CHAPTER I_The Crimson Tide: A Novel

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[Illustration: "I HATE IT AS YOU HATED THE BEASTS WHO SLEW YOUR FRIEND"]

THE CRIMSON TIDE

A NOVEL

By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

Author of "The Moonlit Way," "The Laughing Girl," "The Restless Sex,"

etc.

WITH FRONTISPIECE BY A. I. KELLER

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers--New York

Published by arrangement with D. Appleton and Company

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

MARGARET ILLINGTON BOWES

AND

EDWARD J. BOWES

I'd rather walk with Margaret,

I'd rather talk with Margaret,

And anchor in some sylvan nook

And fish Dream Lake with magic hook

Than sit indoors and write this book.

An author's such an ass, alas!

To watch the world through window glass

When out of doors the skies are fair

And pretty girls beyond compare--

Like Margaret--are strolling there.

III

I'd rather walk with E. J. Bowes,

I'd rather talk with E. J. Bowes,

In woodlands where the sunlight gleams

Across the golden Lake of Dreams

Than drive a quill across these reams.

If I could have my proper wish

With these two friends I'd sit and fish

Where sheer cliffs wear their mossy hoods

And Dream Lake widens in the woods,

But Fate says "No! Produce your goods!"

ENVOI

Inspect my goods and choose a few

Dear Margaret, and Edward, too;

Then sink them in the Lake of Dreams

In dim, gold depths where sunshine streams

Down from the sky's unclouded blue,

And I'll be much obliged to you.

R. W. C.

FOREWORD

An American ambulance going south stopped on the snowy road; the

driver, an American named Estridge, got out; his companion, a young

woman in furs, remained in her seat.

Estridge, with the din of the barrage in his ears, went forward to

show his papers to the soldiers who had stopped him on the snowy

forest road.

His papers identified him and the young woman; and further they

revealed the fact that the ambulance contained only a trunk and some

hand luggage; and called upon all in authority to permit John Henry

Estridge and Miss Palla Dumont to continue without hindrance the

journey therein described.

The soldiers--Siberian riflemen--were satisfied and seemed friendly

enough and rather curious to obtain a better look at this American

girl, Miss Dumont, described in the papers submitted to them as

"American companion to Marie, third daughter of Nicholas Romanoff,

ex-Tzar."

An officer came up, examined the papers, shrugged.

"Very well," he said, "if authority is to be given this American lady

to join the Romanoff family, now under detention, it is not my

affair."

But he, also, appeared to be perfectly good natured about the matter,

accepting a cigarette from Estridge and glancing at the young woman in

the ambulance as he lighted it.

"You know," he remarked, "if it would interest you and the young

lady, the Battalion of Death is over yonder in the birch woods."

"The woman's battalion?" asked Estridge.

"Yes. They make their debut to-day. Would you like to see them?

They're going forward in a few minutes, I believe."

Estridge nodded and walked back to the ambulance.

"The woman's battalion is over in those birch woods, Miss Dumont.

Would you care to walk over and see them before they leave for the

front trenches?"

The girl in furs said very gravely:

"Yes, I wish to see women who are about to go into battle."

She rose from the seat, laid a fur-gloved hand on his offered arm, and

stepped down onto the snow.

"To serve," she said, as they started together through the silver

birches, following a trodden way, "is not alone the only happiness in

life: it is the only reason for living."

"I know you think so, Miss Dumont."

"You also must believe so, who are here as a volunteer in Russia."

"It's a little more selfish with me. I'm a medical student; it's a

liberal education for me even to drive an ambulance."

"There is only one profession nobler than that practised by the

physician, who serves his fellow men," she said in a low, dreamy

voice.

"Which profession do you place first?"

"The profession of those who serve God alone."

"The priesthood?"

"Yes. And the religious orders."

"Nuns, too?" he demanded with the slightest hint of impatience in his

pleasant voice.

The girl noticed it, looked up at him and smiled slightly.

"Had my dear Grand Duchess not asked for me, I should now he entering

upon my novitiate among the Russian nuns.... And she, too, I think,

had there been no revolution. She was quite ready a year ago. We

talked it over. But the Empress would not permit it. And then came the

trouble about the Deaconesses. That was a grave mistake----"

She checked herself, then:

"I do not mean to criticise the Empress, you understand."

"Poor lady," he said, "such gentle criticism would seem praise to her

now."

They were walking through a pine belt, and in the shadows of that

splendid growth the snow remained icy, so that they both slipped

continually and she took his arm for security.

"I somehow had not thought of you, Miss Dumont, as so austerely

inclined," he said.

She smiled: "Because I've been a cheerful companion--even gay? Well,

my gaiety made my heart sing with the prospect of seeing again my

dearest friend--my closest spiritual companion--my darling little

Grand Duchess.... So I have been, naturally enough, good company on

our three days' journey."

He smiled: "I never suspected you of such extreme religious

inclinations," he insisted.

"Extreme?"

"Well, a novice----" he hesitated. Then, "And you mean, ultimately, to

take the black veil?"

"Of course. I shall take it some day yet."

He turned and looked at her, and the man in him felt the pity of it as

do all men when such fresh, virginal youth as was Miss Dumont's turns

an enraptured face toward that cloister door which never again opens

on those who enter.

Her arm rested warmly and confidently within his; the cold had made

her cheeks very pink and had crisped the tendrils of her brown hair

under the fur toque.

"If," she said happily, "you have found in me a friend, it is because

my heart is much too small for all the love I bear my fellow beings."

"That's a quaint thing to say," he said.

"It's really true. I care so deeply, so keenly, for my fellow beings

whom God made, that there seemed only one way to express it--to give

myself to God and pass my life in His service who made these fellow

creatures all around me that I love."

"I suppose," he said, "that is one way of looking at it."

"It seemed to be the only way for me. I came to it by stages.... And

first, as a child, I was impressed by the loveliness of the world and

I used to sit for hours thinking of the goodness of God. And then

other phases came--socialistic cravings and settlement work--but you

know that was not enough. My heart was too full to be satisfied. There

was not enough outlet."

"What did you do then?"

"I studied: I didn't know what I wanted, what I needed. I seemed lost;

I was obsessed with a desire to aid--to be of service. I thought that

perhaps if I travelled and studied methods----"

She looked straight ahead of her with a sad little reflective smile:

"I have passed by many strange places in the world.... And then I saw

the little Grand Duchess at the Charity Bazaar.... We seemed to love

each other at first glance.... She asked to have me for her

companion.... They investigated.... And so I went to her."

The girl's face became sombre and she bent her dark eyes on the snow

as they walked.

All the world was humming and throbbing with the thunder of the

Russian guns. Flakes continually dropped from vibrating pine trees. A

pale yellow haze veiled the sun.

Suddenly Miss Dumont lifted her head:

"If anything ever happens to part me from my friend," she said, "I

hope I shall die quickly."

"Are you and she so devoted?" he asked gravely.

"Utterly. And if we can not some day take the vows together and enter

the same order and the same convent, then the one who is free to do so

is so pledged.... I do not think that the Empress will consent to the

Grand Duchess Marie taking the veil.... And so, when she has no

further need of me, I shall make my novitiate.... There are soldiers

ahead, Mr. Estridge. Is it the woman's battalion?"

He, also, had caught sight of them. He nodded.

"It is the Battalion of Death," he said in a low voice. "Let's see

what they look like."

The girl-soldiers stood about carelessly, there in the snow among the

silver birches and pines. They looked like boys in overcoats and boots

and tall wool caps, leaning at ease there on their heavy rifles. Some

were only fifteen years of age. Some had been servants, some

saleswomen, stenographers, telephone operators, dressmakers, workers

in the fields, students at the university, dancers, laundresses. And a

few had been born into the aristocracy.

They came, too, from all parts of the huge, sprawling Empire, these

girl-soldiers of the Battalion of Death--and there were Cossack girls

and gypsies among them--girls from Finland, Courland, from the Urals,

from Moscow, from Siberia--from North, South, East, West.

There were Jewesses from the Pale and one Jewess from America in the

ranks; there were Chinese girls, Poles, a child of fifteen from

Trebizond, a Japanese girl, a French peasant lass; and there were

Finns, too, and Scandinavians--all with clipped hair under the

astrakhan caps--sturdy, well shaped, soldierly girls who handled their

heavy rifles without effort and carried a regulation equipment as

though it were a sheaf of flowers.

Their commanding officer was a woman of forty. She lounged in front of

the battalion in the snow, consulting with half a dozen officers of a

man's regiment.

The colour guard stood grouped around the battalion colours, where its

white and gold folds swayed languidly in the breeze, and clots of

virgin snow fell upon it, shaken down from the pines by the

cannonade.

Estridge gazed at them in silence. In his man's mind one thought

dominated--the immense pity of it all. And there was a dreadful

fascination in looking at these girl soldiers, whose soft, warm flesh

was so soon to be mangled by shrapnel and slashed by bayonets.

"Good heavens," he muttered at last under his breath. "Was this

necessary?"

"The men ran," said Miss Dumont.

"It was the filthy boche propaganda that demoralised them," rejoined

Estridge. "I wonder--_are_ women more level headed? Is propaganda

wasted on these girl soldiers? Are they really superior to the male

of the species?"

"I think," said Miss Dumont softly, "that their spiritual intelligence

is deeper."

"They see more clearly, morally?"

"I don't know.... I think so sometimes.... We women, who are born

capable of motherhood, seem to be fashioned also to realise Christ

more clearly--and the holy mother who bore him.... I don't know if

that's the reason--or if, truly, in us a little flame burns more

constantly--the passion which instinctively flames more brightly

toward things of the spirit than of the flesh.... I think it is true,

Mr. Estridge, that, unless taught otherwise by men, women's

inclination is toward the spiritual, and the ardour of her passion

aspires instinctively to a greater love until the lesser confuses and

perplexes her with its clamorous importunity."

"Woman's love for man you call the lesser love?" he asked.

"Yes, it is, compared to love for God," she said dreamily.

Some of the girl-soldiers in the Battalion of Death turned their heads

to look at this young girl in furs, who had come among them on the arm

of a Red Cross driver.

Estridge was aware of many bib brown eyes, many grey eyes, some blue

ones fixed on him and on his companion in friendly or curious inquiry.

They made him think of the large, innocent eyes of deer or channel

cattle, for there was something both sweet and wild as well as honest

in the gaze of these girl-soldiers.

One, a magnificent blond six-foot creature with the peaches-and-cream

skin of Scandinavia and the clipped gold hair of the northland,

smiled at Miss Dumont, displaying a set of superb teeth.

"You have come to see us make our first charge?" she asked in Russian,

her sea-blue eyes all a-sparkle.

Miss Dumont said "Yes," very seriously, looking at the girl's

equipment, her blanket roll, gas-mask, boots and overcoat.

Estridge turned to another girl-soldier:

"And if you are made a prisoner?" he enquired in a low voice. "Have

you women considered that?"

"Nechevo," smiled the girl, who had been a Red Cross nurse, and who

wore two decorations. She touched the red and black dashes of colour

on her sleeve significantly, then loosened her tunic and drew out a

tiny bag of chamois. "We all carry poison," she said smilingly. "We

know the boche well enough to take that precaution."

Another girl nodded confirmation. They were perfectly cheerful about

it. Several others drew near and showed their little bags of poison

slung around their necks inside their blouses. Many of them wore holy

relics and medals also.

Miss Dumont took Estridge's arm again and looked over at the big blond

girl-soldier, who also had been smilingly regarding her, and who now

stepped forward to meet them halfway.

"When do you march to the first trenches?" asked Miss Dumont gravely.

"Oh," said the blond goddess, "so you are English?" And she added in

English: "I am Swedish. You have arrived just in time. I t'ink we go

forward immediately."

"God go with you, for Russia," said Miss Dumont in a clear, controlled

voice.

But Estridge saw that her dark eyes were suddenly brilliant with

tears. The big blond girl-soldier saw it, too, and her splendid blue

eyes widened. Then, somehow, she had stepped forward and taken Miss

Dumont in her strong arms; and, holding her, smiled and gazed intently

at her.

"You must not grieve for us," she said. "We are not afraid. We are

happy to go."

"I know," said Palla Dumont; and took the girl-soldier's hands in

hers. "What is your name?" she asked.

"Ilse Westgard. And yours?"

"Palla Dumont."

"English? No?"

"American."

"Ah! One of our dear Americans! Well, then, you shall tell your

countrymen that you have seen many women of many lands fighting rifle

in hand, so that the boche shall not strangle freedom in Russia. Will

you tell them, Palla?"

"If I ever return."

"You shall return. I, also, shall go to America. I shall seek for you

there, pretty comrade. We shall become friends. Already I love you

very dearly."

She kissed Palla Dumont on both cheeks, holding her hands tightly.

"Tell me," she said, "why you are in Russia, and where you are now

journeying?"

Palla looked at her steadily: "I am the American companion to the

Grand Duchess Marie; and I am journeying to the village where the

Imperial family is detained, because she has obtained permission for

me to rejoin her."

There was a short silence; the blue eyes of the Swedish girl had

become frosty as two midwinter stars. Suddenly they glimmered warm

again as twin violets:

"Kharasho!" she said smiling. "And do you love your little comrade

duchess?"

"Next only to God."

"That is very beautiful, Palla. She is a child to be enlightened.

Teach her the greater truth."

"She has learned it, Ilse."

"_She_?"

"Yes. And, if God wills it, she, and I also, take the vows some day."

"The veil!"

"Yes."

"You! A nun!"

"If God accepts me."

The Swedish girl-soldier stood gazing upon her as though fascinated,

crushing Palla's slim hands between her own.

Presently she shook her head with a wearied smile:

"That," she said, "is one thing I can not understand--the veil. No. I

can understand _this_----" turning her head and glancing proudly

around her at her girl comrades. "I can comprehend this thing that I

am doing. But not what you wish to do, Palla. Not such service as you

offer."

"I wish to serve the source of all good. My heart is too full to be

satisfied by serving mankind alone."

The girl-soldier shook her head: "I try to understand. I can not. I am

sorry, because I love you."

"I love you, Ilse. I love my fellows."

After another silence:

"You go to the imperial family?" demanded Ilse abruptly.

"Yes."

"I wish to see you again. I shall try."

The battalion marched a few moments later.

It was rather a bad business. They went over the top with a cheer.

Fifty answered roll call that night.

However, the hun had learned one thing--that women soldiers were

inferior to none.

Russia learned it, too. Everywhere battalions were raised, uniformed,

armed, equipped, drilled. In the streets of cities the girl-soldiers

became familiar sights: nobody any longer turned to stare at them.

There were several dozen girls in the officers' school, trying for

commissions. In all the larger cities there were infantry battalions

of girls, Cossack troops, machine gun units, signallers; they had a

medical corps and transport service.

But never but once again did they go into action. And their last stand

was made facing their own people, the brain-crazed Reds.

And after that the Battalion of Death became only a name; and the

girl-soldiers bewildered fugitives, hunted down by the traitors who

had sold out to the Germans at Brest-Litovsk.

PREFACE

A door opened; the rush of foggy air set the flames of the altar

candles blowing wildly. There came the clank of armed men.

Then, in the dim light of the chapel, a novice sprang to her feet,

brushing the white veil from her pallid young face.

At that the ex-Empress, still kneeling, lifted her head from her

devotions and calmly turned it, looking around over her right

shoulder.

The file of Red infantry advanced, shuffling slowly forward as though

feeling their way through the candle-lit dusk across the stone floor.

Their accoutrements clattered and clinked in the intense stillness. A

slovenly officer, switching a thin, naked sword in his ungloved fist,

led them. Another officer, carrying a sabre and marching in the rear,

halted to slam and lock the heavy chapel door; then he ran forward to

rejoin his men, while the chapel still reverberated with the echoes of

the clanging door.

A chair or two fell, pushed aside by the leading soldiers and hastily

kicked out of the way as the others advanced more swiftly now. For

there seemed to be some haste. These men were plainly in a hurry,

whatever their business there might be.

The Tzesarevitch, kneeling beside his mother, got up from his knees

with visible difficulty. The Empress also rose, leisurely, supporting

herself by one hand resting on the prie-dieu.

Then several young girls, who had been kneeling behind her at their

devotions, stood up and turned to stare at the oncoming armed men, now

surrounding them.

The officer carrying the naked sword, and reeking with fumes of

brandy, counted these women in a loud, thick voice.

"That's right," he said. "You're all present--one! two! three! four!

five! six!--the whole accursed brood!" pointing waveringly with his

sword from one to another.

Then he laughed stupidly, leering out of his inflamed eyes at the five

women who all wore the garbs of the Sisters of Mercy, their white

coiffes and tabliers contrasting sharply with the sombre habits of the

Russian nuns who had gathered in the candle-lit dusk behind them.

"What do you wish?" demanded the ex-Empress in a fairly steady voice.

"Answer to your names!" retorted the officer brutally. The other

officer came up and began to fumble for a note book in the breast of

his dirty tunic. When he found it he licked the lead of his pencil and

squinted at the ex-Empress out of drunken eyes.

"Alexandra Feodorovna!" he barked in her face. "If you're here, say

so!"

She remained calm, mute, cold as ice.

A soldier behind her suddenly began to shout:

"That's the German woman. That's the friend of the Staretz Novykh!

That's Sascha! Now we've got her, the thing to do is to shoot

her----"

"Mark her present," interrupted the officer in command. "No

ceremony, now. Mark the cub Romanoff present. Mark 'em all--Olga,

Tatyana, Marie, Anastasia!--no matter which is which--they're all

Romanoffs----"

But the same soldier who had interrupted before bawled out again:

"They're not Romanoffs! There are no German Romanoffs. There are no

Romanoffs in Russia since a hundred and fifty years----"

The little Tzesarevitch, Alexis, red with anger, stepped forward to

confront the man, his frail hands fiercely clenched. The officer in

command struck him brutally across the breast with the flat of his

sword, shoved him aside, strode toward the low door of the chapel

crypt and jerked it open.

"Line them up!" he bawled. "We'll settle this Romanoff dispute once

for all! Shove them into line! Hurry up, there!"

But there seemed to be some confusion between the nuns and the

soldiers, as the latter attempted to separate the ex-Empress and the

young Grand Duchesses from the sisters.

"What's all that trouble about!" cried the officer commanding. "Drive

back those nuns, I tell you! They're Germans, too! They're Sascha's

new Deaconesses! Kick 'em out of the way!"

Then the novice, who had cried out in fear when the Red infantry first

entered the chapel, forced her way out into the file formed by the

Empress and her daughters.

"There's a frightful mistake!" she cried, laying one hand on the arm

of a young girl dressed, like the others, as a Sister of Mercy. "This

woman is Miss Dumont, my American companion! Release her! =I= am the

Grand Duchess Marie!"

The girl, whose arm had been seized, looked at the young novice over

her shoulder in a dazed way; then, suddenly her lovely face flushed

scarlet; tears sprang to her eyes; and she said to the infuriated

officer:

"It is not true, Captain! I am the Grand Duchess Marie. She is trying

to save me!"

"What the devil is all this row!" roared the officer, who now came

tramping and storming among the prisoners, switching his sword to and

fro with ferocious impatience.

The little Sister of Mercy, frightened but resolute, pointed at the

novice, who still clutched her by the arm: "It is not true what she

tells you," she repeated. "I am the Grand Duchess Marie, and this

novice is my American companion, Miss Dumont, who loves me devotedly

and who now attempts to sacrifice herself in my place----"

"I _am_ the Grand Duchess Marie!" interrupted the novice excitedly.

"This young girl dressed like a Sister of Mercy is only my American

companion----"

"Damnation!" yelled the officer. "I'll take you both, then!" But the

girl in the Sister of Mercy's garb turned and violently pushed the

novice from her so that she stumbled and fell on her knees among the

nuns.

Then, confronting the officer: "You Bolshevik dog," she said

contemptuously, "don't you even know the daughter of your dead Emperor

when you see her!" And she struck him across the face with her prayer

book.

As he recoiled from the blow a soldier shouted: "There's your proof!

There's your insolent Romanoff for you! To hell with the whole litter!

Shoot them!" Instantly a savage roar from the Reds filled that dim

place; a soldier violently pushed the young Tzesarevitch into the file

behind the Empress and held him there; the Grand Duchess Olga was

flung bodily after him; the other children, in their hospital dresses,

were shoved brutally toward their places, menaced by butt and

bayonet.

"March!" bawled the officer in command.

But now, among the dark-garbed nuns, a slender white figure was

struggling frantically to free herself:

"You red dogs!" she cried in an agonised voice. "Let that English

woman go! It is I you want! Do you hear! I mock at you! I mock at your

resolution! Boje Tzaria Khrani! Down with the Bolsheviki!"

A soldier turned and fired at her; the bullet smashed an ikon above

her head.

"I am the Grand Duchess Marie!" she sobbed. "I demand my place! I

demand my fate! Let that American girl go! Do you hear what I say? Red

beasts! Red beasts! I am the Grand Duchess!----"

The officer who closed the file turned savagely and shook his heavy

cavalry sabre at her: "I'll come back in a moment and cut your throat

for you!" he yelled.

Then, in the file, and just as the last bayonets were vanishing

through the crypt door, one of the young girls turned and kissed her

hand to the sobbing novice--a pretty gesture, tender, gay, not tragic,

even almost mischievously triumphant.

It was the adieu of the Grand Duchess Tatyana to the living world--her

last glimpse of it through the flames of the altar candles gilding the

dead Christ on his jewelled cross--the image of that Christ she was so

soon to gaze upon when those lovely, mischievous young eyes of hers

unclosed in Paradise....

The door of the crypt slammed. A terrible silence reigned in the

chapel.

Then the novice uttered a cry, caught the foot of the cross with

desperate hands, hung there convulsively.

To her the Mother Superior turned, weeping. But at her touch the girl,

crazed with grief, lifted both hands and tore from her own face the

veil of her novitiate just begun;--tore her white garments from her

shoulders, crying out in a strangled voice that if a Christian God let

such things happen then He was no God of hers--that she would never

enter His service--that the Lord Christ was no bridegroom for her;

and, her novitiate was ended--ended together with every vow of

chastity, of humility, of poverty, of even common humanity which she

had ever hoped to take.

The girl was now utterly beside herself; at one moment flaming and

storming with fury among the terrified, huddling nuns; the next

instant weeping, stamping her felt-shod foot in ungovernable revolt at

this horror which any God in any heaven could permit.

And again and again she called out on Christ to stop this thing and

prove Himself a real God to a pagan world that mocked Him.

Dishevelled, her rent veil in tatters on her naked shoulders, she

sprang across the chapel to the crypt door, shook it, tore at it,

seized chair after chair and shattered them to splinters against the

solid panels of oak and iron.

Then, suddenly motionless, she crouched and listened.

"Oh, Mother of God!" she panted, "intervene now--_now_!--or never!"

The muffled rattle of a rather ragged volley answered her prayer.

Outside the convent a sentry--a Kronstadt sailor--stood. He also heard

the underground racket. He nodded contentedly to himself. Other shots

followed--pistol shots--singly.

After a few moments a wisp of smoke from the crypt crept lazily out of

the low oubliettes. The day was grey and misty; rain threatened; and

the rifle smoke clung low to the withered grass, scarcely lifting.

The sentry lighted a third cigarette, one eye on the barred

oubliettes, from which the smoke crawled and spread out over the

grass.

After a while a sweating face appeared behind the bars and a

half-stifled voice demanded why there was any delay about fetching

quick-lime. And, still clinging to the bars with bloody fingers, he

added:

"There's a damned novice in the chapel. I promised to cut her throat

for her. Go in and get her and bring her down here."

* * * * *

The novice was nowhere to be found.

* * * * *

They searched the convent thoroughly; they went out into the garden

and beat the shrubbery, kicking through bushes and saplings, their

cocked rifles poised for a snap shot.

Peasants, gathering there more thickly now, watched them stupidly; the

throng increased in the convent grounds. Some Bolshevik soldiers

pushed through the rapidly growing crowd and ran toward a birch wood

east of the convent. Beyond the silvery fringe of birches, larger

trees of a heavy, hard-wood forest loomed. Among these splendid trees

a number of beeches were being felled on both sides of the road.

"Did you see a White Nun run this way?" demanded the soldiers of the

wood-cutters. The latter shook their heads:

"Nothing has passed," they said seriously, "except some Ural Cossacks

riding north like lost souls in a hurricane."

An officer of the Red battalion, who had now hastened up with pistol

swinging, flew into a frightful rage:

"Cossacks!" he bellowed. "You cowardly dogs, what do you mean by

letting Kaledines' horsemen gallop over you like that--you with your

saws and axes--twenty lusty comrades to block the road and pull the

Imperialists off their horses! Shame! For all I know you've let a

Romanoff escape alive into the world! That's probably what you've

done, you greasy louts!"

The wood-cutters gaped stupidly; the Bolshevik officer cursed them

again and gesticulated with his pistol. Other soldiers of the Red

battalion ran up. One nudged the officer's elbow without saluting:

"That other prisoner can't be found----"

"What! That Swedish girl!" yelled the officer.

Several soldiers began speaking excitedly:

"While we were in the cellar, they say she ran away----"

"Yes, Captain, while we were about that business in the crypt,

Kaledines' horsemen rode up outside----"

"Who saw them?" demanded the officer hoarsely. "God curse you, who saw

them?"

Some peasants had now come up. One of them began:

"Your _honour_, I saw Prince Kaledines' riders----"

"_Whose!_"

"The Hetman's----"

"Your _honour_! _Prince_ Kaledines! The Hetman! Damnation! Who do you

think you are! Who do you think I am!" burst out the Red officer in a

fury. "Get out of my way!----" He pushed the peasants right and left

and strode away toward the convent. His soldiers began to straggle

after him. One of them winked at the wood-cutters with his tongue in

his cheek, and slung the rifle he carried over his right shoulder _en

bandouliere_, muzzle downward.

"The Tavarish is in a temper," he said with a jerk of his thumb

toward the officer. "We arrested that Swedish girl in the uniform

of the woman's battalion. One shoots that breed on sight, you know.

But we were in such a hurry to finish with the Romanoffs----" He

shrugged: "You see, comrades, we should have taken her into the crypt

and shot her along with the Romanoffs. That's how one loses these

birds--they're off if you turn your back to light a cigarette in

the wind."

One of the wood-cutters said: "Among Kaledines' horsemen were two

women. One was crop-headed like a boy, and half naked."

"A White Nun?"

"God knows. She had some white rags hanging to her body, and dark hair

clipped like a boy's."

"That--was--she!" said the soldier with slow conviction. He turned and

looked down the long perspective of the forest road. Only a raven

stalked there all alone over the fallen leaves.

"Certainly," he said, "that was our White Nun. The Cossacks took her

with them. They must have ridden fast, the horsemen of Kaledines."

"Like a swift storm. Like the souls of the damned," replied a

peasant.

The soldier shrugged: "If there's still a Romanoff loose in the

world, God save the world!... And that big heifer of a Swedish

wench!--she was a bad one, I tell you!--Took six of us to catch her

and ten to hold her by her ten fingers and toes! Hey! God bless me,

but she stands six feet and is made of steel cased in silk--all white,

smooth and iron-hard--the blond young snow-tiger that she is!--the

yellow-haired, six-foot, slippery beastess! God bless me--God bless

me!" he muttered, staring down the wood-road to its vanishing point

against the grey horizon.

Then he hitched his slung rifle to a more comfortable position,

turned, gazed at the convent across the fields, which his distant

comrades were now approaching.

"A German nest," he said aloud to himself, "full of their damned

Deaconesses! Hey! I'll be going along to see what's to be done with

them, also!"

He nodded to the wood-cutters:

"Vermin-killing time," he remarked cheerily. "After the dirty work is

done, peace, land enough for everybody, ease and plenty and a full

glass always at one's elbows--eh, comrades?"

He strode away across the fields.

It had begun to snow.

ARGUMENT

The Cossacks sang as they rode:

"Life is against us

We are born crying:

Life that commenced us

Leaves us all dying.

We were born crying;

We shall die sighing.

"Shall we sit idle?

Follow Death's dance!

Pick up your bridle,

Saddle and lance!

Cossacks, advance!"

They were from the Urals: they sat their shaggy little grey horses,

lance in hand, stirrup deep in saddle paraphernalia--kit-bags, tents,

blankets, trusses of straw, a dead fowl or two or a quarter of beef.

And from every saddle dangled a balalaika and the terrible Cossack

whip.

The steel of their lances flashed red in the setting sun; snow whirled

before the wind in blinding pinkish clouds, powdering horse and rider

from head to heel.

Again one rider unslung his balalaika, struck it, looking skyward as

he rode:

"Stars in your courses,

This is our answer;

Women and horses,

Singer and dancer

Fall to the lancer!

That is your answer!

"Though the Dark Raider

Rob us of joy----

Death, the Invader,

Come to destroy----

_Nichevo! Stoi!_"

They rode into a forest, slowly, filing among the silver birches, then

trotting out amid the pines.

The Swedish girl towered in her saddle, dwarfing the shaggy pony. She

wore her grey wool cap, overcoat, and boots. Pistols bulged in the

saddle holsters; sacks of grain and a bag of camp tins lay across

pommel and cantle.

Beside her rode the novice, swathed to the eyes in a sheepskin

greatcoat, and a fur cap sheltering her shorn head.

Her lethargy--a week's reaction from the horrors of the convent--had

vanished; and a feverish, restless alertness had taken its place.

Nothing of the still, white novice was visible now in her brilliant

eyes and flushed cheeks.

Her tragic silence had given place to an unnatural loquacity; her

grief to easily aroused mirth; and the dark sorrow in her haunted eyes

was gone, and they grew brown and sunny and vivacious.

She talked freely with her comrade, Ilse Westgard; she exchanged

gossip and banter with the Cossacks, argued with them, laughed with

them, sang with them.

At night she slept in her sheepskin in Ilse Westgard's vigorous arms;

morning, noon and evening she filled the samovar with snow beside

Cossack fires, or in the rare cantonments afforded in wretched

villages, where whiskered and filthy mujiks cringed to the Cossacks,

whispering to one another: "There is no end to death; there is no end

to the fighting and the dying, God bless us all. There is no end."

In the glare of great fires in muddy streets she stood, swathed in her

greatcoat, her cap pushed back, looking like some beautiful, impudent

boy, while the Cossacks sang "Lada oy Lada!"--and let their slanting

eyes wander sideways toward her, till her frank laughter set the

singers grinning and the _gusli_ was laid aside.

And once, after a swift gallop to cross a railroad and an exchange of

shots with the Red guards at long range, the sotnia of the Wild

Division rode at evening into a little hamlet of one short, miserable

street, and shouted for a fire that could be seen as far as Moscow.

That night they discovered vodka--not much--enough to set them

singing first, then dancing. The troopers danced together in the

fire-glare--clumsily, in their boots, with interims of the _pas

seul_ savouring of the capers of those ancient Mongol horsemen in

the _Hezars_ of Genghis Khan.

But no dancing, no singing, no clumsy capers were enough to satisfy

these riders of the Wild Division, now made boisterous by vodka and

horse-meat. Gossip crackled in every group; jests flew; they shouted

at the peasants; they roared at their own jokes.

"Comrade novice!--Pretty boy with a shorn head!" they bawled.

"Harangue us once more on law and love."

She stood with legs apart and thumbs hooked in her belt, laughing at

them across the fire. And all around crowded the wretched _mujiks_,

peering at her through shaggy hair, out of little wolfish eyes.

A Cossack shouted: "My law first! Land for all! That is what we have,

we Cossacks! Land for the people, one and all--land for the _mujik_;

land for the bourgeois; land for the aristocrat! That law solves all,

clears all questions, satisfies all. It is the Law of Peace!"

A Cossack shoved a soldier-deserter forward into the firelight. He

wore a patch of red on his sleeve.

"Answer, comrade! Is that the true law? Or have you and your comrades

made a better one in Petrograd?"

The deserter, a little frightened, tried to grin: "A good law is, kill

all generals," he said huskily. "Afterward we shall have peace."

A roar of laughter greeted him; these dark, thickset Cossacks with

slanting eyes were from the Urals. What did they care how many

generals were killed? Besides, their hetman had already killed

himself.

Their officer moved out into the firelight--a reckless rider but a

dull brain--and stood lashing at his snow-crusted boots with the

silver-mounted quirt.

"Like gendarmes," he said, "we Cossacks are forever doing the dirty

work of other people. Why? It begins to sicken me. Why are we forever

executing the law! What law? Who made it? The Tzar. And he is dead,

and what is the good of the law he made?

"Why should free Cossacks be policemen any more when there is no law?

"We played gendarme for the Monarchists. We answered the distress call

of the Cadets and the bourgeoisie! Where are they? Where is the law

they made?"

He stood switching his dirty boots and swinging his heavy head right

and left with the stupid, lowering menace of a bull.

"Then came the Mensheviki with their law," he bellowed suddenly.

"Again we became policemen, galloping to their whistle. Where are

they? Where is their law?"

He spat on the snow, twirled his quirt.

"There is only one law to govern the land," he roared. "It is the law

of hands off and mind your business! It's a good law."

"A good law for those who already have something," cried a high, thin

voice from the throng of peasants.

The Cossacks, who all possessed their portion of land, yelled with

laughter. One of them called out to the Swedish girl for her opinion,

and the fair young giantess strode gracefully out into the fire-ring,

her cap in her hand and the thick blond ringlets shining like gold on

her beautiful head.

"Listen! Listen to this soldier of the Death Battalion!" shouted the

Cossacks in great glee. "She will tell us what the law should be!"

She laughed: "We fought for it--we women soldiers," she said. "And the

law we fought for was made when the first tyrant fell.

"This is the law: Freedom of mind; liberty of choice; an equal chance

for all; no violence; only orderly debate to determine the will of the

land."

A Cossack said loudly: "_Da volna!_ Those who have nothing would take,

then, from those who have!"

"I think not!" cried another,"--not in the Urals!"

Thunderous laughter from their comrades and cries of, "Palla! Let us

hear our pretty boy, who has made for the whole world a law."

Palla Dumont, her slender hands thrust deep in her great coat sleeves,

and standing like a nun lost in mystic revery, looked up with gay

audacity--not like a nun at all, now, save for the virginal allure

that seemed a part of the girl.

"There is only one law, Tavarishi," she said, turning slightly from

her hips as she spoke, to include those behind her in the circle: "and

that law was not made by man. That law was born, already made, when

the first man was born. It has never changed. It comprehends

everything; includes everything and everybody; it solves all

perplexity, clears all doubts, decides all questions.

"It is a living law; it exists; it is the key to every problem; and it

is all ready for you."

The girl's face had altered; the half mischievous audacity in defiance

of her situation--the gay, impudent confidence in herself and in these

wild comrades of hers, had given place to something more serious, more

ardent--the youthful intensity that smiles through the flaming

enchantment of suddenly discovered knowledge.

"It is the oldest of all laws," she said. "It was born perfect. It is

yours if you accept it. And this law is the Law of Love."

A peasant muttered: "One gives where one loves."

The girl turned swiftly: "That is the soul of the Law!" she cried, "to

give! Is there any other happiness, Tavarishi? Is there any other

peace? Is there need of any other law?

"I tell you that the Law of Love slays greed! And when greed dies, war

dies. And hunger, and misery die, too!

"Of what use is any government and its lesser laws and customs, unless

it is itself governed by that paramount Law?

"Of what avail are your religions, your churches, your priests, your

saints, relics, ikons--all your candles and observances--unless

dominated by that Law?

"Of what use is your God unless that Law of Love also governs Him?"

She stood gazing at the firelit faces, the virginal half-smile on her

lips.

A peasant broke the silence: "Is she a new saint, then?" he said

distinctly.

A Cossack nodded to her, grinning respectfully:

"We always like your sermons, little novice," he said. And, to the

others: "Nobody wishes to deny what she says is quite true"--he

scratched his head, still grinning--"only--while there are Kurds in

the world----"

"And Bolsheviki!" shouted another.

"True! And Turks! God bless us, Tavarishi," he added with a wry face,

"it takes a stronger stomach to love these beasts than is mine----"

In the sudden shout of laughter the girl, Palla, looked around at her

comrade, Ilse.

"Until each accepts the Law of Love," said the Swedish girl-soldier,

laughing, "it can not be a law."

"I have accepted it," said Palla gaily; but her childishly lovely

mouth was working, and she clenched her hands in her sleeves to

control the tremor.

Silent, the smile still stamped on her tremulous lips, she stood for a

few moments, fighting back the deep emotions enveloping her in surging

fire--the same ardent and mystic emotions which once had consumed her

at the altar's foot, where she had knelt, a novice, dreaming of

beatitudes ineffable.

If that vision, for her, was ended--its substance but the shadow of a

dream--the passion that created it, the fire that purified it, the

ardent heart that needed love--love sacred, love unalloyed--needed

love still, burned for it, yearning to give.

* * * * *

As she lifted her head and looked around her with dark eyes still a

little dazed, there was a sudden commotion among the _mujiks_; a

Cossack called out something in a sharp voice; their officer walked

hastily out into the darkness; a shadowy rider spurred ahead of him.

Suddenly a far voice shouted: "Who goes there! _Stoi!_"

Then red flashes came out of the night; Cossacks ran for their horses;

Ilse appeared with Palla's pony as well as her own, and halted to

listen, the fearless smile playing over her face.

"Mount!" cried many voices at once. "The Reds!"

Palla flung herself astride her saddle; Ilse galloped beside her,

freeing her pistols; everywhere in the starlight the riders of the

Wild Division came galloping, loosening their long lances as they

checked their horses in close formation.

Then, with scarcely a sound in the unbroken snow, they filed away

eastward at a gentle trot, under the pale lustre of the stars.

THE CRIMSON TIDE

CHAPTER I

On the 7th of November, 1917, the Premier of the Russian Revolutionary

Government was a hunted fugitive, his ministers in prison, his troops

scattered or dead. Three weeks later, the irresponsible Reds had begun

their shameful career of treachery, counselled by a pallid, black-eyed

man with a muzzle like a mouse--one L. D. Bronstein, called Trotzky;

and by two others--one a bald, smooth-shaven, rotund little man with

an expression that made men hesitate, and features not trusted by

animals and children.

The Red Parliament called him Vladimir Ulianov, and that's what he

called himself. He had proved to be reticent, secretive, deceitful,

diligent, and utterly unhuman. His lower lip was shaped as though

something dripped from it. Blood, perhaps. His eyes were brown and not

entirely unattractive. But God makes the eyes; the mouth is fashioned

by one's self.

The world knew him as Lenine.

The third man squinted. He wore a patch of sparse cat-hairs on his

chin and upper lip.

His head was too big; his legs too short, but they were always in a

hurry, always in motion. He had a persuasive and ardent tongue, and

practically no mind. The few ideas he possessed inclined him to

violence--always the substitute for reason in this sort of agitator.

It was this ever latent violence that proved persuasive. His name was

Krylenko. His smile was a grin.

These three men betrayed Christ on March 3d, 1918.

On the Finland Road, outside of Petrograd, the Red ragamuffins held a

perpetual carmagnole, and all fugitives danced to their piping, and

many paid for the music.

But though White Guards and Red now operated in respectively hostile

gangs everywhere throughout the land, and the treacherous hun armies

were now in full tide of their Baltic invasion, there still remained

ways and means of escape--inconspicuous highways and unguarded roads

still open that led out of that white hell to the icy but friendly

seas clashing against the northward coasts.

Diplomats were inelegantly "beating it." A kindly but futile

Ambassador shook the snow of Petrograd from his galoshes and solemnly

and laboriously vanished. Mixed bands of attaches, consular personnel,

casuals, emissaries, newspaper men, and mission specialists scattered

into unfeigned flight toward those several and distant sections of

"God's Country," divided among civilised nations and lying far away

somewhere in the outer sunshine.

Sometimes White Guards caught these fugitives; sometimes Red Guards;

and sometimes the hun nabbed them on the general hunnish principle

that whatever is running away is fair game for a pot shot.

Even the American Red Cross was "suspect"--treachery being alleged in

its relations with Roumania; and hun and Bolshevik became very

troublesome--so troublesome, in fact, that Estridge, for example, was

having an impossible time of it, arrested every few days, wriggling

out of it, only to be collared again and detained.

Sometimes they questioned him concerning gun-running into Roumania;

sometimes in regard to his part in conducting the American girl, Miss

Dumont, to the convent where the imperial family had been detained.

That the de facto government had requested him to undertake this

mission and to employ an American Red Cross ambulance in the affair

seemed to make no difference.

He continued to be dogged, spied on, arrested, detained, badgered,

until one evening, leaving the Smolny, he encountered an American--a

slim, short man who smiled amiably upon him through his glasses,

removed a cigar from his lips, and asked Estridge what was the nature

of his evident and visible trouble.

So they walked back to the hotel together and settled on a course of

action during the long walk. What this friend in need did and how he

did it, Estridge never learned; but that same evening he was

instructed to pack up, take a train, and descend at a certain station

a few hours later.

Estridge followed instructions, encountered no interference, got off

at the station designated, and waited there all day, drinking boiling

tea.

Toward evening a train from Petrograd stopped at the station, and from

the open door of a compartment Estridge saw his chance acquaintance of

the previous day making signs to him to get aboard.

Nobody interfered. They had a long, cold, unpleasant night journey,

wedged in between two soldiers wearing arm-bands, who glowered at a

Russian general officer opposite, and continued to mutter to each

other about imperialists, bourgeoisie, and cadets.

At every stop they were inspected by lantern light, their papers

examined, and sometimes their luggage opened. But these examinations

seemed to be perfunctory, and nobody was detained.

In the grey of morning the train stopped and some soldiers with red

arm-bands looked in and insulted the general officer, but offered no

violence. The officer gave them a stony glance and closed his cold,

puffy eyes in disdain. He was blond and looked like a German.

* * * * *

At the next stop Estridge received a careless nod from his chance

acquaintance, gathered up his luggage and descended to the frosty

platform.

Nobody bothered to open their bags; their papers were merely glanced

at. They had some steaming tea and some sour bread together.

A little later a large sleigh drove up behind the station; their light

baggage was stowed aboard, they climbed in under the furs.

"Now," remarked his calm companion to Estridge, "we're all right if

the Reds, the Whites and the boches don't shoot us up."

"What are the chances?" inquired Estridge.

"Excellent, excellent," said his companion cheerily, "I should say we

have about one chance in ten to get out of this alive. I'll take

either end--ten to one we don't get out--ten to two we're shot up and

not killed--ten to three we are arrested but not killed--one to ten we

pull through with whole skins."

Estridge smiled. They remained silent, probably preoccupied with the

hazards of their respective fortunes. It grew colder toward noon.

The young man seated beside Estridge in the sleigh smoked continually.

He was attached to one of the American missions sent into Russia by an

optimistic administration--a mission, as a whole, foredoomed to

political failure.

In every detail, too, it had already failed, excepting only in that

particular part played by this young man, whose name was Brisson.

He, however, had gone about his occult business in a most amazing

manner--the manner of a Yankee who knows what he wants and what his

country ought to want if it knew enough to know it wanted it.

He was the last American to leave Petrograd: he had taken his time; he

left only when he was quite ready to leave.

And this was the man, now seated beside Estridge, who had coolly and

cleverly taken his sporting chance in remaining till the eleventh hour

and the fifty-ninth minute in the service of his country. Then, as the

twelfth hour began to strike, he bluffed his way through.

* * * * *

During the first two or three days of sleigh travel, Brisson learned

all he desired to know about Estridge, and Estridge learned almost

nothing about Brisson except that he possessed a most unholy genius

for wriggling out of trouble.

Nothing, nobody, seemed able to block this young man's progress. He

bluffed his way through White Guards and Red; he squirmed affably out

of the clutches of wandering Cossacks; he jollied officials of all

shades of political opinion; but he always continued his journey from

one etape to the next. Also, he was continually lighting one large

cigar after another. Buttoned snugly into his New York-made arctic

clothing, and far more comfortable at thirty below zero than was

Estridge in Russian costume, he smoked comfortably in the teeth of the

icy gale or conversed soundly on any topic chosen. And the range was

wide.

But about himself and his mission in Russia he never conversed except

to remark, once, that he could buy better Russian clothing in New York

than in Petrograd.

Indeed, his only concession to the customs of the country was in the

fur cap he wore. But it was the galoshes of Manhattan that saved his

feet from freezing. He had two pair and gave one to Estridge.

During several hundreds of miles in sleighs, Brisson's constant regret

was the absence of ferocious wolves. He desired to enjoy the whole

show as depicted by the geographies. He complained to Estridge quite

seriously concerning the lack of enterprise among the wolves.

But there seemed to be no wolves in Russia sufficiently polite to

oblige him; so he comforted himself by patting his stomach where,

sewed inside his outer underclothing, reposed documents destined to

electrify the civilised world with proof infernal of the treachery of

those three men who belong in history and in hell to the fraternity

which includes Benedict Arnold and Judas.

* * * * *

One late afternoon, while smoking his large cigar and hopefully

inspecting the neighbouring forest for wolves, this able young man

beheld a sotnia of Ural Cossacks galloping across the snow toward the

flying sleigh, where he and Estridge sat so snugly ensconced.

There was, of course, only one thing to do, and that was to halt.

Kaledines had blown his brains out, but his riders rode as swiftly as

ever. So the sleigh stopped.

And now these matchless horsemen of the Wild Division came galloping

up around the sleigh. Brilliant little slanting eyes glittered under

shaggy head-gear; broad, thick-lipped mouths split into grins at sight

of the two little American flags fluttering so gaily on the sleigh.

Then two booted and furred riders climbed out of their saddles, and,

under their sheepskin caps, Brisson saw the delicate features of two

young women, one a big, superb, blue-eyed girl; the other slim,

dark-eyed, and ivory-pale.

The latter said in English: "Could you help us? We saw the flags on

your sleigh. We are trying to leave the country. I am American. My

name is Palla Dumont. My friend is Swedish and her name is Ilse

Westgard."

"Get in, any way," said Brisson briskly. "We can't be in a worse mess

than we are. I imagine it's the same case with you. So if we're all

going to smash, it's pleasanter, I think, to go together."

At that the Swedish girl laughed and aided her companion to enter the

sleigh.

"Good-bye!" she called in her clear, gay voice to the Cossacks. "When

we come back again we shall ride with you from Vladivostok to Moscow

and never see an enemy!"

When the young women were comfortably ensconced in the sleigh, the

riders of the Wild Division crowded their horses around them and

shook hands with them English fashion.

"When you come back," they cried, "you shall find us riding through

Petrograd behind Korniloff!" And to Brisson and Estridge, in a

friendly manner: "Come also, comrades. We will show you a monument

made out of heads and higher than the Kremlin. That would be a funny

joke and worth coming back to see."

Brisson said pleasantly that such an exquisite jest would be well

worth their return to Russia.

Everybody seemed pleased; the Cossacks wheeled their shaggy mounts and

trotted away into the woods, singing. The sleigh drove on.

"This is very jolly," said Brisson cheerfully. "Wherever we're bound

for, now, we'll all go together."

"Is not America the destination of your long journey?" inquired the

big, blue-eyed girl.

Brisson chuckled: "Yes," he said, "but bullets sometimes shorten

routes and alter destinations. I think you ought to know the worst."

"If that's the worst, it's nothing to frighten one," said the Swedish

girl. And her crystalline laughter filled the icy air.

She put one persuasive arm around her slender, dark-eyed comrade:

"To meet God unexpectedly is nothing to scare one, is it, Palla?" she

urged coaxingly.

The other reddened and her eyes flashed: "What God do you mean?" she

retorted. "If I have anything to say about my destination after death

I shall go wherever love is. And it does not dwell with the God or in

the Heaven that we have been taught to desire and hope for."

The Swedish girl patted her shoulder and smiled in good humoured

deprecation at Brisson and Estridge.

"God let her dearest friend die under the rifles of the Reds," she

explained cheerfully, "and my little comrade can not reconcile this

sad affair with her faith in Divine justice. So she concludes there

isn't any such thing. And no Divinity." She shrugged: "That is what

shakes the faith in youth--the seeming indifference of the Most

High."

Palla Dumont sat silent. The colour had died out in her cheeks, her

dark, indifferent eyes became fixed.

Estridge opened the fur collar of his coat and pulled back his fur

cap.

"Do you remember me?" he said to Ilse Westgard.

The girl laughed: "Yes, I remember you, now!"

To Palla Dumont he said: "And do _you_ remember?"

At that she looked up incuriously; leaned forward slowly; gazed

intently at him; then she caught both his hands in hers with a swift,

sobbing intake of breath.

"You are John Estridge," she said. "You took me to her in your

ambulance!" She pressed his hands almost convulsively, and he felt her

trembling under the fur robe.

"Is it true," he said, "--that ghastly tragedy?"

"Yes."

"All died?"

"All."

Estridge turned to Brisson: "Miss Dumont was companion to the Grand

Duchess Marie," he said in brief explanation.

Brisson nodded, biting his cigar.

The Swedish girl-soldier said: "They were devoted--the little Grand

Duchess and Palla.... It was horrible, there in the convent

cellar--those young girls----" She gazed out across the snow; then,

"The Reds who did it had already made me prisoner.... They arrested me

in uniform after the decree disbanding us.... I was on my way to join

Kaledines' Cossacks--a rendezvous.... Well, the Reds left me outside

the convent and went in to do their bloody work. And I gnawed the rope

and ran into the chapel to hide among the nuns. And there I saw a

White Nun--quite crazed with grief----"

"I had heard the volley that killed her," said Palla, in explanation,

to nobody in particular. She sat staring out across the snow with dry,

bright eyes.

Brisson looked askance at her, looked significantly at the Swedish

girl, Ilse Westgard: "And what happened then?" he inquired, with the

pleasant, impersonal manner of a physician.

Ilse said: "Palla had already begun her novitiate. But what happened

in those terrible moments changed her utterly.... I think she went mad

at the moment.... Then the Superior came to me and begged me to hide

Palla because the Bolsheviki had promised to return and cut her throat

when they had finished their bloody business in the crypt.... So I

caught her up in my arms and I ran out into the convent grounds. And

at that very moment, God be thanked, a sotnia of the Wild Division

rode up looking for me. And they had led horses with them. And we were

in the saddle and riding like maniacs before I could think. That is

all, except, an hour ago we saw your sleigh."

"You have been hiding with the Cossacks ever since!" exclaimed

Estridge to Palla.

"That is her history," replied Ilse, "and mine. And," she added

cheerfully but tenderly, "my little comrade, here, is very, very

homesick, very weary, very deeply and profoundly unhappy in the loss

of her closest friend... and perhaps in the loss of her faith in

God."

"I am tranquil and I am not unhappy,"--said Palla. "And if I ever win

free of this murderous country I shall, for the first time in my life,

understand what the meaning of life really is. And shall know how to

live."

"You thought you knew how to live when you took the white veil," said

Ilse cheerfully. "Perhaps, after all, you may make other errors before

you learn the truth about it all. Who knows? You might even care to

take the veil again----"

"Never!" cried Palla in a clear, hard little voice, tinged with the

scorn and anger of that hot revolt which sometimes shakes youth to the

very source of its vitality.

Ilse said very calmly to Estridge: "With me it is my reason and not

mere hope that convinces me of God's existence. I try to reason with

Palla because one is indeed to be pitied who has lost belief in

God----"

"You are mistaken," said Palla drily; "--one merely becomes one's self

when once the belief in that sort of God is ended."

Ilse turned to Brisson: "That," she said, "is what seems so impossible

for some to accept--so terrible--the apparent indifference, the lack

of explanation--God's dreadful reticence in this thunderous whirlwind

of prayer that storms skyward day and night from our martyred world."

Palla, listening, sat forward and said to Brisson: "There is only one

religion and it has only two precepts--love and give! The rest--the

forms, observances, creeds, ceremonies, threats, promises, are

man-made trash!

"If man's man-made God pleases him, let him worship him. That kind of

deity does not please me. I no longer care whether He pleases me or

not. He no longer exists as far as I am concerned."

Brisson, much interested, asked Palla whether the void left by

discredited Divinity did not bewilder her.

"There is no void," said the girl. "It is already filled with my own

kind of God, with millions of Gods--my own fellow creatures."

"Your fellow beings?"

"Yes."

"You think your fellow creatures can fill that void?"

"They have filled it."

Brisson nodded reflectively: "I see," he said politely, "you intend to

devote your life to the cult of your fellow creatures."

"No, I do not," said the girl tranquilly, "but I intend to love them

and live my life that way unhampered." She added almost fiercely: "And

I shall love them the more because of their ignorant faith in an

all-seeing and tender and just Providence which does not exist! I

shall love them because of their tragic deception and their

helplessness and their heart-breaking unconsciousness of it all."

Ilse Westgard smiled and patted Palla's cheeks: "All roads lead

ultimately to God," she said, "and yours is a direct route though you

do not know it."

"I tell you I have nothing in common with the God you mean," flashed

out the girl.

Brisson, though interested, kept one grey eye on duty, ever hopeful of

wolves. It was snowing hard now--a perfect geography scene, lacking

only the wolves; but the etape was only half finished. There might be

hope.

The rather amazing conversation in the sleigh also appealed to him,

arousing all his instincts of a veteran newspaper man, as well as his

deathless curiosity--that perpetual flame which alone makes any

intelligence vital.

Also, his passion for all documents--those sewed under his underclothes,

as well as these two specimens of human documents--were now keeping

his lively interest in life unimpaired.

"Loss of faith," he said to Palla, and inclined toward further debate,

"must be a very serious thing for any woman, I imagine."

"I haven't lost faith in love," she said, smilingly aware that he was

encouraging discussion.

"But you say you have lost faith in spiritual love--"

"I did not say so. I did not mean the other kind of love when I said

that love is sufficient religion for me."

"But spiritual love means Deity----"

"It does _not_! Can you imagine the all-powerful father watching his

child die, horribly--and never lifting a finger! Is that love? Is that

power? _Is_ that Deity?"

"To penetrate the Divine mind and its motives for not intervening is

impossible for us----"

"That is priest's prattle! Also, I care nothing now about Divine

motives. Motives are human, not divine. So is policy. That is why the

present Pope is unworthy of respect. He let his flock die. He deserted

his Cardinal. He let the hun go unrebuked. He betrayed Christ. I care

nothing about any mind weak enough, politic enough, powerless enough,

to ignore love for motives!

"One loves, or one does not love. Loving is giving--" The girl sat up

in the sleigh and the thickening snowflakes drove into her flushed

face. "Loving is giving," she repeated, "--giving life to love; giving

_up_ life for love--giving! _giving!_ always giving!--always

forgiving! That is love! That is the only God!--the indestructible,

divine God within each one of us!"

Brisson appraised her with keen and scholarly eyes. "Yet," he said

pleasantly, "you do not forgive God for the death of your friend.

Don't you practise your faith?"

The girl seemed nonplussed; then a brighter tint stained her cheeks

under the ragged sheepskin cap.

"Forgive God!" she cried. "If there really existed that sort of God,

what would be the use of forgiving what He does? He'd only do it

again. That is His record!" she added fiercely, "--indifference to

human agony, utter silence amid lamentations, stone deaf, stone dumb,

motionless. It is not in me to fawn and lick the feet of such an

image. No! It is not in me to believe it alive, either. And I do not!

But I know that love lives: and if there be any gods at all, it must

be that they are without number, and that their substance is of that

immortality born inside us, and which we call love! Otherwise, to me,

now, symbols, signs, saints, rituals, vows--these things, in my mind,

are all scrapped together as junk. Only, in me, the warm faith

remains--that within me there lives a god of sorts--perhaps that

immortal essence called a soul--and that its only name is love. And it

has given us only one law to live by--the Law of Love!"

Brisson's cigar had gone out. He examined it attentively and found it

would be worth relighting when opportunity offered.

Then he smiled amiably at Palla Dumont:

"What you say is very interesting," he remarked. But he was too polite

to add that it had been equally interesting to numberless generations

through the many, many centuries during which it all had been said

before, in various ways and by many, many people.

Lying back in his furs reflectively, and deriving a rather cold

satisfaction from his cigar butt, he let his mind wander back through

the history of theocracy and of mundane philosophy, mildly amused to

recognize an ancient theory resurrected and made passionately original

once more on the red lips of this young girl.

But the Law of Love is not destined to be solved so easily; nor had it

ever been solved in centuries dead by Egyptian, Mongol, or Greek--by

priest or princess, prophet or singer, or by any vestal or acolyte of

love, sacred or profane.

No philosophy had solved the problem of human woe; no theory

convinced. And Brisson, searching leisurely the forgotten corridors of

treasured lore, became interested to realise that in all the history

of time only the deeds and example of one man had invested the human

theory of divinity with any real vitality--and that, oddly enough,

what this girl preached--what she demanded of divinity--had been both

preached and practised by that one man alone--Jesus Christ.

Turning involuntarily toward Palla, he said: "Can't you believe in

Him, either?"

She said: "He was one of the Gods. But He was no more divine than any

in whom love lives. Had He been more so, then He would still

intervene to-day! He is powerless. He lets things happen. And we

ourselves must make it up to the world by love. There is no other

divinity to intervene except only our own hearts."

But that was not, as the young girl supposed, her fixed faith,

definite, ripened, unshakable. It was a phase already in process of

fading into other phases, each less stable, less definite, and more

dangerous than the other, leaving her and her ardent mind and heart

always unconsciously drifting toward the simple, primitive and natural

goal for which all healthy bodies are created and destined--the

instinct of the human being to protect and perpetuate the race by the

great Law of Love.

Brisson's not unkindly cynicism had left his lips edged with a slight

smile. Presently he leaned back beside Estridge and said in a low

voice:

"Purely pathological. Ardent religious instinct astray and running

wild in consequence of nervous dislocations due to shock. Merely

over-storage of superb physical energy. Intellectual and spiritual

wires overcrowded. Too many volts.... That girl ought to have been

married early. Only a lot of children can keep her properly occupied.

Only outlet for her kind. Interesting case. Contrast to the Swedish

girl. Fine, handsome, normal animal that. She could pick me up between

thumb and finger. Great girl, Estridge."

"She is really beautiful," whispered Estridge, glancing at Ilse.

"Yes. So is Mont Blanc. That sort of beauty--the super-sort. But it's

the other who is pathologically interesting because her wires are

crossed and there's a short circuit somewhere. Who comes in contact

with her had better look out."

"She's wonderfully attractive."

"She is. But if she doesn't disentangle her wires and straighten out

she'll burn out.... What's that ahead? A wolf!"

It was the rest house at the end of the etape--a tiny, distant speck

on the snowy plain.

Brisson leaned over and caught Palla's eye. Both smiled.

"Well," he said, "for a girl who doesn't believe in anything, you seem

cheerful enough."

"I am cheerful because I _do_ believe in everything and in everybody."

Brisson laughed: "You shouldn't," he said. "Great mistake. Trust in

God and believe nobody--that's the idea. Then get married and close

your eyes and see what God will send you!"

The girl threw back her pretty head and laughed.

"Marriage and priests are of no consequence," she said, "but I adore

little children!"