[Illustration: “THEY HAD COME UP TO THE HEADLAND, WHEREFROM THEY
COULD OVERLOOK THE STRANGE HAVEN INTO WHICH DESTINY HAD CAST THEM”]
KRONSTADT
BEING THE STORY OF MARIAN BEST
AND OF PAUL ZASSULIC, HER LOVER,
TOGETHER WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF
THE RUSSIAN FORTRESS OF KRONSTADT,
AND OF THOSE WHO WOULD
HAVE BETRAYED IT
BY
MAX PEMBERTON
_Author of “A Puritan’s Wife,” “The Sea Wolves,”
“The Iron Pirate,” “The Impregnable City,” etc._
With a Map, and 8 Full-Page Illustrations by A. Forestier
_TENTH THOUSAND_
CASSELL and COMPANY, Limited
London, Paris, New York & Melbourne
1898
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
[COPYRIGHT]
First Edition _April_ 1898.
Reprinted _April_ 1898, May 1898.
[DEDICATION]
To My Wife.
CONTENTS.
Prologue
Chapter I. The Masquerade upon the Ice
Chapter II. “A Spy within the Gate”
Chapter III. At the coming of the Light
Chapter IV. Lover and Judge
Chapter V. Foreboding
Chapter VI. The Honour of Paul Zassulic
Chapter VII. Paul bears Witness
Chapter VIII. After Forty Days
Chapter IX. Out of the Darkness
Chapter X. Temptation
Chapter XI. The Beginning of the Flight
Chapter XII. The Citadel Awakes
Chapter XIII. At the Zenith of the Night
Chapter XIV. The Terrible Night
Chapter XV. Upon the Nameless Island
Chapter XVI. Alone
Chapter XVII. Forsaken of All
Chapter XVIII. A Strange Figure on the Shore
Chapter XIX. The Quest of the Woman
Chapter XX. The Ship of the Golden Cross
Chapter XXI. Acheron of the Waters
Chapter XXII. Prisoner of Love
Chapter XXIII. The Unforeseen
Chapter XXIV. Toward the Light
Chapter XXV. The Word of Tolma
Chapter XXVI. The Evening of the Second Day
Chapter XXVII. At Midnight
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
“They had come up to the Headland, wherefrom they could overlook the
strange Haven into which destiny had cast them”
Sketch Map of Kronstadt and its Surroundings
“Conspicuous upon the Field of the Frozen Sea stood the Palace of Ice”
“But Marian did not hear him. She had Fallen in a Swoon”
“Kronstadt herself Stood Silhouetted as an Island of Rock and
Pinnacles”
“She bounded forward into the heart of the Breakers”
“The Procession advanced slowly”
“On toward the Sea he bore her”
“Silently, determinedly, they fell upon the fugitive, and threw him to
the ground”
[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF KRONSTADT AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.]
KRONSTADT.
PROLOGUE.
Someone cried out that the flashing light we saw upon the far
horizon was Tollboken itself, and at this we left the quarter-deck and
hurried to the bows of the ship. Even the invalid clergyman, who had
not been more than an hour at the tea table, came panting up the
companion and stood with us while the beacon magnified and gained
majesty, and other lights shone over the vista of the waters, and the
black line of the island fortress took shape as some terrible
mausoleum of the sea. We had made Kronstadt at last--the Kronstadt of
my dreams. While others turned the pages of their guide-books, while
some were ready with history and some with anecdote, I gazed entranced
as the mighty citadel shaped itself against the lurid canopy of cloud
which hung in the eastern sky, and all the outward power and sullen
magnificence were revealed to me. I stood at the gate of Russia
indeed, at the impregnable gate, which the summons of war will never
open. The exclamations of wonder uttered by my companions seemed the
lispings of credulous children. The chatter of the tourist was like a
horrid discord in the temple of majestic silence. I had the wish to be
apart from my fellows, to stand in some place of solitude and offer
the worship of the imagination at the altar where I had worshipped in
spirit so many months.
A Russian stood at my side, a young officer of artillery, who spoke
English with some fluency. He had found our pleasure yacht at
Copenhagen, and had taken passage with us to the island of Kronstadt,
where his duty lay. We had found him a pleasant companion--a man who
gave his laughter no holiday. But when the shores of the gulf began to
draw in toward one another, and the lights of the great citadel
flashed upon the horizon, I observed that the Russian was silent. Awe
of his own home possessed him. He leaned heavily upon the bulwarks of
the yacht, and had no eyes but for the ramparts and bastions before
him. When I spoke to him he came down from some high place of the
imagination to answer me; moments of time passed before he realised
that he stood upon the deck of a ship, and that gaping tourists were
his companions.
“Forgive me,” he said, while he watched the group contemptuously. “You
asked me----?”
“If those two lights to the right of Tollboken are the lights of
Menzikoff?”
The question interested him, and after a word of surprise that I knew
the name of the harbour fort, he began to explain many things to me.
“Yes,” he said, “that is Menzikoff, though the lights are not the
lights of the fort but of the harbour gates. The seven-fathom channel
is there, and that flashing light, still more to the right, is the
lantern upon the fort of Kronslott. Away a little to the south is Fort
Paul, and that battery which crosses its fire is Battery 3. You see
how well we protect the channel, which is no more than three hundred
yards wide, though covered by a hundred guns.”
I asked him how long the island was, questioning at the same time the
accuracy of the statement that the southern channel was so narrow.
“I should have given it a breadth of at least a mile, but of course
there are shallows.”
“Exactly; the Oranienbaum spit runs out as far as Kronslott itself. It
is a spur of sand creating shallows--another barrier which nature has
put between Russia and her enemies. Though I am a Russian, and my word
may be the word of prejudice, I say that there is not in all the world
another citadel such as this; there is not one stamped out of the
earth so clearly, a work of God unmistakable, for the defence of an
empire. Observe the great bay into which we are sailing. It is in the
shape of a V; the mouth turned toward the Baltic, the apex toward our
capital. Kronstadt itself is also V-shaped, but the mouth of the
letter is now turned toward Petersburg, the apex toward the open sea.
Observe this clearly and you will see how the island, fitting into the
neck of the gulf, becomes a vast and natural wedge which foreign ships
may never pass. If they come by the north channel, there is the great
boom of granite which a hundred navies could not destroy. If they
attack us by the south channel, there are the guns of all the forts, a
tremendous armament, which would crumble cities to the dust. No, my
friend, you may search all seas and you will never find another
citadel like this. She is invincible, the terrible gate of my country.
We call her the tomb of spies, for no spy has betrayed her or ever
will betray her. She stands for all that is dear to us--our liberty
and our freedom. Her secrets are entombed in a heart of granite. He
who seeks for them walks with Death for his guide.”
He turned upon his heel and left me to wonder as much at his eloquence
as at his earnestness. I had supposed him to be a mere lieutenant of
artillery doing his duty soberly and with no concern for the romance
of war. But it has been my good fortune since that day to meet many of
those who serve the fortress of Kronstadt, and I have found the same
love of the citadel, the same pride in its power influencing them all.
To them it is more than the mistress of the Gulf of Finland, it is the
temple of their country’s freedom, the arsenal of God’s weapons, a
barrier given of the Eternal for the safety of their kingdom. When it
shall fall the empire must fall with it. But that day will be the
great, the dreadful day.
It was almost dark when our yacht came abreast the eastern end of the
island, where the lieutenant took leave of us. We seemed at this time
to be hemmed in by forts and batteries and by the tremendous walls
which protect the town and harbours; lights flashed from every side,
the lights of war-ships, the lights of barracks, the red and white and
green lanterns of the bastions. I thought as I watched the lieutenant
rowing away to the service he loved so well, that he had spoken truly
when he named Death as the comrade of him who would snatch the secrets
of this mighty fortress. Death indeed; or if not death, then the
terror worse than death, the sunless labour of the mines, the eternal
solitude, the groans and sufferings of the desolate land.
To write a story of this fortress, and of certain people named in its
recent history, I had come to Russia. No books or plans could help me
to measure the achievements or the courage of those I was to speak
about. I must see with my own eyes the things which they had seen,
must stand where they had stood. As far as it lay in my power, I must
realise the grandeur and the greatness of that sanctuary of war which
they had invaded so resolutely; must hear the tramp of armed men and
the bugle’s blast where they had heard them. In that spirit I left my
yacht and entered the city which the Russian had called the tomb of
spies. And I thought as I went of Marian Best, the Woman of Kronstadt,
of her love and of her sorrows.*
* The author would wish it to be clearly understood that the
characters in this book are entirely fictional.
CHAPTER I.
THE MASQUERADE UPON THE ICE.
Though the great bell of Kronstadt had struck the hour of nine and
the bugles had called “lights out” in the barracks of the town, there
was no perceptible curb upon the merriment of those who kept the
carnival of the sea. For Kronstadt was ice-bound, and the New Year,
bringing an end to the stress and storm of the earlier winter, had
sealed the waves with the seal of the welcome frost. Where ships
sailed a month ago, the merry skaters now ventured. Far out from the
great citadel the gulf was still and frozen. No longer was the call of
the pilot heard or the voice of the seaman crying to his men. The
whirr of skate and sledge, the music of artillery bands, the prattle
of pretty women, had taken their place. But here and there vast fires
blazing upon the ice drew the busy throngs to the door of tent or
wooden theatre. The light of many torches made golden rings upon the
fields of glistening snow. Old and young, generals and ensigns,
rothmisters and feldwebels, hurried to the joy of the whirling life.
As prisoners from the cells of solitude and silence they rushed from
their island home to the sea, which frost had stilled and the ice made
war upon.
Conspicuous upon the field of the frozen sea, for it was built in the
ring of light shed by the beacons of Menzikoff, stood the palace of
ice, which the officers of the garrison had set up as the monument of
a winter so generous. Ready hands had hewn blocks from the shallower
waters of the military harbour; stout arms had dragged the glistening
boulders and piled them up for the foundations of the temple of the
frost. Soon a vast building arose, a tabernacle of shimmering and
transparent whiteness, into which cunning engineers carried wires for
the electric light, while zealous corporals brought the flaming eagles
of their regiments, and laughing girls bedecked the temple with
draperies of silk and satin. The enduring frost looked upon the work
and found it to be good. A keener breath of winter breathed strength
upon the palace and made it a perfect whole. Its builders spoke of
masquerade and carnival. Generals shook their heads but did not
refuse. The 29th of January in the year 1895 brought the proposal to
maturity, and all social Kronstadt came out that night to offer the
incense of laughter at the shrine. Old and young, poor and rich
hastened to enjoy an opportunity so rare.
[Illustration: “CONSPICUOUS UPON THE FIELD OF THE FROZEN SEA STOOD
THE PALACE OF ICE”]
While the palace within shone with countless lights, which gave a
glittering radiance to the uniforms of gold and white and green, the
dark field of the ice without was vantage ground for the townspeople
and sailors weary of waiting for an open sea. Frenchmen, Dutchmen,
Swedes, but English outnumbering all, they stood shivering in the icy
blast, or warming themselves at the great fires, or roaring with
laughter at the jests and the antics of the masqueraders. For them the
sup of vodki must suffice; no frothing champagne, no warmth of fur or
dance, no occupation of looking love gave them armour against the
cold. But they were critics always, and being critics, they spoke
their minds and were not afraid. Half an hour had not passed before
they had a name for every prominent person in the palace. The fat
general perspiring in an effort of agility, the gorgeous cuirassiers
of the Guard in their dazzling uniforms of white and blue--“flour
mills,” the English sailors called them, and qualified the noun; the
mincing cornets of cavalry; the three-starred colonels of artillery
groping for the honours of the clown--as each made the tour of the
frozen ballroom and came to clearer view of the uninvited, his new
name was roared lustily by the volleyed voices of the seamen.
“Higher up, spangled shanks--lift ’em up!” bawled the bullet-headed
skipper of a trading steamer as an exceedingly stout lady came
shuffling into view. “There ain’t no bally ’oop in Roosher as you’re
a-going to jump through, marm.”
“Leave the lady be, Bill,” retorted his mate. “’Tain’t often as you
see a fine growed thing like that--at her age too! You ain’t got no
manners. If she weighs more than twenty stun, I’m a nigger!”
“She shall pose for Venus!” said a merry little Frenchman; but a
German protested--
“Blitzen! it is her harvest time. In ze summer der zun will melt her
down!”
“Why, here’s little ‘Sixpence-a-box,’” chimed in a burly engineer as a
mannikin in the green uniform of an artillery officer came prancing
by. “‘Sixpence-a-box’ along with the ‘Tower of Babel’!”
“He’ll want a ladder to hail her, I guess!” cried an able seaman who
surveyed the tall lady in question with the expression of one who
could not take in the whole of her height and magnificence at a
glance. “You’d have to take three reefs in that lot, Bill, before you
could lay your course for ’Ampstead ’Eath on a Sunday!”
“Two to one St. Frusquin!” roared the purser of a small passenger
steamer when a lank and lean _stabcapitaine_ came galloping round with
feet lifted high as though he must crush the earth beneath him. “I’m
damned if he don’t fancy he’s running for a cup.”
“I’ll be thinking he’s took with the spasms,” exclaimed the red and
shaggy-haired mate of a Scotch trading vessel.
“Which shows your ignorance, Jack,” cried the engineer. “Don’t you
know a valtz when you sees one? Look at him cuddling Miss
‘Fore-and-aft’! It don’t want a book to tell you that she likes it
neither.”
“I hear as cuddling’s come in again with the quick valtz,” said the
purser. “They’ve give up walking round one another like hands round a
capstan now. Maybe the weather’s too cold.”
A few ejaculations of approval greeted the surmise, one of the most
melancholy among the company hazarding the opinion that the infernal
regions were already “froze up”; but thereafter the conversation began
to dribble away and was almost run out when a shout from the Frenchman
awoke all to attention, and a new buzz of talk was born of the passing
of a dancer whose steps were followed with pleasure and approval by
every eye in the group of the uninvited.
“La voici! la belle Anglaise! la voici! Comme elle sait danser la
polka!”
“That’s her right enough,” exclaimed the bullet-headed skipper; “and
ain’t she a beauty afore the wind. By gosh! I’d pay off with her
myself, I’m damned if I wouldn’t! See how she goes about--and sudden
too! It wants a head for that, mates, if so be as you’ve not been
brought up to it.”
“She’s a daisy!” exclaimed the purser. “I told you so yesterday when
she was out at Fort Paul with ‘Sixpence-a-box.’ Look at the way she
carries her canvas! There’s style about that, mates, as anyone can
see.”
“And look at the way her hair is wove! Oh, I tell you she’s a beauty!”
“If you lofe her, you lofe little,” said the German, nettled at the
unanimity of the admiration.
“Little it is for me, by thunder!” cried the skipper. “I don’t want a
wife, as I’ve got to walk round every morning to see if any of her is
missing. Give me the English miss, and the devil take all fat
Rooshians!”
The argument waxed hot, but _la belle Anglaise_ skated on unconscious
of it. She was a brown-haired girl whose bright eyes and white skin
had cheated Time so that he forgot the day of her birth, which was
twenty-five years ago, and had come to believe her still in the teens.
A slightly-built, fragile creature, whose face was ever changing and
rarely carried the same expression; a creature of quick impulses and
unresting gaiety, whose words cost her nothing, whose gesture was the
gesture of a Frenchwoman. They called her “La Petite” in the fortress,
where she had won much love and many friends--none more zealous than
the deputy-governor, General Stefanovitch, who painted his eye-brows
and wore stays. He had followed her like a dog this night of carnival,
and she repaid him generously with many a word of compliment whispered
into his willing ear and many a press upon a hand which, younger men
said, should have been already paralysed. For they begrudged him _la
belle Anglaise_. There was no man in all that company of glittering
masqueraders who was not the happier for her word or the message of
her eyes. And one, at least, there had given her the best offering an
honest man can give--the offering of his love.
He skated with her now, and had earned already from an approving
audience the name of the “Green-baize-tree.” A tall flaxen-haired man,
for whose fine figure the neat uniform of the artillery betrayed close
friendship, he had something of the manner of the more civilised West;
and had learnt in Paris and London, as many of his brothers had not,
the elements of those polite arts which win upon a woman’s favour. For
the moment he applied such arts to the purpose of pleasing his
partner, _la belle Anglaise_; and it was plain to be seen that he had
eyes only for her. In and out of the glittering throng they skated, a
harmony of gold and green, and soft furs and azure stuffs lifting to
the breeze like wings of gauze. But while the man looked ever into the
girl’s face, she, in turn, was spellbound by the trance of sensuous
music; and being carried from the world about her to a kingdom of her
imagination, she forgot all else and abandoned herself to the exalting
rhythm of the dance. Not until the last chord was a lingering harmony
upon the air did she so much as remember that a man’s arm was close
about her waist, or that his head was bent down toward her until his
lips almost kissed her ear.
“You suffocate me,” she said, drawing back from his embrace and
fanning herself vigorously. “Am I so very like a rifle, Captain Paul?
Really, I thought you were going to present arms with me.”
The great artilleryman began to pull his moustache and to look
foolish.
“I thought you might fall,” he stammered. “It is very slippery,
Mademoiselle Marian. Besides, when I come to think of it, you are very
like a rifle--your bullets wound and your eyes are bayonets!”
She took his arm and they walked with the others; the whole company
being drawn by a subtle law of gravitation to the refreshment-room,
where the corks popped, and silk petticoats rustled, and laughter
struck many chords, and champagne frothed in silver goblets. The touch
of her little gloved hand was like the caress of a rose; she seemed so
slight and fair and fragile that he had the impulse to crush her in
his strong arms and make her a part of his being.
“You repent?” he asked her in a low voice, while he handed her a cup
of boiling tea.
“I?--of what?”
“Of many things--of all the dances you have not given me!”
She laughed lightly, and turned to hear the complaints of an ensign
who wished to tell her that she had promised him the next dance; but
had not the courage to do anything but devour her with his eyes. When
she had sent the boy away, and had drunk her tea, she answered her
companion.
“Repentance is a virtue,” she said, “but to repent you must sin. The
moral is obvious. I am going to dance with the ensign, and remember
the time when I was fifteen, and wrote my own romances. Have you ever
made heroes of your boy friends, Captain Paul? Oh, the bitterness of
it, when the divinity of your youth goes through the bankruptcy court,
or a judge reads his ‘Ode to the Chorus Girl,’ with emphasis. But of
course you don’t understand--how should you? It is only in England
that a man--a certain sort of man--writes poetry because he is in
love. You will come to that state of civilisation by-and-bye.
Meanwhile you are barbarians, and would be impossible if you could not
dance so beautifully upon skates. When I leave you I shall write a
book dividing you into two heads----”
Captain Paul, who understood little beyond the fact that she was to
dance with the ensign, interrupted her with a laugh which rang out
like the note of a bell.
“Into two heads? Moi! ça, c’est bien! I shall have four eyes to watch
you while you dance. After that there are no more numbers. It is one
long waltz and I am your partner, hein?”
He twirled his moustache fiercely, seeming to watch every movement of
her eyes or hand; but when she was about to answer him, a voice at her
elbow jarred upon their privacy and stilled her laughter. It was the
voice of Mademoiselle Varia, the General’s daughter--the eldest of the
two children whom _la belle Anglaise_ had come to Russia to teach--and
at her side stood her yellow-haired sister Rina.
“Ma’mselle, it is time to walk abroad.”
“Ma’mselle, eleven does beat upon the clock.”
Sixteen years and fifteen were the ages of the children, but their
English was not yet six months old and was unweaned from the jargon of
polyglot phrase inseparable from civilised Russian speech. They stood
now like two waxen figures beside their governess, whose art was
incapable of disguising the coldness of her welcome or her little love
for their company. She answered shortly and almost with irritation,
suffering Captain Paul to lead her back to the great ballroom; but
thither the intruders followed, and were not to be put off.
“Ma’mselle, veux-tu partir?”
“Ma’mselle, nous sommes parfaitement prêtes.”
Mademoiselle looked over her shoulder and said, “In a moment,
children.” Then she made a doleful grimace.
“I had forgotten ‘the Dolls,’” she said. “Does not it speak well for
your dance that I should forget them?”
“But you are not going?”
“Indeed and I am. Eleven o’clock is my curfew to-night. I am like the
little criminal who turned from his dark deed when he remembered that
the clock used to strike eleven in his mother’s house. You haven’t
read Dickens, equally of course.”
Captain Paul made a gesture of impatience. “Why do you torture me? why
do you not ask me to walk with you?” he asked eagerly; “you know that
I am ready.”
“Who am I to say to you, ‘Walk,’ and you will walk. Besides, you have
partners.”
“Partners--I--partners when you are in the room! To the devil----!”
He stopped abruptly, biting his moustache and rocking upon his heels.
But she turned from him with a gesture of one inexpressibly shocked,
and ran to the room where thicker furs awaited her, and old Ivan with
the lantern, and “the Dolls,” who still held each other’s hand and
seemed to say, “We are the good children from the fairy book.” She was
not at all surprised when, presently, she found him waiting for her at
the door of the palace; nor did she protest as he expected.
“I am forgiven?” he asked.
“I will tell you to-morrow?” she said.
“You are glad it is not the General who walks with you?”
“Gladness is a large emotion. Say that I am content.”
“Only content?”
“Why ‘only’? Is content so common an experience?”
The man sighed, but pressed the arm which he held, and drew her closer
to him. They had crossed the ice which lay between the harbour and the
temple of the carnival, and had entered the town of barrack and
rampart and bastion. Though Kronstadt slept, her robe of war was still
upon her; the shadows upon her pavements were the shadows of her
mighty guns; the tramp of sentries, the sign and countersign, were her
music. Marian Best never entered that citadel of steel and granite
without a little shudder of indefinable fear. Captain Paul felt the
tremor upon her arm now, and it helped to an anxious sympathy.
“You are cold,” he said; “then wait a moment and I will wrap you in my
cloak.”
“And leave yourself a target for the east wind? No, I am not cold, but
I fear the shadows!”
“They fall upon us both,” said the man; “we share them as we shared
the bright lights just now. Would that we might share them always,
Mademoiselle Marian, the light and the dark, the sorrow and the joy!”
The girl tossed her pretty curls from her forehead and laughed up at
him.
“Is it not too cold to talk nonsense?” she asked. “I thought poets
waited for the spring.”
He took advantage of her words, for the lantern-bearer appeared now
like a star upon the road before them, and “the Dolls” were hand in
hand at old Ivan’s heels.
“But I cannot wait,” he said earnestly, while he felt for her fingers
and tried to lock his own in them. “It is always spring when you are
at my side; it is always winter when the night takes you away from me.
Why do I read your English books all day? Is it not that I may find
words to speak to you? But I have no words--I have nothing but myself,
myself and my poverty, and my love for you. Some day, perhaps, it will
be different. Some day I shall be able to come to you and to say, ‘I
am no longer Paul Zassulic, of the Artillery, but Paul of Tolma, the
master of many and the servant of none but the Czar.’ I dare not think
that such a day is near--the gifts of life come too often in the
autumn of our years. But I shall be rich always while I possess my
love for you, Marian; you cannot rob me of that; you cannot make me
love you less; there is no one in the world who can take my riches
from me!”
They had come up in their walk to the curtain of the bastion which
defended General Stefanovitch’s house, and therefrom could look down
upon the town, now darkened, yet showing in the moon’s rays a forest
of spires and turrets and the gloomy shapes of fort and barracks. Away
upon the ice a great blaze of light, focussed by the translucent walls
of the palace, marked the scene of carnival. Faint strains of music,
the note of horns, and the rolling of drums, came up to them for a
memory of their dance and of their pleasure. Some instinct held them
to the place, and they stood together with quickening hearts and muted
lips, the man trembling with a strange excitement, the girl dumb
because the word she had long awaited was now spoken. It was no secret
to her that Paul Zassulic loved her; it was no reproach to her, she
thought, that she had no answer for him. While she had been content in
his friendship and devotion, her busy life had forbidden that she
should reckon with herself or examine her own heart to see if any
treasure of an answering love were locked therein. She was dumb
because no certainty of self came to assist her; she would not wound,
yet knew not if she could heal. A great seriousness possessed her, a
realisation that such moments were supreme in every life. She had few
friends in all the world. The thought that this friend might be taken
from her was bitter.
“Paul,” she said, when a sudden movement of his snapped the seal upon
her lips, “Paul, what shall I say to you--you who have been my friend,
who will be my friend always? Shall I tell you that I have done wrong
to listen to you? No, indeed, for I owe you that--I owe you more than
I can ever repay, a thousand times. Perhaps I am not like other women.
When I ask myself if I love, I cannot answer--I do not know what love
is. I am happy because you are my friend. I welcome the days which
bring you to me. But a wife should be able to say more than that. Some
day, perhaps, I shall know all. When that day comes I will not fear to
speak. I will answer as you wish. I will tell you that I have learned
to love you.”
It was not the answer that he wished; but the word that he might ever
count himself her friend, and that she was happy when he was with her,
made his pulse leap, and he drew her towards him again, kissing her
upon the forehead many times and refusing to release her from his
strong embrace.
“God bless you, little Marian! God bless you for the promise!” he
said.
“It was only a promise, Paul,” she answered. “I cannot give you
more--I cannot lie to you, or how should I be worthy of your
friendship?”
“There is no woman more worthy in all the world!”
A voice from the ramparts brought them to a recollection of the hour
and the place. It was the voice of old Ivan, who wished to close the
gate of the enceinte, and at his call Marian broke swiftly from her
lover’s embrace and entered the fortress. But Captain Paul stood long
watching the lights in the Governor’s house. When he turned to go down
to the barracks he saw that carnival was done and the great palace in
darkness.
“It is night now,” he said to himself, “but to-morrow the sun will
shine and I shall see her! She is to go with me to the batteries. I
shall show her everything, and that will take a long time. God bless
the little woman I love!”
But Marian herself knelt by her bed, and heavy tears gathered in her
eyes.
“If he knew!” she cried bitterly, “if he knew!”