A FORLORN HOPE
They were a craven crew,--bold enough when arrayed in their numbers
against two men and one helpless girl, but terror-stricken at these
fresh tidings.
That was my opinion of them at the time, but perhaps it was unjust.
Every man who attended that meeting had done so at the deliberate risk
of his life and liberty. Most of them had undoubtedly tramped the whole
way to the rendezvous, through the storm and swelter of the summer
night, and they were fatigued and unstrung. Also, the Russian--and
especially the revolutionary Russian--is a queer psychological amalgam.
Ordinarily as callous and stoical as a Chinaman in the infliction or
endurance of death or torture, he is yet a bundle of high-strung nerves,
and at any moment his cool cynicism is liable to give place to sheer
hysteria.
Therefore at the warning shout, panic seized them, and they fled,
helter-skelter, through the main door. In less than a minute the place
was clear of all but ourselves and the dead and wounded on the floor.
Loris slammed the door, barred it, and strode back to us. Pendennis was
kneeling beside Anne, calling her by her name, and I leaned against the
wall, staring stupidly down at them. I was faint and dizzy all at once,
incapable for the moment of either speech or action.
"Well done, my friend!" the Duke exclaimed. "You thought I had failed
you, eh? Come, we must get out of this quickly. They will return when
they find it is a ruse. Is she hurt?"
He pushed Pendennis aside unceremoniously, and lifted Anne in his arms,
as easily as if she had been a child.
I think she must have been regaining consciousness, for I heard him say
rapidly and tenderly:
"Courage, _petite_, thou shalt soon be safe."
"Who are you?" demanded Pendennis, peering at him in perplexity. His
disguise was palpable and incongruous enough, now that he was speaking
in his natural voice.
"Her friend, as I presume you are; therefore follow if you would save
her and yourself. There is no time for talk!"
With Anne in his arms he made for the door by which he had entered, and
Pendennis rushed after him. Anne's arms were round his neck; she was
clinging to him, and her head lay on his shoulder. I saw the gleam of
her bright hair as they passed through the doorway,--the last I was to
see of Anne Pendennis for many a long day.
I staggered forward, trying to beat back the horrible faintness that was
overwhelming me, and to follow them, stumbled over a corpse, and fell
headlong. An agonizing pain shot through me, beginning at my left arm,
and I knew now that it was broken. The pain dispelled the faintness for
the time being, but I made no attempt to rise. Impossible to follow
them now, or even if not impossible, I could be of no service; I should
only hamper their flight. Better stay here and die.
I think I prayed that I might die soon; I know I prayed that they might
yet reach safety. Where had Anne's father sprung from? How could he have
known of her capture, of this meeting in the heart of the woods? How had
he made his way here?
Why, he must himself belong to this infernal society, as she did; that
was it, of course. What an abominable din this was in my head,--worse to
bear than the pain of my wounds. In my head? No, the noise was
outside--shrieks and shouts, and the crackle of rifles. I dragged myself
to a sitting posture and listened. The Duke had said that his tale of
the soldiers was a mere ruse, but certainly there was a fight going on
outside. Were the soldiers there, and had Loris unwittingly spoken the
truth,--or had he himself betrayed the revolutionists as a last
resource? Unanswerable questions, all of them; so why worry about them?
But they kept whirling round maddeningly in my half delirious brain,
while the din still raged without, though it seemed to be abating.
The remaining lamp had flickered out, but sufficient light came now
through the gaps in the broken roof to enable me to see about me. The
place was like a shambles round the spot where we had taken our stand;
there were five or six bodies, besides the president, whom I had shot at
first. It was his corpse I had stumbled over, so he had his revenge in a
way.
I found myself wondering idly how long it would be before they would
search the chapel, and if it would be worth while to try and get out by
the door through which Loris had come and gone; but, though I made a
feeble effort to get on my feet, it was no good. I was as weak as an
infant. I discovered then that I was soaked with blood from bullet
wounds in my right arm and in my side, though I felt no pain from them
at the time; all the pain was concentrated in my broken left arm.
There came a battering at the barred door, to which my back was turned,
and a moment afterwards the other door swung open, and an officer sprang
in, sword in hand, followed by a couple of soldiers with fixed bayonets.
He stopped short, with an exclamation of astonishment, at the sight of
the dead man, and I laughed aloud, and called:
"Hello, Mirakoff!"
It was queer; I recognized him, I heard myself laugh and speak, in a
strange detached fashion, as if I was some one else, having no
connection with the battered individual half sitting, half lying on the
blood-stained floor.
"Who is it?" he asked, staying his men with a gesture, and staring down
at me with a puzzled frown.
"Maurice Wynn."
"Monsieur Wynn! _Ma foi!_ What the devil are you doing here?"
"Curiosity," I said. "And I guess I've paid for it!"
I suppose I must have fainted then, for the next thing I knew I was
sitting with my back to a tree, while a soldier beside me, leaning on
his rifle, exchanged ribald pleasantries with some of his comrades who,
assisted by several stolid-faced _moujiks_, were busily engaged in
filling in and stamping down a huge and hastily dug grave.
At a little distance, three officers, one of them Mirakoff, were talking
together, and beside them, thrown on an outspread coat, was a heap of
oddments, chiefly papers, revolvers, and "killers." As I looked a
soldier gathered these up into a bundle, and hoisted it on his shoulder.
A watch and chain fell out, and he picked them up, and pocketed them.
I heard a hoarse word of command on the right, and saw a number of
prisoners--the remnant of the revolutionists, each with a soldier beside
him--file into the wood. They all looked miserable enough, poor
wretches. Some were wounded, scarcely able to stand, and their guards
urged them forward by prodding them with their bayonets.
I wondered why I wasn't among them, and guessed if they tried to make me
march that way, I'd just stay still and let them prod the life out of
me!
I still felt dazed and queer, and my broken left arm hurt me badly. It
hung helpless at my side, but my right arm had been roughly bandaged and
put in a sling, and I could feel a wad over the other wound, held in
place by a scarf of some kind. My mouth and throat were parched with a
burning thirst that was even worse than the pain in my arm.
The group of officers dispersed, and Mirakoff crossed over to me.
"Well, you are recovering?" he asked curtly.
I moved my lips, but no sound would come, so I just looked up at him.
He saw how it was with me, and ordered the soldier to fetch water. He
was a decent youngster, that Mirakoff, too good for a Russian; he must
have had some foreign blood in him.
"This is a serious matter," he said, while the man was gone. "Lucky I
chanced on you, or you'd have been finished off at once, and shoved in
there with the rest"--he jerked his head towards the new-made grave.
"I've done the best I could for you. You'll be carried through the wood,
and sent in a cart to Petersburg, instead of having to run by the
stirrup, as the others who can stand must do. But you'd have to go to
prison. What on earth induced you to come here?"
The man came back with the water, and I drank greedily, and found my
voice, though the words came slowly and clumsily.
"Curiosity, as I told you."
"Curiosity to see '_La Mort_,' you mean?"
"No; though I've got pretty close to death," I said, making a feeble
pun. (We were, of course, speaking in French.)
"I don't mean death; I mean a woman who is called '_La Mort_.' Her
name's Anna Petrovna. She was to have been there. Did you see her? Was
she there?"
I forgot my pain for the instant, in the relief that his words conveyed.
Surely he would not have put that question to me if she was already a
prisoner. Loris must have got away with her, and, for the present, at
least, she was safe.