THE BEGINNING OF THE FLIGHT.
Marian in her cell could hear the bells of the ships striking the
hours; and she would count them and wait to see if the harbour clock
answered to their signal. There was little else to do through the long
days of darkness, save it were to listen to the cries of the seamen as
they warped their ships to the buoys or exchanged a word with one of
the sentries at the fort. Until this time her jailers permitted her no
other occupations. Designedly, that she might become acquainted with
the whole meaning of imprisonment in a fortress, they kept her hands
idle and shut the daylight from her eyes. She thought sometimes that
she would lose her reason for very dread of the silence and the
darkness. Or she would succumb to the frenzy of the prisoner and be
tempted to beat upon the door with her fist, or to dash herself
against the granite walls, seeking thus an escape from the living
death. But upon the day of Paul’s visit a new sense of resignation
possessed her. The man’s great love, surpassing all she had imagined,
spoke to her still when he had quitted her cell; she heard his voice
again bidding her to be of good courage; she had kept the letter which
little Dick had written, and tears of affection sealed the childish
words. She asked herself what craven spirit had mastered her, that she
should be the victim of this weakness and despair. They had accounted
her a woman of unfailing nerve; no shackles of cowardice had hampered
her will during those months of excitement when she had filched the
secrets of Kronstadt one by one; had measured the forts, and counted
the guns, and cried with delight at the successes she numbered. She
determined to remember those days and to live them again.
“I will not show him that I suffer,” she said; “he shall find me
laughing when he comes here to-morrow. And he shall write to Dick for
me--a long letter about our home that is to be. After that he will
speak to them. They will not keep me here always. It was such a little
thing.”
This spirit of courage breathed upon all her actions of the day. She
showed a smiling face to the Sergeant when he brought her dinner.
Surrendering herself to childish anticipations, she began to think of
a hundred things which Paul would do--how he would write to England,
or see the Governor, or even go to the Czar for her. The hours hurried
now, each bell telling her that her lover was up and working for her.
To-morrow she would see him again. Perchance he would bring good news.
At least she would touch his hand and hear his voice.
They were wont to bring her a little supper at sunset--the boiling tea
and the black bread which was as earth in her mouth. But she ate it
to-night with relish; and when her supper was done she let her head
sink upon her arms and so was carried away to a dreamland of wood and
meadow, to gardens warmed with everlasting sunshine, and woods alive
with music of song-birds. Therein she walked awhile, holding her
lover’s hand; she heard voices long forgotten, the voices of dead
friends and the laughter of the child. The sleep was sweet, for it was
a sleep of hope new born and of courage rekindled; but when it had
endured a little while, the harsh skirl of the outer door turning upon
its hinges awoke her rudely. She opened her eyes to see the Sergeant
standing before her, and with him rough artillery men in their great
grey cloaks, and others who were strangers to her. She thought for the
moment that they had come to take her to Petersburg, or even to the
nameless punishment beyond. She began to tremble, and stood back
against the wall as though she would find protection there--the weak
woman shrinking from the terrible hand which was about to touch her.
“What is it?” she cried, while she shielded her eyes, dewed with
sleep, from the garish rays of the lanterns. “Why do you come here?
what do you want with me?”
“To take you to Fort Katherine, mademoiselle, by order of the
Governor.”
Marian clenched her hands; she scarce dared to believe what she heard.
Paul had spoken, then; the night had passed; she would see the sun
again.
“You wish to take me now?” she asked, vainly seeking to cloak the
excitement which possessed her.
“Now,” said the Sergeant gruffly--“that is, if you have finished your
supper.”
She laughed joyously, as though the suggestion were a folly.
“Oh!” she cried; “as if one would wait for that!”
Her hands were busy with the cape of fur while she spoke, and when she
had buttoned it about her shoulders and had drawn the little fur cap
over her untrammelled hair, she was ready for them. The men watched
her with admiring eyes. The youngest among them was saying to himself,
“What lips to kiss!”
“I am ready, quite ready,” she exclaimed, looking up with eyes awake
and laughing. “You are sure it is to Fort Katherine, Sergeant?”
The Sergeant shrugged his shoulders.
“Sei tchas! are we here to play at being children, mademoiselle? Read
that paper--it is the writing of the Governor.”
“I can read nothing to-night,” she said, pushing aside the lantern;
“my eyes are blinded by the light. I cannot breathe in this place. It
is good of you to come for me.”
“It is not good at all, mademoiselle. I am the servant, and it is my
business to obey.”
He turned from the cell and the girl walked beside him still babbling
like a child. No thought of prudence could have stilled her tongue in
that hour. The burden of her punishment fell from her shoulders when
she quitted the cell and ascended the short flight of steps leading to
the quay above. The mighty granite walls terrified her no longer. She
could see the heaven above her, gray-blue through the silver haze of
night; the stars shone down upon her; they would be shining down upon
England, she said; and she would watch them every night henceforth
from her windows in Fort Katherine. The joy of liberty half possessed
quickened her heart and released all her impulses and affection. She
could have kissed the hand of the Sergeant who conducted her to the
launch. She talked to him unceasingly while they traversed the
corridor and the courtyard of the fortress; she was talking still when
he threw open the iron-bound door and stepped out on to the quay which
lies upon the north side of Alexander.
It was a glorious night, a night of soft winds and rippling sea.
Though the sun had sunk, there was still a glow of crimson light in
the West, a vast arc pointed with jagged spikes of orange and green
and purple flame. Kronstadt herself stood silhouetted as an island of
rock and pinnacles in an atmosphere of quivering haze. Great ships,
belching clouds of smoke from mighty funnels, passed noiselessly
behind the curtain of the eastern mists; lanterns flashed from all the
forts, here white and far-reaching, there scarlet and dim; strange
rays played upon the fretting waters; lakes of golden waves glistened
where the warships spread the searching arcs of their lamps; the steam
whistle moaned distantly or bellowed warningly from the nearer
harbours. The West was a splendid canopy of flame hung in the heavens,
as it were, above the throne of liberty and of freedom.
Marian stood upon the quay and the fresh wind scattered her curls and
cast refreshing spray
[Illustration: “KRONSTADT HERSELF STOOD SILHOUETTED AS AN ISLAND OF
ROCK AND PINNACLES”]
upon her weary eyes. The scene around her was bewildering and not to
be realised. She beheld a steam launch lying at the quay; she heard
its timbers groaning as the swell lifted it against the granite wall
and the fenders were flattened and twisted at the rush of the seas.
But her eyes were rather for the West. There lay her own England. She
could have stretched out her arms to the befriending light and have
prayed that some messenger of God might come down to carry her from
this tomb to which folly had brought her.
“Oh,” she said, “I am ready, quite ready, Sergeant. Is this the boat?”
The Sergeant ignored her question. He was bending down to speak to one
who stood in the bows of the launch, a tall man wearing the rough
overcoat of an officer of artillery. Notwithstanding the light in the
West, it was very dark in the loom of the walls of Alexander. Marian
could see little of the faces of those about her. The flickering rays
of the lanterns danced upon the white deck of the yacht, but not upon
the figure of the man who seemed to command it.
“I am to go on board?” she asked of one near her. “Why have you
brought me here if you are not ready?”
The soldier laughed good-naturedly.
“We are quite ready, mademoiselle; it is the Captain for whom we
wait.”
“The Captain!”
“Yes, for Captain Zassulic, who is to take you to Fort Katherine.”
She laughed in her turn, nervously and with the desire that surprise
should not betray her. She did not dare, for some moments, to look
again at the little ship or at the tall figure now standing by the
engine-room. But when she was sure of herself, when she had driven
from her mind the wild thoughts that occupied it, she saw that the
figure was the figure of Paul, her lover; and at this the lights and
the stars, the ships and the men, swam before her eyes, and she leaned
heavily upon the arm of the trooper.
“Why do you keep me waiting? I am weak and cold,” she cried
petulantly. “I cannot stand here.”
“Mademoiselle,” said the Sergeant, turning to her, “there is no need
to keep you waiting any longer.”
Marian suffered herself almost to be lifted upon the launch. So soon
as her feet had touched the deck a strong hand seized her own and drew
her towards the companion. It was the hand of Paul, hot and burning as
the hand of one in a fever.
“Let go!” he cried to the engineer, speaking in a voice which rang
across the sea; and, almost with the words, the ropes were cast off
and the launch stood away from the quay.
It was the work of a moment, so dexterously done, so unlooked for,
that the Sergeant stood staring stupidly as one dazed with drink.
“Stoi, stoi!” he cried; “there are the others, my Captain.”
“I have no need of them. Do you think the girl is going to jump into
the sea?”
“But the General’s order, my Captain.”
Paul laughed and took his place at the woman’s side.
“We shall know how to answer the General. Good-night to you,
Sergeant.”
He cried again to the engineer and the little ship leaped into the
waves. Foam flew from her bows and sparkled upon her decks. The whirr
of her screw was as the whirr of a cascade thundering. The surrounding
forts seemed to recede back to a more distant horizon. The lights of
Kronstadt, the black shapes of barrack and church, were hidden in the
deepening mists. Into the West, outward to the greater seas of the
Baltic, the launch was bearing them. But the man continued to keep his
eyes upon the great citadel he was leaving, to look upon it as one may
look upon a home which shall be a home no more.
“My God!” he said, “it is for ever!”
And so he turned to the girl as though to shield her with his arm. The
lights around him began to vanish one by one; the salt of the sea was
on his face; he waited to hear the boom of the guns which should
signal his flight and tell the city that he was a traitor--he who had
served Kronstadt with an abiding love.