ON THE ROAD
Israel Kensky died at five o'clock in the morning. They had made a rough
attempt to dress the wound in his shoulder, but, had they been the most
skilful of surgeons with the best appliances which modern surgery had
invented at their hands, they could not have saved his life. He died
literally in the arms of Irene, and they buried him in a little forest
on the edge of a sluggish stream, and Cherry Bim unconsciously delivered
the funeral oration.
"This poor old guy was a good fellow," he said. "I ain't got nothing on
the Jews as a class, except their habit of prosperity, and that just
gets the goat of people like me, who hate working for a living. He was
straight and white, and that's all you can expect any man to be, or any
woman either, with due respect to you, miss. If any of you gents would
care to utter a few words of prayer, you'll get a patient hearing from
me, because I am naturally a broad-minded man."
It was the girl who knelt by the grave, the tears streaming down her
cheeks, but what she said none heard. Cherry Bim, holding his hat crown
outward across his breast, produced the kind of face which he thought
adequate to the occasion; and, after the party had left the spot, he
stayed behind. He rejoined them after a few minutes, and he was putting
away his pocket-knife as he ran.
"Sorry to keep you, ladies and gents," he said, "but I am a sentimental
man in certain matters. I always have been and always shall be."
"What were you doing?" asked Malcolm, as the car bumped along.
Cherry Bim cleared his throat and seemed embarrassed.
"Well, to tell you the truth," he said. "I made a little cross and stuck
it over his head."
"But----" began Malcolm, and the girl's hand closed his mouth.
"Thank you, Mr. Bim," she said. "It was very, very kind of you."
"Nothing wrong, I hope?" asked Cherry in alarm.
"Nothing wrong at all," said the girl gently.
That cross over the grave of the Jew was to give them a day's respite.
Israel Kensky had left behind him in the place where he fell a fur hat
bearing his name. From the quantity of blood which the pursuers found,
they knew that he must have been mortally wounded, and it was for a
grave by the wayside that the pursuing party searched and found. It was
the cross at his head which deceived them and led them to take the ford
and try along the main road to the south of the river, on the banks of
which Kensky slept his last dreamless sleep.
The danger for the fugitives was evident.
"The most we can hope," said Malinkoff, "is to escape detection for two
days, after which we must abandon the car."
"Which way do you suggest?" asked Malcolm.
"Poland or the Ukraine," replied the general quickly. "The law of the
Moscow Soviet does not run in Little Russia or in Poland. We may get to
Odessa, but obviously we cannot go much farther like this. I have--or
had," he corrected himself, "an estate about seventy versts from here,
and I think I can still depend upon some of my people--if there are any
left alive. The car we must get rid of, but that, I think, will be a
simple matter."
They were now crossing a wide plain, which reminded Malcolm irresistibly
of the steppes of the Ukraine, and apparently had recalled the same
scene to Irene and Malinkoff. There was the same sweep of grass-land,
the same riot of flowers; genista, cornflour and clover dabbled the
green, and dwarf oaks and poverty-stricken birches stood in lonely
patches.
"Here is a Russia which the plough has never touched," said Malinkoff.
"Does it not seem to you amazing that the Americans and British who go
forth to seek new colonies, should lure our simple people to foreign
countries, where the mode of living, the atmosphere, is altogether
different from this, when here at their doors is a new land undiscovered
and unexploited?"
He broke off his homily to look out of the window of the car. He had
done that at least a dozen times in the past half-hour.
"We're going fairly fast," said Malcolm. "You do not think anything will
overtake us?"
"On the road--no," said Malinkoff, "but I am rather nervous crossing
this plain, where there is practically no cover at all, and the car is
raising clouds of dust."
"Nervous of what?"
"Aeroplanes," said Malinkoff. "Look, there is a pleasant little wood. I
suggest that we get under cover until night falls. The next village is
Truboisk, which is a large market centre and is certain to hold local
officers of the Moscow Soviet."
Both his apprehensions and his judgment were justified, for scarcely
had the car crept into the cover of green boughs, than a big aeroplane
was sighted. It was following the road and at hardly a hundred feet
above them. It passed with a roar. They watched it until it was a speck
in the sky.
"They are taking a lot of trouble for a very little thing. Russia must
be law-abiding if they turn their aeroplanes loose on a party of
fugitive criminals!"
"Boolba has told his story," said Malinkoff significantly. "By this time
you are not only enemies of the Revolution, but you are accredited
agents of capitalistic Governments. You have been sent here by your
President to stir up the bourgeois to cast down the Government, because
of British investments. Mr. Bim will be described as a secret service
agent who has been employed to assassinate either Trotsky or Lenin. If
you could only tap the official wireless," said Malinkoff, "you would
learn that a serious counter-revolutionary plot has been discovered, and
that American financiers are deeply involved. Unless, of course,"
corrected Malinkoff, "America happens to be in favour in Petrograd, in
which case it will be English financiers."
Malcolm laughed.
"Then we are an international incident?" he said.
"You are an 'international incident,'" agreed Malinkoff gravely.
Cherry Bim, sitting on the step, smoking a long cigar, a box of which
Petroff had given him as a parting present--looked up, blowing out a
blue cloud.
"A secret service agent?" he said. "That's a sort of fly cop, isn't it?"
"That's about it, Cherry," replied Malcolm.
"And do you think they'll call me a fly cop?" said the interested
Cherry.
Malinkoff nodded, and the gun-man chewed on his cigar.
"Time brings its revenges, don't it?" he said. "Never, oh never, did I
think that I should be took for a fellow from the Central Office! It
only shows you that if a guy continues on the broad path that leadeth to
destruction, and only goes enough, he'll find Mrs. Nemesis--I think
that's the name of the dame."
Malinkoff strolled to the edge of the wood and came back hurriedly.
"The aeroplane is returning," he said, "and is accompanied by another."
This time neither machine took the direct route. They were sweeping the
country methodically from side to side, and Malinkoff particularly
noticed that they circled about a smaller wood two miles away and seemed
loth to leave it.
"What colour is the top of this car?" he asked, and Bim climbed up.
"White," he said. "Is there time to put on a little of this 'camelflage'
I've heard so much about?"
The party set to work in haste to tear down small branches of trees and
scraps of bushes, and heap them on to the top of the car. Cherry Bim,
who had the instinct of deception, superintending the actual masking of
the roof, and as the sun was now setting detected a new danger.
"Let all the windows down," said Cherry. "Put a coat over the glass
screen and sit on anything that shines."
They heard the roar of the aeroplane coming nearer and crouched against
the trunk of a tree. Suddenly there was a deafening explosion which
stunned the girl and threw her against Malcolm. She half-rose to run but
he pulled her down.
"What was it?" she whispered.
"A small bomb," said Malcolm. "It is an old trick of airmen when they
are searching woods for concealed bodies of infantry. Somebody is bound
to run out and give the others away."
Cherry Bim, fondling his long Colt, was looking glumly at the cloud of
smoke which was billowing forth from the place where the bomb had
dropped. Round and round circled the aeroplane, but presently, as if
satisfied with its scrutiny, it made off, and the drone of the engine
grew fainter and fainter.
"War's hell," said Cherry, wiping his pallid face with a hand that
shook.
"I can't quite understand it," said Malinkoff. "Even supposing that
Boolba has told his story, there seems to be a special reason for this
urgent search. They would, of course, have communicated----"
He fell silent.
"Has Boolba any special reasons, other than those we know?" he asked.
Malcolm remembered the "Book of All-Power" and nodded.
"Have you something of Kensky's?" asked Malinkoff quickly. "Not that
infernal book?"
He looked so anxious that Malcolm laughed.
"Yes, I have that infernal book. As a matter of fact, it is the infernal
book of the Grand Duchess now."
"Mine?" she said in surprise.
"Kensky's last words to me were that this book should become your
property," said Malcolm, and she shivered.
"All my life seems to have been associated with the search for that
dreadful book," she said. "I wonder if it is one of Kensky's own
binding. You know," she went on, "that Israel Kensky bound books for a
hobby? He bound six for me, and they were most beautifully decorated."
"He was a rich man, was he not?" asked Malcolm.
She shook her head.
"He was penniless when he died," she said quietly. "Every store of his
was confiscated and his money was seized by order of the new Government.
I once asked him definitely why he did not turn to his 'Book of
All-Power' for help. He told me the time had not yet come."
"May I see the book?"
Malcolm took the volume with its canvas cover from his pocket, and the
girl looked at it seriously.
"Do you know, I have half a mind to throw it into the fire?" she said,
pointing to the smouldering wood where the bomb had fallen. "There seems
something sinister, something ominous about its possession that fills me
with terror."
She looked at it for a moment musingly, then handed it back to Malcolm.
"Poor Israel!" she said softly, "and poor Russia!"
They waited until darkness fell before they moved on. Malinkoff had an
idea that there was a crossroad before the town was reached, and
progress was slow in consequence, because he was afraid of passing it.
He was determined now not to go through the village, which lay directly
ahead. The fact that the aeroplane had been able to procure a recruit,
pointed to the existence of a camp of considerable dimensions in the
neighbourhood and he was anxious to keep away from armed authority.
It was a tense hour they spent--tense for all except Cherry Bim, who had
improvised a cushion on the baggage carrier at the back of the car, and
had affixed himself so that he could doze without falling off. The side
road did not appear, and Malinkoff grew more and more apprehensive.
There were no lights ahead, as there should be if he were approaching
the village. Once he thought he saw dark figures crouching close to the
ground as the car passed, but put this down to nerves. Five hundred
yards beyond, he discovered that his eyes had not deceived him. A red
light appeared in the centre of the road, and against the skyline--for
they were ascending a little incline at the moment--a number of dark
figures sprang into view.
The chauffeur brought the car to a halt with a jerk, only just in time,
for his lamps jarred against the pole which had been placed across the
road.
Malcolm had drawn his revolver, but the odds were too heavy, besides
which, in bringing his car to a standstill, the driver had shut off his
engine and the last hope of bunking through had disappeared.
A man carrying a red lamp came to the side of the car, and flashed the
light of a torch over the occupants.
"One, two, three, four," he counted. "There should be five."
He peered at them separately.
"This is the aristocrat general, this is the American revolutionary,
this is the woman. There is also a criminal. Did any man jump out?" he
asked somebody in the darkness, and there was a chorus of "No!"
Footsteps were coming along the road; the guard which had been waiting
to close them in from the rear, was now coming up. The man with the
lamp, who appeared to be an officer, made a circuit of the car and
discovered the carrier seat, but its occupant had vanished.
"There was a man here, you fools," he shouted. "Search the road; he
cannot have gone far. Look!"
He put the light on the road.
"There are his boots. You will find him amongst the bushes. Search
quickly."
Malcolm, at the girl's side, put his arm about her shoulder.
"You are not afraid?" he said gently, and she shook her head.
"I do not think I shall ever be afraid again," she replied. "I have
faith in God, my dear. Cherry has escaped?" she asked.
"I think so," he replied in a guarded tone. "He must have seen the
soldiers and jumped. They have just found his boots in the roadway."
The officer came back at that moment.
"You have weapons," he said. "Give them to me."
It would have been madness to disobey the order, and Malcolm handed over
his revolver and Malinkoff followed suit. Not satisfied with this, the
man turned them out in the road whilst he conducted a search.
"Get back," he said after this was over. "You must go before the
Commissary for judgment. The woman is required in Moscow, but we shall
deal summarily with the foreigner and Malinkoff, also the little thief,
when we find him."
He addressed the chauffeur.
"I shall sit by your side, and if you do not carry out my instructions I
shall shoot you through the head, little pigeon," he said. "Get down and
start your machine."