Events had so crowded the few minutes that I had not had time to think,
except in those flashes of decision necessary in a crisis. My instinct
in such times is to act first and think afterwards. Do something,
whether right or wrong; but do it. And I have often found that the
wrong thing done quickly may be less dangerous than the right thing
done after a too careful deliberation.
The moment the man Vastic lay dead before my eyes, I regretted having
shot him: a regret due not only to a naturally intense repugnance to
take a fellow-creature’s life, but also to reasons of policy. So far
as ethical considerations were concerned, I felt I was justified. He
was going to kill me; and you cannot argue with a six shooter. It would
have been just too soft to have asked him to put his gun down while we
discussed the question of my identity. The positions would have been
reversed. I should have been dead when he realized his mistake, instead
of his being dead when I realized mine; and of the two, I preferred
vastly the present sequence.
What I felt I ought to have done was to have winged and disabled him.
He would have been just as effectually incapable of mischief, and we
should all have been spared the embarrassment of having to deal with
his dead body.
I did not anticipate any serious trouble with the authorities, for
I had no doubt that old Kalkov would be able to arrange the matter.
Vastic was in all probability known to the police; he had been killed
in an attempt upon the life of the man he believed to be the Emperor;
and his death was not unlikely to be welcome enough to the Government.
But there were his comrades to consider; and that they would set about
avenging him there was no room to doubt. There had been an eye-witness
who, unless Ivan caught him, would carry the news straight to them; and
their anger was as certain to fall upon Helga as to be directed against
me.
This prompted a number of disquieting and perplexing considerations.
My first thought was for Helga’s safety; and obviously the only thing
to do was to get her away to some hiding-place where these men would
be unable to find her. To induce her to leave would, however, be so
difficult, that I could think of but one means of influencing her--and
that was to encourage her mistaken belief that I was the Emperor.
It meant deceit on my part; but in such a case the end must justify
the means. She must be saved; and if no other way was open, I must be
content with that.
There was another consideration, moreover. My own safety depended
to a great extent upon these members of the Nihilist brotherhood
continuing to regard me as the Emperor. It was true I should probably
be the object of attack so long as they believed I was virtually at
their mercy at Brabinsk, and divorced from the usual safeguards and
precautions which fenced off the Emperor in the Palace. But that danger
was temporary, and would cease the moment I got back to the Palace, and
resumed my own character.
With the temporary danger I could trust myself to deal, now that I was
forewarned. But if they once got an inkling of the truth, I should be
the object of their vengeance every minute I remained in Russia, and
very possibly afterwards. And I had the greatest possible repugnance
against playing the part of quarry for Nihilist bloodhounds to hunt all
over Europe.
These considerations and many others wove themselves rapidly into the
web of my anxious perplexity as I paced up and down the room, followed
by the staring, fright-filled eyes of the despicable Drexel, whose
cowardly treachery had caused all the trouble. He was so frightened
indeed, that every time I chanced to look at him he would shrink and
cower and hang his head in fear.
“You may well be frightened,” I said at length, turning on him; “for
I’m thinking whether the safest thing to do is not to put a bullet
in your head. Dead men carry no tales.” I spoke with intentional
brutality.
“For the love of God don’t do that, your Majesty. It’s not my fault;
indeed, indeed it isn’t. Oh, God have mercy on me;” and he shuddered in
a veritable paroxysm of terror.
“Are you armed? Turn your pockets out. Quick!” I cried.
The haste with which he complied was almost ludicrous.
“I only carried this for self-protection, your Majesty. You know I have
made no attempt to use it,” he said, as he brought a revolver out of an
inner pocket.
“Not even to try and protect the woman you were to have married. I know
that because I was watching you.”
“Then your Majesty knows I had no chance. I should only have been
killed on the spot.”
“Well, and if you had been? Is that a worse death than at the hands of
the executioner?”
“Oh God, oh God, have mercy on me,” he moaned, covering his craven face
with trembling fingers. It has always disgusted me to see how readily
this type of mangy cur turns his thoughts to the Deity when some
specially infamous act has been followed by discovery.
“Do you think your God likes your kind of work? Get together what
little of a man there is in you, and face the thing. Don’t slobber and
whine like that. You make me sick with disgust.”
He seemed to make such effort as was possible, and after a few moments
ventured to look at me.
“Will your Majesty graciously hear me? I am really innocent. I am
indeed.”
“Prove it. Tell me all you’ve done since last night.”
“I can give your Majesty valuable information.”
“Informer now as well as spy, eh? Answer my question.”
Whether he thought he could read some hope in these words I don’t know,
but he began to show less abject terror.
“I know the secrets of all the people here--M. Boreski and Mademoiselle
Helga. Will your Majesty spare my life if I tell you?”
“Do you think I would make a compact with a thing like you?” I cried in
disgust. “You can tell me nothing I do not already know, except how you
brought Vastic and the other on my track. Tell me that?”
“M. Boreski is a Polish conspirator, and mademoiselle----”
“Stop!” I interposed sternly. “Speak of yourself and your part.”
“It is information your Majesty should have,” he said.
“Damn you, keep to your own part,” I cried furiously, “or to the police
you go under guard at once.”
He shrank back from my fierce words, and his flabby face turned grey
with renewed terror.
“As your Majesty wishes,” he said, when he had recovered sufficiently
to speak. “They have cheated me and lied to me; they made me promises
to buy my silence, and last night quarrelled with me and set me at
defiance. They told me I was free to go and do as I liked. No man can
bear to be cheated. I was mad in my anger, and I went to Vastic and
told him.”
“Told him what?” I demanded, when he paused.
“I was sorry the moment I had spoken, and repented my anger.”
“To the devil with your feelings. What did you do and say?”
“I said that Boreski was false to his oath to the brotherhood.”
The cunning with which he thus got out his charge against Boreski of
being a sworn Nihilist and at the same time coloured the description of
his own act, did not escape me.
“How?” I asked; and he fumbled with the question in dire doubt.
“By failing to report a matter of grave importance to the brotherhood,
your Majesty,” he answered at length.
“What matter?”
“Particulars of your Majesty’s movements.”
“In other words, you told them I was at mademoiselle’s villa, and that
M. Boreski knew it.”
“Not that you _were_, your Majesty--I am no traitor--but that you _had
been_.” He made the distinction eagerly. “I intended to punish Boreski
for his insult to me, not, as God is my judge, to bring any danger upon
your Majesty.”
“You are a bad liar. You brought the men here.”
“No, no, no! your Majesty. On my soul, not in search of you. Besides, I
was in imminent fear of my life. I saw then the mistake I had made in
ever saying a word. They made me accompany them to the villa, and when
we heard Boreski was not there, nor Mademoiselle Helga, they forced me
at the pistol point to seek them here.”
“You knew I had come here?” and I searched his face with angry eyes.
“I--I did not know. How could I know?”
“I _do_ know it,” I said, putting up a bluff. It told. The despair in
his eyes showed me this.
“Vastic would have killed me,” he murmured.
“And you preferred he should kill me. I see.”
“Oh, don’t say that; don’t think it, your Majesty. I am innocent.
Indeed, indeed, I am. Oh, my God, that this should be thought of me;”
and he set up his whining again.
“One more question, and I’ve done with you. How many men came with this
Vastic?”
He showed such unnecessary agitation at the question that I saw he had
still some hidden motive or hope, and I had threatened it.
“Only one, your Majesty; only the man you saw, as I am a living man.”
He was lying, of course; and equally, of course, I must have out of
him the truth on a point of such vital import to us all at Brabinsk. I
thought round his possible motive, and then hit on it.
He was trusting that Vastic’s associates would return to accomplish
the task in which he had failed, and in that case they would of course
rescue the spy who had served them so well.
“You are quite sure that there was only one?” I asked, in an ordinary
tone, as if merely needing a repetition of his statement.
“I could not be mistaken. I swear it. I would not lie to your Majesty
in such a matter,” he asserted eagerly.
“Very well,” I said, and rang the bell. “I have yet to decide what to
do with you for the present.”
When the servant came, I told him to wait and guard Drexel until my
return; and going out, I asked for Ivan, and inquired whether he had
caught the man he had gone after. Unfortunately he had not. Not a trace
of him had he seen, but he had heard the sound of wheels, and concluded
that the man had dashed for the vehicle in which the three had come,
and had galloped off.
This seemed to lend colour to Drexel’s statement; but I had been so
sure of his lying that I went back, resolved to put him to a pretty
severe ordeal.
I sent the servant out of the room, and then looked sternly at the
prisoner, who was staring eagerly at me as if to read his fate in my
face.
“I have made up my mind in regard to you. If you had told me the
truth in answer to my last question, I might have spared you. But you
lied--and that lie will cost you your life.”
I drew my revolver again, and made pretence to examine the cartridge.
“You led these men here in search of me. I know that. I saw you when
you first entered the grounds here, and watched you. For aiding an
attempt on my life the penalty is death, and rightly so. I intend to
inflict the penalty myself. Stand up;” and I levelled the pistol at his
face.
Stand up he could not; he lacked the actual physical strength. He sat
grasping the arms of the chair, staring at me, his eyes wide open and
mouth agape, his lips quivering and his colour dull grey.
“I cannot die; I cannot die. For the love of Almighty God, spare my
life, your Majesty. Oh God, oh God!”
“Stand up,” I thundered; and he winced and shrank and quivered at my
voice. An abject, terror-struck craven, he was at once pitiable and
hateful even to look at. His very voice refused to obey him as he
gasped and gurgled in his effort to speak; but at length he stammered--
“I have lied to you; but spare my life, and I will tell the truth now.
I will, I will, as God is my judge.”
“Quick then, for my finger itches with impatience.”
“We three came alone, as I said, your Majesty; but a number of the
others were to follow us as soon as possible, in case of the scheme
failing and help being needed.”
“How many?”
“I--I don’t know. Eight or ten, or twelve perhaps.”
I laid the pistol down.
“You have saved your life for the while,” I said. “As for the rest, it
will depend upon what occurs here.”
The rush of relief at my words was too great for his overstrung
nerves, and he fainted. I called the servants and ordered them to
restore him, and then bind him and put him in a place of safety.
This done, I hurried in search of Helga, to consult with her upon the
new developments.
I found that she had had Vastic’s body removed to one of the cellars of
the house, and she had entirely recovered her self-composure.
“Your nerve is splendid,” I said admiringly.
“Such a life as mine trains one to face emergencies. What does your
Majesty wish to do?”
“There is a good deal to settle,” I answered, accepting without
protest her method of address. She intended me to understand that her
conviction was firmer than ever; and as I believed I could influence
her with much less difficulty if she held to it, I appeared to
acquiesce.
“You have formed some plan, monsieur?”
“Yes. In my view, the sooner we are all away from this place, the
better;” and I told her briefly what I had forced from Drexel.
“They could do no harm to us here, even if there were a dozen of them,”
she said.
“True, but we should have much more chance of escaping their notice if
we were to travel to the city by night rather than by day.”
She was perplexed by this, and questioned me with her eyes.
“You yourself are now in imminent personal danger, and must lose no
time in getting to a place of safety.”
“Where can we go?”
“To the Palace,” I answered, speaking on the spur of necessity to give
some definite answer; and in truth that seemed the best thing to do.
She started and caught her breath.
“You mean----” She was all anxious eagerness now.
I paused a second, and then took the plunge and answered with
deliberate significance--
“After what has passed here, your safety is now my concern and your
desires are mine.”
She read my words in the way I intended. She turned slightly pale, and
in her agitation caught at the back of the chair by which she stood.
“Thank God,” I heard her whisper under her breath.
I felt pretty mean at the trick I was playing, when I saw how she took
it; but I had persuaded myself there was no other way, and held firm.
“I have not trusted you in vain,” she said, after the pause. “Your
Majesty has but to speak your wishes; it is for me to obey;” and she
gave me one of her sweet, frank smiles.
I felt meaner than ever; but I was in up to the neck, and deliberately
plunged deeper. Under an impulse I could not control, for her smile and
words of trust carried me away, I took her hand.
“Is it the Emperor you trust, Helga, or the man?” I asked, in a voice
low with passion.
“It is you, monsieur;” and again she lifted her glorious eyes to my
face, and then withdrew them on meeting my look.
“May God deal with me as I merit, if I desert you.”
We stood thus for a moment, when, at the sound of some one approaching
the room, she drew away from me, with a glance and a sigh.
It was Ivan with news.
“We have heard the sound of some one driving furiously toward the
house, my lord. What shall we do?”
“I will come,” I answered, and he hurried away.
“You will run no risks, monsieur?” cried Helga swiftly and anxiously.
“I have too much at stake--now,” I answered, out of the earnestness of
my heart. “God send we may all get out of this safely. I will arrange
with Ivan for our leaving. Will you get ready?”
“I will do everything you wish.”
The words were in my ears as I hurried out and up the staircase to the
room where Ivan was keeping watch. I had my plan. I would take Helga
with me back to the Palace at all risks, get an audience with the
Emperor, and lay the whole affair, her story and all, before him, and
ask his protection. In truth, I was mad enough just then to venture
anything.
These things rushed through my head as I ran up to Ivan.
“All is well, my lord,” he said, coming to meet me. “It is M. Boreski.”
“Good,” I exclaimed. “Now we shall know more of the truth.” A remark
far more disastrously true than I could have anticipated.
When I went downstairs again, Boreski had already been admitted, and
was with Helga. All impatience for his news I entered the room; and
opening the door, started.
A third person was there: a tall woman in black, heavily veiled.
“Good-evening, M. Boreski; you are welcome. What news do you bring?”
“Good-evening, monsieur,” he replied, and I noticed restraint in his
tone and manner.
Helga too was looking at me curiously. I smiled to her, but, instead of
replying, she looked to the woman in black.
“Well?” she asked. I began to scent mischief.
The woman threw up her veil, and I saw she was well on in years, pale
and plain, but had an air of distinction.
“Do you know me, monsieur?”
“No, madame. To the best of my knowledge, I have never had the pleasure
of seeing you in my life.”
She shrugged her shoulders and Boreski threw up his hands.
A pale shadow crept over Helga’s face.
“Are you quite sure, monsieur?”
“I am positive, mademoiselle.”
“And so am I,” said the new-comer, with a touch of scorn. “That is no
more the Emperor than I am.”
I saw things then. There was a moment’s critical silence. Then Helga
broke it, speaking in a chill, cutting tone.
“This is the Duchess Stephanie--M. Boreski’s wife.”
“Exactly,” I answered; and for the life of me, acute as the situation
had suddenly become, I could not for the time get out another word to
redeem it.
The cold, hard look in Helga’s eyes as she faced me was for the
time unendurable, and I turned my head away in sheer tongue-tied
embarrassment.