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THE SAMOVAR GIRL
FREDERICK MOORE
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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
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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
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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.