then I lifted her over the body and we stood on the steps. Not twenty
yards away other lights streamed, where the rioters were drinking at
the cask and singing wildly, multiplied now from ten to thirty; the red
glare on their cruel faces and blood-stained arms showed them sharply
outlined against the night. Happily we were in the shadow, and I took
Daria’s hand and led her swiftly up the steps and away, along the walls
of the palace, into the darkness beyond. I had to tread cautiously,
for it was hard to see and, at any moment, we might stumble on another
party. We had, perhaps, fifteen or eighteen yards to go before we could
turn a corner and, at any moment, the torchlight might be thrown upon
us. Nothing could have been wilder than the scene; that bloody, fiery
group shown in the night, as if the gate of the infernal regions gaped
to show us the imps at carnival, and about them the pitch of the pit.
Once the princess slipped and clung to my arm with a low exclamation,
for she knew what had made the ground slippery, and she saw a dark,
still thing close at her feet. But I hurried her on and, at last, we
turned the corner, and were in a still place alone. But there was even
then no time for thankfulness; I urged her on, and we fled swiftly
out of sight of the palace, past the cathedrals; on and on--and the
soft night air, fanning our faces, revived us both. Twice or thrice we
had to turn aside to avoid a party of Streltsi bearing torches, and
once more we nearly fell across a corpse, but at last we left the Red
Place--the place of blood--behind us, and were walking rapidly toward
my quarters. It was then that she stopped and drew a long breath of
relief, and I stopped too, fearing her strength had failed her at last,
or her resolution, but it was neither the one nor the other. She was
still thinking of her father.
“Let me go home,” she said, in a low voice; “yonder is the way--you
pass it, sir, and I must find my father!”
“I pass it, yes, madame,” I said gravely and, perhaps, sternly; “I pass
it because it would be murder to take you there. Think you they have
not gone before us?”
“The Streltsi!” She gasped a little, and seemed irresolute; but then
all a woman’s obstinacy came upon her and, too, in spite of her words,
I felt she did not trust me.
“I must go there!” she cried desperately.
I had not the heart to forbid her; indeed, I was minded to let her
see that I knew best, and profit by the lesson. Without another word,
therefore, I turned and led her toward the Voronin palace. As I have
said, the street that led to it ran straight toward the Iberian Chapel,
and showed the house plainly from a distance, and no sooner did we
enter this street than she stopped with a low cry of dismay. The palace
of Prince Voronin stood there, revealed in the night by the blaze of
fifty torches and lighted, too, within, from roof to cellar, and even
at this distance we heard the cry of the spoiler. She stood rooted
to the ground, staring at it in such apparent anguish that a horrid
thought occurred to me.
“Where is the child--your cousin--Vassalissa?” I exclaimed
involuntarily.
She crossed herself devoutly. “Safe, thanks be to the Virgin! she
went early this morning to Troïtsa, with her mother’s sister on a
pilgrimage--for me.”
“Come, then,” I said briefly. “Will you trust me now, Mme. la
Princesse?”
I think she was ashamed of her wilfulness, for she followed me without
a word, and we turned aside and, by lanes and byways, reached Le
Bastien’s house. It was, as I expected, dark and deserted, and
therefore a safer refuge, for the time, and I fumbled in my pocket, got
a key, and, opening the door, let her into the silent place. It took
but a moment to secure the entrance behind us; a fir-splint burnt in
the cresset, and from it I lighted a taper, and then I led her into
one of the lower rooms, saw that the shutters were secure, lighted
more tapers, and drawing a chair forward, begged her to be seated. She
obeyed me silently, and as she sat there I saw the pale and haggard
look on her face. Going quickly to my own room, I cast off Kurakin’s
petticoats, and arraying myself in my own clothes, went to the kitchen
and procured some vodka and a little bread and, returning, bade her
eat and drink in a voice of command; for I saw that she must do both
or fail altogether; yet, at first, she put both the glass and the food
away, crying out that she could not eat.
“Very well, madame,” I said; “then you cannot go to your father, nor
can he come to you, for your strength is spent. Nay, take it,” I added
kindly, “as you take the physician’s draught.”
She obeyed me mechanically, and her eyes followed me as I poured out
some of the liquor and drank it and ate the bread also, for I had need
to break my fast. And, as I did it, the thought came to me suddenly
that this was our bridal banquet, and that my wife and I ate together
for the first time. Involuntarily I looked at her and found her large
eyes fixed upon my face. Something of the same thought must have
entered her mind too, for suddenly she dropped her face on her hands
and I saw her very ears--little, shell-like ears, too--turn rosy-red,
and her whole delicate frame shook, from head to foot, with a hard
sob--of anguish or of terror, I knew not which.
_XXI: THE STEWARD’S REVENGE_
THE sight of her grief, or her terror, so far unmanned me that my hand
shook until I spilled some of the wine upon the table, and noting this,
and feeling my own weakness, I set the glass down and turned away.
The room, which had served as an office for Maître le Bastien, was
sparsely furnished, and the light of the tapers, pale and flickering,
gave it a cold and uninviting aspect. It was a poor place to bring
the Princess Daria--after all the magnificence of her home, and after
that fearful day, for--as I reflected--half that she had endured would
have crushed a weaker woman. Peril and mortification and the strain of
wild excitement had doubtless worn her out, and she was finding, at
last, a woman’s relief in tears. She wept, indeed, with such passionate
abandon, such an agony of suppressed sobs and sighs, that it would have
moved a man of stone--and I was her lover. For the moment I forgot
that I was not privileged to comfort her, that, though her husband, I
was less known to her than the very slaves in her kitchen, and of less
moment.
The sight of her distress touched me so nearly that I forgot all this,
I say, forgot the restraint that I had meant to lay upon myself, and
going to her, I laid my hand lightly and gently on her bowed head.
“I pray you be comforted,” I said softly, my voice shaken by emotion;
“if I can----”
I got no further. She recoiled from my touch as if I had stung her,
looking at me with something akin to terror in her eyes.
“Do not touch me!” she cried, her white lips quivering; “do
not--dare--to touch me!”
It was my turn to recoil, suddenly apprised of her horror and dread
of me--of the man who loved her and had risked his life for her. It
hardened my heart. I drew back and, walking to the other end of the
room, stood looking at her, with folded arms. And she looked at me;
her eyes shining and large and dark in her white face, and her whole
figure--as I saw plainly--quivering like a leaf. She tried twice to
speak, and in my anger and grief I let her struggle, and at last she
hid her face in her hand and spoke to me in a strange, shaking tone.
“I am in your power,” she said; “you--you have gone through a ceremony
with me; perhaps--you think you are my--my husband----” Her voice
trailed off in a sob of terror.
“I am your husband,” I said brutally, for my heart was bitter.
She wrung her hands. “You are not!” she cried pitifully, “how can you
be? I do not know who you are! I was forced into it, I----”
“You knew me,” I interrupted, with cruelty, watching her agony.
She hung her head, and the silence of the room oppressed me. The old
house--usually full of creaking noises, as old houses are wont to be,
as if the spirits of past inmates walked there--was suddenly so still
that I heard her heavy breathing. Her bowed head--the white arch of the
brow, the soft flowing hair, the humiliated aspect--moved me more than
her words.
“You mistake me, Princess Daria,” I said coldly. “Though a poor man, I
am a gentleman.”
At that she laid her head on the table and fell to weeping, like a
child, and I was seized with so keen a longing to take her in my arms
and comfort her with caresses, with the deepest protests of my love,
that I had to turn my back upon her and force my thoughts on other
things.
Indeed, I had need to think of her safety. Any hour, any moment, this
house, too, might be sacked. I could not keep Voronin’s daughter here,
nor anywhere in Moscow, and there was no time so propitious for flight
as night. I cast about in my mind for the means, and found them, and
then I looked again at her bowed head. She had ceased to weep and lay
there, half prone across the table, a picture of despair and weakness,
and it was so foreign to all that I had seen of her, of her high spirit
and fortitude, that a cruel thought smote me. Was it for her lover she
mourned?--for Prince Galitsyn? I set my teeth. If she desired him,
doubtless, she would find a way to cut off my claim upon her--if Sophia
did not cut off his. In this, at least, the czarevna and I were of one
mind and purpose, and I smiled grimly at the thought.
But it was many moments before I schooled myself to speak to the
princess with composure, and to tell her of my plans, and the necessity
for them. When I finally spoke her name, however, she raised her head
and, pushing her disordered hair back from her white face, she looked
at me and listened quietly, while I told her of the impossibility of
keeping her in that house or even in Moscow, and explained my belief
that Maluta had delivered a message to her father ere this, if the
dwarf had escaped with his own life.
“You told me that your cousin was at Troïtsa, did you not?” I asked.
She bowed her head, scarcely enough a mistress of herself to speak as
yet.
“Then we--you must go to her,” I said firmly. “I will get horses from
the stable and ride with you to-night. I believe we can pass the
gates, and once out of the city, all will be well. When you are safe
at Troïtsa, your father can more easily save himself; here, you only
enhance his danger.”
I think she realised this, for she neither assented nor dissented, but
seemed to be collecting all her forces.
“I cannot leave him here--to--to die!” she exclaimed, in a broken voice.
“Can you save him?” I asked grimly.
My only answer was a low sob.
“If you stay here, the czarevna will use you to threaten him,” I
continued; “and if you are out of the way, she has no real grievance
against Prince Voronin.”
The force of this argument went home to her, and she sat a while in
silence, looking at the ground, so pale and still that she might have
been dead, for any sign of life about her. Far off--but sometimes
nearer--I began to hear cries and the roll of drums. I grew impatient.
“Will you go, madame?” I asked, “or will you fall into the hands of the
mob? I have saved you once--but I am not omnipotent, and your stay here
may ruin your father.”
Her lips quivered, but she looked up and searched my face with her dark
eyes.
“I will go--to Troïtsa,” she said.
I bowed profoundly.
“I thank you, Princess,” I replied drily; “I pray you wait here while
I go, but a few steps, to the stable and bring the horses.”
“I will wait, monsieur,” she said, and cast down her eyes, blushing
painfully under my glance.
I delayed no longer, but taking a taper, went hastily through the
house, and finding the back door, unbarred it, and went out into the
court; here, for security’s sake, I locked the door of the house and
put the key away in my bosom, fearing to leave any bolts undrawn,
even while I went to the stable. The lock was hard, and I had to keep
the taper shielded by my hand, until I got it fastened, and then,
remembering the darkness of the outhouses, I carried it carefully
across the yard and entered the stable with it in my hand. The horses,
two in number, were in their places, and I began to look about for
saddles and bridles for them, moving as speedily and as softly as I
could. There was no sound, or I heard none, save the occasional stamp
of one of the horses, and I had found my saddle, in the farthest corner
from the door, when my taper began to flicker, as if from a sudden
draught, and looking up over it, half dazzled by it, I thought I saw
someone opening the door. Instinct made me extinguish my taper, and
then I saw plainly the burly figure of a man standing on the threshold,
outlined sharply by the red glare that suddenly blazed behind him.
There were no windows, and but one outlet. I drew my pistol, but, as
I did it, the court-yard suddenly swarmed with men and torches, and
the fire streaming in the darkness showed me that the fellow on the
threshold was Kurakin’s red-bearded steward. He seized a light, and
flinging the radiance full on my face, he shouted gleefully:
“We have him, friends! Here is the knave of a goldsmith who beats
honest men!”
It was his hour of vengeance, but his last.
I took deliberate aim and, the next instant, he wallowed in his blood
upon the floor, and his torch went out. Then, I sprang--if I could
only get out, and so lead them away from the house and from her! I
knocked another villain senseless in the doorway; I leaped out, and,
in a moment, the blaze of torches surrounded me, half a dozen men
shouted madly, and I rushed headlong for the gate. I gained it, and
they followed. Another moment and I had trailed them ten--twenty yards
from the house, and then they were upon me; they had me down and blows
rained on me. I fired once more and someone fell heavily upon me; I got
a blow on the head, and lights and voices went out together into utter
darkness.
_XXII: A DRUNKEN ORGY_
WHEN I came to myself again I was in a long, low room, lighted by
smoking torches, and filled with the fumes of liquor and crowded with
soldiers. I was bound with heavy cords to a chair that was standing on
a table at the end of the room, and my bonds cut cruelly into my arms
and about my knees and ankles. It was evident that I had been long
unconscious, for they had ceased to heed me, and were intent upon their
liquor and their dice. I did not stir; indeed, I had but little space
in which to move even a finger, but I kept quite still, that I might
watch them and learn something of my situation. The room was evidently
in one of the huts of the Streltsi, in the Zemlianui-gorod, and its
walls were of logs stuffed with tow, and the rafters overhead were
black with greasy smoke, while the air reeked with a strong mixture of
garlic, beer, raw brandy, and oil of cinnamon--a luxury fetched from
the cellars of the boyars.
Below me the dark, savage faces scowled over the dice and the
liquor--their hair and beards so long and ragged that it must have been
many weeks since they had visited the hair-market, a place where the
Muscovites went to be trimmed, and where the barbers, cutting the hair,
flung it on the ground and let it lie, until the earth was covered
with a soft, uncleanly mat; as curious as any sight in Moscow. But
these rioters, who had returned to their barracks with their spoils and
their prisoners, heeded nothing but their drink and their game, and
they were already deep in their cups, drunkenness being a besetting sin
with both the men and women, especially of the lower classes. They were
bloody, too, and unwashed, wild as savages, some naked to the waist,
and now and then a tipsy brute shouted out a ribald song, and again two
clenched in a fight over their dice, and fell on the floor and rolled
there, and I saw a knife flash and heard a cry--like a wild beast in
pain--and only one rose up to play again, yet the others paid no heed,
but let the murderer throw his dice with red hands. Two others dropped
from their seats and fell into a drunken sleep upon the floor, and were
kicked aside, slept on, and snored.
It was a filthy scene, and while I looked at them I thought of the
Princess Daria, and groaned in spirit. Where was she? How fared it
with her, alone in that house, without even a slave to defend her? If
my bonds had been fiery cords they could not have cut more deeply into
my flesh, while my soul cried out with impatience to fly to her aid.
Meanwhile the men drank and cursed and sang, and the smoke from the
torches rose and hung above my head in a black cloud. And, in the midst
of it, the door opened and one who seemed to be of higher rank than
the others stood and looked at them; a tall man, with a fierce face
and a great purple mark across his forehead. At the sight of him they
shouted, and held up their cups to pledge him.
“Drinking yet, ye dogs!” he said contemptuously; “and we have not slain
that arch traitor, the Jew, Von Gaden--nor the Prince Voronin.”
At this I pricked up my ears, but I kept my eyes closed, scenting
danger. The Streltsi shouted and snarled.
“To-morrow, Martemian, son of Stenko,” they said, “to-morrow, you shall
lead us--to-night we are aweary.”
He spat at them. “Weary,” he said; “drunk, ye devils, drunk! And who is
the German there?”
“’Tis the French goldsmith, Martemian,” they cried, “and he is dead, or
as good as dead.”
“Better dead,” he retorted. “A goldsmith has no use save to give us his
hide or his gold.”
At this pleasantry they laughed and clapped each other on the shoulder,
and the man in the door, suddenly opening a pouch he carried, threw a
handful of roubles in their midst.
“Your pay,” he said, “your pay--as we get it! Catch who can.”
They fell upon the floor grovelling for it, and fighting and rolling
over, like swine in a pen, and he laughed harshly.
“Bless thee, O Martemian Stenkovitch!” they cried; “thy gift is good in
our sight, and fair. _Prebavit!_” which is to say, “Add to it!”
Again he tossed a handful, and again they rolled and grovelled and
fought for it, and one man stabbed another and threw the body through
the window, crying as he did it:
“Thy gift is good, O Martemian, son of Stenko--_prebavit_!”
But at this he swore.
“_Prebavit!_” he cried, mocking; “_prebavit!_ Yea, and ye would slay
each other for it, and tear each other as a pack of wolves, until only
the blood and hair and bones remained. _Prebavit!_ By Saint Nikolas of
Mojaïsk, no! but the _pravezh_ to every man of you unless ye bring me
Von Gaden’s head to-morrow!” and with that he flung away, cursing them.
Von Gaden, the Jewish physician of the late Czar, was much hated in
Moscow and was, on the third day, cruelly tortured and executed. But of
him I knew nothing.
The second gift of roubles had borne a very devil’s harvest among these
drunken, savage creatures. No sooner had the man who gave it gone than
they fell to fighting again, each one determined to have the other’s
share. One great brute beat out another’s brains with a club, and a
small man stabbed the victor in the back, and while he was rifling the
pockets of his victim, a fourth threw him out the window and grappled
with a fifth over the two dead bodies. While others, too stupefied to
care even for gold, drank and drank yet more deeply, and one torch
after another burned out and semi-darkness fell upon the hideous scene,
and I was as little heeded as the dead bodies that lay upon the floor.
The liquor meanwhile was doing its work, and one by one the survivors
of the fray fell from their seats to the floor and slept, or lay
stupid; until, at last, only two old gamesters played at dice in the
filthy room, and between them was a pile of stolen gold. And I watched,
watched narrowly, hoping for a chance to break loose, though my bonds
held like iron. Yet these two villains played and drank, and neither
showed a sign of failing, though the heavy breathing of the sleepers
came even from under the table where I was tied.
Time, dragging with leaden feet, went on, and still they played and
cursed each other, and once, one of them sang a Russian song, a wild
melody, not without sweetness, and his voice was full and rich, and
flung its notes out, like a great bell, in the night.
“‘_My mother is--the beauteous sun_,’”
he sang;
“‘_And my father--the bright moon;
My brothers are the many stars,
And my sisters--the white dawns!_’”
And while he sang, he won and gathered in the roubles. Then the other,
a smaller and paler rogue, who had his knife drawn under the table,
began to quarrel with him, purposely, as I saw.
“Ivan Andreivitch,” he growled, “you sing and cheat--look you, the gold
is mine!”
The big fellow laughed and brought his fist down on the table.
“Curse you, Nikolas!” he roared, “’tis mine, you thief, and son of a
thief!”
At which the white face--sudden and swift as a tiger--thrust him
in the breast with his long knife, and the other sighed and rolled
over--dead--upon the table.
Then did I see terror--terror of men and angels--on the murderer’s
face. He stood with his knife dripping, his features set like a mask,
his eyes staring, his teeth chattering, and he looked askance even
at the dead. It was the fit that comes upon some men after they have
killed. So he stood, for full ten minutes, and then gathering up the
gold with eager hands, and hiding it about his person, he turned and
fled out into the night.
And I sat and stared. There was the same low room, only one torch
burning now, and on the floor dead men and drunken sleepers, and no one
to watch. Surely, no man ever saw a sight more horrid or more blasting,
but I had no time to meditate upon it. I set to work to gnaw at my
bonds and struggled to be free, and yet to no purpose. I could neither
bite nor break them, and the golden moments slipped away--as sand runs
through the fingers. I struggled desperately; I even succeeded so far
as to roll over, chair and all, upon the floor, but, though the crash
of my fall startled all the sleepers, it did not break a cord, and I
lay--no better off--bound fast upon the floor. The noise that I made in
falling had roused one of the wretches, however, so far that he did not
sink back, as the others did, into slumber. Instead, he raised himself
on his elbow and watched me struggle, and, at last, he began to put two
and two together, and his thirst came upon him and he sat up and stared
at me.
“I want more brandy!” he said thickly. “Have you taken it?” and he
lurched to his feet and tried to drain a drop from the empty flagon on
the gamblers’ table.
“I can show you more drink,” I said craftily, “if you will cut these
bonds.”
“Where is it?” he demanded, and fell to hiccoughing, and, reeling
toward me, “where is it, brother?”
“Undo this cord,” I said, holding out my hands, “and I will take you to
it.”
He leered at me slily, as if he suspected me, and then he began to
fumble with the knots and the perspiration stood out on my forehead. I
started at every sound lest someone should come upon us, and the tipsy
fool fumbled and cursed.
“Be swift!” I whispered, “be swift, friend, and I will show you a river
of drink.”
At this he swore with joy, and wrenching at the knot, until the cord
cut my wrists, he got it loose and I pulled my hands out. Once with
free fingers I made short work of the bonds on my ankles and leaped up,
just as he began to curse me, and cry out that I had fooled him.
“Come!” I said, and pushed him toward the window.
He reeled against it and I sprang upon the sill. The night was black
before me and the city seemed full of noises, cries, and discordant
sounds, and above, in the sky, there was that luminous pallor that
precedes the dawn.
“Where’s your drink?” the tippler mumbled, trying to pull me back, but
I knocked him aside.
“Yonder!” I said; “go to the river, fool, and drink it dry,” and I
dropped out of the window and left him cursing, too far gone to follow
me, though I think he tried.
I felt my way along by the wall of the house; I was in the court-yard,
a _cul-de-sac_ between the huts, and it was like pitch, but at last I
came to a gate and, fumbling at the latch, got it open and went out
into a street--a street that I did not know--in the Zemlianui-gorod,
and beset on all sides with dangers, seen and unseen. I went swiftly
forward, guided only by the dimly seen towers of the Kremlin, until the
light above grew fuller and I saw the crosses gleam on the cathedrals,
and so kept steadily on.
The wild night--full of its horrors--was spent; another day was
breaking, and here and there I stumbled on a man lying in the street,
either dead or in a drunken stupor, and once or twice I turned aside
to avoid a group of tipsy ruffians, but, in places, there was quiet,
the quiet of fear or worse, and I went on. The thought that I might be
too late drove me well-nigh to madness and winged my feet, yet the way
seemed endless.
But at last I came in sight of Kurakin’s house, and beyond it saw Le
Bastien’s, the windows still shuttered. There were no signs of outrage,
the street was quiet, the house closed and silent. I hurried to the
door and tried it and found it barred within. My heart beat high with
hope, and I made for the rear door and, crossing the court, tried my
key in the lock, but here, too, there were bars within.
Day dawned, a ghastly whiteness shone on the scene, even the sky was
white rather than blue. I beat upon the door. Silence. Then I heard a
step within, and beat upon the door and shouted. At my voice the bars
were lifted, the door opened softly, and Maluta’s white face and great
ears appeared.
“Where is the Princess Daria?” I cried, pushing past him.
He fell to trembling, his teeth chattered, he clutched at my knees.
“Be not angry, O my master,” he cried shrilly; “as the saints live, I
know not--she is not here!”
_XXIII: A SPRIG OF RUE_