and kill a helpless old man and a defenseless woman! To keep your hands
off helpless——” Peter checked himself in sheer wonderment at his own
words—he who had come to kill the helpless old father of Katerin,
suddenly found himself defending the very man he had waited twenty years
to slay! “America will not allow you to persecute and kill,” he repeated
weakly, as if it were an idea which he had just discovered! And he had!
For the first time in his life he had been able to express the
Americanism which he had acquired in twenty years. It was something that
had overgrown his spirit and had smothered all unknowingly to him the
smoldering fires within him which impelled him finally to seek the blood
vengeance of the Slav!
“Take the Kirsakoffs away!” ordered Zorogoff, turning to Shimilin in the
instant of what seemed to him Peter’s indecision. “No Russian, even in
an American uniform, can oppose my will here, or——”
A small object came hurtling through the air past Peter, and struck the
Ataman in the face. It was a heavy pocket-knife, with the blades closed,
and its end, capped with curved grooves, left three short gashes
parallel in the cheek of Zorogoff, before it ricocheted against the wall
and clattered to the floor.
Michael sprang forward closely after the missile which he had hurled at
the Ataman, and thrust forward his fists, past Peter.
“God’s curse upon you!” screamed Michael, his voice rising to a shrill
shriek. The Ataman stepped back, and put his hands to his face, and then
looked at the tips of his fingers covered with blood. He regarded them
thoughtfully for the fraction of a second, a look of surprise in his
eyes.
Shimilin spoke in restraint to his soldiers, for they had started
forward into the room, their bayonets coming up aslant.
Michael pushed forward and thrust his fists into the Ataman’s face, the
body of the old general coming between Peter and Zorogoff, so that
Peter’s view of Zorogoff was temporarily cut off. And in that time
Zorogoff drew a pistol, and fired, the crash of its report booming out
above the startled cries of Katerin and Slipitsky and the high-pitched
shrilling of Michael at his enemy. Zorogoff’s bullet almost lifted
Michael from his feet, being fired from the hip and upward into
Michael’s breast. The old general swung half round and then staggered
backward and fell with startling impact across the low writing table.
Peter turned to look after Michael, just as Katerin came plunging toward
the Ataman, who stood partly hidden in a cloud of gray smoke. Peter
caught the flash of the naked blade—the blade of the small dagger which
Michael had handed to Peter and which had been taken from Peter’s hand
by Katerin.
Peter clutched after her, fearful of the consequences of another attack
upon Zorogoff. But she eluded his grasp, and lunged straight forward
into the smoke about Zorogoff, to bury the dagger to its hilt in the
Ataman’s neck at the base of the standing collar of his tunic.
Zorogoff gave a gurgling cry and the heavy pistol fell from his hand. He
threw up his arms and then clawed at his throat as his knees gave
beneath him—and pitched forward at Peter’s feet to the ringing clatter
of the great scimitar against the floor.
Peter caught Katerin in his arms as she reeled back, and held her, his
left hand flying to his own pistol to be ready against the expected
attack from Shimilin and the soldiers. But Shimilin stood with his arm
raised to hold the soldiers in check, his eyes upon the dying Ataman.
Peter stood thus holding Katerin for a minute, as she cried
incoherently. Slipitsky had run to Michael and had lifted the old
general down into a chair and the moans of the stricken general came
above the wailing of the Jew. Peter gave no heed to them but held his
pistol with the barrel half downward and watched the soldiers pressed
about the door, fearing that Shimilin would not prevent them from using
their rifles. Peter knew well that there was no hope of coming out of a
fight alive, but he knew that a weapon had a restraining effect if not
aimed at any particular person.
The Ataman lay face down upon the floor, his back hunching up
spasmodically, as if he were struggling to get to his feet. At times he
drew his knees up, and then his toes would slip back and he would fall
upon the scimitar with a musical clang, his life gurgling out through
his lips in a crimson stream. Presently he lay still, stretched out at
full length, his spurs sticking up from the heels of his boots, the gold
knot of the scimitar hilt at his left side, and the toe of the scabbard
showing at the right, and his great white cap near his head on the
floor.
Shimilin spoke first. “Go and tell Bouran that the Ataman is dead,” he
ordered one of his men. “But let no one else know. You others stand
outside and let no one enter or have knowledge of what has happened
here.”
Katerin recovered herself and slipped from Peter’s arm. She looked round
wildly, and then went to her father. He lay back against the chair, held
upright by Slipitsky, though the old general’s body swayed from side to
side as he was gripped by the tremors of his agony. His hands were
clutched to his breast, holding the old peasant’s coat against his
wound.
Peter followed after Katerin, for he felt now that whatever Shimilin
intended against them in retaliation for the killing of the Ataman would
not come in the form of summary action. Katerin was on her knees before
her father, speaking to him tenderly in her anguish for him, and at
times sobbing out prayers.
Michael opened his eyes and stared up at Peter, and let his hands fall
upon Katerin’s head. A spasm of pain crossed his graying face, and he
opened his mouth several times before he could speak.
“Save her!” he gasped to Peter. “Now I—no longer stand between
you—forgive—forgive——” His breath failed him, and his breast heaved as
he was shook by a mighty convulsion.
“Die in peace, Michael Kirsakoff,” said Peter. “I forgive.”
Michael recovered himself for a brief space.
“Good!” he whispered. “Every man has his wolf to kill, but it is
better—I was but a millstone hanging from her neck—but now you can save
her—you forgive——”
“As I hope to be forgiven, I forgive,” said Peter, putting his face down
close to Michael. “Do you hear me, Michael Alexandrovitch?”
A smile came into Michael’s pain-tortured face—a smile of helpless
assent, with which was mingled his joy at Peter’s words. But still he
was troubled, and his head shook with his effort to express his further
wishes.
“Save her—from the Ataman!” he pleaded.
“The Ataman is dead,” said Peter. “Look! There upon the floor!”
Michael’s eyes roved as Peter stepped aside, and finally rested upon the
prone body of Zorogoff.
“A-h-h!” cried Michael. “The Ataman submits to the general of his
Emperor! My Katerin, do not be sad for me—let the birds sing for both of
you—I go happy—God’s blessing upon you both—Gorekin—I, who go to meet
the dead, sal—ute——”
Shimilin came and stood beside Peter. The Cossack captain drew off his
cap, crossed himself, and uttered a few words of prayer. Michael’s
dimming eyes saw him—and revealed a new terror.
“Shimilin!” he gasped.
“Have no fear of me, Michael Alexandrovitch,” said Shimilin. “You, nor
your daughter need have no fear of me.”
Peter glanced at Shimilin in surprise, for the Cossack captain was
strangely gentle and sympathetic for a man who might be expected to take
vengeance for the slaying of his chief.
“I saved you both from Zorogoff, the time at the house,” said Shimilin.
“It was I who prevented an execution because you would not give up your
money. If you had trusted me and given me the money, I would have
protected you, for I could have been Ataman then—as I am the Ataman
now.”
“You have succeeded Zorogoff?” asked Peter, in startled amazement.
“I am the new Ataman,” repeated Shimilin. “We Cossacks had a plot, but
all was not ready——”
“God’s blessing—on—my little——”
Michael’s head fell forward upon his chest, and he was dead.
Katerin gave a wailing cry and put her hands tenderly upon the cheeks of
her father. Peter and Shimilin turned away to leave her with her dead,
while Slipitsky stole out into the other room to return with the icon
from the corner in which stood Michael’s bed. The Jew put the sacred
image into the wasted hands of him who had been Michael Alexandrovitch
Kirsakoff, governor and general of the Czars in the Valley of Despair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXVI
FAREWELL
THE morning was cold and foggy. Through the gray and frozen haze came
the sounds of voices, the creaking of boots, the jangle of a distant
bell from the horses of a troika—a ghostly world filled with ghostly
shapes, hidden, yet full of unseen life. It was just such a morning as
that one in the past when Peter Petrovitch waited for the Czar’s mail,
and the column of unfortunates went clanking out into the wilderness to
cut wood under a guard of Cossack soldiers.
And he who had been Peter Petrovitch sat this morning by the window of
his room in the Dauria Hotel and gazed out over the world of floating
mists—Lieutenant Peter Gordon of the United States Army. In the hall,
outside his door, were two tall Cossack soldiers with their rifles, on
guard.
A week had passed since the killing of the Ataman Zorogoff and the death
of Kirsakoff. There had been a mutiny and an attempt by partisans of
Zorogoff to kill Shimilin, the new Ataman. But the Cossacks were behind
Shimilin, and the Mongols and other bandits who had stood with Zorogoff
found their power broken, their intrigues betrayed and their leaders
dead after firing squads. The survivors fled up and down the railroad.
The régime of Zorogoff was at an end, with its looting, its terrorism,
its mailed fist which demanded tribute in exchange for protection.
The body of Zorogoff was not buried in Chita. The second day after his
death, there appeared in the city, from down Urga way, a lama from Outer
Mongolia with frosty whiskers, a pinnacle cap and a greatcoat of fine
fur with sleeves which reached to the ground. He came with a retinue
mounted on camels, and the leading man held aloft a small purple banner
which caused many men to submit their necks when they saw it pass. For
somewhere down in the mountains to the south in the khanates of the
Kalkas tribes, there was a Prince, and when he spoke, it was an order—an
order to be obeyed.
And this lama of grave face and the tall cap summoned the Ataman
Shimilin and bartered for the body of Zorogoff, who was half Mongol by
blood, and that half of interest to the holy men of Forbidden Tibet.
Shimilin, being wise in such things, knew how much he could ask to the
ultimate jewel—and got it. And as the lama traded with Shimilin, there
were hints of many more men from Mongolia lurking outside the city,
hidden by the fog. A line of tiny fires gleamed at the edge of the
plain, the Cossack outposts heard the grunting of baggage camels, and
the murmur of countless voices drifted in through the fog.
So Zorogoff’s body was slung up between the humps of a Bactrian camel,
and the animal went swaying off through the mist, with Zorogoff’s head
nodding at the ground of ancient Tartary in his last farewell.
Of these things Peter knew little. He was still in danger, as was
Katerin, for there were many in Chita who sought a way to avenge
Zorogoff. There were few persons who knew Katerin had killed him, but
such knowledge spreads easily in Asia, where there are so many ears
listening, so many eyes watching, so many tongues whispering in strange
tongues. So Shimilin kept a guard over the hotel, and in it, to see that
Peter and Katerin were well protected.
And Peter had seen little of Katerin during the week. He had attended
the military funeral at daybreak which Shimilin had granted the old
general. Katerin was there, hidden and hemmed in among the Cossacks who
had served under her father. Few knew who was being buried in the
cemetery on the hillside above the ruin of the old prison. So it was
that General Kirsakoff became a part of the Valley of Despair which he
had ruled.
Katerin seemed to avoid Peter after the funeral. She kept to her own
rooms, with Wassili, except the night they went with Shimilin and his
soldiers to the old log house and retrieved the fortune in rubles which
was hidden in the stove.
Peter waited till the days had softened her sorrow. He knew she wanted
to be alone with her thoughts, as he did with his own. He had no way of
knowing how her thoughts would turn in relation to him, but one fact
made him happy—Katerin was safe for the time being. He did not know that
she possessed a fortune, and he supposed that she would want to remain
in Chita. He did not want her to feel any debt toward him for having
helped her against the Ataman Zorogoff, and he did not want to presume
upon the fact that while she was under the stress of death she had
admitted her love for him. There was a barrier between them he well
knew—the barrier of the circumstance that Peter would never have been in
Chita if he had not sought to kill her father; and behind that, the
circumstance that Peter had held her father responsible for the killing
of his own father, and his own imprisonment. Peter knew there was
nothing which could wipe out those accursed facts, and that they would
hover over all thoughts Katerin might have for him. He saw himself
fettered by bonds of his own making—and in the gyves of his love for
her.
And how much he loved Katerin was just beginning to break upon him with
the full fury of an emotion which had long been pent within his heart.
He had loved Russia and his own kind; not the machinery of government
which had been known as Russia, but the land, the very soil—hills,
plains, and valleys. This love of his homeland was now centered upon
Katerin, for she had become to him a personification of his own Russia,
stricken and deserted by the rest of the world. And he was possessed of
a passion to make amends for the vengeance which he nursed against her
father. He longed to cherish and protect Katerin, to show her the land
which had done so much for him, to take her by the hand and walk with
her in the streets of the city where he learned that every man may work
out his own destiny without the handicap of a system of government which
measures what each man may do and not do according to the rank of his
father—the land where the boy from a cabin may become a Lincoln!
In his soul, Peter felt that he had betrayed America. Though he had not
killed Kirsakoff, Peter suffered torment that Katerin knew how madly he
had sought to kill. And he feared that she would blame America, and not
him, for keeping alive that love for vengeance.
He passed the days pacing the floor of his room, or sitting by the
window. At times he was tempted to quit the city and never see Katerin
again. But he could not do it. He preferred to take his punishment by
having her tell him to go—at least, he could fill that place in his
consciousness which had harbored hatred for Michael Kirsakoff with the
sorrow that Kirsakoff’s daughter loved him yet would not face life with
him. He felt that it would all be easier to bear if he carried with him
a memory of his parting from her which would always lash him for the
dreadful plan which he had devised and all but carried out.
As he sat there by the window this morning, there came a knock at the
door. He admitted a messenger from Ataman Shimilin—a tall young Cossack
with boyish face and filled with pride at the thought that once more his
own people controlled the city. He saluted and clicked his polished
steel spurs quite as if he were in the presence of royalty.
“From the Ataman!” he announced, and bowed as he handed a letter to
Peter. It read:
I send two officers of my staff to-day to Vladivostok to make
report to the American commander that I, Shimilin, am now
Ataman, and that my government shall be just. I have taken the
private car of Zorogoff, and knowing that you intend to return
to Vladivostok soon, perhaps you would like to travel by this
wagon. It is advisable to go aboard the car, which now stands in
the station yards, while the fog still holds, and be picked up
by the next train. If you have any friends to go with you, the
station commandant is at your orders. The Irkutsk train for
Vladivostok will be here within an hour, and it will pick up one
of my armored cars for safety. Perhaps you will be able to
report to your superiors that all Cossacks are not robbers and
that we desire only the salvation of our Russia. I salute you
and America.
SHIMILIN, Ataman.
Peter stepped to the writing table, picked up a pen, and wrote on a slip
of paper:
I shall go at once. Thank you for the kindness. I hope to see
the Ataman before I depart from his city.
PETER GORDON, Lieutenant.
The messenger bowed, clicked, and left the room, and Peter gathered his
blankets and made them into a roll. Then he paused a minute,
thoughtfully—and finally knocked upon the door leading to Katerin’s
rooms.
The old serving woman who had been at the log house opened the door just
enough to peep through.
“Tell your mistress that the American officer wishes to say good-by,
please,” said Peter, and the door closed at once.
Peter was stricken with chagrin and disappointment. He thought that
Katerin might not see him and had given her orders to that effect to her
servant. He had expected that the door would open for him—and it had
closed upon his request to see Katerin. He stood for a moment, wondering
if he should not go down to Slipitsky at once, pay his bill, and go on
to the car which stood in the station yard.
Then the door opened, and Katerin herself stood before him—a Katerin
that he had never seen. She wore now, instead of the poor garments in
which he had seen her as a samovar girl, the beautiful purple velvet
gown which reached to her slippers. Her hair was high upon her head,
dressed in the style of a Russian lady so that it suggested a
crown—lifted from the front and turned back smoothly against the mass,
and then drawn down tightly across the ears. Tall, slender, and stately
she was now, such a woman as might be a princess of the blood. Hanging
from her neck was a gorgeous string of pearls, and from her fingers
gleamed jeweled rings. And Peter’s heart sank as his eyes rested upon
her, for once again he realized with a pang that, after all, he was but
Peter Petrovitch, son of a poor exile, and Katerin Stephanovna was of
the Russian nobility. He saw a new barrier between them, and one which
he had forgotten in his recent thoughts of her.
The joy which had come into his face at first glance at her was
dissipated by his realization that this was the end for them, and he
bowed a most formal bow.
She held out her hand to him, and he took it, like a man in a trance,
but conscious of the jewels on her fingers.
“You are going away?” she said, with concern in her eyes—a concern which
he knew to be politeness. She was still pale, he thought, and wistfully
sad for her father.
“Yes,” he said. “I am to go—Shimilin sends me word that a private car is
in the yards and——” He let his eyes wander to the figure of the serving
woman, who was lurking behind the curtains which led to the far room. He
wondered what he could say for she seemed so comfortable now with her
servants—the old woman and Wassili—and so self-sufficient. How could she
be otherwise than rich, he thought, with such clothes and such jewels?
He wished that she had kept her clothes as a samovar girl, and then he
might have found it possible to give utterance to some of the words
which pressed him to be said. He would have found it much easier to
blurt out what was in his heart if she had not been so grand and
disconcerting in that velvet gown. He sensed a hurt within himself that
she had done this—could it be that she had dressed herself deliberately
for their meeting so that he should find it easy to keep his place?
“You have called to say good-by,” she said, and drew aside slightly.
“Then you must come in—and we shall have a glass of tea.” Then, as if
she divined what was in his mind about her changed appearance, she
added, “We Kirsakoffs never mourn our dead with garments—an old custom
of our warrior clan—instead, we wear our best, out of respect for those
who have gone—and these poor things are the best I have. So please do
not think it strange. Wassili! Fire the samovar and fetch fresh water
for a guest of the house!”
“But are you safe?” burst out Peter. “You are in danger enough from
those who may know you killed the Ataman, without revealing your jewels
and your good clothes! There may be a rising against Shimilin at any
time—the Bolsheviki—the bandits from Mongolia! It is too bad that you
have put on these clothes—for your own safety!”
“You are afraid I shall be killed because I killed Zorogoff?” she asked,
with the ghost of a smile on her lips.
“Yes, I am afraid,” he went on earnestly. “You should have remained in
the dress of a samovar girl——”
“Oh, but I have done playing at being a samovar girl,” she laughed. “If
I am to die, I shall die as a Kirsakoff, and not as a servant. So you
are leaving the city soon?”
“I am leaving at once. Shimilin has sent me word that a private car is
in the yards—and I cannot disregard such a hint, for he may mean it as a
command. And—why don’t you go too?”
“I? Go? Where?” she seemed amazed at the idea.
“To Vladivostok. You would be safe there, and safe on the train. Take
this chance to escape from the city, while Shimilin has control.”
She sat down and gestured him to a chair before her.
“I, too, have heard from Shimilin—about the car. But I shall not go.”
Peter’s face showed his disappointment. He had hoped that she might be
induced to leave Chita, and by getting away from the scene of her
father’s death and her old home, her memory of why Peter had gone to the
city would be dimmed. Now he saw that she was determined to let him go
his way—she wanted to see him no more, she wanted to forget him. And
yet, he remembered, she had told him she loved him! He wondered if it
were possible that she had admitted a love only because she wanted to
save her father. Was that what she had meant when she said she had done
with playing at being a samovar girl? That she had done with duplicity
because there was no further necessity for duping him?
“It is a pity that you will not go,” he said wearily. He regretted that
he had asked to see her at all, for he suspected that she was inclined
to laugh at him now because as a samovar girl she had been able to
deceive him so thoroughly.
“At least, I shall not go now,” she said. “Perhaps later—for there will
be nothing to keep me here now.”
“Then come!” he pleaded, leaning forward, and holding out his hand. “I
know what there is between us—Katerin. I know now how wrong I was about
your father—I can claim no credit for having helped you the little I
did—I want no credit—but I was blind with hate for the old régime. Now I
wish to help you——”
He stopped and shook his head, seeing that he was not giving her help to
get away from the city—Shimilin had already done that if he had offered
her the use of the private car. It struck him now that perhaps her
suggestion that she might leave later had something to do with his going
now—she did not want to travel with him.
She sat tapping her fingers on the arm of the chair and looking at the
rings on her hand, reflectively, yet with something that told she had
already made up her mind as to what she should do and that they were
talking to no purpose.
“I tell you,” he began again. “I shall not go with the car, if you will
consent to leave for Vladivostok. If you prefer that I should not——”
“No, you must not stay here,” she said.
“But I shall stay if you do not go!” he cried.
She gave him a startled look. “Stay? Why, you cannot stay here always. I
thought you came to say good-by.”
He stood up. “If you wish it, it shall be good-by,” he said. “But I am
not going away.”
“You must not be absurd,” she said, and stood up also, a faint trace of
color in her cheeks. “Why should you remain here?”
“Because I care for your safety, that’s why! I promised your father that
I would protect you and——”
She tossed her head back, and regarded him through half-closed lids.
“You may consider yourself released from that promise,” she said. “You
owe no debt—do not trouble yourself on that score, because——”
“Katerin!” he cried, holding out his hands to her imploringly. “You know
what I mean—you know that your father desired your safety! Then let us
forget my promise, but——”
“You do not make your promises to keep them, is that it? Then you are
not bound by anything, Peter——” She shrugged her shoulders and turned
her face from him.
“Go on!” he commanded. “You were going to say ‘Peter Petrovitch.’ Why
have you turned against me? Katerin, I love you, and even if you will
let what has happened stand between us, I want to see that you escape——”