_THE HIGHWAYMAN._
Of all our party, next to myself, Mary was the fondest of walking, and
went with me oftenest on long excursions. We had driven up and down the
Nevsky two or three times, but had never walked its entire length, as I
proposed doing a few days before our intended departure from the city.
It was one of those bright, sunshiny afternoons, which almost make
amends for the ice and snow in which the city is wrapped a great portion
of the year. There were very few in the street, either in the
fashionable or common part of the Nevsky, and the air was so
invigorating that we felt no fatigue, but walked on and on, past the
Patoff house, which showed some signs of life.
A door and windows were open, and we saw a lackey or two dodging in and
out. Probably the master had returned, and I felt a little thrill of
pleasure at the thought of meeting him again. It was impossible not to
like him for his great friendliness and the many times he had made it
easy for us in a city hedged round with rules and spies and officials
ready to take advantage of us.
For a long time after passing the Patoff house we went on, until at last
we turned into quarters where I had never been. A glance told me that it
was peopled by the poorest class; still, I kept on, noticing how hard
were the faces of the women, and how squalid and dirty were the children
playing by the doors of the houses. I had been anxious to talk with this
class of people, and hear from their own lips a history of their lives
and their much-vaunted adoration of the czar, who could do no wrong!
Here was my opportunity, and I was about to accost a tired-faced woman,
and had bowed to her smilingly, when suddenly I was confronted by a
shabbily dressed young man, whose cringing manner bespoke the
professional beggar. Not knowing that I could understand him, he held
out his hand, and then put it to his mouth, in token of hunger, a trick
I had seen many times in Italy.
“What do you want?” I asked, drawing back from him, as he came so near
to me that I smelled his breath of bad tobacco and vodka.
At the sound of his own language, his face brightened, and he exclaimed:
“God be praised, madame speaks Russian! She is kind, I know, and was
sent to help me, and will give me a few kopecks for my sick wife and two
starving children. I came from Moscow a few weeks ago to get work, but
can find none, with everybody out of the city. Fifty kopecks are all I
ask.”
He was still holding his hand very close to me, and once touched my arm,
while I was thinking what to do, and doubting the propriety of giving
the man the fifty kopecks asked for. It was not a large sum—about
twenty-five cents—for a sick wife and two starving children. In my
weakness—for I am weak where poverty is concerned—I might have yielded
if Mary had not pulled my sleeve, and whispered, frantically: “Come
away, Miss Lucy! The man is an impostor! I believe we are among
thieves!”
He could not have understood her words, but he divined their import, and
instantly his manner changed, from a hungry beggar to that of a resolute
bandit, sure of his prey. Snatching with one hand at the bag at my side,
in which I was supposed to carry money, with the other he clutched at
the ring on my ungloved hand, trying to wrench it from my finger. It was
not a large stone, but a fine one, and its brilliancy in the sunlight
had attracted his notice.
I held to my bag with one hand, but with the other I was powerless, for
he held it as in a vise. I felt there was no use appealing to the women
near us for help. They were looking on stolidly, as if a theft in open
day was nothing new to them. One, however—the tired-faced woman to whom
I had bowed—seemed agitated, and suggested that I call the police.
But there were none in sight. The street seemed deserted. Even the
_butki_, or box, on the far corner of the street, or square, where three
men are always supposed to be stationed, to keep order, seemed also
deserted, and I was left to fight my antagonist alone, with the probable
result of being defeated. Suddenly, like an inspiration, Chance came
into my mind. If he were there, I was safe. I did not know that he was
home, but in my desperation I called, with all my might: “Chance,
Chance, I want you!”
Almost before his name had left my lips, I heard the thud of his feet,
like the hoofbeats of a horse, and knew that he was coming, but not the
Chance I had ever seen before—mild-eyed and gentle as a baby. Every part
of his body was bristling with rage, making him twice as big as usual.
His eyes were red as balls of fire, and his teeth showed white between
his open jaws. If I had not known him, I should have thought him mad,
and, as it was, I felt a little shiver of fear as he came rushing on,
with a low, angry growl, and his head low down.
The bandit’s back was to him, and he did not know the danger threatening
him until Chance came round in front and two big feet struck him in the
stomach, stretching him upon the ground, with Chance standing over him
and looking at me for instructions as to what he should do next. I had
heard some Russian oaths, but never any quite so fierce as those which
came from the lips of the prostrate young man, who had wrenched my bag
from my side, and kept it, with a tight grip.
“Chance,” I said, pointing to the bag, “that is mine. Get it for me!”
He understood, and in a moment the bag was in my hand, and on that of
the bandit was an ugly wound, where Chance’s teeth had been. The dog
still kept his place over the fallen man, growling angrily whenever his
foe attempted to rise.
“Please, lady, call him off!” the man pleaded, his face white and his
teeth chattering with terror.
I was nearly as white as he was, and trembling in every limb, as I stood
looking at him.
“Oh, please let me go before he nabs me!” he continued, as, lifting up
his head, he looked down the long street, where a policeman was just
appearing in response to a tardy summons from the _butki_. “I’ve been in
a dungeon, I’ve had the knout, and they did not make me any better. Let
me go,” he said. “I did wrong, and am sorry!”
The knout and dungeon had an ugly sound. All my womanly pity awoke for
the wretch, who was little more than a boy.
“I’ll give you another chance to do better,” I said, bidding the dog
come to me, which he did rather unwillingly, growling savagely as the
man sprang up, and, picking up his hat, exclaimed: “Thanks, lady! I’ll
not forget it!” and then disappeared into some den or alley.
The women began to gather around me by this time, all talking together,
and evidently so pleased at the escape of the thief that I was almost as
much afraid of them as of him. The tired-faced woman, however, who had
suggested the police, was different, and, when she asked me to sit down,
I assented, for I was very tired, and went toward her door.
“Wait a moment,” she said, as she saw me about to sit upon the doorstep,
which was rather dusty, but which I preferred to a seat inside, because
it was in the open air.
Bringing a broom, she swept the step clean, and, taking off her apron,
folded it and laid it down for a cushion for Mary and me, while she took
a seat inside the door. Mary was nearly in a state of collapse with
fright, and did not refuse a drink of the vodka a woman offered her in a
broken cup. The strong liquor, which nearly strangled her, did her good,
for she sat up in a moment and began to pull her dress away from contact
with those near her.
Chance had stretched himself at my feet, but his head was up and alert,
as if scenting mischief. Evidently he did not like the neighborhood, for
he looked at me occasionally, as if asking why I was here, and why I did
not leave. Several children gathered round him, timidly at first; then,
as they gained courage, putting their little, dirty hands on his shaggy
side, and calling him Chance, and a good dog, to which attention he
responded rather indifferently, with a whack or two of his bushy tail.
“Do they all know him?” I asked, in some surprise, and forgetting that
they had heard me call his name.
“Oh, yes,” the woman answered. “We all know Michel Seguin’s dog—a better
detective, they say, than his master, if he chooses to use him, which he
not often does.”
The policeman now came up, and began to question the crowd as to the
recent disturbance. At sight of him, the children drew back and huddled
closely together, but the women stood their ground, and began to tell
the story, but shielded the thief as much as possible. A man had
snatched at madame’s purse, and she had set the dog on him, was the
amount of information, until a child called out, in a little piping
voice, as she pointed toward me:
“Ask her. She talks our way.”
Scanning me very closely, as if I had been some rare curiosity, the man
said: “You are the American madame who speaks our language so well?”
I did not like his face or his manner. He was brusque and rough, and
different from any gendarme with whom I had come in contact, but I
replied that I was from America, and could speak his language.
“Tell me, then,” he said, “the right of this row. I can make nothing
from the jargon of these cattle, who evidently wish to shield their
friend.”
I told him the story briefly, and described the man as well as I could.
“Carl Zimosky, by Heaven!” he exclaimed, bringing his fist down upon his
side, and addressing himself to the women, one of whom nodded.
Then, turning to me, with an angry frown, he continued: “And _you_ let
him escape! _You_ let Carl Zimosky go, when you might have kept him so
easily! Carl Zimosky is one of the worst felons we have, and is slippery
as an eel—a thief and a pickpocket. A sick wife and two starving
children! He has no wife, nor children. He is not twenty-one. We have
had him up twice.”
“Yes, he told me he had been in a dungeon and under the knout, and they
made him worse,” I said, looking at him very calmly and coolly.
“And perhaps that is the reason you let him go. You thought him a
nihilist, and I’ve been told you sympathize with them. Madame,” he
continued, his voice growing louder and his manner so offensive that
Chance got up, looked at him and growled, shook his sides, looked at me,
and lay down again, nearer to me, with his head stretched forward, as if
listening, while the gendarme went on: “Madame, these things may do in
the United States, but not here in Russia! You may get into trouble, if
you _are_ a woman and an American!”
He fairly swelled with importance as he delivered this threatening
speech, which did not move me, except to make me angry. I was not
afraid. I knew that, at a word from me, Chance would have him by the
throat, and of what might come after that I did not think or care.
“Sir!” I began, rising to my feet, in order to look over the heads of
the women, who at the man’s angry words had gathered in front of me,
like a fence, to keep me from harm. “Sir! do you think I am going to
stay all the afternoon keeping guard over Carl Simpsy, or Simpson, or
whatever his name is, waiting for you, or some other laggard, to come?
Where were you, that you were not attending to your business? I have
seen policemen in all parts of the city except here, where, it seems,
they are needed——”
“And where you ought never to have come,” he interrupted, in a much
lower tone than he had at first assumed. “It is no place for women,
alone, and I don’t believe you’d got away with any money or jewelry you
may have about you now, if it were not for that dog. Where, in Heaven’s
name, did he come from? I thought Seguin was out of town. This Zimosky
is suspected of robbing his house last night, and we are looking for
him.”
“Robbed Michel Seguin’s house!” I exclaimed, a half wish throbbing
through my brain that I had detained the man.
The gendarme must have guessed my thought, for he said, with a sneering
smile: “Madame feels differently now that Seguin is concerned. I have
heard you were very friendly with him.”
I was too angry to answer, and I felt that my face was as red as my
hair. The women began at once to ask questions concerning the robbery,
but the gendarme did not deign to answer them. They were _cattle_, as he
had designated them, and, as just then there came a whistle which he
understood, with a scowl at the women and children and a look I did not
like at myself, he walked away in pursuit of some poor wretch—Carl,
perhaps, I thought, as I sat down again upon the doorstep, faint and
tired from my recent encounter.
Only the woman on whose doorstep and on whose apron I was sitting was
willing to talk. She seemed superior to her neighbors, with a look upon
her face as if nothing mattered to her now. In reply to my questions,
she said that Paul Strigoff, the gendarme who had just left us, was one
of the hardest and cruelest of the lot, and he was more a German than a
Russian. Carl had been in prison, and nearly killed with the knout, but
he had his good parts, and would share his last crust or kopecks with a
friend.
“He is”—and she hesitated a moment; then began, in tolerably fair
English; and, when I looked at her in surprise, she explained that she
had once lived in England for a year, and learned the language. “I was
not always what I am now,” she said. “It is a great fall from the Court
Quay to this place, but I have made the descent, and was so bruised and
stunned that life holds nothing for me now—nothing—and what goes on
around me rather amuses me. I have been a suspect—arrested as such, and
put in prison. Oh, the horror and shame of it, and I as innocent as you!
My husband is in Siberia—sent there rightfully, I suppose, according to
the laws of this land. I have no children, thank God, but”—and red spots
began to come out on her thin face—“it is not known to many here—but
Carl is my nephew. A good boy once as ever the sun shone on. But they
arrested him for something he never heard of, and nearly killed him with
the knout to make him confess what he knew nothing of. When satisfied
that they could get nothing from him, they let him go, and he crept to
me in the night, with his poor back all gashed and bleeding, and every
particle of manhood crushed out of him. There is nothing like the knout
administered wrongfully to take the pride from a man and make him a
fiend. Carl is pretty bad now, and does not care. I am sorry he attacked
you, and wonder that he did. He must have had too much vodka. You should
not have come here, and the sooner you go, the better. Your friend is
greatly upset.”
She looked at Mary, who was very white and very busy trying to keep
herself from the children who were pressing round her, and who had been
joined by other children from some quarter. Among them I recognized my
hat, which I had discarded on the first day of my arrival. The same girl
I had then seen with it on was wearing it, and had twisted a piece of
faded blue tarleton around it in place of the ribbon and flower, which,
I suppose, some other child was wearing. At sight of it, I laughed. The
world seemed so small, with many wires converging to the same point, and
just now to this neighborhood, where I knew I ought not to be. But I
must ask the woman a question before I left, and, turning to her, I
said: “Do you know Michel Seguin?”
“Only as a terror to the nihilists and thieves. I’ve never spoken to
him,” she said. “I hear that, although he is quick to catch ’em, he is
kind after they are caught. Very different from Paul Strigoff, who has
come up from the scum of Moscow, and feels his importance as a gendarme,
while Michel Seguin is a gentleman, and comes of a good family.”
“Do you know where he lives?” I asked her next, and she replied: “Yes;
on the Nevsky. He has money, and his mother is a lady.”
“And did you ever know or hear of the Patoff family, who first owned the
house? There was a Nicol Patoff, a young man. Did you ever hear of him?”
“Patoff?” she replied. “No, I don’t know them. They must have left
before I came to St. Petersburg. The Seguins lived there then.”
“Thanks!” I said; “and now I really must go. Come, Mary.”
I stooped to help her up, and, before I got her to her feet and away
from the woman, who was again offering her vodka, I was conscious that
some new impulse had been given to the crowd, which had pressed
disagreeably near to me as I bent over Mary. The children began to
scatter, and in the distance I saw my hat, worn hindside before, and
bobbing up and down on the frowsy head of the peasant girl. The women,
too, began to move off toward their own homes, while Chance started up,
and, with a joyous bark, ran swiftly up the street, where a tall
gendarme was coming toward us with rapid strides and swinging a little
cane, which I had heard could, on occasion, make itself felt.
“Michel Seguin!” I almost screamed, as I clutched Mary’s arm and drew
her along with me. “Oh, I am so glad,” I said, stretching out my
disengaged hand to Michel, who took it, while with his other hand he
relieved me of Mary, who, at sight of him, began to recover her strength
and courage.
And so, without a word of inquiry or explanation, we walked away from
that quarter to the Nevsky, which had never seemed so bright and
pleasant as it did when we at last sat down upon a bench, with Michel
between us, still holding our hands, as if he had us in custody.
“Now, tell me,” he said, “how came you in that quarter, of all others?
It is no place to walk. What took you there?”
“My miserable curiosity,” I said, with a sob in my voice. “I wanted to
explore new places, and see all sorts and conditions of people.”
“I think you probably saw them,” he answered. “I reached home about
noon. I saw you go by, but was too busy to speak to you. Knowing your
fondness for long walks, I concluded you were taking one, but as time
passed, and you did not return, I sent Chance to find you. But what
happened to upset you so?”
It was Mary who began to tell the story. I could not. The thought of it
made me faint again, and, without knowing it, I leaned rather heavily
against Michel, while, in a voice half choked with nervous tears, Mary
related our experience with the thief, and the part Chance had in it.
The dog seemed to know what she was saying, for he stamped his feet and
shook his head, turned a somersault or two, and finally came and,
putting his nose in his master’s lap, looked earnestly at him for
commendation. “Good Chance,” was all the return he could get, for both
the gendarme’s hands were in use, one holding me, the other holding
Mary, while he listened with rapt attention, and, when she mentioned the
name of the thief, he started and let go my hand.
“Carl Zimosky!” he repeated. “He is the most expert thief we have. I
never knew him openly attack one in daylight before. Such things are not
common. There are too many police around, besides the three in the
_butkis_.”
“Great good they did us!” I exclaimed. “I don’t believe they were on
guard, or else they were asleep, and your fine policeman, Paul Strigoff,
took his time to get to us, and, when he came, he was exceedingly
insolent because I had let the thief go.”
“Paul Strigoff!” and Michel laughed; “and so you fell in with him, too!
You did have an adventure! Paul and Carl! I wish myself you could have
kept the latter till we found whether he had my watch.”
“Your watch!” I repeated, remembering, suddenly, what I had heard of his
house being robbed. “Was your house really entered? Strigoff said so.”
“Yes,” he answered. “When I reached home, I found the servants in a
great commotion. My house had been entered by some one, a quantity of
silver taken, and a gold watch, which I prized very highly,
because—because——” he hesitated, then went on: “It is an American watch,
made in Waltham, and, you know, they are valuable. It was Nicol’s. He
brought it home with him, and it has ‘Ridgefield’ on it, and the date
when he bought it.”
“How came you by it?” I asked, rather sharply, and he replied: “Just as
I came by the house and the other articles. All fair, as I once told
you. The Patoffs were not cheated.”
Here was a new complication, with Nicol in it. I remembered the watch
perfectly. It was bought at a jeweler’s in Ridgefield, who kept only the
best wares. Nicol had seemed rather proud of it and consulted it
frequently if the day was hot, the lessons hard and his pupils stupid
and anxious to be free.
“And you suspect Carl Zimosky?” I asked, in an unsteady voice.
“Yes, we always suspect him. He is what you Americans call a bad
egg—into one scrape as soon as he is out of another.”
“And I let him go!” I said. “He begged so hard and looked so scared; but
I’ll try and get the watch for you if he has it.”
“You!” and he laughed derisively. “Will you turn detective, and go into
the dives after him? He eludes us every time.”
“No,” I answered, thinking of the tired-faced woman, his aunt, whom they
called Ursula. I should work through her, but I did not say so, as I did
not wish to bring her into the trouble if I could help it.
“I do not know for sure that he has the watch, but I am sure you cannot
get it if he has,” the gendarme said.
“Let me try, and don’t go after him until I have given him up,” I said.
“He has been in prison once and under the knout, and his back is all cut
and scarred. It is horrible, and I hate the whole system, and am glad we
are going away in a few days.”
“Going away so soon?” the gendarme asked, and in his voice there was
genuine regret such as we feel when parting from a friend.
“Yes,” I answered, not quite in the tone I had at first assumed.
I could not understand the influence this man had over me, or the sense
of restfulness I felt as I walked beside him on the Nevsky, till we
reached his house, which, at his invitation, we entered, hearing from
the porter and a head servant an account of the robbery, which was so
adroitly done as to leave in their minds no doubt that the thief was
Carl Zimosky.
“But we’ll get him, we’ll get him,” the porter said, with a shake of his
gray head, “and the knout will soon make him give up the plunder, if he
has it.”
I shuddered, but made no remark. I meant to get the watch, if Carl had
it, though how I scarcely knew. It was growing late, and I was too tired
to walk the remaining distance to the hotel. I would take a _drosky_, I
said, and, with Mary, was soon being hurled along the street in an old
vehicle and at a pace which threatened the dislocation of our limbs, if
indeed we were not thrown into the street.
If anyone at the hotel had heard of the robbery at Michel Seguin’s
house, nothing was said of it, and by mutual consent Mary and I kept our
own counsel with regard to our adventure. We had had a long walk and
been in a queer part of the city, we said, when questioned, and that was
all. I was more tired and excited than I had ever been in my life, and I
made my fatigue an excuse for retiring early to my room, where I lay
awake far into the night, devising means for getting Michel’s watch, if
possible, from the hands of Carl Zimosky, if he had it, or through him
from the one who did have it.