SABEREVSKI'S PROPHECY
All this time I had forgotten Ivan, whom I had left, bound and
helpless, at my rooms, and who, I knew, must be suffering untold
tortures of doubt and dread, concerning the happenings of the night. So
now I hastened to him with all speed. Poor chap, he was nearly done for
by the strained position he had been compelled to maintain for so long
a time, but I have always believed that it did him good, and that
without it he might have been less tractable, when the time came for a
reconciliation with his sister. It gave him an opportunity for the
right sort of meditation, which, perhaps, he had never enjoyed before.
Every time the temptation came to him to break his bonds and make his
escape, he remembered that he must remain where he was, for the sake of
the sister he loved so well, whose life would be forfeited so easily,
if he should carry to his nihilistic friends the knowledge he
possessed. I found him weak, and worn, but still firm in the
determination to await my coming. I unbound him, gave him food and wine
and as soon as he was sufficiently recovered ordered my droshka and
took him to Zara's house.
I made him wait until I had gone to her, and told her of my last
interview with the emperor, and I succeeded in securing her reluctant
consent to go to the palace with me that day. Then I called to Ivan,
and when I saw the brother and sister clasped in each other's arms, I
left them alone together. What passed between them, I have never been
told, and I never thought it necessary to ask. I only know that when I
was presently called into the consultation, Ivan offered me his hand,
tenderly, and I grasped it, warmly.
"You are to be my brother," he said; "and Zara tells me that you two
are going to America, to live. May I go with you, Dubravnik? Will you
take me, also, out of this hell of plotting and scheming, and this
chaos of exile and death? Will you make an American of me, and let me
be your brother, indeed?"
After that, we three passed a very happy hour together, after which I
hurried away, with the assurance that Zara would accompany me into the
presence of the czar, that evening. I had not told her of the death of
Prince Michael, for the knowledge of it, and why he had killed himself,
could only cast a shadow over the great joy she was now experiencing;
afterward, there would be a time and place for the telling, and I did
not want the knowledge of it to come upon her with a shock, just now.
Weeks afterward, when we were on the deck of the steamer that was
taking us to my own country, as we stood together, overlooking a
moonlit sea, she reached up, and with one of her soft, fair hands,
turned my face towards hers with a gesture that was characteristic; and
I loved it.
"Dubravnik," she said--she still insists that she will always address
me so, because it is the name by which she first knew me--"I do not
know myself, any more. I am not the same woman who was once so
vengeful. Love has taught me how to forgive. Love has made me over
again. I am no longer the same Zara."
"No," I said lightly, "for now you are Zara Derrington."
"Tell me," she asked, after another interval of gazing across the
waters, "shall we see Alexis Saberevski, over there, where your home
is?"
I did not answer the question, for upon the instant she mentioned the
name of my friend, it recalled to me the circumstance of my last
parting with him. I remembered the sealed envelope he had given me, and
the instructions that came with it. I had forgotten it entirely, until
that moment; but now, without replying to her question, I drew the
missive from my pocket and broke the seal.
What I read there seems wonderfully prophetic to me, even now, and I
read it over a second time, in my amazement. Then I gave it to Zara.
"Read," I said, "for there is the answer to your question."
And this is the letter Zara read aloud to me, while we two leaned
against the rail of the vessel that was bearing us to our home across
the sea. The man in the moon was looking down, and smiling upon our
happiness, and shedding sufficient light for my sweetheart-wife to see
Saberevski's written words. They were:--
Derrington, these written words are to make you and Zara de
Echeveria known to each other. Months will pass, and many of them
may do so, before you will read what is written here; and it may
be, it likely will be, that you are standing side by side when you
break the seal of the last communication, written or oral, which I
shall probably ever submit to you. For our paths, henceforth, will
lead us widely apart, Derrington. You are a free agent, the arbiter
of your own destiny; I am one who can take no initiative regarding
the paths I must tread. But this letter is not to speak of myself,
but is to tell you about her, if, perchance, when you read these
words, you have never met.
Yesterday, when a ship sailed away from its pier in the North
River, you accompanied me to the dock, amazed that I should ask you
to do so, and doubtless wondering all the while why I made no
effort to see, or to speak with any person, there. But when the
ship had swung into the stream, you saw me wave my hand in farewell
to some person among those who thronged her decks. That person was
Zara de Echeveria, the princess to whose presence in New York you
lately called my attention, but respecting which I was already
informed; for at the moment of your communication I had already
seen her, and talked with her, and we had parted as you and I will
do when I place this letter in your hands--forever.
You are going upon a mission, Derrington, although it may be that
you have not decided in your own mind to do so; but the decision is
there, awaiting your recognition of it. Your mission will take you
to Russia, to accomplish the great work I have suggested to you. I
have willed it that you must go, and go you will. You will serve
the czar as faithfully as I have done; but better, because you are
not a Russian, and you have not the inborn awe of title and rank.
And you will have been successful in that mission when you have
read these written words, for I shall instruct you not to break the
seal until you are ready to take your departure from that country,
which you will never do without having attained success. You are to
serve the czar, and for him and in his name, will achieve the
disruption of the nihilist societies of St. Petersburg, and
therefore of the empire. I know your thoroughness, and I anticipate
that very many among the prominent revolutionists will soon be
known to you. Among them you will find the name I have written
here--Zara de Echeveria.
I present her to you, Derrington, by this letter, as if we three
were standing together in the form of formal introduction. I am a
fatalist, and I know that you two will meet, and read your
destinies in each other's souls. If you are already together, there
will be no need of this letter, save to tell you how thoroughly and
how well I love you both. God has written your futures on the same
page of the book of destiny, and I have read the writing. You are
created for one another, and as surely as God's love watches over
us all, just so surely has He put the seal of enduring human love
upon you both. Why it will be so, and how it will come about, I
have not the skill to tell, but my prophetic vision looked into the
futures of you both, when I talked with you, one after another,
yesterday; and I saw you passing down the declining years of life,
hand in hand, and heart with heart, like one.
If Zara be not with you, seek her.
The name will be familiar to you, by reason of your late
employment, even though she may have escaped your personal
recognition till now. Therefore, I repeat, if Zara be not with you
now, turn about and seek her. I charge you so.
But something tells me that you will be together, standing side by
side, happier in the great love that has come to you both, than all
your dreams have ever promised. Therefore, I bless you and may the
good God who made you for each other, hold you in his keeping
always.
SABEREVSKI.
Zara and I were both strangely silent after the reading of the letter,
but I took her quietly in my arms, and she pillowed her head against my
shoulder while we looked out across the moonlit sea, praising God, and
insensibly calling down blessings upon the name of our good friend.
"Saberevski knew me to be a nihilist, and warned me against it that
day," she said to me.
"He was the dearest friend I ever had," I replied; and she murmured:
"He was a good man."
Who can tell how Alexis Saberevski could have foreseen this meeting of
the ways, between Zara and me? What was it that directed his prophetic
vision across the mystery of many months, to discover us two, standing
side by side, when we perused his letter? What was it that told him
that we would love and wed?
Many years have passed since that night on the steamship's deck, and we
have never seen nor heard from Saberevski since.
He was a mystery to me when I knew him; he remains a mystery still.
But the greatest mystery of all is love.
THE END
BOOKS ON NATURE STUDY BY
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
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THE MYSTERY OF THE FOUR FINGERS, by Fred M. White, with halftone
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A fabulously rich gold mine in Mexico is known by the picturesque and
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THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES. With a frontispiece in colors by
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THE PORT OF MISSING MEN. With illustrations by Clarence F. Underwood.
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THE CATTLE BARON'S DAUGHTER. A Novel. By Harold Bindloss. With
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WINSTON OF THE PRAIRIE. With illustration in color by W. Herbert
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THAT MAINWARING AFFAIR. By A. Maynard Barbour. With illustrations by E.
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AT THE TIME APPOINTED. With a frontispiece in colors by J. H. Marchand.
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THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE, By Mary Roberts Reinhart
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THE RED YEAR, By Louis Tracy
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ARMS AND THE WOMAN, By Harold MacGrath
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LOVE IS THE SUM OF IT ALL, By Geo. Cary Eggleston
With illustrations by Hermann Heyer.
In this "plantation romance" Mr. Eggleston has resumed the manner and
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HEARTS AND THE CROSS, By Harold Morton Cramer
With illustrations by Harold Matthews Brett.
The hero is an unconventional preacher who follows the line of the Man
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THE SHUTTLE, By Frances Hodgson Burnett
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THE MAKING OF A MARCHIONESS,
By Frances Hodgson Burnett
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THE METHODS OF LADY WALDERHURST,
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VAYENNE, By Percy Brebner
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