THE PRISON YARD
The great gates of the prison yard rolled back to admit the carriage in
which Alban had been driven from the hotel, and a cordon of
straight-backed officials immediately surrounded it. Early as the hour
was, the meanest servant whom Zaniloff commanded had work to do and well
understood the urgency of his task. The night had been one long story of
plot and counterplot; of Revolutionaries fleeing from street to street,
Cossacks galloping upon their heels, houses awakened and doors beaten
down, the screams and cries of women, the savage anger of men. And all
this, not upon the famous avenues which knew little of the new emeute,
but down in the narrow alleys of the old city where bulging gables hid
the sight from a clear heaven of stars and the crazy eaves had husbanded
the cries.
There had been a civil battle fought and many were the prisoners. Not a
cell about that great yard but had not its batch of ragged, shivering
wretches whose backs were still bloody, whose wounds were still unbound.
The quadrangle itself served, as a Cossack jocularly remarked, for the
overflow meeting. Here you might perceive many types of men-students,
still defiant, sage lawyers given to the parley, ragged vermin of the
slums gathering their rags close about their shoulders as though to
protect them from the lash; timid apostles of the gospel of humanity
cowering before human fiends--thus the yard and its environment. For
Alban, however, the place might not have existed. His eyes knew nothing
of this grim spectacle. He followed the Chief to the upper rooms,
remembering only that Lois was here.
They passed down a gloomy corridor and entered a lofty room high up on
the third floor of the station. Two spacious windows gave them a fine
view of the yard below with all its gregarious misery. There was a table
here covered by a green baize cloth, and an officer in uniform writing
at it. He stood and saluted Zaniloff with a gravity fine to see. The
Chief, in turn, nodded to him and drew a chair to the table. When he had
found ink and paper he began the interrogation which should help his
dossier.
"You are an Englishman and your age is"--he waited and turned to Alban.
"My age is just about twenty-one."
"You were born in England?"
"In London; I was born in London."
"And you now live?"
"With Mr. Richard Gessner at Hampstead."
So it went--interminable question and answer, of the most trivial kind.
It seemed an age before they came to the vital issue.
"And what do you know of this crime which has been committed?"
"I know nothing--how could I know anything."
"Pardon me, you were yesterday in company of the girl who is charged
with its commission."
"The charge is absurd--I am sure of it."
"We shall decide that for ourselves. You visited her upon the barge of
the German merchant, Petermann. He is now in custody and has confessed
as much. What did she say to you when you were alone with her?"
"She asked me to help to set her father free."
"An honest admission--we shall do very well, I see. When she spoke of
his excellency the Count, she said--"
"I am not afraid to tell you. She did not like him and asked me to take
her away from Warsaw, disguised as my servant."
"That was not clever, sir. As if we should not have known--but I pass it
by. You left her and then--"
"I spent the day with the Count and returned with him to the hotel at
three o'clock in the morning."
"There was no one with him, then?"
"Yes, his valet was with him."
"Did you leave them together when you went to bed?"
"He always helped the Count to undress. I cannot remember where I left
him."
"You have not a good memory, I perceive."
"Not for that which happened at three o'clock in the morning."
Zaniloff permitted the merest suspicion of a smile to lurk about the
corners of a sensual mouth.
"It is difficult," he said dryly--and then, "your memory will be better
later on. Did the girl tell you that his excellency would be
assassinated?"
"You know very well that she did not."
"I know?"
"Certainly, you have had too much experience not to know."
"Most flattering--please do not mistake me. I am asking you these
questions because I wish that justice shall be done. If you can do
nothing to clear Lois Boriskoff, I am afraid that we shall have to flog
her."
"That would be a cowardly thing to do. It would also be very foolish.
She has many friends both here and in England. I don't think they will
forget her."
"Wild talk, Mr. Kennedy, very wild talk. I see that you will not help
me. We must let the Governor know as much and he will decide. I warn you
at the same time that it will go very hard with you if the Count should
die--and as for this woman, we will try other measures. She must
certainly be flogged."
"If you do that, I myself will see that her friends in England know
about it. The Governor will never be so foolish--that is, if he wishes
to save Mr. Gessner."
"Gessner--Gessner--I hear the name often--pardon me, I have not the
honor of his acquaintance."
"Telegraph to the Minister at St. Petersburg and he will tell you who
Mr. Gessner is. I think you would be wise to do so."
Zaniloff could make nothing of it. The cool effrontery of this mere
stripling was unlike anything he had heard at the bureau in all the
years he had served authority. Why, the bravest men had gone down on
their knees to him before now and almost shrieked for mercy. And here
was this bit of an English boy plucking the venerable beard of Terror as
unconcernedly as though he were a sullen-eyed Cossack with a nagaika in
his hand. Assuredly he could be no ordinary traveller. And why did he
harp upon this name Gessner, Richard Gessner! Reflection brought it to
Zaniloff's mind that he had heard the name before. Yes, it had been
mentioned in a dossier from the Ministry of Justice. He thought again
and recalled other circumstances. The Government had been anxious to do
the man a service--they had commanded the arrest of the Boriskoffs--why,
at this very Gessner's bidding! And had not the Count warned him to
treat the young Englishman as his own son--merely to play a comedian's
part and to frighten him before opening the doors with profuse
apologies. Zaniloff did not like the turn affairs had taken. He
determined to see the Governor-General without a moment's loss of time.
Meanwhile there could be no earthly reason why the girl should not be
flogged. Whatever happened the Minister would approve that.
"It shall be done as you advise," he rejoined presently, the admission
passing for an excellent joke. "The telegram shall be dispatched
immediately. While we are waiting for an answer I will command them to
bring you some breakfast to my own private room. Meanwhile, as I say,
the girl must be flogged."
Alban shrugged his shoulders.
"I did not believe that you could possibly be so foolish," he said.
It puzzled Zaniloff altogether. Searching that open face with eyes
accustomed to read many human stories, he could discern neither emotion
nor anger, but just an honest man's faith in his own cause and a sure
belief that it must triumph. Whatever Alban might really feel, the
sickening apprehension of which he was the victim, the almost
overmastering desire to take this ruffian by the throat and strangle him
as he sat, not a trace of it could be discerned either in his speech or
his attitude. "He stood before me like a dog which has barked and is
waiting to bite," Zaniloff said afterwards. "I might as well have
threatened to flog the statue of Sobiesky in the Castle gardens." This
impression, however, he was careful to conceal from the prisoner.
Official dignity never argues--especially when it is getting the worst
of the deal.
"My wisdom is not for us to discuss," he snapped; "please to remember
that I am in authority here and allow no one to question what I do. You
will remain in my room until I return, sir. Afterwards it must be as the
Governor decides."
He took up his papers and whispering a few words to the stolid secretary
he left the room and went clanking down the corridor. The officer who
remained seemed principally concerned in driving the flies from his bald
head and from the documents he compiled so laboriously. Stopping from
time to time to shape a quill pen to his liking, he would write a few
lines carefully, kill a number of flies, take a peep at Alban from
beneath his shaggy brows and then resume the cycle of his labors. Alban
pitied him cynically. This labor of docketing scarred backs seemed
wretchedly monotonous. He was really glad when the fellow spoke to him,
in as amazing a combination of tongues as man had ever heard:
"Mein Herr--pardon--what shall you say--comment a dire--for the
English--Moskowa?"
"We say Moscow, sir."
"Ah--Mosk--Mosk-nitchevo--je ne m'en souviens jamais."
He continued to write as though laboring under an incurable
disappointment. That Alban knew what Moskowa meant was not surprising,
for he had heard the word so often in Union Street. Here in this very
courtyard, far below his windows, were the sons and the brothers of
those who had preached revolution in England. How miserable they
looked--great hordes of them, all crouching in the shadow of the wall to
save their lacerated skins from the burning sunshine. Verily did they
resemble sheep driven into pens for the slaughter. As for the Cossacks
who moved in and out among them, there was hardly a moment which found
their whips at rest. Standing or sitting, you could not escape the
dreadful thongs--lashes of raw hide upon a core of wires, leaded at the
end and cutting as knives. Sometimes they would strike at a huddled form
as though they resented its mute confession of overwhelming misery. An
upturned face almost invariably invited a cut which laid it open from
forehead to chin. And not only this, but there were ordered floggings,
one of which Alban must witness as he stood at the window above, too
fascinated by the horror of the spectacle to move away and not unwilling
to know the truth.
Many police assisted at this--driving their victims before them to a
rude bench in the centre of the yard. There was neither strap nor
triangle. They threw their man down and held him across the plank,
gripping his wrists and ankles and one forcing his head to the floor.
The whip of a single lash, wired to cut and leaded everywhere, fell
across the naked flesh with a sound of a cane upon a board. Great welts
were left at the very first blow, torn flesh afterwards and sights not
to be recounted. The most stolid were broken to shrieks and screams
despite their resolutions. The laugh upon defiant lips became instantly
a terrible cry seeming to echo the ultimate misery. As they did to these
poor wretches so would they do to Lois, Alban said. He was giddy when a
voice called him from the window and he almost reeled as he turned.
"Well, what do you want with me?"
"I am to take you to the cell of the girl Lois Boriskoff, mein Herr.
Please to follow me."
An official, well dressed in civilian's clothes, spoke to him this time
and with a sufficient knowledge of the English language. The bald-headed
secretary still snapped up the unconsidered insectile trifles which
troubled his paper. Alban, his heart thumping audibly, followed the
newcomer from the room and remembered only that he was going to Lois.