaking of Chita, of course. You had no complaint here,
for you had a good Governor.”
Rimsky went to the samovar and took off the little teapot, shook it with
a circular motion, filled it with hot water and poured a glass made from
the bottom of a bottle full of tea for Peter.
“You talk too much for a stranger,” said Rimsky. “What do you know about
our Governor? Is this the first time you have been in Siberia, young
man?”
“Of course,” said Peter, taking the tea. “But I have heard about Chita
before.”
“You may know more than you want to know about it before you get out,”
warned Rimsky. “Are you going to stay long—and buy more of my
cigarettes?”
“I’ll be here a few weeks, I suppose. I came to see if I could buy some
furs.”
“Oh, but you are a soldier,” said Rimsky. “And you will find no furs
that are good. Everybody is hunting men these days,” and he broke out
again in his cackling laugh, as he drew himself some tea in a little
yellow bowl.
“Did the unfortunates kill the Governor who was here when they got out
of the prison and freedom came to the people?”
“Did they?” asked Rimsky. “You tell me.”
“But you were here, and you know. I was not here,” said Peter.
Rimsky shrugged his shoulders and sucked his tea from the bowl.
“The _provodnik_ on the train told me that the soldiers killed the
Governor here. What was the name? Kir—— well, I can’t remember.”
“Those fellows on the trains do a lot of talking,” said Rimsky. “They
are know-it-alls, and all they do is take grease from people who want to
have food sent up to us.”
“I’m afraid they don’t tell the truth,” said Peter.
“So they told you the soldiers killed Kirsakoff, did they? But Kirsakoff
was not the Governor. You see that they lied.”
“Perhaps they did not say he was Governor when he was killed. But they
said he had been a Governor in the old days.”
“If Kirsakoff had been killed, I would know it,” said Rimsky.
“True,” agreed Peter. “I thought the _provodnik_ was talking to make
wind and a big man of himself. I knew he was lying.”
“How did you know that?”
“I guessed it. Now that you say Kirsakoff was not killed, I know it was
a lie. Just big talk.”
“Why should anybody kill Kirsakoff?” demanded Rimsky.
“That is what I should like to know. Everybody said he was a good man,
but perhaps some people did not like him—people in the prison, of
course, who were against the government.”
“General Kirsakoff had been retired when the troubles came,” said
Rimsky. “More than seven years ago he was retired. I remembered well the
time—I had a sore foot.”
“Was he gone from Chita when the troubles came?”
“No, he was here,” said Rimsky, looking straight at Peter.
“Ah!” said Peter. “So the _provodnik_ lied when he said Kirsakoff was
dead. He is still here.”
“What does it matter where he is?” asked Rimsky.
“It does not matter,” said Peter, and set the glass on the table,
buttoning his coat about his neck in preparation for leaving.
“I hear much gossip in this place,” said Rimsky. “Where do you live in
the city?”
“Thank you for the tea,” said Peter. “It is cold outside. I may want
some more cigarettes—at twenty rubles a box.”
“I hear many matters spoken of here,” hinted Rimsky with confidential
air. “About where governors are and such talk.”
“Is Zorogoff a good man?” asked Peter.
“It is a very cold day outside, true,” said Rimsky. “But this is a good
place to hear gossip.”
“I care nothing for gossip. But I can see that you live on it, as an old
gander lives on snails,” said Peter laughingly. “I am going to the
Dauria—I am an American officer. But see that you do not gossip about
me, old fellow.”
Rimsky wagged his old head and cackled wisely.
“A tight lip fools the devil,” warned Peter. “If you talk I’ll tell
Zorogoff you charged me double for cigarettes. But I’ll come in and see
you some day, and bring a bottle of vodka.”
“Then God guard you till you return!” cried Rimsky, and Peter went out
through the door of the hut.
Rimsky sat chuckling into his beard after Peter had departed. And more
than once the old cigarette-seller told himself, “The sturgeon does not
become a sterlet because he leaves the river for the lake, and the
Russian does not become a foreigner by changing his coat.” That was a
saying of wise men.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VII
OLD RIMSKY THINKS
OLD Rimsky had a wise head. Many people were afraid of him and said that
he talked with witches and had charms against evil—and he did sell
charms against sickness, bad luck and poor crops. Besides, he had the
reputation of knowing many things before they happened. But he was
merely a wise old owl with the keen perception of human motives which is
sometimes given to the unlettered man, though he could read well enough
to get the meanings out of newspapers if there were not too many words
in the articles invented by aristocrats to fool the poor people.
He spent the remainder of the day thinking about the Russian in the
American coat who paid double for cigarettes and took a profit in
getting answers to questions. He had watched Peter closely, and turned
the whole matter over mentally, sitting by his fire and drinking tea.
Rimsky decided that he had not been clever enough with the stranger. It
was plain enough now that the stranger had come to learn something about
Michael Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff who had been Governor. And the stranger
did not know where Michael was to be found. In some way the business
could be turned to profit and over many glasses of smoky tea Rimsky
evolved a plan by which he could put money in his purse.
There was an old pig-killing _moujik_ named Ilya Andreitch who slept in
the basement of a bakery on a street up near the bazaar. Ilya had worked
for Kirsakoff years before, and should know where the general lived if
anybody did. As for that, Rimsky now remembered that Ilya had once
boasted that he knew where Kirsakoff lived since the troubles came and
all the rich people were in hiding.
But there might be little in the boast, for Ilya was an old fool who was
always pretending to know things. But for all his outward stupidity,
Ilya was a sly rascal. His father had been sent into exile for taking
money from revolutionists in Moscow by pretending to have knowledge of
what the secret police were going to do—who was going to be arrested,
and so on.
It happened that Rimsky had Ilya pretty much under the thumb, as the
saying is. For Ilya had once fed the pigs of a watch-fixer in the city,
and had stolen from his employer a whole handful of silver holy medals.
Rimsky had bought them from Ilya for a tenth of their value. Out of
appreciation for buying them, Ilya had spent all the money he got on
vodka with Rimsky. The vodka had been stolen by a waiter in a restaurant
owned by a Greek, and at half price sold it to Ilya, which was quite all
right, for everybody stole from foreigners if they could. The thing for
the foreigners to do is to stay at home and not go about selling food
and drink at prices too high.
Rimsky knew that he might be able to induce Ilya to tell where Kirsakoff
was living. That might mean double money for Rimsky. Kirsakoff would no
doubt pay well to know that an American was seeking him, and the
American would probably pay well to know where Kirsakoff might be found.
It was only a matter of handling them properly.
And by delaying the information sought by both Kirsakoff and the man who
called himself an American, a pretty penny might be realized. It was by
such smart methods, Rimsky felt sure, that rich folks got rich. And by
getting rich, they made poor folks poorer. Being rich was all simple
enough, for there was only so much money in the world, and the trick was
to get a lot of it by being smarter than other folks. There being many
fools, the problem was easy enough. Rimsky knew that the Jews got rich
by being able to figure interest on money, and by selling only when
people wanted to buy and buying only when people wanted to sell.
So he contrived a plan by which Ilya was to supply the information for
little or nothing, and Rimsky was to sell it for a bundle of rubles. It
would not do to tell Ilya what was wanted. It would be best to loosen
his tongue with vodka, and then accuse him of having lied when he had
said he knew where Kirsakoff was living. That method would get Ilya to
boasting and he would pop it all out. It could all be passed off as
drinking talk, and if Ilya insisted on keeping his secret, it would be
easy enough to turn the talk to holy medals. That would make Ilya see
the honey pot, as the saying is; then he would get Ilya so drunk that he
would forget all that had been said.
So when the lights began to appear in the shops across the Sofistkaya,
Rimsky put up his own shutters over the window and wandered toward the
bazaar to look in at the bakery where Ilya might be found.
It was quite dark when Rimsky reached the courtyard in rear of the
building of the bakery. There was a shaft of flickering light dancing
out from a partly open door, and the yard was filled with the comforting
odor of burning dough. Rimsky planned to ask the bakers first for a man
who once hauled wood for them—a peasant dead several months before. That
would be excuse enough for coming, and talk could be made till it was
time to ask casually for Ilya. That would throw sand in Ilya’s eyes as
to why Rimsky appeared at the bakery.
The old cigarette-seller prowled in through the door and stumbled over
loose wood in the hall till he came to the great room where the bakers
were working. A big man, bare to the waist, was drawing huge loaves from
the stone stove with a wooden shovel. His damp skin shone in the dancing
light. A group of men and women was sitting on benches in the dark side
of the room about a samovar. A ball of dough was smoking on an iron
sheet laid on the shoulder of the stove.
There had been the murmur of voices till Rimsky stood framed in the
doorway of the room, looking in. When he appeared there was a sudden
hush and silence, except for the grating of the wooden shovel as it drew
out the steaming loaves and the cracking of the fire in the fire-pit.
“God’s blessing on those who labor for us,” said Rimsky, crossing
himself.
Some one gave a muttered reply. The man drawing the loaves turned and
peered at Rimsky and then went on deftly pulling out the bread,
puckering his face against the heat.
A man came clumping down the hall and fell over the wood. Rimsky stood
aside from the door, and the light from the fire revealed the man with a
face shrouded by long and unkempt whiskers, and on his head a sheepskin
cap black with dirt. He wore a ragged old coat with a rope turned round
his middle several times as a belt.
“So this is my old friend, Ilya Andreitch!” exclaimed Rimsky. “It is
long since I have seen you. Perhaps you can tell me of the friend I am
looking for.”
Ilya ogled him suspiciously.
“What has gone wrong that you should be here?” he growled. He had a
healthy fear of Rimsky and wanted to forget the business of the holy
medals.
“Can you tell me where I can find Vanusha?”
“You are chasing ghosts,” grumbled Ilya, crossing himself at mention of
a dead man. “That man is dead. Or is it that you are looking for souls
for the devil?”
“Dead!” exclaimed Rimsky. “Now that is a pity. I came to get a drinking
friend, but now I shall have to go and have a glass of vodka by myself
in his memory. He owed me two rubles but he was a good man, I can say
that for him.”
“Better than I can say for you,” Ilya called out into the dark yard
after Rimsky, who had retreated abruptly from the hall. “He never drank
his vodka alone, for one thing, like others I know, and they not far
off. He was civil to his friends, I can say that—and when you are dead
you had better take care that folks say the same of you.”
“Then you didn’t learn your manners from him,” retorted Rimsky, stopping
in the court. “You swing your tongue too much for an honest man—or to
have it wet with vodka. When I drink I wish to be merry.”
“You are an old wolf with the fleas!” called Ilya.
Rimsky laughed at him.
“May you die blind!” bawled Ilya.
“Oh, come and warm your belly with a sup of vodka,” said Rimsky, “unless
you think that if you turned good-natured you would come down with a
distemper.”
Ilya ran after him and the pair walked down to the little restaurant
kept by a one-eared gypsy from Bessarabia where in the old days the
thieves gathered to dispose of their loot to Chinese.
There were but a few people inside the place. A Buriat, who had probably
sold some cattle, was lying across a table in a drunken stupor, his
purple conical cap on the floor under his feet. A crippled beggar was
drinking soup from a bowl with a wooden ladle, and a Chinese peddler of
charms was gambling in a corner with a Mongol holy man.
Rimsky led the way to a table distant from the others and called for the
serving girl. He was in good humor and ordered a whole bottle of vodka,
swearing that he would take only the best and would break the tax seal
with his own fingers.
“Something has turned your way, you old shark!” said Ilya. “Or perhaps
this is your name day.”
“No, it is that I am getting old and may as well spend my money before
it falls into the hands of robbers,” said Rimsky. “Soon I shall go to
meet the dead. I pick up a few rubles a day. What is the use of keeping
them these days? I want to spend them with my friends, and you are a
good fellow and a great joker, Ilya Andreitch.”
“True, I can make jokes if I have the wine,” said Ilya, and hastened to
take a swig from the first glass poured.
They proceeded to talk of nothings, and finished the bottle.
“Fetch another!” Rimsky called to the girl, “and I’ll drink a health to
the rings in your ears, my damsel. When you were—what am I saying?—when
I was younger you would not have escaped without a kiss.”
“You had better be putting your grandchildren to bed,” retorted the
girl, but she brought the bottle.
Ilya was suddenly filled with a desire to be modest in his drinking. He
felt it would not be wise to abuse such a show of hospitality on the
part of Rimsky. And the _moujik’s_ crafty brain suspected that there was
a purpose behind Rimsky’s unlimited generosity. Folks were not so
free-handed without having good cause, he reasoned. So for every full
glass that Rimsky drank, Ilya managed to dispose of but half a glass. He
had a notion that if he could get Rimsky drunk there might be part of a
bottle left which could be made away with and the joyous occasion could
be carried on alone into the night and perhaps the following day. Also,
he took good care that Rimsky always paid in advance by making a joke
with the gypsy girl that Rimsky had no more money. Rimsky’s generosity
made Ilya suspicious.
“Pooh! Money!” said Rimsky, when the third bottle was brought. “I have
enough money to buy all the vodka in the city.”
“That’s the vodka talking,” sneered Ilya. “I feel as if I could buy a
farm, but it would be another matter for me to find the money. That is
the way with you.”
“Don’t go on so with big talk,” warned Rimsky, “or I will begin to talk
of the holy medals.”
“Talk and the devil take you!” cried Ilya, thumping the bottle down on
the table angrily. “If you do I’ll go my way and wish a curse on you!”
“Sit still!” commanded Rimsky. “I’ve money enough, I tell you. If not, I
can go and borrow from my rich friends.”
Ilya laughed so loudly at this that he disturbed the drunken Buriat, who
lifted his black head from the table and glared about the room. He
looked like a mandarin, with his long thin drooping mustaches.
“But I tell you I have rich friends,” insisted Rimsky. “I could go now
and get a hundred rubles if I needed them—yes, twenty and a hundred and
no interest. Kirsakoff would let me have them, and no questions asked,
and nothing about when they should be paid back.”
“What!” exclaimed Ilya, staring at Rimsky. “You say the old Governor
would lend you twenty and a hundred rubles! _Tfu!_ That’s crazy talk!”
“Yes! You think I don’t know the old Governor, eh! Well, Kirsakoff is a
friend of mine, you had better know that.”
“Pooh!” snorted Ilya. “You are an old mud-head! You don’t even know
where the old Governor lives in the city, and you sit there telling to
me that he is your friend! Oh, ho, ho!”
“Perhaps you think you are the only one who knows where Kirsakoff lives?
You are a fool who thinks he is wise, and that’s the worst fool of all.”
Ilya was cautious at once. He gave Rimsky a careful look, but Rimsky
paid no attention to the look.
“Who told you I said I knew where Kirsakoff lived?” demanded Ilya.
“You said it yourself. I heard you say it last Butter Week in the
bazaar. You were drunk and you went boasting about to the old man from
Pischenko with the red boots. I heard you say it, Ilya Andreitch.”
Ilya ruffled his brow and tried to remember when he had been talking to
a man with red boots from Pischenko. He knew no one in that town who had
red boots—unless it was the butcher’s assistant who married the
cake-maker.
“True,” said Ilya. “I might have known then where Kirsakoff lived. I
don’t deny it. Perhaps I was drunk Butter Week. It wasn’t my fault if I
was sober. But that was a long time ago as time runs now—and I don’t
know where Kirsakoff lives now. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Rimsky laughed good-naturedly. “Let us have another drink. You are a
good fellow. Of course you do not know where Michael Alexandrovitch
lives. If you did, you could have money, as I have. It is worth money to
know where the old Governor lives.”
Ilya saw that Rimsky was getting very drunk and seeking an argument.
“If you knew where Kirsakoff lived, who would pay?” asked Ilya, becoming
greedy at the mention of money.
“Who? There are many. That is something I do not want to talk about,
Ilya. Hold your tongue,” and Rimsky picked up his glass and filled it
again.
Ilya drank with sad mien, turning over in his mind Rimsky’s statement
that it was worth money to know where Kirsakoff lived. If that were
true, Ilya argued to himself, he should have the money, for he knew
where Kirsakoff lived with his daughter in an old log house in the
outskirts of the city.
“I don’t intend to hold my tongue,” Ilya announced. “What I want to know
is who would pay money to know where Kirsakoff lives!”
Rimsky was startled by the suddenness and vigor with which Ilya had put
the matter before him. And Ilya leaned across the table, with a big and
dirty fist thrust forward.
“Who?” asked Rimsky. “Why do you ask me that? What is there to fight
over? We are good friends—we are—you are friend to me, or——”
Rimsky swayed in his chair and could not finish. He made an effort to
rally his drugged brain, but slipped deeper into the chair and his eyes
closed on him despite all he could do to keep them open. His right arm
flopped across the table limply, as useless as a dead seal’s flipper.
“Everybody knows where Michael Kirsakoff lives,” went on Ilya. “Why
should any one pay money for what every one knows. That knowledge is not
worth a beggar’s kopeck.” Ilya lied, but he sought to learn all he could
before Rimsky got too deep into drunken slumber.
“True,” muttered the befuddled Rimsky. “You talk true talk, Ilya
Andreitch. But why do you fight with me when I can’t see? What did I
say?”
“You talked about there being money in knowing where Kirsakoff lived,”
accused Ilya.
Rimsky tried to remember why he had said any such thing. The matter must
be as Ilya said—no one would give a beggar’s kopeck to know where
Kirsakoff lived. For that matter, Rimsky cared about nothing. The world
was a very pleasant place for all people said about bad times. He could
feel himself slipping away into a delicious unconsciousness, and he
talked aloud the thoughts which crossed his mind.
“There is something wrong about this,” he confided to himself, unaware
that Ilya could hear what was said. Then he went on, head on chest, and
almost under the table, muttering into his whiskers.
“The American officer—no, a Russian—well, the American officer—he wants
to know where Michael lives. And he—will pay well. Didn’t he come to my
place asking about the old Governor? And where did he go? Yes, the
Dauria, I remember, even if I am drunk—to the Dauria, where the
Bolsheviki smashed all the windows. I know. I remember the time my
father’s cow fell in the river. Was Ilya there? No. How could Ilya be
there—I am dreaming now. Let us all—be merry, for this is Carnival. Am I
not a young man? That is right—dance—dance——”
Rimsky began to snore softly. The gypsy girl came and grinned at Ilya,
who reached out unsteadily and plucked the flame from the candle.
“Let him sleep,” said Ilya to the girl. “He is a good fellow,” and
putting the cork back into the vodka-bottle which was half full by the
best of good luck, he slipped it into his pocket, pulled his ragged old
coat about his shoulders and tightened the rope belt. Then he slipped
out of the restaurant, chuckling at his cleverness at putting Rimsky
under the table and learning something which might put money into his
own purse. Besides, he had the half-bottle of vodka.
He made up his mind to go at once to the house of Michael Alexandrovitch
Kirsakoff and sell the news he had heard—an American officer was at the
Hotel Dauria and wanted to find the old Governor. Perhaps Michael would
give five rubles for that news—if not five, then four, anyhow, a piece
of boiled partridge. But Ilya decided that he would do his best to get
five rubles. Michael Kirsakoff had plenty of money, and who was he
anyway?—once a Governor, true, but no better now than Ilya Andreitch.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIII
PETER LAYS HIS PLANS
PETER went back to the Hotel Dauria after his talk with Rimsky. The
sleepy-eyed youth who had promised a room, carried Peter’s baggage to
the upper floor, where Peter signed the register in a cage-like little
office.
Then they went on down a hall past a dining room which was deserted.
Peter looked in. It was filled with battered tables, tubbed rubber
plants in the window sills, and crazy chairs which had been used in
defense and had legs in splints.
The walls had been stripped of paper. The mirrors of the buffet-counter
at one end of the room had been smashed out and triangles of broken
glass still stuck in the frames. The curtains had been pulled from the
poles over the windows and the doors. Painted decorations on the
wainscoting had been smeared with the contents of catsup and vinegar
bottles, which had burst against the walls like star shells and the
acids had discolored the pictures of the crude drawings so that the wall
was spotted and leprous-looking.
Peter was taken to a large room at the end of the hall. It had three
double windows overlooking the end of a side street that ran into the
Sofistkaya, with a view of the latter. He could see the old post-house
and the roof of Rimsky’s hut sticking up between two higher buildings.
There was an iron bed without bedding. There was a standing screen in
front of it. The chairs had been broken but were repaired. There were
slashes in the woodwork about the door where bayonets had evidently been
thrust at former guests. And some of the guests had fared badly, judging
by the dark stains on the old oilcloth which covered the floor.
The plaster of the walls was pitted with bullet-holes, especially
opposite the windows, and the panes of glass were newly puttied and
still marked with the thumb-prints of the workmen.
“Can I have my meals served in the room?” asked Peter. The youth yawned.
“Yes. If you pay extra. Ring this bell three times for the samovar
girl,” and he pointed to a button in the wall near the door, and the
youth departed, as if afraid that he would be asked to do something.
There was an electric drop lamp on a writing table, and running water in
a little sink against the wall behind the screen. There was a tall
wardrobe set against a second door which evidently led to another room.
It was hard for Peter to realize that Chita could be so modern. And the
room, poor as it was, seemed like a palace to Peter. His mind had been
readjusted to the things he had known as a boy by his visit to Rimsky.
Peter Petrovitch Gorekin would have thought himself a king to have a
room like this one in which Peter Gordon was to live.
But there was no Peter Gordon now. Peter Gorekin was back in Chita. The
scene which opened to him from the windows had been for twenty years in
the back of his brain. The little hut, the post-house, the Sofistkaya!
He found it hard to believe that he had ever been away from Chita at
all.
He sat down by the window. The mild heat from the radiator had thawed
away most of the frost in the panes and he looked out over the city.
Things that had been but memories were now real, truly existing before
his eyes in spite of his years of trying to blur their images out of his
mind.
The old superstitions of peasants and exiles which he had learned in his
father’s hut as a boy returned to his mind—tales of werewolves who took
the shapes of men for diabolical purposes. Was there not something in it
all? Was not he himself something like a werewolf? Was he not a Russian
in an American coat? Michael Kirsakoff would never suspect an American
officer of being the son of a dead exile. Nor would Kirsakoff suspect an
American officer of being the same poor boy who had been thrown into
prison for a whim—now come for vengeance.
The mysticism inherent in his race, the queer inarticulate yearnings and
the dissatisfactions of the Slavic soul, came to the surface in Peter’s
consciousness. But now he had knowledge of things, and power, and the
means of carrying out his own ends. He would play the game carefully to
an end in Chita, and then go on to Irkutsk without any one’s suspecting
that the American officer had killed Kirsakoff.
He began to think of his return to Chita as a holy mission. Affairs had
turned out well for him from the first. He had managed to get to Siberia
instead of going to France. He had managed to get himself ordered to
Irkutsk, and had slipped away from his Russian orderly with no one the
wiser that Peter Gordon was really a Russian. And there was every
evidence that Kirsakoff was still alive and that he was still in Chita.
The reticence of Rimsky in discussing Kirsakoff was proof enough to
Peter that the former Governor might be found somewhere in the Valley of
Despair.
He took off his tunic and rang for a samovar. A slattern of a girl,
dirty and unkempt, came trembling to the door to ask what was wanted.
She was not more than fifteen—round-cheeked, with scared blue eyes, and
brown hair down her back. She was wearing men’s cast-off old shoes.
Peter looked at her with pity.
“Will you bring me some spice-cakes and a samovar?” he asked gently.
“Yes, master,” she said, and turned to escape.
“Don’t be frightened,” said Peter. “I am an American.”
“Yes, master,” she repeated. But she had no comprehension of what he had
said.
“Here are five rubles for you,” said Peter, holding out the note to her.
But she fled through the door as he moved toward her.
“The same old system working,” thought Peter, as he watched the poor
girl running down the hall. “The poor people frightened out of their
wits by the ruling class! Damn such a country!”
He closed the door. He realized now that oppression was not dead in the
country. His years in America had dimmed his memories of such scenes. He
had begun to think that the revolution had bettered conditions for the
people, that in the twenty years since he was a boy in Siberia there had
been improvement.
The old rage began to grow in him again. He lusted to kill. He wanted to
help the people, aside from his own blood vengeance. He wondered if his
dead father had not been able to help in having the son return to Chita.
His return might be in the nature of a destiny which it would be sinful
to avoid, even divine in its workings. It was all as if some controlling
star had put power into his hands, and had swung him back to the land of
his boyhood. It would be impossible to go against fate. He felt that no
man could stand out against what had every sign of being a directed
destiny.
Peter was filled with a strange exaltation, a very frenzy of joy over
the thought that it would now be possible to pay off his old debt of
revenge against Michael Kirsakoff. The words of an old folk song began
to run through his mind and he hummed it gently, pausing to catch some
of the almost forgotten words.
He got out his razor and shaved himself before the big wall mirror
between the windows. The peace and quiet of his room were luxuries after
the days and nights of living and sleeping on the pounding train among
the Czech soldiers. He had time now for careful planning, and he desired
to make the acquaintance of Kirsakoff at leisure, arrange the details of
how the Governor should be killed and then carry through the project
with all possible skill so that his tracks might be covered. There would
be many pitfalls to avoid, many nicely balanced circumstances.
It would not be enough for Peter merely to kill Kirsakoff. The Governor
must know who brought death to him, must understand before he was sent
into eternity that it was Peter Petrovitch Gorekin, son of the
bootmaker, who took vengeance.
The girl came with the samovar and the cakes and left them on the table.
She fled again without taking the five-ruble note which Peter had left
upon the table for her.
Peter sat by the window and ate and drank. The sun dropped behind the
rim of the hill and twilight came swiftly. In the street below a line of
rude carts passed, drawn by frosty ponies with their drivers plodding
along behind the carts. They walked like men in their sleep, oblivious
of everything about them and steeped in the torturing cold.
Farther up the street four men were drifting about aimlessly, tipsy with
vodka. They drew together at times to engage in maudlin argument, and
staggered about like clumsy bears, lurching at one another in wild
plunges and falling in the street.
The four roisterers disappeared. A squad of Japanese soldiers came
stumbling down the street, evidently going on guard at the station for
the night. They appeared to be half frozen, but they doggedly maintained
some semblance of military formation. Their heads were so wrapped in
cloths that they could hardly see their way, and the fur straps across
their faces were white with frost from the moisture of their nostrils.
Their big shoes were stuffed with straw, which hung out over the tops.
The agonizing cold, despite the heavy clothing of the men, had
penetrated to their bodies and had chilled them to a condition akin to
lethargy. They walked as if through semiliquid air which impeded their
movements.
Peter remained by the window smoking, while the frost gradually grew up
the windows. He was wondering how he could find Kirsakoff. It would not
do to make direct inquiries. It might be possible to draw more from
Rimsky, but it would be wise to wait before pressing the
cigarette-seller to talk about Kirsakoff. The graybeard would be
suspicious—he was already suspicious that Peter had some other motive in
going to the hut than buying cigarettes. Yes, it would be safer to keep
away from Rimsky for a few days, and perhaps wise not to move about the
city too much and start gossip. He might be watched at first, but after
a few days his presence in the city would be taken as a matter of
course. Then he could begin his quest for Kirsakoff.
With this decision for the future, Peter prepared for bed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IX
ILYA USES HIS WITS
ILYA ANDREITCH, having left Rimsky in a state of gorgeous befuddlement
at the gypsy’s restaurant, hurried up the street to the house of Michael
Kirsakoff and his daughter. It would be great news, the coming of an
American who wished to find Kirsakoff. It might be a government matter,
for as everybody with an ounce of brains in his head knew, the Americans
were going to take full control of Russia—some wise folk even said that
the Americans would annex Russia as a province of America. Others said
the Czar had gone to America and had conquered it, including Venice.
Those were matters which Ilya considered in spare moments; just now he
felt that this news of the American needed full attention.
Ilya could see the glowing coals of a sentinels’ bonfire up near the
church. Also, there were sounds of music and singing in the direction of
a barrack, and the rattle of a droshky coming across the little bridge
over the Ingoda. So he did not feel too lonely. There was no moon up
yet, but the stars were out and hanging low. The thin, sweet air
drenched his lungs, and cleared his brain somewhat.
Now he heard a man walking near by. Ilya stopped to listen, cocking his
head to one side. But when Ilya stopped, the man stopped also—and then
Ilya realized that it was his own footsteps which he had heard,
crunching the hard snow musically. He laughed discreetly, taking care
that the sentries should not hear him, and started on again toward the
outer rim of the city.
But he was a little afraid that he might not get past some of the sentry
groups without being stopped and questioned, or perhaps arrested. He got
off the hard walk and into the center of the sandy street, so that his
boots would not make a noise. He got out his bottle—the bottle which he
had taken from the restaurant table—and had a swig from it to give
himself courage. It would be no simple matter to go talking to
Kirsakoff, who, though an Excellence, was a cruel old bones of a man.
But Ilya reflected that times had changed. He was as good as anybody
now, and knew as much as anybody. The revolution had done that for him,
and a revolution was good fun. Was not even Rimsky, who had once held
himself to be better than a _moujik_, now buying vodka for _moujiks_?
Hurrah for the revolution! And as for that, hadn’t he fooled Rimsky and
drawn from him the news that the American had come to see Kirsakoff?
That was proof enough as to who had the better wit. Ilya gave himself
credit for the manner in which he had handled the whole matter.
Kirsakoff should give at least five rubles for the news, not a kopeck
less. Ilya settled that to his own satisfaction, took another swig, and
went on. A wolf howled in the hills above the city, and Ilya crossed
himself against the wiles of the devil.
He passed the black dome of the church. The air was like crystal and
nothing cast a shadow, not even the iron fence about the old cemetery of
the church. And when the stars are so bright and hang so low that
nothing throws a shadow, there are witches about.
Ilya hurried on, getting more nervous with every step, till he was in
the outer limits of the city. Then he crossed some old gardens to get in
among the log houses which stood at the end of the street. In that way
he avoided a group of sentries who were singing about their fire.
He located Kirsakoff’s house. It stood on a corner of two streets, with
a log wall enclosing the _dvor_, or courtyard—the garden, the well, the
wagon-sheds. The windows let out no light, but stood out like tablets of
ivory set into the dark house, their frosty panes glistening under the
stars.
Ilya went round to the great gate. Some old water casks were lying about
it in disorder. One of them was close to the wall of the court. Ilya
moved it a little, and mounting it, reached up to some old cords and
dead vines running along the top of the logs. He took off his mittens
and felt for a cord that had tied in it a certain number of knots. He
pulled it thrice, and then climbed down from the cask, and stood in
close to the wall, so that any person looking up the street would not
see him, for his figure would be merged with the dark background of the
wall.
A sentry-fire burned redly out in the end of the street. A few dark
figures were visible about it. Somewhere Ilya heard a Cossack challenge,
and the rattle of a riflebolt in the crisp air. A pig began to squeal
away in the direction of the Chinese quarter. Ilya missed the friendly
barking of dogs, for the dogs of the city had somehow disappeared since
the troubles came and many people were starving. The unnatural stillness
of the night held a covert menace, as if all creatures, humans and wild
beasts, were walking about on their toes in dread, or crouched to spring
upon some lurking enemy. It was likely that hill tigers were about. The
occasional howl of a wolf seemed to be tinged with a note of triumph, as
if they were waiting for their old wilderness to be restored to them by
men. The wolves were once more hunting close to the city and getting
arrogant and fat. Men were too busy hunting each other to waste time or
ammunition on the great packs of timber wolves.
A small door in the wall, close to where Ilya stood, opened inward a few
inches, slowly and cautiously, for the frost cracked the ancient hinges
with sharp complaints.
“It is Ilya—Ilya Andreitch,” he whispered into the aperture of the gate.
“You are a fool to come here in the starlight,” growled Wassili. “Are
you blind, that you cannot see the brightness of the stars, or have you
a mole for an uncle?”
“What does it matter?” whispered Ilya easily. He did not mind being
insulted by Wassili, knowing in time that he would have the laugh on
Kirsakoff’s _moujik_.
The gate opened a few more inches, and Ilya needed no greater hint, but
slipped through, and the gate closed after him.
“You smell like a _kabak_,” grumbled Wassili.
“That is why you opened the gate,” said Ilya with a chuckle. “You have a
nose for vodka, even if you are not civil to your friends.”
“But you will be seen by enemies, to come here so boldly,” went on
Wassili, not so easily altered in his temper.
“I? No one saw me. I am as secret as an owl. Those fools of soldiers are
all drunk and talking in their sleep. They shoot their guns at the moon
every night, to scare honest folk away.”
“What brings you?” demanded Wassili. “Am I to stand here freezing
because you want to gossip?”
“I came to talk with Michael Alexandrovitch,” said Ilya with pomposity.
He swayed unsteadily on his feet, for the vodka he had drunk was again
asserting its potency because he had been standing still so long outside
the gate. He blew gently down into his whiskers to melt away the ice
which had formed in the bristles from his breath.
“Hmf!” growled Wassili. “Perhaps you think Michael Alexandrovitch has
baked a pig for your coming? Have you forgotten that Michael
Alexandrovitch is an Excellence?”
“I am as good as he, Excellence or no Excellence,” retorted Ilya. “What
I remember is the revolution, and that Ilya Andreitch is as good as the
Czar. But I have brought news for the Excellence. Are we to stand here
warming the night with our breaths, when Michael Alexandrovitch would be
glad to know what I know?”
“He could salt his porridge with what you know,” scorned Wassili. “What
news do you bring?” He was still doubtful of the legitimacy of Ilya’s
visit, and suspected his coming to be a desire for drunken argument.
“When a man brings news in these times, he might have a glass of hot
tea,” hinted Ilya. “It is about government, and I have come with big
news about what is being done outside this place.”
“You have brought a monkey with you, that is what,” muttered Wassili,
meaning that Ilya was foolishly drunk. But he fastened the bolt of the
gate. He was now shivering with the cold and sulky about it, though he
did not dare risk sending Ilya away if there was any chance of valuable
information’s coming to the attention of his master, Kirsakoff.
“Whoosh! Is not a monkey smarter than a fox? You old pothead, you sit
here all day looking at your feet, while I learn government news and
risk my neck to bring it here and——”
“Be still!” commanded Wassili. “You can be heard to the hills a night
like this! You smell of fresh-killed pig and vodka, for all your
government talk. Is that the way to come to the house of Excellence?
Follow along with that noisy tongue of yours, but keep your fingers on
it, for it wags too freely and you will lose it along with your head, if
you are not careful.”
“Yes, and I’ll bring a drink of vodka along for you, if you have a fire
in your samovar, you old spider.”
“It is good you bring something besides talk,” grumbled Wassili, as he
led the way under the overhanging roof of the shed and along through the
gloom to the door of the kitchen. Ilya stumbled along after him,
blundering among the kettles and other gear and making such a racket
that Wassili cursed him for having too many legs. But Ilya, in a gay
mood, chuckled into his beard and was only concerned lest he lose his
footing and have a tumble that would break the precious bottle in his
pocket.
They entered the kitchen, which had its windows hung with old blankets
to keep the light hidden. There was a wall-stove and a cooking stove
with ovens built of stone. A candle burned on the table. There were
partridge feathers in a sink and the remnants of cabbages that had been
cut up on a board. A big earthen jar of gooseberry jam stood open on the
table and beside it a fat yellow bowl full of white honey, which gave
off a sweet odor and made Ilya think of bees in the fields in summer.
Wassili sat down and rested his elbows on the table. His pockmarked face
had a glum look, and his pale yellow whiskers bristled with belligerency
for Ilya, as if the _moujik_ were in for trouble unless his story should
be of sufficient import for the visit. Wassili’s blue caftan, pale and
washed out like the garment of a Chinese coolie, was strapped about him
with a bit of scarlet cloth which had once been embroidered. His feet
were wrapped in skins, ready to be slipped into the big boots standing
limply by the bench upon which he sat. He had not put them on when he
went out to admit Ilya.
“Let us be merry while we can,” began Ilya, anxious to improve the
atmosphere of the kitchen as represented by the scowling Wassili. So
Ilya threw himself down sprawlingly on a bench opposite Wassili, and
loosened the old rope about his coat. Then he pulled his bottle from his
pocket with a flourish of good-fellowship and slammed it down upon the
table with a thump. “We will all be dead in time that will come soon
enough, so I will have a glass of tea and a spice-cake before I talk
with the Excellence.”
“The wind is full of news,” said Wassili sadly, but the sight of the
bottle put him in slightly better humor. He leaned down and squinted
across it, to gauge its contents.
“How is the health of Excellence?” asked Ilya, his courage bolstered by
a sudden remembrance of his own importance and a desire to return to the
subject of statecraft in connection with Michael Kirsakoff.
Without answering, Wassili poured himself a generous draft from the
bottle into a thick glass, and nodding to Ilya in place of speaking a
health, tossed the liquor off with a clicking sound in his throat and a
harsh appreciative grunt.
“Bring the spice-cakes and the glasses for tea,” he called out to the
other room. An old serving woman peered into the kitchen, appraised Ilya
with critical eyes, and then shambled away for the cakes and glasses.
Ilya’s yellowed teeth grinned across the table at Wassili.
“Now when am I to talk with Michael Alexandrovitch, eh?” he demanded,
crossing his legs importantly and rubbing one knee with his paw of a
hand. “Don’t forget why I have come, Wassili, and that my business is
with the master.”
“You will see Excellence when you see him,” said Wassili.
“True!” said Ilya. “But I shall not leave that to you, if I have to
hammer him up myself. This is a matter of government.”
“There is no one in the house but the old woman and myself,” said
Wassili, with a flourish of his arm. “Excellence is gone, and your
whiskers will be longer before you see him.”
“May the devil tear out your tongue, for it does not speak the truth,”
said Ilya without anger. “This is not a time for lying, when your master
is waiting for news from me.”
Wassili flourished his arm as an expression of his annoyance, and
blurted out surlily, “Then go above for yourself and see, if you know
better than I.”
The old woman shuffled into the room, and put the glass and a plate of
cakes before Ilya, giving him a suspicious eye, and glancing
disapprovingly at Wassili for permitting what she regarded as a
dangerous intrusion. But she did not linger at the table longer than was
necessary to throw down the plate and the tea-glass.
Ilya picked up a spice-cake and inspected it carefully by the light of
the candle, the maneuver being nothing but a way of delaying his speech
till the old woman had disappeared.
“I have come with news about an American who is in the city,” he began,
and bit into the cake.
Wassili turned upon him quickly.
“You are a liar!” he exclaimed with ferocity. “There are no Americans in
the city here—they are only in Vladivostok, and you are blowing a
trumpet in this house while you eat our cakes.” Wassili’s attitude was
almost ferocious.
“Then you know better than I,” said Ilya, blinking at him across the
table and munching the dry cake.
“You are drunk, and you dare come here in these times and put a fool’s
cap on me—and the master!”
“True, I am drunk,” replied Ilya through a mouthful of dry cake. “And I
hope I’ll die drunk and go to heaven. But do you think I’m fool enough
to run my legs off and come here, risking bullets in my back when I
might be sitting by the fire with my bottle? Do you think I come here
just to look at your old mud-head? I cared nothing for your master
before the revolution, but now that I’m as good as he, why should I not
do him a good turn if I can—and he has a few spare rubles to make it
worth my time?” Ilya blew crumbs of dry biscuit at Wassili with the
words.
“Don’t come here and preach at me like a pope!” cautioned Wassili, who
was puzzled by Ilya’s newly acquired attitude of independence. Ilya was
evidently sure of his ground—or gone mad entirely.
“What!” cried Ilya. “You talk to me like that! And I have come to tell
the master news! Very good. I know the way home again, and may your
bones never know what it means to be buried.”
“Where are these Americans you talk about?” demanded Wassili, as he saw
that it would be wiser to let Ilya have his say.
Ilya snorted, but showed his teeth in a grin of triumph. “I shall go and
tell the American officer that Kirsakoff and his daughter have gone, eh?
That is what you say. Very good. That will be all right, I suppose—till
it happens that way, and then Excellence will kick you till you squeal.
Then you will wish that you had listened to Ilya Andreitch and had not
tried to make yourself into an Excellence with big manners.”
“Come, come,” protested Wassili amiably. “Let us not argue. Tell me what
you know and——”
“I shall tell Excellence myself,” broke in Ilya. “I am a free man. What
good is a revolution if one man cannot speak to another? Go and tell
Excellence that Ilya Andreitch, who cut wood for him in the year of the
pestilence, has come with news.”
Wassili laughed, and taking advantage of a fit of sneezing suffered by
Ilya from having breathed particles of dry cake, helped himself to
another draft from the bottle of vodka.
“Perhaps I had better tell Excellence that a Grand Duke has come to see
him, eh?” and Wassili reached across the table and poked Ilya in the
ribs.
“Am I not as good as a Grand Duke?” demanded Ilya. “I am alive to enjoy
my vodka and many a Grand Duke would like to be able to say that, you
old fish-gut! Go and tell the Excellence that I have come.”
Wassili got up. “See that you don’t finish the bottle while I’m gone,”
he warned Ilya, and disappeared through a door into a hall, and Ilya
heard him climbing a creaky stairs.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
X
“AN AMERICAN HAS COME!”
MICHAEL KIRSAKOFF was seated at a table writing a letter by the light of
a candle when Wassili knocked at the door of his room. The old general’s
eyes lifted to the door and made a pair of gleaming points against the
gloom behind him. The broad gold straps on the shoulders of his uniform
jacket set off his white old head so that it appeared to be resting on a
golden tray which threw out a quivering sheen of yellow light with the
trembling of his shoulders. His thin white hand dropped the pen. He
motioned to Katerin to move behind him so that she stood in the shadow
of his body, and recognizing Wassili’s cautious knock, he ordered the
_moujik_ to enter.
“Master, Ilya Andreitch has come with news of the government.”
“Who is Ilya Andreitch?” demanded the old general.
“Ilya, he who once cut wood for the Excellence. I know the man well. He
has often bought food for us in the bazaar since we came here. He helped
me to bring many things to this house from the other, but he is drunk
to-night. Yet he vows he has news of the government.”
The old general was puzzled. Katerin stepped into the light and looked
at Wassili eagerly.
“What is the news Ilya brings?” she asked gently, afraid that her father
might say something which would discourage Wassili from permitting Ilya
to tell his story.
“There is an American officer come to Chita to find the Excellence,”
said Wassili, with a bow. “I do not know—it is Ilya Andreitch who says
it and he——”
Katerin struck her hands together and gave a cry of joy. “An American!”
she cried. “Can it be, my father, that our friends have at last sent
help to us?”
“You say an officer?” exclaimed Michael, his eyes on Wassili, and
burning with an eager light.
“So it is said, master.”
“By the Holy Saints!” exclaimed Michael. “We shall escape Zorogoff if
this is true! Who else can have sent him but our friends?”
Katerin was crying with joy. She threw her arms about her father’s neck
and kissed him. Till now she had restrained her emotions, hidden her
fears, and faced death calmly, but the news that aid was at hand
released all her terrors and flooded them with a burst of happiness.
“True, our friends have got our letters and have sent an American to
save us!” she exclaimed through her tears. “God of the heavens is good
to us, and has answered our prayers at last, so that we shall have peace
and safety. This is the end of your tortures, my father!”
“It is of you I think, Katerin Stephanovna,” said Michael, and he
grasped her hands and pulled them to his mouth to kiss them. “What I
have suffered I have suffered for you, for death means nothing to me if
you can be safe.”
“Tell us, Wassili,” urged Katerin. “Did the American officer bring word
from friends? Is he to come here for us and take us away? And did he say
who sent him?”
The gray old head of Michael snapped forward, the wisps of white hair
waving gently. His eyes bored into Wassili while waiting for the
_moujik_ to answer.
“Ilya Andreitch told me but little, master. At first I thought he was
drunk and did not trust him. And when I told him that he must tell me,
he said he would talk with no one but Excellence, and that it was
secret. Thus I would not bring him up till you had given the order for
his coming.”
“Then he is below now? Bring him up, and hasten, for we have no time to
lose. Zorogoff may be here again with the light of morning and I am but
now writing what shall be done when he has killed me. We must see this
American officer with all speed before the Ataman is able to balk him.
By the Holy Saints! This will save my daughter from death—for she will
die before she submits to the will of this Mongol brigand! Go! Bring
Ilya Andreitch before me and we shall hear his say!”
Wassili ran out into the hall and down the stairs, well pleased with the
results of his report to his master, for he had feared that he had made
a mistake in admitting Ilya at all.
Michael and Katerin could scarcely wait for Ilya to come up. The news of
deliverance from their dangers—safety so close at hand after long weary
months of hiding and worry—came like a pardon to two who were condemned
to death. It had been five days since the Ataman had left them. He was
still torturing them, for his threat against Katerin would undoubtedly
be carried out unless she killed herself. They knew that Zorogoff would
attempt to take them to his “palace” in revenge for their insults. And
they had planned to die together rather than to permit the Mongol to
carry out his evil purpose. That was the only way in which they could
defeat him.
“Our letter to the Baranoffs got through,” said Michael. “It is they who
have sent this American.”
“And do you think he will come here—to-night?” asked Katerin, her pale,
drawn face alight with the joy of escape. “I cannot believe yet that we
are to be safe again! God has answered my prayers! My father, I had
given up hope!”
“Perhaps Ilya brings a letter from the American officer,” said Michael.
“If he has sent word to us by Ilya, he must have also given Ilya
something so that we shall know the American comes from friends. We
cannot delay. If the Ataman should hear of this American——”
“They are coming up,” said Katerin, and they heard Wassili and Ilya
mounting the stairs. Soon the light of a shaking candle appeared down
the hall, and Katerin threw open the door of the room.
Wassili blew out the candle when he entered, and thrust Ilya in ahead of
him.
“Here is Ilya Andreitch, master,” said Wassili, and Ilya blinked at the
candle on Michael’s table, bowed, and stood nervously fingering his cap.
“You bring us news, Ilya Andreitch,” began Michael when Katerin had
closed the door. Michael’s thin, weak voice took on some of the relief
he felt at knowing that help was at hand after months of danger in a
world which had apparently gone mad, and he spoke somewhat in his old
manner of authority.
“I?” asked Ilya. “Yes, Excellence. I bring good news to your house—and
to the mistress.” He bowed again, this time to Katerin, who had gone to
her father.
“Wassili says an American officer has sent you,” prompted Katerin,
seeing that Ilya was perturbed and might be stricken dumb by fear of
being before the former Governor.
“He is at the Dauria, mistress,” said Ilya faintly, and turned to
Wassili as if he expected the _moujik_ to take up the story now, and go
on with it.
“At the Dauria Hotel,” agreed Katerin. “And you have brought a message
from him to us?”
Ilya looked round the room wildly, seeking some escape from the eyes of
Michael which bore upon him steadily.
“Have you a message from the American?” asked Katerin gently.
“I?” Ilya looked at her in amazement, and turned toward the door. Then
he bowed again to Michael and Katerin to cover his confusion.
“What did the American say?” urged Katerin, and Wassili gave utterance
to a faint snort of disgust and prodded Ilya in the back.
“What did the American say? Who knows?” asked Ilya.
“The fool is drunk!” growled Michael. “Come! Speak up! Or have you
drowned your tongue in vodka and come here to make fools of us?”
Ilya’s face began to perspire, and he twisted his cap into a rope.
“Have no fear, Ilya,” said Katerin soothingly.
“May God smite me!” cried Ilya. “It was Rimsky who told me about it and
I ran here to tell the Excellence!”
“And who is Rimsky?” demanded Michael. “Where did he learn of the man
who has come to see me?”
Ilya brushed his brow with the back of his hand. “Rimsky is an old
friend of mine—a good man, Excellence, who means harm to no one and is a
loyal man to his Czar.”
“And what did this Rimsky tell you?”
“That the Excellence would pay me well to bring the news.”
Michael laughed and his irritation disappeared.
“So you have a friend named Rimsky who gives away my money, eh? And so I
will pay you—if we can dig the news out of your skull. Now tell us what
it is that the American said.”
Ilya began to twist his cap into a rope with both hands, and swallowed
spittle.
“Excellence, I have done no harm,” he began. “I am a poor man. I once
cut wood for the Excellence. I am very secret. Rimsky tried to fish it
from me where the Excellence was living, but I did not tell him. I left
him drunk, and he does not know that I know where the Excellence lives,
and he does not know I have come to the house of Excellence.”
Ilya looked triumphantly at Katerin after this speech, and bowed again,
feeling that he had handled the matter well, though he sought a sign of
approval from the daughter of the Governor.
“What has all this to do with the American officer?” asked Michael.
“That is what we are talking about, Ilya. You are very smart to have
done what you did—now tell us more of it.”
“Rimsky sells cigarettes in an old _isba_ in the Sofistkaya,” resumed
Ilya. “He told me it was a pity he did not know where the Excellence
lived, and he fished me for it. That is all. And I have come to tell
Excellence.”
Michael expressed his dismay by a look at Katerin. He believed now that
Ilya’s visit was only some drunken foolishness, or probably a trick.
“They have told this to Ilya so that they might follow him here. This is
the work of enemies,” said Michael.
“Master!” began Wassili, holding up his hand, and then turning to Ilya,
said, “You told me it was a matter of government. You said there was an
American. Tell the master, as you told me, fool!”
“May God smite me, it is as I say!” retorted Ilya to Wassili with a show
of anger. “There is an American come for Michael Alexandrovitch
Kirsakoff, the master general and Governor. It is truth!”
“You say it, but how do you know it?” asked Katerin. She was beginning
to feel that her father was right—that there were no grounds for their
hopes other than a desire of this crafty _moujik_ and some of his
fellows to squeeze money from her father. But she concealed her
disappointment.
“Rimsky told me, mistress, that is how I know,” said Ilya with a bow.
“And it was Rimsky who sent you to this house?” said Michael. “Now, the
truth!”
Ilya stared at the floor and tried to think. In a way, it was true that
Rimsky had sent him to the house, and yet it was not true in just the
way that Michael was saying. The _moujik’s_ brain was not equal to a
quick and accurate reply when folk of education twisted things up so.
“I? No, master. Rimsky does not know I came to this house. How could he
send me here when he has no knowledge of where the Excellence lives? I
told no one because I am very secret, master.”
“Then the American did not send you?” snapped Michael.
Ilya turned to Katerin. “There is an American, mistress,” he insisted.
“You know nothing of an American but what this fool Rimsky told you?”
insisted Michael. “Come! You have not seen the American?”
“How could I see him, master?” asked Ilya.
Michael gave a snort of disgust and leaned back in his chair. “It is
nothing,” he said sadly. “Send Ilya away,” with a look at Wassili.
“I can see the American, mistress,” pleaded Ilya, aghast at the idea
that his visit had come to nothing and fearful of what Wassili might do
once they were in the courtyard again. “I speak truth! There is an
American officer come seeking the master general!”
“Ilya Andreitch, I will give you fifty rubles if you will find this
American,” said Katerin, hopeful again as she saw that Ilya was in
earnest—at least she was determined not to make the mistake of sending
Ilya away without making sure of what he did know. She knew that he was
frightened, and that behind his fear there was more information than he
was able to put into words.
“I can find him, mistress, if he is at the Dauria—I know the place well.
I was there but yesterday with pig-livers.” His eyes glittered with the
richness of the reward promised.
“This is a trap of Zorogoff’s to get us to leave the house,” growled
Michael.
“Not if there is an American in the city to see us,” said Katerin.
“Some spy got Rimsky to tell this story to Ilya and then watch him to
see where he went. I do not like it. Or perhaps they want you to go to
the hotel seeking this mythical officer and seize you there. I tell you
it is a trap, my daughter.”
But Katerin picked up the pen on the table and wrote on a sheet of paper
this note in Russian:
_The man who takes this to you can find us again. Time is
precious for we are in great danger. Be discreet. Say who sends
you that we may know you are from friends._
She did not sign the note, but dried the ink over the candle, folded it,
and handed it to Ilya with a handful of rubles which she took from
between the leaves of a book on the table.
“Give this to the American officer if you find him at the Dauria. If he
has come for us, let him tell you so. But you are not to come back here
to our house—Wassili will meet you at the _sobrania_ at midnight, and
you are to tell Wassili what the American says. Do not tell the American
where we are but let him send a message and the name of the friend who
has sent him. That will be our proof that he is not an enemy. Talk with
no one about this—and when you have told Wassili what the American says,
go home to bed and do not drink. If you give a true message to Wassili
you shall have fifty rubles more to-morrow.”
“He will be drunk as an owl ten minutes after he gets to the Sofistkaya
and the first _kabak_,” grumbled Michael. “And if he finds this
American, how is the American to read Russian?”
“If he come from friends, he must know something of Russian, else he
would not have come by himself—and perhaps he has with him some man who
can read it for him.”
“You are wasting your breath and my ink,” said Michael. “I think nothing
of this business.”
“God’s blessing on you, mistress,” said Ilya, crossing himself twice and
turning to follow Wassili out of the room. “I shall be very secret and
do as you command—and I shall not go drinking wine with the money.”
Wassili lighted his candle from the flame of the one burning on the
table and opened the door. Ilya went out before him, and they both
descended the stairs.
“It is all a trap, as I have said,” Michael went on again, staring
disconsolately into the flame of the candle, his head bent forward on
his breast. “This is the Ataman’s work—and he will come again in the
morning to mock us.”
“I have faith that God has saved our lives,” said Katerin. “If an
American is in the city who seeks us, I shall go to him myself in case
Ilya fails us.”
“Then you would be going to your doom, my daughter,” and Michael dropped
his face into his outspread arms upon the table to conceal the dejection
which had come over him again since he believed that Ilya had come on a
fool’s errand.
“Hope is greater than fear, my father,” said Katerin, and lifted his
head from the table to kiss him. “Who knows? By dawn we may be safe with
this American. We must pray that Wassili will bring us a message at
midnight which means the end of our troubles. Zorogoff will not dare
defy an American officer.”
“Zorogoff will defy the devil himself,” said Michael. “I put little hope
in this fool’s tale, but if it will make you happy, I will hope and
believe till we know that there is nothing to be gained from this Ilya
and his foolishness. And what you have just said about going to the
hotel yourself—that must not be. I shall not let you out of my sight.”
“Then perhaps we may both go,” said Katerin. “We would be in no greater
danger if we tried to find the American than if we waited here for
Zorogoff.”
“We shall stay here,” said Michael. “I am too old and wise to be fooled
by Mongol tricks. If I knew you could be safe I would be happy to say
farewell to you forever—but God tells me that we are in greater danger
now than ever, and we must trust no one. Come! Hand me my pen again,
that I may write down the things you should remember when I am dead.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XI
THE FLIGHT
WASSILI lurked in front of the _sobrania_ from midnight till near
morning. There was a ball going on inside the building and many people
coming and going during the night, mostly officers of Zorogoff’s forces
and their women. But Wassili saw nothing of Ilya, though he gossiped
with the droshky-drivers about the _sobrania_, warming himself against
the biting cold by frequent drinks of tea at a restaurant across the
street.
When he had almost decided to return to Kirsakoff and report that he had
not seen Ilya, he heard that Ilya had been killed. Then Wassili gathered
such details as he could, and along toward morning hastened homeward
with his story.
Katerin saw the disaster in the _moujik’s_ face when he appeared at the
door of her room, breathing hard from a run up the stairs. His hands
were covered with candle wax as a result of their shaking.
“What news, Wassili?” she cried.
“The Cossacks killed Ilya soon after he left this house, mistress,”
panted Wassili. “He crossed an old garden to evade the sentries, and did
not stop when they halted him. He fell with six bullets in him—and they
say in the city that he was a spy, for he carried a secret message.”
“Your message to the American,” said Michael, who had waited up for the
return of Wassili. “It is as I said—Ilya was bait for the Ataman’s trap.
There is no American. If you had gone with Ilya you would have been
seized, my daughter, and if I had gone, I would have been shot down. We
are lost—the story about the American was a myth to draw us from the
house.”
“But, master, there is truth in what Ilya told us,” put in Wassili.
“What?” cried Michael. “You, too? Are you fool enough to believe now
what Ilya Andreitch said?”
Katerin had sat down on a bench when she heard that Ilya had been
killed, her hope crushed again. Now she sprang up at Wassili’s words,
waiting for him to go on.
“It is truth, master,” insisted Wassili. “I had the news in the city, so
what Ilya said must have been true.”
“Who told you?” cried Katerin. “Did they say he had come for us? Is he
at the Dauria? Did you see him?”
Wassili was overwhelmed by such a volley of questions, and he paused to
catch his breath and assort his information from his memory before he
should reply.
“Come! Come! Rattle your tongue, Wassili!” commanded Michael. “Sit here
and talk!”
Wassili sank upon the bench while Michael and Katerin hovered over him.
“An _iswostchik_ told me,” began Wassili. “His father was in the
Siberian Rifles with mine and I can trust his word. He told me that he
drove an American officer to the Dauria—two days ago. If the American
officer is there now, I cannot say. But there is none among the
_iswostchiks_ who has taken him back to the station. That I know, for I
asked many of them—and they would know if the stranger had been taken
away.”
“Thanks to God!” cried Katerin. “Then though poor Ilya is dead, there is
still hope for us. We must pray that he spoke the truth. Tell us more,
Wassili.”
“It came about this way,” resumed Wassili. “I heard my friend boasting
of how he had brought a rich American to the Dauria—this officer—and how
he paid double fare in Imperial rubles without any complaint. Not
knowing what was the right fare, and not knowing that Imperials are
worth thrice the money now in this city prove him to be a stranger. That
he was an American, my friend is sure, for he was in Vladivostok last
month and smuggled opium in here for the Chinese when he came up by the
train. Why, he even knows the Americans so well that he speaks American.
He cannot be fooled—he got rich in Vladivostok changing money for
Americans.”
“But does the American seek us?” urged Katerin. She was anxious to
establish the fact that the American had come to help them escape the
Ataman.
“I heard nothing of that, mistress,” replied Wassili.
Michael pondered the matter carefully.
“It all means no good for us,” he said finally. “This officer may have
sent Ilya to us, but why was Ilya shot? I say it looks like a trap.”
“But Zorogoff’s spies may have known that the American sent Ilya, and
may have killed Ilya so no word could go back from us,” said Katerin.
“I grant that, yes,” said Michael, but still he had his doubts, and
shook his head sadly.
“And if Zorogoff knows that an American officer has come, then the
Ataman will not dare persecute us further. Did you hear the name of this
American, Wassili?” asked Katerin.
“Mistress, I know nothing more. I did not dare go to the hotel when I
heard that Ilya had been killed, but came back here for the orders of
Excellence.”
“And that was right,” said Michael.
“Shall I go now to the American officer, master?” asked Wassili.
“Let me think on it,” said Michael. “They killed Ilya and they may also
kill you. It is dangerous business and we must be cautious. If it is
true that an American has come, then the Ataman will do one of two
things—strike speedily or leave us in peace. I believe that he will
destroy us. I wish my wits were equal to telling me what I should do.”
“We must not leave it to the Ataman,” declared Katerin. “The time has
come for us to make our decisions—we it is who must act and not wait for
the Ataman to make up his mind.”
“We! What do you mean, my daughter? What is it we can do?”
“Do something before the Ataman returns.”
“What? What is it we can do, surrounded as we are?”
There was a new look of determination in Katerin’s face. “The time has
come to be bold,” she said. “If Zorogoff expects us to wait here for his
will or his coming, we must surprise him—we must go straight to this
American officer and ask him to help us to escape the city, even if he
has not been sent to us by friends. But I’m sure we will find that he
has been dispatched here to rescue us.”
Michael put his hands to his face and stared at Katerin, aghast at her
suggestion. He turned and sat down in his chair as if he had no strength
to remain standing longer. “What in the name of God are you saying?” he
whispered. “Do you mean we should put ourselves at the mercy of the
Ataman?”
“Are we not now at the mercy of the Ataman? Are we not waiting for his
men to knock at the door? How much worse off will we be if we make an
attempt to reach this American?”
“And how much better?” asked Michael. “Will it do us more good to be
shot down by the sentries as was Ilya than to remain here waiting for
some turn of fortune which will save us?”
“Fortune has made the turn,” replied Katerin. “What more do we ask than
that an American officer be in the city?”
“But if we never reach the hotel? What good would a regiment of
Americans do us if we are shot on the way?”
“We must take the chance and get to the hotel,” declared Katerin.
“Surely, you must see that it is better to risk ourselves for the short
time necessary to get to the Dauria than to remain here and wait for
certain doom.”
“Madness!” exclaimed Michael. “What we would be going to would be death
in the dark.”
“We shall go by the first daylight, while the sentries are being changed
in the streets,” said Katerin quietly. It was plain that her mind was
settled upon the thing.
Michael peered at her across the candle flame as if he doubted her
sanity. But Katerin looked back at him without the slightest sign that
she wavered in her determination to abandon the house.
“I see what you mean,” said Michael sadly. “You prefer to die by bullets
rather than by the poison. Perhaps it is the better way—and I shall go
with you and we shall die together.”
Katerin went to him and took up his hands. “I shall not cross the
threshold of that Mongol’s house alive, my father. I prefer to chance
death—and if we fail—then we are with God and have died as Russians. It
is better to die by the bullet of a soldier than by my own hand.
Remember the threat of Zorogoff and consider my reasons for not fearing
death.”
Michael gave the table a mighty thump with his fist. “Truth, by the Holy
Saints!” he exclaimed. “But I am the one to make the attempt to get to
the hotel—and find the American. I cannot see you walk into the streets
with such wolves about.”
“No,” said Katerin, “I do not wish you to go alone. We shall go
together—and if we must, we shall die together. But we cannot go against
the designs of God—if the American officer has been sent to this city by
friends to save us, we must not lose a minute in making ourselves known
to him. The Ataman said he would come back—and he will come. He knows
what I fear more than death. Very good. We must not wait here for him to
come—It is not in us to lie hidden here like jackals in traps for the
pleasure of the Mongol dog. We must flee with all possible speed toward
the American.”
“You are right,” agreed Michael. “Zorogoff will lose no time if he
learns of this American—and perhaps he knows of the stranger now. At
least, as Wassili heard it, it must be common gossip in the city. So
whatever Zorogoff plans against us he will accomplish without delay. But
how are we to escape from the house? Are we to go out openly, as we
are?”
“We shall escape through the servants’ gate,” said Katerin, her eyes on
the candle as she planned. “It will be safer to wear the clothing of
peasants. If there is a morning fog, it will help to conceal us. The
greatest risk is in being seen as we get into the street. We cannot know
how closely the house is being watched. But once clear and into the
street, who is to think that two poor peasants are Michael Kirsakoff and
his daughter—unless we should be stopped by soldiers and made to tell
what our business is, where we came from, and who we are.”
“True, that is the difficulty,” said Michael. “But as you say, if we
once get to the hotel, Slipitsky, the old Jew, if he is still alive,
will take us to the American. Do you know if Slipitsky is still in
charge of the Dauria, Wassili?”
“When I heard last, master, Slipitsky still lived,” said the _moujik_.
“Am I to go with the master and the mistress and do what I can to
protect them?”
“No,” said Katerin. “You would be recognized and betray our identity to
observers. You are to stay here with the old woman, and if we die, you
shall be rewarded for your loyalty. Bring us old boots—the worst you can
find—and cabbages to carry in a bundle, that we may appear to be
peasants come in from the country to market.”
Wassili went out and at once Katerin began plans and preparations for
their flight from the house. By the time the morning sun revealed a
white fog over the landscape everything was in readiness. An old shawl
had been filled with packets of rubles wrapped in old newspapers, and on
top had been put her sable coat and other clothing. But before the shawl
was tied up at the corners, three cabbages had been put in on top so
that they showed through the openings.
The thick fog of morning gave promise that they could get away from the
house without being observed, unless there were sentries close by the
servants’ gate.
When they were ready to depart, Michael put on the ancient gray
coat—that one which was padded with paper rubles. He belted the shabby
garment about him with an old rope and dropped his pistol into a side
pocket. A dirty old sheepskin cap covered his head and a long muffler
was wound about his neck, the ends trailing over his back. With the
muffler pulled up over his face he could see through the mesh of the
fabric, but his face was concealed. He also carried a short-stocked whip
with a dozen lashes, such as the farmers carry with them. In such attire
it was hard to believe that he had been a general of the Czar and once
Governor—now he was but a bent old _moujik_ who thought of nothing but
his crops and what money he could get for the few provisions he was
carrying into the city.
Katerin wrapped her head in an old shawl, tied a raggy towel across her
nose against the cold, and drew the shawl down over her brow so that she
peered out through a narrow slit. Her chin was concealed in the collar
of a dirty and torn coat which had been mended with many faded patches.
She wore a discarded pair of Wassili’s boots, which had been retrieved
from the wagon-shed, where they had been hung up to be used for hinges
or pieces of leather for repairs. But she also took with her in the
bundle her light shoes and her slippers.
When she finally picked up the bundle with the cabbages, she was a poor
farmer’s daughter come in from the plains to sell her cabbages and buy
salt and candles in the bazaar—and say a prayer at the church.
Before they set out from the house Wassili was sent into the street and
pottered about the casks at the small door in the wall to see whether
the house was being closely watched. He came back soon and reported that
he could see no one.
The old woman who had been doing the cooking stood crying and rubbing
her eyes with her red hands as she saw the mistress ready to go forth
and face the dangers of the city. She cried and prayed by turns, being
sure that disaster awaited them both. Michael quieted her by a plentiful
handful of rubles and an assurance that if they made to the hotel
safely, she should be provided for before they escaped the city—but the
old woman was disconsolate.
“God go with you, master and mistress,” said Wassili, as he said
farewell. He stood in the kitchen door and watched Michael and Katerin
slip through the gate, bent on reaching the hotel and seeking the help
of the American officer against the menace of Zorogoff.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XII
HIDDEN AGAIN
MICHAEL trudged along stolidly through the dirty snow in the middle of
the street, his head bent against the cold in peasant style. Katerin
followed him, close behind, carrying the bundle which showed the
cabbages.
Once away from the house they felt they had a chance of getting to the
hotel without being halted if they did not appear too eager. So they
proceeded without haste, plodding along as if weary after a long walk in
from the plains. To any one who might watch them they were apparently
heedless of their surroundings and concerned only with where their feet
were to be planted for each step, but they were really watchful through
the cloths which hid their faces. It was not possible to see more than a
hundred yards in any direction, for the fog shut them in and helped to
conceal them from observation.
They had not gone far before they made out the glow of a sentry-fire.
Having planned carefully what they should do in various circumstances,
they had no intention of attempting to avoid any soldiers, so Michael
bore straight for the group about the fire. The soldiers looked up and
scanned the approaching couple for a minute, then resumed their talk.
Michael turned out just enough to pass them, lifted his head to stare at
them through his muffler, gave them a gruff good-morning, and passed on.
The four men about the fire supposed that the man and the woman must
have passed through the outer cordons of sentries and given a
satisfactory account of themselves. So Katerin also walked past them
with a friendly nod, and though she was nervous for a few minutes after
she had turned her back on them, they said nothing.
As the two drew in toward the business section of the city they passed
people who peered suspiciously at them. There were times when Michael
feared that they were being followed, but in time the supposed followers
turned up side streets and went about their business.
Then a band of roistering soldiers swarmed out of a _kabak_ and bore
down upon the father and daughter. The men were tipsy after a night of
drinking and were singing wild songs and indulging in pranks among
themselves. They hailed Michael with pleasantries but made way for him,
and were respectfully silent when they passed Katerin, willing enough to
let peasants go on without being molested. Had they known that the two
“peasants” were General Kirsakoff and his daughter their attitude might
have been entirely different.
Katerin struggled along, the great boots tiring her, for they were heavy
and ill-fitting, and where the snow was packed hard at the street
crossings, the boots slipped under her and with the heavy bundle she
found it hard to walk. But she knew her father could not help her if
they were to keep up the pretense that they were peasants. But Michael
slowed his pace at times to let Katerin come up with him.
They reached the church, and stopped before it a few minutes to rest.
They prayed and crossed themselves and lingered as long as they dared,
for though they were both tired and cold, they hoped to get to the hotel
before the fog was dispersed by the sun. They were fortunate that so few
people were abroad.
“Have good heart,” muttered Michael. “It is not far now to the hotel,
and the roads will be better.”
“The boots make me slow,” whispered Katerin. “But do not think of me.
Save your strength, for I can walk all day. And we must not appear to be
in a hurry.”
“It is plain that no one has suspected us,” said Michael, peering back
through the fog to make sure that they were not being trailed.
“The test will come at the hotel,” said Katerin. “There we may encounter
spies, so we must be most careful.”
“It is too early for many officers of the Ataman to be about,” said
Michael. “But there is safety in boldness.”
They went on. Soon they passed the ruin of the great house which had
been their home in the years while Michael was Governor. Only one wall
stood, black and charred and penciled with white in crevices of the
timbers where the powdered snow had sifted in. The vacant windows yawned
upon them, showing a dismal background of drifting fog. In that house
they had lived as rulers of the Valley of Despair.
In time they came to the upper end of the Sofistkaya where a road turned
off to the prison on the hill. They moved down past the big store which
had been looted thoroughly by the Bolsheviki and the exiles who had been
freed from the prison after the fall of the throne. The great windows
along the street were boarded up, and a pair of Japanese sentries stood
by the entrance. From the roof flew a red and white flag which marked
the headquarters of the Japanese commander.
Next they passed the wrecked bank. It was there that Michael’s partner
had been slain while attempting to save what was left of the bank’s
money after the first big raid. The windows were also boarded, so that
in case of another uprising by revolutionists the building could not be
used as a rifle-nest for snipers.
Now there were more people in the streets. But every one was going about
his business and paid little attention to Michael and Katerin. Such
soldiers as they saw ignored them. They reached the bridge over the
Ingoda, and now could see the front of the Dauria, not far ahead. They
soon gained a position on the street opposite the entrance to the hotel,
and crossed in the middle of the street after the manner of people from
the country. Michael paused before the door, and waited for Katerin to
come up with him.
“This is the place,” said Michael gruffly, and then he pushed open the
door. He was afraid that there might be a group of people inside, but
his fears were relieved at finding a sleepy-eyed youth drowsing by a
fire-reddened stove on a bench.
Once through the door, Katerin let her bundle drop to the floor. It was
so warm inside that she began to worry lest they be expected to uncover
their faces, and in that case, if they did not find Slipitsky at once,
they might be recognized by some casual passer-by who would carry the
news of their arrival at the hotel to some of Zorogoff’s spies.
The youth by the fire roused himself reluctantly and gave an angry look
at the intruders. It was plain he felt that people so poorly dressed had
no business in the hotel. He eyed the bundle which Katerin had put down,
and then motioned them out of the door with an angry gesture.
“Get away with your cabbages!” he snarled. “This is no public place
where people can warm themselves. This is the best hotel in the city and
only for rich people.”
Michael bowed abjectly. “I have come to pay to Mr. Slipitsky money which
I owe him.”
The youth stared the harder. The heat from the stove was oppressive
after the cold of the streets, but Michael and Katerin made no move to
uncover their faces.
“You can give me the money,” said the youth, holding out his hand,
though he did not rise from the bench. “Slipitsky is not here and if he
were, he would have no time to bother with you. Come! Hand the money to
me and get out!”
“Slipitsky not here?” demanded Michael. “But he told me to come. You
mean that he has gone away?”
“I said he is not here,” said the youth curtly. “I have other things to
do besides answer questions. I’ll take the money.”
“No, no,” said Michael. “Mr. Slipitsky must sign the paper if I pay him
the money—it is always so. I do not know who you are. I must see Mr.
Slipitsky, I tell you.”
The youth got to his feet and looked closely at Michael, as if
suspicious of his purpose. He had probably been shrewd enough to
understand that Michael did not talk wholly as a peasant. Having
scrutinized Michael, he turned and looked at Katerin, but she ignored
his gaze and looked about the walls at the dirty old posters with
pictures of Russian ships.
“Go away!” said the youth finally. “I can’t be troubled. This is no time
to come asking for Mr. Slipitsky.”
“But I have come twenty versts this morning to see Mr. Slipitsky and
give him the money and I must get back to my cow,” insisted Michael,
seeing that he was making an impression on the youth despite the
latter’s show of contempt. “And if I have to go back to my house, it
will be two months again before I can pay——”
A black figure appeared at the top of the stairs while Michael was
talking, and called down sharply, “Dazo! What are you doing? Who is
there?”
“I don’t know who it is,” said Dazo. “Some fools in from the country who
have lost their way and——”
“And is it a grand ball or something you are having down there with all
this talk I hear, till I can’t do anything with my figures?” demanded
the one above wrathfully. “Who is it come to talk with you so early in
the morning? Maybe some rich gentleman from Moscow, eh?”
Michael now recognized the person above as Slipitsky, and knowing that
they were safe at last, called out, “Mr. Slipitsky, I have come to pay
you the money I owe to you.”
Slipitsky leaned forward and peered down the stairs. “What! Somebody
would be paying me money and that stupid goat of a Dazo does not know
what is wanted. Dazo! Is it money you would let slip away from me in
these times? Oy! A poor man you would make of me, stupid one! Tell the
gentleman to come up.”
But Michael did not wait to be urged by Dazo to go up. He started at
once, and Katerin picked up the bundle and followed. Slipitsky remained
standing in the dim light of the upper hall at the head of the stairs,
peering down, and as Michael drew near the top, waved him forward. “Come
this way to my office, please. And you—Dazo! Keep the door shut or I
shall be beggared with buying wood from the Buriats. It is the house we
wish to warm, and not all of Chita.”
Slipitsky trotted ahead of Michael and led the way into a tiny room. By
the time Michael entered, the old Jew was standing behind a desk.
“You have come to pay me money?” he demanded when Katerin had entered
the room. “Who is it, I ask?” he added, suspicious now because Michael
had not uncovered his face.
Slipitsky was old and bent himself, with long black whiskers, a grave
and wrinkled face, small black eyes that seemed to grasp what they
looked at. He wore a round black cap on his head, and about his
shoulders was a long black cape tied in at the middle with a green cord
which had ended its usefulness as a curtain cord. His brow was furrowed,
and he had no teeth that were visible, but his face had a benevolent
expression as if he found it hard to be stern with people. There was
something about his manner as he stood behind the desk which suggested a
teacher. A wrinkled little smile lurked about his eyes—a ghost of a
smile which had dissipated perhaps under the cruel times that had come.
His breath smelled of boiled onions and the same odor pervaded the close
little room.
“Who is it, I ask?” repeated Slipitsky when Michael made no answer but
turned to close the door behind Katerin. The old Jew was on his guard at
once, for he knew these muffled figures might be robbers or secret
police sent by Zorogoff to arrest him.
“We have come to have a talk with you privately,” whispered Michael.
Slipitsky’s face was instantly screwed up with terror, and his jaw
dropped. For an instant he was in something of a panic and he drew back
into a corner, for he knew that no rude peasant would speak so correctly
as had this stranger before him. And whispers always meant secrecy if
not imminent danger.
“You are not peasants!” mumbled Slipitsky. “You have come in here by a
trick! You do not speak now as peasants! Who has sent you here to make
trouble for me in my house?”
Michael whipped the muffler down from his face by way of answer and
thrust his face forward into the light from the frosted window so that
Slipitsky might recognize him without further talk.
“Prophets of Israel!” cried the Jew, suddenly relieved of his worry as
he recognized Michael. “You are dead!”
“Not yet, by the kindness of God,” whispered Michael, and turning to his
daughter, said, “Also Katerin Stephanovna has come with me. You must
hide us both, for we are beset by the Ataman and have fled away from our
house to save our lives.”
“True enough, it is Michael Alexandrovitch, his Excellence who was
Governor!” whispered Slipitsky as if assuring himself that he was not
deceived by his eyes. He clapped his hands over his ears. “It was said
that you were both dead! Four months ago I heard you had been killed! Is
it that you have risen from the dead by a miracle, my old friends? By
the patriarchs! This is a sight for me! Both of you—and dressed in poor
rags like serfs come in from a farm to sell butter!”
Katerin had exposed her face and smiled joyfully at the old Jew.
“Take care or you will be heard speaking to us and we shall be
betrayed,” warned Michael. “No one must know we are here, or Zorogoff
comes——”
“Enough!” cried Slipitsky, and ran out from behind his desk, keys
jangling in his pockets, and shot the bolt on the door. “As you say, the
place is like a beehive with spies,” he whispered, turning back to
Michael. “That rascal, Dazo, below stairs is one of Zorogoff’s men, I
know! The Cossacks made me make a place for him there at the door to
watch—but I know he is an underground for the Ataman!”
“Then we shall be delivered,” said Michael, pulling up his muffler over
his face again. “If it be already known to him that we are here——”
“We must fool him,” said Slipitsky. “What is the good of having a head
if we do not use it? You must go out again and——”
“But where shall we stay?” demanded Michael, alarmed at the Jew’s saying
they must go. To be turned into the streets again meant certain capture
by soldiers of the Ataman.
“Please, you must hide us for our lives!” pleaded Katerin. “If you do
not hide us somewhere we shall be killed!”
“We shall all be killed!” exclaimed Slipitsky. “Take off your covering
and let me see your face again, mistress! Ah, yes, it is you! Can you
doubt that I will not do what I can for old friends? Be patient.”
“Then we can stay?” asked Katerin. “But what of the spy below? Will he
not reveal us?”
“We are desperate,” urged Michael. “Zorogoff has given us the mental
torture—if he finds us again he will take my daughter to his palace
to——”
“Toosh!” exploded Slipitsky. “Zorogoff is not to find you. I have known
persecution in my day—who of my people have not? And in your time you
were good to some of my friends. Ah, I never forget, my friend! I will
hide you well. But if Zorogoff knows, then we are all dead together—as
dead as the prophets! That Ataman is a robber, Excellence! Every week I
must pay him money till I am beggared. Taxes, he calls it! Is the last
kopeck from a poor man taxes, I ask? And every name that goes in the
book he watches, for fear I would have a stranger under my roof who
might be a spy against him! And that dog of a Dazo is his eyes. But we
must fool Dazo, as you shall see.”
“He will know if we do not go away again,” said Katerin. “How are we to
fool him on that?”
“Toosh! Who is to suspect that the two peasants who came this morning to
pay me money were his Excellence the General and his daughter? It is how
you get out again, as Dazo sees it, that gives me troubles. But I shall
put you in rooms and no names in the book for the spies. So we must fool
that stupid one below. Wait here for me, Excellence.”
The Jew unbolted the door with cautious fingers and looked down the
hall. Then he went out and closed the door after him to look down the
stairs. He saw Dazo lying on the bench, his back to the stove,
apparently napping.
“Dazo!” yelled Slipitsky frantically, at the same time beginning a wild
caper like a dance, “Dazo! Stop the two—the old man and the woman with
the cabbages! Stop them I say, or I am ruined for twenty rubles! Oh, oh,
oh!”
Dazo rolled off the bench and sat up, staring about him in bewilderment,
startled out of a sound doze by the screams of Slipitsky.
“What is the trouble?” called the youth. “What has happened now?”
“Enough has happened!” cried Slipitsky. “The two peasants who came in
with the cabbages to pay me money! Stop them! Oh, I am ruined!”
“But I saw no one!” cried Dazo. “I tell you no one has come in or gone
out from this place while——”
“Stop the talk and run!” screamed Slipitsky, wringing his hands in
agony. “I signed the receipt but the rubles they gave me were bad!
Twenty rubles, I say, I lose! They just went out the door while you were
dreaming of the wife you beat in Irkutsk! They just went out the door!
Run for them and drag them back by their hair! Run, run—hurry!”
“You are crazy,” muttered Dazo, but he reached for his coat to the
wooden hook on the wall, not sure now that the two strangers had not
evaded him while he was asleep.
“I am crazy for my twenty rubles!” raged Slipitsky, and Dazo pulled on
his coat and dashed into the street.
Slipitsky ran back to his little office and let himself in.
“Come!” he commanded. “I will put you in rooms, now that I have sent
that fool of a Dazo down the Sofistkaya looking for you.”
Michael and Katerin followed him down the long hall. The Jew put a big
brass key into a door, and, turning the lock, thrust Michael into the
room and handed him the key. “Keep quiet till I come with food, and if
any one knocks do not answer. We have fooled that fox of a Dazo, and we
shall fool the Ataman!”
And the old Jew put his fingers to his lips against the thanks which
Michael and Katerin would have expressed, slipped out through the door
and was gone, wailing through the hall about the fictitious twenty
rubles which he had lost by the carelessness of Dazo, the spy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XIII
KATERIN PLANS TO MEET THE AMERICAN
SLIPITSKY returned to the Kirsakoffs in an hour, bringing with him a
small samovar, some bread, and a cold partridge. In his pocket he
carried a bottle of wine for Michael.
“You will need something to warm and hearten you, Excellence, for there
is not much warmth,” he said when Katerin had let him in.
Michael was sitting on the bed, his boots off and his eyes blinking, for
he had been sleeping, being worn out with waiting up for the return of
Wassili the night before, the preparation for the flight, and the
journey afoot into the city.
“Ah, that is good!” said Michael. “I am famished, though I have had a
good sleep—without bad dreams, for now we are out of danger, old
friend.”
Slipitsky turned and looked at him in surprise. “Out of danger! Do not
think my hotel is so safe, Excellence. Zorogoff may ask for all my rooms
any day for more of his officers—and when he takes the notion he
searches the place. So you are still in danger—unless you have a plan
for escape from the city. Surely you and the daughter must have some
scheme for getting out by an underground!”
“Oh, true!” said Michael, taking a glass of wine from Katerin’s hand.
“That is why we have come—there is an American here?”
“Friends have sent an American officer to us,” explained Katerin to the
Jew. “Is he not here in the house?”
“So-o!” whispered Slipitsky, betraying his amazement. “It is you he has
come for? And that is why so little has been seen of him! Two nights he
has been under the roof and he has not stirred out, but sits all day
smoking by a samovar! I have seen him in the hall once—a big fellow,
maybe a colonel! And he has paid a week in advance, too, but I could not
read what he wrote in the book for Dazo. So he got word to you that he
was here—well, that is good for you.”
“We have heard that he was in the city looking for us,” said Michael.
“But we are not sure—we must look into the matter. But I doubt if
Zorogoff will dare interfere with an American—or us if the American has
come to help us.”
Slipitsky sat down and pulled his beard thoughtfully while Katerin
busied herself with brewing the tea at the samovar.
“It is hard for us to tell what that devil of an Ataman will do with
anybody,” said Slipitsky. “But an American—that is different. So your
friends have done this for you! And the American has sent word to you
that he is here waiting for you, eh?”
“We heard it through Ilya Andreitch, a peasant, who came to our house
last night with the news,” explained Katerin. “But when Ilya was sent
here with a message last night he was killed. But the American did not
tell Ilya to go to us—Ilya got news from friends of his.”
Slipitsky opened his eyes at that, and rolled them thoughtfully. “Then
the American did not send the word to you by Ilya?” He was puzzled—and
troubled again. “And Ilya was shot? That is bad.”
“We shall have to be very cautious about it,” put in Michael, “for I am
afraid of a trap.”
“Ilya got the news from Rimsky, an old cigarette-seller,” said Katerin.
“What!” exclaimed Slipitsky. “From that old liar? He will say anything
for ten kopecks. What does he know about our American? Rimsky has not
been here to see him. I tell you, there is something wrong about this—it
may be that Rimsky is a spy.”
“Ah, yes!” said Michael, frowning thoughtfully. “What if Rimsky is a
spy, as you say, and Ilya was fooled about the American’s having come
for us? That is what I said from the first!”
“But it may be that the American asked Rimsky about us before he came to
the hotel at all,” said Katerin. “And perhaps Rimsky gave the news to
poor Ilya, and perhaps the news was truth. Then would it not be right?”
“I would like to see something that is right if Rimsky has had a hand in
it,” grumbled Slipitsky, who was getting more worried as he considered
the matter. He was reluctant to ask too many questions, for he supposed
there might be angles to the situation which the Kirsakoffs would prefer
not to discuss.
But Katerin was becoming alarmed by Slipitsky’s doubts. She realized
well enough that there had never been any proof beyond Ilya’s word that
the American had come seeking them, and that Ilya himself had been
dependent upon what Rimsky had said. But she did feel that there was
protection of some kind for them in the bare fact that an American was
under the same roof with them now, and that Zorogoff might not dare
persecute them openly or take them from the hotel. She was determined to
appeal to the American, but she wanted time to make her own plans. What
she feared now was that Slipitsky, by his suspicions and doubts, would
put her father back into his mood of dejection and discouragement. So
she laughed gayly and served her father with tea and the cold partridge.
“I shall find some way of talking with the American,” she declared to
Slipitsky. “You must help me in some plan.”
“I can go to him and tell him that I know where the Kirsakoffs may be
found,” suggested the Jew. “He will tell me, I think, at once, if he
seeks you or not.”
“I am not so sure,” said Katerin. “He may not want to discuss a secret
with you—he will be suspicious of any person who talks with him about
us, if he is trying to find us unbeknownst to others in the city. He
might deny that he seeks us, and thus we should be deprived of his
help.”
“True,” said Slipitsky. “The owl says little but thinks much, so what he
knows is his own, which is wisdom. We need not fear the American—I wish
there were more of them here. But this old fox of a Rimsky! It would be
well to know what he is at.”
“No,” said Michael. “You cannot go running to a stranger and saying you
know where we are hidden. And we cannot go to him and make ourselves
known till we know for sure that he is seeking us. The matter will have
to be arranged with more care.”
“Yes, Excellence, the wolf knows the forest and its ways,” said the Jew.
“We must be wise about it, for there is no tax on wisdom. It would be
well for me to bring Rimsky to the house and question him about what he
knows—and what he said to Ilya.”
“You say you do not trust Rimsky,” said Katerin. “You say he is a
liar—and may be a spy for the Ataman. Even if the American asked Rimsky
about us, Rimsky might lie about it—and even if he tells the truth,
whatever he says we will mistrust it. And we must be careful that we do
not set his tongue wagging in the city. Till we have thought more about
it, we must be most cautious.”
“Then shall I ask the American about it, mistress?” asked the Jew.
“No, thank you—I shall go and see the American myself.”
“See the American yourself!” gasped Michael in astonishment.
“Yes, I shall see him,” replied Katerin calmly. “That is the simplest
and best way to learn what we want to know.”
“That is sensible,” agreed Slipitsky.
“You mean that you will go and tell him who you are?” demanded Michael,
his horror intensifying at the idea the more he realized that Katerin
meant what she was saying.
“He may know who I am when he sees me,” said Katerin.
“It must not be done, my daughter,” said Michael, his agitation only
growing. “We can trust no one, especially not a strange man who comes
from whom we know not. This is no time to be rash, and I cannot let you
put yourself into danger.”
“If this American has come seeking Michael Kirsakoff and his daughter,
will he not have descriptions of us? And if he is not seeking us, how is
he to know who I am? I shall not tell him my name, you may be assured of
that, unless he knows me—or unless he tells me that he seeks us. So what
can the danger be, my father?”
“There is some truth in what you say,” admitted Michael, as he resumed
eating the partridge. “If he knows you, he knows, and that would mean he
has come from friends. But if he does not recognize you, and he does not
tell you that he is seeking us, what have you learned? And how are you
to go talking with a man you do not know? I tell you you must not take
risks on what Ilya has said!”
“That is wisdom,” assented the Jew, nodding his head slowly. “You must
always test the ice before you walk upon it, else you will find yourself
in the river with the fish.”
“Tell me, where is the room of the American?” asked Katerin.
“The other way—down at the end of the hall with windows that look up the
Sofistkaya, mistress.”
“Can you put us in rooms near him?”
“Yes, mistress, I could. When Dazo goes out later in the day, it can be
accomplished secretly. Is it that you intend to watch the American? You
will see little of him if he keeps to his room as he has.”
“What good would it do us to watch him?” asked Michael. “It would tell
us nothing to see him going and coming.”
“No,” said Katerin. “But I wish to be near him for protection in case
the Ataman’s officers come here. Now, have you a servant for us who can
be trusted not to talk about us?”
“Yes, mistress—a sister of my cousin. She waits upon some of the
Ataman’s officers who live in the house. It is she who will bring you
your samovars and your food. She is safe—not too much sense and little
to say to any one.”
“Then this is my plan,” said Katerin. “If you will contrive to put us
near the American officer, the next thing will be to take care that when
the American rings for a samovar the girl does not take it to him, but
brings it to us. And I shall carry the samovar to him. He, thinking I am
but a samovar girl, may talk with me and I may learn if he seeks among
the people of the city for a man by the name of Kirsakoff.”
“A Kirsakoff a servant! You, Katerin Stephanovna, a samovar girl in this
hotel! How can you think of such a thing?” cried Michael.
Katerin laughed merrily and tossed her head, already in a mood for the
plan which she had evolved. “I would not be a samovar girl because I
play at it, my father,” she said. “What is it but fun? Who can help the
Kirsakoffs better than God and themselves?”
“But I say you are not to be a servant!” objected Michael.
“Better a living servant than a dead aristocrat,” replied Katerin. “What
harm can come of it? Is it not wise to be known here as a servant? We
have come here as peasants and wish to be known as such for safety. Look
at my old black dress! I have on my slippers—see—and I can let down my
hair. How will an American know that I am not a samovar girl—unless, as
we have said, he recognizes me at once as a Kirsakoff? And I can talk
with him, perhaps. He will not be afraid of saying things to a girl who
is a servant which he would keep from others.”
“And what then?” asked Michael with a frown. “Do you think that this
American is going about telling his secret business to any samovar girl?
Fi! You must take him for a fool before you have seen him!”
“I am afraid that he will know you are not a servant, if I am allowed to
say my opinion, mistress,” said the Jew dolefully.
“But he is an American,” persisted Katerin. “He probably knows little
Russian. But what I wish to learn at once is whether he will know me for
a Kirsakoff. And if he does not recognize me, and yet sees that I am not
of the servant class, all the more reason why he should suspect that I
might know the Kirsakoffs. So he might ask me if I know them. Why should
he not ask a samovar girl, when he has asked old Rimsky for General
Kirsakoff? Do you think I will only take his food to him and then run
away without a word?”
“And what else can you do?” asked her father.
“I shall talk to him—of the weather, and the troubles that have come
upon the people. And if he does not tell me why he has come to Chita, I
shall try and learn it from him. Can he speak Russian, do you know, Mr.
Slipitsky?”
“He must speak a little,” said the Jew. “He is alone, and he has made
his way about. He talked with Dazo, who knows nothing but Russian, the
stupid ox. But the American wrote in the book in English and I could
make nothing of it—just a scrawl.”
“Then he will be able to talk a little with me,” said Katerin. “At
least, enough so that I may gain his confidence and be able to talk with
him in a way of gossip about General Kirsakoff who was Governor here.”
“By the Prophets!” said Slipitsky. “The mistress Katerin Stephanovna
should be in the secret police, Excellence! It is all a good plan, and
the mistress should be allowed to have her way in it.”
“I wish there were some other way to go about it than this business of
being a samovar girl,” said Michael as he lighted a cigarette. “We shall
know how wise it all is when we see what we shall learn by it. But I
shall not prevent its being done, for we are in danger enough, and
making danger for you, my friend.”
“Think not of my danger,” said the Jew.
“Then I shall do it,” said Katerin. “We cannot delay, and we cannot take
outsiders, like this man Rimsky, into our confidence. Our safety now
depends upon keeping secret where we are, and upon making the best of
such time as we have. Who knows when the Ataman will learn where we have
gone from the house? And you shall be well paid for your help, Mr.
Slipitsky, and for what you have done.”
“Ah, it is not for money,” said the Jew. “When are you to begin as
samovar girl, mistress? I must make the arrangements and be sure that
everything is ready.”
“The morning is the best time for me to go to the American,” said
Katerin. “I shall take his morning samovar to him, the girl bringing it
to me first. And I shall go on serving him till I have learned what I
need. And if he should not tell me before he is to leave the city, I
shall tell him that we wish to escape the city under his protection.
Surely, we need not be afraid of an American!”
“No,” agreed Michael. “He cannot be from enemies if he is not from
friends. But it is best to learn what we can first, and you must have a
good rest before you begin a battle of wits.”
The Jew left them again, and later in the day he put Michael and Katerin
into two rooms next to the room in which Peter was resting and planning
how he should deal with Michael Kirsakoff if he could be found in Chita.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XIV
THE SAMOVAR GIRL
IT was nine o’clock by his wrist-watch when Peter got out of bed that
morning. From what he could see of the city through the frosted windows,
it was a cold gray day, with the position of the sun above the ridge of
hills marked by a yellow blotch through the scattering fog.
The room was cold and he dressed rapidly. He rang at once for a samovar,
and began shaving. He had made up his mind to make definite efforts this
day to trace Michael Kirsakoff, for he was now rested from his journey
on the train. He thought of Rimsky. It might be wise to go in and see
the graybeard again, and pick up once more the conversation and the
gossip. In time Rimsky would be willing to talk more freely, Peter was
sure.
The samovar girl was slower than usual in coming. Peter rang again—three
times, and with as much insistence as he could put into the pressure of
the button. He finished shaving, and had a mind to go out to the dreary
dining room and see what could be done about getting some hot tea there.
It was apparent that the stupid and slatternly girl who had been serving
him could not be depended upon for prompt service—and he was beginning
to suffer from the cold.
When he had decided that he should wait no longer, there came a knock at
the door. He opened it—and stared! For instead of the peasant girl who
had been serving him since his arrival at the hotel, there was a tall
young woman with a beautiful face—a patrician face, the face of a woman
of noble lineage! And he was startled, though he was too well trained in
his business to reveal his amazement to her. Still, he paused for an
instant, not sure that she had not mistaken the room and had not come in
response to his ringing. He looked at her over the top of the big brass
samovar which she bore on a tray before her, and her keenly intelligent
blue eyes met his with a self-possessed and frank gaze. He half expected
her to mutter some apology and go away. Instead, she stood gazing at
him, waiting for him to make way for her, and the trace of a smile came
into her eyes, as if she felt like saying to him, “Here is your samovar!
How do you expect to get it if you stand all morning in the doorway?”
Peter bowed slightly, and said good-morning with an effort to be casual.
In the second which he had stood stock still looking at her, a suspicion
had crossed his mind—this well-born woman had not taken the place of his
unkempt serving girl without good reason. It was quite possible, and
quite in the Russian style, to send an attractive woman to serve him and
spy upon him. Very well! He decided that he should play a little at that
game himself.
“Good-morning, master,” Katerin replied modestly, and came through the
door when Peter stepped aside to admit her. She smiled as a matter of
duty, and went about her business of placing the samovar and the
breakfast things on the table.
Peter went before the big mirror on the wall between the windows and
pretended to be combing his hair. He wished to conceal from the new
samovar girl his close observation of her, and he could watch her image
in the mirror without appearing to pay any special attention to her.
Katerin wore her old black dress. Peter knew at once that it was not a
cast-off garment such as might be given to a serving girl by a woman of
the upper class—it was obviously her own garment, cut and made
especially for her. Though the material was old, he knew it for fine
stuff, probably imported. A real American might have been deceived into
the belief that this woman was nothing but a servant; Peter, however,
knew that such a delicate face, such fine features, such a carriage of a
proud head were to be found only among the nobility of his native
country. If she had been sent to watch him, he knew that whoever had
sent her could not know that he was a native Russian—it was presumed
that he was an American so unfamiliar with Russia as to be easily
misled.
He smiled as he watched her. She handled the crude dishes as if they
were of the most fragile china or of fine glass. She put down the heavy
blue sugar-urn gently; she transferred the tea-glass, which was made
from the bottom of a bottle, from the tray to the table with infinite
care. She laid out the old brass spoon beside the heavy plate on the
dingy cloth as if instead of being brass it were of the finest silver.
He noted her hands. The fingers were slender—and clean. The nails were
polished. Her black hair, braided down her back and tied with a bit of
velvet black ribbon, had a sheen which indicated the care which had been
given to it. And the low collar of her gown revealed the fine texture of
her skin.
Having arranged the dishes on the table, Katerin stood with her back to
Peter, hands on hips and watching the teapot atop the samovar. This was
all in startling contrast to the abrupt manner of the other girl, who
had dumped the things down upon the table and departed. This new girl
seemed suspiciously solicitous about the comfort of the American—and was
possessed of plenty of time for lingering in the rooms of guests!
Peter walked to the table, and sat down with his back to the window. She
remained standing before the samovar in thoughtful attitude,
disregarding him. He saw that her face showed traces of strain—a pallor
which was not natural to her skin and a gauntness about her eyes which
gave her a sad and melancholy expression. Presently she picked up the
blue sugar-urn as if to put it better within his reach.
“Ah!” said Peter, rubbing his hands and smiling up at her. “On cold
mornings like this one the song of the samovar makes pretty music in our
ears!”
It was an old saying of his father’s—and Peter spoke the Russian words
with casual rapidity, for he wanted to see what she would think of
him—an American who spoke Russian as only one born under the Czar could
speak it.
The sugar-urn slipped from Katerin’s fingers and crashed down upon the
metal tray, spilling the sugar. And he heard her give a startled gasp. A
look of utter astonishment came into her face and she gave him a
frightened stare. The Russian words had put her into a swift panic—she
was more than astonished—she was actually alarmed at hearing her own
language flow so freely from the lips of a man she supposed to be an
American.
“Have I frightened you?” he asked, looking at her with feigned concern,
and speaking gently. “Do you fear the sound of your own language?”
“You are Russian,” she said simply, but with the faintest trace of a
question in the words.
“Oh, no, I am an American,” he replied easily. “True, I am of Russian
blood.” He smiled at her, and she looked away from him swiftly, renewing
her efforts to save the sugar which had been spilled from being wet in
the bottom of the tray. He saw her fine white skin show a sudden flush
of color that rose from her throat and mounted slowly to her cheeks,
tinting the pale skin under her eyes. He thought now that she was more
beautiful than he had at first realized.
“Is it because I am Russian that you show fear?” he went on.
She tossed her head a trifle, as if in defiance. “I do not fear you,”
she said lightly, and gave him a shy smile.
“I would be sorry if you did.”
“It is very pleasant—that we may speak to each other and understand. I
was surprised—yes. Now, there is your sugar, and I must go.”
“No, please!” he objected as she turned as if to go to the door.
“Everybody is surprised to hear the American officer speak real Russian,
but no one stops to talk with me—and I am hungry for talk—talk in
Russian. I have only just come, and the other girl would say only, ‘Yes,
master’ and ‘No, master,’ and run away frightened, just as you are about
to do.”
“But I am not frightened,” she said, pretending to bother with the
teapot on the top of the samovar.
“But just now, at hearing your own language, you dropped the sugar dish.
Is it not true?”
Peter was joking her now in an effort to get on friendly terms with her.
But she still appeared a bit distrait, as if she had not yet recovered
from the shock of hearing a foreigner speaking the Czar’s Russian.
“Yes, I was startled,” admitted Katerin, and now smiled at him frankly,
though she gave him a searching look—the silver bars on his shoulders,
the buttons of his blouse, the circle of brown tape at the cuffs of his
tunic. “And you would be surprised, American, if a samovar girl should
speak to you in perfect English.”
“Probably I should,” said Peter. “As it was, you surprised me this
morning—I was expecting the other girl to come.”
She said nothing to that. She realized now that it would be foolish to
expect him to think of her as of the servant class, and had already
given up all ideas of making a pretense.
And as for Peter, he was beginning to abandon his theory that she was a
spy. There was probably some other reason for her being a servant. He
was chiefly concerned now with making her a friend, for the thought
crossed his mind that this girl might be able to give him information
about Kirsakoff, though the subject of the former Governor would have to
be approached with great caution.
“The other girl could not come this morning,” she said. “But I shall not
always bring your samovar—my work is on the other floors.”
“I hope you will, though it is too bad that you have to work as a
samovar girl.” This was direct angling for enlightenment as to why she
was serving as a samovar girl—he wanted to give her a chance to set
herself right with him. If she did happen to be a spy, it would make it
easy for her to improvise a history for herself and so find it easy to
talk with him and deflect his suspicions—if she thought he was
suspicious of her true status. He knew it was quite possible that she
was a refugee who had turned “worker” for protection against the wrath
of the masses toward the wealthy.
“People once rich are now poor,” said Katerin, and looked at him
significantly. She was hoping that he might take this hint, and by a
closer scrutiny, recognize her as Kirsakoff’s daughter. In that case, he
would make it known to her that he had come from friends to find her and
her father. But, as a matter of fact, Peter had forgotten that Kirsakoff
had a daughter—except for a little girl.
“And it is necessary now that you work?” he asked.
“It is most necessary. I must have food and shelter by some method.”
“You are working here—as a samovar girl—for food and shelter? Is it as
bad as that with you?”
“Why not I as well as others?” she asked simply, with a shrug of her
shoulders. “And others have fared worse. What better could I do while I
wait—for friends—to send help to me—and my people?”
Once more she gave him that steady gaze which she thought would add
meaning to her words, but though his face was serious, not a glimmer of
understanding did she see in his eyes. She thought it strange that if he
had been sent to rescue her father and herself he could not grasp the
meaning behind her words and her glances. Surely, he would have been
shown a picture of her, or have a description of her from friends which
would cause him to recognize the daughter of Michael Kirsakoff easily.
There were not so many young women of her age, education, and appearance
in Chita, she knew.
She turned her eyes from his, and colored again, embarrassed by having
looked so long and steadily into the eyes of a stranger. She drew him a
glass full of hot water from the samovar for a fresh glass of tea and by
this means covered her sense of having appeared too bold with a strange
man.
“So you are waiting for help to come to you, eh?” asked Peter. He pitied
her—yet he was still reserving his judgment about her. It was possible
that her story was only to mislead him as to her real motive in bringing
the samovar to his room.
Katerin smiled sadly. “Yes, I wait for a chance to get away from the
city. We have sent letters to friends in Harbin and in Vladivostok—weeks
ago, months ago. We are not sure that they got the letters, for we have
had no answer. Yet we hope some one will come to help us. Perhaps—_they
will send some one to us_,” she added with special significance and
looked at him again with intent eyes.
Peter was puzzled now. He saw that she was trying to make him understand
something without putting it into words—it might be that she was seeking
to learn for some other person what his object was in coming to Chita.
Or he had been mistaken for some other person who was expected.
“Why do you not go to Vladivostok yourself?” he asked, evading saying
anything that bore upon what he was thinking. “The trains are running.
Is it lack of money that prevents you from going?”
“No, not money,” she said, and then with a glance at the door, she
lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “Do you not know about the Ataman
Zorogoff who is in this city?”
“Yes, I have heard of him. I hope to know more about him. The Americans
want to help the people. Perhaps you will tell me about Zorogoff.”
Peter thought that was enough for him to say about Zorogoff. He did not
care to commit himself on the subject of the Ataman—did not wish to
betray any antagonism toward the Mongol ruler. The Ataman was a man to
be wary about, and Peter had no intention of taking this girl into his
confidence as to where he might stand in any matter which involved
Zorogoff.
Katerin suddenly clenched her hands. “Do the Americans think they can
help us if they remain in Vladivostok?” she demanded with passion. Then
she lapsed back into her easy manner as suddenly as she had blurted out
her feelings, and turned as if she would go.
“Please wait!” he commanded. “This is something that it would be well
for me to know.” Then dropping his voice as she paused and looked back
at him over her shoulder, he went on, “You mean that the people are
oppressed by the Ataman Zorogoff?”
She returned and stood before the samovar, as if settling in her mind
what her answer should be.
“I think I had better not talk about the Ataman,” she said finally. “He
is not a safe subject for discussion by a poor and helpless samovar
girl.”
“Tell me,” he urged, bending forward and speaking confidentially, “are
you in danger from the Ataman?”
She gave him that quick look again, as if she were not quite sure that
he could be trusted. “It is better for me not to talk of the Ataman—but
I am a samovar girl here for my own safety—till some one comes for
me—_and my father_.”
Once more he understood that he was to get some meaning from her words.
He noticed that a sudden change had come over her—there was a softer
look in her eyes, as if she had abandoned all thought of using any
artifice with him and was on the verge of giving him her confidence. Her
eyes seemed to burn with a kindlier light for him.
Peter was right about Katerin. She was at that time strongly tempted to
tell him who she was. She watched him with a quivering expectancy,
waiting for him to whisper to her that he was the man who had been sent
by her friends to find her and Michael Kirsakoff. But when he said
nothing and observed her without any sign that he had comprehended her
meaning in words or looks, she felt a fear that perhaps she had gone too
far in her attempts to enlighten him as to her identity.
“Do you live here—in Chita?” he asked. It was in his mind that this was
a good time to test her as to whether she might have any knowledge of
Kirsakoff. He realized that if she had her home in Chita, she was of the
class who would know the former Governor.
Katerin’s lips moved as if to reply, but she did not speak. She had
recovered her caution. She wanted to evade the answer, for once more she
had built up a mental resistance against him and was beginning to be
afraid. She realized that if she pretended to be a stranger in the city
she would defeat his purpose if he had really come from friends, by
misleading him. If she told him that she was a stranger in the city he
would be thrown entirely off the track and never suspect that she was
Katerin Stephanovna Kirsakoff.
“I have been in Chita long enough to know it well,” she said. “And I
have been here long enough to be willing to go, too.”
“Then you have friends here,” he said. “You must know many of the
people—the wealthy people, that is.”
“They are almost all gone—or dead. Most of them are in Vladivostok, or
in hiding here. But we cannot get away now—it is impossible for us to
leave by ourselves. We wait for our friends—_to send us help_.” That
should be plain enough for him, she thought.
“How would they send help?” he asked. “You mean that they would send
soldiers?”
“Perhaps they would send a man who would be able to take us away from
the city—they might even send a—foreigner. A man Zorogoff would not dare
to hinder from going with us.”
Peter now had full understanding of her searching looks, her broad hints
about help, and her surprise at finding that he spoke perfect Russian
though supposed to be an American. Also, he saw her reason for coming to
him as a samovar girl—unless she was really a spy delving into his
object for being in the city.
“I am sorry I have been so stupid,” he said. “You must think I am a
fool—but I am not a messenger sent by your friends.”
Katerin was standing at the far end of the table from him, close by the
door. He saw her turn pale, either with sudden fear of him, or great
disappointment that she had revealed to him that she was expecting a
messenger. She was calm enough, but he saw that his admission that he
was not the expected messenger, chilled her with some unaccountable
terror.
It was this that had terrified Katerin: This American now denied that he
was seeking her father—but where had Ilya gotten the word that an
American was hunting for Michael Kirsakoff? And this American was really
a Russian! Could it be that instead of being a friend, or from friends,
he was in reality an enemy? What could this man want with her father?
she asked herself. He could not have come from friends, else he would
have easily recognized her. And if he had asked Rimsky for the
whereabouts of Michael Kirsakoff and was willing that the old
cigarette-seller and Ilya Andreitch the pig-killing _moujik_ should know
that he was seeking Kirsakoff, why was he not willing that she should
know of his quest? She saw that he was willing to ally himself with
peasants but withheld the object of his coming to the city from
aristocrats. She saw that she had failed in misleading him as to her
class. He gave his secrets to peasants—thus he must be an enemy to her
father and herself!
She laughed suddenly, as if all that had passed between them had been a
joke. She must change her tactics and get his secret. She must not
arouse his suspicions as to her identity now, but baffle him in every
way, for if he were not a friend he must be a new menace to her and her
father.
“Of course you are not the messenger,” she said, and returning to the
samovar, took down the teapot, shook it swingingly and looked into it.
Her face was flushed again under the excitement of what she had
discovered about him. “Come! Have another glass of tea,
please—_master!_” She gave a joking twist to the last word, and threw
back her head and laughed gayly.
“But it is too bad if you have been expecting a messenger,” said Peter.
“Oh, it is nothing. Everybody in Siberia is waiting to hear from
friends! You Americans! You are too serious about everything—what does
it matter if you be not the man?”
But Peter _was_ serious. He almost wished now that he had led her to
believe that he was a messenger. For he was afraid that she would go
away and he would see her no more. He wanted to see her again and again,
and in time bring their conversation to the subject of the former
governor and get from her some information as to where he might look for
Kirsakoff.
“Is it true that you are in danger?” he asked. “That you must get away
from the city?”
“We are all in danger here,” she retorted. “Trust no one—the city is
full of spies, and you must be careful what you say—even what you say to
me.”
“But I think I could trust you,” he said conciliatingly.
“Please don’t trust me. I would rather not have any secrets. The
greatest danger in this city is in having a secret which some person
wants. I prefer to know nothing and be safe.”
“Perhaps I could be of help to you,” said Peter, having an idea that by
offering protection he could gain her confidence and learn from her
where Kirsakoff might be found. “I am an American officer, and if I
should employ you for my government no one would dare threaten your
safety.”
“Perhaps you could help me,” she said thoughtfully. “But I know little
about you—what part of Russia are you from?”
Peter hesitated. It would not do to tell her he had been a boy in Chita
for that news would start gossip, and he would be under suspicion at
once if Kirsakoff were killed. He drank some tea before he answered the
question.
“Oh, I have not been in Russia for years—I left Kiev when I was a boy.
Come! What is your name? We must be friends if we are going to go into
these matters.”
“What is your name?” she countered.
“Call me Peter—that is my name.”
“Peter! That is no name for a Russian. What are your other names?”
“Peter Petrovitch.”
She laughed at him with a touch of saucy insouciance, and lifted her
shoulders as if she put small faith in the name. “What is your generic
name?”
“Gordon, but I hoped you might call me Peter Petrovitch—it has been many
years since I heard it thus. You make me forget that I am an American,
I, who am Russian.”
She turned toward the door. “I am afraid that I must go now,” she said.
He rose from his chair and moved after her. “But you have not given me
your name.”
“Call me Vashka.”
“But that is no name for a Russian,” he insisted. “The generic name,
please.”
“That will do for now—it is good enough for a samovar girl.” She moved
toward the door, but lingeringly, as if she had other things she would
say but refrained from saying them at this time.
“Ah, but I know you are not really a samovar girl,” he said seriously.
“You are a lady, and I shall be happy to help you and serve you if it is
in my power. Promise that you will come back to me.”
“Perhaps I shall come,” she replied, and smiled over her shoulder at
him. She felt unable to cope with him at this time, knowing that Ilya
had said he sought her father. She knew that before she talked with him
further she must consider the matter and consult with the sagacious
Slipitsky. “You are very kind,” she said, smiled again, and went through
the door.
Peter bowed as she disappeared, looking back at him from the hall as if
fearful that he would run after her and see where she went. But he
closed the door, and stood smiling at himself in the big mirror—smiling
over his thoughts of the amazing samovar girl he had found in Chita!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XV
THE TRAP SHUTS
SLIPITSKY was with Michael when Katerin returned from Peter’s room. The
old Jew was consumed with curiosity about the American, and worried for
the safety of his guests, for he sensed menace in the stranger. Schooled
all his life in the secret intrigues among exiles and living in an
atmosphere of spies and counter spies, he had an astounding mental
perception in devious ways. The fact that Rimsky and Ilya, two peasants,
had knowledge of the American which pointed to some hidden purpose in
his arrival in the city, was proof enough to Slipitsky that something
was seriously wrong. The chasm of caste in Siberia prevents an officer
from dealing with the lower class of peasants—unless he is using them
for an advantage against his own class. To the Russian, an officer comes
from the upper classes, so the idea that Peter could have ever been a
peasant was beyond the comprehension of Slipitsky or Kirsakoff.
Katerin slipped into the room quickly and fastened the bolt of the door.
Slipitsky rose from his chair and turned to her inquiringly, but she put
her finger to her lips for caution. Michael was sitting on the bed. He
saw the trouble in Katerin’s face, and knew that she could not bring the
good news which they had hoped for—that the American had come from
friends.
“What is the word?” whispered Slipitsky. “What says the American?”
“He is a Russian!” said Katerin.
“Holy Saints!” gasped Michael, astounded, and his head began to shake
with excitement.
“Russian!” exclaimed Slipitsky, looking at Katerin as if what she had
said exceeded all probability. “How could he be a Russian? Is it that he
has come to my house dressed as an American and is really a spy?”
“All I know is that he speaks the Czar’s Russian,” said Katerin. “He has
not come from friends,” and then she went on and hastily told them how
she had given Peter every hint that she dared, so that he might
understand who she was, and that he had denied being sent to Chita to
help anybody.
“Then that fool of an Ilya was lying!” said Michael wrathfully. “He has
made fools of us! We came here expecting to find a dove and we have
found a hawk. Ilya had sand in his brains! It was all done to fool us
and get money! An American who is a Russian—what good can he do us?”
“Hah! A riddle!” said the Jew, and he rubbed his hands and drew himself
a fresh glass of tea. “Now we must consider what it all means,
Excellence! The rope is tangled and we must find the end of it!”
Michael sat for a few minutes with his eyes screwed up against the light
from the window, his wrinkled old face twitching nervously. Presently he
got up and began to pace the floor in his stockinged feet, hands behind
his back, his shoulders bent forward in dejection. His weak knees bent
beneath him as he shuffled about. His body quivered with excitement and
his eyes glowed as if he were racked by a fever.
Katerin sat down by Slipitsky, and stared at the floor in reflection,
seeking to piece together in her mind again the whole time of her visit
to Peter and to gauge the value of what both of them had said. If only
Ilya were still alive and could be questioned as to how he had learned
that the American wanted to find her father!
“He knew at once that I was not of the servant class,” said Katerin.
“Only a Russian could do that,” mused Slipitsky. “It is all very
strange,” and he wagged his head slowly and thoughtfully as he puzzled
over it. “Did he tell you why he had come to Chita at all?—did he say
nothing of his mission to this place?”
“Nothing. Yet if Ilya spoke the truth, Rimsky was told why the American
had come. Why does he trust a _moujik_ and hide his purpose from me?”
“It would not be wise to have too many in the secret,” said the Jew. “He
knew you were not what you pretended to be, and was careful. The man who
rides a tiger cannot get off, and this Peter Petrovitch from Kiev is not
too trusting. I give him credit for that, though we would like to know
his business.”
“He is an enemy!” declared Michael.
“Then we shall know in good time,” said the Jew. “An awl cannot be
hidden in a sack.”
“A Russian from America—the worst of all,” said Michael into Slipitsky’s
ear, as the old general came and hung over the Jew’s chair. “They come
back here from America with their accursed ideas of liberty! And what do
they do? Kill the Czar and ruin the country—turn it over to the Mongols!
Old friend, we have an enemy on our hands who is a greater danger than
the Ataman. And we have brought trouble to you and your house.”
“We are all in the same boat, Excellence. If we lose our wits, we are
lost. I am no worse for your coming, and you are no worse. The thing to
do is to weigh and consider—and in time settle with this fellow who
calls himself an American officer but hunts with peasants.”
Katerin was discouraged. She had set her hopes on the American’s coming
to solve their problems and relieve them of the danger from the Ataman.
But now they were involved in a new puzzle, and could not see their way
out of it. For more than two years she and her father had managed to
save themselves, but now it seemed that all their bravery, all their
devices and stratagems had but pushed them further into a trap. Life had
become an intolerable nightmare, and the trifles of daily existence had
become a burden. It seemed easier to die than to go on with the struggle
against the madness which had come over their world.
Michael went roaming about the room again while Katerin and Slipitsky
sat in thought. He gazed abstractedly at the furniture, as if he
expected to find in it some astounding quality which he had never
noticed before. After he had walked about in this way for several
minutes, he returned to his position between the chairs of his daughter
and the old Jew, and leaning down between them, whispered, “We must rid
ourselves of this man! We cannot live here under his nose and wait for
him to strike. He is a Russian hunting me. That is no new thing—but it
proves he wants me for no good. We must poison him!”
“No, no!” said Katerin, taking her father’s arm and pulling him toward
her. “We cannot kill a man just because Ilya said Rimsky told him the
stranger was seeking you—we must learn from Rimsky what we can, as much
of the truth as we can get.”
“I say that, also,” declared Slipitsky. “It must be done. I shall send
for Rimsky and question him so that he will not know the reason for my
questions.”
“What! You will let Rimsky know that we are here?” asked Michael,
alarmed at the idea.
“No, Excellence. But I can comb him for what he knows. A few drinks of
wine and he will be as putty in my hands. You must trust to me to solve
this riddle.”
“Then it is well,” said Michael. “But I am resolved upon one thing—we
must do away with this American, no matter what Rimsky says.”
“I shall send for Rimsky at once,” said the Jew, rising and going to the
door. “Be careful till I have had a talk with the old liar.” And with a
gesture of caution, Slipitsky drew the bolt and disappeared in the hall.
Katerin secured the bolt, and sat down again, her hands clenched in her
lap. She felt that she was at the end of her resistance. Yet she went on
trying to think of some way in which to learn from Peter the truth of
why he had come to Chita. There was no reason to fear him, so long as he
did not know who she was. And there was a chance that the talk that he
had come for her father was all foolishness, or a shrewd scheme to play
upon the fears of herself and her father and gain money. In that case,
she saw that the American might be a protection—that he might take them
from the city.
“I shall go back to him and talk,” she said to her father.
“You shall go back to poison his samovar,” said Michael. “I have a
feeling that this man knows already who you are, and is blinding your
eyes. You must end his life!”
“Would you have me murder an innocent man on the word of Ilya?” she
asked, making talk now only to keep her father’s mind engaged and
prevent him from the despondency which threatened him.
“This man is an enemy!” insisted Michael. “We cannot risk such a menace.
We have trouble enough with the Ataman, and I speak only for your own
safety. Oh, Katerin Stephanovna! I care nothing for my own life! It is
you I would save. I would sell the days I have left to live if they
could be turned into years for you, my daughter. I would die this
minute, if I could loan you life!”
The old general put his hand on her head and caressed her gently, his
eyes full of tears and his body shaking with his sorrow for her.
“I know, little father,” she whispered, taking his hands in hers and
kissing the withered skin. “But your life is dear to me—so dear that I
would do as you say to save you to me. But I cannot believe that this
young man intends to harm us. He is a Russian, true enough, but have you
lost faith in all of our people? And this Peter Petrovitch appears to be
kind and gentle. You and Slipitsky think in the old ways—only the old
thoughts of violence and death. This man has been to America and he may
not be an enemy at all. But if it is true that he is seeking you out for
evil, then we must be sure of that before we do anything against him.”
“And how are you to find it out? Can you go to him and tell him that I
am in the next room and ask him what he seeks me for? Do you forget that
he is using peasants to trace me?”
“I shall learn his secret,” declared Katerin. “A woman has her own ways
for such things—if he hunts you, he shall first tell me, and the why of
it.”
“Ah, you women trust too much,” said her father. “This is a matter in
which no time must be lost with wiles. We must know before the Ataman
finds——”
“I, too, think of the Ataman,” put in Katerin. “What if the American,
though an enemy, should protect us from the Ataman?”
Michael gave her an incredulous stare. “Impossible!” he said.
“But it is not impossible,” insisted Katerin, who already had the
inspiration of a sudden way out of the difficulty. “What if I should
tell this American that I am seeking Michael Alexandrovitch? Would he
not confide in me then? And if both of us are seeking you, it is not
likely that he will keep his secret from me—especially if I should admit
to him that I plan to have your life.”
Michael sat down upon the bed, speechless for a moment at the boldness
of the plan.
“Holy Saints!” he whispered after a minute. “You would do that, Katerin
Stephanovna? That is something worthy of the best of the Czar’s police!
Ah, but you will be playing with fire—you will need your wits at every
instant.”
“True, I shall need my wits,” said Katerin. “I am willing to play with
fire, and match my wits against the stranger. And when I learn what I
want—then we shall need our wits all the more.”
“I am old and my head is addled,” said Michael. “Sometimes I think I
must be going mad—here I am, who was governor, hiding in my own city,
helpless and with——”
There came a cautious knock at the door. Katerin went to it, and heard
Slipitsky’s voice outside. She let him in—and with him was Wassili!
“You stupid one!” exclaimed Michael at sight of the old _moujik_. “Why
have you come here? The Ataman will——”
Slipitsky made frantic signals for quiet, and when he had shot the bolt
behind him, threw up his hands in an attitude of resignation.
Wassili was wrapped to the eyes against the cold, and stood dumbly
waiting till he should be asked what he had come for.
“This is the last of us!” whispered the Jew. “We shall all be killed
now! Zorogoff has been to your house, Excellence—and he told Wassili
where you were—here in my house—the floor and the room! So poor Wassili
has run away with the warning that you are discovered.”
Michael’s head sank upon his breast, as if he now submitted to fate.
“We must go at once!” said Katerin. “We cannot let you draw the wrath of
the Ataman because you are hiding us, our friend! We shall prepare to go
at once!”
“Go!” said the Jew. “You shall not till I am dead! We can all die
together, mistress. Let the Ataman come, I say, and may he die with ten
thousand devils dancing before his eyes!”
“Truth! Let him come,” said Michael. “You are here, Wassili, now stay
with us. Let Zorogoff come, and by the Holy Saints he or I shall be
carried out of the place on a board!”
“And perhaps the American will be glad to meet the Ataman, eh?” said
Slipitsky. “We may as well bring him to the test, now that the Ataman
knows where you are. We are riding a tiger, and we may as well pull his
ears!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XVI
KATERIN’S STRATAGEM
PETER found himself enmeshed in a maze of conjecture about Vashka. He
knew that she was not a samovar girl, yet it was quite possible that she
had been compelled to become one for her own safety. But whatever her
purpose might be, it was apparent to him that she had expected to find
in him a messenger—and that the expected messenger would be an American
officer.
As Peter studied the matter, he saw that she would not know the expected
messenger by sight, but would have to submit him to some test. It was
plain enough that she had been greatly disappointed in Peter, for he had
seen in her face signs of actual terror when she realized that she had
blundered with him.
It was the possibility that some other American officer was expected in
the city which worried Peter. Such an event might well interfere with
his plans for killing Kirsakoff. Peter did not want it known to the
American army that he had stopped in Chita—at least, only casually. He
did not want his presence in the city, nor the time, established too
well. He hoped to flit away to Irkutsk and report himself there without
any mention of having been in Chita. Then he could come back, report
himself in Chita and go on to some other city. In this way he wanted to
establish the fact that he had been in Chita, but make it appear that
his time in the city had been after Kirsakoff had been killed rather
than during the period of the former Governor’s death.
But it might take Peter a week or more to find Kirsakoff, and then it
would take time to work out the details of the affair in such a way that
there would not be the slightest indication that the American officer
who had been staying at the hotel had had anything to do with it. But
another American officer in the city would complicate the business. The
newcomer would expect to keep in close touch with Peter, and would
probably expect to share his room—and the stranger might have a
Russian-speaking orderly with him. And that would mean that Peter’s
facility with the language would be discovered, his request to be sent
over into Trans-Baikailia would become significant, the leaving of the
orderly at Nikolsk would build up a chain of circumstantial evidence.
All that might be awkward for Peter if some slight trifle connected
Peter with the killing of Kirsakoff.
Peter wondered if he would see Vashka again. It seemed a remote
possibility that she would return. Why should she? She knew now that he
was not a messenger, and to visit Peter again could do her no good and
might reveal to him the line on which she was working. There was a
slight chance that she might be in the American service, but he
dismissed that thought, for she had given him no sign that she was a
member of the military secret service. His mind being occupied along a
certain channel, he had no basis on which to begin to analyze the aims
of Vashka. The key to the solution of the problem, for him, was old
Rimsky. But that Rimsky was in any way concerned with the visit from
Vashka, was as remote from Peter’s mind as would be a suggestion that
the samovar girl was the little daughter of Kirsakoff. That little girl
still lived in Peter’s memory as a child sitting in a sledge the morning
Peter’s father had been killed. His mind held that picture—held it
without change. It was a picture which did not take cognizance of the
passage of years, a butterfly caught in amber, say, through the ages.
If Vashka did not return, Peter resolved that he would go out and try
his hand again with Rimsky. The old cigarette-seller might be induced to
tell something which would afford a clew of the whereabouts of
Kirsakoff. And it might be wise to loaf in the restaurant of the old
post-house, and strike up an acquaintance with anybody who would talk.
There was no time to be lost, if Peter was to find Kirsakoff and get
about the business which had brought him back to the Valley of Despair.
When noon came, he rang for a samovar. Before long he heard some one
moving in the hall, and after a short interval, there came a gentle
tapping at his door.
“Come!” he called, and turned his head. “Vashka” entered with the
samovar, pushing the door open before her with the forward end of the
metal tray.
“Oh, I am sorry,” he said, rising from his chair. “I did not expect to
see you—I thought the other girl would come.”
She smiled at him, quite gay and playful now, with a trace of coyness in
her manner. She seemed amused at him because he had not expected her to
return.
“Would you feel sad if I never came back? Would you miss me so much?”
“Of course I would miss you,” he replied, not sure what else would be
safe to say. He would have preferred some light pleasantry which would
answer her more in keeping with her mood, but he was afraid that she
might resent gayety on his part, even though she affected it herself.
“Then I may presume to say that I am the favorite samovar girl of the
American.”
“And it would not be presumption at all,” he said.
He moved and closed the door after her, while she busied herself at the
table with the samovar. He had a mind for an instant to lock the door
and to demand that she give an explanation of herself and her reason for
coming to him in the guise of a servant. But he smiled at his own
Russianism—his impulse to do the dramatic thing. He decided to draw her
out in a more careful manner. One thing he was determined upon—to
settle, as far as possible, her motives in playing servant.
“How long since you have seen Zorogoff?” he asked, going close to her
and standing so that the light from the window fell across her face.
“I? Why, not so long ago.” She looked at him with curiosity as to why he
had asked the question.
“Have you seen him since you were here?”
She laughed lightly. “If I had, it is quite likely that I would not have
come back.”
“Then I’m glad you did not see the Ataman. And please don’t see him, if
it is going to mean that you will come no more.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what you mean—but it appears that
there is an implied compliment. Do you mean it as a compliment?”
“What other things could I mean?”
“You might mean many things.” She shrank away from him now the least
bit, as if she distrusted him.
Peter sat down in the chair at the end of the table.
“And what might I mean, for one thing?” he asked with a quick glance at
her.
“You—you might mean—that you are suspicious of me, and that would make
me feel sad.”
She stood, as if half intending to flee from the room, and observing him
in wonderment.
“Suspicious! Why should you be under suspicion?”
“Everybody is under suspicion—no one trusts another here,” she replied.
“No doubt you have suspicions of me—because I speak Russian,” he
countered.
“I am not sure of you,” she said frankly. “What have I but your coat to
prove that you are an American officer?”
“You have no more than I have to prove that you are a samovar girl. Oh,
come now! Let us not play with words! What did Zorogoff say when he
learned that the American officer speaks good Russian?”
She straightened up suddenly and her body seemed to grow rigid. He heard
the hiss of her breath, and then an hysterical laugh came gurgling from
her lips.
“So that is it!” she cried. “You think I am a spy for Zorogoff!”
There was no mistaking the revulsion which she felt. Peter knew now that
she was sincere.
“I don’t think so now,” he said. “But if I trust you, I must know that
you are not a spy. You know that I am not the messenger you are waiting
for, yet you have come back to me. I am glad that you came—but why?”
“Because death threatens me,” she replied. “And Zorogoff is my danger. I
seek your help.” She uttered the words in a low monotone, but with an
intensity of feeling which startled Peter. He got up and went to the
door quickly and turned the big brass key in the lock—and pocketed the
key.
“Does that mean I am your prisoner?” she demanded. But there was no fear
in her.
“Sit down, please,” said Peter gently, ignoring her question. He made a
gesture toward the chair at the end of the table opposite his own.
Katerin—“Vashka”—obeyed, willingly, it appeared. But her readiness to
obey was not so much submission to his will as he supposed. She knew now
that Peter had come seeking her father, though the reason was still a
mystery. She was determined to solve the mystery and learn his secret.
Slipitsky had gone to Rimsky shortly after Wassili arrived at the hotel
with the news that Zorogoff knew where the Kirsakoffs were hiding. The
old cigarette-seller, alarmed by the fate which had overtaken Ilya, went
into a panic of fear when Slipitsky charged him with knowledge of the
American officer’s purpose in coming to Chita.
The Jew charged Rimsky with knowing more than Rimsky did—and Rimsky
lied. He attempted to put the burden of the affair on Peter. Ilya was
dead, so Rimsky felt safe in lying. And, in fact, he did not know
exactly what he had said to Ilya over the vodka. So to clear his own
skirts, Rimsky made the flat statement that the American had asked
directly where Kirsakoff might be found. It was a lie—yet it was the
truth in so far as Peter’s purpose was concerned.
Thus the story of Ilya was verified. Katerin and her father knew Peter
sought them. And Katerin had been tempted to reply to Peter’s demand as
to why she had returned to his room, by demanding why he had come to
Chita. She refrained because she did not expect that Peter would tell
her the truth in case he was an enemy. She intended to get at the secret
by more devious methods.
“Now, you must trust me,” he began, in tones barely audible to her. “You
have already told me that you are in danger from Zorogoff—which
indicates that you do trust me to some extent. Why do you fear
Zorogoff?”
“Because he has already threatened me with death—and worse,” she
replied, calmly. “He is half Mongol. I do not fear death itself, because
if he should take me from this place, I have poison——” She slipped back
the cuff of her sleeve, and showed Peter two white capsules held in the
hem of the cloth by thread sewn in loosely.
“So that is it!” said Peter, looking into her eyes and seeing the truth
in them. His face began slowly to change from an expression of startled
comprehension of her plight, to anger; he drew his lips back upon his
teeth, and the rising anger glittered in his eyes. “The Mongol dog!” he
whispered. “Can he dare—with a Russian woman—a woman like you!”
He saw relief from strain come into her face, and she clasped her hands
together in a quick gesture of joy at his understanding and sympathy.
“So that is why I came back here to you. You were a Russian, and I knew
you would understand—and an American officer.”
He took her hands and kissed them, with head bowed, after the Russian
fashion, as an act of fealty and respect.
“I don’t know what I can do,” he said after a minute. “But I do know
that if Zorogoff dares touch you, I shall stand in his way. True, I am a
Russian—as this Mongol shall learn.”
“Thank you,” she said simply, withdrawing her hands. “You cannot fight
an army, and Zorogoff has many men to do his bidding. You would be
helpless against him. He is not a man to allow a single American to
thwart him.”
“I do not fear him,” said Peter. “I doubt if he would dare kill an
American officer.”
She smiled at his belief that Zorogoff could be checked by any fear of
the American army.
“Who would know who killed you, or when?” she asked. “No, you must not
risk your life for me. Zorogoff’s hand would not be known if you were
destroyed—and I would not be any the better.”
“Does he know you are here—in this hotel?”
“Yes, he has traced me. The city is full of his spies, and there is a
Russian behind his power—a Russian of the old régime who is advising
Zorogoff.”
“Who?” asked Peter.
“Oh, you would not know him,” she said, with a shrug of her shoulders.
“I fear him more than Zorogoff, for I know that that this Russian is a
part of Zorogoff’s government.”
“But I should know,” insisted Peter. “If I am to help you, I should know
all the facts in the case, so that I may inform my superiors. Who is
this Russian?”
“He was a Governor here in the old days—before the revolution.”
Peter leaned forward across the table, keenly alert, though he attempted
to conceal his interest. “A Governor of the old days,” he said slowly
and softly, so that the sentence was akin to a caress. “That is
interesting. I wish you might tell me his name.”
She brushed her hand across her brow. “It is a dangerous secret,” she
warned.
He laughed lightly. “Dangerous secrets are my business,” he said.
“Learning them—and sometimes keeping them.”
“As I am in great danger because of having this secret, you also would
be in great danger from Zorogoff if you had it. Remember, I caution
you—Zorogoff will do all in his power to prevent you from escaping Chita
if he learns that you know who is behind him and his government.”
“I accept the danger,” said Peter. “Come—we shall be in danger together!
What is the name of this former governor?”
“General Kirsakoff.” Her eyes held his as she spoke the name. She saw
his eyelids lift swiftly, and heard him draw in his breath slowly. His
hands began to close into fists, and the strong fingers sank into the
palms while the knuckles grew white as the skin was drawn tautly across.
He leaned back in his chair, and the little muscles of his jaws stood
out under the skin of his cheeks as he set his teeth together. And there
crept into his face a look of exultation, of infinite satisfaction—she
saw him thrilled with the joy of the hunter who at last gets sight of
his prey.
Peter turned away from Katerin and glanced at the window, but without
seeing it. His face softened into a smile, and he got up from his chair,
crossed the room, came back, and sat down again before her.
“Tell me more about this Kirsakoff,” he urged. “What is his name?”
“Michael Alexandrovitch,” she said. “He is a man of noble family—of old
boyar stock. He ruled here many years before the revolution.” Katerin
pretended not to notice the smile which was still playing at the corners
of Peter’s mouth—she looked at him casually as he sat down again, but
busied herself making squares and circles on the tablecloth with her
finger.
“Is Kirsakoff in the city—now?” he asked.
“I presume so. He spends most of his time here, but he keeps well
hidden.”
“Do you know where he may be found? Where he lives?”
“It could be easily learned. What would be the good of knowing?”
“It does not matter,” he said. “Still, it might be of use to know. Do
you think you could easily find out whether he is in the city or not?
How would you go about it?”
“My father was an exile here,” said Katerin. “He was transported ten
years ago, and I followed from Moscow and lived in the Street of the
Dames. My father was a political—and he knows too much now about
Kirsakoff for our safety.”
“Then your father is in the city?” asked Peter.
“Here in the hotel with me. We came here and hid against Zorogoff—and
Kirsakoff. That is why I came to you when I heard there was an American
staying here. We knew we could trust you.”
She went on and told him how Zorogoff’s soldiers, and the Ataman
himself, had given her and her father the mental torture with firing
squads; of the threat of the Ataman for revenge upon her for her
insults, and the flight from the house to the hotel when they heard that
an American was at the hotel. But she did not mention Rimsky or Ilya.
“And you have no way of escape from the city?” asked Peter.
“It is impossible,” said Katerin. “Some of our friends got away. But
Zorogoff put the cordons round the city after that, and then Kirsakoff
joined with Zorogoff.”
“What kind of man is this Kirsakoff? What does he look like?” asked
Peter, set upon getting all he could about his enemy.
Katerin looked over Peter’s head, toward the window, and thought for a
second as if recalling the appearance of her father. “He is a tall man,
strong but not heavy,” she said slowly. “A face inclined to redness—and
black mustaches. He is a soldier, of course, and stands very straight.”
“Of course,” said Peter. He recognized the description, for Katerin had
described her father as he had looked when he was in his prime. “Does he
go about the city? Could I recognize him by his uniform?”
He was eager but cautious.
“He might be found at the _sobrania_ late at night,” said Katerin. “But
he will be well guarded. You should be careful in approaching him, for
he has a secret bodyguard, as well as the officers who generally are
drinking wine with him. He does not wear a uniform, but rich furs, and
he wears his pistols out of sight. He does not always dress the same,
for he has been a cruel man, and is much hated by many people.”
“Do you know where he lives?” asked Peter, who was taking care to
conceal his eagerness to get all possible details. He asked his
questions with an assumed indifference.
“No, I cannot say. But I am sure my father knows. But what good would it
do you to know?”
“Not any,” said Peter. “Yet I would like to find this Kirsakoff. Where
is your father?”
“Here—in the hotel,” said Katerin.
“Perhaps it would be as well if I were to ask the Ataman about
Kirsakoff,” said Peter. “Yet I would like to talk with your father, if
he would see me.”
“By all means talk with my father,” said Katerin hastily. “It would be
fatal for you to admit to the Ataman that you had ever heard of
Kirsakoff’s ever being here, or concerned in the government of the
Ataman. That is a secret they will conceal at any cost—and that is why
we are in danger, my father and I.”
“But Zorogoff would not know how I had learned about Kirsakoff. And I
might plead ignorance—I might even test the Ataman by asking him if he
knew where Kirsakoff might be found.”
“I have put my life in your hands,” said Katerin earnestly. “If you
mention Kirsakoff to the Ataman, he will know that you have been talking
with us here in the hotel. And Zorogoff’s soldiers will come for us at
once.”
She rose, rather agitated by Peter’s idea of talking with the Ataman.
The effect upon her was exactly what Peter sought—for he wanted to talk
with her father. If she feared that Peter would go to the Ataman instead
for information, she would make it possible for Peter to learn more of
Kirsakoff and his haunts.
“I do not intend to increase your danger,” said Peter, also rising.
“Have no fear on that score. But I am bound to find Kirsakoff in some
way—unless your father can help me I shall have to make inquiries in my
own way.”
“It can be arranged that you talk with my father,” she said, moving
toward the door. “Is it really necessary that you find Kirsakoff?”
“Not necessary, perhaps,” he said. “But I strongly desire to find him.”
“I—I would like to know the reason.”
“I will tell you that when you tell me where he may be found,” said
Peter with a smile.
She stood for a time looking into his face. He saw that she was pale,
and far more excited than her restrained manner revealed to the casual
glance.
“I will ask my father if he will see you,” she said presently. “He is
very old and ill—he has been shot by sentries—a bullet through both his
cheeks, though he is nearly recovered now from that. He is suspicious of
all strangers, and you must be patient with him.”
“I promise to be patient,” said Peter. “If you will arrange it for me——”
“Ring for the samovar at five,” she said.
Peter held out his hand quickly, as if there were a compact between them
which must be affirmed. She gave him her hand, and he bowed and lifted
it to his lips.
“Vashka,” he whispered, “do you wish to leave this city?”
“If I could take my father with me,” said Katerin, “yes, I would be glad
to escape the dangers here.”
“If your father will tell me where Kirsakoff may be found—I shall take
you both away.”
“Oh, then we shall find Kirsakoff!” she said with a sudden return of her
gay manner. “Please! I am your prisoner here! Allow me to return to my
father!”
Peter unlocked the door, and she smiled over her shoulder at him as she
ran down the hall.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XVII
SETTING THE SNARE
KATERIN returned to her father. She found him sitting by the table
playing a game of solitaire, and he looked up from the patterns of the
cards with blinking, questioning eyes. She did not speak at once, but
her face was eloquent of the surprise and shock she had suffered in her
talk with Peter. She was coldly calm, as if she knew now something of
what was before them, and was ready to meet the issue. A plan had
already formed in her mind, but it was not yet clearly defined and she
wanted time to think and prepare for whatever was necessary.
“What have you learned?” whispered Michael, leaning toward her from his
chair. “I can see that you know much—and I doubt that it is good. Do you
know why this man has come?”
“Yes, I know,” she said, and sat down beside him and drew herself a
glass of tea. Her hands shook for all her resolution not to betray to
her father the fact that once more they were blocked in their hopes of
escape.
Michael waited till she had refreshed herself, and Wassili, who had been
making Michael’s bed and pottering about the room in pretended busyness,
came and stood close to Katerin with anxious face, keen to hear what the
mistress would have to report of her visit to the room of the American.
“Then Rimsky spoke the truth?” pressed Michael. “It is true that the
American came seeking me?” He had already divined it from Katerin’s
manner.
“Yes, Rimsky spoke the truth,” said Katerin slowly, and Wassili crossed
himself and uttered a smothered exclamation of satisfaction.
“And what did the American say?” urged Michael, impatient to have the
whole story. “Come! You hold it back from me! Is his quest evil?”
“He is most eager to find you,” said Katerin, who was reluctant to give
the full story too abruptly. She was trying to devise some way of giving
the facts to her father which would not be too abrupt and alarm him to
rashness. And she wished to have her own plan worked out mentally so
that she might have it to offer against the startling import of what she
had learned from Peter.
“For what purpose?” insisted Michael. His head was beginning to shake
faster, as it always did when he was in an excited frame of mind. He
reached for a cigarette from a tin box, and his hands shook so that he
dropped the tiny tube of tobacco.
“I am not sure yet,” said Katerin. “That is something I have still to
learn. All I know now is that he is not a friend—that he means evil to
you and we must be careful. We must do nothing to stir his suspicions of
who we are, till we have gone to the bottom of what brings him here and
what he hopes to do.”
“We know enough!” said Michael. “He comes for evil—and I shall kill
him!” The old general’s agitation disappeared as if by magic. The scent
of danger steadied him, he thrust his chin out and squared his old
shoulders, sitting back in his chair as if it were all settled now and
all that remained for him to do was to go out into the next room and
kill Peter.
“No, no,” said Katerin hastily. “Nothing must be done too soon! First,
we must learn more about him.”
“He is an enemy, that is enough,” said her father. “Wassili, a match!”
“Yes, he is an enemy,” admitted Katerin. “But we are not in a position
to attack an enemy now; besides, what good would it do us to kill him,
if we do not know anything about him? First, as I said, it is my
business to draw his secret from him.”
Wassili held a flaming match forth to Michael. “Master,” said the
_moujik_, as he applied the flame to the cigarette between Michael’s
lips, “I am quick with the knife—I can strike a good stroke, and no one
will be the wiser, for I can have the body carted into the forest. Then
you and the mistress will be free from his danger.”
“If we do well, we can use this man to protect us from the Ataman,” put
in Katerin. “Though he seems to be a menace, he may in fact be so
twisted to our use that he will be our salvation.”
“A man who is an enemy! Protect us? Are you talking madness, my
daughter, or have my wits become addled by age? I shall not allow a man
who is my enemy to save me even if he would or could. No, no, I say
it—this American—this Russian who calls himself an American—must die.
And no time lost in the matter, let me say!”
“But I say you are wrong, father,” insisted Katerin, putting her hands
on his knees. “If he does not know who we are, what difference does it
make to us or him if he is an enemy. The thing for us to do is to make
friends with him—and fool him into the belief——”
“But he will know me!” protested Michael. “You expect him to talk with
me—even see me—and not know who I am? That would only be putting our
heads into the maw of the lion! I can tell you this, my daughter—I shall
strike first, while the advantage lies with me!”
“Truth!” exclaimed Wassili excitedly. “The master speaks truth! And I am
the one to attend to the task!”
“But he will not know you,” pleaded Katerin. “He thinks of you as you
were years ago, in the days when you were Governor, while now you are an
old man in the rags of a peasant, with——”
“Ah, he will know, he will know! We must not trust to ice so thin! I
shall not turn my horse loose too soon when danger is over the hill. I
may be old, but I have not lost my cunning with my enemies, I hope.”
“You forget that our lives depend upon our deceiving this Peter
Petrovitch, my father.”
“I think our lives depend upon his not seeing me till I am ready to
strike,” argued Michael. “What would our lives be worth if he were to
come in here now and see me? A beggar’s kopeck—the turn of a hand, the
call of a quail in the brush! P-fooh! I know!”
“But we have no time to spare. The Ataman’s men may be at the door at
any minute. Before that we must win this stranger to our side, and
before he can discover who we are, slip away with him to Vladivostok—to
Harbin—to——”
“Vladivostok! You expect an enemy to take us to Vladivostok? To Harbin?
Why, I would sooner, than that——”
“He wants to find you. What if I tell him you may be found in Harbin? Or
Vladivostok?”
Michael thrust aside a cloud of smoke that had gathered before him, and
squinted his eyes at his daughter, as if he really doubted her sanity
now.
“And how could you find me in Vladivostok, when I am here in this
rat-hole in Chita? Truly, my ears hear strange words. They are not worth
a last year’s egg.”
“You do not understand. If this stranger looks to me to help him find
Michael Kirsakoff, and he does not know you for Michael Kirsakoff, what
is to prevent our telling him that we can take him to some other city—to
find you?”
Michael cocked his head to one side and pursed his lips. Then a smile
broke over his face as he began to comprehend.
“We have no time to spare,” pressed Katerin. “It must be done before he
can learn by any mischance who we are. Once we are free of the city, his
chances of discovering our ruse diminish.”
“But how can he take us away, even if what you say is true? The Ataman
would prevent us—he would betray us. There would be some slip—and we
would be in the hands of our enemy, or delivered into the hands of the
Ataman. We double our danger and gain nothing,” objected Michael.
“The Ataman would not dare stop an American officer. We must chance
that. This stranger would give his eyes to find you. Very good, then! We
shall fall in with his desires and turn them to our advantage. We must
take him away under the pretext that he is to find you, then in reality
he will be aiding our escape from the city.”
“Oh, but he would get to know me in time. My voice, my looks, my way of
speaking. If he has ever seen me at all, he will know me. He may have my
description—do not be trapped by him. The wolf knows the color of the
hare he pursues.”
“I told him how you looked——”
“What!” cried Michael. “You told him how I looked and you expect him not
to know me?”
“How you looked twenty years ago, my father. And he did not know the
difference.”
“That was to blind your eyes to his purpose,” said Michael.
“And I shall blind his,” said Katerin, with sudden resolution. “Wassili!
Fetch me the cover of the pillow from the bed! And a knife—with a sharp
edge!”
Wassili, with a puzzled look upon his face, turned away to obey her.
“And what is all this?” demanded Michael. “Am I to be wrapped like a
mummy and put into a bundle? Am I to be carried about with a rope to my
middle like a handle?”
“I shall make sure that the stranger does not recognize you—leave it to
me, and we shall outwit this stranger and come to safety.”
“Then you had better take good pains with it,” said Michael, “for if he
gives the glimmer of an eye that he so much as thinks I look like
myself, I shall kill him!”
“If that must be done, then it must,” admitted Katerin, as she cut the
edges of the pillow and began ripping it into long strips. “But your
face must be hidden from him, for he might see something in you that
would remind him of you in the old days. We must take care against such
betrayal.”
“And what are these rags for?” demanded Michael.
“A bandage about your face to conceal you further.”
“Oh, p-fooh!” said Michael disgustedly. “What nonsense is this, that I
should be wrapped up like a Turk? How the devil am I to talk or breathe
or eat my soup? I’ll have none of it—I, who was a general of majesty!”
“You have had a bullet through both cheeks,” said Katerin. “Come,
please! Hold up your head—these cloths will only keep your teeth warm
against the cold. That is my dear father—and remember, it is to save us.
Better this chance than to sit here and wait till the Ataman sends
Shimilin for us again. Come!” She held up a strip of the cloth.
“Are you going to tie up my face as if I were an old beggar with boils?”
demanded Michael.
“Trust to me, my father. When the lion is stricken he must still roar,
that his enemies will be misled. You have said that to me many times.
Trust to my wits—and we shall see.”
He puzzled over it for a minute, and then threw back his head in
submission. “I shall not stand in the way of your safety,” he said. “I
leave it in your hands. My heart is brave, but the years have put chains
upon my body,” and he sighed wearily.
Without more ado, Katerin wrapped the grizzled old face with the strips
of cotton. They passed over the top of his head and down under his chin.
His eyes, nose, and mouth were clear of the cloths, and his ears stuck
out oddly behind the wrappings. The white hair on his chin gave him a
more aggressive look than usual for his beard was thrust forward by the
bandage. The scant hair on the top of his head stuck up, and wavered as
he moved, like the crest of a bird.
Katerin leaned back and studied him with critical eye when she had
finished.
“It will serve well enough,” she said finally. “If he knows you now, he
would know you in spite of anything we could do. And now listen to my
plan. You have been a political here for the past ten years—and you
hated General Kirsakoff, who was a cruel Governor and——”
Michael gave a snort of wrath and wrested the bandage off over his head
and threw it upon the floor.
“I will have nothing more to do with this madness! I was not cruel—I was
but just! And I shall not blacken my own character! Not an inch shall I
give to my enemies on that score—I, who was a general in the army of
majesty!”
Katerin laughed heartily, and picked up the bandage. She knew better
than to take her father seriously when he was in such temper, and she
also knew that she should gain her end if she were patient with him.
“I only say what the American thinks,” she explained. “If he already
thinks that of you, you do not damage yourself. And what a joke! A joke
that will save us! General Kirsakoff telling how cruel Governor
Kirsakoff was! Would you not fool this stranger now, to laugh at him
after we have lost him in Harbin where we are safe?”
Wassili sneaked away into a corner to laugh discreetly, his shoulders
heaving with suppressed merriment over the wrath of Michael.
“Be still, you, Wassili,” growled the old man, turning to look after the
_moujik_. “By the Saints!” he cried to Katerin. “You see how it is? Am I
to be made into a buffoon for my servants in my old age? Am I to be
turned into an actor in a play, a silly clown of a fellow to make the
country folk giggle into their drink? Am I to forget what figure of a
man I was——”
“You forget my danger,” she chided gently.
“I forget nothing!” he retorted. “It is I who am remembering that I once
was Governor here!”
“Do you remember the Ataman Zorogoff?” she asked, with sober face.
“Yes, and I’ll dance on his grave—but I’ll not have my head wrapped up
like an old woman doing a penance.”
“Very well, then we shall do nothing more, but wait till the Ataman
comes. Then we can take the poison of honor.”
Katerin sat down by the table and threw the loops of the bandage from
her.
Michael looked at her, and an expression of infinite tenderness and love
came over his face. His lips quivered, and he struck several matches
violently without getting a flame. He threw the last one to the floor,
and held out his hands to her.
“Forgive me, Katerin Stephanovna—I did forget. But now I remember, and I
see what you are striving to do. It is true, what you say, and we must
play with this American. And if we take good care, it may all come out
as you say—it will be a way out of our danger and our troubles. Come,
please! Put on the rags, and I shall be the best old exile ever was
seen, one who is fleeing from the wicked Governor—from Kirsakoff!
Please! Again the bandage, and I’ll be good.”
“Ah, little father, there is another way to fight without using swords
and guns. There is a way to gain your ends without your enemy’s
suspecting that he is pushing your cart.”
She gave her attention to putting the bandage back.
“I grant the truth of what you say,” said Michael. “But what will
Slipitsky say to this? He is a shrewd fox, and there is many a twist in
a game of this sort that he knows—he has helped many a man to escape
from me, for all his friendship for me in the old days. Never did I
dream that we should have to resort to his cleverness—but the fox takes
his wisdom where he finds it, and that is why we say that he is wise.”
“It does not matter what Slipitsky thinks of it. We cannot leave all the
tricks to our enemies. And you must have faith in me, if I am to work
this out so that good will come of it, and we get away from the soldiers
of the Ataman.”
“I’ll trust you, my daughter. By the Saints! You should have been a man,
Katerin Stephanovna!”
“And perhaps if I were a man, we should both be dead by now,” said
Katerin. “This is a war of wits, and we women have had to use our wits
for many years. And if those in the high places had heeded the women,
Russia might not have come to what she has.”
“It is good that there are wits between the two of us, for mine are
gone, my daughter. I am a hindrance. I am but a millstone about your
neck, else you would have escaped from Chita long before this.”
“You won’t be a millstone if you will obey what I advise in this affair
with the American officer. If we cannot go through with this thing, it
is better not to try our hands at it.”
“Have no fear—I’ll say black is white if it does you any good,” said
Michael, now once more with his face trussed in the bandages.
“Listen well to what I say,” cautioned Katerin. “And you, too, Wassili.
For if we fail, we have not one enemy, but two—this stranger as well as
the Ataman. And if we succeed, we have none, for one will save us from
the other. What better can we ask than that a man who is an enemy should
deliver us from danger?”
“Give me two enemies, if that can be done,” said Michael.
“Mind what must be done. Our name shall be Natsavaloff. You were
banished for plotting against the government of the Czar. First, we must
learn why the American seeks Kirsakoff—for he may not be alone in his
reasons, but have others who are equally dangerous. We must get to the
bottom of why he seeks you, though the reason does not matter for our
purpose. We shall have Slipitsky’s advice, too, before we bring the
American to this room to learn where Kirsakoff may be found. And we are
not to tell the American where Kirsakoff may be found unless he takes us
to the city where we shall say Kirsakoff is hidden—anywhere, it does not
matter, so long as we get away from Chita.”
“And how is Wassili to help in all this?” asked Michael. “Where lies his
task?”
“When we bring the American here, Wassili shall stand behind his chair.
We must be on our guard against the stranger every second, and if the
American should recognize—or make a move to draw a weapon——”
Wassili finished the sentence for her in pantomime with a quick and
eloquent gesture—a short thrust, done quickly, and an explanatory grunt.
“And you, my father, shall have your little pistol in your hand, and the
blanket thrown over your knees to hide it—so that you shall be able to
defend yourself. But do nothing rashly—unless he should know you, we
must not do him harm.”
Wassili was sent for Slipitsky, and the Jew came. The four of them went
over the whole plan of escape in case Peter should not recognize
Michael. They spent the afternoon in taking up every possible angle of
the situation. And on one thing they agreed—if Peter really proved to be
a deadly enemy, and should recognize Michael—then the American officer
must die.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XVIII
THE TRAIL GROWS HOT
PETER spent the afternoon walking the floor of his room, his whole being
in a glow from the fever of revenge which had flamed up brightly within
him while he listened to “Vashka”—the name by which he knew Katerin.
And Peter’s inner fury was directed against his own mental image of
Kirsakoff—a picture revivified and given new clarity in Peter’s brain by
Katerin’s description of her father as he had been in the old days.
Peter killed that man over and over again in imagination. He knew that
it might take weeks before he could so shuffle the combination of
circumstances that Kirsakoff might be slain with the greatest margin of
safety for himself.
Through the years, Peter’s hope for vengeance had become to him a holy
mission. There had been times during his life in the United States when
he realized that he might never return to Siberia in time to carry out
his dream of vengeance. But the old hatred had smoldered. Now it was
burning at white heat.
What had been his own selfish desire was now transformed into a
patriotic fervor to help his own people. The old tribal spirit of the
Slav had come to life again within him when he encountered the mad
ecstasy of liberty among the people in Vladivostok. He longed to have
some hand in the great emancipation which had been brought about by
those of his race. He was determined to join the orgy of destruction.
And now he saw his own personal revenge coupled with the troubles of the
old exile and his daughter. Not only would Peter become the savior of
the beautiful Vashka and strike a blow to thwart the new tyranny of
Zorogoff, but his own father would be avenged. Katerin personified for
him the Russia which must be saved, just as Kirsakoff personified the
Russia which must be destroyed. For Kirsakoff, a survivor of the old
autocracy, was plotting with the Mongol, Zorogoff, to defeat the
purposes of the revolution and once more bind the people to the wheel of
slavery. The old system was evil, and no vestige of it must remain. That
was the aim of the people, and Peter believed in it. His mind had never
grasped the thought that in the background of events there might be a
new autocracy throwing sand in the eyes of the people to enslave them
with new fetters which were not yet visible. “Destroy! Destroy all who
do not work!” was the cry. And as work was defined for the mass of the
people, it meant common labor—and the laborer lacked the ability to
think about the consequences of killing all who might be able to divine
the purpose behind the cry for destruction. And Peter was trapped into
thinking only of the past and its evils, without looking into the future
of a race which allowed only its serfs to live.
He thought only of the fact that he had been rescued from Siberia and
sent back with the power of avenging his own wrongs. And as he prayed
for success, he crossed himself with both hands, in the way of the
people of old. The deep well of mysticism and emotionalism which so
often had swept the Slav into action without the cooler previsions of
those races which had gained the beginning of their freedom in the Dark
Ages, now shook Peter’s soul. He was living again in the stark horrors
of his boyhood—living over again the bitter morning when his father had
been struck down in the street. These memories he hoped to blot out by
slaying with his own hand one dragon of the old autocracy—Michael
Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff.
Michael would be well guarded, and wary. But his vigilance might be
relaxed by artifice. Peter had not yet formulated his plan, but there
would be many pretexts for getting closely in touch with Kirsakoff.
Peter might even represent that he had come to enter into secret
negotiations with Kirsakoff on behalf of the American government. That
was one of the many possible plans which flitted through Peter’s brain.
But the business would require care in preparation and good judgment in
its execution. All impulses toward prompt decision must be put aside—it
would be a patient waiting for the minute which promised success without
attaching the slightest suspicion to Lieutenant Peter Gordon of the
American army.
That could be done only after a period of slowly acquiring the
confidence of Michael. Peter would have to build up a pretended sympathy
with the old régime and its adherents, and show a willingness to aid
Zorogoff and Kirsakoff in gaining the friendship of the American
forces—even plan to aid in betraying the people of Russia in their
aspirations for freedom.
Peter saw himself dining with Kirsakoff as a guest of the general; he
built in his imagination a succession of secret conferences with
Kirsakoff, and then, perhaps during an evening over wine and cigarettes,
a whisper to Michael, “Do you know who I am in truth? Peter Petrovitch,
son of Gorekin the bootmaker——!” and then the bullet and the escape.
Peter could see Michael turn his horrified eyes upon the smiling
American officer who was really the son of an exile. Gorekin the
bootmaker! Michael might not remember at first. How could a Governor be
expected to carry in his memory a poor unfortunate, and a boy of twenty
years before? But Peter would make Michael remember. There must be time
for that so that Michael should know by whose hand he died. That would
be necessary if Peter was to have his complete joy in his vengeance.
When the sun had dropped over the crest of the hills, and the frost was
gradually creeping upward on the panes, etching a thick tropical foliage
upon the glass, Peter went to the window and looked out over the Valley
of Despair. The little hut of his boyhood was merging slowly into the
shadows of the taller buildings about it. Tiny sparks appeared in the
white smoke rising from the hut’s stone chimney—Rimsky was evidently
feeding the fire-pit for the night.
Peter stood by the window musing on the bitter days and nights of the
exiles long dead and forgotten—on the staggering columns coming in afoot
over the Czar’s road to a living death, on the clanking of chains and
fetters, on the screams in the nights as some cabal of exiles “roofed”
one who had betrayed some breaking of the rules to the guards, on the
barking of rifles as fugitives were hunted out of the hills.
Chita had become a city. It was built of the tears and anguish, of
bodies destroyed and minds wrecked, of hates and cruelties, all mixed
with the bricks and logs of its walls. And limitless legions of human
beings had been poured into the wilderness and their bodies used as
fertilizer to build up a new empire for the rulers of Russia.
“Oh, you cry for justice!” he said to the spirits of those who had
suffered. “The time has come for justice—you have waited long, but
to-morrow will not be as yesterday!”
He turned from the window and took his belt and pistol from the writing
table and strapped them about him. Then he turned on the shaded
droplight. It threw down upon the cloth of the writing table a yellow
cone of radiance. It was now five by his watch. He rang the bell
thrice—the signal for Vashka, as Katerin called herself.
He sat down by the table and waited. The sound of people walking about
in the hall furtively, came to his ears, with the careful opening and
closing of doors and snatches of conversation. He heard the strains of
an old Russian air played on a violin by some one on the floor above,
and the regular pounding of feet as if the steps of a Cossack dance were
being tried intermittently.
It was the hour of the evening when the people in the hotel began to
bestir themselves for the gay times of the night. They kept hidden
during the day, and went abroad under cover of darkness to the
restaurants of the city, to return to their rooms in the early morning.
The men who lived in the hotel were mostly officers who were attached to
the Ataman’s army, judging from those Peter had seen about the halls.
The women were a flashy lot—women who had drifted up the railroad from
Vladivostok or Harbin, and women of the sort that has the best of
everything in times of famine and disorder. They were the parasites who
seem to thrive best in times of disaster, and who get the most out of
life when there are no laws of restraint. When they have acquired some
amount of treasure, they are robbed and abandoned.
Katerin was at the door in response to the signal by bell with amazing
promptitude. She entered without knocking, and closed the door behind
her softly. She stood for a minute, a vague shadow in the gloom outside
the zone of the shaded lamp.
Peter rose and moved toward her. “Thank you for coming,” he said in a
low voice in keeping with her secretive entrance. “Have you persuaded
your father to tell me what I wish to know? Will he help me in my
quest?”
“If you still wish it,” she replied. “Please! Take the shade from the
lamp—the darkness is not pleasant.”
Peter caught a note of melancholy in her voice. She seemed to be
discouraged, and his own hopeful attitude was somewhat chilled.
“Has anything gone wrong?” he asked.
“No, not unless it is wrong for us to involve you in the same dangers
which face us. My father appears reluctant to put you into a situation
the full danger of which may not be apparent to you, a stranger.”
Peter laughed merrily to cover the sudden fear which he had felt that
she might recede from her promise to help him find Michael Kirsakoff.
“I have no fear,” he said. “There may be danger, but I am glad to help
you. I shall attempt to find Kirsakoff in any event—and may well run
into more danger than if your father should tell me how to go about the
job. So when it comes to that, my danger is only increased if you do not
help.”
“Perhaps you are right,” she said.
He went and lifted the shade off the lamp, and stood revealed in his
uniform in the flood of light. The silver bars on his shoulders
glittered as he leaned over the lamp, but Katerin’s eyes rested upon the
brown boxlike holster at his hip.
He swung round upon her, smiling. Now he saw that her gay mood of her
former visit had vanished—her eyes seemed sadder and the light revealed
the pinched pallor of her face. She was suffering from strain long
endured, he saw, and a twinge of pity tugged at his heart.
He went and pulled down the decrepit window shades, and then slapped his
pistol. “Here we have the power of America!” he said. “Behind me is an
army. Come! It is not a time to be sad! America is here, and that means
justice to the oppressed!”
She sat down in a chair, and smiled at him, in a brave attempt to be
merry with him.
“America must be a wonderful land,” she said. “I have heard much about
it, and read much about it. But there are many who say it is no better
than our own Russia.”
“What!” cried Peter. “You must not be misled. America is a land of
magic! Look at me, a poor Russian boy who was the son of an unfortunate
here in the Valley of Despair, and in a few years it transformed me into
an officer, and sent me back to help my own people—and to help you,
Vashka.”
“And in time you will go back to America,” she said. “Like all Russians
who have been there and return to their own land, you will once more go
to America.”
“Oh, yes. I shall go back when Russia has her freedom. But what did your
father say? Have you persuaded him to help me about Kirsakoff? You have
not told me that.”
“My father is discouraged. You must not be annoyed if he is slow and
cautious with you, who are a stranger. He has said that he doubts if one
American officer can fight the army of Zorogoff.”
“But he must remember also that I am a Russian. Does he think I will
hide behind my American coat, and allow Kirsakoff and Zorogoff to
destroy you? I may be only one, but behind me is the American army, and
Zorogoff must give heed to that.”
“But if Zorogoff’s men should kill you? We have seen terrible things
here—men are shot down crossing the street if they are opposed to
Zorogoff. And who is to know who fired the shot if you should meet such
a fate? Then, if it were known to Zorogoff that we had helped you, it
would be the worse for us, with no one to protect us.”
“True,” said Peter, “but it is one thing for Zorogoff to terrorize a
girl and a helpless old man, and quite another for him to frighten or
kill an American officer—or defy the American army. He is aware of that,
and he will be careful with me.”
“But your soldiers are in Vladivostok.”
“That is near enough to make Zorogoff think twice. In time he would have
to pay the shot. And once we have found Kirsakoff and I have attended to
my business, we shall leave the city.”
“You are brave,” she said simply, with a look of admiration.
He shrugged his shoulders. “It is you have been brave. It is easy for me
to talk, with an army at my back. Please—tell me one thing—are you
expecting an American officer to come here and meet you and your
father?”
She looked at him in surprise, as if trying to understand what meaning
might be behind his question. She locked her fingers together, and took
her time before replying.
“No, we are not expecting an American officer. Our friends may send help
to us. That is why I came to you—any newcomer in the city might bring
word from friends—might be seeking to get news to us from friends.”
She laughed suddenly in comprehension of his meaning, and went on
hastily. “We who are beset clutch at any straw—and you were a straw. Yet
was I not wise? For you have said you will save us—you would even take
us away, or——”
Katerin stopped abruptly, and looked into the light of the lamp. Her
eyes showed more animation now, and Peter found himself admiring the
patrician poise of her head. She turned away from his gaze, and shivered
slightly.
“Or what?” he prompted.
“Or you would even kill Kirsakoff for us—rid us of one of our enemies.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed, and he smiled.
“What makes you think I would kill Kirsakoff?” he asked. “Have I said
anything to make you believe that?”
“No,” she admitted, returning his gaze for an instant. “You have not
said that. But if my father is to help you find Kirsakoff, you must
first convince us that you are an enemy of Kirsakoff. It will be a
secret for a secret, in the old way of bargaining among the exiles. We
have trusted you much, but how do we know what your purpose is in
finding Kirsakoff?”
Peter frowned at the floor and considered what she had said. He had not
counted on having to take any one into his confidence. He did not doubt
that he would be able to find Kirsakoff on his own account, if he had
plenty of time. But his time in Chita was not at his own disposal. An
American officer might come through the city and report that he had seen
Peter; before very long, Peter would be compelled to go on to Irkutsk
and report himself from there, or go down the line of the railroad. And
once in touch with Vladivostok, he knew that orders might come from
headquarters which would compel him to appear in some other city without
delay.
And what damage could be done by telling this girl and her father his
reasons for wanting Kirsakoff? They, themselves, feared and hated the
Governor, who was again in power. They could be trusted not to betray
him.
“What you say is fair enough,” he said finally. “I think I can convince
your father that I am the friend of anybody who was an exile, and
that——” He was about to add, “I am an enemy of Michael Kirsakoff.” But
he refrained. There would be time enough for that when he talked with
her father, and he was determined that before he told his story, he
should meet and judge for himself the measure of confidence to be given
to the old man who had been an exile.
“I should like to know your full reasons—for wanting to find Kirsakoff,”
suggested Katerin. She, too, was wary.
“You shall hear,” he said, “when I talk with your father.” And he spoke
with finality, as if there were no use in going further with the
subject.
She went to the wardrobe against the wall, and turning to Peter, said,
“Move this away from the door which leads to our rooms—I got the Jew to
bring us near to you. Now we can pass from our rooms to yours without
going into the hall. It will be safer, for we cannot tell who will see
us if we have to use the hall.”
“That was wise,” he said, and going to the wardrobe, he put his shoulder
against it, and steadying it with his hand, shoved it aside far enough
to clear the door which it concealed. When he had finished, she picked
up the shade of the lamp and slipped it back over the globe.
“We are not known to the servants,” she said. “You must be careful with
our names—which are—Natsavaloff.”
“Perhaps it will be well to avoid using any names,” said Peter. “It
might increase your danger.”
“It would, indeed,” she agreed. “Now, I shall go round and free the bolt
on our side—and take you to my father.”
Katerin slipped into the hall, and Peter snapped out the light on the
table and waited in darkness. In a minute he heard the rattle of the
bolt on the far side of the door, and then it swung open slowly.
Katerin stood before him, outlined against the dim light seeping in from
a farther room through curtains hanging in a doorway.
“Come!” she directed in a whisper. “My father is eager to talk with you.
But remember—he is very old, and he is still in some pain from his
wounds. And if he is querulous, I trust that you will be patient with
him.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XIX
FACE TO FACE
PETER stepped across the threshold of the open door, and into the shaft
of light spilling through the partly curtained doorway of the room
beyond. Looking to the end of this vista of light, he saw the figure of
a man sitting in a chair by a table. The head and upper part of this
man’s body were only vaguely visible and merged against the dark
background of the far wall. But his boots were silhouetted in the
radiance of the beams of the lamp which shot downward under the
shade—boots that looked grotesquely large and misshapen, for their
shadows were cast upon the floor in elongated outline.
Katerin stopped at the curtained doorway, and by a gesture, bade Peter
enter before her. He went on, and as he neared the lamp on the table, he
saw that the figure in the chair was a frail old man with his head tied
up in a bandage. And behind the chair, better hidden by the gloom, was a
man standing, whom Peter took for a servant hovering over his master
with watchful care. Only the face of the _moujik_ was plainly visible to
Peter, and his eyes shining with the reflected light of the lamp, like
two luminous pin-pricks, were boring across the room at Peter. The tense
alertness of the _moujik’s_ posture suggested an animal crouching for a
spring.
Katerin passed Peter, and approached her father. She said, “Our friend
has come to us,” and to Peter, “This is my father.”
Peter’s heels came together, and he bowed low. When he looked at the old
man again, the withered head, wrapped in the encircling bandage, was
nodding gently as if with a palsy. And the bent shoulders leaned forward
under a gray blanket, to peer at the visitor. The right hand, hidden
beneath the blanket over his legs, seemed to be trembling, while his
left hand lifted from his knee made a motion toward a chair—it was a
thin, bony hand, more like a claw than a hand.
“I bid you welcome, sir,” piped Michael, hoarsely. “But I have little
hospitality to offer a guest under this roof.”
“May God’s blessings fall upon you, sir,” replied Peter, his heart
quickened by sympathy with this pathetic old ruin of a man—a man who,
like his own father as Peter thought, had suffered the life of an exile
under the cruel rule of the Governor, Michael Kirsakoff. Here, Peter
supposed, was another victim, in feeble senility, still pursued and
threatened by Zorogoff and the same Governor Kirsakoff who had brought
about the death of Peter’s father, and thrown the boy Peter into a big
prison. And these thoughts fed the inward flame of hatred which burned
through Peter’s being against Michael Kirsakoff—the very man before him,
and on whom he had just called for the blessing of God! Here was his
enemy of old, and he looked upon him, yet knew him not.
For a time the two men peered at each other, one knowing that an enemy
was before him, and one thinking that he was in the presence of a
friend. But Peter saw nothing in the old man which brought to mind
anything of Michael Kirsakoff. Katerin, as Vashka, the samovar girl, had
so arranged the shaded lamp, and the chairs, that her father’s face
should not stand out clearly in light against a dark background. Also
the bandage hid the jaws and cheeks of Michael in such a way that the
old man’s facial contour was blurred. Age had done much to hide Michael,
and Peter’s memory was clinging to his own picture of Kirsakoff of
twenty years before. And Peter had adjusted his mind to the finding of
Kirsakoff as a result of this interview, and somewhere beyond it, so it
would have been hard to convince him that Kirsakoff was now before him.
“You come as an American officer, yet my daughter tells me that you are
one of us—a Russian who has come back to help Russia,” said Michael.
“Yes, and it is twenty years since I saw my native land,” said Peter, as
he sat down.
“Ah, it is a sad home-coming for one of the motherland’s children,”
sighed Michael. “They say now that the people will rule at last.”
Katerin stepped to the table to draw hot water from the samovar, which
was so placed that she stood almost between Peter and her father, though
without preventing them from seeing each other. She did not trust to her
precautions against Peter’s recognizing her father, knowing that there
were elements in the situation which might bring on some mischance on
the side of tragedy.
And Wassili acted according to his instructions. As Peter sat down, the
_moujik_ left Michael’s chair, and offered the guest a cigarette from a
tin box, lighted a match—and remained behind Peter’s chair. Thus it
appeared to Peter that he was being tendered the usual courtesies.
“It is true that times have changed, sir,” said Peter.
“Ay, they have, truly,” said Michael. “And some say for the better.
Perhaps. But I’ll not live to see it all finished. I shall get no good
from it. But we must remember those who have died dreaming dreams for
the future.”
“True,” said Peter. “And this ground is full of such—we must remember
them, and it is our duty to see that they did not sacrifice themselves
for nothing.”
“My daughter tells me that you know our story—that I was a political
here.”
“In the time of Kirsakoff, the Governor,” said Peter.
“Kirsakoff!” said Michael. “Ah, yes, I had good reason to know
Kirsakoff. There are many waiting their chance to settle with him, and
he has but a short time for this world. But one of the lessons we
learned here, my friend, was to bide our time—and I am waiting.”
“And Kirsakoff is in with Zorogoff?”
“That Mongol dog!” said Michael. “Have you heard that he has visited
upon my daughter and me the silent torture? And that even now we hide
from him? Yes. Well, he has buried people to their necks by the dozen,
and then sent horsemen galloping over the ground. But if God is good I
shall live to see his head carried about on the end of a pole!”
“And Kirsakoff stands behind him, I hear,” said Peter.
Michael exchanged glances with Katerin. “True, it is Kirsakoff who helps
him hold his power.”
“But it is dangerous to talk of Kirsakoff,” said Katerin, as she handed
Peter a glass of tea. “That is whisper talk, and I warn you.”
“No,” grumbled Michael. “Your life would be worth little if you let it
be known that you are in possession of that secret. You are playing a
dangerous game if you wish to get close to Kirsakoff.”
“But if he only knows me as an American,” suggested Peter.
“What! You, who speak the real Russian!” exclaimed Michael. “Do not be
fooled—he will know you for a Russian!”
“I can arrange that,” said Peter, with a smile. “If I can find him, that
is a matter easy enough to be handled as the business needs.”
Michael shook his head energetically.
“No, no, my friend! Kirsakoff’s hand is hidden. Your life would be in
danger at once if you gave a hint that you even know that Kirsakoff is
in the city. Be sure of that.”
“Then I can pretend I do not know him,” pressed Peter. He was somewhat
disappointed by the resistance offered by the old man.
“You must remember, my father, that our friend has reasons of his own
for wanting to find the Governor. And danger may not be a matter of
concern.”
Peter gave her a grateful glance for thus allying herself with him.
“If I were to tell you my reason for wanting Kirsakoff, I am sure that
you would say that it is good, sir. I have waited many years to come
back—and now I must not fail. I shall find Kirsakoff.”
“But I should not like to be the one who puts your life in danger,” said
Michael. “You may not be aware of all it means—this business of the
Governor is not a light subject. You will do well not to cross his
tracks, for he will strike at you through Zorogoff’s spies, and you will
never know who struck. One cannot fight an army—and Zorogoff will not
brook any interference. He will destroy you like a fly upon his bread.”
“I court the danger,” said Peter, sipping his tea, and willing to wait
till the old man was in a humor to be more communicative.
“The Governor has five thousand rifles at his back,” said Michael. “You
cannot know yet the full danger.”
“I shall go gladly to meet it,” persisted Peter. “It cannot be any
greater than my desire to find Kirsakoff.”
“You would risk death?” asked Michael.
“Even death.”
“What! Twenty years in America, and you would risk death to find
Kirsakoff?”
“What you say is true, sir.”
The old man studied Peter carefully for a minute. “You speak,” he said
finally, “as if you had spent twenty years in the Governor’s prison,
instead of twenty years in America.”
“I spent time enough in his prison,” said Peter.
Katerin uttered an involuntary exclamation of surprise.
“Here! You were in the old prison here?” she asked.
“I was,” said Peter, with a grim tightening of his lips.
“But you are too young to have been an exile!” gasped Michael. “If you
had been one of—us, I can well understand. There are many who have been
here for long years—they have known the chains, they have known a
lifetime in cells. And still, they have no stomach for meeting the
Governor face to face. That is because they know Kirsakoff—and that he
is not a man who can be hunted like a rabbit.”
“I also knew him,” said Peter. “I doubt if I will fear him, even if I
come face to face with him—and he knows me for a Russian, and by my true
name.”
“Oh! So you knew Kirsakoff?” asked Katerin. “Then it will not be so
difficult for you to find him.”
“I knew him too well,” said Peter, now beginning to fear they would
settle themselves against helping him to find Kirsakoff, and seeing that
he would have to take them into his confidence if they were to be of any
help to him. “I knew him when I was a boy here—and I have an old score
to pay off. I have come to pay it, and I shall not be kept from finding
Kirsakoff, even though he were the new Czar.”
“You must have been an unfortunate to have been in the prison,” said
Katerin. She was still gazing at him with curious eyes, as if she could
not believe that he was really telling the truth about himself—as if she
thought he was making his story fit his necessity for finding Kirsakoff
and was making it as serious as possible to induce them to help him.
“My father was an unfortunate—a political—here in the Valley of
Despair.”
“Indeed, was he?” asked Michael, with renewed interest. “You mean that
he was here in the time that Kirsakoff was Governor?”
“In the same time—when I was a boy,” said Peter, and looked at Katerin.
Her face was full of shocked surprise. She seemed horror-stricken at the
idea, and he wondered why she should think it so strange and so
terrible. He rather expected that she would see that they would all be
drawn together in common trouble, and have a common hatred for
Kirsakoff.
“How strange,” she said, turning to the lamp. “Then you are one of us—no
wonder you seek Kirsakoff.”
“Ay, that is a new string to the fiddle,” agreed Michael. “I can
understand now that you should want to find the Governor. Perhaps you
are right in this matter after all—and I must think it over. You have
reason enough, yet it is a serious thing for me to put you in danger.”
Peter felt better at this new attitude of the old man, and thought that
now they regarded him with a more friendly eye. He was, in truth, one of
them, and there is a strong bond of sympathy between exiles and the
children of exiles.
“And we might have known—could we have known your father?”
“You could not have known my father. He died here twenty years
ago—before I went to America,” said Peter.
“Twenty years! That is a long time to wait for vengeance,” said Michael.
“Many things are forgotten in twenty years, and time cures many things.”
“Ay, so it is a long time, in one way, and in another a short time. It
seems but yesterday that I was a boy here in Chita. You, sir, have
worked all your life to see Russia a free land. And like you, I have
learned to bide my time.”
“Things must look strange to you here,” said Katerin. “The city has
grown in twenty years.”
“Yes, outwardly things look different. But the hills, the old prison,
the streets—I see them as they were. During my years in America I never
forgot, though I confess I had little hope of ever coming back. But the
war gave me my chance. I was going to France, but when the government
decided to send troops here, I volunteered for service in Siberia. Was
it not God-given that I should be allowed to come back to my native
land—and to come to Chita?”
“True,” said Katerin, “if the debt, as you call it, which you owe to the
Governor, is such that God would have it paid.” She moved her chair in
such way that she was nearer the table, and so that she was closer to
her father. Also, she managed so that she cut more light from her
father’s face.
“And what is the debt?” asked Michael. “If it is not a secret—if I am to
tell you where you may find the Governor, perhaps you will see it in
such way that you can trust me with the secret.”
“It was Kirsakoff’s orders which brought about my father’s death.”
Katerin’s teeth shut down upon her lower lip, and her fingers closed
slowly upon the sides of her chair. She sat rigid, staring at Peter, and
her face became paler. Michael did not move, but his breath began to
come faster, and he wheezed, as if his chest had tightened and he was
about to cough.
“Killed your father?” asked Katerin, in low tones.
“No, Kirsakoff did not strike with his own hand,” went on Peter, still
gazing fixedly at the lamp. “But he ordered my father back to the
prison, and when my father ran after the Governor to beg for mercy, a
Cossack soldier cut my father down with a sword. And I was thrown into
the big prison on the hill—I, a poor helpless boy who had done nothing.”
Wassili moved uneasily behind the chair of Peter, and Katerin gave the
_moujik_ a glance of disapproval.
“Then you do know,” said Katerin to Peter, “how cruel the Governor was
to the poor unfortunates. And that is why you seek him.”
“What was done to my father and me—what was it? Only the ordinary thing
of the old days, as you know. Yes, that is why I seek Kirsakoff, and why
I ask your help to find him.”
“And how long were you in the prison?” asked Michael. “There must have
been a charge against you?”
“I was in prison three months, as near as I can tell,” replied Peter.
“Three months of hell on earth and in darkness, forgotten to the world!
It might have been three years, or three hundred, measured in my
suffering—the terrible sounds by day and by night, the rats—and I might
have been there till now, or dead, so far as Kirsakoff cared.” His
bitterness was growing, and his face was getting livid with rage.
“And for nothing?” asked Katerin. “Had you done nothing against the
Governor—or the laws of the Czar?”
“Ay, even Kirsakoff would have mercy on a boy,” said Michael.
“I did nothing, I swear,” went on Peter. “It was the orders of Kirsakoff
which sent me to prison. It was this way—an officer knocked me down in
front of the post-house. And when my father came to pick me up, the
Governor ordered both of us taken away to the prison.
“You see, my father belonged to the free gang—he was a political, as
were you. My mother died here, in the Street of the Dames. I never knew
her. But my father was good and kind to me. He was all I had in the
world, he was all I loved, though in those days (and Peter smiled
wistfully) I was taught to love the Little Father, the Czar.
“My father was struck down before my eyes, and when I was taken to the
prison, the officer in charge of the books was drunk—and he put my name
down in the book wrong—put my name down as my father’s—gave my father’s
name to me, so that the records appeared to show that it was my father
and not me, the boy, back in prison. I did not know what they were
doing, and for three months it was supposed that it was my father, the
political, who was in the cell by order of the Governor.”
“Then no doubt the Governor freed you—gave you the pardon,” said
Michael.
“No,” said Peter. “It was God’s hand that set me free. Some convicts
escaped one night, and were recaptured by the cordons in the _taiga_.
But before the soldiers took them, they had waylaid a sledge carrying an
American fur-buyer to Irkutsk. His name was Gordon. The convicts robbed
him. When Gordon got back here to Chita, he was taken to the prison and
the convicts were brought out to be identified by him as the robbers. It
happened that one of these men, named Grassi, had been put in the cell
with me. When he was taken out into the prison yard, I was taken with
him. Then it was discovered that I was the son of my father, and that
there was no charge against me. Mr. Gordon, the American, asked to take
me as his servant. I was released, the prison commandant corrected the
records, and Mr. Gordon took me with him to America.”
Peter paused, and looked at Michael, to see what effect the story had
had on the old man. But Michael’s head was nodding gently, and he seemed
to be turning the matter over in his mind, his lips moving as if he were
shaping words which he did not speak aloud.
Katerin stood up suddenly, and tested the fire in the samovar. She
seemed agitated, and Peter assumed that she suffered with indignation at
hearing his sufferings at the hands of the Governor. Then she turned to
him swiftly.
“What will you do—when you find the old—Kirsakoff?” she demanded.
“I shall kill him,” said Peter simply, and was aware of a quivering hand
upon the back of his chair. He turned and looked at Wassili. The
_moujik’s_ eyes were shining like a cat’s before a fire, and there was
the look of murder in his face.
“Kill him!” cried Michael. “But he did not kill your father!”
Peter was startled for an instant by the old man’s horror, and Katerin’s
face revealed the fact that she had never dreamed that the American
officer was bent on murder—she seemed actually to be in terror of him.
Peter suffered a moment of abashment, and gulped down what was left of
the tea in his glass. He understood that these people did not yet fully
appreciate how wantonly his father had been killed, nor how little
provocation there was for the killing. He was determined to convince
them of the justice of his designs.
“My father and I,” he began anew, “lived in a little hut down the
Sofistkaya—it is there yet—I can see it from the windows of my room. An
old man lives in it now, a queer old patriarch, who sells cigarettes——”
“That is Rimsky!” exclaimed Wassili to Katerin. She nodded, and looked
at him so that she checked him.
“Yes, Rimsky,” said Peter. “That is his name. That is where I lived with
my father, and where he taught me the almanacs. We were happy, for we
had a samovar, and the ladies of the Street of the Dames came to us
often. They gave me cakes, and my father money. Of course, I know now
that he was an underground to the prison—he carried messages back and
forth between wives and their husbands in the prison.”
“Yes, they had many ways of getting news in and out in the old days,”
said Michael, with a smile. “But go on with your story, my friend.”
Peter struck a match to light a fresh cigarette, and the flame showed
his face to be flushed by his emotions.
“The year of which I speak,” resumed Peter, “the almanacs from Moscow
were late. The mail-sledges came in from Irkutsk one morning. I ran down
to the post-house to learn if the almanacs had come. There were
Excellencies in the sledge. As I remember, the Governor’s
daughter—Katerin was her name, I think, and——”
“Yes, yes,” cried Katerin, striking her hands together. “Katerin
Stephanovna! She was the Governor’s daughter—I have heard of her! It is
said now that she is dead!” and Katerin turned to her father, as if to
verify what she had said.
“It has been said that she is dead this long time,” assented Michael.
“Some say that Zorogoff——” He checked himself.
Peter continued with his tale, warmed to it again by the evident
interest of his listeners.
“Yes, that was the Governor’s daughter. Her coming was his reason for
meeting the sledge that morning. Well, I was eager to be sure that the
almanacs had come—and a Cossack knocked me down because I called to the
Governor’s daughter for news of the almanacs. And when Michael
Alexandrovitch, the Governor, came to the sledge he found my father
picking me up. I was bleeding and stunned from the blow. And the
Governor was in a rage at us—that my father should be making trouble—and
ordered him to be stricken from the free gang and put back in the prison
once more—and me with him.”
“But you said your father was killed,” said Katerin.
“Yes, as I say,” replied Peter. “My father”—and Peter inclined his head
toward the icon in the corner over Michael’s head—“my father was so
broken in spirit at knowing he was no longer of the free gang and that I
was to go to prison, that he ran after Kirsakoff. It was then that a
Cossack ran my father through with a saber—and swore that my father had
struck at the Governor with a knife—a leather knife which he pulled from
my father’s pocket.”
“But did the Governor know—could he know—of this terrible happening?”
asked Katerin.
“Ay, did the Governor know?” echoed Michael.
“Know!” cried Peter. “What would he have cared if he did know? He had
just ordered us both to prison for nothing! And did he care enough to
investigate the case during the three months I was inside a black
cell—to give me my freedom? No! He forgot all about it and me, even if
he did know what had happened? Does he care now what the fate of you and
your daughter may be? I tell you, sir, I must find Michael Kirsakoff!
And you must be the one who puts me on the right road!”
“True, you must find him,” said Katerin. “Now we know that you have good
reason for wanting him.”
“Thank you,” said Peter fervently. “I knew that when you saw my story as
I could tell it, you would realize that above all things, I must find
Kirsakoff.”
“What was the name of your father?” asked Michael.
“Gorekin—Peter Pavlovitch—a bootmaker.”
“Gorekin!” gasped Michael, his head snapping back in his amazement.
“Gorekin!”
“Have you heard of him?” asked Peter, with a quick look at the old
general.
“I thought for a moment I knew the name,” said Michael. “But if you say
he was a bootmaker, it must have been another. No, not if he was a
bootmaker—and this man I knew less than ten years ago.”
Michael looked at Wassili, and put a hand upon the table beside him,
keeping the other under the blanket. He began to drum with his fingers,
deep in reflection. No word was spoken for several minutes. Peter could
hear Wassili breathing behind the chair.
“You have our sympathy,” said Katerin. “And you must find the Governor.
If you will give me time to talk it over with my father——” She gave
Peter a significant look, which he interpreted to mean that it would be
wiser not to press now for information about Kirsakoff, but to leave it
in her hands.
“Thank you,” said Peter, and he rose, and bowed.
“You shall find Kirsakoff,” said Michael, staring at his hand on the
table. “By morning I shall know where he may be found—perhaps. We must
not act hastily.” The palsied head was shaking gently, and the old man
was lost again in thought.
“Yes, yes,” Katerin put in hastily. Peter saw tears in her eyes. She
followed after him as he turned to go back through the rooms, and they
left Michael and Wassili alone.
Peter stopped at his own door, and looking back over Katerin’s shoulder,
saw against the light of the room he had just left, a shadow cross—and
then the figure of Wassili peering after them.
“Good-night,” said Katerin. She seemed nervous and worried. She also had
caught a glimpse of the old _moujik_ outlined against the glow of her
father’s lamp.
Peter seized her hands in sudden impulse and pressed them heartily. “I
cannot tell you of my gratitude, Vashka,” he whispered. “It was you who
helped me in this—and I have waited long! You are going to persuade your
father to tell me where I shall find Kirsakoff!”
She gently drew away from him, and he released her hands.
“I shall do what I can,” she whispered. “But take care—this house is
full of enemies. If we are to defeat the Ataman, be wary. Bolt both your
doors to-night!”
Then she slipped away to her father.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XX
THE BLOW
PETER, alone once more in his room, found that a strange calmness had
come to him once the secret of his purpose in returning to the Valley of
Despair was in the keeping of two other persons. There was for him in
that fact something of the relief of the confessional. For twenty years
he had nursed in his soul the grievance of his father’s death, and his
own imprisonment—nursed it most secretly, pent it up within his
consciousness, till it seemed that his body had become a kind of culture
tube of germinating hate.
For the first time since he had left Chita as a boy, he found an
easement of his soul burden. These people to whom he had told his story,
understood his deepest emotions regarding his father. No American could
ever have understood fully, Peter was well aware. Prison to an American
implies disgrace, some sort of stain upon the character which is never
fully lived down. But to this old exile, as Peter supposed Kirsakoff to
be, Peter’s story was an honor to him. For the old man had suffered the
horrors of the exile system, mixing, as it did, the highest type of
Russian with the lowest—the thinker with the cutthroat.
Peter knew he stood better in Katerin’s regard than before, now that she
knew his story. He had seen in her face a deep and profound pity for
him. What he mistook for pity was her alarmed concern when she
discovered that Peter sought to slay her father. Peter could not know
that she had suffered torture while he had sat looking into the
lamp—that she knew how a look, a word or some turn of the head might
betray her father.
Peter had always thought that the first assurance of a successful end to
his quest for Kirsakoff would mean a delirious joy. Yet here he was
coldly calm, a calm which was a steadiness that he ascribed to his own
efforts to control all outward indications of his grim satisfaction. His
brain was singing, over and over, in an endless refrain—“I shall find
Kirsakoff.”
He turned the light in such way that he could see himself in the big
mirror between the windows, and smiled at himself. His face was slightly
flushed from the emotions and memories roused by telling how his father
had been killed before the post-house, and how he himself had endured
and escaped from the prison on the hill.
His eyes burned with a feverish light. In fact, he was drugged with
elation, strangely soothed, much as a man is lulled with wine till his
senses are subdued by the poison and his reasoning faculties are
benumbed. Yet his alertness was in no whit deadened. On the contrary, he
was well aware of what was before him, and he was alive to the
necessities of the situation. He was approaching his long-waited moment
of triumph, and he knew that he must hold himself against the slightest
rashness in thoughts or actions. He must, he thought as he surveyed
himself in the mirror, avoid the look of craftiness which was coming
into his face—he must feign a bland innocence, and dispel everything
which savored of eagerness, impatience, impulsive haste. He had days,
weeks, in which to carry out his purpose, and at last he was on the
right track. Besides, it would avail nothing unless he could accomplish
the destruction of Kirsakoff without leaving the hint of a clew to the
identity of the slayer.
He left off studying himself in the mirror, and began pacing the floor,
head down and hands behind his back. There was a strange sense of
satisfaction in the knowledge that Vashka knew his secret. He felt that
it constituted a bond between them, a mutual sympathy such as is known
only among exiles, or the children of exiles.
In fact, Peter had created in his own mind a vision of Vashka that went
beyond the time when he would have killed Kirsakoff. It was sort of an
unformed, inchoate dream which consisted of nothing more tenuous than
mental flits into the future in which he always saw Vashka. As she knew
the secret of his coming back to Chita, she would also hold his secret
about who had killed Kirsakoff. She would always understand, as she
understood now. Only a Russian, a Russian girl who knew as Vashka knew
the terrors of the Valley of Despair, fitted his idea of a confidant in
this affair. Katerin, as “Vashka,” had done her work well!
Peter was now sure that Fate had a hand in everything which had brought
him back to the place of his boyhood. The whole thing had come about
with an inevitableness which revealed a divinely directed plan. If some
force had shaped events for him with such unerring accuracy, he saw no
reason why the final result should not be brought about with the same
ease with which he had come thus far on the way to his revenge.
He had a feeling that the task he had set himself was now
accomplished—the finding of Kirsakoff. His mind was at rest, and he felt
the need of relaxation from the strain of wavering hopes and doubts.
Also, he suddenly felt hungry with that voracious appetite which comes
to people who pass the crisis of a severe illness and know without
reservation that they are on the way to complete recovery.
The fiddler he had heard on the floor above before going to talk with
Katerin and her father, had now descended to the hotel dining room, and
was playing merrily. There were other instruments, too—an orchestra. The
music was a novelty for the hotel. It lifted Peter’s spirits, and
dispelled the gloom of the place. For the first time since he had
arrived in Chita Peter wished to move about among other people.
He washed at the little sink, and combed his hair. Then he went down the
hall to the dining room. There were but a few people in the place—young
men in Cossack uniform, with flashily dressed women, sitting by twos at
the little tables along the wall under the frosty windows. The
gloominess of the room was apparent even under the lights and the music,
but it was the merriest scene Peter had seen in the city.
There were four musicians on a raised platform at the far end of the
room close to the red-painted buffet-bar with the smashed mirrors. And
the quartet was clad in poor and ill-fitting gray suits—the men were
German prisoners of war.
Peter clicked his heels in the doorway and bowed before he entered. The
officers at the table looked up with startled eyes, but inclined their
heads slightly in response to the courtesy. But it was plain that his
American uniform had attracted special attention, for the women
companions of the Cossacks stared at him. Peter wondered if there was
any resentment because he wore his belt and pistol, though he could not
understand how he had committed any breach of etiquette by being armed,
for the young Cossacks were all wearing their pistols and their sabers.
The musicians played a German air, sadly, and with good evidence that
some of the strings were missing. There were two violins, a ’cello, and
a clarinet.
A waiter came to Peter. The man was clad in the same bluish-gray as the
musicians. He also was a war prisoner, and clicked his heels and was
quite military in his manner.
“Have you a ticket, sir?” he asked, speaking in English.
“Is a ticket necessary?” asked Peter in surprise. “I am staying at the
hotel.”
“Yes, sir,” said the waiter. “This is an officers’ mess—officers of the
Ataman’s army.”
“Then I am sorry,” said Peter, reverting to Russian for the benefit of
the Cossacks. “I thought this was the hotel restaurant. I had no
intention of intruding,” and he pushed back his chair to rise from the
table.
“You speak Russian, sir,” said the waiter, in Russian.
“Yes,” said Peter. “And you speak English surprisingly well—also
Russian.”
“Hans!” A young Cossack who sat two tables beyond Peter, and faced him,
called the waiter away and handed him something. The waiter was back to
Peter by the time he had risen to leave the room.
“Here is a ticket for you, sir. The Cossack gentleman—the
lieutenant—wishes you to have your supper here,” said the waiter.
Peter bowed to the young officer, who smiled across the shoulders of the
woman with him. He was a thin-faced chap, with heavy black hair down on
his forehead after the Cossack fashion. Gold straps covered his
shoulders, and a great saber lay outside the table legs, where it swung
down to the floor from his belt.
Peter sat down again. It would be in the nature of an affront not to
accept the proffered hospitality. And the waiter brought thick cabbage
soup with a yellowish scum of fat floating on its surface, black bread,
a plate of chopped meat, with a mound of boiled grains of wheat, and a
glass of tea.
During the meal the orchestra continued to play. The Cossacks and their
women talked in low tones. Finally, they began to drift away gradually
till none was left but the young officer who had sent Peter the supper
ticket. And in time his companion disappeared also. Then the young
officer approached Peter’s table, and bowed.
“You are an American officer, but you speak Russian,” said the Cossack.
He smiled and clicked his spurred heels.
“Yes,” said Peter, rising and saluting. They shook hands formally.
“I am Lutoff, a lieutenant in the army of the Ataman Zorogoff,” went on
the Cossack with pride. “I heard that there was an American officer in
the hotel—and I was about to call upon you this very evening.”
“That is very kind of you,” said Peter, seeing that there was some
purpose after all in the matter of the supper ticket beyond the
characteristic hospitality of all Cossacks. He saw that he would have to
play the game, whatever it might be. “My name is Gordon, and I also am a
lieutenant.”
Lutoff bowed again.
“Please sit down with me,” invited Peter, and they both sat down facing
each other across the small table. Peter did not like Lutoff any too
well—there was a craftiness in his eyes, an insincere suavity in his
manner, an affability about him that was forced. His friendliness lacked
a frankness which he did his best to simulate, but behind his smiles and
his politeness there was a promise of lurking menace.
“You have not called upon the Ataman,” said Lutoff lightly, half in
question, yet half in the nature of a statement of fact—perhaps a
challenge.
“No,” said Peter. “I was three weeks coming up on the train, and my
health was hurt—I have been resting.”
“I trust you will feel better soon,” said Lutoff. He uttered the words
as if he meant more than that—Peter caught an implication that it would
be well for him not to neglect calling upon the Ataman.
“Were you intending to pay an official call this evening?” asked Peter.
He thought it advisable to probe a bit after Lutoff’s obscure
inferences.
“No, just for a friendly chat. You speak Russian well for an American.
You must have been in the country before.” Lutoff offered his cigarette
case, a ponderous silver box covered with semiprecious stones of various
kinds and studded with raised metal initials—mostly gold—of friends who
had added to its ornate embellishments.
“My father was in business in Moscow. I was born and grew up there,”
lied Peter glibly, as he took a cigarette. He had no intention of taking
Lutoff into confidence about his early life. He considered that none of
the Cossack’s business, and the personal prying a trifle impertinent.
“Are American soldiers coming to Chita?” pressed Lutoff. It was obvious
now that he sought information for the Ataman.
“Oh, yes,” said Peter easily. “I understand a battalion will be coming
up the line. That is something I intend to take up with the Ataman—how
many barracks are available in this vicinity.”
Lutoff gave this consideration for several minutes, but made no comment.
Then he looked over his shoulder toward the orchestra to make sure that
no waiters were within hearing.
“As a friend, I wish to tell you something,” he said in a low tone.
“Thank you,” said Peter, but to all intents he was indifferent and
smoked his cigarette with complacency.
“While I belong to the Ataman’s staff, I am not speaking officially,”
said Lutoff. “It is merely as one friend to another. You understand my
attitude, of course.”
“Of course. Have no hesitation in speaking.”
“Then what I wish to say to you is that if I were you, I would not trust
civilians who live in this hotel.” Lutoff looked squarely at Peter, as
if to gauge the effect of the advice on him.
“Civilians!” exclaimed Peter. “Why, I did not think of that. I supposed
that nearly everybody in the hotel was in the Ataman’s service.”
“There are many who are not,” said Lutoff, a trifle annoyed by Peter’s
coolness. “Surely, you do not think that all civilians quartered here
are in the service of Zorogoff?”
“I am not so sure,” returned Peter. “But why shouldn’t I trust them?
What is there wrong—or dangerous about the civilians?”
“There are spies among them.”
“You mean they are spies for the Ataman?” asked Peter, not taking his
eyes from Lutoff’s. Peter was somewhat amused by Lutoff, and was taking
considerable delight in beating him about the bush. The whole incident
was so Cossack-like, so childishly dramatic.
Lutoff shrugged his shoulders. “The Ataman has his spies, of course.”
“And perhaps I have talked with some of them,” suggested Peter.
“Perhaps. But that is not what I mean. I only warn you to be careful.”
“You are very kind,” said Peter. “But have you any particular person in
mind?” He wondered if Lutoff could be working along a definite line.
“You would be wise to avoid those people you have been talking with,”
said Lutoff, and leaned back in his chair to blow smoke rings toward the
ceiling, thoughtfully.
Peter laughed quietly. “Rather a vague warning,” he said. “I have talked
with several persons in the city—just as I am talking with you.”
“You know the people I mean,” said Lutoff with some tartness, still
gazing at the ceiling.
“I appreciate your consideration for me, sir. I assure you I would be
glad to follow your advice if you will limit it to the people you
evidently have in mind. But so far, what you have said might refer to
anybody.”
Lutoff looked at the table, twisted a bit of black bread off a slice
which lay on a plate, and kneaded the bread into a ball of dough on the
cloth.
“You have been talking with people in this hotel,” he said presently.
“Not many,” said Peter. He was sure now that Lutoff was referring to
Vashka and her father, and began to be disquieted. Did Lutoff know
anything, or was he merely guessing? Was it possible that a spy of the
Ataman had heard the conversations with Vashka and her father? If so,
had the spy heard Peter tell his story and his reason for wanting to
find Kirsakoff? If the latter was true, it was likely that Kirsakoff
already knew of Peter and his purpose, for according to Vashka,
Kirsakoff was hand in glove with Zorogoff. Peter was really alarmed now.
He wondered if Wassili was to be trusted. He wondered if Vashka was
really a spy. He doubted that, for if Lutoff were in the service of
Zorogoff, Lutoff would scarcely be warning Peter against Vashka. But the
situation was dangerous, Peter knew well.
“True, you have not been talking with many,” said Lutoff. “But those
with whom you have been talking—they are not safe for you.”
“That is quite possible,” said Peter, smiling. “Almost any one here is
dangerous to a stranger. You see, when it comes to that, I am most
discreet with you, Mr. Lutoff.”
Lutoff bowed his head slightly. “You compliment me. But I am not trying
to mystify you or to frighten you. When a man comes and warns you, you
cannot very well say he is a menace to you.”
“No,” said Peter. “But your warning is vague. If it is to be of any
value to me—who are the people you warn me against?”
“I speak of the old man—and the girl,” said Lutoff abruptly, and lifted
his eyes to Peter’s.
“The old man and the girl!” repeated Peter, with an amazement which was
well feigned. “Here in the hotel? I am not sure that I know whom you
mean.”
“And I am sure that you do,” shot back Lutoff. He had dropped his polite
indirectness and was ready to argue with Peter—almost ready, it
appeared, to dictate to Peter on whom he should talk with in the hotel
or the city.
“Then you know what you know,” said Peter calmly. “But I cannot be sure
what you know, unless you tell me, thus I cannot be sure that you speak
as a friend. First, if I am to consider your advice, you must give me
some assurance that you have knowledge of whom I have been talking
with—otherwise, my friend, you are seeking information rather than
giving it.” He had no intention of being trapped into admitting that he
had been talking with Vashka and her father. The Ataman and Kirsakoff
might suspect what they liked, but Peter was not going to tell Lutoff
anything.
“These people are hiding here in the hotel,” said Lutoff, resuming his
kneading of the brown dough on the tablecloth.
“Hiding?”
“Yes.”
“From the Ataman?” asked Peter.
Lutoff looked up with an angry grimace, and Peter knew that he had put
one shot home. He had revealed some knowledge of the Ataman’s tactics,
and he had satisfied himself that Vashka and her father were telling the
truth. He had put Lutoff into something of a hole, which the Cossack
might find it difficult to get clear of again.
“You had better keep your hands off this matter,” warned Lutoff.
“Oh, is that it?” asked Peter. “Then this is a warning about listening
to people who have something to say about the Ataman, is it?”
“You may judge for yourself,” replied Lutoff.
“I already have,” said Peter, suavely. “I judge that you are not warning
me so much against certain people, as that you are warning me to beware
of the Ataman Zorogoff.”
“If I were you, I would not mix in political matters in this city, Mr.
Gordon.”
“You must remember that you are talking to an American officer,” said
Peter. “Am I to understand that an officer of the Ataman Zorogoff tells
me what I should do or should not do in Chita?”
“I think the Americans wish to avoid trouble with the Ataman,” said
Lutoff, with a bland smile.
“That remains to be seen—and is somewhat dependent upon how the Ataman
Zorogoff conducts what he is pleased to call his government,” said
Peter.
“Do the Americans intend to tell Zorogoff how he shall govern?” Lutoff
showed in his face that this was a most important question to the
Ataman—it was what Lutoff was seeking for Zorogoff, and Peter knew it.
“They might even do that,” replied Peter. “But it might depend upon the
wishes of the bulk of the Russian people in this district.”
Lutoff grinned. “The bulk of the Russian people are behind Zorogoff,” he
said.
“According to Zorogoff,” retorted Peter.
Lutoff rose. “I am not speaking officially,” he said. “Is that
understood?”
“It is if you say so,” said Peter, also rising. “But I am speaking
officially. And I wish to thank you for sending me the supper ticket,
and for your advice. But I cannot limit myself regarding the people with
whom I talk in Chita, even to please the Ataman.”
“Am I to tell the Ataman that?” asked Lutoff.
“You may tell the Ataman what you please of what I have said, or I am
ready to tell him the same myself.”
“Very good, sir,” said Lutoff, and clicked his spurs again most
formally. “But I can tell you now, sir, that you will come into conflict
with the Ataman Zorogoff if you interfere—if you take any further action
with these people to whom I have referred. And——”
“I cannot consider your warning unless you make clear to me just whom
you are talking about,” interrupted Peter.
“You still pretend not to know?” asked Lutoff in surprise.
“I want names, not assumptions,” said Peter.
“Very good, then,” said Lutoff. “Let us not have any doubt about it, and
then you cannot plead that you were not warned by the Ataman. I tell you
not to mix yourself in this affair of the Kirsakoffs—old General
Kirsakoff and his daughter Katerin Stephanovna!”
And Lutoff bowed again and walked directly out of the dining room,
leaving Peter clutching at the table as he swayed before he sank back
into his chair.
“Kirsakoff!” he whispered. “Kirsakoff—and his daughter Katerin
Stephanovna!” and then his voice rose in a hysterical wailing burst of
laughter above the playing of the orchestra.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXI
THE CAT’S PAW HAS CLAWS
THE electric lamp on Peter’s writing table was still glowing under its
shade, but it gradually waned as morning whitened the frost-bound
windows.
Peter sat by the table near the door. He was fully dressed, just as he
had come from the dining room after Lutoff had warned him to have no
more dealings with the Kirsakoffs. Peter’s left arm lay limply on the
dingy cloth, his automatic pistol close at hand lying on its side. He
was wide-eyed awake and staring at the door into the hall, as if he were
waiting for some one to enter. His jaw was set grimly, and at the right
side of his mouth his upper lip was askew, as if he had spent the night
in thoughts which resulted in nothing but a cynical smile. His face was
pale under the night’s growth of beardy stubble. The soles of both his
boots rested flatly on the floor, and were pulled back slightly under
his knees as he had gradually slipped down into the chair. His shoulders
were bent forward in a crouching attitude, and his chin rested upon the
front of his tunic.
When full daylight finally vanquished the darkness of his side of the
room, he lifted his head and pulled up the sleeve of his left arm to
look at his wrist-watch. He thought a moment, as if in doubt what to do
next, and wound the watch. He turned and looked at the windows behind
him, rubbed his jaw reflectively with the tips of his fingers, and got
up wearily to look for his shaving kit on the shelf under the mirror
between the windows.
He studied himself in the mirror, smoothed his rumpled hair with his
hand, and went about the business of getting out his razors. But he
pushed the kit away irritably, and returned to the table. He picked up
his pistol, took a cautionary glance at the catch which was so arranged
that it revealed the weapon to be ready for firing, and slipped the
pistol into its holster on his hip. Yet he did not button down the flap
of the holster, but sprung the stiff leather flap back and tucked it in
behind the belt. This left the butt of the pistol ready to his hand for
instant use—he could draw and fire it without the trouble of unbuttoning
the flap.
He went to the little wall sink near the wardrobe and dashed water in
his face. Drying himself with a handkerchief, he went once more to the
mirror and combed his hair with infinite pains. This done to his
satisfaction, he stood before the door leading into Katerin’s room, in
an attitude of listening.
He looked at his watch again after a time, and as if he had made a
decision, walked to the door and rapped gently upon it. He waited,
listening. He heard nothing. Finally he went to the push-button near the
door to the hall and pressed it three times in the usual signal for a
samovar. Then he fell to pacing the floor, head down, and his hands
clasped behind his back.
After a considerable delay, the peasant girl who had served him when he
first came to the hotel brought the samovar. She seemed to be still half
asleep, and having set the samovar upon the table, departed promptly
without so much as a look at Peter.
He took a few more turns up and down the room till the hissing of the
samovar drew his attention. He put the tea to brewing and waited
listlessly till it should be ready. He drank several glasses of the
steaming tea without any apparent relish of it or stimulation from it.
He seemed in a stupor, as he sat staring at the floor, haggard and
hollow-eyed. His face was drawn, and reflected the bitterness in his
soul. He hunted his pockets for cigarettes, but found none. He looked
under the table. There he saw a litter of flattened mouthpieces and
matches, the remains of his night-long smoking.
There came a gentle tapping at Katerin’s door. He sprang toward it and
threw off the bolt. The door came open under his hand, and Katerin stood
smiling at him. She did not look any too well, he thought—as if she had
not slept herself. His eyes met hers, and he forced a smile. He bowed,
and with a gesture invited her to enter. He did not look past her, but
he was conscious of some one moving in the room beyond—her father’s
room.
“Good-morning,” she said. “I did not bring the samovar because I did not
want to risk being seen in the hall.” Her voice was low, and there was a
note of worry in it, as if she had already sensed something inimical in
his manner, or in the close stale air of the room which reeked with the
fumes of dead tobacco smoke.
Peter turned toward the window to pull a chair from the writing table.
“You—you are ill!” she exclaimed suddenly, giving him a look of concern.
“And you have not slept!” She took in the undisturbed blankets on his
bed.
“Yes,” said Peter dully. “I have a cold—a headache. But it is
nothing—see—I have already had my morning tea and feel better.”
“I am sorry. You look as if you had suffered much,” and she sat down,
still observing him with troubled doubt. She saw the exposed pistol in
the holster, but refrained from anything which would indicate that she
had noticed it.
“What about Kirsakoff?” he asked, as if they should get to business.
His words startled her, but she concealed from him any indication of her
inner alarm.
“I came to tell you,” she answered. “We sent Wassili out through the
city last night, to people who have underground information. And he came
back early with his report.” She affected a quiet complacence, as if
seeking news of her father’s whereabouts was a trivial detail of
everyday life.
“And what did he learn?” asked Peter, sitting down by the writing table
with his back to the window. He was calmer now, resolved to play his
part of utter ignorance of the truth about Kirsakoff.
“The last word that has come to Chita is that—Kirsakoff is in Harbin.”
She looked straight at Peter to gauge the effect of her story upon him.
“In Manchuria,” he said, without surprise. “In that case, we should go
to Harbin. Could you and your father get away to Harbin with me?”
“It might be possible—with your help.” Her face took on a trace of color
as her heart began to respond to her rising hope that what she planned
with Peter could be carried through. At least, he had interposed no
objection to going to Harbin to find Kirsakoff, and actually had in mind
a willingness to take her and her father along.
“But could we find him when we got there?” he asked.
“We have friends there who know where he could be found. It should not
be difficult—there are not so many Russians in Harbin, after all.”
“You are a brave woman,” he said quietly. “You must know that this whole
plan holds naked menace for your father—and yourself.”
“There is greater menace here,” she replied, looking steadily into his
eyes.
He wondered if she could mean that he was part of the menace. It was
possible that she knew Lutoff had been talking—and that what Lutoff had
said was already known to her. If the latter were true, she must realize
that it would be impossible to manipulate Peter so that he would save
them from Zorogoff. He dismissed the thought—she was bent now on leading
him on a fool’s errand to Harbin, and once safe from the Ataman,
disappear in the Manchurian city.
It now struck Peter that it might be wise to get away from the Valley of
Despair with the Kirsakoffs. Harbin offered possibility not only to the
Kirsakoffs, but to himself. He could hardly expect to kill Kirsakoff in
Chita and cover his own tracks.
“Have you a plan for escape from the city?” he asked.
“We have talked it over with Slipitsky—the Jew. But my father is averse
to having any hand in putting you into danger.”
Peter smiled. “Your father need not worry about that,” he said lightly.
“Did we not arrange last night?”
“True, but——” She hesitated to go on, and turned her face from him.
“Has your father changed his mind since last night?” asked Peter, alert
at once.
“Oh, no,” she said, looking at the floor. “We—we thought you might
change yours. You have not been sleeping—and perhaps you gave thought
to——”
“I have not changed my mind about Kirsakoff,” he said when it was plain
that she was not going to finish her sentence. “I am still determined
to—find him.”
“We thought you might have changed your mind about helping us.” She
lifted her head, and smiled at him.
He saw at once that her reluctance to avail herself of his help was only
feigned. She was too subtle to be over-eager in a matter which concerned
her own safety and the safety of her father. She intended that Peter
should be the insistent one, so that any suspicions he might have that
they sought their own safety rather than Kirsakoff, would be allayed.
She wished the trip to Harbin to be made on his wishes instead of out of
their own selfish, if natural, desire to escape the Ataman.
Peter laughed without mirth.
“We might not be able to find Kirsakoff in Harbin,” he suggested.
“True,” she admitted at once. “He spends his time between Harbin and
Chita. By the time we got there, he might be on his way back here.”
“Would you advise waiting?” he asked.
“That is for you to decide.”
“Then we shall go to Harbin,” he announced. “This is a serious thing to
me. As I told you last night, I have waited twenty years to find
Kirsakoff.”
“It should not be difficult,” she said casually.
“Not with your help,” he said, with a play at enthusiasm. “If I find
him, it will be because——” He stopped short. What he was about to say
was that if he found Kirsakoff, it would be due to her. But that was not
true—she was concealing Kirsakoff. Peter felt he owed her nothing there.
“Perhaps you would prefer to wait till you feel better,” suggested
Katerin. She was still worried about his constrained manner, and not
quite sure that the change which she detected in him was due to his
feeling badly, as he claimed. She sensed an undercurrent of agitation,
and though the reason of it was far beyond her intuitions, she knew he
had undergone some change during the night—there was something hostile
in his eye, something in the slow turning of his head which revealed to
her the brooding rage which burned in his brain.
“I feel well enough,” he said, putting his hand to his ruffled brow.
“The pain has gone, but I feel dull and stupid. I hope you will forgive
my—stolidity.” He forced a smile, and threw back his head and shook it
as if to dispel a heaviness.
“When should we attempt to get away?” she asked.
“We should not delay, I think. Is it not likely that the Ataman will be
down upon the hotel at any time?”
She shivered slightly. “Every minute is precious.”
“The sooner away, the sooner we shall come up to Kirsakoff,” he said,
and rose to take a turn about the room. Then he came and stood over her,
looking down into her face.
“Take some more tea,” she said. “If we are to go away, you must feel as
well as possible.”
“True, I must. Suppose you bring your father here—and the three of us
talk over the plan of going—to Harbin.”
Katerin gave him a quick glance. Once more she had caught in Peter’s
manner a glimmer of the fact that he was holding himself in leash
against an impulse to action which he found it painfully difficult to
restrain. He frightened her a little, for there was that about his
mouth, about his eyes, and in his voice which told her that this man was
ready to slay.
“My father is still asleep, I am afraid,” she said. “But I know all the
plans that have been made. We are to leave by droshky—and Slipitsky will
forge passports for us. The old Jew is very shrewd about such things. He
helped many a man escape from—the old prison.”
Peter wondered if her reluctance to let him see her father could be due
to a suspicion that Peter already knew that her father was Kirsakoff.
“Droshky to Harbin! It sounds impossible! By droshky more than a
thousand versts in this time of the year?”
She laughed lightly. “Not all the way, of course,” she said. “Just far
enough to get away from the city—down the railway far enough to get a
train beyond where Zorogoff’s men are on guard.”
“But how are we to get through the cordons of Cossacks?”
“An American officer should be able to pass—if my father and myself have
forged passports. They would not stop you—an American.”
He saw the cleverness of her plan. It was a bold move. And the
Kirsakoffs would not have to risk having their identity revealed to
Peter during any quizzing at the railway station in Chita. Zorogoff’s
passport officers would undoubtedly hold Katerin and her father if they
attempted to board a train at the station with Peter—and the worst of it
would be, the old general would most likely be addressed by his name in
the hearing of Peter. But the sentries of the cordon around the city
would be more easily fooled. In the first place, they might not
recognize Kirsakoff at all if he were well wrapped in furs, and had his
bandage about his face. Besides, they might be deceived by the false
passports.
“Is it intended that we should go by night?” asked Peter.
“No, by day. The soldiers will not be so careful by day. By night, they
might fire upon us, or hold us till morning in some guardroom while our
papers were sent back to the city for examination. That is the advice
Slipitsky gives. He says the best escapes are made by daylight, and the
proper plan carefully worked out.”
Katerin waited till Peter thought it over. He considered the plan,
looking thoughtfully at the window.
“You, as an American, can be liberal with the soldiers. Give them enough
rubles to make them feel they want to please you, but not enough to
rouse their suspicions. We will give you the money.”
Peter found it hard to choke down the bitterness which rose anew within
him as he listened to her elaborating her plan for his deception. He was
tempted for an instant to laugh at her, and tell her now that he knew
all he needed to know. Yet there was a queer comfort for him in
listening to Katerin go on with her intricate scheme to save herself and
her father by means of the enemy of her father. And Peter realized also
that they probably did not contemplate going on to Harbin with him at
all—they would slip away from him on the train, at some station—anywhere
once they were clear of the district in which Zorogoff’s army held any
power.
“Does Wassili go with us?” he asked, thinking that perhaps the servant
would be taken for the purpose of killing Peter once they had used him
to get them free through the cordons.
“No, Wassili will remain here.”
“What is the first thing to be done?” he asked, as if anxious to get
about the business.
“Send Wassili for the droshky and the driver who is in the plan—a man
who can be trusted. That can be done as soon as Slipitsky has the
passports ready. He was drying the ink this morning, over a smoky lamp
to make the signatures fast and soften the wax of the seals so that the
counterfeit seal could be pressed in. Then we drive straight toward
Zorogoff’s headquarters, to make it appear first that we are going
there. But we go around the building, so that it will appear to the
first line of sentries on the other side that we have just left
headquarters. That will make the first cordon willing to let us pass
with scarcely any questioning. The next cordon will take it for granted
that we are all right because we have passed the first—and if there is
any trouble, the passports will let us through. The earlier we start,
the better.”
She rose, flushed with hope, which was engendered by the very telling of
how they were to escape.
“I am ready when you are,” said Peter. “Let us not lose any time.”
Tears came into her eyes. “We put our lives in your hands,” she said.
“God will bless you if you aid us in our escape.”
“The road to Harbin is before us yet,” he said with a smile. “You and
your father are not yet out of danger.”
“True,” she said, moving toward the door of her room. “I shall have him
get ready at once, and see Slipitsky about the passports.”
Peter opened the door for her, and bowed as she passed out. He closed
the door after her, and stood looking at the windows of his room, the
same queer twisted smile of the morning at the corner of his mouth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXII
THE OFFICER FROM THE ATAMAN
PETER paced the floor of his room, his head bent in thought, after
Katerin left him. He considered the possibilities of the proposed trip
to Harbin in relation to himself and Michael. An escape from Chita, he
saw now, would be most desirable for his own purpose, providing he was
not being walked into a trap in Harbin. It was quite possible that
Katerin and Michael would try to elude him in Harbin. It was
inconceivable that they were not quite as anxious to escape from Peter
as they were from the Ataman, for they were in full possession of his
secret. And once clear of the cordon of Cossack guards surrounding
Chita, they might be able to give him the slip.
He had a desire to play out the intricate game in which he found himself
enmeshed. He knew he would find it amusing to watch Katerin and Michael
play at being fugitives from the Ataman with him, and then play at
stalking Michael himself in Harbin—to see a man pretend to seek himself.
And at any time, Peter could turn to Michael, and say, “Thou art the man
I seek.”
The sheer chicanery of it had an irresistible appeal to Peter. Like all
Slavs, he loved the dramatic for the sake of itself, and he enjoyed
proceeding by devious ways. Besides, the fact that Katerin and Michael
were deliberately deceiving him, justified his own deception. Peter had
actually been sorry, as he sat thinking through the night, that the
identity of Michael had been made known so abruptly. It had all come
with such amazing clarity and finality that he had found himself rather
helpless when he realized that the whole business could be settled by
the simple expedient of killing Michael without any more delay. He
shrank from so hasty a conclusion to an affair which he had been
dreaming about for twenty years. He thought that perhaps the Russian
people had been caught in just such a staggering position by the easy
success of their revolution. A whole nation thrown back upon its
haunches, so to speak, and asking itself what it was to do now! Their
minds had been so occupied for years in planning and plotting to
overthrow the Czar and his government that they had neglected entirely
to think of what might face them once they were successful. Their plans
had not gone beyond the destruction of the Czar, and when he was
destroyed, they needed more years to give thought to what was necessary
for the good of the country and the people. It did not seem quite fair
to them that the Czar had allowed himself to be overthrown so easily—he
had destroyed their game, their one interest in life. So they began to
sulk, and intrigue against each other.
In the same way, Peter rather resented Lutoff’s directness in revealing
the fact that the “old exile” was Michael Kirsakoff. It made the matter
of killing Michael so absurdly easy! And the Slav insists upon making
all things difficult—life, war, government—before he can enjoy them. He
demands that Life shall be a puzzle, and examines its hidden purposes to
discover why the Creator has tricked him into being a living being. He
seeks a sinister motive behind his birth, and not being able to find one
or to construct one out of his fancy, he kills himself because life is
not worth living unless it can be proved to be a sort of divine
persecution. The Slav needs a lot of trouble to keep himself happy.
Convince him that the purpose of Life is to make him miserable and he is
content.
But Peter had become almost wholly Russian again, so he could not fully
consider himself in the proper light. He had no intention of letting
Michael escape. But he had the bothersome idea that he had to begin all
over again to run Michael into a snare—a snare of Peter’s own devising,
and built so leisurely that the joy of vengeance would have a
satisfactory accretion of mental torture for Michael.
The old general knew that Peter lusted for his life, and this knowledge
must in itself fill Kirsakoff with terror. Did not Kirsakoff live in
dread of a look, a word, an intonation of the voice, which would betray
him to Peter? And Peter knew that he had the power to precipitate the
dreaded catastrophe for Michael at any instant. All Peter waited for now
was the moment which would intensify the terror for Michael—that moment,
perhaps, when Michael would consider himself safest. It might come at
the instant when Michael would be ready to slip away from Peter in
Harbin, exulting in the thought that he was about to escape from the man
who sought to slay him. Safe at last! And then Peter could smile, and
instead of saying, “Good-by, my friend,” could say instead, “Now,
Michael Alexandrovitch, you die!”
And so utterly Russian such a moment would be! And how fitting, thought
Peter. Was not Michael Kirsakoff living in a fool’s paradise and
thinking that he could use his enemy to save his life from the Ataman?
When he saw it from this angle, Peter was glad that he knew the old man
was Michael. Now he could build Michael’s hopes, only to shatter them at
the end.
Once again Peter was master of himself and of the situation. He would
play the covert game with the Kirsakoffs—and Michael could not escape.
Harbin would be better than Chita after all, for it offered a better
chance for Peter to cover his tracks.
He had come to this decision when he heard the rattle of boots on the
other side of the door which led into Michael’s room. Then the door
opened slowly, cautiously, and presently Michael, the blanket over his
shoulders and clutching the loose ends of the covering to his breast,
looked in. The old man was crouched forward and he was visibly
trembling.
Peter thought at first that Michael had come sneaking in during the
absence of Katerin below, to attack him. But he saw at once that Michael
was alarmed—he stood hesitating in the door, looking back over his
shoulder, listening. He had a blanket over his shoulders, and his hair
stood up stiffly on the back of his head behind the bandages about his
face, like the crest of an angry cockatoo.
Peter stood still. He half expected that Michael had come to the
attack—that beneath the blanket Michael had a weapon. And there was no
longer any doubt that the old man was Kirsakoff. Peter recognized him
for the Governor at once, though the years had changed so much and the
bandages which covered his cheeks hid his predominant features. The nose
was still strong and arrogant, the black eyes now deeply set with age,
the white mustaches which had once been black, though sparse, changed
his appearance but little.
This was the moment for which Peter had waited so long—but he knew at
once that it was not the moment to strike. He wanted more time to deal
with Michael, and the old man was worried about something which seemed
to threaten from the hall.
“What is wrong?” asked Peter.
Michael threw up his hand in a gesture for silence, and did not turn his
head, but continued to look back over his shoulder into the two rooms
behind him.
“Some one outside my door,” he whispered.
Peter listened but heard nothing.
“Wassili has gone for a droshky, and my daughter has gone down to
Slipitsky—I did not want to lock the door against her. But—the Cossacks
have come—I heard them talking outside.”
“Come in here, sir,” said Peter. “And we will leave this door open, so
that we may watch if anybody enters and see who they are before they
discover that you have come to me.”
The old man obeyed, and Peter stood in the doorway looking into the
Kirsakoffs’ rooms. The curtain between them was caught aside by a cord,
so that both rooms were visible to Peter, the farther one by the width
of the passage between them which was enough to reveal to Peter any one
who might enter and pass it.
There were a few minutes of silence except for the quick breathing of
Michael crouched beside Peter and standing to one side of him so that he
was hidden from the other rooms. And during this time Peter began to
suspect that it was all a ruse of Michael. The old general was probably
trying to catch Peter off his guard, and attack him. It was quite
likely, so Peter thought, that Michael in some way had come to knowledge
of the fact that Lutoff had apprised Peter of the identity of the
Kirsakoffs.
But Peter abandoned his suspicion when he heard a rattling of the door
in the far room. Some one was rattling the knob in place of knocking, a
practice customary when one wanted to enter without attracting the
attention of those in other rooms opening into the hall. The rattling
ceased. The next instant Peter saw in the gloom of the far room a high
white cap of wool, and a gray sheepskin coat, and a Cossack stood
looking in the direction of Peter, head bent forward against the sharper
light from Peter’s windows.
The Cossack hesitated but a moment, then he advanced toward Peter, one
hand behind him as if he held a weapon in concealment.
“What do you want?” asked Peter.
The Cossack did not reply, but came on till he was close to Peter.
“Who are you?” asked the Cossack. He moved slightly to the right and
looked past Peter, his eyes upon Michael.
“I am an American officer,” said Peter coldly. “These are my rooms.”
“An American officer! You speak Russian well, for an American.”
“You are intruding,” said Peter. “Or have you come on a mission?”
“I am Captain Shimilin of the Ataman’s staff,” said the Cossack, and put
his hand on the hilt of his saber as he clicked his heels and bowed,
formally polite.
“And I am Lieutenant Gordon of the American army,” said Peter. “This is
my room. Please! Come in!” There was no other thing for Peter to do,
unless he wished to bring on hostilities with Shimilin. It was very
likely that the Cossack captain had soldiers within call. And now it
looked very much as if an escape to Harbin would be out of the question.
Shimilin entered as Peter stepped aside. The Cossack looked at Michael,
who had retreated to the low writing table under the window, clutching
the blanket about him.
“Have you business of the Ataman with me?” asked Peter.
“No, not with you,” said Shimilin. “I did not call upon you, but I thank
you for your politeness.”
Peter considered what he should do next. He had no wish to see Michael
wrested from his control in this fashion, and he had no doubt but that
Shimilin had come for Michael. It was quite likely that Katerin had been
seized when she went down to arrange matters with Slipitsky. Peter
frowned at the thought that Michael would escape him, even though the
old general met death at the hands of the Ataman’s soldiers. It came to
him that the limit of his vengeance now would be but to surrender
Michael and taunt him with the fact that the Cossacks—his own
Cossacks—could now deal with a Kirsakoff as they had dealt in the old
days with a Gorekin. But Peter hoped to delay with Shimilin. It might be
possible to get the Cossack away for a time, when Peter would have
things in his own hands again, if only for a brief space. He began to
see that his hand was being forced—if he was to kill Michael he would
have to do it in Chita—probably on the spot, and that in the next few
minutes.
“Could you tell me why you have come to my room?” asked Peter.
“Oh, yes,” said Shimilin easily, as he faced Michael. “I have come to
arrest this old man.”
“Arrest him? For what?” asked Peter, feigning a mild surprise. Shimilin
seemed so casual, so light-hearted, so jaunty that he appeared to regard
the whole matter as in the nature of a joke. He smiled good-naturedly at
Michael.
Shimilin lifted his shoulders inside the sheepskin coat, put out both
hands with the palms upward, and jerked his head. “It is a business of
the Ataman. You speak Russian well. Are you a Russian?”
“Yes,” said Peter.
“Of course,” said Shimilin. “Only a Russian could speak so. Have you
called upon the Ataman Zorogoff? What do you think of—our Ataman?” He
regarded Peter with questioning eyes.
“I have not yet called,” replied Peter. “I know little about the
Ataman.”
“You have heard about him here in Chita. Surely, you must have formed
some opinion.”
“No,” said Peter dryly. “If I had, I doubt if I would discuss it.”
“Now, now,” said Shimilin, not in the least offended by Peter’s
reluctance to discuss the Ataman, “I know all that. But what do the
Americans—the American army in Vladivostok—think of Zorogoff?”
Shimilin’s curiosity on that score seemed without limit.
“I doubt if they have given him much thought,” said Peter. “But about
this gentleman here—I am sorry that you want to arrest him. And in my
room.”
“What does that matter?” asked the Cossack.
“But little,” agreed Peter, who felt that he could have his way with
Shimilin if the Cossack believed that Peter was not seriously opposed to
having Michael taken. For Peter knew that a Cossack can be cajoled when
open antagonism only strengthens his resistance.
“True,” said Shimilin, with a smile. “We need have no quarrel. And being
a soldier, you know what duty means—I must obey my orders at all cost. I
am glad that you have sensible ideas.”
Captain Shimilin evidently took it for granted that Peter had decided
not to interfere, but would allow Michael to go with the Cossack. Still,
Shimilin took no action. It appeared that he wished to prolong his
conversation with Peter, and his eyes when he looked at Peter were
frankly curious.
Michael leaned back against the table, his back to the window, watching
Peter closely. The old general’s head nodded gently with the palsy,
suggestive of being moved by the beating of his heart. He divined in
Peter some sudden change of manner, and suspected that Peter was not
going to protect him against the Cossack. But he said nothing.
“I would advise you to call later,” suggested Peter suddenly, affecting
a serious mien with Shimilin.
The Cossack was visibly surprised at this.
“What! Come later? What difference can it make?”
“It might make some difference to your Ataman,” said Peter, purposely
putting a dash of mystery into the sentence. “I do not demand, captain,
that you come later. I merely advise it—for your own benefit. I can’t
explain now—but if you will come back in an hour——”
“Oh, no,” said Shimilin, though not quite sure of himself. “I am not to
be prevented from carrying out my orders.”
“I also have my orders,” said Peter significantly.
“Oh,” said Shimilin. “It would be unfortunate if your orders conflicted
with mine.” He drew his lips tightly across his teeth, and his eyes
looked squarely into Peter’s.
“True!” retorted Peter. “It would be unfortunate. But I have been
talking with this old gentleman here—and we have not finished our
conversation.”
“What have you been talking about?”
“That is a private matter between ourselves.”
“Ah! Something about the Ataman, I presume,” said Shimilin, giving
Michael a suspicious look. Then to Peter, “You would hardly believe a
man who is sought by the Ataman to have anything good to say about
him—if you could trust such a report by such a man.”
“What this old gentleman has to say about the Ataman—good or bad—is
likely to be borne out by the actions of the Ataman. You can see,
Captain Shimilin, that if your Ataman did something which did not meet
my approval—such as an arrest without sufficient warrant—I might be able
to form my own opinion of the Ataman.”
“Hmm!” sniffed Shimilin, and walked round slowly in a small circle,
looking at the floor while he considered Peter’s words. He stopped
abruptly and faced Peter, one eye partly closed. “Perhaps you have an
idea that the Ataman Zorogoff has no rights to consider?”
“I have never questioned any rights that Zorogoff may claim,” said
Peter. He saw that he had Shimilin worried.
“But the Americans have not officially recognized Zorogoff as a ruler,”
went on Shimilin. “You have been here several days, yet you have not
called upon the Ataman.”
Peter saw in this an attempt to draw from him some hint as to the
American attitude toward Zorogoff, and had no intention of committing
himself on the subject.
“I do not feel accountable to any person for my actions here, other than
my superiors,” said Peter. “If Zorogoff seeks information as to the
attitude of the Americans, let him send some one to Vladivostok.”
“Would you defy an officer of the Ataman?” asked Shimilin. “Would you
tell me that I cannot arrest a Russian subject here in your rooms?”
“This man is under my protection while he is in my room. I have not
defied you—but I suggest delay. I shall not attempt to control your
actions.”
“You don’t want him arrested? Is that what you are saying?”
“I don’t want him arrested now.”
“My Ataman will not like that. It is interference,” snapped Shimilin.
“I cannot help what the Ataman thinks.”
Shimilin smiled and bowed. “Suppose I report your attitude to the Ataman
himself?”
“I would consider that wisdom on your part,” said Peter. “There are some
aspects to this case which I cannot discuss now. That is why I suggested
delay.”
Shimilin clicked his heels and walked straight to the hall door. He
opened it, and turned. “I will submit your proposal to the Ataman—if you
are willing to take the consequence.”
“Thank you,” said Peter, bowing in dismissal. “You are very kind.”
“And,” continued Shimilin, “I shall hold you responsible that Michael
Kirsakoff is here when I return.”
Shimilin shut the door with a quick jerk, suggestive of the closing of
the jaws of a great trap.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXIII
A LIFE FOR A LIFE
WHEN he heard his own name uttered by Shimilin as the Cossack captain
departed, Michael locked his grip upon the ends of the blanket as if
against a blow. A startled moan broke from his lips, an expression of
horror that at last Peter would know him.
Peter turned upon the old man swiftly, alert at once and his own hand
dropping to the butt of his pistol.
“I—I am revealed to you!” whispered Michael, thrusting his head forward
toward Peter.
“And before you were ready, eh?” said Peter. “But you thought you could
fool me, Michael Alexandrovitch, before——”
Kirsakoff made a quick flick of his right hand, and there dropped down
from the sleeve of his shirt a small derringer. The weapon fell into his
hand, and he made a movement to adjust it for use. But Peter was too
quick for him, and before Michael could get proper hold of it, much less
aim it, Peter had leaped upon the old man and pinioned his arms against
his sides.
“So the old wolf has a snap left in him yet,” taunted Peter, as he bore
the frail Michael back against the table and wrested the derringer from
his fingers. Michael made no struggle, but relaxed in Peter’s hands, and
when released, sank weakly to his knees.
Peter pocketed the derringer, and then leaned down to Michael.
“You would kill me, would you? You have not forgotten your tricks,
Michael! Perhaps you came prepared to kill me! So the escape to Harbin
was all pretty talk, to throw me off my guard that you might——”
“Mercy!” gasped Michael. “Mercy for my daughter’s sake—I ask none for
myself!”
“You have discovered mercy. Who called for mercy for Peter Petrovitch
twenty years ago when you ordered him and his father sent to prison—and
then his father was cut down by your Cossacks? Answer me that?”
“If my daughter were safe from the Ataman, you could take your
vengeance,” said Michael simply. “I have lived beyond——”
“Oh, hush!” cried Peter angrily, clapping his hand over Michael’s mouth.
He slipped his fingers under the folds of the bandage about Michael’s
face, and slipped it back over his head, pulling it upward from the
chin.
“Let me see your face, Michael! It has been a long time since we looked
at one another—and each knew the other. On that day you were the bold,
brave Governor, surrounded by your soldiers. Life was cheap then—to you.
Come! Stand upon your feet like a man!” And Peter lifted him up against
the table.
“I have no fear of death,” said Michael proudly.
“No,” said Peter, laughing. “You are so ready to meet death that you tie
your face up in rags. But you look like yourself, Michael! Yes, I would
have known you but for the rags. Life is not so strong in you, now, it
is true, but you are the same, yes.”
Peter stood before him, with folded arms, and scanned Michael’s face
with reflective memory. He spoke quietly, almost soothingly, and his
face was lighted by his joyful exultation. He thought of nothing but
that his triumph had come, and he cared for nothing but that he should
drink his fill of the wine of revenge.
“I am helpless now—an old man,” said Michael. “But I can die—Gorekin.”
“I suppose you can,” said Peter, “much as you would throw away a lemon
that had been sucked dry. But I am thinking now of my father, twenty
years ago. You were brave with his life, too—and mine! I was a helpless
boy and you left me in your filthy prison. I might be there now for all
you cared.”
“Do your will with me,” said Michael wearily.
Peter put a hand upon his shoulder, and bent his body back, so that he
might peer into the old man’s eyes in better light.
“You have not lost your cunning, Michael. I can see it still in your
eyes, faded as they are. You thought that I, Peter Petrovitch, would
save your life—I, who have come half way round the world to take it, I,
who have waited twenty years to see the breath leave your body!”
“To save my daughter, yes,” said Michael.
“Ha! Do you not see the divinity behind all this? You run squealing to
an American officer to save you from your Cossacks—and the American is
Peter Petrovitch! And now that your own skin is threatened, you plead
for life because of your daughter! Did you give my father a chance to
plead for his son? Michael, _I am the boy_ who saw his father die in the
snow before the post-house—and you come now seeking my protection from
the Ataman——”
“A half-blood Mongol,” put in Michael. “I would save my daughter from a
Mongol—for myself I ask nothing. And I would kill you if I had the
power——”
“Stop! I shall do the talking!” Peter’s body trembled with his rage. All
the hatred which he had built up in twenty years, all the concentrated
venom in his soul against Kirsakoff was now diffusing through his body
and poisoning his brain. He lunged at Michael, and took the frail old
body in his arms, swinging him upward from the floor as a child might be
lifted in play by its father.
“Come!” commanded Peter, looking down into the white face of Michael. “I
will show you your Valley of Despair! I will show you the spot before
the old post-house where I watched my father pour out his blood into the
snow! I will show you where Peter Petrovitch, who now holds you in his
arms, could but scream in terror against you and your Cossacks—and vow
to have your life!”
He turned with Michael, and thrust the old man’s face against the pane
of the window, holding him high enough so that he could see over the
stratum of frost on the lower part of the glass.
“Look, Michael Alexandrovitch! Up the Sofistkaya! The post-house where
the mail-sledges stopped when they came in from Irkutsk! That is the
spot! And I cannot even find the bones of my beloved father in the old
cemetery by the prison on the hill. And below—the little hut where
Gorekin the bootmaker lived! See it? The chimney and a part of the old
roof. It has taken twenty years for God to put you in my hands—twenty
years, before He has let you, a leaf which is ready to fall, come into
my power. Can you doubt that He let you live that I might show you where
you stood one cold morning, master of lives in the Valley of Despair and
death waiting the snap of your finger? Times have changed, Michael. The
light has come to Russia—a new day, and for such as you who gave us but
black despair, black night has come. And justice without mercy!”
Peter swung round from the window and threw Michael upon his feet. The
old general swayed dizzily and saved himself from falling by grasping at
the table. Peter stood glowering, arms hanging out from his sides with
fingers widespread as if he were about to seize Michael again.
“You shall have your vengeance!” cried Michael, and held up an arm to
restrain Peter for a time.
“Oh, shall I?” asked Peter sneeringly, a crooked smile playing at the
side of his mouth. “Perhaps you covered your face that I might have my
vengeance! Did you plan to take me to Harbin to find Kirsakoff? Did you
put Wassili behind my chair with a knife to——?”
“Give heed to my words!” pleaded Michael in a passionate outburst. “I
will bargain with you!”
Peter laughed at him.
“Bargain! Why should I buy what I already have?”
“Look!” Michael held forth his hand to Peter. Between the fingers was a
small white pellet.
“And what is that?” asked Peter.
“I could still defeat you, Gorekin. This is a poison tablet—quick as a
bullet or a blade.”
“For me, Michael? Is it for me?” sneered Peter.
“No, for myself. I can die by my own hand quicker than you can fire your
pistol—and you must shoot quickly, or even the Ataman will defeat your
purpose with me. But I would bargain with you, Gorekin.”
“To what end?” asked Peter, somewhat amused, and curious as to the old
man’s intent. “What have you to sell, Michael?”
“I will sell you my life,” said Kirsakoff.
“I can have your life for the taking.”
“No. Look! I hold the tablet six inches from my mouth. I could be dead
before your bullet would reach me.”
“I like to hear your voice, Michael—speaking of your own death. Well,
have your say out.”
“You are a Russian, and you must have your blood amend, Gorekin. You
shall have it—I shall not destroy myself—but I ask you to save Katerin
from the Ataman. That is my bargain.”
“My father and I could not bargain, twenty years ago out there in the
Sofistkaya.”
“True. But I offer you now a life for a life—and a clean slate between
the two of us. My blood for your father’s blood—and go your way in
peace.”
Michael leaned forward eagerly. Peter’s expression had changed so that
the old man had hope, but Peter was merely astounded by Michael’s
proposal. This was something he had not looked for in the old man—a calm
willingness to take death as part of a trade, an exchange of favors.
“The old wolf has not lost his craft,” said Peter.
“The lion returns to the lair where he was whelped,” said Michael. “What
I was, I was, and done is done. What I offer is nothing, true—but you
may fail in your vengeance. Rather I would make it sure for you—and go
to meet the dead with no debt to living man.”
“And how is it to be done?” asked Peter. He still suspected that Michael
sought to escape him by a stratagem.
“With this!” exclaimed Michael, and with his left hand he drew from the
breast of his shirt a small slender object, one part red and one part
white, and held it forth to Peter. “Take this, Gorekin—I put vengeance
into your hand—if you will save Katerin from the Mongol.”
Peter drew near and looked at what Michael held. It was a cased dagger—a
leather case of red, surmounted by a hilt of yellowed old ivory and a
steel hand guard at the base of the hilt. It was the weapon of Chinese
assassins, an instrument made for but a single crime for it was cupped
under the hilt guard in such a way that it sealed the very wound it
made. Peter knew at once what it was and what it would do.
“Give me the promise—and take the knife!” entreated Michael. “One
Russian to another—to save Katerin from the Mongol!”
“And what should I do with it?” asked Peter, seeking to draw out the old
general.
“What should you do? What else, but thrust it into my heart—and take my
daughter away from the city? Come! Your word! Give it and strike
quickly, or the Ataman will defeat you!”
“You know well I could not escape, leaving you dead in my room,” jeered
Peter. “What would I gain? If I strike now—here—my vengeance will be a
short joy. It is so much simpler to turn you over to Shimilin.”
“By the Holy Saints!” cried Michael in disgust. “Has the blood of a
Russian turned to water so that he will not kill on his own honor’s
account? Please! Take this blade!”
Michael drew the hilt away from the leather case and exposed a polished
shaft of steel, white and glittering in the light from the windows—a
weapon of exquisite daintiness, with a round blade, slightly curved.
“Look at it!” urged Michael. “It is cupped at the hilt, and if you do
not draw it once you have struck, it will let away no blood. What more
could you desire?”
Peter regarded him with thoughtful eyes.
Michael threw aside the leathern case, and pulled his shirt open at the
neck, exposing his withered chest.
“Say the promise—and strike quickly while I pray,” he begged. “See! It
is a gentle weapon—so sharp and smooth that it will cause me little
discomfort. And then you may say I did it, which will leave you without
blame.”
For an instant Peter thought Michael to be mad. But it was plain enough
that the simplicity of the old man in his appeal for death was but his
surrender to the inevitable.
Peter knew the lucidity of mind which comes with the agony of spirit. He
knew how Michael’s mind was working. The old man was in the grip of that
clarity of mental vision which comes to the drowning man, or to the man
who walks to execution. Peter had experienced the same phenomenon as he
watched his father die twenty years before. The trivial things of every
day, things never noticed before, had stood out with amazing
distinctness and had registered in his brain a picture which had never
vanished.
Peter remembered now the tiny stone he had seen in the snow near his
dying father; the Cossack’s boot which had been deeply scratched; the
odor of raw fur from the sledges—even now the pungent scent was in his
nostrils. The scene recurred to him now with overpowering intensity, and
once more his old rage against Michael mounted. He reached forward and
snatched the dagger from Michael’s fingers.
“Good!” cried Michael. “You will promise—and strike!”
Then the old general began to whisper a prayer, and stretched out his
arms, like a great bat preparing for flight.
Peter held the dagger in his hand, palm upward, and slightly extended
before him, so that his elbow was a right angle with his upper arm, a
pose somewhat similar to a man who holds a rapier in low carte ready to
thrust forward the point. And he was close enough to Michael, so that if
the arm was extended, the dagger would reach the old man.
While the two of them were thus confronting each other, a low scream
broke upon the room—a full-throated cry of sudden and complete horror.
Peter turned to see Katerin in the door which led to the Kirsakoffs’
rooms. Her hands were thrown up and pressed against her cheeks, her
staring eyes fastened upon the dagger in Peter’s hands, her mouth still
open with the horror of her cry, and her body transfixed into rigidity
by the astounding situation in which she found her father and Peter. The
catastrophe which she had planned so carefully to avert, had come now,
she knew. The delicate structure she had devised had crashed down during
her absence, and she saw that Peter and her father were at each other’s
throats, or so it appeared to her in the first glance she had of the
interior of the room.
She had returned from making the final arrangements for their escape, in
happy confidence that Peter would never discover their identity—and here
was Peter about to slay her father. She saw an end to everything—the man
she looked to for safety was now to destroy them.
She screamed again. It was a scream of utter hopelessness, a scream of
black despair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXIV
A NEW TUNE ON AN OLD FIDDLE
PETER stood staring at Katerin, still holding the tiny dagger in his
hand. A puzzled look had come into his face, as if he could not
understand why she should scream. The mental shock which he had
sustained in his discovery that the old man was Michael Kirsakoff,
seemed to have closed some compartment of Peter’s consciousness which
included Katerin in her relationship to Michael. Now the full fact of
her personality intruded itself upon him in relation to what had
happened and Peter’s brain needed time to readjust itself to a state of
affairs in which Katerin must be considered.
He lifted his empty hand to his face and drew his fingers across his
eyes in a motion that suggested brushing something away which interfered
with his vision. He threw back his head and shook it slightly, as if to
clear his brain of a vapor which befogged it. An infinite weariness
gripped him, and his eyes regarded Katerin as if she were some specter
which had formed out of thin air and now stood between him and his
vengeance, possessed of a supernatural power to thwart him in his
desires.
The first of the three to move was Michael. He slumped down into a
chair, and, lifting a warning hand to Katerin, said weakly, “He has
found us out!”
Her father’s voice seemed to release Katerin from the grip of her
terror, and she began to move forward toward Peter, with slow, even
steps, her eyes upon the dagger in Peter’s hand. There was no wariness
about her, yet she had a quiet deliberation, as if she knew that it
would be safer to make no sudden movement and so startle Peter into
resistance.
Katerin approached Peter, and reaching for the dagger, put her hand upon
its blade and drew it out of his fingers with the same gentle motion
that a mother might use in taking a dangerous object from the hand of a
child. And Peter relinquished the weapon, not so much in surrender as in
a state of mind which was willing to forego for the present anything or
any action in exchange for time to consider a new phase of the
situation.
Katerin recognized the dagger, more by the quick sidewise glance she
gave her father than by looking at the ivory hilt which stuck up between
her thumb. She suspected that her father had drawn the weapon against
Peter when he had discovered her father’s identity, and that Peter had
disarmed him. But she knew that just what had happened during her
absence from the room did not matter now—the danger lay before her. She
mistrusted Peter’s temporary mood, and sought for an angle by which she
might draw from him his attitude, or deflect him from any murderous
intent. She knew that her father’s life hung in the balance—and her
own—while Peter stood there silently staring at her, grim and forbidding
and gathering impetus for whatever form his next impulse would take.
“I trusted you!” she said quietly, and after she had uttered the words
her mouth remained half open and her breath came gustily, like the
breath of a runner who is spent at the end of an effort. She had been
holding her breath since she had screamed in the doorway. She looked
into his eyes.
Peter’s lids flickered. His eyes were half closed, and still shot with
red in the tiny blood-engorged veins at the sides. He looked at her
dreamily, questioningly, and she thought with something of insolent
defiance.
Peter did not answer, but he moved his head slightly and looked past her
at Michael, lips compressed, and the lids flickering.
“Peter Petrovitch—I love my father.” Her voice was low, entreating,
consoling, and carried an infinite desire that he understand her
suffering.
“This is the end for us!” piped up Michael shrilly. “To the dead it does
not matter how death has come—we shall take the poison!”
Michael lifted one hand before him, and with the other tore open a seam
in the cuff of his shirt. Between his thumb and finger appeared a small
white pellet.
Katerin was upon him instantly and took away the pellet.
“Not yet—by your own hand,” she said gently, and putting one arm about
his neck, bent and kissed him. She turned to Peter once more, her
courage stronger, a vague hope growing within her. But her eyes were
filled with tears.
“Would you kill my father? Would you do the work of Zorogoff, the
Mongol? And see me surrendered to this half-blood Ataman? You! Peter
Petrovitch—a Russian—a Russian from America!”
She was not so much asking him these things, as she was asking herself
if he could do them. She was not afraid—she was hurt. It all seemed
incomprehensible to her—that any Russian could ally himself with
Zorogoff, could commit a murder such as he had planned. She understood
now that she had not been brave in her dealings with him, but that she
had never allowed herself to believe he could be dangerous even though
her dexterous manipulation of him were exposed.
“Katerin Stephanovna!” said Peter, gazing at her with a trace of
surprised awe in his tone and his look. “You—are Katerin Stephanovna!”
She divined something of what was passing through his mind—he was
thinking of her as a little girl, in the old days in Chita. A look of
hope flashed across her face, though she took care that she did not
betray to him that she saw an advantage.
“I am Katerin Stephanovna,” she said, with a lift of her chin. She stood
beside her father, one hand upon his shoulder to restrain him against
any action, and yet in a posture which suggested defense.
“The same little girl—who was in the sledge—that morning of the almanacs
and——” went on Peter.
Her mind leaped ahead of him as he paused—she knew now that he was
mentally reconstructing the scene of his father’s death, and that from
it would accrue a new burst of hate, a fresh impetus which might compel
him to action against the restraint which her presence had interposed
between him and her father. She left her father and moved toward Peter,
seeking to distract his thoughts by drawing his attention to her.
“Are you a true Russian?” she demanded passionately, as she approached
him. “Are you a man of my race?”
He seemed startled by the question, and once more his hand brushed his
brow.
“Russian?” he repeated simply, almost helplessly, as if it were
something that it had never occurred to him before to question. He
looked down at his uniform, and then lifted a khaki sleeve to study the
brown band of tape at the cuff, the band of an officer’s sleeves.
“Why, yes—I am Peter Petrovitch,” he said finally.
He stepped to the window and looked out upon the Sofistkaya, and at the
flattened gable-end of the little hut below which had been his and his
father’s. Katerin drew close to him, and putting her hand softly upon
his arm, looked into his face. Her own was drawn with suffering, and
glistened with fresh tears.
“Peter Petrovitch,” she whispered, “you look upon a new Russia—the one
you knew has gone. The old prison on the hill is empty! Empty! Thank God
for it! What more can you do?”
He looked directly at her, and studied her face for a minute, his own
face still reamed with the lines of the hatred which held his nerves
taut.
“You trusted me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You deceived me,” he retorted, once more himself and completely
readjusted to the meaning of her return.
“Yes. To save my father. But I trusted you, too, else I could have
avoided you. I would give my life to save my father, but it is too late
now—I can neither save him nor myself. We live only so long as Zorogoff
delays in coming.”
“You speak to thwart me,” he said bitterly.
She turned her palms upward in a gesture of submission and the slightest
shrug of her shoulders, as if she had lost all interest in what the
final result of what she said might be, and as if what he might do was a
matter of little moment to her.
“I speak to save your soul,” she said softly. “But we shall not quarrel
about it—either what you are to decide about us, or about your soul.”
“No?” he demanded, surprised that he should be nettled by her
carelessness. “But you are pleading with me now.”
She gave him a look of surprise and laughed harshly.
“Pleading? For what? A few hours of life?”
“You might both escape,” he suggested, “by the droshky which you have so
cleverly planned. That is, if I should let you go.”
“We could not get through without you. And what does it matter whether
the Ataman Zorogoff kills my father in the morning, or you kill him now.
No, Peter Petrovitch, I plead only to save you from blood upon your
hands—and to save your own life—the life of an American officer.”
At this, he thought of Wassili and smiled.
“I mean Zorogoff,” she hastened to say. “He would not let you escape, if
you gave him reason to destroy you—if you killed my father.”
“You can argue for Zorogoff, who will destroy you both?” he asked,
making no attempt to mask his incredulity.
She lifted her shoulders again in that same almost imperceptible shrug,
and looked casually out of the window.
“You can help America help our people,” she said. “As for Zorogoff, I
have death ready at my bidding for myself before he could take me to his
palace—I can defeat the dog of a Mongol. But what do you gain by your
vengeance upon my father? A few hours of his life! Is that the measure
of the value of your vengeance?”
“You think that I am too late—that I am already defeated in my purpose,”
he said.
“Yes. You are, Peter Petrovitch. Time has defeated you.”
“No,” he insisted. “I have waited twenty years——”
“And after twenty years, you come back to what? Michael Kirsakoff and
his daughter hiding from his Cossacks! The old governor, worse off than
peasants, with death lurking at the door! The general of the Czar’s
army, in flight and hiding like one of his own escapes in the old days!
What sweeter vengeance would you ask, Peter Petrovitch?”
She spoke of her father and herself in the third person as if she were
already separated from life and saw herself in the detachment of death,
looking back upon her father’s and her own end.
“True, times have changed,” said Peter grimly.
“Yet you had no hand in it,” she said daringly, conscious that what she
said might lift his wrath again. “The tree of hate has borne its own
bitter fruit, and a gale of death sweeps the land——”
“Ay, the wheel has turned!” cried Michael from his chair. “And the water
has returned to the sea! My sins are my own, and judgment is before me.
But I have offered my life to you, Peter Gorekin, for——”
“Do not heed him!” said Katerin to Peter hastily, as she saw his eyes
flame with sudden anger.
“I have come all the way from America to hear him,” said Peter. “Am I to
be cheated——”
“America!” cried Katerin with fervor, clapping her hands together. “You,
a Russian! Have come from America! And what are you to do with what
America has given you?”
“And what has it given me?” he demanded in surprise.
“America has given you its trust—you, the poor son of an exile, by the
coat you wear, are an officer—a gentleman! Ah, Peter Petrovitch, I had
hoped that America had changed your heart as well as your coat—and taken
something from you.”
“And what should it take?”
He scanned her face, seeking her purpose in holding his attention away
from Michael. Her eyes held infinite sadness, and seemed to have lost
any sense of terror. Her face had softened in final resignation, and he
saw her for the first time in her own nature—the serene calmness which
belongs to the Russian aristocrat, who is essentially a fatalist.
“I have heard much of America,” she said dreamily, her eyes on the
window but her vision not extending beyond the glass. “I hoped that you,
who are of my own race, should learn a new lesson in America—that the
spirit of America should take from you that love of destruction, that
love for vengeance which is so strong in our people. Countless millions
have been willing to die, and have died for Holy Russia. When is the
Slav to learn that he must live for Holy Russia?”
“Ah, those who have ruled Russia have just begun to learn how precious
is life,” said Peter. “I learned the lesson out there in the Sofistkaya
twenty years ago—it is you who are learning now—from me—and your
Cossacks!”
“Yes, I know Shimilin has been here,” she said wearily. “We have come to
the end. I cannot ask you to save us, even if you could or would. That
is done.”
“You were willing—when you went down to arrange for the droshky. You
could smile when you thought I was deceived.” His manner with her was
easier now, and he seemed to be toying with the situation, testing her
bravery.
“Yes, it was all a woman has against a man—a smile for a shield. And you
thought you were deceiving me—you would tell to Rimsky what you would
not tell to Vashka the samovar girl.”
“Vashka the samovar girl!” he repeated. “Vashka, telling me of
Kirsakoff—a tall man in uniform, with black mustaches—a man in his full
strength, stalwart—the cruel Governor who was behind the government of
Zorogoff!”
“You were secretly seeking my father. It was my duty to learn your
secret before you learned ours—a fair game.”
“True!” he admitted.
“I would save you now from the Ataman.” She gave him a quick and eager
look. He misread her intent, when he thought she was turning his mind
into new channels.
“Save me!” He was incredulous, and once more on the alert against some
new plan to entrap him.
“Yes, to save you, Peter Petrovitch! If Zorogoff knows that you had our
story, when we are dead, he will fear your knowledge against him—and
destroy you.”
“You should think of my safety at this time! Why?”
She bent her head and turned from him, but he took both her arms and
swung her so that she had to look into his face. But she evaded his
glance, though she did not resist his grasp.
“I can tell you now because of the barrier between us,” she said.
“Barrier?” He was frankly puzzled.
“The blood of your father and your desire for vengeance stands between
us—that is why I can tell you, Peter Petrovitch, that—I loved you——”
His hands loosened upon her arms, and a flood of tears was upon
her—silent tears, which shook her frame. And Peter seized her again and
threw his arms about her with crushing ferocity.
“Katerin! Katerin!” he cried, and the next instant released her as
suddenly as he had swept her to him.
“Oh, God!” he cried, throwing up his clenched fists in a gust of fury.
“Have I been brought to my enemy, only to be tormented? What am I to do,
my father, what——?”
Michael had leaped from his chair with a cry, and faced Peter.
“What? What?” demanded the old general. “There is love—love between you
two—my daughter——!” He was too shaken to frame more words, and his voice
wavered and broke and lost itself in the depths of his throat. He stood
with his frail legs bending under him, his mouth wide open and his chin
quivering, gulping for breath to give him energy to express the emotions
which shook his body and rendered him powerless to express himself.
Katerin flung herself at him to sustain and calm him, still fearful that
Peter might attack under the slightest provocation—and she was in terror
lest her father would give vent to an outburst of anger.
“I shall speak!” he said gently to Katerin, and at once he was strong
again, as if he had rallied the last bit of his energy for his new
venture of resistance. Katerin let him go on toward Peter, who stood
waiting to see what the old man might have to say.
Michael sank to his knees before Peter, and held up his arms
imploringly, while words began flowing from his agitated lips in a
torrent.
“Give heed to what I say,” he cried beseechingly. “You, too, are a
Russian! Look upon me, who once was your Governor! Have compassion upon
me who am now but a bit of dried mud cast upon the road by the wheel of
Time! Have mercy——”
“So you have learned what it is to ask for mercy, Michael
Alexandrovitch! But you have yet to learn what it means to have mercy
denied,” taunted Peter.
“It is not mercy that I ask for myself, Gorekin,” went on Michael. “But
you love my daughter—and I stand between you! Save her! Save her from
the Mongol. And leave me, who am but some of the wreckage of Holy
Russia, to suffer the wrath of this Zorogoff!”
“We two shall die together, my father—your fate shall be mine,” said
Katerin, “or I shall die by my own hand.”
“You saw me in the old days, Gorekin,” went on Michael in disregard of
Katerin. “Were those days worse than these? I obeyed my orders. I held
my power by the word of the Czar, and I bore his sword. Now I have lived
beyond my time. My day is done. I am not of these days. How does it
matter the manner of my end? I shall soon be with your father—I,
Kirsakoff the Governor, with Gorekin the bootmaker and the political—in
the hills above us. Then let God judge my sins, as will yours be judged!
Take my daughter—she is all I have to give for the debt that is due you,
yes, overdue! I am old, but my eyes still see, and I see that you two
love! Take my Katerin Stephanovna to America, Peter Petrovitch! Flee,
both of you——”
Katerin gave a warning cry and sprang toward the door leading into her
room. She had caught the sound of running feet from the hall—feet in
panic flight.
“Hush!” she warned. “Some one comes!”
Slipitsky, his black cap missing from the top of his head, and his eyes
telling of his dread for something which pursued him, burst into the
room. He clapped his hands to his temples in frantic despair in a
gesture of hopelessness, too short of breath still from running to tell
what he feared.
“The Ataman!” he gasped. “God’s doom is upon us!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXV
THE FINAL RECKONING
THE door leading to the hall was flung open. Shimilin, the Cossack
captain, stood on the threshold, and behind him was a group of his
wild-looking soldiers, their heads hooded with wrappings of furs, and
the points of their shining bayonets bristling about their shoulders.
Shimilin did not advance, but remained in the doorway, coldly surveying
those inside the room. He gave each of them a casual glance—Michael,
Katerin, Peter, and even the shivering Slipitsky who stood cowering
against the wall and whispering to himself through trembling lips and
fingering his beard in nervous terror.
“The Ataman Zorogoff!” announced Shimilin, and the soldiers behind him
opened a narrow lane, as Shimilin stepped aside and into the room.
The Ataman pushed through the guards, and strode into the room, looking
straight at Peter, stern and challenging. The Mongol chieftain’s
greatcoat was off, and his somewhat fantastic costume betrayed his
childish love for personal display. Rising from the swarthy forehead was
the towering white cap of long hairy wool, studded in the center of its
flat front by a wide slab of crudely hammered gold half the size of a
man’s hand, and in it set a diamond. At his left side hung a tremendous
scimitar with a hilt-knot of gold fiber swinging from the guard. He wore
a snuff-brown tunic with big brass buttons, blue riding breeches with
double stripes of gold braid down the sides, and heavy black boots
fitted with wheel-like spurs of silver. His shoulders were covered with
broad straps of gold cloth. In his belt were a pair of pistols, the
butts sticking up from the tops of uncovered holsters. An order of the
Czar hung from the top of a tunic pocket, an odd link between the
shattered empire and this usurper, who was crafty enough to display upon
his person something which still had a meaning to many of his followers
and reflected a trace of the vanished glory of the throne.
A pair of gold devices gleamed upon the standing collar of the tunic of
the Ataman, and his long black hair which fringed his ears, was all the
blacker for the whiteness of the woolly cap.
Zorogoff marched toward Peter, his boots pounding the floor
belligerently, his small black eyes burning with a glittering menace.
But he stopped when he could have put out his hand and touched
Peter—stopped with an abrupt and final thump of the heel of his left
boot as he planted it close beside the right boot.
“There is the American officer,” said Shimilin, still standing by the
door. “That is the man, sir, who sent the message.”
Some of the soldiers edged into the room and grounded their rifles with
jarring thuds, and the others outside in the hall pressed forward,
thrusting their heads in.
Peter bowed. “I am Lieutenant Gordon of the American army,” he said with
cold formality, and returned the Ataman’s angry stare.
“I have come to hear you oppose my will,” growled Zorogoff, a wicked
twist to the corner of his lips, and venom in his eyes.
“And what is your will, sir?” demanded Peter, putting enough deference
into his words and manner to prevent Zorogoff from having any complaint
on the ground of lack of civility or respect.
“My officers report that you have been in my city several days. You come
here as an American and ignore me and my government.”
“I can assure you that you will not be ignored by the American army,
sir,” said Peter.
“Do you, representing the American army, dare tell my officers what they
may not do?”
“I requested your officer not to arrest General Kirsakoff and his
daughter in my room. They came here to talk with me, and till I have
finished talking with them, your officers must not interfere, sir.”
Zorogoff’s breathing became audible to Peter, and he saw the flat
nostrils of the Ataman twitch, and growing anger flashing in his eyes.
But he did not take his eyes from Peter’s, nor was there the slightest
change of expression in the Mongol’s immobile face after that lifting of
the nostrils. Behind the Ataman stood Shimilin, smiling sneeringly over
the shoulder of his chief, in an obvious attempt to break through
Peter’s armor of stolid patience.
“My officers must not interfere!” echoed the Ataman. “Is it that I take
orders from the Americans?”
“No, it is not an order, but——”
“Good!” blustered the Ataman. “It is not an order!”
“It is not an order,” went on Peter, in the same even tones. “But you
must take care that you do not interfere with American officers. I tell
you now, sir, that if these people are arrested in my room, I shall
demand to know the reason for their arrest, that they are properly
charged and tried, and given the right to a proper defense. Otherwise it
may appear to the Russian people that an American officer has betrayed
this old man and his daughter to you, and delivered them into your
hands. I cannot prevent you from arresting them, from executing them if
you wish, but I can reveal to the commander of the American army and to
the people of America, the methods of your rule, sir.”
“I rule here, and in my own way. I ask no help in ruling from the
Americans,” grunted Zorogoff.
“And the Americans are vitally interested in _how_ you rule, sir,”
retorted Peter.
“I rule as I please, with account to no one!” raged Zorogoff. “Captain
Shimilin! Take the old man and the woman!”
“Wait!” cried Peter, throwing up his hand to Shimilin. “You are invading
my room! I claim the only right to give orders here!”
“I take Russian subjects where I find them, and I do with them as I see
fit!” thundered Zorogoff, his face seeming to swell with rage at Peter’s
words.
Captain Shimilin turned as if to obey the Ataman’s order, but he
hesitated, the same sneering smile upon his lips. He appeared much
amused at Peter’s defiance, and only too willing to let him further
enrage the Ataman.
“You speak of subjects of Russia, sir,” said Peter, addressing Zorogoff.
“Am I to have the honor of reporting that the Ataman Zorogoff occupies
the throne of all the Russias? And perhaps part of Mongolia?”
Zorogoff made a grimace, and the flesh about his eyes crinkled tightly.
Peter saw that he had struck a vital spot in the pride of Zorogoff, and
had touched upon a matter which revealed some of Zorogoff’s power as a
pretender—his strength came from his affinity with Asiatic people
through his Asiatic blood. His leadership was racial, for he was
exploiting his Mongol heritage and behind him were princes of ancient
Tartary whispering against white ascendancy in their own land.
“That is the Russian speaking,” said Zorogoff, “not the American! You
turned your back on your own people, and come now in a strange coat to
give orders with——”
“I came to give you warning that America will not allow you to persecute
and kill a helpless old man and a defenseless woman! To keep your hands
off helpless——” Peter checked himself in sheer wonderment at his own
words—he who had come to kill the helpless old father of Katerin,
suddenly found himself defending the very man he had waited twenty years
to slay! “America will not allow you to persecute and kill,” he repeated
weakly, as if it were an idea which he had just discovered! And he had!
For the first time in his life he had been able to express the
Americanism which he had acquired in twenty years. It was something that
had overgrown his spirit and had smothered all unknowingly to him the
smoldering fires within him which impelled him finally to seek the blood
vengeance of the Slav!
“Take the Kirsakoffs away!” ordered Zorogoff, turning to Shimilin in the
instant of what seemed to him Peter’s indecision. “No Russian, even in
an American uniform, can oppose my will here, or——”
A small object came hurtling through the air past Peter, and struck the
Ataman in the face. It was a heavy pocket-knife, with the blades closed,
and its end, capped with curved grooves, left three short gashes
parallel in the cheek of Zorogoff, before it ricocheted against the wall
and clattered to the floor.
Michael sprang forward closely after the missile which he had hurled at
the Ataman, and thrust forward his fists, past Peter.
“God’s curse upon you!” screamed Michael, his voice rising to a shrill
shriek. The Ataman stepped back, and put his hands to his face, and then
looked at the tips of his fingers covered with blood. He regarded them
thoughtfully for the fraction of a second, a look of surprise in his
eyes.
Shimilin spoke in restraint to his soldiers, for they had started
forward into the room, their bayonets coming up aslant.
Michael pushed forward and thrust his fists into the Ataman’s face, the
body of the old general coming between Peter and Zorogoff, so that
Peter’s view of Zorogoff was temporarily cut off. And in that time
Zorogoff drew a pistol, and fired, the crash of its report booming out
above the startled cries of Katerin and Slipitsky and the high-pitched
shrilling of Michael at his enemy. Zorogoff’s bullet almost lifted
Michael from his feet, being fired from the hip and upward into
Michael’s breast. The old general swung half round and then staggered
backward and fell with startling impact across the low writing table.
Peter turned to look after Michael, just as Katerin came plunging toward
the Ataman, who stood partly hidden in a cloud of gray smoke. Peter
caught the flash of the naked blade—the blade of the small dagger which
Michael had handed to Peter and which had been taken from Peter’s hand
by Katerin.
Peter clutched after her, fearful of the consequences of another attack
upon Zorogoff. But she eluded his grasp, and lunged straight forward
into the smoke about Zorogoff, to bury the dagger to its hilt in the
Ataman’s neck at the base of the standing collar of his tunic.
Zorogoff gave a gurgling cry and the heavy pistol fell from his hand. He
threw up his arms and then clawed at his throat as his knees gave
beneath him—and pitched forward at Peter’s feet to the ringing clatter
of the great scimitar against the floor.
Peter caught Katerin in his arms as she reeled back, and held her, his
left hand flying to his own pistol to be ready against the expected
attack from Shimilin and the soldiers. But Shimilin stood with his arm
raised to hold the soldiers in check, his eyes upon the dying Ataman.
Peter stood thus holding Katerin for a minute, as she cried
incoherently. Slipitsky had run to Michael and had lifted the old
general down into a chair and the moans of the stricken general came
above the wailing of the Jew. Peter gave no heed to them but held his
pistol with the barrel half downward and watched the soldiers pressed
about the door, fearing that Shimilin would not prevent them from using
their rifles. Peter knew well that there was no hope of coming out of a
fight alive, but he knew that a weapon had a restraining effect if not
aimed at any particular person.
The Ataman lay face down upon the floor, his back hunching up
spasmodically, as if he were struggling to get to his feet. At times he
drew his knees up, and then his toes would slip back and he would fall
upon the scimitar with a musical clang, his life gurgling out through
his lips in a crimson stream. Presently he lay still, stretched out at
full length, his spurs sticking up from the heels of his boots, the gold
knot of the scimitar hilt at his left side, and the toe of the scabbard
showing at the right, and his great white cap near his head on the
floor.
Shimilin spoke first. “Go and tell Bouran that the Ataman is dead,” he
ordered one of his men. “But let no one else know. You others stand
outside and let no one enter or have knowledge of what has happened
here.”
Katerin recovered herself and slipped from Peter’s arm. She looked round
wildly, and then went to her father. He lay back against the chair, held
upright by Slipitsky, though the old general’s body swayed from side to
side as he was gripped by the tremors of his agony. His hands were
clutched to his breast, holding the old peasant’s coat against his
wound.
Peter followed after Katerin, for he felt now that whatever Shimilin
intended against them in retaliation for the killing of the Ataman would
not come in the form of summary action. Katerin was on her knees before
her father, speaking to him tenderly in her anguish for him, and at
times sobbing out prayers.
Michael opened his eyes and stared up at Peter, and let his hands fall
upon Katerin’s head. A spasm of pain crossed his graying face, and he
opened his mouth several times before he could speak.
“Save her!” he gasped to Peter. “Now I—no longer stand between
you—forgive—forgive——” His breath failed him, and his breast heaved as
he was shook by a mighty convulsion.
“Die in peace, Michael Kirsakoff,” said Peter. “I forgive.”
Michael recovered himself for a brief space.
“Good!” he whispered. “Every man has his wolf to kill, but it is
better—I was but a millstone hanging from her neck—but now you can save
her—you forgive——”
“As I hope to be forgiven, I forgive,” said Peter, putting his face down
close to Michael. “Do you hear me, Michael Alexandrovitch?”
A smile came into Michael’s pain-tortured face—a smile of helpless
assent, with which was mingled his joy at Peter’s words. But still he
was troubled, and his head shook with his effort to express his further
wishes.
“Save her—from the Ataman!” he pleaded.
“The Ataman is dead,” said Peter. “Look! There upon the floor!”
Michael’s eyes roved as Peter stepped aside, and finally rested upon the
prone body of Zorogoff.
“A-h-h!” cried Michael. “The Ataman submits to the general of his
Emperor! My Katerin, do not be sad for me—let the birds sing for both of
you—I go happy—God’s blessing upon you both—Gorekin—I, who go to meet
the dead, sal—ute——”
Shimilin came and stood beside Peter. The Cossack captain drew off his
cap, crossed himself, and uttered a few words of prayer. Michael’s
dimming eyes saw him—and revealed a new terror.
“Shimilin!” he gasped.
“Have no fear of me, Michael Alexandrovitch,” said Shimilin. “You, nor
your daughter need have no fear of me.”
Peter glanced at Shimilin in surprise, for the Cossack captain was
strangely gentle and sympathetic for a man who might be expected to take
vengeance for the slaying of his chief.
“I saved you both from Zorogoff, the time at the house,” said Shimilin.
“It was I who prevented an execution because you would not give up your
money. If you had trusted me and given me the money, I would have
protected you, for I could have been Ataman then—as I am the Ataman
now.”
“You have succeeded Zorogoff?” asked Peter, in startled amazement.
“I am the new Ataman,” repeated Shimilin. “We Cossacks had a plot, but
all was not ready——”
“God’s blessing—on—my little——”
Michael’s head fell forward upon his chest, and he was dead.
Katerin gave a wailing cry and put her hands tenderly upon the cheeks of
her father. Peter and Shimilin turned away to leave her with her dead,
while Slipitsky stole out into the other room to return with the icon
from the corner in which stood Michael’s bed. The Jew put the sacred
image into the wasted hands of him who had been Michael Alexandrovitch
Kirsakoff, governor and general of the Czars in the Valley of Despair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXVI
FAREWELL
THE morning was cold and foggy. Through the gray and frozen haze came
the sounds of voices, the creaking of boots, the jangle of a distant
bell from the horses of a troika—a ghostly world filled with ghostly
shapes, hidden, yet full of unseen life. It was just such a morning as
that one in the past when Peter Petrovitch waited for the Czar’s mail,
and the column of unfortunates went clanking out into the wilderness to
cut wood under a guard of Cossack soldiers.
And he who had been Peter Petrovitch sat this morning by the window of
his room in the Dauria Hotel and gazed out over the world of floating
mists—Lieutenant Peter Gordon of the United States Army. In the hall,
outside his door, were two tall Cossack soldiers with their rifles, on
guard.
A week had passed since the killing of the Ataman Zorogoff and the death
of Kirsakoff. There had been a mutiny and an attempt by partisans of
Zorogoff to kill Shimilin, the new Ataman. But the Cossacks were behind
Shimilin, and the Mongols and other bandits who had stood with Zorogoff
found their power broken, their intrigues betrayed and their leaders
dead after firing squads. The survivors fled up and down the railroad.
The régime of Zorogoff was at an end, with its looting, its terrorism,
its mailed fist which demanded tribute in exchange for protection.
The body of Zorogoff was not buried in Chita. The second day after his
death, there appeared in the city, from down Urga way, a lama from Outer
Mongolia with frosty whiskers, a pinnacle cap and a greatcoat of fine
fur with sleeves which reached to the ground. He came with a retinue
mounted on camels, and the leading man held aloft a small purple banner
which caused many men to submit their necks when they saw it pass. For
somewhere down in the mountains to the south in the khanates of the
Kalkas tribes, there was a Prince, and when he spoke, it was an order—an
order to be obeyed.
And this lama of grave face and the tall cap summoned the Ataman
Shimilin and bartered for the body of Zorogoff, who was half Mongol by
blood, and that half of interest to the holy men of Forbidden Tibet.
Shimilin, being wise in such things, knew how much he could ask to the
ultimate jewel—and got it. And as the lama traded with Shimilin, there
were hints of many more men from Mongolia lurking outside the city,
hidden by the fog. A line of tiny fires gleamed at the edge of the
plain, the Cossack outposts heard the grunting of baggage camels, and
the murmur of countless voices drifted in through the fog.
So Zorogoff’s body was slung up between the humps of a Bactrian camel,
and the animal went swaying off through the mist, with Zorogoff’s head
nodding at the ground of ancient Tartary in his last farewell.
Of these things Peter knew little. He was still in danger, as was
Katerin, for there were many in Chita who sought a way to avenge
Zorogoff. There were few persons who knew Katerin had killed him, but
such knowledge spreads easily in Asia, where there are so many ears
listening, so many eyes watching, so many tongues whispering in strange
tongues. So Shimilin kept a guard over the hotel, and in it, to see that
Peter and Katerin were well protected.
And Peter had seen little of Katerin during the week. He had attended
the military funeral at daybreak which Shimilin had granted the old
general. Katerin was there, hidden and hemmed in among the Cossacks who
had served under her father. Few knew who was being buried in the
cemetery on the hillside above the ruin of the old prison. So it was
that General Kirsakoff became a part of the Valley of Despair which he
had ruled.
Katerin seemed to avoid Peter after the funeral. She kept to her own
rooms, with Wassili, except the night they went with Shimilin and his
soldiers to the old log house and retrieved the fortune in rubles which
was hidden in the stove.
Peter waited till the days had softened her sorrow. He knew she wanted
to be alone with her thoughts, as he did with his own. He had no way of
knowing how her thoughts would turn in relation to him, but one fact
made him happy—Katerin was safe for the time being. He did not know that
she possessed a fortune, and he supposed that she would want to remain
in Chita. He did not want her to feel any debt toward him for having
helped her against the Ataman Zorogoff, and he did not want to presume
upon the fact that while she was under the stress of death she had
admitted her love for him. There was a barrier between them he well
knew—the barrier of the circumstance that Peter would never have been in
Chita if he had not sought to kill her father; and behind that, the
circumstance that Peter had held her father responsible for the killing
of his own father, and his own imprisonment. Peter knew there was
nothing which could wipe out those accursed facts, and that they would
hover over all thoughts Katerin might have for him. He saw himself
fettered by bonds of his own making—and in the gyves of his love for
her.
And how much he loved Katerin was just beginning to break upon him with
the full fury of an emotion which had long been pent within his heart.
He had loved Russia and his own kind; not the machinery of government
which had been known as Russia, but the land, the very soil—hills,
plains, and valleys. This love of his homeland was now centered upon
Katerin, for she had become to him a personification of his own Russia,
stricken and deserted by the rest of the world. And he was possessed of
a passion to make amends for the vengeance which he nursed against her
father. He longed to cherish and protect Katerin, to show her the land
which had done so much for him, to take her by the hand and walk with
her in the streets of the city where he learned that every man may work
out his own destiny without the handicap of a system of government which
measures what each man may do and not do according to the rank of his
father—the land where the boy from a cabin may become a Lincoln!
In his soul, Peter felt that he had betrayed America. Though he had not
killed Kirsakoff, Peter suffered torment that Katerin knew how madly he
had sought to kill. And he feared that she would blame America, and not
him, for keeping alive that love for vengeance.
He passed the days pacing the floor of his room, or sitting by the
window. At times he was tempted to quit the city and never see Katerin
again. But he could not do it. He preferred to take his punishment by
having her tell him to go—at least, he could fill that place in his
consciousness which had harbored hatred for Michael Kirsakoff with the
sorrow that Kirsakoff’s daughter loved him yet would not face life with
him. He felt that it would all be easier to bear if he carried with him
a memory of his parting from her which would always lash him for the
dreadful plan which he had devised and all but carried out.
As he sat there by the window this morning, there came a knock at the
door. He admitted a messenger from Ataman Shimilin—a tall young Cossack
with boyish face and filled with pride at the thought that once more his
own people controlled the city. He saluted and clicked his polished
steel spurs quite as if he were in the presence of royalty.
“From the Ataman!” he announced, and bowed as he handed a letter to
Peter. It read:
I send two officers of my staff to-day to Vladivostok to make
report to the American commander that I, Shimilin, am now
Ataman, and that my government shall be just. I have taken the
private car of Zorogoff, and knowing that you intend to return
to Vladivostok soon, perhaps you would like to travel by this
wagon. It is advisable to go aboard the car, which now stands in
the station yards, while the fog still holds, and be picked up
by the next train. If you have any friends to go with you, the
station commandant is at your orders. The Irkutsk train for
Vladivostok will be here within an hour, and it will pick up one
of my armored cars for safety. Perhaps you will be able to
report to your superiors that all Cossacks are not robbers and
that we desire only the salvation of our Russia. I salute you
and America.
SHIMILIN, Ataman.
Peter stepped to the writing table, picked up a pen, and wrote on a slip
of paper:
I shall go at once. Thank you for the kindness. I hope to see
the Ataman before I depart from his city.
PETER GORDON, Lieutenant.
The messenger bowed, clicked, and left the room, and Peter gathered his
blankets and made them into a roll. Then he paused a minute,
thoughtfully—and finally knocked upon the door leading to Katerin’s
rooms.
The old serving woman who had been at the log house opened the door just
enough to peep through.
“Tell your mistress that the American officer wishes to say good-by,
please,” said Peter, and the door closed at once.
Peter was stricken with chagrin and disappointment. He thought that
Katerin might not see him and had given her orders to that effect to her
servant. He had expected that the door would open for him—and it had
closed upon his request to see Katerin. He stood for a moment, wondering
if he should not go down to Slipitsky at once, pay his bill, and go on
to the car which stood in the station yard.
Then the door opened, and Katerin herself stood before him—a Katerin
that he had never seen. She wore now, instead of the poor garments in
which he had seen her as a samovar girl, the beautiful purple velvet
gown which reached to her slippers. Her hair was high upon her head,
dressed in the style of a Russian lady so that it suggested a
crown—lifted from the front and turned back smoothly against the mass,
and then drawn down tightly across the ears. Tall, slender, and stately
she was now, such a woman as might be a princess of the blood. Hanging
from her neck was a gorgeous string of pearls, and from her fingers
gleamed jeweled rings. And Peter’s heart sank as his eyes rested upon
her, for once again he realized with a pang that, after all, he was but
Peter Petrovitch, son of a poor exile, and Katerin Stephanovna was of
the Russian nobility. He saw a new barrier between them, and one which
he had forgotten in his recent thoughts of her.
The joy which had come into his face at first glance at her was
dissipated by his realization that this was the end for them, and he
bowed a most formal bow.
She held out her hand to him, and he took it, like a man in a trance,
but conscious of the jewels on her fingers.
“You are going away?” she said, with concern in her eyes—a concern which
he knew to be politeness. She was still pale, he thought, and wistfully
sad for her father.
“Yes,” he said. “I am to go—Shimilin sends me word that a private car is
in the yards and——” He let his eyes wander to the figure of the serving
woman, who was lurking behind the curtains which led to the far room. He
wondered what he could say for she seemed so comfortable now with her
servants—the old woman and Wassili—and so self-sufficient. How could she
be otherwise than rich, he thought, with such clothes and such jewels?
He wished that she had kept her clothes as a samovar girl, and then he
might have found it possible to give utterance to some of the words
which pressed him to be said. He would have found it much easier to
blurt out what was in his heart if she had not been so grand and
disconcerting in that velvet gown. He sensed a hurt within himself that
she had done this—could it be that she had dressed herself deliberately
for their meeting so that he should find it easy to keep his place?
“You have called to say good-by,” she said, and drew aside slightly.
“Then you must come in—and we shall have a glass of tea.” Then, as if
she divined what was in his mind about her changed appearance, she
added, “We Kirsakoffs never mourn our dead with garments—an old custom
of our warrior clan—instead, we wear our best, out of respect for those
who have gone—and these poor things are the best I have. So please do
not think it strange. Wassili! Fire the samovar and fetch fresh water
for a guest of the house!”
“But are you safe?” burst out Peter. “You are in danger enough from
those who may know you killed the Ataman, without revealing your jewels
and your good clothes! There may be a rising against Shimilin at any
time—the Bolsheviki—the bandits from Mongolia! It is too bad that you
have put on these clothes—for your own safety!”
“You are afraid I shall be killed because I killed Zorogoff?” she asked,
with the ghost of a smile on her lips.
“Yes, I am afraid,” he went on earnestly. “You should have remained in
the dress of a samovar girl——”
“Oh, but I have done playing at being a samovar girl,” she laughed. “If
I am to die, I shall die as a Kirsakoff, and not as a servant. So you
are leaving the city soon?”
“I am leaving at once. Shimilin has sent me word that a private car is
in the yards—and I cannot disregard such a hint, for he may mean it as a
command. And—why don’t you go too?”
“I? Go? Where?” she seemed amazed at the idea.
“To Vladivostok. You would be safe there, and safe on the train. Take
this chance to escape from the city, while Shimilin has control.”
She sat down and gestured him to a chair before her.
“I, too, have heard from Shimilin—about the car. But I shall not go.”
Peter’s face showed his disappointment. He had hoped that she might be
induced to leave Chita, and by getting away from the scene of her
father’s death and her old home, her memory of why Peter had gone to the
city would be dimmed. Now he saw that she was determined to let him go
his way—she wanted to see him no more, she wanted to forget him. And
yet, he remembered, she had told him she loved him! He wondered if it
were possible that she had admitted a love only because she wanted to
save her father. Was that what she had meant when she said she had done
with playing at being a samovar girl? That she had done with duplicity
because there was no further necessity for duping him?
“It is a pity that you will not go,” he said wearily. He regretted that
he had asked to see her at all, for he suspected that she was inclined
to laugh at him now because as a samovar girl she had been able to
deceive him so thoroughly.
“At least, I shall not go now,” she said. “Perhaps later—for there will
be nothing to keep me here now.”
“Then come!” he pleaded, leaning forward, and holding out his hand. “I
know what there is between us—Katerin. I know now how wrong I was about
your father—I can claim no credit for having helped you the little I
did—I want no credit—but I was blind with hate for the old régime. Now I
wish to help you——”
He stopped and shook his head, seeing that he was not giving her help to
get away from the city—Shimilin had already done that if he had offered
her the use of the private car. It struck him now that perhaps her
suggestion that she might leave later had something to do with his going
now—she did not want to travel with him.
She sat tapping her fingers on the arm of the chair and looking at the
rings on her hand, reflectively, yet with something that told she had
already made up her mind as to what she should do and that they were
talking to no purpose.
“I tell you,” he began again. “I shall not go with the car, if you will
consent to leave for Vladivostok. If you prefer that I should not——”
“No, you must not stay here,” she said.
“But I shall stay if you do not go!” he cried.
She gave him a startled look. “Stay? Why, you cannot stay here always. I
thought you came to say good-by.”
He stood up. “If you wish it, it shall be good-by,” he said. “But I am
not going away.”
“You must not be absurd,” she said, and stood up also, a faint trace of
color in her cheeks. “Why should you remain here?”
“Because I care for your safety, that’s why! I promised your father that
I would protect you and——”
She tossed her head back, and regarded him through half-closed lids.
“You may consider yourself released from that promise,” she said. “You
owe no debt—do not trouble yourself on that score, because——”
“Katerin!” he cried, holding out his hands to her imploringly. “You know
what I mean—you know that your father desired your safety! Then let us
forget my promise, but——”
“You do not make your promises to keep them, is that it? Then you are
not bound by anything, Peter——” She shrugged her shoulders and turned
her face from him.
“Go on!” he commanded. “You were going to say ‘Peter Petrovitch.’ Why
have you turned against me? Katerin, I love you, and even if you will
let what has happened stand between us, I want to see that you escape——”
“You but want to keep your promise to my father, and you think only of
what he may have desired about me!” she retorted with a show of anger,
her face aflame. “You have no debt to a Kirsakoff, living or dead, in
any way! Do I owe you anything? Perhaps I do, but I can pay you! What
price, I ask? What price, Peter Petrovitch Gorekin?”
He stood dumfounded and gazed at her. She turned abruptly, and opened
the top of a trunk which he had not seen before.
“What price?” she demanded.
“Price! Price!” he gasped. “Why, you owe me nothing! Please do not
insult me—I wished to see you again—I wished to say good-by—please,
mistress——” the word escaped him,—the word of deference to the upper
class, the word of recognition that she was impossibly above him in the
Russian social caste.
She let the top of the trunk fall, and putting her hands to her face,
burst into tears. Just then Wassili stuck his head through the green
curtains and looked in, startled and angry. Peter was about to reassure
the _moujik_ that no harm threatened his mistress, but before Peter
could speak, Wassili burst through the curtains and he held in his hand
a great knife. The Slavic battle rage took possession of Peter at sight
of the knife, and all the restraints imposed upon him by civilized life
left him in one mad instant. He knew but one thing—he loved Katerin, and
Wassili was going to stand in the way. The blade in the _moujik’s_ hand
swept away all the fine perplexities which had harassed Peter—these
points of honor which he saw as a barrier between him and Katerin. He
snapped out his pistol and pointed it at Wassili.
“Get back through that curtain!” he commanded, and stepped forward
toward Wassili. The _moujik_ pressed back, but did not leave the room.
“What’s this?” cried Katerin, turning upon Peter angrily.
He made no reply, but shifting his pistol into his left hand, he kept
Wassili covered with the weapon. Then he paused for an instant. Before
Katerin or Wassili understood his intent, Peter seized her with his
right arm and lifted her against his shoulder. With his left elbow under
his head, he kept the muzzle of the pistol toward Wassili, and backed
out of the room through the open door into his own room.
Peter put Katerin upon her feet, just as Wassili moved after him—and
Peter beckoned the _moujik_ on.
“And what may this be about?” demanded Katerin, staring at Peter as
though she suspected that he was bereft of his senses.
“A marriage by abduction—the old folk custom of our people,” declared
Peter grimly. “Wassili! You bear witness! I have taken Katerin
Stephanovna Kirsakoff from her house to mine—and there must be a
witness. She is now my wife—and she must do as I say. So put away the
knife—you cannot take from me the woman I have stolen!”
Katerin burst out in laughter.
“You Peter Petrovitch!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were an
American—and yet you are Russian—stealing a wife by the old custom! Do
you think I am to take this seriously?”
“You will find it is serious—till you are safe in Vladivostok,” retorted
Peter. “Then—well, once you are safe, you may do as you wish. But I am
master till then.”
She laughed again.
“So you are American after all—in Vladivostok I may do as I wish! How
can you call yourself Russian? Go away, Wassili—it is but a joke!”
Wassili, not quite sure it was such a joke, put away his knife, and went
back to the far room. Katerin shut the door, and then turned to Peter,
who stood looking at her, resenting a trifle her taking it as a joke at
all.
“We shall go aboard the car at once,” he said. “Get ready your baggage,
please.”
“Ah, he is Russian again!” laughed Katerin.
“What does it matter if I am Russian or not?” said Peter. “When I try to
consider your feelings, you insult——”
“No, no, Peter,” she begged, and went to him and put her hands gently on
his sleeves, looking up into his face. “You did not understand—you know
nothing of a woman’s heart—I told you once that I loved you——”
“Yes!” cried Peter. “You told me that, and then you insist upon staying
here when I want to protect you—when you know there is a chance to go——”
“Growl—growl like a Russian bear, Peter! But did you not come to say
good-by?”
“To take you with me if I could.” He seized her hands. “O, Katerin,
think this over and see what I want you to see—when you get to
Vladivostok——”
“And what when I get to Vladivostok? What am I to do when I get to
Vladivostok?”
“Well, you will know what you want to do, then?”
“Do about what?”
“I want you to marry me—to go to America—to——”
She stamped her foot.
“You are a hopeless American!” she cried. “I like you better as a
Russian, Peter Petrovitch!” She dropped her head, and as he gave a cry
of joy, she looked up, her face radiant with joy and flushed with color.
“Katerin! You will marry me?”
“How can I help myself—I have been stolen by the old law, and now——”
“Yes, what?”
“I know that you want me—not for a promise—but for myself—Peter——”
“O God!” he cried, “I know now I am forgiven!” and he crushed her to
him.
Presently there came a knocking at the door of Katerin’s room, and the
old serving woman came when Katerin called to her to enter.
“Tell Wassili to pack my baggage,” said Katerin. “We are all going to
Vladivostok—at once.”
“But let Wassili first go for a priest,” said Peter. “And do not cry, my
love—we shall both say farewell forever to the Valley of Despair, and
our journey’s end shall be America—our America.”
“America!” she whispered, looking through the window as if her eyes saw
behind the fog-banks a strange land. “What a wonderful country America
must be!”
“You cannot know till you have seen,” said Peter.
“I know now,” she replied, smiling through her tears, “I know now, Peter
Petrovitch.”
“How can you know, my love?”
“Because—I know a Russian who became an American—the son of a
bootmaker—a bootmaker who was an unfortunate—a poor boy——”
“Hush, hush!” he said, and put his arms about her again, seeing where
her thoughts were straying—to the fresh brown mound on the bleak
hillside by the ruin of the old prison. “They are together, your father
and mine. Because of that, we shall not forget our Holy Russia. Would
not they both be happy—are they not both happy, knowing what they must
know now, and seeing what the dead must see? We living think we would do
one thing, but is it not that the dead guide us, knowing better than we
what is before us and what we shall do before we have finished? Truly,
as the wise say, from evil good—my love was here but I did not know
it—and now I have found her.”
And as the fog shrouded them from the street, there was nothing to
prevent him from kissing her once more.
THE END
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that:
was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_);
was in bold by is enclosed by “equal” signs (=bold=).
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