SENTENCED TO DEATH
To what lengths our conversation on that subject might have gone I will
never know, for at that instant we were interrupted by Prince Michael,
who was seeking my companion. I had only time to utter one admonition:
"Extremities should never be resorted to until the necessity arises,
nor is it wise for one to burn a bridge until it has been crossed;
besides, you have an engagement at noon to-morrow which should be
kept."
"Which will be kept," she murmured, in reply. Then Prince Michael came
upon us.
The prince reported that many of the guests were calling for their
hostess and so I utilized the opportunity to take my leave, which I
did notwithstanding the protests of my friend. He told me to make use
of his _sanka_, which would return and wait for him after it had
deposited me at my door; but when I left the house the storm had lulled
almost to stopping and as the distance was not great I decided to walk.
That decision very nearly cost me my life, and very materially altered
my views regarding the princess as well as my intentions concerning
her. As I passed through the house on my way to the street I met
Captain Durnief, who stopped me for a moment.
"I feel like a boy who is dressed in his first trousers," he said to me
with a laugh. "You cannot comprehend the delight of returning to this
place after the experiences I have undergone in Siberia, for even the
life of an officer there is little better than that of a convict. I
shall have the pleasure of meeting you often, Dubravnik, for I
understand that you are frequently at the palace."
"Shall you be there?" I asked.
"Yes; I am detailed to the palace guard. Have you enjoyed the evening
here?"
"Hugely."
"Of course you have met the princess frequently."
Durnief had a way of half closing his eyes when he talked. He evidently
intended it to give him the appearance of indifference, but it had a
directly opposite effect upon me, for it was palpably a mask to conceal
the intensity of his gaze--to hide the interest he felt in whatever he
uttered at the time.
"No," I said, "this is my first acquaintance with her."
"Then you should consider yourself greatly honored."
"I do." Possibly my monosyllabic reply was even shorter than it needed
to have been for he gestured an almost imperceptible shrug, and
hesitated while he again bestowed upon me that half quizzical glance
which seemed to conceal a sneer, or which might have been intended to
suggest that I should have understood some obscure meaning behind his
words; but I chose not to see it. Then, as we shook hands at parting he
honored me by a pressure or his thumb which Morét had taught me to
understand as the very faintest kind of an interrogation. I have
already mentioned it as often given by a nihilist to one whom he
believes may be one with him. It was so faint and so uncertain that it
might easily have been mistaken for an accident, and like the glance I
permitted it to pass unnoticed.
It was about half past two in the morning when I emerged from the
house. The air was exhilaratingly cold, and the storm was nearly past.
The clouds which had hovered over the city all the preceding day and
night were still in evidence, however, so that the streets between the
widely separated lamps were dark and lonely. The distance I had to go
was something more than a mile, and I had traversed more than half of
it and was in the act of turning a corner when directly beside me, and
quite near, I saw a flash, was conscious of a loud report, and felt
that I had received a sharp and telling blow on my head.
When I was again conscious of my surroundings I was in my own rooms,
while beside the couch upon which I had been placed were my valet, a
physician, and my faithful coadjutor, Tom Coyle.
"Hello, Tom; what's up?" I asked, feebly.
"Faith, you'd have been up higher than you care to go just yet, Dannie,
if I hadn't been drivin' wan av me own cabs this night, owin' to the
sudden death av wan av me min," he replied. "The doctor says the bullet
didn't hurt ye much, but ye'd have been froze stiff if I hadn't found
ye whin I did."
"Tell me about it," I commanded.
"Divil a bit there is to tell, more than I've already said. I was goin'
to the princess' afther me fare, whin I heard a shot. I wint where I
heard the sound and found you. That's all I know."
"Where did the bullet strike me?"
"Foreninst yer head, Dannie. Ye'll have a bald spot there, I'm
thinkin'. But it only broke the skin an' hit ye a welt that made ye see
stars this cloudy night. Now I'm goin'. Maybe I'll have a report for
you whin I come back. There's snow enough. The blackguard ought to have
left some tracks."
There is a spot on the back of the head where a very light blow will
bring about insensibility, and it was exactly on that spot that the
bullet had struck me, taking off a little hair and skin, but otherwise
doing no damage; but I could not help connecting the attempt on my life
with the experiences of the night; in other words, with the woman whose
guest I had been and whose secrets I had overheard. I had cherished a
feeling of the utmost charity for her until that moment, but the
"accident" changed all that, for I had not a doubt in my mind that it
was by her order that somebody had made the attempt to assassinate me.
After a few hours' sleep I felt as well as ever, and before the time to
make my call upon the princess I paid a visit to Jean Morét. I had
neglected to say that the only letter he had sent away since his
imprisonment was one to his mother, from whom he had received a reply
addressed through one of my agents, and in explanation of his
reluctance to send more, he had said: "It is better that the world
should think me dead." Concerning the woman for whose sake he became a
nihilist, he never spoke. But the experiences I had passed through at
the home of the princess, the preceding night, made me wise concerning
the identity of the woman who had influenced him. Indeed I had had it
from her own lips that she had played with this man, even as she had
hoodwinked the prince. What the relations between her and Morét might
have been, in what manner they had been brought together in the past,
and by what transformation of individuality he had dared to raise his
eyes to a princess, I could not even conjecture. There was no doubt,
however, that she had used him for one of the marionettes in her puppet
show; and now he, poor devil, because of it, was safer in a prison
cell, and no doubt happier, too, than he would have been at liberty.
I wanted the man to talk and to talk about her, and I must confess what
I did not at the moment realize that my desire found its source more in
personal resentment against any confidential passages that may have
taken place between those two, than in my plain duty to the cause I was
serving.
There are many kinds of jealousy, and each kind will find its
expression through innumerable channels. If I had been charged with
jealousy at that moment, I would have repudiated the suggestion with
scorn and contempt; and yet I was jealous.
I had thought rather deeply upon this approaching conversation with
Morét, while on my way to interview him, but I was no nearer to a
determination regarding what I should say to him, when I entered the
room he occupied in the prison, than I had been when the idea first
occurred to me. Now when I entered the room where he was imprisoned, I
said:
"Why is it, Morét, that you have never taken any further advantage of
my promise that you could write and send letters?"
"There is no one with whom I care to communicate," he replied.
"Not even with the princess?" I asked the question idly, watching him
from between half closed lids.
"With what princess?" he asked calmly, and without a trace of surprise
or resentment in his perfectly trained countenance.
"Zara de Echeveria," I said, coldly.
"I do not know her."
"No! She knows you."
"Indeed? It is an honor to be known by a princess."
"I have it from her own lips that she is responsible for your presence
in the palace."
"Then surely there is no need to interview me on the subject." He was
thoroughly my equal in this play-of-words.
"She was told in my presence that you were dead. Would you not like to
hear what she said in reply?" I asked him.
"If you care to tell me."
"She said that it was better so; that if you lived you would have
betrayed all your friends--including her; that in fact you were more
fool than knave."
"She is not complimentary; but as I do not know her, it makes no
difference." Nothing could have been more composed than Morét's manner
was.
"You will not discuss her?"
"I would if I could, but I do not know her, monsieur."
"Well, Morét, I like your loyalty, even to one who has used you as a
mere tool, and who is now rejoiced to learn that you are dead, and out
of her way, with the dangerous secrets you possess. I am going to her
as soon as I leave you; perhaps she will talk about you again."
Morét stared at me unwinkingly, but with a countenance that was like
marble in its intensity. I knew that he was suffering, and that my
words were the cause of his agony. I knew that I was prodding him
deeply and severely, thrusting the iron into his soul with as little
compunction as a Mexican _charo_ exerts when he "cinches" a heavily
burdened _burro_. But I was doing it with malice prepense, and I was
doing it for a purpose.
I wished, somehow, to compel this man to talk freely with me about the
princess and yet all the time I was reluctant in my own soul to have
him do it. During that interval Morét was greater than I; more
chivalrous than I; for he remained loyal to his duty towards her, as he
saw it, in spite of the terrible accusation I had made against her
womanliness, and notwithstanding all the insinuations I had put
forward, respecting her utter disregard and contempt for him.
"Perhaps she will do so," he said; "that is, if she knows aught to say
of me."
He was silent for a moment after that, and I waited, knowing that I had
tried this man to the utmost point of his mental endurance.
Presently he raised his eyes again to mine, and said:
"Mr. Dubravnik, at the very beginning of our acquaintance, when you
made a prisoner of me in one of the rooms of the suite you were to
occupy in the palace, I told you that I had gone into this business for
the love of a woman, and it was tacitly, if not literally agreed
between us at that time, that the woman's personality and name should
form no part of our future discussions. You have chosen, at this time,
to mention a princess, to whom you give the name of Zara de Echeveria,
and I have told you that I know no such person; that the name means
nothing to me. What you may surmise, Mr. Dubravnik, can have no effect
upon me, or upon your relations with me, or mine with you. So now I
tell you once again, that while I am perfectly willing to believe
myself to be morally free to discuss with you all phases of nihilism,
I will not discuss this woman you have named, _or any other woman_."
He bowed his head and I could see beads of sweat upon his forehead
which betrayed the mental anguish he was undergoing. I knew that it was
far worse than physical torture, and as there was nothing to gain by
prolonging it, and nothing more to be said, I withdrew.
At the end of another half hour I was announced to the princess.
She received me in a diminutive bower of Oriental luxury. Her
decorative tastes were decidedly Eastern and lavishly extravagant. She
knew how to arrange a room with the object of stealing away a man's
reserve. There is something about the atmosphere of well chosen
surroundings which intoxicates judgment and murders discretion--which
bars reason at the threshold and generates madness of thought and deed
beyond it. A Solon in the princess' drawing room might become a puppet
in her boudoir; in that fascinating atmosphere a Jove would have
degenerated to a Hermes, or Mars have cast away his sword and shield
for the wings of Apollo. To enter it, was like awaking from a vivid
dream of battle to find the soft arms of love around you, and to feel
the lethargy of infinite content. Add to this the personality of the
Princess Zara, her half hesitating smile of welcome in which pleasure
and dread were equally mingled; suffuse her face with a quick blush,
and instantly replace it with a touch of pallor; render her manner with
a suggestion of hauteur, softened by a gesture of timidity and doubt;
listen to her voice, low-toned and infinitely calm yet vibrating in a
minor chord of uncertainty and dread; feel the clasp of her hand, cold
when it touches yours, yet instantly thrilling you with a glow induced
by the contact, and--remain thoroughly master of yourself if you can.
Retain, if you have the strength to do so, the opinions you had formed,
the judgments you have passed. If you succeed, you are a giant; if you
fail, you are just what I was--a man, and human.
"You are punctual, and I am grateful," she murmured. "If you had been
late----"
All the hardness I had felt before returned to me then.
"If I had been late you would have known the reason, princess," I said.
"No; but I should have feared it."
"I would have been dead."
"Dead!"
"Yes; but, unfortunately, the attempt upon my life did not succeed,
thanks to Fate and poor marksmanship."
"The attempt on your life! I do not understand."
I turned my head so that she could see where the plaster hid the wound
made by the bullet of the would-be assassin.
"A better marksman would have compelled me to break my engagement,
princess," I said.
She extended one hand and rested a finger lightly upon the wound, as
though she intended the mere touch to heal it. With the other hand she
gently turned my face towards hers; yet she did it in a way that was
devoid of intimacy. Somehow she changed what might have been suggestive
of familiarity, into a gesture of womanly tenderness; and there was
undoubtedly horror in her eyes, and a flash of angry resentment, too.
"You think that I am responsible for this?" she asked, releasing me and
stepping backward.
I bowed, but made no reply.
Impulsively, she crossed the room, and from the floor, where she had
doubtless thrown it after reading, secured a crumpled wad of paper, and
after straightening and smoothing it, gave it into my hand.
"Read," she said.
"'Our interview in the garden was overheard by two persons beside
ourselves,'" I read, aloud. "'One of them, fortunately, was a friend;
the other may not keep the engagement made with you.'"
"It is from Ivan," she said. "It is because I received that note that I
would have been anxious if you had been detained. It did not occur to
me to doubt that you would be prompt until I read that. I did not doubt
you, Mr. Dubravnik. I might have killed myself, but I would not
have--ah! To think that you could deem me capable of such an act as
that!"
"I did not princess, until--well, there was no other theory. At all
events, I have changed my mind. Who is Ivan?"
"My brother."
"I did not know you had a brother."
"Naturally, since his existence is forgotten. He was sentenced to
Siberia when he was sixteen. Now he is thought to be dead, but he
escaped, and is here. He must have brought some one with him last
night--somebody who listened to everything. Do you know what that note
means, my friend? It means that you have been sentenced to death. It
means that the nihilists will surely take your life; and oh, my God,
there is no escape!"