THE GODDESS OF VENGEANCE
The prince stared about at the transfixed party. In all his life he
had never been more astounded. But after the first moment he had his
astonishment under perfect control. He realized that he was master of
the situation, and that the situation, near as it had been to spoiling
all, fitted his desire as though framed by his private deity.
The governor had addressed him with obsequious pleasure and surprise,
but him the prince had at first not heeded. But now he turned to him.
“Colonel Kavelin, would you mind explaining the meaning of this,” he
said in his even voice.
“Certainly, Your Excellency. Captain Laroque here is removing these
prisoners to Schlusselburg. Here is the order,” and he took it from his
desk.
“Thank you. I do not care to see it.”
He turned to Drexel. “And so, Captain Laroque,” he said, with a
glint of a white, sardonic smile, “you are removing these people to
Schlusselburg.”
Drexel had run the whole gamut of emotions that night. There was no
new dismay, no deeper fear, for him to feel. He had done his best, but
fate had been against him from the first and the game was up; and
there was nothing for it now but to meet the end as boldly as he could.
He did not answer the prince, but he met his look calmly.
“I suppose you are not aware, Colonel Kavelin,” the prince continued in
his even, conversational tone, “that your Captain Laroque is no captain
at all, but a revolutionist.”
“What!” cried the governor.
“I recognize him as a leader who is wanted by the police, and I charge
you to seize him.”
The governor turned on Drexel in a fury. “So you have been trying to
fool me!” he roared.
“I have done my best,” said Drexel.
“And this Schlusselburg business is just a plot to free these
prisoners?”
“You are quite correct.”
“Then that prisoner was right!” ejaculated the governor. “Perhaps after
all he is a spy, and there is to be an order for his release!”
“There is an order,” said the prince, “for I am here to bring it.”
“My God--and I all but set them free!” The governor blanched at his
narrow escape. Then his fury blazed forth again. “Back you all four go
to your cells!--and you two straight from your cell to your scaffold!
And as for you, Captain Laroque”--he almost frothed in his revengeful
rage--“you’ll never leave here to trick another man!”
He tore Drexel’s revolver from its holster, and with a quick stride
toward his desk raised a hand above a bronze bell to sound the
guard-summoning alarm. But though Drexel had thought all hope was gone,
there was an instinct in him, deeper than consciousness, not to give
up. He sprang desperately forward and caught the descending arm. At
the same moment, as though this had been a signal, Razoff and Borodin
seized Berloff in their manacled hands.
Like a flash Drexel’s other hand went for the governor’s throat to shut
off the alarm from that, and he swung him out of reach of the bell.
But the governor seized from the desk the big knife with which he had
been making erasures and drove it into Drexel’s shoulder. He jerked
it out and raised it for a second plunge. Drexel released the throat
to check this nearer death. He seized the governor’s wrist, and in
the same instant sent his fist into the governor’s great stomach; the
wind rushed groaning out of his mouth and his arms fell to his sides.
Drexel drove his fist fiercely into the bushy beard. The governor went
reeling, and even as he fell Drexel drove his fist with terrific force
a second time against his chin. The governor lay motionless.
Drexel whirled about for Berloff. For the minute of his struggle with
the governor Borodin and Razoff had managed to hold the prince, but the
handicap of manacles and anklets was too great, and the instant the
governor fell the prince broke from their grasp. So when Drexel turned
it was to find himself looking at the cold barrel of a pistol, and
behind that the cold face of Berloff.
“I owe you great thanks, Captain Laroque, for removing the governor as
a spectator,” he said, his eyes agleam with triumph. “That sets me free
to admit the fact of our acquaintance and to enjoy this little reunion
openly. For there is no danger”--he smiled about on them in malign
pleasantry--“when all the present witnesses will soon be as insensible
as our friend the governor there, only permanently so.”
White as she was, Sonya went a shade paler. She came forward with
short, clanking steps.
“Do you mean, Prince Berloff, that you intend executing not only us
Russians, but Mr. Drexel as well?”
“Duty is duty, my dear cousin”--he bowed to her--“however unpleasant.”
She would have spoken in Drexel’s behalf, but he stopped her. “I would
not plead with him for your life, for I know it would be useless. It is
just as vain to plead for mine.”
He turned to Berloff. “We want none of your devil’s raillery! You have
won. Go on with your purpose!”
“As you command. But remember that the haste in the matter is yours,
not mine.” He crossed to the desk and stood beside the bell. “But
before I call in those outsiders, the guards, let us have our farewell
among ourselves.”
He turned to The White One, who sat three or four paces behind him, her
manacled hands upon her knees. “So you are the famous White One. I am
glad to meet you, madame, and I beg to assure you that the meeting with
The White One will be all the more memorable to me since it took place
on what afterward proved the last day of her memorable life.”
That high, pale face returned his mocking courtesy with a gaze of
blazing hatred.
“Justice will not always withhold its hands from you,” she said. “This
is the hour of your triumph--but that hour may not be for long!”
“Pardon my saying it, madame,” returned he, “but one so near the end
should cherish kindlier thoughts.”
For all his air of free and easy mastery he was keeping his eye on the
others to check any dangerous move. But this helpless invalid needed
no watching, and he turned his back upon her, and gazed at Sonya and
Borodin.
“As for you, my dear cousins, it would be hypocrisy for your heir to
make pretense of grief. So what more can I say than ‘I thank you.’”
“Ring the bell!” returned Sonya.
“In one moment I must, for see, the governor is returning to life to
intrude upon our pleasant function.” He turned to Drexel. “So I make
haste, my dear cousin-never-to-be, to wish that your taking-off may
be as gentle as falling asleep, and that your waking may be among the
angels!”
Drexel kept contemptuous silence.
The prince flashed upon them all a look of mocking, malignant
triumph--a figure electric with power, coldly, cruelly handsome--a
model of puissant, high-bred deviltry, fit for the emulation of the
first gentleman of hell.
“And now before the guards come in I will say good-bye to you all”--he
bowed around--“and may your journey be pleasant!”
He raised his hand for the stroke upon the bell, and held it aloft
in fiendish pleasure of prolonging their suspense; and for a moment
he stood there poised in his triumph. They stared at him, waiting
breathless for the fatal hand to fall.
Then their eyes widened, their lips parted, and in thrilled awe they
stared beyond to the wheeled chair at his back, where sat the unfeared
invalid. For something strange was happening with The White One. That
snow-haired figure was slowly uprearing itself, whom none here had ever
seen upon her feet before.
She was of commanding height. In her thin face there blazed a stern
fire; and this portentous look, her loose white hair, her priestess
stature, the flowing robe in which they had garbed her, made her a
figure of preternatural majesty. She moved three silent paces to the
prince’s back, above whom she towered, and there she paused.
The prince was bowing in mockery and saying with his sardonic smile:
“And now once more, good-bye!”
He never knew the reflex meaning of his words. The tall figure at his
back raised her thin arms on high, pressing together the heavy manacles
that bound her wrists. And then, her physician’s eye fixed on a vital
spot, all her strength summoned up in this one effort, she swung that
improvised sledge downward upon his head.
He fell without a word, his sneering good-bye still warm upon his lips.
She gazed down at his lifeless body, in her blazing, majestic wrath
looking the very high priestess of vengeance. She said never a word.
For a moment she stood so, eyes flashing, breast heaving, erect in her
magnificent frailty. Then she raised her eyes to the others and parted
her lips as if to speak. But the fire faded from her face--a tremor
went through her old body--she wavered--and her figure bowed over and
toppled to the floor.
Her fall broke the awed spell which had bound the little group. Sonya
sprang to her side and turned her upon her back. A glance at that calm
face was enough. But Sonya pressed her ear against where had beat The
White One’s heart.
“Dead!” she whispered.
And so it was. The supreme excitation of her mighty wrath had for the
moment conquered disease and lent strength to her withered limbs. She
had made the effort her doctor had long foretold as fatal, had spent
her little store of strength in one prodigal blow; and, her spasm of
energy over, her heart had instantly exacted the penalty--and there she
lay!
But there was no time to exclaim upon the swift happenings of this
one minute. A shuffling noise from behind them caused Drexel to turn
quickly. The governor had risen upon one knee and was stretching out a
hand toward the bell. At once Drexel was upon him, and a minute later
he was securely bound and a gag was in his throat.
The way was now clear for their escape; but to leave these bodies here
for the next minute’s possible discovery might mean alarm and pursuit
before they were out of the Fortress gates. Opening into the office
was a store-room in which were kept blank documents and other office
supplies. In this Drexel laid with reverence the wasted body of The
White One; it seemed hardly less than sacrilege to desert those warrior
ashes to the enemy, but there remained no other way. And in here he
dragged her chair, and the bulky person of the governor, glowering
impotently; and last of all the prince, troubled no more with dreams of
empire.
Three minutes later the prison van, with prisoners and guards inside it
and Drexel driving at its tail, moved with official staidness through
the arched gateway of the Fortress, out into the vast black silence of
the night.