us. Then Verbitzsky raised his terrible bombs.
From high above the roofs of the warehouses the full moon so clearly
illuminated the yard that we could see every button on our
assailants' coats, and even the puffs of fat Nolenki's breath. He
stood panting on the opposite wall of the excavation.
"Halt, or die!" cried Verbitzsky, in a terrible voice.
The bombs were clearly to be seen in his hands. Every policeman in
Moscow knew of the destruction done, only six days before, by just
such weapons. The foremost men halted instantly. The impetus of those
behind brought all together in a bunch--nine expectants of instant
death. Verbitzsky spoke again:--
"If any man moves hand or foot, I'll throw these," he cried. "Listen!"
"Why, you fool," said Nolenki, a rather slow-witted man, "you can't
escape. Surrender instantly."
He drew his revolver and pointed it at us.
"Michael," said Verbitzsky to me, in that steely voice which I had
never before heard from my gentle comrade; "Michael, Nolenki can
shoot but one of us before he dies. Take this bomb. Now if he hits me
you throw your bomb at him. If he hits you I will throw mine."
"Infernal villains!" gasped the chief; but we could see his pistol
wavering.
"Michael," resumed Verbitzsky, "we will give Nolenki a chance for his
life. Obey me exactly! Listen! If Dmitry Nolenki does not jump down
into this pit before I say five, throw your bomb straight at him! I
will, at the moment I say five, throw mine at these rascals."
"Madman!" cried Nolenki. "Do you think to--"
He stopped as if paralyzed. I suppose he had suddenly understood that
the explosion of a bomb in that small, high-walled yard would kill
every man in it.
"One!" cried Verbitzsky.
"But I may not hit him!" said I.
"No matter. If it explodes within thirty feet of him he will move no
more."
I took one step forward and raised the bomb. Did I mean to throw it? I
do not know. I think not. But I knew we must make the threat or be
captured and hung. And I felt certain that the bomb would be exploded
anyway when Verbitzsky should say "Five." He would then throw his, and
mine would explode by the concussion.
"Two!" said Verbitzsky.
Dmitry Nolenki had lowered his pistol. He glanced behind him uneasily.
"If he runs, throw it!" said Verbitzsky, loudly. "THREE!"
The chief of the Moscow secret police was reputed a brave man, but he
was only a cruel one. Now his knees trembled so that we could see them
shake, and his teeth chattered in the still cold night. Verbitzsky
told me afterward that he feared the man's slow brain had become so
paralyzed by fright that he might not be able to think and obey and
jump down. That would have placed my comrade and me in a dreadful
dilemma, but quite a different one from what you may suppose.
As if to make Nolenki reflect, Verbitzsky spoke more slowly:--
"If Dmitry Nolenki jumps down into this pit _before_ I say five, do
_not_ throw the bomb at him. You understand, Michael, do not throw if
he jumps down instantly. FOUR!"
Nolenki's legs were so weak that he could not walk to the edge. In
trying to do so he stumbled, fell, crawled, and came in head first, a
mere heap.
"Wise Nolenki!" said my comrade, with a laugh. Then in his tone of
desperate resolution, "Nolenki, get down on your hands and knees, and
put your head against that wall. Don't move now--if you wish to live."
"Now, men," he cried to the others in military fashion, "right about,
face!"
They hesitated, perhaps fearful that he would throw at them when they
turned.
"About! instantly!" he cried. They all turned.
"Now, men, you see your chief. At the word 'March,' go and kneel in a
row beside him, your heads against that wall. Hump your backs as high
as you can. If any man moves to get out, all will suffer together. You
understand?"
"Yes! yes! yes!" came in an agony of abasement from their lips.
"March!"
When they were all kneeling in a row, Verbitzsky said to me clearly:--
"Michael, you can easily get to the top of that wall from any one of
their backs. No man will dare to move. Go! Wait on the edge! Take your
bomb with you!"
I obeyed. I stood on a man's back. I laid my bomb with utmost care on
the wall, over which I could then see. Then I easily lifted myself out
by my hands and elbows.
"Good!" said Verbitzsky. "Now, Michael, stand there till I come. If
they try to seize me, throw your bomb. We can all die together."
In half a minute he had stepped on Nolenki's back. Nolenki groaned
with abasement. Next moment Verbitzsky was beside me.
"Give me your bomb. Now, Michael," he said loudly, "I will stand guard
over these wretches till I see you beyond the freight-sheds. Walk at
an ordinary pace, lest you be seen and suspected."
"But you? They'll rise and fire at you as you run," I said.
"Of course they will. But you will escape. Here! Good-bye!"
He embraced me, and whispered in my ear:
"Go the opposite way from the freight-sheds. Go out toward the
Petrovsky Gardens. There are few police there. Run hard after you've
walked out under the bridge and around the abutments. You will then be
out of hearing."
"Go, dear friend," he said aloud, in a mournful voice. "I may never
see you again. Possibly I may have to destroy myself and all here.
Go!"
I obeyed precisely, and had not fairly reached the yard's end when
Verbitzsky, running very silently, came up beside me.
"I think they must be still fancying that I'm standing over them," he
chuckled. "No, they are shooting! Now, out they come!"
From where we now stood in shadow we could see Nolenki and his men
rush furiously out from under the bridge. They ran away from us toward
the freight-sheds, shouting the alarm, while we calmly walked home to
our unsuspected lodgings.
Not till then did I think of the bombs.
"Where are they?" I asked in alarm.
"I left them for the police. They will ruin Nolenki--it was he who
sent poor Zina to Siberia and her death."
"Ruin him?" I said, wondering.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"They were not loaded."
"Not loaded!"
"That's what Boris whispered to me in the wool-shed office. He meant
to load them to-morrow before going to His Imperial Majesty's train.
Nolenki will be laughed to death in Moscow, if not sent to Siberia."
Verbitzsky was right. Nolenki, after being laughed nearly to death,
was sent to Siberia in disgrace, and we both worked in the same gang
with him for eight months before we escaped from the Ural Mines. No
doubt he is working there yet.
THE END.
* * * * *
_JUST ISSUED_....
=ETCHINGS=
FROM A
=PARSONAGE VERANDA=
BY
MRS. E. JEFFERS GRAHAM
Illustrated by J. W. BENGOUGH
=CLOTH,--$1.00=
=Contents=: THE PARSONAGE--SOLOMON WISEACRE--TWO WOMEN--MARION
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THE DOVE--A CROSS--UNDER A CLOUD--JOY IN THE MORNING--A SUPPLY--ONLY A
CHILD--MISS PRIMPERTY--A TEMPERANCE MEETING--A DINNER PARTY--AU
REVOIR--PARTING.
The following words from the closing sketch of this charming book are
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twinkling around her. Earth's children are sleeping, carousing and
suffering. I am writing in the moonlight. I am so glad we have lived
here--so happy that we have known all these good, heroic, sweet
characters. We need not read novels to find heroes. They are living
all around us. We are talking to them every day. They pass us on the
street, they sit by us in the church and hall. There is no historian
to write of them, only a book of remembrance in heaven, where all
their good deeds are recorded."
Smiles and tears alternate as the delicate humor and tender pathos
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Transcriber's Notes:
Pg. 241: Respectacle is possibly a typo for respectable, or the
author's coined word combining respectable and spectacle.
(... cart was regarded in that district as peculiarly respectacle.)