ALBAN RETURNS TO LONDON
They returned to the great courtyard, but not to Zaniloff's room as the
promise had been. Here by the gates there stood a passable private
carriage, and into this Alban perceived that he was to be hustled. The
bestarred transcriber of the upper story, he who waged the battle of the
flies, now stood by the carriage door and appeared to be ill at ease.
Evidently his study of strange tongues still troubled him.
"Pardon, mein Herr--how in English--khorosho?" he asked very
deferentially.
"It means 'that's all right,' sir." Alban answered immediately.
"It means that,--ah, nitchevo--je ne m'en souviens jamais."
He held the door open and Alban entered the carriage without a word.
Apparently they still waited for someone and five minutes passed and
found their attitudes unchanged. Then Zaniloff himself appeared full of
bustle and business but in a temper modified toward concession.
"I am taking you back to your hotel, mein Herr," he said to Alban, "it
is the Governor's order. You will leave Warsaw to-night. Those are our
instructions."
He sank back in the cushions and the great gates were shut behind them
with a sonorous clang. Out in the streets the outbreak of the earlier
hours had been a veritable battle but was now a truce. The whole city
seemed to be swarming with troops. Well might Zaniloff think of other
things.
"Is the Count better, sir?" Alban ventured presently.
"He will live," was the dry response, "at least the doctors say so."
"And you have discovered the truth about the affair?"
"The man who attacked him was shot on the Rymarska half an hour ago."
"Then that is why you are taking me back to my hotel?"
"There is positively no other reason," said the Chief.
The statement was frank to the point of brutality, but it carried also
such a message of hope that Alban hardly dared to repeat the words of it
even to himself; there was no longer any possibility of a capital charge
against the child he had just left in the wretched stable. Let the other
facts be as they might, these people could not detain Lois Boriskoff
upon the Count's affair or add it to the dossier in which her father's
offences were narrated. Of this Zaniloff's tone convinced him. "He would
never have admitted it at all if Lois were compromised," the argument
ran, and was worthy of the wise head which arrived at it.
"I am glad that you have found the man," he explained presently, "it
clears up so much and must be very satisfactory. Would you have any
objection to telling me what you are going to do with the girl I have
just left?"
Zaniloff smiled.
"I have no objection at all. When the Ministry at St. Petersburg
condescends to inform me, you shall share my information. At present I
am going to keep her under lock and key, and if she is obstinate I am
going to flog her."
"Do the people at St. Petersburg wish you to do that?"
"I do not consult their feelings," was the curt reply.
They fell to silence once more and the carriage rolled on through the
busy streets. It had escaped Alban's notice hitherto, that an escort of
Cossacks accompanied them, but as they turned into the great avenue he
caught a glimpse of bright accoutrements and of horsemen going at a
gentle canter. The avenue itself was almost deserted save by the
ever-present infantry who lined its walks as though some great cavalcade
were to pass. When they had gone another hundred paces, the need for the
presence of the soldiers declared itself in a heap of blackened ruins
and a great fire still smouldering. Zaniloff smiled grimly when they
passed the place.
"Half an hour ago that was the palace of my namesake, the Grand Duke
Sergius," he said, almost as though the intelligence were a matter of
personal satisfaction to him.
Alban looked at the smouldering ruins and could not help remembering the
strange threats he had heard in Union Street on the very eve of his
departure from England. Had any of the old mad orators a hand in this?
Those wild figures of the platforms and the slums, had they achieved so
much, if indeed it were achievement at all?
"They are fools to make war upon bricks and mortar," Zaniloff remarked
in his old quiet way.
"I told them so in London, sir."
"You told them; do you enjoy the honor of their acquaintance then?"
"I know as much about them as any of your people, and that is saying a
good deal. They are very ignorant men who are suffering great wrongs. If
your government would make an effort to learn what the world is thinking
about to-day, you would soon end all this. But you will never do it by
the whip, and guns will not help you."
Zaniloff laid a hand upon his shoulder almost in a kindly way.
"My honor alone forbids me to believe that," he exclaimed.
They arrived at the hotel while he spoke and passed immediately to the
private apartments above. A brief intimation that Alban must consider
himself still a prisoner and not leave his rooms under any
circumstances, whatever, found a ready acquiescence from one who had
heard an echo in Lois' words of his own farewell to Russia. That the
authorities would detain him he did not believe, and he knew that his
long task was not here. He must return to England and save Lois. How or
by what means he could not say; for the ultimate threat, so lightly
spoken, affrighted him when he was alone and left him a coward. How,
indeed, if he went to the fanatics of Union Street and said to
them,--"Richard Gessner is your enemy; strike at him." There would be
vengeance surely, but he had received too many kindnesses at Hampstead
that he should contemplate such an infamy. And what other course lay
before him? He could not say, his life seemed lived. Neither ambition
nor desire, apart from the prison he had left, remained to him.
The French valet Malette waited upon him in his rooms and gave him such
news of the Count as the sentinels of the sick-room permitted. Oh, yes,
his excellency was a little better. He had spoken a few words and asked
for his English friend. Nothing was known of the madman who struck him
save that which the papers in his pocket told them. The fellow had been
shot as he left the Grand Duke's palace; some thought that he had been
formerly in the Count's service and that this was merely an act of
vengeance, _mais terrible_, as Malette added with emphasis. Later on his
excellency would be able to tell the story for himself. His grand
constitution had meant very much to him to-day.
The interview took place at three o'clock in the afternoon, the doctors
having left their patient, and the perplexed Zaniloff being again at the
prison. The bed had now been wheeled a little way from the window and
the room set in pleasant order by clever and willing hands. The Count
himself had lost none of his courage. The attack in truth had nerved him
to believe that he had nothing further to fear in Warsaw, for who would
think about a man already as good as buried by the newspapers. Here was
something to help the surgeons and bring some little flush of color to
the patient's pallid cheeks. He spoke as a man who had been through the
valley of the shadow and had suffered little inconvenience by the
journey.
"I am forbidden to talk," he said to Alban, and immediately began to
talk in defiance of a nurse's protests.
"So you have been to prison, mon vieux; well, it is so much experience
for you, and experience is useful. I have done a good morning's work, as
you see. Imagine it. I open my door to a policeman, and when I ask him
what he has got for me, he whips out a butcher's knife and makes a
thrust at my ribs. Happily for me, I come from a bony race. The surgeons
have now gone to fight a duel about it. One is for septic pneumonia, the
other for the removal of the lungs. I shall be out of Poland in my
beautiful France by the time they agree."
He flushed with the exertion and cast reproachful eyes upon the nurse
who stood up to forbid his further eloquence. Alban, in turn, began to
tell him of the adventure of the morning.
"It was a Jack and Jill business, except that Jill does not come
tumbling after," he said. "What is going to happen I cannot tell you.
Lois will not leave Poland until her father is released, and I have it
from her that he never will be released. Don't you see, Count, that Mr.
Gessner is a fool to play with fire like this. Does he believe that this
secret will be kept because these two are in prison? I know that it will
not. If he is to be saved, it must be by generosity and courage. I
should have thought he would have known it from the beginning. Let him
act fairly by old Paul Boriskoff and I will answer for his safety. If he
does not do so, he must blame himself for the consequences."
"Pride never blames itself, Kennedy, even when it is foolish. I like
your wisdom and shall give a good account of it. Of course, there is the
other side of the picture, and that is not very pretty. How can we
answer for the man, even if he be generously dealt with? More important
still, how can we answer for the woman?"
"I will answer for her, Count."
"You, my dear boy. How can you do that?"
"By making her my wife."
"Do you say this seriously?"
"I say it seriously."
"But why not at Hampstead before we left England. That would have made
it easier for us all."
"I would try to tell you, but you would not understand. Perhaps I did
not know then what I know now. There are some things which we only learn
with difficulty, lessons which it needs suffering to teach us."
A sharp spasm, almost of pain, crossed the Count's face.
"That is very true," he exclaimed, "please do not think I am deficient
in understanding. It has been necessary for you to come to Poland to
discover where your happiness lay?"
"Yes, it has been necessary."
"Do you understand, that this would mean the termination of your good
understanding with my friend Gessner. You could not remain in his house
naturally."
"I have thought of that. It will be necessary for me to leave him as you
say. But I have been an interloper from the beginning, and I do not see
how I could have remained. While everything was new to me, while I
lived in Wonderland, I never gave much thought to it; but here when I
begin to think, I am no longer in doubt. How could I shut myself up in a
citadel of riches and know that so many of my poor people were starving
not ten miles from my door. I would feel as though I had gone into the
enemy's camp and sold myself for the gratification of a few silly
desires and a whole pantomime of show which a decent man must laugh at.
It is better for me to have done with it once and for all and try to get
my own living. Lois will give me the right to work, if she ever wins her
liberty, which I doubt. You could help her to do so, if you were
willing, Count."
"I, what influence have I?"
"As much as any man in Poland, I should say."
"Ah, you appeal to my vanity. I wish it could respond. Frankly, my
Government will be little inclined to clemency, just now at any rate.
Why should it be? These people are burning down our houses, why should
we help them to build their own? Your old friend Boriskoff was as
dangerous a man as any in Poland, why should they let him go just
because an English banker wishes it."
"They will let him go because he is more dangerous in prison than out of
it. In London I could answer for him. I could not answer while he is at
Petersburg."
"My dear lad, we must really make you Master of all these pretty
ceremonies. I'll speak to Zaniloff." He laughed lightly, for the idea of
this mere stripling being of any use to his Government amused him
greatly. His apologies for the indulgence, however, were not to be
spoken, for the blood suddenly rushed from his cheeks, and the good
nurse intervened in some alarm.
"Please to leave him," she said to Alban in French. He obeyed her
immediately, seeing that he had been wrong to stay so long.
"I will come again when you permit me. Please let me know when his
excellency is better."
She promised him that she would do so, and he returned to his own rooms.
He was not, however, to see the Count again until he met him many years
afterwards in Paris. The distressed Zaniloff himself carried the amazing
news, some two hours later.
"You are to leave for London by the evening mail," the Chief said
shortly, "a berth has been reserved for you, and I myself will see you
into the train. Do not complain of us, Mr. Kennedy. I can assure you
that there are many cities more agreeable than Warsaw at the present
moment."
Alban was not surprised, nor would he argue upon it. He realized that
his labors in Poland had been in vain. If he could save Lois from the
prison, he must do so in London, in the alleys and dens he had so long
deserted. Not toward Wonderland, not at the shrines of riches, but as an
exile returned to labor with the humblest, must this journey carry him.
And he bowed his head to destiny and believed that he stood alone
against the world.