Chapter VI

Prince Maksoutof, charged with the governing of all Muscovite possessions beyond the Pacific, and his aid, the young Count Yanovisk, were themselves down to the quay to greet the young special correspondent from America. Word of his coming had been sent by telegraph to San Francisco, and thence had been carried by a ship that had sailed for Sitka a few days before the _Ethan Allen_. Both men bowed with courteous grace over his hand.

“Welcome to Russian-America,” Yanovisk addressed him in perfect English. “The journey, I hope, was not too tedious.”

Jeff glowed with pleasure. This was what he loved. These men were gentlemen, much nearer to him than his own countrymen whom he had met aboard ship. Count Yanovisk was a distinguished-looking youth, clean-shaven except for a small, carefully waxed mustache; and until he heard the amazing explanation, Jeff was considerably puzzled by his garb. Not entirely concealed by a beautifully tailored military cape was gay-hued raiment that seemed to belong more to the Celestial Kingdom than to dark and wintry Russia. Surely this was not the accepted fashion in Alaska. Prince Maksoutof had no such attire; he was garbed in the conventional evening dress of European courts, broadcloth evening suit, buckled knee-trousers and silk stockings.

Evidently Count Yanovisk guessed his thought. “You wonder at my dress, yes?” he asked, smiling. “No wonder, sir! To-night the Governor entertains with a masked ball in honor of Countess Vasilkov, wife of the commander of one of his Majesty’s ships of war, at present in the harbor. Will you come?”

“You honor me,” Jeff replied, falling at once into this strange, courtly atmosphere. “I confess I expected no such treat.”

“We have such affairs frequently here. One must pass the time.”

The Governor spoke now, and his aid quickly translated. “His Grace repeats the invitation. If you have no costume, come as you are; the host himself is not in costume, as you see. The ladies and some of the younger men have tried to put on something suitable to the occasion.”

“I am only too delighted to come.” Jeff’s voice showed plainly enough his sincerity. “You must give me a moment or two—”

“Plenty of time. There is always plenty of time, in Russia. The Governor must return to the Castle, but I will wait for you, if I may.”

“You are only too good, Count Yanovisk. I will keep you only a moment—”

The Governor spoke again, in soft and purring Russian, the tone of which conveyed a welcome almost as plain as Yanovisk’s translation; and then turned back to the Castle. Jeff and the Count climbed up the gangplank to the deck of the _Ethan Allen_, and the former went to his quarters to dress.

He was in a wonderful mood. Surely he was among his own people. Here were the things that made life worth living: the gayety, the titles, the atmosphere and tradition of European courts. He fancied that his own South might have picked up something of this same dignity and grandeur if the war had been won, rather than lost to a Republican rabble. Here was the best of Europe, transported to these far, lost, northern shores.

He did not doubt his ability to fit in. He was especially trained for just this sort of thing. He would show these proud nobles from another land that he was no boor, no backwoods rail-splitter. Later he would show them how he stood in regard to Republican governments in general; the information he had procured from Seward would, when turned over to friendly England, deal a blow to the Union that would not be quickly forgotten. And now, with shining eyes and quickened spirits, he began to make ready for the festivities.

Only for one second was he in doubt what to wear. He too would dress for the ball! An idea of considerable daring had come to him: once and for all he would show the distinguished company who he was and where he stood. He went to a certain portmanteau of which all through the journey he had taken the most detailed care, and from tissue wrappings took out a suit of gray clothes.

It was his own uniform, bearing the insignia of a major in the Army of the Confederacy. In this he would make his first public appearance at the governor’s court. No one could possibly misunderstand. By this one act he would renounce the government that sponsored him.

He realized the full import of his act; it was no small insult to the government he represented. He knew that when Seward heard that he had presented himself in the Governor’s home in Rebel uniform, the garb that typified enmity to the Union, he would be instantly recalled, even though he were Seward’s own son. The fact that he was not an official envoy and that he was wearing the uniform to a fancy-dress ball could not cloud the issue in the least. However, before Seward ever heard of his act, he would have sailed for England, there to make his home.

His was a distinguished figure when he had donned the clothes. Jeff was a handsome youth to start with, and now it appeared that the dress uniform of a Confederate major had been designed solely to set off his good looks. Regardless of his opinion of Americans in general, Yanovisk was profoundly impressed by this young Southerner who now joined him on the deck.

“You will be—what you say?—the sensation!” Yanovisk told him with enthusiasm. “All will wonder who is this most distinguished officer. I may assume, then, that you bore arms on the Southern side in the great war?”

“Yes, Count. I was a Rebel. I hope it will not prejudice you against me—”

“On the contrary, you have risen in my esteem. My friend, it is true that his Majesty, the Czar, showed no face of friendship to the South during your trial. It is not disloyal to him, however, to assure you that most of us—not the peasantry—but the landed people and the governing classes—were praying for you to win. I may say that the noble class in every land was with you. We believe you stood for the old standards—the inherent right of gentlemen to rule—and besides—but perhaps such a thought is better left unspoken to a citizen of the United States.”

Jeff guessed what that thought was—the antipathy of all aristocracies to the new Republican experiment in America—and he smiled in complete understanding. “Your sympathy is appreciated—even though the Union still endures.”

“And surely your publications are showing wisdom in selecting gentlemen to represent them in foreign lands—even though they have to go to rebellious States to find them. But the Governor expects us—”

The men turned to go, and the Count gave Jeff a small, black silk mask to wear when he entered the ballroom. “You are unknown anyway, so you really do not need it, but it adds to the sport,” Yanovisk explained. “We will make the ladies guess!”

It did not occur to Jeff, as he walked with the Russian count across the dock, that he had forgotten anything in particular. He had done so, however; he had forgotten to say good-by to Molly. He simply did not think of her, otherwise he would have kept the governor himself waiting to thank her for the pleasure she had given him. This man Sharp was no one’s cad. He might occasionally suffer from wrong standards, but his courtesy was as natural as his breath; and even toward those whom he considered his social inferiors it never flagged. He simply failed to think of her—uninvited to the ball, probably standing on the deck, wistfully listening to the faint strains of distant music. His intense delight with Russian-America and all this situation in which he found himself had absorbed him to the exclusion of all other interests.

The two men made their way over the quay, then climbed the hill toward an immense log structure with radiant windows. This was Baronof Castle, named in honor of one of the early governors of the province. A moment later Jeff stood at the door of the ballroom, looking upon a strange and significant scene.

He saw a long room, ablaze with light, and a bare floor of some beautiful rare wood which, polished to glass-like smoothness with infinite hand labor, reflected the mellow gleam of countless candles. The walls were hung with rare canvasses—portraits of great adventurers who had made Alaskan history, of powerful princes who had once left their far-distant courts to govern this vast, wild province beyond the sea, of lovely ladies, wives and daughters of past governors whose grace was now a legend and whose beauty was dust—treasures the value of which even Jeff, not wholly unfamiliar with fine art, could not guess. Between the paintings were trophies of the chase: white sheep from the high ranges of the mainland, huge moose, caribou with tree-like antlers. There were fresh flowers in profusion from the governor’s hothouses on the island; the curtains and draperies, exquisite things in raw silk, had been brought in from China in trade for a king’s ransom in glossy fur. A regimental band, composed of bearded Muscovites in uniform, played strange, alien music at the end of the long room.

The Alaskan aristocracy had gathered. To the soft rhythm of an unfamiliar waltz—a haunting, plaintive, dreamy thing in the minor—the flower of the North was dancing. At first Jeff could not distinguish the details of the picture; his senses were drugged by the sheer beauty of the pageant, the jubilee of color; the music blurred his vision like wine. Now, looking closer, he began to notice individuals—Russian women in the garb of every land, all wearing masks that could not conceal a dark and luring beauty; dark-eyed girls, doubtless the daughters of high officials of the Company; and now and then an Oriental-looking maiden whose high cheek bones suggested that she might be what the Russians knew as creoles—the offspring of crossed races.

Dancing with these ladies were the men who governed and garrisoned this empire at the edge of the world. There were officers from the post; and although military tradition did not permit them to don fancy-dress, their loose, full-dress uniforms contributed to the color of the scene; there were officials of all kinds, some in masquerade clothes, some in their regular uniform of the Ministry of Finance; there were adventurers, remittance men, scapegrace black sheep who had been sent out to the far province to save a noble family’s name. His Reverence, the Bishop of the Cathedral, danced with the wife of the Governor; the learned doctor who headed the Sitka school—ranked as a seminary throughout Russia—entertained a tall, queenly woman in whose honor the ball was given, the wife of a Russian naval officer resplendent in gold lace.

Jeff had seen many fancy-dress balls, yet never one like this. To the Southern youth it afforded a new and thrilling experience. In just what way it differed from masquerade affairs in the United States he found it at first difficult to determine, even though the difference was so real that the bluntest perceptions could not remain unaware of it. Even the music was different. It expressed more than American music. It might have been the folk-melody of the steppes—an old, unhappy song of an enslaved people who toiled and died in the dark night while their rulers danced. The melody was ineffably romantic. Hearts yearned, eyes brimmed with living light; and in the warmth and beauty, many things—many dark and ugly truths—could be wholly forgotten.

There was a brilliance here that Americans simply could not achieve, though at twenty times the cost. Jeff was sure of this fact. Even in the old South, where social lines were rather tightly drawn and there was some indication of a landed aristocracy, he had not seen this; and in northern United States it was out of the question. Why, almost any one could feel at home at the crude affairs that made up Yankee social life. Baronof Castle was the seat of government of an American province, but rich and ancient courts had given it their magic.

As Jeff watched he was overcome with admiration and carried away as if by a dream. This was the thing he believed in! Only in monarchies, he thought—where noble birth received its due and men recognized a firmly established aristocracy—could such glory be achieved. These people were like gods, far above and careless of the common run of men. In his romantic imagination, in the eyes of embittered youth, the girls were all princesses, the men nobles of high degree.

Yet it was something more than the mere brilliance of a noble gathering. There was an all-pervading spirit of romance, a half-sad abandon in the dance that could only be explained by the fact that the dancers were, in a sense, exiles in a far land. They were a little group of kindred spirits cast away in the wilderness. Even here, where the rough environment tended to brutalize and coarsen, they remembered their obligation of birth and blood; and for their own salvation tried to re-enact the gay nights of St. Petersburg. Jeff was thrilled and stirred as he had rarely been in his lifetime.

Yanovisk took him into the ballroom, and in a short time he had met a number of the leading figures of the colony, particularly a group of the Governor’s immediate friends who had come to the ball unmasked. He shook hands with Semanof, in command of the Sitka barracks and who, as a cadet, had seen service in the Crimean War; with Spaskii, the Czar’s commissioner; and with Templeton, an Englishman with no business in particular, whom Jeff guessed to be a secret agent of some kind.

He was a powerful, active man of about forty years of age, square-jawed, cold-eyed, evidently a man of resolute purpose and domineering ways. He was not, Jeff thought, a typical English aristocrat—sensitive, amiable and usually likable. This was the kind of man that nations chose for their more or less questionable missions, somewhat ruthless and not over-scrupulous. He was undoubtedly a gentleman, however aristocratic in his views; and for no other reason than a long-nurtured bias in favor of England Jeff was prepared to like him. Besides, his opening remark made Jeff glow with pleasure.

“You do us proud with that uniform,” he said. “I am glad to see you were on the decent side.”

Jeff was not so sure about the young adventurer, Ivan Staritsa, a nobleman who for no apparent reason had left Moscow for an indefinite visit beyond the Pacific. The word had got around that he had left at night, and had crossed Siberia with somewhat surprising haste. He looked like a hot-tempered individual—his eyes magnetic and almost red, his black brows lowering, his mouth savage and sensual—and Jeff found little to admire in his thin, deeply lined, but somewhat aristocratic face.

His manner on introduction was not at all gratifying to the young Southerner. “So I am having the great pleasure to meet an American, yes?” he remarked somewhat unpleasantly. Staritsa had been to school in England, but his Russ accent carried through his attempts at English.

“What has America to do up here? Perhaps we are to have a republic—with a rail-splitting Aleut for President!”

“Only the Aleuts have no rails!” one of his companions laughed. “They are expert at building barabaras, however, of mud and alder boughs. That should qualify them, is it not, for the presidence of this Alaska! Perhaps you, Mr. Sharp, will be teaching them how to vote!”

Jeff found that he took their gibes at the martyred Lincoln in astonishingly bad part. It was true that Lincoln was not yet considered, except by a few of the older and more thoughtful southerners, a friend of Dixie as well as of the North, and it might be that, in respect to his Rebel uniform, the two Russians had spoken thus purely to please him; yet the young man felt his collar tighten about his neck, and he found it difficult to join in their laughter.

“How is the land of the free?” Staritsa went on. “The Utopia where all men are created equal?”

It might be that Jeff had no more use for the doctrine of the freedom and equality of all men than these two smiling Muscovites before him; but curiously enough, he felt no impulse to explain that fact to them, nor to tell them that he had himself lost faith in a popular government. Indeed, he momentarily forgot his own carefully nurtured opinions on the subject and had a ridiculous impulse to wipe forcibly their superior smiles from their noble mouths.

Of all the men he met, Baron Karl Pavlof, Staritsa’s companion, was the most forcible and in many ways the most interesting. He was as tall as Jeff himself, agile as a cat, and would have been strikingly handsome except for a long, dark bullet scar on his cheek. He was a man in the prime of life—between thirty-five and forty-five—with a cold, clear eye and a thin steady hand almost black with hair. He was clean-shaven, but the hair of his round head was glossy black as commercial seal fur.

Baron Karl had drunk deep to-night of the fluid fire that is vodka, but the only outward sign of his semi-drunkenness was a slight loosening of his fine lips and a certain rather unpleasant imperiousness of manner. Jeff was not surprised to learn that he was one of the principal holders of the Russian-American Company stock—in fact, he acted as if he owned the place—but it was disconcerting in the extreme to see Sergius Spaskii, the royal commissioner, and Colonel Semanof of the garrison openly toadying to him. He had fondly presumed that only in republics, in lands lost to the glory and ideals of Europe, did men lick the boots of wealth. He had dreamed that in long-established aristocratic governments it was virtue and worth, blood and birth, which men revered and died for. He was further perturbed when he learned that Baron Karl was not born to high office at all, but had risen to power and a title through various transactions that were not altogether savory. Of course, in the meantime he had acquired imperialistic views that would have amazed the Czar himself. The man’s power, however, could not be doubted; and Jeff guessed at once he would play a large part in the international negotiations to come.

But presently Jeff forgot these disquieting thoughts as he turned his mind to the pleasures of the evening. The dance was in full swing by now; the musicians played with increasing ardor and spirit; and eyes were bright and hearts aglow as Jeff remembered them in many a festival of his youth, in a warmer land under a more genial sun.

He wanted to dance. The idea struck him all at once. It was not just a vague instinct with him, a mere suggestion conveyed by the dreamy music, but the firmest kind of a conviction. Nor did he wish to dance with himself. Looking out with impersonal interest on the dance floor he suddenly saw some one whom he fancied for a partner.

The young lady who took his eye wore a rather bold costume, considering the standards of the Queen who reigned in England, but since she was evidently a Russian princess of high degree, she could wear it in a way that was only charming. It seemed to be the garb of a harem queen—silken pantaloons, dainty feet showing in sandals, and certain veils through which the eye traced a slim, girlish form. The candles made her white shoulders seem like silk with a faint rosy shade glowing through; and Jeff’s arm longed to encircle them.

Shades of Jefferson Davis, how she could dance! Now Jeff found delightful confirmation of his favorite philosophy; only one of the old monarchies blessed with a high-born ruling class, devotees of art and beauty, could give birth to a girl like this! Many generations of nobles were needed to bring forth such fruit! How the young Russians swarmed around her, jealous for her smiles. How she carried off the rôle of a harem girl—just shy enough to be appealing, sensational without being vulgar, wholly adorable and charming!

“The girl with the yellow hair—she’s the one I want to meet,” Jeff confided to his sponsor, Yanovisk. “I want to entreat her for a dance.”

“The yellow hair—yes? By Saint Michael, my friend—I cannot recognize her in the mask! Most of the girls I know, but that angel—she must be one with whom I have not great acquaintance, yes? Surely, we will try for you—”

It turned out that they made a remarkably successful try. The girl in the harem dress not only granted Jeff’s plea for a place on her program, but with provoking and conscienceless audacity, gave him the next dance, that had been reserved for some one else. As he glided forth with her, he made the startling discovery who this some one was.

The handsome nobleman who came striding across the ballroom to claim the dance and at first could not apparently credit his own senses was no other than Baron Karl Pavlof, the power to whom the Royal Governor himself bowed down. Jeff caught one glance at his angry countenance, identifying him surely by the pistol scar that now, in his rage, was like a livid brand across his white cheek; and the young man knew that his Alaskan adventures had definitely commenced. In a moment, however, he forgot Baron Karl completely.

He failed to see his scowls, and what is still more extraordinary, he failed to see anything else in the room. It was only by instinct that he avoided serious collisions as he guided his partner about the floor. His whole vision was centered on the girl in his arms. He wanted to yell for joy.