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?”