Chapter VII: Paul Bears Witness

Paul returned to his room and began to dress, maladroitly, but with some deliberation. The irons upon Marian’s wrists seemed to hurt his own hands; her cry still echoed in his ears. He heard the heavy tramp of feet in the passage; he thought he could distinguish the voice of General Stefanovitch; but anon these sounds died away and silence fell upon the house again. He said that it was typical of the silence which henceforth must wait upon his life. He thought that he had looked upon the woman he loved for the last time. She had gone from him with that terrible appeal upon her lips; to what fate he knew not, save that the impassable gates had shut upon her, that the herald of the living death had struck her down.

He was glad that she had not seen him when he stood for a moment at his door and watched the gunners drag her from her room. The pitiful figure, the babyish face, the beseeching eyes, would be for him the everlasting remembrance of her. He knew well that the measure of her guilt or innocence was not to be weighed by those who were to judge her. She, the mere girl, alone and unaided, had set herself against the might and the power and the terrible justice of Kronstadt, and had been vanquished in the contest. She had looked upon the world of light for the last time. No cry of hers would ever be heard by the world again. She would go from the city and none would dare to ask whither.

Now that the blow had fallen, Paul was surprised that his mind was so ready to serve him and that he could think so clearly. The arrest of Marian lifted one burden at least from his shoulders. There was no longer a confession to make, he argued. That which he knew was known also to the governors of the citadel. And he must defend himself from the possibilities of suspicion; must be ready with words of surprise and wonder. He alone in Russia remained the friend of the stricken woman; for her sake he would dare anything in the hope that he might yet be of service to her. And this hope began to give him courage, he knew not why. His clumsy fingers became supple; he dressed swiftly and walked boldly from the house. Old Bonzo was in the courtyard waiting for his chief to come out. Smart and trim, with well-squared shoulders and firm tread, the Man of Iron greeted the young officer with no more concern than if this had been a _festa_ and they had been going together for a picnic on the sea.

“Bon jour, Captain Paul; I see you well this morning?”

“Thank you, Colonel; and you?”

Bonzo’s eyes twinkled cunningly.

“All my nights are good,” he said; “it is the old bird who knows how to roost. And I am just going to breakfast with a lady. You hear, my son; then you will not tell madame--hein?”

His jocund efforts were like the labour of a shire horse. They angered Paul, whose feverish impatience scarcely brooked control.

“Colonel,” he exclaimed, unable to hold his tongue any longer; “it is said that they have just arrested Mademoiselle Best. Is the news true?”

Bonzo stopped suddenly in his walk.

“You know that it is true, Captain Paul.”

“I, my Colonel? how should I know?”

“Because you stood at your door while they were taking her down yonder.”

Paul bit his lip.

“Certainly I saw that, but I did not know the meaning of it. You suspect her, then, my Colonel?”

“We suspect her so far that we know it was her hand which drew the map of Battery 3.”

“Her hand, my Colonel--a woman’s hand! But she is as ignorant as a child.”

Paul wished to assume an air of great surprise, but his gesture was false, his voice had a hollow ring in it. Bonzo watched him with little twinkling eyes and read him as he would have read a book.

“You shall learn how ignorant she is when the accusation is made just now, my son. Did I not tell you that I would show you the spy this morning? Well, if you will go up to the ramparts, you will see her in the launch which carries her to Alexander. We will follow her there when the General is ready, Captain Paul. It is not every day that we can breakfast with a lady in Kronstadt.”

“I cannot believe it!” cried Paul; “I cannot believe that she could have----”

“Cannot believe it! Bon Dieu! you tell that to me when you know that it is true, when you know--but I will leave you to tell us what you know, my son. I will leave you to remember that you are a servant of the Czar. You do not forget that, Captain Paul.”

Bonzo’s voice rang out in varying notes, loud and accusing, or gentle and cooing. All the colour left Paul’s face when the words were spoken. He had a great awe of the man whose eyes could read his very thoughts; he began to ask himself, “What has he learned? What has he seen?” But Bonzo, who served a purpose with every word, now laid his hand upon the shoulder of the younger man and the gesture was a kind one.

“Come,” he said, “I do not forget that you are a man as well as a soldier, Paul. Go and get your café and then meet me upon the quay. We will cross together, and you shall hear the story for yourself.”

Paul thanked him incoherently and hurried away. The Colonel watched him as he went, and with no unfriendly eyes.

“There goes a lover bewitched by a pretty face,” he said at last. “He will come to reason by-and-by, or, if he does not, we shall know how to deal with him. We will send him to the fort often. If there is anything more between them, that will be the opportunity to find it out.”

Content with this design, Bonzo resumed his measured walk; but Paul went swiftly through the town, avoiding the haunts of his fellows. He saw nothing, heard nothing of the awakening life about him. “Marian is arrested,” were the words ever whispered into his ear. Men saluted him, he forgot to observe or to return their greeting; the sun shone brightly, but for him the city was in darkness. “They will send her to the mines, they will torture her,” he thought. The moment when he must see her again was one to be dreaded. He feared his own courage, for he knew that his courage alone could save her--if she was to be saved--from the terrible days to come.

It was eight o’clock when he arrived at the quay, and Bonzo had not yet come down. Paul entered a little café just by the merchants’ harbour, and called for tea and for prune brandy. There were many soldiers and sailors in the place, but their talk convinced him that they had no news of that which had happened. He began to see that the authorities would keep their acts as secret as possible; but whether this would help or hinder him, he could not say. He remembered Bonzo’s words--if the prisoner should die in Fort Alexander, what inquiry would then be held? He knew that they would not put a woman to death; but Russian prisons have other weapons whereby the ends of death are attained. Paul’s hand shook when he lifted the glass to his lips; he left the café, driven on by all the impulses of fear and dread. “She shall not die!” he said, and then laughed nervously at his own helplessness.

Fort Alexander, with its one hundred and sixteen guns, 8 and 10 inch, in casemates, is perhaps the most imposing of the seven detached forts which stand up, islets of steel and stone, in the southern channel of Kronstadt. Built entirely of granite, in the shape of an ellipse, there are four tiers of embrasures in its front; while its rear wall bristles with great guns _en barbette_. A foundation of piles driven down in a channel, here eighteen feet deep, carries the tremendous blocks of which the battery is constructed, and its guns are so placed that they cross fires with the guns of Fort Peter and of Battery 3, thus rendering impassable the one narrow channel by which an enemy’s ships must seek passage to Petersburg. The interior of the fort has all the aspect of a gloomy and forbidding prison. Dark cell-like rooms accommodate the garrison in charge of it. There are other cells below into which the light of day never comes, tomb-like cavities hidden in the very womb of the citadel. Upon this morning of Marian’s trial, late in the month of February, the breaking ice scarred and groaned beneath the bastions of the fort, but the sappers had blasted a passage for the small steam launch with which the garrison reached the merchants’ harbour, and through this passage General Stefanovitch and two of his staff were carried to see the prisoner who had been arrested so surprisingly in the earlier hours of the morning.

Paul was already in the vaulted stone chamber where the inquiry was to be held when Stefanovitch and Bonzo entered together. The General answered his salute but did not speak. Bonzo exchanged a quick glance with him and then busied himself with the bundle of papers which seemed inseparable from his equipment. So dark was the place that the figure of the sergeant at the door was like some phantom shape. The feeble candles, flickering upon the table, cast a weirdly yellow light on the faces of those who sat within their aureola. Paul saw that Nikolai Stefanovitch looked wretchedly ill. The very neatness of dress and affectation of manner aggravated the pallor and unrest of his face. His hands wandered aimlessly, now touching a pen, now a paper, now seeking to straighten the hair which should have been upon his shining forehead. When he ordered the prisoner to be brought in, his voice was hollow and unnatural. He cast his eyes upon the table and did not look at the woman before him. Paul, in his turn, shrank back into the shadows. He saw Marian enter that gloomy chamber, and the impulse to speak to her, to stand at her side, was almost irresistible. But prudence kept him still. He had decided upon the part he would play; the keen air from the sea had stimulated him mentally and bodily. He had said to himself, “I alone am her friend, and I will save her.”

They had arrested the girl shortly after sunrise, that none in the town might whisper abroad the business upon which she had been carried to Fort Alexander. So great was their haste that she had scarce time to bind up her untidy tresses of silky brown hair or to get furs against the cold of dawn. But she had used the intervening hours in winning from the Sergeant permission to practise those arts which help a woman’s victory. Paul said that she never looked so pretty. She entered the gloomy room with a laugh upon her lips. The dainty head was thrown back disdainfully; the fur about her neck and wrists contrasted with the exquisite whiteness of her skin; her gesture was one of amusement and of surprise.

“Oh!” she cried mockingly, “comme je suis effrayée, comme je me sens criminelle.”

Stefanovitch looked up from his papers.

“Silence,” he exclaimed sharply, and there was that in his voice which compelled obedience. Paul trembled for her then.

“She will act a part, and they will condemn her out of her own mouth,” he thought.

“Mademoiselle,” said Stefanovitch, beginning to address her in a low voice, “there is no need for me to tell you why you are brought here; you are as well aware of the reasons as I am.”

“Indeed, General, I know nothing of your reasons.”

The lines upon Stefanovitch’s face hardened perceptibly, but he did not display any anger.

“We will not argue the point,” he said quickly. “If I speak to you this morning, here in this room, it is in the hope that you will help us to lighten the punishment which your actions have deserved. For some months now you have been sending to the British Government in London such information concerning Kronstadt as our hospitality put you in possession of. Within the course of the last month you have sold for money a plan of Battery 3, and have prepared other plans which, but for our prudence and foresight, would now have left the city. It is not for me to tell you, mademoiselle, that these things are an outrage upon the hospitality you have received. You came here to us as a stranger, and we made you as one of our own people. We trusted you as we should have trusted a daughter. It is possible that you are unaware of the heinous nature of your crime and are willing to atone so far as it is in your power. Should that be so, you have now the opportunity to tell us how you came to do this thing, and whose was the help and the promise you relied upon. The truth alone can help you here, mademoiselle. I rely upon your good sense and your cleverness to withhold nothing from us.”

He paused and looked the girl full in the face. She had ceased to laugh, for his accusation, that she had outraged the hospitality of those who had befriended her, was one that she could not jest with.

“I did not wish to be ungrateful,” she cried despairingly; “I did not wish to injure or hurt any of those who have been kind to me. I drew the map to send to a friend in London; he asked me for it, and I did not think you would mind. It was such a little thing, and you are so strong. Oh, General, you will not judge me for that; you will not believe me guilty.”

“Mademoiselle,” interrupted Stefanovitch sternly, “of your guilt there is no doubt. Believe me that it is idle for you to stand there and seek to mislead us. We do not imagine what you have done, we know.”

“You know, monsieur!”

“We know,” repeated Stefanovitch; “our chain of evidence is complete. Six months ago this friend of yours in London, your cousin, mademoiselle, told you that the British Government was willing to pay a heavy price for such facts concerning the new forts here as it had been unable to find out for itself. He sent you, at the same time, the book which described how that other spy, your fellow-countryman, obtained the secrets of Vladivostok. That work was your guide. As the man had learned to measure a fort by pacing it, so you measured our batteries. You sought to make us believe in your ignorance and your childishness that you might win our confidence and profit by the sale of it. You spied upon us while you were receiving our hospitality. You feigned friendship for us that we might betray our secrets to you. You entered even my own cabinet to copy the maps which lie there. Was that also to amuse your friend in London, mademoiselle?”

Marian shivered. She turned toward Paul eyes which beseeched his help, but he stood silent. For a moment she sought still to wear the mask of indifference and of ignorance, but the laugh froze upon her lips.

“It is not true!” she exclaimed wildly; “you cannot know that. I did not steal the maps in your cabinet. How could I have done so? It is a foolish tale.”

“Mademoiselle,” said Stefanovitch, raising his hand warningly, “there is no need to add to your guilt by falsehood. I am waiting to hear that you are willing to tell us the names of your friends both in Russia and in England.”

“I will tell you nothing!” she answered doggedly. “You know nothing. The falsehood is yours, monsieur. You have no right to bring me here. I am an Englishwoman; you dare not harm me! I will write to England. You are cowards to torture me with these questions.”

She clasped her hands together and stamped her foot angrily, for excitement had mastered her, and, having robbed her of her arts, had left the woman, weak and resourceless, but with courage undaunted. As for her lover, the accusation with which she was charged stunned him. They were the very words she herself had spoken in the privacy of her own room when he had discovered her secret fifteen hours ago. There was no longer a loophole for him. “I must tell all, for they know all,” he argued. And yet his pity for her was an agony. Her childishness, her helplessness, the days of suffering awaiting her, prompted him to dare everything, to take her in his arms and ask that he might suffer with her. When anon he heard his own name called, and must come out into the light to answer the questions of the General, his tongue, his limbs, seemed paralysed. He spoke in a thick voice and swayed often against the slight table.

“Captain Zassulic,” said Stefanovitch, “you have heard this woman’s story. Have you anything to say to it?”

Paul squared his shoulders. He dare not look at Marian; the figures around seemed unreal and shadowy.

“I have heard the story, my General,” he stammered.

“Is it true or false, Captain?”

“It is false, my General.”

“You are sure of that? Then please to give us your reasons.”

Paul leaned against the table and put his hand to his throat as though to compel himself to speak.

“Last night you sent me to your room, General, to leave there the despatches from the Prince. It was at eight o’clock--after you had dined--at eight o’clock, my General.”

He wiped his brow with his hand and stared about the room in a dazed way. For a moment his eyes rested on the face of the girl. She was looking at him as she would have looked at one risen from the dead to accuse her.

“Well,” said Stefanovitch, “we are waiting for you, Captain.”

Paul squared his shoulders again. He began to remember that the words which now condemned the woman might save her in the end.

“When I entered the corridor,” he said, speaking quickly, “there was a light in the room, General; the Englishwoman was there. She was copying one of the maps which she had taken from the shelf.”

“To amuse her brother in London,” grunted Bonzo, who had stood hitherto, motionless and voiceless, at the side of his master.

But Marian did not hear him. She had fallen in a swoon, and, senseless still, they carried her back to her cell.

“Pshaw!” said old Bonzo, folding up his

papers quickly, “we waste time, my General. If I were in your shoes I would flog the truth out of her. She is not alone here, be sure. There are others.”

“It shall be your work to learn their names, Colonel,” cried Stefanovitch, rising from the table. “Stand at nothing which your duty dictates. And to you, Captain, I would say that the Emperor is happy in such servants. Let the woman be watched night and day. I count upon you, my friends, in this hour of danger, upon your zeal and your silence. Our honour is at stake, and we shall know how to guard it.”

He saluted and returned to his launch; but old Bonzo lingered a moment to whisper a word in Paul’s ear.

“There were two prisoners this morning, my son,” he said, with a kindly pat of his great hand, “two prisoners, but one is acquitted.”

“You mean, my Colonel----”

“That the woman was watched last night, and that the words you have just spoken saved your life.”

He lurched from the room to join his chief, but Paul remained long standing by the table where the damning words were spoken.

“She will never believe,” he thought. “I have lost her love. God help me!”