Maria Stefanowna’s position in the great Socialist brotherhood was a
curious one. The only woman among so many men, she yet knew all their
secrets and plans, and, though young, had often been of good counsel
to them.
Mirkovitch, her father, had early in life accustomed his motherless
daughter to his mysterious ways and curious, weird speeches. Maria had
been born and bred in the hatred of the rulers who sat upon the
Russian throne, and listened to all her father’s sometimes
bloodthirsty schemes, not often sharing in them, but always with
silent approval.
When the brotherhood, after full deliberation, decided to entrust her
with the most important _rôle_ in the abduction of the Tsarevitch,
she felt proud and happy at the thought of being for the first time of
use to the great cause, which she had just as much at heart as the
most enthusiastic among them. When Dunajewski and his comrades had
been arrested the girl’s ears were filled with horrible tales of the
tortures they would undergo, both whilst in prison at Moscow and
afterwards during that weary tramp across the snowy desert, with
horrible intervals of so-called rest in overcrowded, evil-smelling
halting-places; then the mercury mines, that in three years change the
hale and hearty youth into an old man, palsied and imbecile.
And the cruel fate could be spared them if she, Maria, was clever
enough to play the part that had been assigned to her, could lure the
Tsarevitch into a prison, not only comfortable, but luxurious, where
he would only be kept until those poor martyrs at Moscow were once
more restored to liberty and happiness.
She threw herself into the part of the enterprising odalisque, with
the finesse and coquetry peculiar to all the daughters of the East,
and the next day was able to receive with pride and delight the
congratulations and thanks of the brotherhood, assembled to do her
honour.
She guessed her father’s dark thoughts with regard to the helpless
prisoner under his charge, but so far had had no occasion to tremble
for his safety. She knew most of her comrades as being of refined and
temperate nature, knew the high-minded, aristocratic president, the
gentle and dreamy Poles, who were in strong majority, and felt that
her father’s evil designs would be held well in check.
But when Volenski, the trusted messenger, gave no sign of the success
of his mission, when all spirits waxed gloomy and lips began to
murmur, Maria’s heart began to beat anxiously, both for the safety of
the young captive, and for the honour of the cause.
The great cause that she revered and worshipped, to which she meant to
dedicate her life, was about to be polluted by a crime so foul, so
cowardly, that Maria Stefanowna’s whole soul rose in rebellion, and
imperiously demanded of her woman’s wit to find a means of averting so
terrible a catastrophe; and it had been she who had led Nicholas
Alexandrovitch to what threatened to become an unknown grave. She
looked shuddering at her hands, and wondered if some of the young
blood would not leave on them a life-long stain.
All night she paced up and down her room in restlessness and terror.
At times she thought she could hear her father’s footsteps creeping
stealthily towards the prisoner’s room, and then she had to stop her
ears not to hear the last agonised cry of the young man, surprised and
helpless in the hands of his assassin.
It was broad daylight before her nerves and brain found a short
respite from the terrible anxiety that had tortured her, since that
last decisive speech of her father’s at the meeting last night.
Woman-like, she had obstinately pondered till she thought she saw a
way out of the difficulty. Being a Russian she was very devout. She
prayed long and earnestly for the success of her scheme, which was to
save the prisoner from murder, and her comrades, her father, the great
cause itself from eternal shame.