THE TRAGEDY IN THE SQUARE
It was the flat of the sabre that had got me on the forehead, otherwise
there'd have been an end of me at once. I was not unconscious for very
long, for when I sat up, wiped the blood out of my eyes, and stared
about me, sick and dazed, unable for the moment to recollect what had
happened, I could still hear a tumult raging in the distance.
The street itself was quiet; the soldiers, the mob were gone; all the
houses were shut and silent, though scared faces were peeping from some
of the upper windows. Here and there a wounded man or woman was
staggering or crawling away; and close beside me a woman was sitting,
like a statue of despair, with her back against the wall, and something
lying prone across her knees--the little mangled body of the boy who had
been killed in the first scuffle, that Marie Levinska had provoked.
I remembered all then, and looked round wildly for Anne. There was no
sign either of her or of Natalya.
I scrambled up, impatiently binding my handkerchief tight round my
wounded head, which was bleeding profusely now, and stood over the
silent woman.
"Where are they? Where is the lady who was with you?" I demanded
hoarsely. "Answer me, for God's sake!"
"They took her away--those devils incarnate--and the other woman got up
and ran after," she answered dully. "There was an officer with them; he
cried out that they would teach her not to insult the army."
I felt my blood run cold. Since I returned to this accursed country I
had seen many--and heard of more--deeds of such fiendish cruelty
perpetrated on weak women, on innocent little children, that I knew what
the Cossacks were capable of when their blood was up. They were, as the
women said, devils incarnate at such times.
My strength came back to me, the strength of madness, and I rushed away,
down that stricken street, with but one clear idea in my mind,--to die
avenging Anne, for I knew no power on earth could save her.
As I ran the tumult waxed louder, coming, as I guessed, from the great
square to which the street led at this end.
Half-way along, a woman, huddled in the roadway, clutched at me, with a
moaning cry. I shook off her grasp, glanced at her, and saw she was
Natalya. The faithful soul had not been able to follow her mistress far.
"Where have they taken her?" I cried.
She could not speak, but she glared at me, a world of anguish and horror
in her dark eyes, and pointed in the direction I was going, and I
hurried on. I had a "killer" in my hand, the deadly little bludgeon of
lead, set on a spiral copper spring, that was the favorite weapon of the
mob, though I haven't the least notion as to when I picked it up.
Now I was on the fringe of the crowd that overflowed from the square,
and was pushing my way forward towards the centre, a furious vortex of
noise and confusion. A desperate fight was in progress, surging round
something, some one.
"It is Anna Petrovna!" a woman screamed above the din. "They tore her
clothes from her; they are beating her to death with their _nagaikas_!
Mother of Mercy! That such things should be!"
"'_A la vie et a la mort._' Save her; avenge her," some one shouted, I
myself I think, and the cry was taken up and echoed hoarsely on all
sides. So, there must be many of the League in the turmoil.
Now I was in the thick of it, a swaying, struggling mass of men and
horses; many of the horses plunging riderless as the wild horsemen were
dragged from their saddles, and disappeared in that stormy sea of
outraged humanity. The Cossacks were getting the worst of it, for once,
not a doubt of that.
"Back," roared a mighty voice. "We have her; back I say; make way
there,--let us pass!"
Mishka's voice, and Mishka's burly figure, mounted on a horse, pressed
forward slowly, forcing a way through for another horseman who followed
close in his wake.
"Make way, comrades," shouted Mishka again, and at the cry, at the sight
of the grim silent horseman in the rear, a curious lull fell on all
within sight and hearing; though elsewhere the strife raged furiously as
ever.
Loris sat erect in his saddle, as if on parade; bareheaded, his face set
like a white mask, his brilliant blue eyes fixed, expressionless, no,
that's not the right word, but I can't say what the expression was;
neither horror nor anguish, nor despair, just a quiet steady gaze,
without a trace of human emotion in it. Save that he was breathing
heavily and slowly, he might have been a statue,--or a corpse. I am sure
he was quite unconscious of his surroundings. The reins lay loose on his
horse's neck, and, though its sides heaved, and its coat was a plaster
of sweat and foam and blood, the good beast took its own way quietly
through that densely packed, suddenly silent mob, as if it, like its
master, was oblivious of the mad world around them.
But it was on the burden borne by the silent horseman that every eye was
fixed; a burden partly hidden by a soldier's great coat. I knew she was
dead,--we all knew it,--though the head with its bright dishevelled
hair, as it lay heavily on her lover's shoulder, seemed to have a
semblance of life, as it moved slightly with the rise and fall of his
breast. Her face was hidden, but from under the coat one long arm swayed
limp, its whiteness hideously marred with jagged purple weals, from
which the blood still oozed, trickling down and dripping from the tips
of the fingers,--those beautiful ringless fingers that I knew and loved
so well.
I had no further thought of fighting now; my brain and heart were numb,
so I just dropped my weapon and fell in behind the horse, following
close on its heels. Others did the same, the whole section of the crowd
on this side the square moving after us, in what, compared with the
chaos of a few minutes back, was an orderly retreat.
Well it was for some of them that they did so, for we had scarcely
gained the street when the rattling boom of artillery sounded in the
rear; followed by a renewed babel of shrieks and yells. The guns had
been brought up and the work of summarily clearing the square had
begun. But before the panic-stricken mob overtook us, flying
helter-skelter before the new terror, Loris had urged his horse forward,
or it quickened its pace of its own accord as the throng in front
thinned and gave way more easily. I think I tried instinctively to keep
up with it, but the crowd closed round me, the rush of fugitives from
the rear overtook, overwhelmed us, and I was carried along with it.
I suppose I must have kept my footing, otherwise I should have been
trampled down, as were so many others on that awful day. But where I
went and what I did during the hours that followed I don't know, and I
never shall. I lost all sense of time and place; though I've a hazy
recollection of stumbling on alone, through dark streets, sodden with
the rain that was now falling in a persistent, icy drizzle. Some of the
streets were silent and deserted; in others I paused idly to watch
parties of sullen soldiers and police, grumbling and swearing over their
gruesome task of collecting the dead bodies, and tossing them into
carts; and again I stared into brilliantly lighted cafes and listened to
the boisterous merriment of those within. Were they celebrating an
imaginary victory, or acting on the principle, "Let us eat, drink, and
be merry, for to-morrow--perchance to-night--we die?"
Death brooded over the city that night; I felt His presence
everywhere,--in the streets that were silent as the grave itself; in
those whence the dead were being removed; most of all where men and
women laughed and sang and defied Him! But I felt the dread Presence in
a curious detached fashion. Death was my enemy indeed, an enemy who
would not strike, who passed me by as one beneath contempt! And always,
clear before my eyes, in my ears, above all other sights and sounds, I
saw Anne's face, heard her voice. Now she stood before me as I had first
known her,--a radiant, queenly vision; a girl whose laughing eyes showed
never a care in the world, or a thought beyond the passing moment. Her
hands were full of flowers, red flowers, red as blood. Why, it was
blood; it was staining her fingers, dripping from them! Yet the man
didn't see it; that man with the dark eager face, who was standing
beside her, who took a spray of the flowers from her hand. What a fool
this Cassavetti is not to know that she is "_La Mort!_"
Now she is changed; she wears a black gown, and the red flowers have
vanished; but she is lovelier, more queenly than ever, as she looks at
me with wide, pathetic eyes, and says, "I have deceived you!"
Again she stands, with hands outstretched, and cries, "The end is in
sight; thank God for all His mercies;" and her face is as that of an
angel in Heaven.
But always there is a barrier between her and me; a barrier impalpable
yet unpassable. I try to surmount it, but I am beaten back every time.
Now it is Cassavetti who confronts me; again, and yet again, it is
Loris, with his stern white face, his inscrutable blue eyes. He is on
horseback; he rides straight at me, and he bears something in his arms.
* * * * *
I struggled up and looked around me. I knew the place well enough, the
long narrow room that had once been the _salle a manger_ in the
Vassilitzi's Warsaw house, but that, ever since I had known it, had been
the principal ward in the amateur hospital instituted by Anne. A squalid
ward enough, for the beds were made up on the floor, anyhow, and every
bit of space was filled, leaving just a narrow track for the attendants
to pass up and down.
Along that track came a big figure that I recognized at once as Mishka,
walking with clumsy caution.
"You are better? That is well," he said in a gruff undertone.
"How did I get here?" I demanded.
"Yossof brought you; he found you walking about the streets, raving mad.
It is a marvel that you were not shot down."
Then I remembered something at least of what had passed.
"How long since?" I stammered, putting my hand up to my bandaged head.
"Two days."
"And--?"
"I will answer no questions," he growled in his surliest fashion. "I
will send you food and you are to sleep again. He will see you later."
"He--Loris; he is safe, then?"
He nodded, but would say no more, and presently I drifted back into
sleep or unconsciousness.