What a terribly long hypocrisy and suspense those six weeks of dreary
waiting, before an answer to her letter could come from Tobolsk, and the
Governor could send a detachment of the military to rescue her from this
nest of murderous banditti!
How Olga hated herself for still pretending to keep on terms with Niaz!
How she loathed and detested the man with whom she must yet live as wife
for that endless time till the day of her delivery!
And Niaz couldn't help seeing that her manner was changed towards him,
though he flattered himself that she had as yet only a bare suspicion,
and no real knowledge of the horrible truth. What a sad thing that she
should ever even have suspected it! What a pity if he could not keep her
here to soothe and lighten his winter solitude!--for he loved her: yes,
he really loved her, and he needed sympathy and companionship in all the
best and highest instincts of his inner nature. These Buriats, what were
they? a miserable set of brutal savages: mere hard-working robbers and
murderers, good enough for the practical rough work of everyday life
(such as knocking Turcoman merchants on the head), but utterly incapable
of appreciating or sympathizing with the better tastes of civilized
humanity. It was a hard calling, that of chieftain to these Tartar
wretches, especially for a man of musical culture brought up in Paris;
and he had hoped that Olga might have helped him through with it by her
friendly companionship. Not, of course, that he ever expected to be able
to tell her the whole truth: women will be women; and coming to a rough
country, they can't understand the necessities laid upon one for rough
dealing. No, he could never have expected her to relish the full details
of a borderer's profession, but he was vexed that she should already
begin to suspect its nature on so very short an acquaintance. He had
told her he was like a Highland chieftain of the old times: did she
suppose that the Rob Roys and Roderick Dhus of real life used to treat
their Lowland captives with rose-water and chivalry? After all, women
have really no idea of how things must be managed in the stern realities
of actual existence.
So the six weeks passed slowly away, and Olga waited and watched, with
smiles on her lips, in mute terror.
At last, one day, in broad daylight, without a moment's warning, or a
single premonitory symptom, Olga saw the courtyard suddenly filled with
men in Russian uniforms, and a friend of hers, a major of infantry at
Tobolsk, rushing in at the head of his soldiers upon the Tartar barrack.
In one second, as if by magic, the courtyard had changed into a roaring
battlefield, the Cossacks were firing at the Tartars, and the Tartars
were firing at the Cossacks. There was a din of guns and a smoke of
gunpowder; and high above all, in the Buriat language, she heard the
voice of Niaz, frantically encouraging his men to action, and shouting
to them with wild energy in incomprehensible gutturals.
The surprise had been so complete that almost before Olga realized the
situation the firing began to die away. The fort was carried, and Niaz
and his men stood, disarmed and sullen, with bleeding faces, in the
midst of a hastily formed square of stout Cossacks, among the dead and
dying strewn upon the ground.
Handsome as ever, but how she hated him!
His arm was wounded; and the Russian surgeon led him aside to bind it
up. To Olga's amazement, while the surgeon was actually engaged in
binding it, Niaz turned upon him like a savage dog, and bit his arm till
the teeth met fiercely in the very middle. She shut her eyes, and half
fainted with disgust and horror.
The surgeon shook him off, with an oath; and two Cossacks, coming up
hastily, bound his hands behind his back, and tied his legs, quite
regardless of his wounded condition.
Meanwhile, the Russian major had sought out Olga, "Madame la Baronne,"
he said respectfully, "I congratulate you upon your safety and your
recovered freedom. Your father is with us; he will soon be here. Your
letter reached him safely, in spite of its roundabout direction; and the
Governor of Tobolsk despatched us at once upon this errand of release.
Baron Niaz had long been suspected: your letter removed all doubts upon
the subject."
A minute or two later, the Cossacks marched their prisoners out of the
courtyard, two and two, into the great hall of the stronghold.
"I wish to bid farewell to my wife," Niaz cried to the major, in a loud
voice. "I shall be sent to the mines, I suppose, and I shall never see
her again in this world most probably."
The major allowed him to come near within speaking distance, under guard
of two Cossacks.
"Madame la Baronne," he hissed out between his clenched teeth, "this is
your hand. It was your hand that you gave me in marriage; it was your
hand that wrote to betray me. Believe me, madame, come what may, your
hand shall pay the penalty."
So much he said, passionately indeed, but with the offended dignity of a
civilized being. Then the Tartar in him broke through the thin veneer of
European culture, and he lolled his tongue out at her in savage
derision, with a hideous menacing leer like an untamed barbarian. Till
that moment, in spite of the horrible massacre she had seen with her own
eyes, Olga had never suspected what profound depths of vulgar savagery
lay unperceived beneath Alexander Niaz's handsome and aristocratic
European features.
One more word he uttered coarsely: a word of foul reproach unfit to be
repeated, which made Olga's cheek turn crimson with wrath and
indignation even in that supreme moment of conflicting passions. She
buried her face between her two hands wildly, and burst into a sudden
flood of uncontrollable tears.
"March him away," cried the major in a stern voice. And they marched him
away, still mocking, with the other prisoners.
That was the last Olga Davidoff then saw of her Buriat husband.