A FIGURE IN THE STRAW
A little light filtered down through the crevices and betrayed the
secrets of that strange refuge in all their amazing simplicity. Here was
neither costly furniture nor any adornment whatsoever. A thick carpet of
straw, giving flecks of gold wherever the sunlight struck down upon it,
had been laid to such a depth that a grown man might have concealed
himself therein. A few empty bales stood here and there as though thrown
down at hazard; there were coils of rope and great blocks of timber used
by the stevedores who loaded the barges. But of the common things of
daily life not a trace. No tables, no chairs, neither bed nor blanket
adorn this rude habitation. Let a sergeant of police open his lantern
there and the tousled straw would answer him in mockery. This, for a
truth, had been the case. Little Lois could tell a tale of Cossacks on
the barge, even of rifles fired down into the hold, and of a child's
heart beating so quickly that she thought she must cry out for very pain
of it. But that was before the men were told that the ship belonged to
merry Herr Petermann. They went away at once then--to drink the old
fellow's beer and to laugh with him.
That had been a terrible day and Lois had never forgotten it. Whenever
old Petermann opened the door of his office now, she would start and
tremble as though a Cossack's hand already touched her shoulder.
Sometimes she lay deep down in the straw, afraid to declare herself even
though a friend's voice called her. And so it was upon that morning of
Alban's visit.
Old Petermann had shut the cabin door behind him and discreetly left the
young people together. Seeing little in the deep gloom and his eyes
blinking wherever he turned them, Alban stood almost knee-deep in straw
and cried Lois' name aloud.
"Lois--where are you, Lois--why don't you answer me?"
She crept from the depths at his very feet and shaking the straw from
her pretty hair, she stood upright and put both her hands upon his
shoulders.
"I am here, Alb dear, just waiting for you. Won't you kiss me, Alb
dear?"
He put his arms about her neck and kissed her at her wish--just as a
brother might have kissed a sister in the hour of her peril.
"I came at once, Lois," he said, "of course I did not understand that it
would be like this. Why are you here? Whatever has happened--what does
it all mean? Will you not teach me to understand, Lois?"
"Sit by my side, Alb dear, sit down and listen to me. I want you to know
what your friends have been doing. Oh, I have been so lonely, so
frightened, and I don't deserve that. You know that my father is in
prison, Alb--the Count told you that?"
"I heard it before I left England, Lois. You did not answer my letters?"
"I was ashamed to, dear. That was the first thing they taught me at the
school--to be ashamed to write to you until you would not be ashamed to
read my letters. Can't you understand, Alb? Wasn't I right to be
ashamed?"
She buried her head upon his breast and put a little hot hand into his
own. A great tenderness toward her filled his whole being and brought a
sense of happiness very foreign to him lately. How gentle and kindly
this little waif of fortune had ever been. And how even those few weeks
of a better schooling had improved her. She had shed all the old
vulgarities--she was just a simple schoolgirl as he would have wished
her to be.
"We are never right to be ashamed before those who love us," Alban said
kindly; "you did not write to me and how was I to know what had
happened? Of course, your father told you what I had been doing and why
I went away from Union Street? It was all his kindness. I know it now
and I have come to Russia to thank him--when he is free. That won't be
very long now that I have found you. They were frightened of you,
Lois--they thought you were going to betray their secrets to the
Revolutionary party. I knew that you would not do so--I said so all
along."
She looked up at him with glowing eyes, and putting her lips very close
to his ear she said:
"I loved you, Alb--I never could have told them while I loved you--not
even to save my father, and God knows how much I love him. Did not they
say that you were very happy with Mr. Gessner? There would have been no
more happiness if I had told them."
"And that is what kept you silent, Lois?"
She would not answer him, but hiding her face again, she asked him a
question which surprised him greatly.
"Do you know why the police wished to arrest me, Alb dear?"
"How could I know that, Lois?"
"It was the Count who told them to do so. He is only deceiving you,
dear. He does not want to release my father and will never do so. If I
were in prison too, he thinks that Mr. Gessner would be quite safe. Do
not trust the Count if you would help us. My people understand him and
they will punish him some day. He has done a great wrong to many in
Warsaw, and he deserves to be punished. You must remember this, dear,
when he promises my father's freedom. He is not telling you the
truth--he is only asking you to punish me."
"But, Lois, what have you done, what charge can they bring against a
little schoolgirl?"
"I am my father's daughter," she said proudly, "that is why they would
punish me. Oh, you don't know, dear. Even the little children are
criminals in Warsaw. My father escaped from Saghalen and I have no right
to live in Russia. When he sent me to school here, I did not come under
my own name, they called me Lois Werner and believed I was a German.
Then my people heard that Count Sergius wished to have me arrested, and
they took me away from the school and brought me here. Herr Petermann is
one of my father's oldest friends. He has saved a great many who would
be in prison but for his kindness. We can trust Herr Petermann, dear--he
will never betray us."
Alban understood, but he had no answer ready for her. All that she had
told him filled him with unutterable contempt toward the men he had but
lately considered as his patrons and his friends. The polished, courtly
Sergius, his master Richard Gessner--to what duplicity had they not
stooped, nay, to what treachery? For they had sent him into Russia, not
to befriend this child, but to put the ultimate shame of a Russian
prison upon her--the cell, the lash, the unnamable infamy. As in a flash
he detected the whole conspiracy and laid it bare. He, Alban Kennedy,
had been chosen as their instrument--he had been sent to Poland to
condemn this little friend of the dreadful years to the living death in
a Russian prison. The blood raced in his veins at the thought. Perhaps
for the first time in his life he knew the meaning of the word anger.
"Lois," he exclaimed presently, "if Mr. Gessner does not set your father
free, I myself will tell your people. That is the message I am going to
send to him to-day. Count Sergius will not lie to me again--I shall tell
him so when I return."
She started up in wild alarm.
"You must not do it--I forbid it," she cried, closing her white arms
about his neck as though to protect him already from his enemies. "Oh,
my dear, you do not know the Russian people, you do not know what it
means to stand against the police here and have them for your enemies.
Mr. Gessner is their friend. The Government would do a great deal to
serve him--my father says so. If Count Sergius heard that you had met
me, we should both be in prison this night--ah, dear God, what a prison,
what suffering--and I have seen it myself, the women cowering from the
lash, the men beaten so that they cut the flesh from their faces. That's
what happens to those who go against the Government, dear Alb--but not
to you because you love me."
She clung to him hysterically, for this long vigil had tried her nerves
and the shadow of discovery lay upon her always. It had been no surprise
to her to find Alban in Warsaw, for the Revolutionary Committee in
London had informed her friends by cable on the very day that Count
Sergius had left. She knew exactly how he had come, where he had
stopped, and when to seek him out. But now that his arms were about her,
she dreaded a new separation and was almost afraid to release his hand
from hers.
"You will not leave me, Alban," she said--a new dignity coming to her
suddenly as though some lesson, not of the school, but of life, had
taught it to her--"you will take me to London with you--yes, yes, dear,
as your servant. That is what my friends wish, they have thought it all
out. I am to go as your servant and you must get a passport for me--for
Lois Werner, and then if you call me by my own name no one will know.
There we can see Mr. Gessner together and speak of my father. I will
promise him that his secret shall never be known. He will trust me,
Alban, because I promise him."
Alban stooped and kissed her upon the lips.
"No," he said, "the work must be done here in Russia, Lois. I am called
to do it and I go now. Let me find you at the same time to-morrow, and I
will tell you what I have done. God bless you, Lois. It is happiness to
be with you again."
Their lips met, their arms unclasped reluctantly. A single tap upon the
panel of the cabin brought that merry old fellow, Herr Petermann, to
open to them. Alban told him in a sentence what had happened and
hastened back to the hotel.