UNDER SURVEILLANCE
I paid my bill, strolled out, and in the doorway encountered a man I
knew slightly--a young officer--with whom I paused to chat, thereby
blocking the doorway temporarily, with the result that I found my friend
the spy--as I was now convinced he was--at my elbow. My unexpected halt
had pulled him up short.
"Pardon!" I said with the utmost politeness, stepping aside, so he had
to pass out, though I guessed he was angry enough at losing my
conversation, for I was telling Lieutenant Mirakoff of my arrest,--as a
great joke, at which we both laughed uproariously.
"They should have seen that you were a foreigner, and therefore quite
mad,--and harmless," he cried.
"Now, I ought to call you out for that!" I asserted.
"At your service!" he answered, still laughing, as we separated.
The spy was apparently deeply interested in the contents of a shop
window near at hand, and I went off briskly in the other direction; but
in a minute or two later, when I paused, ostensibly to compare my watch
with a clock which I had just passed, I saw, as I glanced back, that he
was on my track once more.
This was getting serious, and I adopted a simple expedient to give him
the slip for the present. I hailed a droshky and bade the fellow drive
to a certain street, not far from that where Mishka's cafe was situated.
We started off at the usual headlong speed, and presently, as we
whirled round a corner, I called on the driver to stop, handed him a
fare that must have represented a good week's earnings, and ordered him
to drive on again as fast as he could, and for as long as his horse
would hold out.
He grinned, "clucked" to his horse, and was off on the instant, while I
turned into a little shop close by, whence I had the satisfaction, less
than half a minute after, of seeing a second droshky dash past, in
pursuit of the first, with the spy lolling in it. If my Jehu kept
faith--there was no telling if he would do that or not, though I had to
take the risk--_monsieur le mouchard_ would enjoy a nice drive, at the
expense of his government!
In five minutes I was at the cafe, where I dropped my coin; it rolled to
a corner and the waiter picked it up, while I sipped my tea and grumbled
at the scarcity of lemon. I asked the prescribed question when he
restored the piece; and almost immediately Mishka himself joined me.
This was better than I had dared to hope, for I knew I could speak to
him freely; in fact I told him everything, including the ruse by which I
had eluded my vigilant attendant.
"You must not try that again," he said, in his sulky fashion. "It has
served once, yes; but it will not serve again. When he finds that you
have cheated him he will make his report, and then you will have, not
one, but several spies to reckon with; that is, if they think it worth
while. Still you have done well,--very well. Now you must wait until you
hear from my master." Mishka never mentioned a name if he could avoid
doing so.
"But can't you give me some idea as to where she is likely to be?" I
demanded. To wait, and continue to act my part, as if there was no such
person as Anne Pendennis in the world and in deadly peril was just about
the toughest duty imaginable.
"I can tell you nothing, and you, by yourself, can do nothing," he
retorted stolidly. "If you are wise you will go about your business as
if nothing had happened. But be in your rooms by--nine o'clock to-night.
It is unlikely that we can send you any word before then."
Nine o'clock! And it was now barely noon! Nine mortal hours; and within
their space what might not happen? But there was no help for it. Mishka
had spoken the truth; by myself I could do nothing.
It was hard--hard to be bound like this, with invisible fetters; and to
know all the time that the girl I loved was so near and yet so far,
needing my aid, while I was powerless to help her,--I, who would so
gladly lay down my life for her.
Who was she? What was she? How was her fate linked with that of this
great grim land,--a land "agonizing in the throes of a new birth?" If
she had but trusted me in the days when we had been together, could I
have saved her then? Have spared her the agony my heart told me she was
suffering now?
Yes,--yes, I said bitterly to myself. I could have saved her, if she had
trusted me; for then she would have loved me; would have been content to
share my life. A roving life it would have been, of course, for we were
both nomads by choice as well as by chance, and the nomadic habit, once
formed, is seldom broken. But how happy we should have been! Our
wanderings would never have brought us to Russia, though. Heavens, how
I hated--how I still hate it; the greatest and grandest country in the
world, viewed under the aspect of sheer land; a territory to which even
our own United States of America counts second for extent, for
fertility, for natural wealth in wood and oil and minerals. A country
that God made a paradise, or at least a vast storehouse for the supply
of human necessities and luxuries; but a country of which man has made
such a hell, that, in comparison with it, Dante's "Inferno" reads like a
story of childish imaginings.
Yes, Russia was a hell upon earth; and Petersburg was the centre and
epitome of it, I said in my soul, as I loitered on one of the bridges
that afternoon, and looked on the swift flowing river, on the splendid
buildings, gleaming white, as the gilded cupolas and spires of the
churches gleamed fire red, under the brilliant sunshine. A fair city
outwardly, a whited sepulchre raised over a charnel-house. A city of
terror, wherein every man is an Ishmael, knowing--or suspecting--that
every other man's hand is against him.
There was a shadow over the whole land, over the city, over myself, the
stranger within its gate; and in that shadow the girl I loved was
impenetrably enveloped.
I raised my eyes, and there, fronting me across the water, sternly
menacing, were the gray walls of the fortress-prison, named, as if in
grim mockery, the fortress of "Peter and Paul." Peter, who denied his
Lord, though he loved Him; Paul, who denied his Lord before he knew and
loved Him! Perhaps the name is not so inconsistent, after all. The deeds
that are done behind the walls of that fortress-prison by men who call
themselves Christians, are the most tremendous denial of Christ that
this era has witnessed.
Sick at heart, I turned away, and walked moodily back to my hotel. The
proprietor was in the lobby, and the whole staff seemed to be on the
spot. They all looked at me as if they thought I might be some recently
discovered wild animal, and I wondered why. But as no one spoke to me, I
asked the clerk at the bureau for my key.
"I have it not; others--the police--have it," he stammered.
"Oh, that's it, is it?" I said. "They're up there now? All right."
I went up the stairs--there was no elevator--and found a couple of
soldiers posted outside my door.
"Well, what are you doing here?" I asked, in good enough Russian. "This
is my room, and I'll thank you to let me pass."
The one on the right of the door flung it open with a flourish, and
motioned me to enter.
As I passed him he said, with a laugh to his fellow, "So--the rat goes
into the trap!"