When, with extreme difficulty, I slowly struggled back to a knowledge of
things about me, I found myself, to my great surprise, in a narrow
hospital-bed, with a holy _ikon_ upon the whitewashed wall before me,
and a Red Cross sister bending tenderly over me.
Beside her stood two Russian doctors regarding me very gravely, and at
their side was Saunderson, our Councillor of Embassy.
"Well, how are you feeling now, Colin, old man?" the latter whispered
cheerfully.
"I--I don't know. Where am I?" I asked. "What's happened?"
"My dear fellow, you can thank your lucky stirs that you've escaped from
the bomb," he said.
"The bomb!" I gasped, and then in a flash all the horrors of that
sudden explosion crowded upon me. "What happened?" I inquired, trying
to raise myself, and finding my head entirely enveloped in surgical
bandages. "What happened to the others?"
"The Grand Duke was, alas! killed, but his daughter fortunately escaped
only with a scratch on her arm," was his reply. "The carriage was blown
to atoms, the two horses and their driver and footman were killed, while
three Cossacks of the escort were also killed and two injured."
"Then--then she--she is alive!" I managed to gasp, dazed at the tragic
truth he had related to me.
"Yes--it was a desperate attempt. Fifteen arrests have been made up to
the present."
And while he was speaking, Captain Stoyanovitch advanced to my bedside,
and leaning over, asked in a low voice:
"How are you, Trewinnard? The Emperor has sent me to inquire."
"Tell His Majesty that I--I thank him. I'm getting round--I--I hope
I'll soon be well. I--I--"
"That's right. Take great care of yourself, _mon cher_," he urged.
And then the doctors ordered my visitors away, and I sank among my
pillows into a state of semi-consciousness.
How long I lay thus I do not know. I remember seeing soldiers come and
go, and at length discovered that I was in the hospital attached to the
artillery barracks on the road to Warsaw Station. Beside me always sat
a grave-eyed nursing sister, silent and watchful, while ever and anon
one or other of the doctors would approach, bend over me, and inquire of
her my condition.
Saunderson came again some hours later. It was then night. And from
him, now that I was completely conscious, I learnt how, after the
explosion, the police had in the confusion shot down two men, afterwards
proved to be innocent spectators, and made wholesale indiscriminate
arrests. It was believed, however, that the man I had seen, the
perpetrator of the dastardly act, had escaped scot-free.
Dozens of windows in the market-hall opposite where the outrage was
committed had been smashed, and many people besides the killed and
injured had been thrown down by the terrific force of the explosion.
"The poor Grand Duke Nicholas has, alas! been shattered out of
recognition," he told me. "His body was taken at once to his palace,
where it now lies, while you were brought here together with the Grand
Duchess Natalia. But her wound being quite a slight one, was dressed,
and she was driven at once to the Winter Palace, at the order of the
Emperor. Poor child! I hear that she is utterly prostrated by the
fearful sight which her father presented to her eyes."