FOR FRIENDSHIP’S SAKE
My friend’s question came like a clap of thunder in the clear blue of a
summer sky, so absolutely startling was its surprise.
In the second’s pause before I replied, many of the complicating
possibilities involved in it flashed upon me as his burning almost
passionate gaze was bent upon me.
I pushed my chair back, rose and gripped his hand. “We must talk this
over, Ladislas, as friends.”
“Answer me. Answer me,” he cried, trying to release his hand. “I must
know, before we talk of friendship.”
“I will answer you. I give you my honour you shall have nothing but the
truth from me; but I must first know all that lies behind the question
and all that depends upon it. Come, man, speak out. Don’t try to drag
your hand away. We are men as well as dear friends; and whatever has to
be said or done, must not and shall not break our friendship.” I placed
my other hand on his shoulder. “Can’t you agree to this?”
“Not if you have come between me and her.”
“You are unbalanced in your excitement, or you would never say that to
me. Understand what I say. Nothing--mark, nothing shall ever make me
other than your friend.”
I felt him trembling under my hand; and again he tried to free himself.
“No, Ladislas; I do not let you go until you agree in that. You saved
my life once. Do you think I forget? I told you then that if the day
ever came for me to pay the debt, I should be glad. Now, what is this
girl to you?”
“More than my life. My God, much more. More than even my honour, I
believe, God help me.”
I steadied myself and spoke firmly. “What is it you ask of me?”
His large expressive eyes lighted with eagerness. “Can you do this for
me? Can you give her to me?”
I clenched my hands until the nails dug into the palms with the
intensity of my effort for composure. It was the crisis of my life.
“My God, you cannot? You will not? And you pledged your oath. I saved
your life; and you are false to your word.” He said this rapidly,
vehemently, fiercely. Then with a sudden change he flung himself into
a chair and covered his face with his hands, crying: “God, God, what a
coward I am!”
I resumed my seat and as I faced the sacrifice that was now demanded of
me, the old scene flashed vividly into my thoughts.
On a treacherous slope of crumbling rubble not thirty feet from the
edge of an Alpine abyss, dropping a thousand feet sheer to the rocks
below, a young fellow lay on his back, sweat-stained and staring, heels
and hands dug desperately into the yielding surface as he measured the
inches and reckoned the moments between him and the death yawning just
below him. Slip, slip, slip, an inch or two at a time, he slid. Clutch
as he would with his bleeding fingers and strain as he did, he could
not prevent himself from being carried down, down, down with slow but
heart-sickening certainty.
Death seemed inevitable; and as it is better to die quickly than to
linger with nerve-racking hopelessness, he had made up his mind to let
himself go and get it over, when a cheery call came from above, and the
light of hope was kindled once again in his beating heart.
At the hazard of his life another man launched himself on that death
slide and, with a courage equalled only by his mountaineering skill,
carried a rope to his friend and saved his life just as his feet
reached the very brink of the abyss.
I was the clumsy fool who had stupidly jeopardized my life and Ladislas
the friend who offered his to save me.
And now Volna was to be the price! He had called for it: had thrown in
my teeth the pledge I had given; and had chided me for my unreadiness
to redeem it. This the friend whom I had always deemed the type of
honour and chivalry! Bargaining for the body of the woman he loved!
In the first bitter moment my soul rose in passionate rebellion
against the sacrifice. Nothing in all my life had ever moved me so
deeply. To make myself a party to the bargain was to do dishonour to
Volna herself. What right had we to take this thing into our hands and
settle her life for her? It was for her, not for us, to make a decision
so vital to her happiness.
Such a price as this had never been in contemplation. He knew this as
well as I. And at that point my memory played me a curious trick. My
thoughts flashed back to the moment of cold despair when death lay
gaping just below me on that mountain slide; to the dazzling change to
hope at the sound of Ladislas’ cheery call of encouragement. I saw him
again working his way toward me, death the certain penalty of a single
unskilful step; and once again the warm glow of gratitude for the
dauntless courage and devotion which had prompted my pledge then, came
back in all its force now.
It ended the struggle. I would pay the price, let the cost be what it
might.
I sighed heavily and turned to find him leaning forward watching me
intently and waiting, as though he divined the struggle that was
rending me.
I smiled. “I won’t pretend that it hasn’t cost me a struggle, Ladislas;
but it’s over: and we can still be friends.”
“How strong you are!” he exclaimed.
“You wouldn’t think there was much strength in me if you knew the
bitter things I was thinking just now of you.”
“You love her, then?”
“I can’t help that--but I can trust myself for the rest. Would to
Heaven I had known before this had happened at Bratinsk! So little did
I suspect, I came to-day to ask you the meaning of her betrothal to
Colonel Bremenhof.”
“It is an awful mess!” he exclaimed, and began pacing the room again.
“Count Peter arranged that. It was a blind to keep the Drakonas from
being suspected. Volna consented for her mother’s sake; but she was
candid, telling the man she did not care for him. She is as true as a
crystal. Her sister and brother--do you know them? No?--they fed him
with lies and blinded him; all at the Count’s instigation.”
“Well?”
“Bremenhof is a devil for cunning. He was not deceived; and he saw
at once that his hold over Volna was her fear for her mother. So he
wormed and moled and got a case against the mother; and now he swears
that if the marriage does not take place at once--to-day or at latest
to-morrow--he will have the mother arrested, and Volna, too.”
“You know of my affair with him?”
“Volna told me you struck him. He took her there to satisfy himself
privately that she had been at Bratinsk; and have that to hold over
her.”
“Why have you let her stay at Warsaw?”
“Count Peter was bringing her to Cracow to be married to me.”
“Married to you! I don’t understand. Were you secretly betrothed?”
“No, no. She had no thought of it, until Count Peter told her at
Bratinsk. But she knows how I love her; and we should have won her to
consent.”
I remembered her statement to me at Bratinsk; that she had meant to
escape and return to Warsaw. But I kept this to myself.
“And now?”
“She is changed. It is you who have changed her. She can scarcely be
kept from breaking with Bremenhof. I don’t know what to do. My God, I
don’t know what to do.”
“It’s plain enough. Take her and her mother away from Warsaw.”
“How can I go, man? In Heaven’s name, how can I go? We are on the eve
of the most glorious crisis in our country’s history; and we leaders
dare not leave our posts.”
“Send them away then in some one else’s care.”
“Why? This city is the safest place in all the Empire for them.
To-day the great demonstration at Petersburg will show the Czar and
those about him and all the world that the people’s just demands can
no longer be resisted. The power of these tyrants will be shattered
against the greater might of the people’s will. You know my dreams of
old. They are coming true. We are on the eve of the greatest revolution
the world has ever seen: greatest in purpose, widest in area, most
beneficial in results--and what is greatest of all--to be achieved
without the shedding of a drop of blood.”
“A bloodless revolution will be a new thing in history, Ladislas,
especially under Russian methods.”
“You do not understand and so you doubt. But we know. The army is with
us almost to a man. They are of the people, blood of blood and bone
of bone in close-knit kinship; and when the hour strikes, the people
will rise in every city, town, and hamlet, rise as one man; and at that
rising the musket of every soldier will be grounded and not a sword
will leave its scabbard. Peace is our watch-word; peace our method;
peace and brotherhood our end.”
“It is not only Polish independence then?”
“Poland will be free. Poland will lift her head again, a nation among
the nations: but all Russia will be free in the gigantic upheaval.”
His eyes gleamed with excitement as he strode up and down flinging his
arms about; his enthusiasm fired by his own rhapsody. He was very much
the dreamer; and he gave the reins to his dream with voluble energy.
“Have you any practical men among you?” I asked, when at length he
paused.
“We are all practical. My dear friend, you do not know us.”
“True; but suppose you are wrong and that in some places the troops
stand by the Government, what will you do?”
“Should we legislate for the impossible?” and he went on with a hundred
and fifty unconvincing and inconsequent reasons why nothing of the
kind could occur. “We are offering liberty--liberty, the grandest
gift on God’s green earth--not only to the people, but to the soldiers
themselves. They are not fools, or blind, or idiots to refuse it.”
“But your troops here are not Poles, but Russians hating the Poles; and
the disposition of the regiments all over the Empire is on the same
principle. Do you tell me that national and tribal hatreds are going
to be smothered just because a few good fellows like you hold up your
hands and cry ‘Liberty’? To put it in a nutshell, if you believe this,
why are you afraid of what Bremenhof can do in regard to Volna?”
To my surprise and concern he collapsed entirely. He threw himself
into a chair and pressed his hand to his face. “Don’t, don’t,” he
cried. “You give life and form to the one deadly fear that chills me
when I can’t suppress it; that haunts me at night like a spectre, and
paralyzes me with the agony of its hideous possibilities. I dare not
think of it, my friend; I dare not. God, God, I dare not.”
I said no more. He was curious material for revolutionary work; but if
there were many like him, the Fraternity was a much less formidable
body than I had deemed, despite the evidence I had had of its
widespread organization.
Presently he roused himself, stood up and apparently with only the
slightest effort shook off his depression.
“I didn’t mean to inflict this on you,” he said, with a smile,
charming but almost pathetically weary.
My patience was nearly exhausted, however. “What are you going to do to
save her?” I asked bluntly.
He shook back his long hair, and smiled. “To-morrow there will be no
more thought or talk of danger.”
Just then he was called out, and when he returned a few minutes later,
his face was grey and drawn and haggard with anxiety.
“You must take her away from Warsaw,” he said.
“I? Ladislas! What do you mean?”
He held up a paper in his trembling hand. “News from Petersburg. The
soldiers are drawn up in thousands all over the city there. Guns are
posted in all directions; God knows what is going to happen. If there
is bloodshed there, hell will break loose here. You alone can save her.”
“But, Ladislas, you forget. For me to do anything now----”
He caught both my hands in his agitation. “You’ll do this, Robert? For
our old friendship’s sake? For her sake? If she stays here, God alone
knows what may happen. You must do it. You must. You must.” He was
almost hysterical.
“But after what I have told you about her and you have implied to me,
my position----”
“What is all that compared to her safety? Do you think I would not
trust you? Come to the house with me at once--this instant. Would you
leave her in Bremenhof’s power?”
“No, no, I cannot go with you. You ask too much. For her sake, no less
than mine, you must find some other means,” I protested.
“There is no other way,” he cried, impetuously and vehemently. “She
shall know the truth. I will tell her that you renounce--that--you know
what I mean. For God’s sake, don’t hesitate or it may be too late. At
any cost she must be saved; and her family can do nothing. She shall
know that you are acting for me. I will explain everything. It is no
time for mere scruples or personal feeling. If I trust you, surely you
can trust yourself.”
I was dead set against the plan: every impulse and instinct protesting,
except the desire to help Volna. But that she would be in grievous
danger, should there be a rising in the city, was a fact nothing could
explain away; and that Ladislas was about the last man in the world
to be able to save her in such a crisis appeared no less certain. If
anything was to be done, some one capable of taking a practical view
of things must do it; and her friends appeared to be a set of most
unpractical theorists.
But if I was to do anything, it must be made absolutely plain to Volna
that I was acting for Ladislas--to save her for him. Surely a most
awkward situation to explain. But he continued to urge me and declared
he would leave no doubt in her mind; and at length I yielded, and we
started for the Drakonas’ house.