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.