PAUL BEARS WITNESS.
Paul returned to his room and began to dress, maladroitly, but with
some deliberation. The irons upon Marian’s wrists seemed to hurt his
own hands; her cry still echoed in his ears. He heard the heavy tramp
of feet in the passage; he thought he could distinguish the voice of
General Stefanovitch; but anon these sounds died away and silence fell
upon the house again. He said that it was typical of the silence which
henceforth must wait upon his life. He thought that he had looked upon
the woman he loved for the last time. She had gone from him with that
terrible appeal upon her lips; to what fate he knew not, save that the
impassable gates had shut upon her, that the herald of the living
death had struck her down.
He was glad that she had not seen him when he stood for a moment at
his door and watched the gunners drag her from her room. The pitiful
figure, the babyish face, the beseeching eyes, would be for him the
everlasting remembrance of her. He knew well that the measure of her
guilt or innocence was not to be weighed by those who were to judge
her. She, the mere girl, alone and unaided, had set herself against
the might and the power and the terrible justice of Kronstadt, and had
been vanquished in the contest. She had looked upon the world of light
for the last time. No cry of hers would ever be heard by the world
again. She would go from the city and none would dare to ask whither.
Now that the blow had fallen, Paul was surprised that his mind was so
ready to serve him and that he could think so clearly. The arrest of
Marian lifted one burden at least from his shoulders. There was no
longer a confession to make, he argued. That which he knew was known
also to the governors of the citadel. And he must defend himself from
the possibilities of suspicion; must be ready with words of surprise
and wonder. He alone in Russia remained the friend of the stricken
woman; for her sake he would dare anything in the hope that he might
yet be of service to her. And this hope began to give him courage, he
knew not why. His clumsy fingers became supple; he dressed swiftly and
walked boldly from the house. Old Bonzo was in the courtyard waiting
for his chief to come out. Smart and trim, with well-squared shoulders
and firm tread, the Man of Iron greeted the young officer with no more
concern than if this had been a _festa_ and they had been going
together for a picnic on the sea.
“Bon jour, Captain Paul; I see you well this morning?”
“Thank you, Colonel; and you?”
Bonzo’s eyes twinkled cunningly.
“All my nights are good,” he said; “it is the old bird who knows how
to roost. And I am just going to breakfast with a lady. You hear, my
son; then you will not tell madame--hein?”
His jocund efforts were like the labour of a shire horse. They angered
Paul, whose feverish impatience scarcely brooked control.
“Colonel,” he exclaimed, unable to hold his tongue any longer; “it is
said that they have just arrested Mademoiselle Best. Is the news
true?”
Bonzo stopped suddenly in his walk.
“You know that it is true, Captain Paul.”
“I, my Colonel? how should I know?”
“Because you stood at your door while they were taking her down
yonder.”
Paul bit his lip.
“Certainly I saw that, but I did not know the meaning of it. You
suspect her, then, my Colonel?”
“We suspect her so far that we know it was her hand which drew the map
of Battery 3.”
“Her hand, my Colonel--a woman’s hand! But she is as ignorant as a
child.”
Paul wished to assume an air of great surprise, but his gesture was
false, his voice had a hollow ring in it. Bonzo watched him with
little twinkling eyes and read him as he would have read a book.
“You shall learn how ignorant she is when the accusation is made just
now, my son. Did I not tell you that I would show you the spy this
morning? Well, if you will go up to the ramparts, you will see her in
the launch which carries her to Alexander. We will follow her there
when the General is ready, Captain Paul. It is not every day that we
can breakfast with a lady in Kronstadt.”
“I cannot believe it!” cried Paul; “I cannot believe that she could
have----”
“Cannot believe it! Bon Dieu! you tell that to me when you know that
it is true, when you know--but I will leave you to tell us what you
know, my son. I will leave you to remember that you are a servant of
the Czar. You do not forget that, Captain Paul.”
Bonzo’s voice rang out in varying notes, loud and accusing, or gentle
and cooing. All the colour left Paul’s face when the words were
spoken. He had a great awe of the man whose eyes could read his very
thoughts; he began to ask himself, “What has he learned? What has he
seen?” But Bonzo, who served a purpose with every word, now laid his
hand upon the shoulder of the younger man and the gesture was a kind
one.
“Come,” he said, “I do not forget that you are a man as well as a
soldier, Paul. Go and get your café and then meet me upon the quay.
We will cross together, and you shall hear the story for yourself.”
Paul thanked him incoherently and hurried away. The Colonel watched
him as he went, and with no unfriendly eyes.
“There goes a lover bewitched by a pretty face,” he said at last. “He
will come to reason by-and-by, or, if he does not, we shall know how
to deal with him. We will send him to the fort often. If there is
anything more between them, that will be the opportunity to find it
out.”
Content with this design, Bonzo resumed his measured walk; but Paul
went swiftly through the town, avoiding the haunts of his fellows. He
saw nothing, heard nothing of the awakening life about him. “Marian is
arrested,” were the words ever whispered into his ear. Men saluted
him, he forgot to observe or to return their greeting; the sun shone
brightly, but for him the city was in darkness. “They will send her to
the mines, they will torture her,” he thought. The moment when he must
see her again was one to be dreaded. He feared his own courage, for he
knew that his courage alone could save her--if she was to be
saved--from the terrible days to come.
It was eight o’clock when he arrived at the quay, and Bonzo had not
yet come down. Paul entered a little café just by the merchants’
harbour, and called for tea and for prune brandy. There were many
soldiers and sailors in the place, but their talk convinced him that
they had no news of that which had happened. He began to see that the
authorities would keep their acts as secret as possible; but whether
this would help or hinder him, he could not say. He remembered Bonzo’s
words--if the prisoner should die in Fort Alexander, what inquiry
would then be held? He knew that they would not put a woman to death;
but Russian prisons have other weapons whereby the ends of death are
attained. Paul’s hand shook when he lifted the glass to his lips; he
left the café, driven on by all the impulses of fear and dread. “She
shall not die!” he said, and then laughed nervously at his own
helplessness.
Fort Alexander, with its one hundred and sixteen guns, 8 and 10 inch,
in casemates, is perhaps the most imposing of the seven detached forts
which stand up, islets of steel and stone, in the southern channel of
Kronstadt. Built entirely of granite, in the shape of an ellipse,
there are four tiers of embrasures in its front; while its rear wall
bristles with great guns _en barbette_. A foundation of piles driven
down in a channel, here eighteen feet deep, carries the tremendous
blocks of which the battery is constructed, and its guns are so placed
that they cross fires with the guns of Fort Peter and of Battery 3,
thus rendering impassable the one narrow channel by which an enemy’s
ships must seek passage to Petersburg. The interior of the fort has
all the aspect of a gloomy and forbidding prison. Dark cell-like rooms
accommodate the garrison in charge of it. There are other cells below
into which the light of day never comes, tomb-like cavities hidden in
the very womb of the citadel. Upon this morning of Marian’s trial,
late in the month of February, the breaking ice scarred and groaned
beneath the bastions of the fort, but the sappers had blasted a
passage for the small steam launch with which the garrison reached the
merchants’ harbour, and through this passage General Stefanovitch and
two of his staff were carried to see the prisoner who had been
arrested so surprisingly in the earlier hours of the morning.
Paul was already in the vaulted stone chamber where the inquiry was to
be held when Stefanovitch and Bonzo entered together. The General
answered his salute but did not speak. Bonzo exchanged a quick glance
with him and then busied himself with the bundle of papers which
seemed inseparable from his equipment. So dark was the place that the
figure of the sergeant at the door was like some phantom shape. The
feeble candles, flickering upon the table, cast a weirdly yellow light
on the faces of those who sat within their aureola. Paul saw that
Nikolai Stefanovitch looked wretchedly ill. The very neatness of dress
and affectation of manner aggravated the pallor and unrest of his
face. His hands wandered aimlessly, now touching a pen, now a paper,
now seeking to straighten the hair which should have been upon his
shining forehead. When he ordered the prisoner to be brought in, his
voice was hollow and unnatural. He cast his eyes upon the table and
did not look at the woman before him. Paul, in his turn, shrank back
into the shadows. He saw Marian enter that gloomy chamber, and the
impulse to speak to her, to stand at her side, was almost
irresistible. But prudence kept him still. He had decided upon the
part he would play; the keen air from the sea had stimulated him
mentally and bodily. He had said to himself, “I alone am her friend,
and I will save her.”
They had arrested the girl shortly after sunrise, that none in the
town might whisper abroad the business upon which she had been carried
to Fort Alexander. So great was their haste that she had scarce time
to bind up her untidy tresses of silky brown hair or to get furs
against the cold of dawn. But she had used the intervening hours in
winning from the Sergeant permission to practise those arts which help
a woman’s victory. Paul said that she never looked so pretty. She
entered the gloomy room with a laugh upon her lips. The dainty head
was thrown back disdainfully; the fur about her neck and wrists
contrasted with the exquisite whiteness of her skin; her gesture was
one of amusement and of surprise.
“Oh!” she cried mockingly, “comme je suis effrayée, comme je me sens
criminelle.”
Stefanovitch looked up from his papers.
“Silence,” he exclaimed sharply, and there was that in his voice which
compelled obedience. Paul trembled for her then.
“She will act a part, and they will condemn her out of her own mouth,”
he thought.
“Mademoiselle,” said Stefanovitch, beginning to address her in a low
voice, “there is no need for me to tell you why you are brought here;
you are as well aware of the reasons as I am.”
“Indeed, General, I know nothing of your reasons.”
The lines upon Stefanovitch’s face hardened perceptibly, but he did
not display any anger.
“We will not argue the point,” he said quickly. “If I speak to you
this morning, here in this room, it is in the hope that you will help
us to lighten the punishment which your actions have deserved. For
some months now you have been sending to the British Government in
London such information concerning Kronstadt as our hospitality put
you in possession of. Within the course of the last month you have
sold for money a plan of Battery 3, and have prepared other plans
which, but for our prudence and foresight, would now have left the
city. It is not for me to tell you, mademoiselle, that these things
are an outrage upon the hospitality you have received. You came here
to us as a stranger, and we made you as one of our own people. We
trusted you as we should have trusted a daughter. It is possible that
you are unaware of the heinous nature of your crime and are willing to
atone so far as it is in your power. Should that be so, you have now
the opportunity to tell us how you came to do this thing, and whose
was the help and the promise you relied upon. The truth alone can help
you here, mademoiselle. I rely upon your good sense and your
cleverness to withhold nothing from us.”
He paused and looked the girl full in the face. She had ceased to
laugh, for his accusation, that she had outraged the hospitality of
those who had befriended her, was one that she could not jest with.
“I did not wish to be ungrateful,” she cried despairingly; “I did not
wish to injure or hurt any of those who have been kind to me. I drew
the map to send to a friend in London; he asked me for it, and I did
not think you would mind. It was such a little thing, and you are so
strong. Oh, General, you will not judge me for that; you will not
believe me guilty.”
“Mademoiselle,” interrupted Stefanovitch sternly, “of your guilt there
is no doubt. Believe me that it is idle for you to stand there and
seek to mislead us. We do not imagine what you have done, we know.”
“You know, monsieur!”
“We know,” repeated Stefanovitch; “our chain of evidence is complete.
Six months ago this friend of yours in London, your cousin,
mademoiselle, told you that the British Government was willing to pay
a heavy price for such facts concerning the new forts here as it had
been unable to find out for itself. He sent you, at the same time, the
book which described how that other spy, your fellow-countryman,
obtained the secrets of Vladivostok. That work was your guide. As the
man had learned to measure a fort by pacing it, so you measured our
batteries. You sought to make us believe in your ignorance and your
childishness that you might win our confidence and profit by the sale
of it. You spied upon us while you were receiving our hospitality. You
feigned friendship for us that we might betray our secrets to you. You
entered even my own cabinet to copy the maps which lie there. Was that
also to amuse your friend in London, mademoiselle?”
Marian shivered. She turned toward Paul eyes which beseeched his help,
but he stood silent. For a moment she sought still to wear the mask of
indifference and of ignorance, but the laugh froze upon her lips.
“It is not true!” she exclaimed wildly; “you cannot know that. I did
not steal the maps in your cabinet. How could I have done so? It is a
foolish tale.”
“Mademoiselle,” said Stefanovitch, raising his hand warningly, “there
is no need to add to your guilt by falsehood. I am waiting to hear
that you are willing to tell us the names of your friends both in
Russia and in England.”
“I will tell you nothing!” she answered doggedly. “You know nothing.
The falsehood is yours, monsieur. You have no right to bring me here.
I am an Englishwoman; you dare not harm me! I will write to England.
You are cowards to torture me with these questions.”
She clasped her hands together and stamped her foot angrily, for
excitement had mastered her, and, having robbed her of her arts, had
left the woman, weak and resourceless, but with courage undaunted. As
for her lover, the accusation with which she was charged stunned him.
They were the very words she herself had spoken in the privacy of her
own room when he had discovered her secret fifteen hours ago. There
was no longer a loophole for him. “I must tell all, for they know
all,” he argued. And yet his pity for her was an agony. Her
childishness, her helplessness, the days of suffering awaiting her,
prompted him to dare everything, to take her in his arms and ask that
he might suffer with her. When anon he heard his own name called, and
must come out into the light to answer the questions of the General,
his tongue, his limbs, seemed paralysed. He spoke in a thick voice and
swayed often against the slight table.
“Captain Zassulic,” said Stefanovitch, “you have heard this woman’s
story. Have you anything to say to it?”
Paul squared his shoulders. He dare not look at Marian; the figures
around seemed unreal and shadowy.
“I have heard the story, my General,” he stammered.
“Is it true or false, Captain?”
“It is false, my General.”
“You are sure of that? Then please to give us your reasons.”
Paul leaned against the table and put his hand to his throat as though
to compel himself to speak.
“Last night you sent me to your room, General, to leave there the
despatches from the Prince. It was at eight o’clock--after you had
dined--at eight o’clock, my General.”
He wiped his brow with his hand and stared about the room in a dazed
way. For a moment his eyes rested on the face of the girl. She was
looking at him as she would have looked at one risen from the dead to
accuse her.
“Well,” said Stefanovitch, “we are waiting for you, Captain.”
Paul squared his shoulders again. He began to remember that the words
which now condemned the woman might save her in the end.
“When I entered the corridor,” he said, speaking quickly, “there was a
light in the room, General; the Englishwoman was there. She was
copying one of the maps which she had taken from the shelf.”
“To amuse her brother in London,” grunted Bonzo, who had stood
hitherto, motionless and voiceless, at the side of his master.
But Marian did not hear him. She had fallen in a swoon, and, senseless
still, they carried her back to her cell.
“Pshaw!” said old Bonzo, folding up his
[Illustration: “BUT MARIAN DID NOT HEAR HIM. SHE HAD FALLEN IN A
SWOON”]
papers quickly, “we waste time, my General. If I were in your shoes I
would flog the truth out of her. She is not alone here, be sure. There
are others.”
“It shall be your work to learn their names, Colonel,” cried
Stefanovitch, rising from the table. “Stand at nothing which your duty
dictates. And to you, Captain, I would say that the Emperor is happy
in such servants. Let the woman be watched night and day. I count upon
you, my friends, in this hour of danger, upon your zeal and your
silence. Our honour is at stake, and we shall know how to guard it.”
He saluted and returned to his launch; but old Bonzo lingered a moment
to whisper a word in Paul’s ear.
“There were two prisoners this morning, my son,” he said, with a
kindly pat of his great hand, “two prisoners, but one is acquitted.”
“You mean, my Colonel----”
“That the woman was watched last night, and that the words you have
just spoken saved your life.”
He lurched from the room to join his chief, but Paul remained long
standing by the table where the damning words were spoken.
“She will never believe,” he thought. “I have lost her love. God help
me!”