"I ask you to forgive him," I urged. "At least grant me this favour."
She was undecided, and the outlaws hearing us speak in English, called
to their tall champion to stay his hand.
"Very well," she said, at last. "I forgive him because you plead."
Without a word I pushed past the men surrounding us, and, taking out my
pocket-knife, severed the cord holding the terrified wretch. The old
scoundrel, dropping upon his knee, kissed my hand amid the loud jeers of
his rough, brutal companions, then regaining his feet, took off his cap,
and looking towards heaven, made the sign of the cross.
"This, I hope, will be a lesson, Stepanovitch," exclaimed Sonia,
sternly, in Russian, advancing towards him. "I forgive you only because
of the request of this Englishman. Remember in future that the person
of any friend of mine, or any of our brothers, is sacred."
"Yes, I will, matoushka," answered the old villain, penitently. "That I
will. I owe my life to his high nobility's intercession. I will not
again offend, little mother."
"Very well," she answered, abruptly; then, briefly explaining how they
had just returned from a hazardous trip across the frontier, during
which they were detected and followed by a Cossack picket, she gave the
order to return home, and we moved forward in single file along the
narrow secret paths which wound with so many intricacies through the
dark, gloomy forest. As I walked behind her we chatted in English, she
telling me how she had been compelled to leave London unexpectedly, and
relating how she had fared since we had last met. She, however, made no
mention of the nefarious trade she had adopted, and I hesitated to refer
to it.
When at length we emerged from the forest, the wounded man being
assisted along by his companions, it was near morning. The darkness had
gradually become less intense, the stars shone more faintly, and a
streak of dawn showed on the far-off horizon. The pale light revealed
grassy plains as far as the eye could reach, and the fresh morning
breeze swept softly over the thick, green grass that promised an
abundant hay crop, such as the dwellers on the broad Kovno plains had
longed for for many years. Soon after leaving the forest, however, the
party separated, arranging as meeting-place, when the moon rose on the
morrow, the third verst-post out of Wezajce, a small village five miles
distant. All her associates, Sonia explained, lived in villages in the
vicinity, scattering themselves in order to avoid detection by the
authorities. The villagers themselves, although well aware of their
doings, said nothing. To all inquiries by Cossack frontier-guards or
police spies they remained dumb, for the simple reason that while
contraband trade could be transacted the village thrived, each of these
small, wretched little places receiving indirectly a portion of the
outlaws' profit. In summer there were no empty barns or thistle-grown
threshing floors, and in winter the stoves in the huts were always
burning, and the "borstch," or soup, was never without its proper
proportion of buck-wheat gruel.
Many were the rumours of missing travellers and violent deaths in that
neighbourhood, but the villagers feared nothing from this adventurous
gang, who had grown more bold now that they were led by their "little
mother." From what I gathered from my fair companion as we pushed
forward together towards the dim line of trees that bounded the steppe
in the direction of the sunrise, it appeared that the band had been in
existence for several years, but that a few months before, the leader, a
well-known escaped convict, was shot dead by a picket while creeping by
day across the Zury steppe, and that a proposal had been sent to her at
Skerstymone, where she was hiding, that she should become their head.
She admitted, with a smile, that the men who had just left us to return
to their various occupations were all of bad character, and that, almost
without exception, all had served long terms of imprisonment for robbery
or murder.
"But is not the assassination of those who have paid for guidance into
Germany quite unjustifiable?" I exclaimed, reproachfully, as we walked
side by side across the long, dewy grass.
"How can I prevent it!" she asked. "I do all I can to preserve the
lives of our clients, but with men of their stamp it is impossible to
stop it. Nearly every one of the brotherhood would slit a throat with
as little compunction as lighting his cigarette: first, because it
avoids the risk of crossing the boundary, and secondly, because of the
money the victim has in his pockets. Again, persons who accept our
escort are not those persons after whom any inquiry is made. When they
are missed, their friends naturally conclude they've fallen into the
hands of the police, or have escaped abroad and fear to write.
Stepanovitch, for instance, does not obtain the rolls of notes he
sometimes has by importing contraband goods, neither could he afford to
keep a snug house down in Ludwinow, where he spends the winter, and is
regarded as a highly respectable member of the Mir."
"He is an assassin, then?"
Sonia smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
We were approaching a small village with a background of high pine
trees, situated on the edge of the great treeless plain. Its name was
Sokolini, she told me. Once, in the days of serfdom, it had been the
property of a landowner, but now, enjoying liberty, its emancipation was
attested by its half-ruined huts, whose bulging walls and
smoke-blackened timbers were supported by wooden props. There were not
more than thirty houses, all of a similarly squalid, miserable
character, and as we entered the tiny place the cocks were crowing in
the yards, for the sun had by this time fully risen.
"Five miles through yonder forest as the crow flies brings us into
German territory," she said, indicating the dense wood behind the
houses, then pausing before the door of one of the tumble-down huts,
pushed it open, and invited me to enter.
The interior was one square room, with huge brick stove, the flat top of
which served as bed in winter, a low sloping ceiling and two small
windows with uneven panes of greenish glass that imparted to the rays of
light a melancholy greyish tint. The bare miserable place was poorly
furnished with wooden chairs, a rickety table, and a very old moth-eaten
sofa covered with velvet that was once red, but now of faded brown.
Over the door was nailed a cheap, gaudy ikon, and on the opposite wall
was pasted a crude woodcut of his Majesty the Tzar.
The room was, indeed, in strange contrast to the dainty little
drawing-room in Pembroke Road.
While I threw myself into a chair worn-out by fatigue, she removed the
ugly wrapper from her head, and disappearing into a little inner den,
the only other room in the house, soon reappeared with a steaming
samovar, afterwards handing me tea with lemon.
The pale yellow sun struggling in through the thick green panes, fell in
slanting rays across the carpetless room, and as we sat opposite one
another sipping our cups we exchanged curious glances. Ours had,
indeed, been a strange meeting.
She burst out laughing at last.
"Well," she said, "I see you are surprised."
"I am. I did not expect you had exchanged your life in London for
this," I exclaimed.
"Ah! I was horribly tired of inactivity there. I had spent all my
money, and could do nothing in your country. It is a drawback to be too
well-known," she laughed.
"But surely this life is attended by very serious risks," I observed,
noticing, as the sunlight fell across her hair, that she was still as
handsome as ever, notwithstanding her ugly peasant costume and clumsy
boots.
"Yes," she answered reflectively. "Perhaps, in a little while, when I
have made more money I shall leave here and return to London. One
cannot live without money."
"True," I answered. "Yet life here must be terribly dull and monotonous
after Vienna and Paris."
"Ah!" she cried, with the slightest suspicion of a sigh. "All that I
have forgotten long, long ago."
Her eyes were downcast, and I thought I detected tears in them. I gazed
at her, this woman who was known in nearly every capital in Europe as
one of the most daring and enterprising adventuresses of the century,
half-fearing that she might still refuse to disclose her secret.