CONCLUSION.
Their horses were tolerably refreshed by the halt at Schlusselburg,
and the nags which drew the light kabitka had been quite unused, so
the whole party pushed on at a brisk pace, by the road towards the
frontiers of Finland, the Cossacks of the escort, whatever they
thought, making neither remark nor inquiry, as they trusted
obediently and implicitly to the officer who led them; but the
darkness of the October morning, the deep and muddy, stony and rough,
nature of the roads, and the violence of the storm, erelong began to
have a severe effect upon their cattle, and, to the great
satisfaction of Balgonie, two of the troopers gradually dropped to
the rear, and were seen no more.
Now the Corporal of the Cossacks ventured to hint, that "perhaps they
were not pursuing the way they had come, as the lights in St. Isaac's
Cathedral must have been visible long ago;" but Balgonie replied,
haughtily and briefly, that he "had _special_ orders."
Then the Corporal urged a short halt, as the horses were sinking; but
again Balgonie replied, that he "had peculiar orders, and must push
on."
After passing a little village with a windmill, several miles from
the shore of the Lake of Ladoga, the road dipped down into a dark
hollow, between impending crags of granite, the grey faces of which
were already beginning to brighten in the first light of the lagging
October sun. The rain and wind were over; the hollow way was fall of
rolling and perplexing mist; but Usakoff affirmed with confidence
that he knew the country well.
Out of the grey vapour, from both sides of the path, there flashed,
redly and luridly, five or six muskets! One bullet struck white
splinters from the kabitka eliciting a shriek from its occupant;
another whistled through the mane of Charlie's horse; and a third
killed one of the Cossacks, who died without a groan, for it passed
fairly through his temples.
The way was beset by armed men, whose numbers and disposition the dim
light, or, rather, the darkness and the mist, alike served to conceal.
"Make way, in the name of the Empress!" cried Balgonie, dashing
forward, with his sabre drawn; "Nay, I command you, on your peril and
allegiance!" he added, as the threatening words of Vlasfief occurred
to him; and, to his astonishment and dismay, he saw that personage
actually appear, mounted and armed, wearing a regimental hat and
plume, with a kind of dark green tunic, or patrol jacket, richly
braided with gold, and trimmed heavily with black fur. His party,
who seemed all on foot, were clad like peasants, but were armed with
muskets, which they were rapidly casting about and reloading.
"Halt, in the name of the Empress--halt, I command you! for this is
_not_ the way to St. Petersburg, whither the prisoner and treasure
were to be conveyed. Treason! treason!" shouted the Staff Captain
Vlasfief.
Balgonie fired a pistol at his head; but the Captain's horse reared,
or was compelled to do so by bit and spur, for the bullet pierced its
throat; and with an oath, Vlasfief fell on the pathway, entangled in
the stirrups as the animal sank under him.
The three remaining Cossacks, who were somewhat bewildered by the
attack, by the appearance of Vlasfief, whom they knew, and whose
confident bearing confirmed certain gathering suspicions that
something was wrong as to their route, now drew their sabres, aimed
several blows at Usakoff's head, and endeavoured to cut the reins of
his horse, or stab it between the shafts, as he lashed the animal
almost to racing speed, and the light kabitka jolted, rolled, and
bounded along the rough road behind it.
By another pistol-shot Balgonie rid himself of the Cossack Corporal,
whose bridle arm he broke, while facing about and galloping in rear
of the kabitka; and now with wild hallooes, the entire party of armed
men followed it on foot, with all speed, up a steep slope, over which
the path wound.
Usakoff ground his teeth, for he was without weapons, and passive in
the flying combat; but, being fertile in expedients, he tore open a
bag of roubles, and scattered them on the upland road with a ready
and reckless hand.
The bright silver coins proved too exciting for the cupidity of the
pursuers, who loitered to pick them up, tumbling, scrambling, rising
and falling over each other, with shouts, curses, and maledictions,
their fire-arms sometimes exploding the while; and so the whole were
speedily left behind, as the kabitka, guarded now by Balgonie alone,
was driven along a lonely and unfrequented road, that led to the
little town of Pomphela.
"Thanks, dear Usakoff--thanks for your presence of mind," said
Balgonie; "I had forgot all about those roubles."
"Silver has achieved for us what neither our lead or steel would have
done!"
"But, to lighten the kabitka, let us throw out those remaining
bags--this perilous lumber, the intended recapture of which has
nearly cost us our lives--honour--all, at the hands of Vlasfief."
"Nay, nay, never! Lumber, say you? The roubles are Natalie's--hers
and mine--hers and yours, when you wed her; they have saved us once,
and may do so again," replied Usakoff cheerfully, as the sun burst
forth in his clear October splendour, and they saw the dome-shaped
cupola of the Church of Pomphela rising with a golden gleam from amid
the white morning haze.
There Balgonie's uniform and a display of gold and roubles operated
powerfully on the Postmaster, who, without asking for passports or
other papers, at once, and in the name of the Empress, supplied them
with fresh horses for the frontier, towards which, after procuring
some proper nourishment and restoratives for Natalie, they pushed on
without a moment of unnecessary delay.
"Ah," thought Balgonie, with a shudder and a prayer; "had Jagouski's
name not been omitted in that order of Weymarn, where would she have
been now?"
Pale with sorrow and long suffering, her face was still beautiful,
though sorely wasted; the deep thoughtful eyes had yet a wealth--a
world of tenderness in their liquid depths; and the long dark hair
was thick, soft, and wavy as ever, as it fell in masses behind the
small, compact, and finely-formed head.
Yet withal, her wretchedness had been extreme, having been so
suddenly and rudely rent from all those habits of luxury and tender
nurture, which had become, as it were, a second nature; and often,
very often, had it occurred to her in her later misery of soul "that
the repose of the grave is sweet, and that there cometh after death a
levelling and making even of things which would at last cure all her
evils."
But all was changed now; and, as she laid her head on Charlie's
breast, she felt content--almost happy; and the horrors that hung
over her family alone prevented her, as yet, from being completely so.
No trace of pursuers were behind them now, though their flight must
by this time have been known both in the capital and at
Schlusselburg. But in those days there were neither railroads nor
electric telegraphs; so, riding on more leisurely, Balgonie changed
horses again near Viborg, and erelong the great Lake of Saima
appeared before them, with the distant hills of Swedish Finland
beyond its friendly waters.
A boat was procured there; the kabitka was abandoned; and, with a
shout of joy, Usakoff assisted the Finnish boatman to hoist the great
lug-sail to catch the breeze of a balmy and beautiful evening, as
they bade a long farewell to Russia and all its terrors.
In a quaint old Church of Finland, by the eastern shore of the Lake
of Saima, and in view of its little archipelago of granite isles,--a
lonely little fane, buried amid groves of plum and cherry trees,
built of wood and painted red, with a little holy bell jangling in
its humble belfry,--Charlie Balgonie and his fugitive bride were
united by the old Curate, with the consent of the Lutheran Bishop of
Heinola; and there a thousand roubles spent among the poor spread in
the primitive district a happiness, the tradition of which is still
remembered with many a grateful exaggeration.
After this, poor Usakoff, finding himself perhaps, as a third person,
rather in the way, left them to become a soldier of fortune; and he
is supposed to have perished in one of the Polish struggles for
freedom; at least, they heard of him no more, after their final
journey to Scotland.
Two years before these events, it would appear that Charlie's uncle,
"the godly and upright" Gamaliel Balgonie, merchant, magistrate, and
elder, had departed in peace to sin no more, leaving the lands and
possessions of Balgonie unimpaired; and a long tombstone in that
famous city of the dead, the Howff of Dundee, records at length all
the virtues which his contemporaries in general and the Presbytery in
particular believed him to possess.
So Carl Ivanovitch became once more Balgonie of that Ilk; and the
roubles of Natalie added many a turret and many an acre to his
patrimonial dwelling in beautiful Strathearn.
L'ENVOI.--ILLUSTRATIVE NOTE.
To convince the reader how nearly History has been followed in the
previous pages, we shall take the liberty of inserting the subsequent
manifesto, published with reference to the death of Ivan IV.
"By the Grace of God, we, Catharine the Second, Empress and
Autocratrice of all the Russias, &c., &c., to all whom these presents
may concern:
When by the divine will, and in compliance with the unanimous desires
of our faithful subjects, we ascended the throne of Russia, we were
not ignorant that Ivan, son of Anthony, Prince of
Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, and of the Princess Anne of Mecklenburg was
still alive. This Prince, as is well known, was immediately after
his birth unlawfully declared heir to the imperial crown; _but_, by
the decrees of Providence, he was soon after irrevocably excluded
from that high dignity, and the sceptre was placed in the hands of
the lawful heiress, Elizabeth (daughter of Peter the Great), our
beloved aunt of glorious memory.
"After we had ascended the throne, and offered up to Heaven our just
thanksgivings, the first object that employed our thoughts, in
consequence of _that humanity which is so natural to us_, was the
unhappy situation of that Prince, who was _dethroned_ by _divine
Providence_, and had been unfortunate since his birth.
"To prevent, therefore, ill-intentioned persons from giving him any
trouble, or from making use of his name to disturb the public
tranquillity, we gave him a guard, and placed about his person two
officers, in whose fidelity and integrity we could confide. These
were Captain Vlasfief and Lieutenant Tschekin, who by their long
military services deserved a suitable recompense, and a station in
which they might pass quietly the remainder of their days. They were
accordingly charged with the care of the Prince, and were strictly
enjoined to let none approach him. Yet all these precautions were
not sufficient....
"A _Put-parooschick_ (a sub-lieutenant) of the Regiment of Smolensko,
a native of the Ukraine, Basil Mierowitz (grandson of the first rebel
that followed Mazeppa), took it into his head to make use of this
Prince, to advance his fortune at all events, without being
restrained by a consideration of the bloody scene that such an
attempt might occasion. In order to execute this detestable,
dangerous, and desperate project, he contrived, during our absence in
Livonia, to be upon guard in the fortress of Schlusselburg, where the
guard is relieved every eight days; and the 15th of last month, about
two in the morning, he called out the main guard, formed it in line,
and ordered the soldiers to load with ball. Bernikoff, Governor of
the fortress, came out of his apartment, and asked Mierowitz the
reason of the disturbance, but received no other answer from this
rebel than a blow with the butt-end of his musket.
"Captain Vlasfief and Lieutenant Tschekin seeing that it was
impossible to resist such a superior force, and considering the
unhappy consequences that must ensue from the deliverance of THE
PERSOX who was committed to their care, after deliberating together,
took the only step that they thought proper to maintain public
tranquillity, which was to _cut short the days of the unfortunate
Ivan_. Mierowitz, on seeing the dead body of the Prince, was so
confounded by a sight he so little expected, that he acknowledged his
temerity and guilt, and discovered his repentance to the troops,
whom, about an hour before, he had seduced from their duty, and
rendered the accomplices of his crime.
"Then it was that the two officers who had nipped this rebellion in
the bud, joined the Governor of the fortress in securing this rebel,
and bringing back the soldiers to their duty. They also sent to our
Privy Councillor Count Fanin, _under whose orders they acted_, a
relation of this event, which, though unhappy, has nevertheless,
_under the protection of Heaven_, prevented still greater calamities.
This Senator despatched immediately _Pulovnick_ (Colonel) Caschkin,
with sufficient instructions to maintain tranquillity on the spot (or
where the assassination was committed), and sent us, at the same
time, a circumstantial account of the whole affair. In consequence
of this, we ordered Lieutenant-General Weymarn, of the division of
St. Petersburg, to take the necessary information on the spot; and
the confession of the villain himself, who has acknowledged his crime.
"Sensible of its enormity and consequences with regard to the peace
of our country, we have referred the whole affair to the
consideration of our Senate, which we have ordered, jointly with the
Synod, to invite the three first classes and the Presidents of all
the Colleges to hear the verbal relation of General Weymarn, who has
taken the proper informations, to pronounce sentence in consequence
thereof, and to present it to us, for confirmation of the same.
"CATHARINE."
By a singular species of sophistry, the guilt of Ivan's death is
thus, by a subsequent document, transferred to Basil Mierowitz:--
"As the violent death of the unfortunate Prince Ivan was the
immediate consequence of the desperate attempt of Mierowitz, so must
this officer be considered as the principal cause of this
assassination--nay, even regarded as _the murderer of that unhappy
Prince_."
To this, five Russian Bishops appended their signatures.
Vlasfief was made a General, and his Lieutenant a Colonel, in the
following year, with a pension of ten thousand roubles each.
THE END.
PRINTED BY W. H. SMITH AND SON, 186, STRAND, LONDON.
9-8-69.