HOW GERMANY FOMENTS STRIFE
Ray Raymond had been engaged watching the house of Hermann Hartmann in
Pont Street ever since our discovery of the secret store of arms and
ammunition down at Chiswick.
I had been absent at Devonport, keeping observation upon the movements
of two Germans who had once or twice paid visits to Hartmann, and who
had evidently received his instructions personally. The two men in
question were known to us as spies, for with two other compatriots we
had found them, only three months before, busily engaged in preparing a
plan of the water-mains of East London, in order that, in case of
invasion, some of the German colony could destroy the principal mains
and thus deprive half the metropolis of drinking-water.
In Leeds they had, we know, mapped out the whole water-supply, as Barker
had done at North Shields; and again in Sheffield, the plans of which
were in Berlin; but fortunately we had discovered them at work in
London, and had been able to prevent them from accomplishing their
object. Two of the men had returned to Germany on being detected, and
the other two were now at Devonport, where I had been living for a month
in irritating inactivity.
One afternoon, on receipt of a telegram from Ray, I immediately returned
to London, and as I entered the flat in Bruton Street, my friend said:
"The great _agent provocateur_ of the German Government, our friend
Hermann Hartmann, has left for Russia, Jack. His employers have sent him
there for some special reason. Would it not be wise for you to follow,
and ascertain the latest move?"
"If you think so, I'll go," I said readily. "You can take my place down
at Devonport. I've been there too long and may be spotted. Where has
Hartmann gone?"
"First back to Berlin. He has been ordered to go to Poland on a special
mission."
"Then I must pick him up in Berlin," I said.
And thus it was arranged. Next morning I obtained a special _visa_ to my
passport from the Russian Ambassador, whom I chanced to know personally,
and at 2.20 left Charing Cross for Calais, bound for Berlin.
I was puzzled why Hartmann, the most trusted agent of the Kaiser's
secret police, should be so suddenly transferred to Russian territory.
It was only temporarily, no doubt, but it behoved us to have knowledge
of what might be in the wind.
It was winter, and the journey to the German capital was cold and
cheerless. Yet I had not been there six hours before I had discovered
that Hartmann had left for a place called Ostrog, in Eastern Poland.
Therefore I lost no time in setting forth for that rather obscure place.
Yes, nowadays my life was a strange one, full of romance and constant
change, of excitement--and sometimes of insecurity.
For what reason had the great Hartmann been sent so far afield?
On leaving the railway, I travelled for two days in a sleigh over those
endless snow-covered roads and dark forests, until my horses, with their
jingling bells, pulled up before a small inn on the outskirts of the
dismal-looking town of Ostrog. The place, with its roofs covered with
freshly-fallen snow, lay upon the slight slope of a low hill, beneath
which wound the Wilija Goryn, now frozen so hard that the bridge was
hardly ever used. It was January, and that month in Poland is always a
cold one.
I had crossed the frontier at the little village of Kolodno, and thence
driven along the valleys into Volynien, a long, weary, dispiriting
drive, on and on until those bells maddened me by their monotonous
rhythm. Cramped and cold I was, notwithstanding the big fur coat I wore,
the fur cap with flaps, fur gloves, and fur rug. The country inns in
which I had spent the past two nights had been filthy places where the
stoves had been surrounded by evil-smelling peasantry, where the food
was uneatable and where a wooden bench had served me as a bed.
At each stage where we changed horses the post-house keeper had held up
his hands when he knew my destination was Ostrog. "The Red Rooster" was
crowing there, they said significantly.
It was true. Russia was under the Terror again, and in no place in the
whole empire were the revolutionists so determined as in the town
whither I was bound. I saw at once the reason why Hartmann was there--to
secretly stir up strife, for it is to the advantage of Germany that
Russia should be in a state of unrest. To observe the German methods was
certainly interesting.
Ostrog at last! As I stood up and descended unsteadily from my sleigh my
eyes fell upon something upon the snow near the door of the inn. There
was blood. It told its own tale.
From the white town across the frozen river I heard revolver shots,
followed by a loud explosion that shook the whole place and startled the
three horses in my sleigh.
Inside the long, low, common room of the inn, with its high brick stove,
against which half a dozen frightened-looking men and women were
huddled, I asked for the proprietor, whereupon an elderly man, with
shaggy hair and beard, came forth, pulling his forelock.
"I want to stay here," I said.
"Yes, your excellency," was the old fellow's reply, in Polish. "Whatever
accommodation my poor inn can afford is at your service"--and he at once
shouted orders to my driver to bring in my kit, while the women, all of
them flat-faced peasants, made room for me at the stove.
From where I stood I could hear the sound of desultory firing across the
bridge, and inquired what was in progress.
But there was an ominous silence. They did not reply, for, as I
afterwards discovered, they had taken me for a high police official from
Petersburg, thus accounting for the innkeeper's courtesy.
"Tell me," I said, addressing the wrinkled-faced old Pole, "what is
happening over yonder?"
"The Cossacks," he stammered. "Krasiloff and his Cossacks are upon us.
They have just entered the town and are shooting down people everywhere.
Hartmann, the great patriot from Germany, has arrived, and the fight for
freedom has commenced, excellency. But it is horrible. A poor woman was
shot dead before my door half an hour ago, and her body taken away by
the soldiers."
Tired as I was, I lost no time. With a glance to see that my own
revolver was loaded, I threw aside my overcoat, and, leaving the inn,
walked across the bridge into a poor narrow street of wretched-looking
houses, many of them built of wood. A man limped slowly past me, wounded
in the leg, and leaving blood-spots behind him as he went. An old woman
was seated in a doorway, her face buried in her hands, wailing:
"My poor son!--dead!--dead!"
Before me I saw a great barricade composed of trees, household
furniture, paving-stones, overturned carts, pieces of barbed wire--in
fact, everything and anything the populace could seize upon for the
construction of hasty defence. Upon the top, silhouetted against the
clear frosty sky, was the scarlet flag of the revolution--the Red
Rooster was crowing!
Excited men were there, armed with rifles, shouting and giving orders.
Then I saw that a small space had been left open against the wall of a
house so that persons might pass and repass.
As I approached a wild-haired man shouted to me and beckoned
frantically. I grasped his meaning. He wished me to come within. I ran
forward, entered the town proper, and a few moments later the opening
was closed by a dozen slabs of stone being heaped up into it by as many
willing hands.
Thus I found myself in the very centre of the revolution, behind the
barricades, of which there were, it seemed, six or seven. From the rear
there was constant firing, and the streets in the vicinity were, I saw
to my horror, already filled with dead and wounded. Women were wailing
over husbands, lovers, brothers; men over their daughters and wives.
Even children of tender age were lying helpless and wounded, some of
them shattered and dead.
Ah! that sight was sickening. Never had I seen wholesale butchery such
as that in which I was now in the midst. I was looking about to find the
German _agent provocateur_, but I failed to find him. Perhaps, having
bidden the people to rise, he had himself escaped. Most probably.
Above us bullets whistled as the Cossacks came suddenly round a side
street and made a desperate attack upon the barricade I had entered only
a few minutes before. A dozen of those fighting for their freedom fell
back dead at my feet at the first volley. They had been on top of the
barricade, offering a mark to the troops of the Czar. Before us and
behind us there was firing, for at the rear of us was another
barricade. We were, in fact, between two deadly fires.
Revolver in hand, I stood ready to defend my own life. In those exciting
moments I disregarded the danger I ran from being struck in that
veritable hail of lead. Men fell wounded all around me, and there was
blood everywhere. A thin, dark-headed young fellow under thirty--a
Moscow student, I subsequently heard--seemed to be the ringleader, for
above the firing could be heard his shouts of encouragement.
"Fight! my comrades!" he cried, standing close to me and waving the red
flag he carried--the emblem of the Terror--"Down with the Czar! Kill the
vermin he sends to us! Long live Germany! Long live freedom! Kill them!"
he shrieked. "They have killed your wives and daughters. Men of
Ostrog--remember your duty to-day! Set an example to Russia. Do not let
the Moscow fiasco be repeated here. Fight! Fight on as long as you have
a drop of life-blood in you, and we shall win, we shall win! Down with
the Autocrat! Down with the----"
His sentence was never finished, for at that instant he reeled backwards
with half his face shot away by a Cossack bullet.
The situation was, for me, one of greatest peril. I had had no
opportunity of finding the governor of the town to present my
credentials, and thus obtain protection. The whole place was in open
revolt, and when the troops broke down the defences, as I saw they must
do sooner or later, then we should all be caught in a trap, and no
quarter would be given.
The massacre would be the same as at Moscow and many other towns in
Western Russia, wherein the populace had been shot down
indiscriminately, and official telegrams had been sent to Petersburg
reporting "order now reigns."
I sought shelter in a doorway, but scarcely had I done so than a bullet
embedded itself in the woodwork a few inches from my head. At the
barricade the women were helping the men, loading their rifles for them,
shouting and encouraging them to fight gallantly for freedom. And
suddenly I caught sight of Hartmann's evil face. He was calmly talking
to a man who was no doubt also in the German employ. The rising was
their work!
A yellow-haired young woman, not more than twenty, emerged from a house
close by where I stood and ran past me to the barricade. As she passed I
saw that she carried something in her hand. It looked like a small
cylinder of metal.
Shouting to a man who was firing through a loophole near the top of the
barricade, she handed it up to him. Taking it carefully, he scrambled up
higher, waited for a few moments, and then, raising himself, he hurled
it far into the air into the midst of an advancing troop of Cossacks.
There was a red flash, a terrific explosion which shook the whole town,
wrecking the houses in the immediate vicinity, and blowing to atoms
dozens of the Czar's soldiers.
A wild shout of victory went up from the revolutionists when they saw
the havoc caused by the awful bomb. The yellow-haired girl returned
again and brought another, which, after some ten minutes or so, was
similarly hurled against the troops, with equally disastrous effect.
The roadway was strewn with the bodies of those Cossacks which General
Kinski, the governor of the town, had telegraphed for, and whom
Krasiloff had ordered to give no quarter to the revolutionists. In
Western Russia the name of Krasiloff was synonymous with all that was
cruel and brutal. It was he who ordered the flogging of the five young
women at Minsk, those poor unfortunate creatures who were knouted by
Cossacks who laid their backs bare to the bone. As every one in Russia
knows, two of them, both members of good families, died within a few
hours, and yet no reprimand did he receive from Petersburg. By the Czar
and at the Ministry of the Interior he was known to be a hard man, and
for that reason certain towns where the revolutionary spirit was
strongest had been given into his hands.
At Kiev he had executed without trial dozens of men and woman arrested
for revolutionary acts. A common grave was dug in the prison yard, and
the victims, four at a time, were led forward to the edge of the pit and
shot, each batch being compelled to witness the execution of the four
prisoners preceding them. With a refinement of cruelty that was only
equalled by the Inquisition, he had wrung confessions from women, and
afterwards had them shot and buried. At Petersburg they knew these
things, but he had actually been commended and decorated for his loyalty
to the Czar!
And now that he had been hurriedly moved to Ostrog the people knew that
his order to the Cossacks was to massacre the people, and more
especially the Jewish portion of the population, without mercy.
"Krasiloff is here!" said the man whose face was smeared with blood as
he stood by me. "He intends that we shall all die, but we will fight for
it. The revolution has only just commenced. Soon the peasants will rise,
and we will sweep the country clean of the vermin the Czar has placed
upon us. To-day Kinski, the governor, has been fired at twice, but
unsuccessfully. He wants a bomb, and he shall have it," he added
meaningly. "Olga--the girl yonder with the yellow hair--has one for
him!"--and he laughed grimly.
I recognised my own deadly peril. I stood revolver in hand, though I had
not fired a shot, for I was no revolutionist. I was only awaiting the
inevitable breaking down of the barricade--and the awful catastrophe
that must befall the town when those Cossacks, drunk with the lust for
blood, swept into the streets.
Around me men and women were shouting themselves hoarse, while the red
emblem of Terror still waved lazily from the top of the barricade. The
men manning the improvised defence kept up a withering fire upon the
troops, who in the open road were afforded no cover. Time after time the
place shook as those terrible bombs exploded with awful result, for the
yellow-haired girl seemed to keep up a continuous supply of them. They
were only seven or eight inches long, but hurled into a company of
soldiers their effect was deadly.
For half an hour longer it seemed as though the defence of the town
would be effectual, yet, of a sudden, the redoubled shouts of those
about me told me the truth.
The Cossacks had been reinforced, and were about to rush the barricade.
I managed to peer forth, and there, surely enough, the whole roadway was
filled with soldiers.
Yells, curses, heavy firing, men falling back from the barricade to die
around me, and the disappearance of the red flag showed that the
Cossacks were at last scaling the great pile of miscellaneous objects
that blocked the street. A dozen of the Czar's soldiers appeared
silhouetted against the sky as they scrambled across the top of the
barricade, but the next second a dozen corpses fell to earth, riddled by
the bullets of the men standing below in readiness.
In a moment, however, others appeared in their places, and still more
and more. Women threw up their hands in despair and fled for their
lives, while men--calmly prepared to die in the cause--shouted again
and again, "Down with Krasiloff and the Czar! Long live the revolution!
Long live Germany! Give us the Kaiser! Victory for the people's will!"
I stood undecided. I was facing death. Those Cossacks with orders to
massacre would give no quarter, and would not discriminate. Krasiloff
was waiting for his dastardly order to be carried out. The Czar had
given him instructions to crush the revolution by whatever means he
thought proper.
Those moments of suspense seemed hours. Suddenly there was another
flash, a stunning report, the air was filled with debris, and a great
breach opened in the barricade. The Cossacks had used explosives to
clear away the obstruction. Next instant they were upon us.
I flew--flew for my life. Whither my legs carried me I know not. Women's
despairing shrieks rent the air on every hand. The massacre had
commenced. I remember I dashed into a long, narrow street that seemed
half deserted, then turned corner after corner, but behind me, ever
increasing, rose the cries of the doomed populace. The Cossacks were
following the people into their houses and killing men, women, and even
children.
Suddenly, as I turned into a side street, I saw that it led into a large
open thoroughfare, the main road through the town, I expect. And there,
straight before me, I saw that an awful scene was being enacted.
I turned to run back, but at that instant a woman's long, despairing cry
reached me, causing me to glance within a doorway, where stood a big,
brutal Cossack, who had pursued and captured a pretty, dark-haired,
well-dressed girl.
"Save me!" she shrieked as I passed. "Oh, save me, sir!" she gasped,
white, terrified, and breathless with struggling. "He will kill me!"
The burly soldier had his bearded face close down to hers, his arms
clasped around her, and had evidently forced her from the street into
the entry.
For a second I hesitated.
"Oh, sir, save me! Save me, and God will reward you!" she implored, her
big, dark eyes turned to mine in final appeal.
The fellow at that moment raised his fist and struck her a brutal blow
upon the mouth that caused the blood to flow, saying with a savage
growl:
"Be quiet, will you?"
"Let that woman go!" I commanded in the best Russian I could.
In an instant, with a glare in his fiery eyes, for the blood-lust was
within him, he turned upon me and sneeringly asked who I was to give him
orders, while the poor girl reeled, half stunned by his blow.
"Let her go I say!" I shouted, advancing quickly towards him.
But in a moment he had drawn his big army revolver, and, ere I became
aware of his dastardly intention, he raised it to a few inches from her
face.
Quick as thought I raised my own weapon, which I had held behind me,
and, being accredited a fairly good shot, I fired in an endeavour to
save the poor girl.
Fortunately my bullet struck, for he stepped back, his revolver dropped
from his fingers upon the stones, and, stumbling forward, he fell dead
at her feet without a word. My shot had, I saw, hit him in the temple,
and death had probably been instantaneous.
With a cry of joy at her sudden release, the girl rushed across to me,
and raising my left hand to her lips, kissed it, at the same time
thanking me.
Then, for the first time, I recognised how uncommonly pretty she was.
Not more than eighteen, she was slim and petite, with a narrow waist and
graceful figure--quite unlike in refinement and in dress the other
women I had seen in Ostrog. Her dark hair had come unbound in her
desperate struggle with the Cossack and hung about her shoulders, her
bodice was torn and revealed a bare white neck, and her chest heaved and
fell as in breathless, disjointed sentences she thanked me again and
again.
There was not a second to lose, however. She was, I recognised, a
Jewess, and Krasiloff's orders were not to spare them.
From the main street beyond rose the shouts and screams, the firing and
wild triumphant yells as the terrible massacre progressed.
"Come with me!" she cried breathlessly. "Along here. I know of a place
of safety!"
And she led the way, running swiftly for about two hundred yards, and
then, turning into a narrow, dirty courtyard, passed through an evil,
forbidding-looking house, where all was silent as the grave.
With a key she quickly opened the door of a poor, ill-furnished room,
which she closed behind her, but did not lock. Then, opening a door on
the opposite side, which had been papered over so as to escape
observation, I saw there was a flight of damp stone stairs leading down
to a cellar or some subterranean regions beneath the house.
"Down here!" she said, taking a candle, lighting it, and handing it to
me. "Go--I will follow."
I descended cautiously into the cold, dank place, discovering it to be a
kind of unlighted cellar hewn out of the rock. A table, a chair, a lamp,
and some provisions showed that preparation had been made for
concealment there, but ere I had entirely explored the place my pretty
fellow-fugitive rejoined me.
"This, I hope, is a place of safety," she said. "They will not find us
here. This is where Gustave lived before his flight."
"Gustave?" I repeated, looking her straight in the face.
She dropped her eyes and blushed. Her silence told its own tale. The
previous occupant of that rock chamber was her lover.
Her name was Luba--Luba Lazareff, she told me. But of herself she would
tell me nothing further. Her reticence was curious, yet before long I
recognised the reason of her refusal.
In reply to further questions she said: "The Germans are our friends.
Two men from Berlin have been in Ostrog nearly a month holding secret
meetings and urging us to rise."
"Do you know Hermann Hartmann?" I inquired.
"Ah! yes. He is the great patriot. He arrived here the day before
yesterday to address us before the struggle," she replied
enthusiastically.
Candle in hand, I was examining the deepest recesses of the dark,
cavernous place, while she lit the lamp, when, to my surprise, I
discovered at the further end a workman's bench, upon which were various
pieces of turned metal, pieces of tube of various sizes, and little
phials of glass like those used for the tiny tabloids for subcutaneous
injections.
I took one up to examine it, but at that instant she noticed me and
screamed in terror.
"Ah, sir! For heaven's sake, put that down--very carefully. Touch
nothing there, or we may both be blown to pieces! See!" she added in a
low, intense voice of confession, as she, dashed forward, "there are
finished bombs there! Gustave could not carry them all away, so he left
those with me."
"Then Gustave made these, eh?"
"Yes. And, see, he gave me this"--and she drew from her breast a small,
shining cylinder of brass, a beautifully finished little object about
four inches long similar to those used at the barricade. "He gave this
to me to use--if necessary!" the girl added, a meaning flash in her dark
eyes.
For a moment I was silent.
"Then you would have used it upon that Cossack?" I said slowly.
"That was my intention."
"And kill yourself, as well as your assailant?"
"I have promised him," was her simple answer.
"And this Gustave? You love him? Tell me all about him. Remember I am
your friend, and will help you if I can."
She hesitated, and I was compelled to urge her again and again ere she
would speak.
"Well, he is German--from Berlin," she said at last, as we still stood
before the bomb-maker's bench. "He is a chemist, and, being an
anarchist, came to us, and joined us in the Revolution. The petards
thrown over the barricades to-day were of his make, but he had to fly.
He left yesterday."
"For Berlin?"
"Ah! How can I tell? The Cossacks may have caught and killed him. He may
be dead," she added hoarsely.
"What direction has he taken?"
"He was compelled to leave hurriedly at midnight. He came, kissed me,
and gave me this," she said, still holding the shining little bomb in
her small white hand. "He said he intended, if possible, to get over the
hills to the frontier at Satanow."
I saw that she was deeply in love with the fugitive, whoever he might
be.
Outside the awful massacre was in progress, we knew; but no sound of it
reached us down in that rock-hewn tomb.
The yellow candle-light fell upon her sweet dimpled face, but when she
turned her splendid eyes to mine I saw that in them was a look of
anxiety and terror inexpressible.
I inquired of her father and mother, for she was of a superior class, as
I had from the first moment detected. She spoke French extremely well,
and we had dropped into that language as being easier for me than
Russian.
"What can it matter to you, sir, a stranger?" she sighed.
"But I am interested in you, mademoiselle," I answered. "Had I not been
I should not have fired that shot."
"Ah, yes!" she cried quickly. "I am an ingrate! You saved my life,"--and
again she seized both my hands and kissed them.
"Hark!" I cried, startled. "What's that?" for I distinctly heard a sound
of crackling wood.
The next moment men's gruff voices reached us from above.
"The Cossacks!" she screamed. "They have found us--they have found us!"
And the light died out of her beautiful countenance.
In her trembling hand she held the terrible little engine of
destruction.
With a quick movement I gripped her wrist, urging her to refrain until
all hope was abandoned, and together we stood facing the soldiers as
they descended the stairs to where we were. They were, it seems,
searching every house.
"Ah!" they cried, "a good hiding-place this! But the wall was hollow,
and revealed the door!" and next moment we saw the figures of men.
"Well, my pretty!" exclaimed a big, leering Cossack, chucking the
trembling girl beneath the chin.
"Hold!" I commanded the half-dozen men who now stood before us, their
swords red with the life-blood of the Revolution. But before I could
utter further word the poor girl was wrenched from my grasp, and the
Cossack was smothering her face with his hot nauseous kisses.
"Hold, I tell you!" I shouted. "Release her, or it is at your own
peril!"
"Hulloa!" they laughed. "Who are you?"--and one of the men raised his
sword to strike me, whilst another held him back, exclaiming, "Let us
hear what he has to say!"
"Then listen!" I said, drawing from my pocket book a folded paper. "Read
this, and look well at the signature. I am a British subject, and this
girl is under my protection!"--and I handed to the man who held little
Luba in his arms my permit to travel hither and thither in Russia, which
the Ambassador in London had signed for me.
The men, astounded at my announcement, read the document beneath the
lamp-light and took counsel among themselves.
"And who, pray, is this Jewess?" inquired one.
"My affianced wife," was my quick reply. "And I command you at once to
take us under safe conduct to General Krasiloff--quickly, without delay.
We took refuge in this place from the Revolution, in which we have taken
no part."
I saw, however, with sinking heart, that one of the men was examining
the bomb-maker's bench, and had recognised the character of what
remained there.
He looked at us, smiled grimly, and whispered something to one of his
companions.
Again in an authoritative tone I demanded to be taken to Krasiloff, and
presently, after being marched as prisoners across the town, past scenes
so horrible that they are still vividly before my eyes, we were taken
into the chief police-office, where the hated official, a fat red-faced
man in a general's uniform--the man without pity or remorse, the
murderer of women and children--was sitting at a table. He greeted me
with a grunt.
"General," I said, addressing him, "I have to present to you this order
of your Ambassador, and to demand safe conduct. Your soldiers found me
and my----"
I hesitated.
"Your pretty Jewess--eh?"--and a smile of sarcasm spread over his fat
face. "Well, go on"--and he took the paper I handed him, knitting his
brows again as his eyes fell upon the British royal arms and the visa.
"We were found in a cellar where we had hidden from the revolt," I said.
"The place has been used for the manufacture of bombs," declared one of
the Cossacks.
The General looked my pretty companion straight in the face.
"What is your name, girl?" he demanded roughly.
"Luba Lazareff."
"Native of where?"
"Of Petersburg."
"What are you doing in Ostrog?"
"She is with me," I interposed. "I demand protection for her."
"I am addressing the prisoner, sir," was his cold remark.
"You refuse to obey the order of the Emperor's representative in London!
Good! Then I shall report you to the Minister," I exclaimed, piqued at
his insolence.
"Speak, girl!" he roared, his black eyes fixed fiercely upon her. "Why
are you in Ostrog? You are no provincial, you know."
"She is my affianced wife," I said, "and in face of my statement and my
passport she need make no reply to any of your questions."
A short, stout little man, shabbily dressed, pushed his way forward to
the table, saying:
"Luba Lazareff is a well-known revolutionist, your Excellency. The
German maker of bombs, Gustave Englebach, is her lover--not this
gentleman. Gustave only left Ostrog yesterday."
The speaker was, I afterwards discovered, one of Hartmann's agents.
"And where is Englebach now? I gave orders for his arrest some days
ago."
"He was found this morning by the patrol on the road to Schumsk,
recognised, and shot, your Excellency."
At this poor little Luba gave vent to a piercing scream and burst into a
torrent of bitter tears.
"You fiends!" she cried. "You have shot my Gustave! He is dead--_dead!_"
"There was no doubt, I suppose, as to his identity?" asked the General.
"None, your Excellency. Some papers found upon the body have been
forwarded to us with the report."
"Then let the girl be shot also. She aided him in the manufacture of the
bombs."
"Shot!" I gasped, utterly staggered. "What do you mean, General? You
will shoot a poor defenceless girl, and in face of my demand for her
protection. I have promised her marriage," I cried in desperation, "and
you condemn her to execution!"
"My Emperor has given me orders to quell the rebellion, and all who make
bombs for use against the Government must die. His Majesty gave me
orders to execute all such," said the official sternly. "You, sir, will
have safe conduct to whatever place you wish to visit. Take the girl
away."
"But, General, reflect a moment whether this is not----"
"I never reflect, sir," he cried angrily, and rising from his chair with
outstretched hand, he snapped:
"How much of my time are you going to lose over the wench? Take her
away, and let it be done at once."
The poor condemned girl, blanched to the lips and trembling from head to
foot, turned quickly to me, and in a few words in French thanked me, and
again kissed my hand, with the brief words, "Farewell; you have done
your best. God will reward you!"
Then, with one accord, we all turned, and together went mournfully forth
into the street.
A lump arose in my throat, for I saw, as the General pointed out, that
my passport did not extend beyond my own person. Luba was a Russian
subject, and therefore under the Russian martial law.
Of a sudden, however, just as we emerged into the roadway, the
unfortunate girl, at whose side I still remained, turned and, raising
her tearful face to mine, kissed me.
Then, before any of us were aware of her intention, she again turned,
wrenched herself free, and rushed back into the room where the General
was still sitting.
The Cossacks dashed after her, but ere they reached the chamber there
was a terrific explosion, the air was filled with debris, the back of
the building was torn completely out, and when a few minutes later I
summoned courage to enter and peep within the wrecked room, I saw a
scene that I dare not describe here in cold print.
Suffice it to say that the bodies of Luba and General Stepan Krasiloff
were unrecognisable, save for the shreds of clothing that still
remained.
Luba had used her bomb in revenge for Gustave's death, and she had freed
Russia of the heartless tyrant who had condemned her to die.
But the man Hartmann--the German "patriot," whose underlings had stirred
up the revolt--was already on his way back to Berlin.
As in France and Russia, so also in England, German Secret agents are,
we have discovered, at work stirring strife in many directions.
One is a dastardly scheme, by which, immediately before a dash is made
upon our shores, a great railway strike is to be organised, ostensibly
by the socialists, in order to further paralyse our trade and render us
in various ways unable to resist the triumphant entry of the foe.
When "the Day" comes, this plot of our friends across the North Sea will
assuredly be revealed, just as the truth was revealed to me at Ostrog.