With eager, trembling fingers I tore open the envelope and found therein
a note in French, merely the words:
"_His Imperial Majesty the Emperor commands Mr Colin Trewinnard to
private audience to-day at 3:30 p.m_.
"_St Petersburg, June 28th_."
"Very well," I managed to reply. "Tell Colonel Polivanoff that--that I
shall be there. Have a cigarette?" and I handed him the silver box of
Bogdanoffs which were the common property of the staff of the Embassy.
Having flung himself into a big easy chair, he stretched out his long
legs and lit up.
"Well," I said, leaning against the edge of the writing-table, "I
suppose the Emperor returned from Odessa early this morning--eh?"
"Yes," replied the elegant officer, in English. "Thank Heaven, the
journey is at last over. Ah! what a tour of the Empire! At Orel we
held the great review, then on to Saratov, where there were more
manoeuvres and a review. Afterwards we went down the Volga to Astrakhan
to unveil the new statue to Peter the Great; then Kertch, more
manoeuvres, and into the Crimea for a week's rest. Afterwards across to
Odessa, and then, by a three nights' journey, back here to Petersburg.
Faugh! How we all hate that armoured train!"
"But it is surely highly necessary, my dear Stoyanovitch," I said.
"With this abominable wave of anarchism which has spread over Europe, it
behoves the Secret Police to take every precaution for His Majesty's
safety!"
"Ah! my dear friend," laughed the equerry. "I tell you it is not at all
pleasant to travel when one expects every moment that the train will be
blown up. One's sleeping-berth, though covered with a down quilt, is
but a bed of torture in such conditions."
"Yes," I said. "But His Majesty--how does he bear it?"
"The Emperor has nerves of iron. He is the least concerned of any of
us. But, _mon Dieu_! I would not be in his shoes for the wealth of all
the Russias."
"What--more conspiracies?" I exclaimed.
"Conspiracies!" sighed the Captain. "_Mon Dieu_! A fresh one is
discovered by the political police every week. Only the day before the
Emperor left for the country he found among the Ministers' daily reports
upon the table in his private cabinet an anonymous letter telling him
that he will meet with a tragic end on the sixth of the present month.
How this letter got there nobody knows. His Majesty is seldom out of
temper, but I never saw him so furiously angry before."
"It is unfortunate," I said. "Apparently he cannot trust even his
immediate _entourage_."
"Exactly," answered the dark-haired handsome man. "The constant reports
of General Markoff regarding the revolutionists must be most alarming.
And yet he preserves an outward calm that is truly remarkable. But, by
the way," he added, "His Majesty, before I left the Palace with that
letter, summoned me and gave me a message for you--a verbal one."
"Oh! What was that?"
"He told me to say that he sent to you a word--let me see, I wrote it
down lest I should forget," and pulling down his left shirt cuff, he
spelt:
"B-a-t-h-i-l-d-i-s."
"Thank you," I replied briefly.
"What does it mean? Is it some password?" Ivan Stoyanovitch asked with
considerable curiosity.
"That's scarcely a fair question," I said in rebuke.
"Ah! of course," he replied, with a touch of sarcasm. "I ought not to
have asked you. Pardon me, my friend. I forgot that you enjoy His
Majesty's confidence--that--"
"Not at all," I protested. "I am but a humble attache of a foreign
Embassy. It is not likely that I am entrusted with the secrets of
Russia."
"Not with those of Russia, but those of the Emperor personally.
Dachkoff was discussing you at the Turf Club one night not long ago."
"That's interesting," I laughed. "And what had the old man to say?"
"Oh, nothing of a very friendly nature. But, you know, he never has a
good word to say for anybody."
"Gamblers seldom have. I hear he lost ten thousand roubles to Prince
Savinski at the Union the night before last."
"I heard it was more," and the long-legged equerry leaned back his head
and watched the blue rings of cigarette smoke slowly ascend to the
ceiling of the room, through the long window of which was a view across
the Neva, with the grim Fortress of Peter and Paul opposite. "But," he
went on, "we were speaking of these constant conspiracies. Though we
have been back in Petersburg only a few hours, Markoff has already
reported a desperate plot. The conspirators, it seems, had bored a
tunnel and placed a mine under the Nevski, close to the corner of the
Pushkinskaya, and it was arranged to explode it as the Emperor's
carriage passed early this morning on the way from the Nicholas station.
But Markoff--the ever-watchful Markoff--discovered the projected
attempt only at eleven o'clock last night--two hours before we passed.
There have been thirty-three arrests up to the present, including a
number of girl students."
"Markoff is really a marvel," I declared. "He scents a conspiracy
anywhere."
"And his spies are everywhere. Markoff takes a good deal of the credit,
but it is his agents who do the real work. He has saved the Emperor's
life on at least a dozen occasions."
I said nothing. I was thinking over the word--a very significant word--
which the Emperor had sent me by his equerry. To me, that word meant a
very great deal.
Our Ambassador, Sir Harding Lowe, being at home in England on leave, the
Honourable Claude Saunderson, our Councillor of Embassy, was acting as
Charge d'Affaires. As far as we knew the political horizon was calm
enough, save the dark little war cloud which perpetually hovers over the
Balkans and grows darker each winter. The German negotiations with
Russia had been concluded, and the foreign outlook appeared more serene
than it had been for many months.
Yet within the great Winter Palace there was unrest and trouble.
Jealousy, hatred and all uncharitableness were rife amid the Tzar's
immediate _entourage_, while the spirit of revolution was spreading
daily with greater significance.
Within the past twelve months the two Prime Ministers, Semenoff and
Mouravieff, had been assassinated by bombs, five governors of provinces
had met with violent deaths, and eight chiefs of police of various
cities had fallen victims of the revolutionists, who had frankly and
openly vowed to take the life of the Tzar himself.
Was it any wonder, then, that the Emperor lived in bomb-proof rooms both
in Petersburg and Tzarskoie-Selo, as well as at Gatchina; that he never
slept in the same bed twice, that all food served to him was previously
tasted, that he never gave audience without a loaded revolver lying upon
the table before him, and that he surrounded himself by hordes of
police-agents and spies? Surely none could envy him such a life of
constant apprehension and daily terror; for twice in a month had bombs
been thrown at his carriage, while five weeks before he had had both
horses killed by an explosion in Moscow and only escaped death by a
sheer miracle.
True, the revolutionists were unusually active at that moment, and the
throne of Russia had become seriously menaced. Any other but a man of
iron constitution and nerves of steel would surely have been driven to
lunacy by the constant terror in which he was forced to exist. Yet,
though he took ample precaution, he never betrayed the slightest
anxiety, a fact which held everyone amazed. He was a true Russian, an
autocrat of dogged courage, quick decision, always forceful and
impelling, a faithful friend, but a bitter and revengeful enemy; a born
ruler and a manly Emperor in every sense of the word.
"The Grand Duchess Natalia has been with the Emperor. Did she return
with you this morning?" I inquired.
"Yes," drawled the equerry. "She's been admired everywhere, as usual,
and half our staff are over head and ears in love with her. She's been
flirting outrageously."
"Then half your staff are fools," I exclaimed bluntly.
"Ah, my dear Trewinnard, she is so sweet, so very charming, so
exquisite, so entirely unlike the other girls at Court--so delightfully
unconventional."
"A little too unconventional to suit some--if all I hear be true," I
remarked with a smile.
"You know her, of course. She's an intimate friend of yours. I
overheard her one day telling the Emperor what an excellent tennis
player you were."
"Well, I don't fancy His Majesty interests himself very much in tennis,"
I laughed. "He has other, and far more important, matters to occupy his
time--the affairs of his great nation."
"Natalia, or Tattie, as they call her in the Imperial circle, is his
favourite niece. Nowadays she goes everywhere with him, and does quite
a lot of his most private correspondence--that which he does not even
trust to Calitzine."
"Then the Emperor is more friendly towards Her Imperial Highness than
before--eh?" I asked, for truth to tell I was very anxious to satisfy
myself upon this point.
"Yes. She has been forgiven for that little escapade in Moscow."
"What escapade?" I asked, feigning surprise.
"What escapade?" my friend echoed. "Why, you know well enough! I've
heard it whispered that it was owing to your cleverness as a diplomat
that the matter was so successfully hushed up--and an ugly affair it
was, too. The suicide of her lover."
"That's a confounded lie!" I said quickly. "He did not commit suicide
at all. At most, he left Russia with a broken heart, and that is not
usually a fatal malady."
"Well, you needn't get angry about it, my dear fellow," complained my
friend. "The affair is successfully hushed up, and I fancy she's got a
lot to thank you for."
"Not at all," I declared. "I know that you fellows have coupled my name
with hers, just because I've danced with her a few times at the Court
balls, and I've been shooting at her father's castle away in Samara.
But I assure you my reputation as the little Grand Duchess's intimate
friend is entirely a mythical one." Captain Stoyanovitch only smiled
incredulously, stretched out his long legs and shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," I went on, "has she been very terrified about all these reports
of conspiracies?"
"Frightened out of her life, poor child! And who would not be?" he
asked. "We didn't know from one hour to another that we might not all
be blown into the air. Everywhere the railway was lined by Cossacks, of
course. Such a demonstration is apt to lend an air of security, but,
alas! there is no security with the very Ministry undermined by
revolution, as it is."
I sighed. What he said was, alas! too true. Russia, at that moment,
was in very evil case, and none knew it better than we, the impartial
onlookers at the British Embassy.
The warm June sun fell across the rather faded carpet of that sombre
old-fashioned room with its heavy furniture, which was my own sanctum,
and as the smart captain of the Imperial Guard lolled back picturesquely
in the big armchair I looked at him reflectively.
They were strange thoughts which flooded my brain at that moment--
thoughts concerning that pretty, high-born young lady whom we had just
been discussing, the girl to whom, he declared, His Majesty entrusted
the greatest secrets of the throne.
Stoyanovitch was an extremely elegant and somewhat irresponsible person,
and the fact that the Emperor had allowed the Grand Duchess Natalia to
write his private letters did not strike me as the actual truth. The
Tzar was far too cautious to entrust the secrets of a nation to a mere
girl who was certainly known to be greatly addicted to the gentle
pastime of flirtation.
Whatever the equerry told us, we at the Embassy usually added the
proverbial grain of salt. Indeed, the diplomat at any post abroad
learns to believe nothing which he hears, and only half he actually
sees.
But the Emperor had sent me, by the mouth of that smart young officer,
the word "Bathildis"--which was an ancient woman's Christian name--and
to me it conveyed a secret message, an announcement which held me in
surprise and apprehension.
What could have happened?