CHAPTER I_The shears of destiny

[Illustration: _Her eyes swept the room with cold hauteur_]

The Shears of Destiny

Leroy Scott

Author of

“To Him That Hath,” “The Walking Delegate”

[Illustration]

_Illustrated by Alexander Popini_

New York

Doubleday, Page & Company

1910

INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER, 1910

CHARACTERS

HENRY DREXEL, a young American business man.

PRINCESS OLGA VALENKO.

GENERAL VALENKO, her father, Military Governor of St. Petersburg.

JOHN HOWARD, Drexel’s uncle, an American capitalist.

MRS. HOWARD.

ALICE HOWARD, their daughter, engaged to Prince Berloff.

PRINCE BERLOFF, a powerful Russian nobleman.

COUNTESS BARONOVA, a fair young widow.

JAMES FREEMAN, an American correspondent.

CAPTAIN NADSON, of the political police.

THE WHITE ONE, the hidden leader of the revolutionists.

RAZOFF, }

SABATOFF, } of the revolutionists’ Central Committee

PESTEL, }

IVAN, }

NICOLAI, } revolutionists.

COLONEL DELWIG, governor of the fortress-prison Sts. Peter and Paul.

COLONEL KAVELIN, his successor.

BORODIN, a prisoner of State.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE WOMAN IN BROWN 3

II. CAUGHT IN THE CURRENT 11

III. A LONG JOURNEY THAT WAS SOON ENDED 23

IV. THE PRISONER OF THE WHITE ONE 31

V. THE HOUSE IN THREE SAINTS’ COURT 44

VI. THE KING AND THE BEGGAR MAID 54

VII. CONCERNING THE MYSTERY OF A PRINCE 63

VIII. THE PRINCESS OF HEARTS 74

IX. ONE WOMAN--OR TWO? 86

X. “YOU AND I--AGAINST THE WORLD!” 99

XI. A BARGAIN IS RENEWED 109

XII. IN THE PRINCE’S STUDY 124

XIII. BETWEEN THREE FIRES 135

XIV. THE FLIGHT WITH THE COUNTESS 146

XV. THE MAN IN THE SHEEPSKIN COAT 161

XVI. THE WHITE ONE 172

XVII. THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE 180

XVIII. FOR A BROTHER’S LIFE 192

XIX. THE BATTLE IN THREE SAINTS’ COURT 202

XX. THE SPY 217

XXI. THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAINS 227

XXII. A VICE-CZAR DOES HIS DUTY 240

XXIII. THE LAST CARD 253

XXIV. THE PRINCE PLAYS TRUMPS 268

XXV. A DESPERATE PLAN 277

XXVI. THE JAWS OF DEATH 288

XXVII. THE GODDESS OF VENGEANCE 303

XXVIII. THE DAY AFTER 311

XXIX. TO-MORROW? 327

ILLUSTRATIONS

Her eyes swept the room with cold

hauteur _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

“John, dear,” she said in purest English,

“that bothersome passport must have

been packed among your things” 16

Triumph glittered in the officer’s eye. “I

believe I have seen madame before,”

he said 136

A huge, ferocious fellow vaulted the barricade.

He died in mid air 212

THE SHEARS OF DESTINY

CHAPTER I

THE WOMAN IN BROWN

Instead of the week Drexel had thought his business would keep him in

Moscow, two days sufficed. They were a pleasant two days, rich with

promise of future profit, and it was with regret that he settled down

in his compartment of the day express to St. Petersburg. He would have

been glad had his business denied him a little longer the company of

his aunt and his cousin Alice and the polished Prince Berloff.

Drexel gave little heed to the country through which his train shrieked

and rumbled. And there was small reason that he should, for the land

was monotonously flat, and made more monotonous by its vast blanket of

sunless snow, beneath which it had been asleep these two months and

which it would not throw aside with the awakening gesture of Spring for

three long months to come. As far as the eye could reach there was only

this gray-white, frozen desert--desolate emptiness, save where forests

of spruce and hemlock lifted their myriad whited peaks toward the

sullen sky, or a distant peasant village huddled low as if shivering

with the bitter cold.

The pictures before his inward eye were far more interesting than this

unvaried panorama unrolled by the snowbound land of his exile. He had

reserved an entire compartment that he might think uninterrupted, and

as the white miles flew behind him new visions of fortune, of power, of

position, shaped and reshaped themselves in his rapid incisive mind. He

longed impatiently to be back in Chicago--back with his uncle in the

midst of things!

Running through all his thoughts and visions was his last talk with his

uncle. That talk had risen from this very business of his coming to

Russia. While in Paris the preceding summer Alice and her mother had

met Prince Berloff, then in France on a secret diplomatic mission. He

was one of Russia’s greatest titles, Alice one of America’s greatest

fortunes, so the engagement that followed was possibly pre-ordained.

Alice’s mother had written her husband that she desired to see the

country where her daughter was to be so exalted a figure, and had

declared that they would be perfectly safe, even though smouldering

revolutions did threaten to flame forth, under the protection of so

great a nobleman as Prince Berloff. But old John Howard would not

permit their visit without a nearer escort; and since he himself could

not leave the great traction deal which then engrossed him, he had

shunted his duties upon his convenient nephew.

Drexel had rebelled. He protested against leaving the traction deal

and the other vast interests his uncle was drawing him into. And on

another ground he protested with even greater vehemence. He had thought

himself in love with his pretty cousin, and he now urged to his uncle

the ironic incongruity of the rejected suitor being compelled to escort

his inamorata about the land, and among the honours, of his successful

rival.

His uncle had put a hand upon his arm. “See here, Henry,” he said with

brusque affection, “you don’t really care for Alice, and never did

care. You just thought you did.”

“We’ll pass that. But even if I cared, you would have turned me down

just the same.” His tone was bitter, for the thing still rankled. “Of

course I realize that your sister’s son is a poor man.”

“No poorer than my son would be, if I had one, if I had died

twenty-five years ago like your father. In this marriage business, it

wasn’t that you haven’t any money. It was because your aunt--well, you

know as well as I do how keen she was about a title. But forget all

that, my lad. I like you just as if you were my own boy. And I’m proud

of you. Ten years from now, you’ll be the biggest young business man in

America!”

Drexel gave a dry laugh. “I don’t look much like that picture at

present. What have I got? Only the little my mother left me!”

And then his uncle had said the great words. “Eh, but, boy, you’re

only twenty-six; and so far you’ve just been in training! In training

to take my place when I step out. Your training is over; when you come

back from Russia, your real career begins--and a big one, too! Oh, your

fifty thousand is nothing”--he brushed it aside with a contemptuous

hand--“but you know you’re coming in for a good part of what I have and

you’re going to manage the whole pile. One of these princes may be all

right for a son-in-law, but he don’t get control of my business! The

things I’ve spent my life in building up, I’m not going to have sold,

or ruined by mismanagement. No, sir!”

The old man had brought the flat of his hand down upon the table. “See

here, Henry--forget your grouch--look me straight in the eye. That’s

right. Now, down in the bottom of your heart, don’t you know that

you’ve got the biggest business chance of any young fellow in America?”

The keen young gray eyes looked steadily into the keen old gray eyes.

“I do,” he admitted.

“And is there anything you’d like better than to control great

industries--to make millions on millions--to know that though you don’t

live in Washington you’ve got as big a say-so in running things as any

man that does?”

The young man’s face had glowed, his voice had rung with perfect

confidence. “I’m going to be all that, uncle. I feel it in me! It’s the

dream of my life!”

And it was about this great future that Drexel’s thoughts revolved as

his train roared onward across the snow. His ironic duty was all but

done. For three months he had grimly played his part, and now in two

weeks Alice would be Princess Berloff. Originally the marriage was to

have taken place in Chicago, but the disturbed state of affairs would

not permit the prince to leave his country, so it had been decided that

the wedding should be in St. Petersburg--and Mr. Howard, set free by a

business lull, was now lunging through wintry seas to be present at the

ceremony. Two more weeks, and Drexel and his uncle would be speeding

back to Chicago--back to giant affairs.

But some of his business thoughts centred here in Russia; for,

after all, his banishment from business promised to be a fortunate

misfortune. Drexel had not been in Russia two days before he had seen

the tremendous opportunities the future would offer capital in this

the most undeveloped of civilized countries. He had begun to project

great schemes--schemes to be inaugurated years hence, when the success

of the Czar or the revolutionists had given the country that stability

necessary for business enterprise. And it was characteristic of his

energy, and of the way he prepared for distant eventualities, that he

had applied himself to the study of the Russian tongue the better to

fit himself for these dim-seen Russian successes.

At Bolgoîé his meditations were interrupted by the pause of the

express for lunch. The platform was crowded with soldiers and

gendarmes, and standing about in attitudes of exaggerated indifference

were men whose furtive watchfulness betrayed them as spies of

an inferior grade. At Drexel’s table in the station dining-room

sat several officers of the gendarmerie, to whom he mechanically

listened. They were discussing the greatest of the Government’s recent

triumphs--the arrest a week before of Borodin, one of the chief

revolutionary leaders, who immediately following his seizure had been

secretly whisked away, no one knew whither save only the head of the

spy system and a few other high officials. In what prison the great

leader was held was a question all Russia was then asking.

“Ah,” exclaimed the officers, “if the same prison only held The White

One!”

That was a name to arouse even such indifferent ears as Drexel’s, for

he felt the same curiosity as did the rest of Russia concerning the

person concealed behind this famous sobriquet. The little that he knew

had served only to quicken his interest. He joined in the officers’

conversation, but they could add nothing to his meagre knowledge. The

White One was the great general who planned and directed the outbursts

from the underworld of revolution--a master of daring strategy--the

shrewdest, keenest brain in the Empire. That was all. For the rest The

White One was shrouded in complete mystery. To Russia at large The

White One was just a great, invisible, impersonal power, and to the

Czar the name most dreaded in all his realm.

Back in his compartment, Drexel renewed his eager planning, and his

mind did not again turn from business till St. Petersburg was but some

two hours ahead, and the short, dull-hued day had long since deepened

into night. He heard a voice in the corridor of his coach remark that

near the station at which the train had just paused was the great

estate of Prince Berloff. He peered through the double-glazed window

out of casual interest in the place he knew from several visits. But

he could see nothing but a long shed of a station building and a few

shaggy peasants in sheepskin coats, so as the train started up he

settled back and his brain returned to its schemes.

A few moments later he became aware that the portière at the door of

his compartment had been drawn aside. Irritated that anyone should

intrude upon the privacy he had paid high to secure himself, he looked

up. In the doorway stood a young woman, twenty-two or three perhaps,

slender but not too slender, with hair of the colour of midnight,

long black eyelashes and a smooth dark skin faintly flushed with the

cold. The eyes were of that deep clear blue that is sometimes given a

brunette. She wore a long loose fur coat of a rich dark brown, and a

cap of the same dark fur, and she carried a brown muff, and over her

wrist a leather bag.

For only an instant did she pause, with the portière in one hand.

Then without a word to Drexel, who had half risen, she entered the

compartment and took the opposite seat.