A CLOSE CALL
A midnight meeting--An unusual request--Four women of “the
movement”--A sharp engagement--How the plot was carried out--Plans
for escape--Disappointment--An educated cab driver--A bold
scheme--A unique “bridal” party--No news--Alarm--On the trail--A
gendarme companion--Suspicious incidents--A night alarm--Caught--A
desperate chance--“Au revoir”--Found--Back to the
fight--Watched--Final escape.
One silver night in late October I was returning home a little before
midnight. St. Petersburg was subdued, but not hushed. Gorodavoys paced
the Nevsky with their bayonet-pointed guns unslung. Not that they were
anticipating trouble, but readiness for emergencies was now the rule
among the military and the police in the capital. As I stepped briskly
down the Ekaterinesky Canal toward my street I suddenly came upon my
friend, Nastasia, of the fighting organization.
“So late and alone!” I exclaimed.
“I have been waiting half the evening for you,” she explained.
“For me? Is it so urgent?”
“Yes. You know--” She hesitated. “You know, there have been many arrests
these days in St. Petersburg.”
Nastasia was coming to something, but what I could not divine.
“We are all liable to search,” she went on. “Perhaps you will not mind
keeping some papers for us?”
This was no unusual request. People who expected the police often handed
packets of correspondence, legal papers, and other documents to friends
who were not suspected. In common with many other non-Russians in St.
Petersburg I had frequently accepted such a trust. An English
correspondent had brought the original copy of the Viborg manifesto with
its appended signatures back to St. Petersburg, at the request of the
leaders of the Constitutional Democrats. Without a second thought I told
Nastasia I would gladly keep anything for her, then turned, and together
we walked to her house.
Nastasia was living on the top floor of a large apartment building, with
three other girls--all members of the organization, although one was
ostensibly a student in the university, one was studying music at the
conservatory, one was a teacher, and Nastasia was professionally a
nurse. Nastasia had been with the troops in Manchuria and after Mukden
her hospital was among those that fell into the hands of the Japanese.
When we arrived the three other girls were sitting round a samovar,
talking. Two of them puffed little Russian cigarettes. I drank a glass
of tea with them, took the papers they gave me, and departed. I heard
the Kazan bells sound one as I poked the sleeping _dwornik_ of my own
lodgings, to open the door for me.
The next morning I left home at eleven o’clock. I had not passed many
yards beyond the Hotel Victoria in the Kazanskiai when the report of two
light bombs, followed presently by a rattling revolver fire and gun
cracks, sounded on a street only two blocks away. When I reached the
spot the confusion and tumult was so great that I was unable to make
anything of the mêlée. The first thing I came upon was a wounded horse
streaming blood into a gutter. Around the corner was a general riot of
panicky men and women, terrified horses, and stolid Cossacks and police.
A carriage was standing in the middle of the road--deserted. One of the
horses that belonged to it was lying dead in its tracks. Windowpanes for
a block and a half were shattered. There seemed to be wounded and killed
men, and a number of arrests, but my impression was mostly a blur, with
here and there a projecting detail.
Intuitively I felt a connection between this incident--whatever it
was--and my experience with Nastasia the night before. The more I
thought about it the more curious I became. I hurried over to
Nastasia’s, only to find the apartment deserted.
In the early afternoon I learned from various eye-witnesses what had
happened. The carriage I had seen standing in the street had been
conveying some government moneys across the city. The trip was
supposedly secret, and the carriage was guarded by Cossacks. The
government had learned before this not to convey money anywhere at
stated times or intervals. Only one man was supposed to know when a trip
should be made, and this one was always a man of such rank, or position,
as to have authority to order the military escort on the spur of the
moment. To this day it is not known how the terrorists--Maximalists as
it chanced--knew of this particular transfer of money. All that the
government authorities ever learned about the affair were the bare facts
of the exploit.
An apple-vender strolling down the street of the Catharine Canal had
paused to rest his basket on the canal railing. Opposite the spot where
he stood was a little tea-house into which nearly a score of young men
had
[Illustration: An “expropriation”
Government money was being carried across the city of St. Petersburg in
this carriage. A light bomb was thrown, killing the horse and confusing
the Cossack guard. Revolutionists then made off with the bags of
money.]
been dropping singly and by twos. There was also one girl. Apparently
these young people were not acquainted with one another, but it was
remarked afterward that they all looked rather constantly out of the
restaurant toward the canal--and the apple-man plaintively calling his
fruit.
Suddenly the basket of apples was seen to slip off the railing and the
fruit splashed into the murky water. Twenty chairs were pushed back,
twenty young men pressed toward the street. A closed carriage with armed
escort was approaching the spot. Boom! Boom! Two quick explosions
dropped the horses that drew the carriage and the horses of the escort
snorted and plunged wildly down the street. The young men now all fell
to the work with wonderful skill and precision. One group drew a cordon
of protection around the carriage, while another group approached the
carriage and collected the bags of money.
The affair was carried out with more coolness than speed, and in
consequence the raiders found a company of soldiers from a near-by
barracks down upon them before they started to escape. So well did the
protecting party do their work that not one of the attacking party was
caught or injured. The leader of the Maximalist group lost his life in
trying to prevent the crowd in the street from rushing to its own
destruction. Knowing that a street crowd instinctively rushes toward the
scene of excitement, and knowing that a rifle and revolver fire would be
directed toward the carriage where the Maximalists were capturing the
money, Sergia, the leader, patrolled the street, forcing the crowd to
keep at a safe distance. He brandished a Browning revolver and roared
thunderous curses upon the people; he fought them back, and continued in
this work until captured. Three days later he was executed. Another of
the protecting party, a young engineer, was captured in the same effort,
and his revolver taken from his hand. He knew he would be hanged, and
that in all probability the government would first try to wring a
confession from him that would implicate others. In his pocket was
another revolver which his captors had not discovered. He could not get
it out of his pocket, but he succeeded in so turning it that when he
pulled the trigger the bullet passed through his bowels. He died half an
hour later, in horrible agony.
The money was delivered over to the girl who had been standing in
waiting. She carried the packages to a carriage just around the corner
and was driven swiftly off. Not one copeck of the (approximately) four
hundred thousand rubles was ever recovered by the government. From this
standpoint the affair was successful, but it was successful at an awful
cost. Including those whose lives were lost on the spot and the
executions which followed, eight of the group died for this well planned
haul of two hundred thousand dollars. Incidentally, three innocent
passers-by were also arrested and executed. Justice must be satisfied in
Russia. Up to this point my connection with the affair was slight and of
small consequence, but that night I allowed myself to be entangled to an
extent that escape came near to being impossible.
About dusk, when I returned to my lodgings, I found Nastasia and two
young men sitting round my table awaiting my coming. I knew both of the
men as Maximalists. One of them, Sasha, was the son of one of the old
generation revolutionists, who had spent many years in incarceration in
Schlüsselburg Fortress. He and Nastasia were lovers. Love in the
revolution has played no mean part. It has inspired deeds of noblest
daring, it has led to splendid sacrifice. Sometimes it has proved
unsettling and precipitated disaster.
The instant I looked at my friends I knew my suspicions of the morning
were correct. They were perfectly frank about it. The men were both
implicated. Nastasia was not directly concerned in the affair, but she
was one of the group, and consequently in constant fear of being taken
as a suspect. Indeed, the very name I knew her by, and her passport,
were newly acquired, and under dramatic circumstances. She had been
“working” in Moscow previous to the December insurrection, and under her
own name was sought by the police. During the barricade-fighting
Nastasia saw a girl comrade shot down near her. With sudden inspiration
she bent over the dead girl and drew forth her passport, then quickly
slipped her own passport into the place of the one she was taking.
Nastasia’s name appeared in the list of the dead, and thenceforth she
was known by the name of the girl who had fallen on the barricades.
Escape from St. Petersburg, and if possible from Russia, was the subject
of their discussion. They had come to my house because they feared their
own quarters would be suspected and watched. Presumably mine was a
“white” house on the police records.
These “soldiers of the revolution” were naturally elated at the success
of the coup, but frightfully depressed by the loss of life which had
attended the “expropriation.” One thing only now lay before them--the
getting away. The police were ransacking every house in the city. Orders
were issued that afternoon that doorkeepers should report before morning
if any one without a passport remained over night in any house.
Ordinarily there is a grace of three days, but this fresh order
commanded reports to be made before daybreak. Eighty arrests had
already been made. The railway stations were filled with police spies
and gendarmes, and every person leaving by any train was scrutinized.
The wagon roads were covered by soldiers, and the boats leaving the
ports were observed as carefully as the trains. Sasha was inclined to
risk remaining in the city for a day or two at least, but Nastasia,
knowing that to be caught meant immediate execution, would not hear of
delay. She was determined that Sasha at least should hasten to safety
that night. I had no suggestions to make, though I wished them well, and
went out to supper, leaving them still discussing a possible plan. I
returned about nine-thirty. The three were still there, and with a plan
worked out.
Sasha was to dress as a foreigner--say an Englishman--and taking me for
a companion, he would boldly take the night train to Helsingfors in
Finland. Nastasia and the other man had each a different idea for
themselves. I was not keen to start upon this expedition. But they were
my friends. Furthermore, Nastasia had once seen me through an
exceedingly ticklish experience, and this was the first time she had
asked anything of me. When I hesitated she pleaded so earnestly that I
finally consented to the plan.
There was no time to lose. Sasha donned one of my overcoats, an
obviously English hat, threw a steamer-rug over one arm, picked up a top
hat-box, and we were off. The heavy end of the trip fell to me. Sasha
was to know no Russian whatsoever. I, with my scant traveler’s
vocabulary, was to do all of the interpreting that might be necessary.
Sasha, unfortunately, knew not a word of English. Our conversation had,
therefore, to be in German. The danger was increased considerably by the
fact that Sasha had no passport at all. Masquerading as an English
traveler there was small use of his having anything but an English
passport--which, of course, was not procurable on the moment. I held my
usual American passport.
Ten-thirty had long been the hour of departure of the Helsingfors train.
It was twenty-six minutes past the hour when Sasha and I dismissed our
carriage and walked slowly and with a degree of nonchalance into the
station. Gendarmes stood in rows between the ticket office and the
platform. Sasha was magnificently steeled for the ordeal. He knew we
would be looked over by perhaps a score of eyes, and a single suspicious
movement might lead to discovery. He stopped near the middle of the
station and lighted a cigarette while I stepped to the wicket to
purchase the tickets.
“Two first-class tickets to Helsingfors by the ten-thirty train.”
“It is gone, sir.”
“What! Gone! But it is not yet ten-thirty!”
“The schedule was changed to-day, sir. The last train left at ten-ten.”
My heart sank clear to my boots, for I knew what a shock it would be to
Sasha, who had risen so well to the rôle he had assumed, so I inquired
if there was a train to any point in Finland that night. There was none.
There would not be another until the next morning.
Sasha flinched never so slightly when I told him and his face paled
perceptibly, but he picked up the hat-box he had set down and led the
way out of the station. We called a cab and started back for my rooms.
On the way we arranged that Sasha would come to me the next night at
seven o’clock and we would try it again. Then, leaving the luggage and
the rug with me, he slipped noiselessly out of the carriage without the
driver even knowing. All that night he wandered among the sheltering
shadows, dodging gendarmes and late prowlers. I don’t know where he lay
in hiding during the day. When I got in at the appointed time Sasha was
asleep on my couch, apparently in no way troubled by the great peril
that threatened.
I do not exaggerate the danger. Many more arrests had been made during
the day, and early that evening a comrade not under suspicion had
learned that the force of police spies in the stations had been greatly
strengthened by the arrival of a party of Moscow police department men,
and these had brought with them photographs of several men whom they
were looking for, among them a photograph of Sasha. Sasha had once been
“taken” in Moscow and escaped, but not before being photographed. This
picture was now reproduced on slips of paper like handbills and
circulated among the watchers. This knowledge shook even Nastasia in
regard to the wisdom of repeating our plan of the previous evening.
However, something had to be done, and that quickly, for the noise of
this successful coup had echoed all over the empire, and the St.
Petersburg authorities were goaded to great activity in the hope of
making up in the number of arrests for their alleged negligence on the
day of the incident. The chances of escape were growing hourly less, and
a fear seemed to possess both Nastasia and Sasha that perhaps even my
house was no longer safe. Yet in St. Petersburg they had no other.
Sasha scribbled a few mysterious words in Russian on one piece of paper
and a name and address on another, and handed both to me, asking me to
carry the note to the address on the second slip of paper. I rushed away
without looking at the address, jumped into a cab that happened to be
standing in front of the house, and directed that I be driven
to--to--to--I could not make out the writing--
“Let me read it,” offered the driver.
“No--you can’t,” I said. “It is not written in Russian.”
“No matter,” said he, “I read German.”
“But it is not German. It is French.”
“_C’est bien. Je parle français._”
I had heard of government agents acting as cab-drivers, but I realized
instantly that I was now, for the first time, face to face with one of
these spies. For a Russian cab-driver to be familiar with French and
German is even more extraordinary than it would be to find a New York or
London cabby speaking two languages besides his own.
Pretending to read the address I called out an address in an entirely
different quarter of the city. I discharged that fellow, and looked
about for one of the usual peasant drivers such as are always found on
the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg, having finally deciphered the
address and put it into Russian. My driver left me before a very grand
house in a fashionable quarter. I was admitted with considerable
ceremony. The atmosphere of the establishment was much more like that of
the court than of anything else. Presently a young exquisite introduced
himself to me as the man whose name Sasha had given me.
“Sasha wants me. Where is he?” he said.
“At my house,” I replied. “But you are at dinner--”
“Dinner can wait. Where is your house?”
I told him.
“Is it a ‘white’ house?” he inquired further.
I told him it was to the best of my knowledge, whereupon he slipped on
a rich greatcoat and we returned together.
Sasha and this mysterious stranger embraced like brothers. They kissed
each other repeatedly. Whatever their business was it was quickly
despatched, for in ten minutes the young man departed. Sasha never
offered any explanation concerning him, but I have always suspected that
he was one of the treasurers of the organization, for these are usually
men of social standing above suspicion.
When the stranger had gone Sasha unfolded to me the plan for the night.
The Finnish frontier was so closely guarded that to escape in that
direction seemed impossible. They had decided upon a bold scheme that
would succeed if only it were carried out with sufficient dash.
A first-class compartment for two was engaged on the gilt-edged St.
Petersburg-Moscow train which leaves St. Petersburg at ten-thirty every
evening. Nastasia dressed as a bride, Sasha as a bridegroom. A party of
half a dozen friends got together in proper attire for the wedding party
seeing the happy couple started on their way.
Sasha being without a passport was the one obviously vulnerable point in
the outfit. If any suspicious gendarme should happen to question the
pair a passport of any kind would probably disarm his suspicions,
whereas no passport at all would mean sure arrest.
“Lend Sasha your passport,” Nastasia said to me.
“Mine! Oh, I can’t do that!” I explained.
“Why not? It may be the means of saving his life. If he gets caught
to-night without a passport he will be executed. Let him have yours for
this night only. From Moscow it will be returned to you.”
I hesitated a long time but finally handed my precious identification
paper over to Sasha.
At ten-twenty-nine exactly, a noisy, rollicking crowd of young people
swept into the Moscow station. A bride and groom led the way, followed
by several friends who pelted them with flowers and confetti. The rows
of gendarmes whom we passed between smiled broadly and evidently never
suspected that the whole party was a ruse. We all knew that several of
the men under whose very noses we passed held in their pockets
photographs of Sasha. I closed the compartment door as the daring couple
stumbled hurriedly into the train. A half-minute later the three-bells
signal of departure sounded and the train pulled away.
The next morning we waited for the telegram Sasha had promised to send
announcing their arrival in Moscow. By noon we began to grow anxious.
When evening came, and nothing had been heard from them, our worry
increased. The next morning brought neither message nor my passport,
which should have come then. That day wore by and the morning of the
third day dawned, and still no word. We were all prepared, now, to hear
the worst. One thing puzzled us. Why did the police not make public
their capture--if they were taken? Every other arrest made in connection
with this incident was promptly made known. We pondered over this a good
deal. Finally, on the evening of the third day, we called together a
council of trusted friends and the opinion of the conference was that
Nastasia and Sasha had been taken; that my passport had probably
occasioned some bewilderment, and until the rightful owner of the
passport was found the capture would not be made public. Sasha, we knew,
would give no hint as to where I might be found, and it would naturally
take several days to locate me. This being the best understanding of
the situation we could reach, the precariousness of my own position was
apparent to all. If I were so directly implicated in a terrorist act as
the finding of my passport in Sasha’s possession would imply, no power
on earth could save me from the fate which had befallen all the others
implicated in the incident.
Opinion was divided as to the wise thing for me to do. Two or three
urged me to fly to the frontier at once--that very hour. Others
counseled that I go to Moscow first to make sure of the fate of our
friends and my passport, for Sasha had promised that if he was taken he
would do all he could to destroy the passport. If he had succeeded in
this I would merely have to obtain a fresh passport--there are always
ways of doing that. The latter plan appealed to me, so I procured a seat
in the same train they had traveled by three nights earlier. I took with
me a dress-suit case containing necessary clothing and--alas! for the
foolishness of men!--two terribly incriminating packets. No one thought
I would be arrested in the train en route to Moscow, and so it did not
occur to any of us that there was peril in my carrying two valuable
packages to comrades in Moscow. The first was a bundle of original
Peasants’ Union documents. At that time to even belong to the Peasants’
Union was sufficient cause for exile to Siberia. The other was twenty
copies of one of the instalments of Shisko’s “History of the Russian
People,” which had been forbidden by the police, and to be possessed of
one copy was cause for arrest. Further, in my pocket I slipped a
Browning revolver, although I had no permit to carry a revolver at all
in that part of Russia. Russians themselves are constantly foolishly
careless, but until this night I had not understood how easy it is to be
blind to one’s dangers when they are close before one, or hedging one
round.
Until the train had actually started I had no companion in the
compartment, although there were places for four. But as the bells
sounded and the train started an officer of gendarmes joined me. He sat
down opposite me, looked me over rather searchingly and asked me in
Russian what was the time.
“What a stupid question,” I thought. “He must know when the train
starts.”
However, I told him:--“ten-thirty.” I could speak single words in
Russian clearly enough, and I could understand much of simple
conversation, but I could not put many sentences together with any
intelligence.
“Where are you going?” next asked my officer companion.
“To Moscow,” I replied.
There was something in the man’s glance that made me very uncomfortable,
so I drew from my grip a book and began to read. I was conscious for
some time of his eyes scrutinizing me from head to foot. I tried not to
let him know I knew he was watching me. I fought down my fears and read
on.
In half an hour the officer opened his grip and took out a small
pneumatic traveling-pillow. I saw the full contents of the bag. There
was one Russian blouse and the pillow, nothing more. The grip itself was
a large one--twice the size of my dress-suit case--and the fact that he
would use so huge a valise to carry a pillow that would go into a
pocket, and a blouse that would fold into an insignificant parcel,
confirmed my fears that the man had been sent hurriedly on his journey,
and that quite evidently he was shadowing me.
There was nothing to do, however, but to keep on and to pretend entire
indifference. After a time I grew drowsy and folded my coat under my
head for a pillow, wrapped my rug about me, and lay down. The last thing
I did was to examine the compartment-door to see that it was securely
fastened. The train was running over a smooth roadbed and the gentle
motion to and fro soothed my nerves and in a little while I fell into a
deep, dreamless sleep.
The striking of a match awoke me suddenly. I half opened my eyes and saw
my gendarme officer looking at his watch. It was still dark, and I
drowsily wondered what the time was myself. I was too sleepy to look at
my own watch. I guessed the hour at about four o’clock, closed my eyes,
and was just sinking into sleep again when I felt a hand reach across my
body and strike the compartment wall. At the same instant the hoarse
voice of the gendarme officer cried out:
“Sir! Sir! Wake up!”
I opened my eyes wide to see the man leaning over me, his arm across my
body, and his face directly over mine, so close that I could feel his
foul breath with each word he spoke.
“Has any one been in this compartment during the night?” he shouted
excitedly.
I understood perfectly what he said but I did not grasp his game, so I
simply said, “What?” and as he repeated his question I gathered my wits.
“I do not speak Russian,” I said.
“Yes, you do,” he replied.
“No. Only a few words. I am an American!”
“An American!” he cried. “That is impossible!”
I saw the trap I was walking into. His next demand would be for my
passport, so I shifted the matter like a flash.
“What is the matter?” I said. “Why do you wake me up in the middle of
the night this way?”
“Has any one been in this compartment?” he asked.
“No, I think not,” I answered.
“Did you make sure the door was locked last night?”
“Certainly. Is it not locked now?”
“Yes. It is. That is what makes it so strange.”
“Makes what strange?” I put in, really getting greatly puzzled.
“My money and my official papers are gone!” he blurted out.
At these words I felt a shiver pass up my back. For a flash it was as if
my spine were in water. Then I pulled myself together.
“When did you have them last?” I asked.
“Just before I went to bed,” he answered.
“Then they must be here.”
In the meantime he had drawn the curtain back from the single candle
that lighted the compartment and in that dim light we sat in opposite
berths and glared at each other.
The seriousness of my plight came over me very clearly. I was without
any means of identification. My passport was in the possession of a
terrorist--or the police, having been found in the possession of a
terrorist--my luggage contained one packet upon which a Russian would be
sent to Siberia, another package which would send a Russian to prison, a
revolver in my pocket at a time when the law permitted the military to
shoot any person caught with a revolver _with his own weapon_, I was
practically under arrest as a common thief because this gendarme’s money
and papers had disappeared--the situation was so overwhelming that for
the first time in my life I failed to see even a fighting chance.
Murder has never, at any time, been in my heart. But there in that
ghastly light--with the gendarme officer sitting opposite me like a
panther about to spring, with the shadow of arrest, prison, and the
gallows itself over me, the thought did enter my head to shoot my
captor. It was his life against mine. I felt sure I could draw my
revolver and fire before he could prevent me. But then what? The report
of the shot would startle the passengers in other compartments, it would
bring the trainmen--I could not drop out of the window of an express
train. I realized that that was out of the question. My brain was never
more active, never half so clear, it seemed to me, and my nerves were
under absolute control. Yet I could not think of the faintest loophole
of escape. In despair I sank back on my improvised pillow--I would see
what the officer’s next move would be.
A silhouette of a beam and cross-bar with a dangling rope weighted by a
black mass set against a roseate eastern sky at dawn came before my eyes
with all the clearness of a ship seen in mirage. At least I would be
hung for an old sheep, I mused, remembering the array of points on which
I would be arraigned, ranging in seriousness from the charge of being a
pickpocket and common thief, to implication in a terroristic act.
After some minutes the gendarme summoned the conductor, who looked me
over critically and shook his head. Then the two began to search with
apparent diligence for the lost articles, in and under the officer’s
bed. When they had looked there pretty thoroughly the gendarme
approached my things.
Like a flash it came over me that he might have slipped his portfolio or
money into my shoes, or under my coat. If this were the case I preferred
finding them myself, so I sprang to my feet, angrily pushed him away,
and began to shake out all of my things carefully before the officer
and the train-guard. Nothing was found. The officer then turned to my
dress suit-case. I knew I was lost if once he saw into that, so I began
a veritable tirade, using all the Russian I knew, supplemented by
German, French, and English. I saw that the conductor was beginning to
be impressed by the fact that I might be a distinguished foreigner. Or
(there was another thought) he might believe me a sympathizer of the
cause, and, he also being a revolutionist, had determined to assist me.
Suddenly my eye fell on the alleged lost leather document case, under
the officer’s pillow, where anybody must have seen it who looked at that
end of his berth at all.
My discovery clearly embarrassed the officer, and disgusted the
trainman, who slammed the door and left. The officer, too, looked as if
he didn’t know what to do. I fell back on my pillow and went to sleep
very shortly. I was weak from the strain, and I knew well that I was not
out of the woods. I had merely put off the crisis till morning.
The train rolled into Moscow at half-past-eight. My gendarme was plainly
agitated, and at a loss how to act. I sized up the situation in this
way: He had been dispatched from St. Petersburg to follow me as a
“suspect” and to take me prisoner on any pretext that might offer. His
departure had of necessity been so hasty that his information concerning
me was scanty. He had naturally supposed he was after a Russian. In the
evening I had answered his simple questions in monosyllables which
sounded all right, then in the night when he had tried to trap me I had
revealed to him that I was not a Russian and this fact had completely
disconcerted him. Also my leaning back in despair he had mistaken for
genuine nonchalance. A guilty man, he had evidently thought, would not
be so indifferent under the circumstances. When the train stopped I
could see that he was uncertain how to act--to arrest me or not. I
feared he would take the opportunity of winning a little glory for
himself by taking me on chance, so I determined to take advantage of his
stupidity and hesitancy. I held out my hand in a most friendly way, gave
him a hearty grip, raised my hat, bade him a cheery good-by, and just as
he started to act I sprang from the train, threw myself into the
crowd--and--surprise of surprises! felt a hand reach for my suit-case
and a familiar voice say:
“Let me take this.”
“Sasha!”
“Come quickly out of this,” he murmured, and we hastened into a carriage
and drove to the home of a mutual friend.
Comrades in Moscow, who had been notified of the coming of Sasha and
Nastasia by a secret-code telegram, had sent a messenger to a station
nearly half-way between the two cities to warn them that the dangers in
the Moscow station for a day or two would be too great for them to think
of arriving there.
Thereupon they had left the train at a small water station and lay in
hiding three days. From there it had not been possible for them to send
any word to us in St. Petersburg. Nastasia had taken a circuitous route
into Moscow, while Sasha had boarded the very train I was on, thus we
arrived to-day.
My passport was returned to me, and I quickly delivered up my dangerous
packets.
Sasha planned to leave for the south immediately, but a soldier of the
revolution is never master of his own destiny. In the early afternoon a
cipher telegram came from St. Petersburg urging Sasha’s return there
that night.
This seemed the height of folly to me. After jeopardizing his own life,
and the lives of others, to get away from St. Petersburg and then to
turn right back again--this was more than I could understand. But Sasha
knew that more lives depended upon his obedience, so he prepared to
leave that evening. Trains from Moscow back to St. Petersburg were not
apt to be so closely watched as those going out.
Sasha thought to go on the nine-thirty train. I went to the station with
him, for he seemed to have a strong premonition that he was about to
perform his last service for the cause to which his life was dedicated.
When I tried to purchase a ticket I was told that there was not a place
left on the train. Sasha had, therefore, to wait for the ten-thirty
train. We sat down at a table in the buffet and ordered two glasses of
tea.
Presently a member of the Moscow organization, a friend of Sasha’s,
stepped up to us, pointed out a certain man at an adjoining table and
said: “Watch that fellow carefully. He is a spy. He may be shadowing
you--or maybe some one else--but watch him.”
We did watch him for half an hour and became pretty well convinced that
he was following Sasha.
Ten minutes before train-time a brilliantly dressed woman swept by us. I
looked up and I own I was badly startled. I recognized her as one of the
women secret police of St. Petersburg. Only the day before she had sat
at the very next table to me in the Hôtel de France in St. Petersburg.
Now, thirty hours later, she was in Moscow. By shifting our positions
several times we made out with almost equal surety that she, too, was
shadowing us. But Sasha, knowing that his nerves and my own were badly
strained at that time, was loath to be frightened out of his course. Two
bells sounded and we started for the train. At the gate where tickets
are examined Sasha looked back and saw the man whom we had been warned
against immediately behind me; just beyond the gate stood the woman
whose face I knew so well. She seemed to be waiting for some one. Four
weeks later I learned quite accidentally that this very woman had been
on my trail more or less continuously for several months.
Sasha and I both took in the situation at a glance and Sasha whispered
to me: “I don’t want to die to-morrow! This job, at any rate, must be
finished first.”
We boarded the train, passed through the cars, dropped off the other
side into the yard, and got into a side street behind the station. Once
more the police net closed empty.
The next day Sasha made his way to St. Petersburg via Vilna. Two weeks
later he participated in a terrorist coup near Kieff, then fled to
Warsaw and the Polish frontier. He paid some money to a Jew whom he knew
of, who smuggled him into Austria one night. Three months later, when I
was in Paris, I called on Sasha and Nastasia where they were living on a
top floor of a house on a street leading off the Boulevard Saint Michel
opposite to the Luxembourg Gardens. They were both working hard at
chemistry, agriculture, history, and philosophy, looking forward to the
time when they could reënter their own country to participate in the
final overthrow of the autocracy and then serve as teachers of the
people through the long, serious period of the reconstruction.