Chapter I: HAD entered the hall, and the dwarf closed the door and secured it (1)

with shaking hands. On the floor a lanthorn burned low, casting a dim light, and the house--with its tight-closed shutters--was as dark as pitch. There was a settle in the hall and, overcome with fasting and exertion, I walked over to it and sat down in pure weariness and dejection. Maluta meanwhile shied off from me and cowered behind the lanthorn; for some reason the creature seemed to expect a beating whenever I was displeased or disappointed. But I regarded him as little at the time as a toad; I looked at him with dull eyes. The event had only justified my fears.

“Where has the princess gone?” I asked slowly; “do you even know that?”

“No,” he answered, shaking his head forlornly. “I came here last night and found the house barred and silent, and yet I saw a light under one of the shutters. I knocked and scratched there, and at last the Princess Daria came and spoke to me; she thought you had returned; she had been alone an hour or more, and she had heard cries in the stable-yard.” He stopped and looked at me anxiously.

I nodded. “Go on,” I said briefly.

“She let me in,” he continued more quietly, seeing that I was not angry, “and I gave her the message from her father.”

“Ah! you saw the prince?” I interrupted.

“Yes, I saw him and delivered your message,” he replied meekly.

“How did you escape the rioters in the palace?” I asked sharply. “I thought you were surely trailing them to your death.”

He smiled, his little face puckering. “No,” he rejoined, “I ran down the gallery--I am light of foot. I outran them and leaped out of a window and left them to bay at the air. Then I found Prince Voronin hidden in the Church of Saint Basil the Blessed, and I told him of his daughter, but”--Maluta hesitated--“but not of you, O my master!”

“Your wit is as long as your ears,” I said approvingly; “go on, you little rogue.”

“He bade me tell her to meet him at Troïtsa; he dared not leave his hiding-place till night.”

“And he did not think of her peril?” I asked drily.

The dwarf shrugged his shoulders. “She is only a daughter, excellency; the prince divorced her mother because she bore him no sons, and he has wedded since, and will wed again.”

“Is that four times?” I asked absently, my mind dwelling on the princess.

“Nay,” said Maluta, “four times can no Russian marry; even if he presents himself before the priest he receives punishment, he----”

“And you found the princess here?” I said, cutting him short. “What then? There has been no struggle here, no housebreaking--where is she?”

Maluta’s face showed white in the dim light of the lanthorn.

“I gave her the message and she sent me to the stable to look for a trace of you. I was gone scarcely twenty minutes, and when I returned she was gone--gone as completely as though the earth had swallowed her.”

I sat staring at the feeble flame of the lanthorn; burning low. She had gone, then--as I had felt from the first--of her own free will, but where and how? She had seemed to shrink from me; she probably distrusted me, and she had fled--but whither? The wild disorder of the city, the perils that beset her on every side, would have stayed the most intrepid, and how could she go, alone, in the darkness of that night? The atmosphere of the house suddenly grew choking. I rose and, opening a shutter, let in the light of morning and the chill spring air. Then I fell to pacing the floor, pondering upon it, and taking no notice of the dwarf. I was, indeed, half frantic at the thought of the girl alone and unprotected, fleeing from me into such awful danger. It might be that she had friends near at hand, but it was unlikely; the Russian girl--kept behind “the twenty-eight bolts” of the _terem_--made few friends, and though I knew the Princess Daria had enjoyed a greater freedom than others and that old-time rules were everywhere relaxing, it was not at a time like this. Even while I meditated I heard the roll of drums, the shouts of soldiers, and a man lay in his blood in the very stable, and yet she had gone alone!

I went into the room where I had seen her last, weeping so bitterly, and I opened a shutter there and looked about me for some sign of her. The room was just as she had left it, and lacking her presence it was bare and sombre: a candle had burned out and guttered in the candlestick upon the table; beside it stood her chair, pushed aside, and the whole aspect of the place spoke of her presence. I stood and looked at it with a heavy heart. She despised me, and I was still her husband. The miracle of it made my brain swim, but, nevertheless, my heart was very heavy. I sat down in her chair and leaned upon the table, thinking, thinking of her, and of what fate had befallen her, and as I sat there I saw something lying on the table--a little sprig of rue, broken, doubtless, from her wedding crown and caught in her hair to fall here. I took it up sadly and was looking at it, when Maluta came sidling into the room and, approaching me cautiously, laid a curious buckle on the table and looked up at me with a wrinkled forehead. I glanced at the buckle and then at him with some impatience.

“Well,” I said sharply, too weary and heartsore for trifles, “what ails it?”

“’Tis such as the guards at the palace wear,” said he, an expression of rare intelligence in his sharp eyes.

“Where did you find it?” I asked quickly.

“In the lobby, O my master,” he replied.

I rose and looked about me for some weapons, but as I did it I turned dizzy, and remembered that, in twenty-four hours, I had eaten nothing but a piece of bread. The dwarf had been watching me and, with his usual singular penetration, he divined my need and ran toward the kitchen. I stood leaning on the window, glad of the air, and pondering on many things, while I put that bit of rue into my bosom, a keepsake--and a sad one. I was still standing there, in strange perplexity, when Maluta came back with some rice bread and a little cold meat and wine, all that he could find in the desolate larder, which he had doubtless visited heavily on his own account. He set the food on the table and I ate hurriedly and in silence, for I was sad enough. If the palace guards had been there, if Sophia had entrapped the princess, what fate might not befall her? Yet, the mystery of her disappearance was wholly unsolved. I could not believe that she would go willingly with the czarevna’s emissaries, and there could scarcely have been a forced entrance where no trace of violence appeared.

At last I spoke my thought aloud.

“I must go to Sophia Alexeievna,” I said; “she shall tell me where the princess is.”

I had scarcely spoken before Maluta fell on his knees beside me and clasped my ankles, with every sign of terror.

“Never!” he cried; “oh, never go to her, my master; she would hang you. She never forgets or forgives--not she!”

“But the Princess Daria?” I said sharply.

“There are other ways,” he pleaded; “let your servant find her, let----”

I rose, casting him aside. “Let you find her,” I cried, with passion; “you little fool, do you take me for a man of stone?”

And I went, searching for a sword and pistol, to another room, and had found them and fastened them at my belt, and chosen a long cloak that would muffle me, when I found him again on his knees at my feet.

“You little rogue,” I said kindly, “why beset me? Do you think a man fears to risk his neck?”

He shook his head and, laying both hands over his heart, besought me with mute gestures.

“You will kill her also,” he protested, “the Princess Daria!”

At this I paused; the little creature’s wisdom had been almost equal to his devotion. I could not afford to spurn either the one or the other.

“What, then, can I do?”

“Let me go,” he pleaded.

“Ay, go, by all means,” I said promptly, “but I also must be stirring. But content you, I will not go to the czarevna until all else fails, but I will find the princess if she is still on the face of this old earth of ours--that I swear, on the honour of a French gentleman!”

His face lighted a little at the opening of my speech, but clouded at the end, and I saw that he feared that I would blunder, and, touched by the creature’s devotion, I laid my hand kindly on his head and thanked him for his courage and his wit in saving us in the palace and for his willingness to serve me. It pleased him; a strange light flickered in his eyes, he touched my coat hurriedly, and kissed his own hand afterwards.

“You saved my life,” he said; “I am yours, O my master!”

And after that we went out together into the streets, where the glare of day shone horridly upon a scene of death and turmoil, and those things that night had cloaked with charity glared at noonday and sent a shudder even to a strong man’s heart.

_XXIV: GALITSYN_

WHEN I left our quarters I had made no plans, and was only determined to find the Princess Daria, and to save her from the dangers that encompassed her at every step. A wild enough design for one man--and a foreigner at that--to form at such a time in Moscow, and the aspect of the deserted streets smote me with a sharp sense of the desperate nature of my enterprise. Fear crept here, behind the close-shuttered windows, the grim, double-bolted doors--fear and silence. Once or twice, as I passed, a grille opened and I saw a white face peep out and vanish again at the sound of my footstep, and here and there, notably among the houses of the better sort, doors and windows gaped wide, and a heap of refuse, of broken furniture and torn clothing, lay piled in the court-yard, showing that this house and that had been gutted by the mob, and across more than one threshold lay something that was neither furniture, nor clothing, nor a sack of meal, though it lay as helpless, still for evermore. Where I walked it was silent, so silent that my tread woke the echoes, but the city was not so; it was full of confused noises, of shouting and crying, of drum and musket, and now and then, of the deep voices of the bells of Moscow’s many churches and cathedrals. Riot and murder and robbery were loose there, and as I drew nearer to the Kremlin I saw ever more bodies and more bodies, lying in the sunlight with upturned faces and helpless hands that would fight no more forever. I turned aside thrice to avoid parties of rioters in pursuit of some wretched victim, but through all my devious turns I kept on toward the palace. If the princess lived, if my wife lived, she was there, of that I was convinced. But before I entered the Red Place I heard the trampling of horses, the shouts of men approaching, and stepped back into the shadow of a friendly doorway and waited to see who passed that way with such an escort. And presently, at the end of the street, appeared a band of serfs, running ahead of a carriage, as they always ran before a great nobleman; they came swiftly toward me, two and two, clad in long crimson tunics, with collars and belts of white and high green caps; and as they advanced I counted twenty before the horses and behind the carriage there were twenty more, and with all their splendid dress their feet were bare, as had been the feet of the Prince Voronin’s slaves. The horses, three splendid creatures, were hung with fox-tails that floated as they moved, and in the carriage sat a noble figure, in a magnificent dress of gold and silver brocade; his handsome face was but slightly concealed by his high collar, and jewels flashed on his breast. It was Prince Basil Galitsyn himself, the rising star of the new order of things, the favourite of Sophia, and the lover of the Princess Daria. And at his feet sat Maître le Bastien. I stepped out of my concealment and called aloud for them to stop. The driver, a fierce Cossack, cracked his whip and would have driven over me, but for Le Bastien, who saw me and cried out to Prince Galitsyn. At a nod from him the whole procession halted, the horses plunging and rearing on their haunches, and the serfs crowding about me, as if they waited orders to seize and carry me away. But I walked up to the carriage itself, and demanded speech with his excellency the Boyar Prince Galitsyn, aware, all the while, of the master goldsmith’s perplexed amazement, but the prince was bent on benevolence. It was an hour, indeed, when he had need of all his diplomacy and suavity to hold his supremacy, and he bade me follow to his palace, where I should have an audience. His air of patronage stuck in my throat, but reflecting that he knew me only as the French goldsmith, I swallowed my pride and followed at a distance to his house.

Galitsyn was noted for his magnificence and his foreign tastes, and his palace was furnished more in the style of Europe than any other in Moscow. I had been there before as Maître le Bastien’s apprentice and knew it well. The carriage of the prince and his attendants arriving in advance, I found the court-yard thronged with his scarlet tunics, and the wide doors of the great house stood open as I approached, and in the lobby, too, were serfs in scarlet, and then I saw the prince very gracefully and graciously offer Maître le Bastien the bread and salt, and when the goldsmith had tasted both, they were extended to me and, happily, I took them also. Then his excellency led the way, and Maître le Bastien and I followed into a grand salon, where the prince seated himself in a chair, carved with his arms and covered with cloth of gold, and signing to the master goldsmith to sit in a lower and humbler seat, he turned to me and asked my business, while a slave brought in the salver laden with vodka and caviare--the _zakuska_.

I was in no mood to mince matters, and, despite various frowns and grimaces from Maître le Bastien, I came bluntly to the point, speaking in Russ; for the prince knew only his own language and Latin.

“Can your excellency tell where the Czarevna Sophia has hidden the Princess Daria?” I asked, fixing my eyes sternly on him, for I was not without suspicions of the man himself, but my doubts were instantly dispelled by the change that swept over his face.

The prince was a proud man, haughty and reserved, as all these Muscovite aristocrats were, but he could not disguise his discomfiture at the mention of those two names together.

“The Princess Daria!” he repeated blankly. “I was told that she and her cousin, Vassalissa, were safe in Troïtsa yesterday morning.”

I could not doubt that he spoke the truth; his manner was full of a noble sincerity, and, indeed, I think the man’s worst fault was the common one of a not over-scrupulous ambition.

“The Princess Daria was in the palace yesterday,” I said deliberately, “and imprisoned there by the Czarevna Sophia, who would have forced her to marry the Boyar Kurakin.”

Galitsyn sprang from his chair; his face was as white as ashes, but with wrath rather than dismay. He turned fiercely on Maître le Bastien.

“This is your man,” he said thickly, for something seemed to choke him; “does he speak the truth?”

The goldsmith caught my eye and understood my gesture; he rose with a dignified composure that became him well.

“My prince,” he said gravely, “you deserve my confidence and my service; I will disguise nothing from you. This man is not an apprentice, but a patron of mine, a French nobleman, M. le Marquis de Cernay, and his honour and your excellency’s are one.”

The prince bowed gracefully; but the strenuous expression of his face did not relax. He asked my Christian name of Maître le Bastien, and addressed me after the manner of the Russians.

“Ivan Feodorvitch,” he said, which was my name, being translated; “did you see the princess in the--the power of Sophia Alexeievna?” he stammered, in spite of himself; one woman he loved, the other he courted for ambition’s sake, and I have seen this a hundred times in Paris.

I looked down the long room, and across the end of it stood a double row of scarlet tunics, thirty-seven, I thought, and before the only other entrance stood the major-domo, leaning on a wand of ivory and gold. I counted the cost and smiled.

“M. le Prince,” I said quietly, “I saw and heard the Czarevna Sophia threaten and compel the Princess Daria Voronin to wed Kurakin, in the private chapel by the painted gallery.”

He drew a deep breath, his eyes blazed, his whole figure seemed to dilate with passion. Maître le Bastien leaned forward, listening eagerly; I even caught a flicker on the face of the old steward, who was otherwise as motionless as stone.

“Did she marry Kurakin?” the prince demanded, in a low voice, but in a tone that might well strike terror to a weak heart; “did Sophia force her to that?”

“No,” I replied, “no, your excellency, for I prevented it----”

He broke in upon me with a kind of fierce joy.

“You prevented it--and how, sir?”

“I married the Princess Daria myself,” I said.

A pause followed, a pause so deadly that I heard Maître le Bastien breathing like a man spent with running. I believe that Galitsyn thought me mad; he looked at me as if he doubted his own senses, and that doubt alone stayed his hand. I think, on the first impulse, he would have struck me dead--if he could. He wore the look men wear when they strike to kill; I saw just such a look on the face of M. d’Argenson that morning in Easter week, on the Place Royale. And Galitsyn meant to kill me, but after a moment, a moment of sharp suspense, he laughed harshly.

“I think you jest, sir,” he said, with bitter pleasantry, “but ’tis a dangerous jest--here.”

Saint Denis! who could doubt it, with that fierce eye of his upon me and that row of scowling savage faces below me in the hall? It was like to be a sorry jest indeed. But I cared neither for him nor for his menials, now that I was sure that the princess was not in his power, yet I meant to let him know that she was mine--and mine she should be--in spite of him.

“I jest so little, M. le Prince,” I said, “that he who dares to contradict my statement will do it at his peril. The Princess Daria is my wife.”

“Your wife,” he replied bitterly, measuring me with a fierce eye, “by Saint Nikolas of Mojaïsk, she shall be your widow, then!” and he raised his right hand sharply, but Maître le Bastien flung himself upon that arm and held it.

“Hold your hand, Prince Galitsyn!” he cried hoarsely, “and remember the sacred bond of hospitality--the marquis has eaten of your bread and salt.”

The prince paused; his breast heaving with passion, his eyes kindling with a savage triumph, his face deeply flushed, Maître le Bastien holding his right arm by main force. Below, at the end of the hall, I heard the serfs stirring restlessly and the clash of swords. I folded my arms on my breast and waited. I had never been more indifferent; let the barbarian do his worst!

“The bond of bread and salt, M. le Prince, remember it,” said the goldsmith gravely. “The last of our Valois kings permitted his guest to be murdered, and he also fell by the murderer’s hand. As you sow, so will you reap!”

Galitsyn looked at me with eyes that devoured every detail of my face and figure; scorn and rage were mingled on his countenance.

“‘Her husband,’ he calls himself,” he said, with a bitter laugh. “This foreigner, this soldier of fortune--the mate for one of Russia’s noblest born--for the Princess Daria. Why, master goldsmith, the man is mad!”

“You forget to whom you speak, M. le Prince,” I retorted hotly. “A gentleman of France, and the head of one of its noble houses, is your equal--ay, and something more,” I added, as truculent as he, though I saw Le Bastien’s warning gesture.

“‘And something more’--I thank you, sir,” he said, with bitter disdain, “and the czarevna--did she plan this marriage also?”

“No,” I answered promptly, “a thousand times no--she did not know of the exchange of bridegrooms----”

He interrupted me at this; he shook off the goldsmith and came nearer to me.

“Did the Princess Daria choose you--instead of Kurakin?” he asked in a deep voice, and I saw that the man was shaken to the soul.

“What it that to you?” I retorted scornfully; “the princess is my wife, and hark ye, M. le Prince, mine she shall be--against the world, and no man shall put asunder.”

Again he half raised his hand to deliver me to his slaves, and again he desisted, but his face was distorted with contending passions, and he pointed to the door with a quivering finger.

“Go, sir!” he said hoarsely; “go, before I violate the bond of host and guest--but, beyond my gates, look to yourself!”

“Nay, M. le Prince,” I said courteously. “Beyond your gates I am at your service. In France we settle these matters on the field of honour. I should be happy, monsieur, I----”

But the goldsmith had me by the arm.

“Saint Denis, man!” he cried in French, “tempt him no more, unless you would imperil the princess as well as your own head and mine!”

And I yielded to this reasoning the more easily because I saw that Galitsyn did not heed my challenge; his ideas of settling the matter differed from mine, as vastly as the customs of his country and mine. He stood there, pointing steadily at the door, and his face was so distorted with passion that I marvelled to see so great a change wrought in a handsome countenance.

I bowed profoundly.

“M. le Prince will find me ready when and where he pleases,” I said pleasantly, “and he will remember that the Princess Daria is my wife.”

I could say no more, for Maître le Bastien was dragging me away by main force, and the serfs, parting to let us go through, closed up behind us like a wall and eyed us so viciously that I saw the goldsmith wipe his brow twice before we reached the gate of the court-yard. The good man was nothing of a fighter, and yet too stout to run.

_XXV: MICHAUD’S REPENTANCE_

WHEN we reached the street Maître le Bastien stopped, panting and wiping the cold perspiration from his forehead.

“Lack-a-day, M. le Marquis, you have undone us now!” he cried, between his gasps. “These Russians--holy Virgin! to tell the prince, to his face, that you had married this Princess Daria, and to defy him, too! And he’s on the crest of the wave, and just declared the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, in the place of Larion Ivanof!”

“Precisely, monsieur,” I replied, smiling, “and let him desert the Czarevna Sophia for the pursuit of the Princess Daria,--of my wife,--and he will find that his house is of cards and falls at a breath.”

The force of this argument struck even the goldsmith, and he was silent for a moment, but the next his equilibrium was again destroyed by the sudden appearance of a band of Streltsi at the further end of the street. He seized me by the arm, without ceremony, and hurried me into a deserted garden close at hand, and there, drawing me into the shadow of the stone wall, he began to recount the horrors of the preceding day, many of which I had witnessed, and to argue from this point that I was powerless to save the Princess Daria, and that my marriage was of as little moment as the cooing of two pigeons on the stone arch over our heads.

“The power of the Naryshkins has all crumbled to pieces; Matveief is dead, and Dolgoruky. Athanasius Naryshkin, the czarina’s brother, was betrayed by the dwarf, Homyak, and cut to pieces in the Cathedral of the Assumption. Even the patriarch barely escaped; they are determined to have Ivan Naryshkin and the Jew Von Gaden. They killed the privy councillor Ivanof, and his son, and two lieutenant-colonels on the portico, between the banqueting-hall and the Cathedral of the Annunciation; the Boyar Ramodanofsky is butchered, the Boyars Soltykof, father and son; Peter Naryshkin, and--this morning--Kirillof and Dr. Gutemensch, and there are others--by the score. They declare to-day that the serfs shall be free, and now ’tis thought that many slaves will betray their masters; it was a servant who betrayed the elder Soltykof. ’Tis just as I predicted: the devils are let loose and no man can curb them, and Sophia Alexeievna is the only one in the royal family equal to facing the crisis; she alone can plead with and influence these beasts, and yet you think to get the Princess Daria from her!” The good man threw up his hands with an expression of despair.

Outside the garden wall I heard the Streltsi screaming and singing as they passed--a tipsy crowd. About us the weeds and plants grew thickly and almost blocked the doors and windows of a deserted house. One great clump of bushes opposite choked the entrance to the cellar.

“I have seen enough, and been through enough, to realise my difficulties,” I said calmly, “but what is a man’s right arm for, Maître le Bastien, if it be not to fight in a good cause? I will not allow even Sophia to snatch my wife away, and I will not leave her in the hands of her enemies. But tell me, how fares it with you? I would not imperil you.”

“I am safe enough,” he replied at once. “Galitsyn will protect me; against me he has no quarrel, and has sent some Streltsi already to keep my house from the mob. I fear nothing for myself, but you, monsieur, you are lost!”

I laughed, although my reflections were grim enough.

“Nay,” I replied, “was I not lost in Paris? Did I not flee from the Place Royale, with the provost-marshal at my heels? Tush, monsieur, I am inured to perils; fear not for me. But now, I would give much for a single clew of her whereabouts; whether she went of her own will or not, and who she went with?”

Deeply flushed with embarrassment, Maître le Bastien hesitated, and then ventured to speak his mind.

“Pardon me, monsieur,” he said; “did you not marry her against her will, and almost--well, yes, M. le Marquis--almost, we might say, by force?”

I assented gloomily, my eyes on the bushes opposite, that swayed, though there was no wind.

“Then--may she not have fled--of her free will--monsieur?” suggested the goldsmith, avoiding my eye.

“’Tis not impossible,” I replied, “yet I think it improbable. She had less to fear from me than from others, and I thought her at the last inclined to trust me.”

“‘_Souvent femme varie_,’” quoted Maître le Bastien softly.

I did not reply; instead, I went across the garden and, diving my arm into the bushes, drew forth--by the nape of the neck--that rogue, Michaud.

At the sight of him the master goldsmith’s face flushed with mortification; he felt that I had borne much from his apprentice; and he was more severe now than I, who knew, by the knave’s looks and his chattering teeth, that he had hidden there in an agony of terror and from no sinister motive.

“What are you doing here, you rogue?” demanded his master harshly; “have you not done harm enough already, without playing also the part of eavesdropper?”

The scenes that he had witnessed, and the near approach of violent death, had cowed the fellow completely, and he hung his head, sullen and wretched to the last degree.

“I hid here to escape these savages,” he said, “and had no thought of seeing you, Maître le Bastien.”

“That may be!” retorted the goldsmith sharply, “but when you saw only M. de Cernay and me here, why did you lurk like a snake in the bushes!”

Michaud turned deeply red and glanced aside at me.

“I thought that you despised me,” he said bluntly, “and could well dispense with the sight of me.”

But Le Bastien was not appeased, and would have said more but that I interposed.

“We cannot judge him too severely, monsieur,” I said, laughing; “only last night I hid in a wine-butt!”

The goldsmith, who knew me for a choleric man and a fighter, smiled in spite of himself at this, and Michaud cast a look of something akin to gratitude at me. The fellow loved his master. I myself had once just such a follower, devoted to jealousy, and full of sullen fits and the changeful moods of a woman.

“You speak truly, M. le Marquis,” said Le Bastien thoughtfully; “we cannot judge too harshly; but where have you been, Michaud?”

“I got out of the palace in the tumult, monsieur,” replied the apprentice, “and I have been hiding in one place and another, ever since; only an hour ago I got out of the Kremlin through the kindness of a soldier, whom I knew, and who got me through the guard at the Gate of Saint Nikolas, for a rouble--all I had.”

“Ah, then money still has its virtue, has it?” I exclaimed, seeing a gleam in the thick cloud of trouble.

Michaud shuffled his feet in the weeds and stood looking down without answering, and then suddenly he lifted his head and looked at me--squarely--for the first time since he had released the fat chamberlain.

“M. le Marquis, I have somewhat to tell you,” he said slowly. “Last night, as I hid under the portico of the banqueting-hall, I saw the palace guards under that man--the stout man--you know whom I mean?” I nodded. “He who was imprisoned in Maître le Bastien’s house. They came by, bringing a lady, veiled and muffled, and afterwards one of their number, who speaks a little French,--the man I bribed--told me that she was taken from our quarters and--was the Princess Daria.”

I drew a deep breath, and then I took two roubles and put them into Michaud’s hand.

“To repay your loss,” I said, “and to thank you; your good deed outweighs your evil.”

But Maître le Bastien shook his head. “’Tis ill news, M. le Marquis,” he said ponderously, “and an ill wind that will blow nobody good.”

“No news can be worse than bad news, monsieur,” I replied, as lightly as I could, though, I confess, my heart sank. “At least I know now where to look.”

He regarded me in despair. “You cannot dream, monsieur, of going there?” he exclaimed, pointing toward the Kremlin with a shudder of repulsion.

I nodded gaily, as if I thought it a light matter.

“Ay, and at once,” I said.

He held up his hands. “’Tis madness,” he cried, “sheer madness! The dead lie there to warn you!”

“And she is there!” I retorted, and drawing my pistol from my belt, I primed it.

“Tut, tut, monsieur!” said Maître le Bastien, “you dream! Why rush to death? The Church accounts suicide sin, and what is this you contemplate but suicide? Come, monsieur, come home with me,” and he plucked at my sleeve, in honest consternation.

I thanked him pleasantly. “You are a good friend, Maître le Bastien,” I said, “and I am glad to feel that you will be safe. Cut loose from me, monsieur, however, for I will be henceforth a marked man--the Princess Daria’s husband,” and I smiled bitterly.

He shook his head despondently, knowing me too well to interfere further.

“Michaud,” I said, looking to my sword, “where is your Streltsi? I must get into the Kremlin, instead of out of it.”

But at these words the apprentice turned white as paper.

“I cannot go back there, monsieur,” he protested; “I dare not.”

“Are you a woman?” I asked scornfully, eyeing him in a way that brought the blood to his face, but he stood sullenly silent.

“Bah!” I said; “where are your petticoats?”

But Maître le Bastien was inclined to support him, if only to thwart me, and my temper was rising when--happily for all--the dwarf, Maluta, suddenly appeared in the gateway, and, at the sight of me, came pattering in, and ’twas he, as usual, who found a way to cut the knot. In fact, in those five bloody days of the insurrection, it was these little creatures--these playthings of the court--who wrought much good and evil. Homyak, the dwarf, betrayed the czarina’s brother to his death; Komar, the dwarf, saved the son of the Chancellor Matveief and Feodor Naryshkin; and Maluta, the dwarf, was my true friend and ally. Yet they were the veriest waifs of fortune, the most miserable toys of tyrants, the outcasts of society--and its spies. Misery and secret power, degradation and triumph, merriment and despair, these things made up the sum of their short lives, but love and happiness and honour passed them by and left them to perish by the wayside.

_XXVI: MALUTA BUYS TWO SOULS_

NO sooner was Michaud’s information explained to the dwarf than the latter fell into a reverie, rubbing his chin with his forefinger and puckering up his forehead in that monkey-fashion which never failed him in time of thought, when it always seemed to me that his ears moved also. For my part, I was not inclined to reflections, but to action; if the Princess Daria was in the Kremlin, I would be there too. But there was a difficulty to be surmounted first; my Streltsi captors had relieved me of all the money I had upon my person, and I had only put three roubles and a few kopecks in my pocket when I visited our quarters; it would, therefore, be necessary for me to go there, not only for more money, but for a stock of ammunition, before I attempted to pass the gates of the Kremlin. Meanwhile Maluta had evidently reached a conclusion, and asked me the name of the soldier who knew Michaud, for the dwarf and the apprentice could only communicate by signs, neither understanding the other’s language. I repeated the question to our knave and he shrugged his shoulders sullenly.

“I know not, monsieur,” he replied; “’tis one of their villainous names that make a man sneeze and then forget them.”

This I did not translate, but told Maluta that he did not know the Streltsi’s name.

“Ask him if it is Grotsky?” said the dwarf shrewdly.

Michaud was not sure, but thought it might be. He described the man, however, as tall, black-haired, and with a cast in the left eye. Maluta nodded when this was translated to him; and held out his small, claw-like hand.

“Give me money, O excellency,” he said in his shrill voice, “for ’tis for money that men sell their souls--and for drink, their understanding.”

I put the rouble and the few kopecks that I had left in his hand, but he was by no means satisfied.

“_Prebavit!_” he cried shrilly, stamping his foot, “_prebavit!_ Can thy servant buy a soul for a rouble or twenty kopecks?”

“Some souls would be dear at that, Maluta,” I said drily, “and you have drained my purse.”

But he stamped the more. “’Tis not enough, O my master,” he said, “_prebavit, prebavit_!”

“Maître le Bastien, for the nonce, I must even borrow of you,” I said.

Whereupon the goldsmith gave me ten roubles more, though he was open in his disapproval.

“All this will lead to nothing but misfortune,” he said, “and, after all, ’twould have been wiser to let you fall into the hand of his majesty’s provost-marshal.”

“Ah, monsieur,” I said, “you do not know the Princess Daria.”

Le Bastien shook his head despairingly. “No,” he replied, “and ’tis well I do not, since she can turn a sane man’s head so completely.”

While he was speaking I was giving the money to the dwarf, and trying to fathom his plans, but to no purpose, he would tell nothing--only looked at me, in an elfish fashion.

“Let be, O excellency,” he said; “I will go to the Kremlin and by nightfall I will return to you, then we will go together, and we will find the Princess Daria, if she is still in the fortress.”

My faith in his acuteness was growing to be almost a superstition, but it was too much to ask me to wait from noon until nightfall, and I told him so.

“You must wait,” he replied wisely. “You cannot go--as I can--in and out of the palaces and the cathedrals; you are big--a tall man,” he measured me with his eye, as though he thought me a giant. “Such a man cannot hide--any more than the Tower of Ivan Veliki can hide among the churches! I must find where the lady is, and then I must come for my master. Nay, fear not--she is safe to-day and to-morrow and the day after; not even Sophia Alexeievna rules to-day, but only the Streltsi. They have mobbed the Department of Justice and Serfage; they have thrown the papers in the street, they have threatened the Danish Resident, they would have killed the patriarch. Sophia will do nothing yet to the princess, for she has hidden her, and to-night we will find her.”

“Nay, now we will find her,” I said, determined to go with him.

But he fell on his knees. “Have I failed you at all, O excellency?” he cried.

I was forced to admit that he had, on the contrary, saved my life and hers.

“Then give me two hours--two hours and eleven roubles, O my master,” he said, “and surely I may buy a man’s soul and also his body--for there is vodka yet in the cellar--where, they know not--and red wine.”

“The little fellow talks sense, monsieur,” said the goldsmith; “I pray you be ruled; give him, at least, two hours. It is madness for you to attempt the Kremlin now. Until they find the poor Jew, Von Gaden, they will suspect every man in foreign clothes. Come, therefore, to our quarters; two hours of rest, and food, and more money will but prepare you for this desperate adventure.”

I knew there was truth in his argument, and my need of money was absolute if I was to take the princess out of Moscow. So, hard as it was to wait, I yielded, at last, to their entreaties, and went back to our quarters for two hours’ rest, of which I stood in great need, and for money and another pistol.

Prince Galitsyn had kept his promise and sent Maître le Bastien a guard of Streltsi; a score of villainous-looking knaves who were as ready to rob us as to watch us, and sat about the court-yard making frequent demands for brandy and meat, and their presence proving a cause for fresh alarms to the goldsmith, who kept the shutters up and the doors bolted and busied himself hiding his valuables in the earth of the cellar, assisted by Michaud. Meanwhile, stretched myself on my bed, in my clothes, resolved to rest but a few moments; however, we are only human, and my body was worn out with continued exertions and loss of sleep, and I had hardly touched the pillow before I dropped off into the heavy slumber of sheer exhaustion.

My room being in the second story, the shutter of the one window was open and the red glow of sunset shone full in my face when I awoke, and, for a moment, kept me from seeing Maluta, who was standing beside me, watching my slightest movement. With the return of consciousness came back the memory of my situation, and I started up, and began to snatch up my weapons. The sweet air of a May evening came softly in at the casement, and with it far-off sounds, harsh cries, and discordant music.

“Where is she?” I cried. “Why have I slept like a brute? Where is the Princess Daria?”

“She is safe,” replied the dwarf gravely, “and ’tis well that my master slept, for we must work to-night and travel to-night, if we would get her away, from the czarevna and from Kurakin.”

I had, by this time, arranged my disordered clothing and belted on my weapons, and now I hid a bag of gold upon my person.

“Was the money sufficient?” I asked eagerly.

He nodded gravely. “The souls were cheap this day,” he said solemnly. “I bought two for nine roubles and two kopecks, and the rest of the money I put into good liquor, and the drug that they keep in the Gostinnoi Dvor, in the street of sweet perfumes and spices and myrrh and aloes.”

By this he referred to the divisions of the Gostinnoi Dvor, or great bazaar, where every commodity had a separate street, and a man could find only silk merchants in one avenue, and dealers in jewels--opals and pearls and the great amethysts of Russia--in another.

“Come, then,” I said with impatience, “let us go!”

He nodded his assent, and without more delay we descended the stairs together, and I went to bid Maître le Bastien farewell. I found him burrowing, like a mole, in the cellar.

“The Prince Galitsyn means well to me,” the good man said earnestly, “but these Streltsi have already demanded a rouble apiece, a flagon of good brandy, and ten loaves of rice bread, besides the pickled mushrooms and the fine sterlet, that I would have kept for my dinner! Moreover, Michaud and I are spent with hard labour, but, praised be the saints! everything is buried now but the great vase, and that being for Sophia, I think they will leave it.”

“Unless they sell it to satisfy their stomachs,” I replied; “but adieu, Maître le Bastien, I go on a perilous enterprise, and may not soon see you again.”

The goldsmith wiped his eyes surreptitiously, and then shook my hand heartily.

“Farewell,” he said; “you go against my counsel and my will, but yet--I suppose, if I were young, I would do likewise! But, I pray you, be cautious, if you can, and if I can do aught----”

“But you cannot, monsieur,” I interrupted heartily, “nor do I wish you in this tangle,” and I bade him a hasty farewell and hurried away, lest he should delay me by more arguments.

It took us a few moments more to get past our own Streltsi, and then Maluta and I struck off into the lanes that led through some byways to the Kremlin, avoiding the short route which would have taken us into the crowded quarter.

The city still wore its desolate air and, by contrast with the sky, yet glowing with sunset, it seemed dark and haunted with the grimmest of shadows. Close-shuttered windows and barred doors surrounded us; not a woman looked out, not a child ran in the court-yards, and if we chanced on a peaceful citizen, he skurried away at the sight of an armed man. As we neared the Gate of Saint Nikolas, I saw that it was occupied by a guard of Streltsi, and the dwarf signed to me to advance slowly, while he began to whistle softly, holding his hands over his mouth. Then I saw one of the guards at the gate lounge toward us, and began to suspect Maluta’s designs. When the soldier had placed a few yards between himself and his comrades, he quickened his steps and the dwarf whispered to me to keep close to the wall of the house, in front of which we had halted, while he sidled forward, crab-fashion, to meet the Streltsi; and I saw that he must have saved some money, for it changed hands before my eyes. Then he called to me in a low voice:

“We will go forward now, excellency,” he said. “Way here, for the ambassador to their czarish majesties!” he added, in his shrillest tone, clapping his hands.

The soldier bowed low and saluted, and then walked before me, with Maluta, crying:

“Way for the ambassador to the czar and czarevitch!”

The Streltsi at the gate stared curiously; they had been well enough supplied with liquor to be happy, but they could not let me pass until one of their number, who knew Von Gaden, was called.

“Is this the Jew doctor?” they demanded, “for, by Saint Nikolas of Mojaïsk, he shall not escape us!”

But the fellow, happily, shook his head. “This is not the Jew!” he declared.

And my Streltsi, all the while, cried out:

“’Tis an ambassador from the French King to their czarish majesties; the okolnitchy bade me pass him. Way there, or your beards will be plucked out by the roots, and ye will have the _pravezh_!”

But I found a speedier remedy, and quietly drew some money from my wallet and cast a handful of it among them, and in the fierce scramble for it, I slipped through the gate and hurried away towards the Red Place, at the top of my speed, with Maluta at my heels. I who, but yesterday, had struggled so hard to get out of the Kremlin, had now paid high to be in again, and rejoiced at my good fortune. I clapped my hand on the dwarf’s shoulder.

“Maluta,” I cried, “you deserve to be a prime minister, I----”

But he put his finger on his lips, and catching hold of the skirt of my coat, hurried along under the shadow of the Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed. At last he stopped and pointed at a narrow door in the lower part of the Palace of Facets.

“Yonder,” he whispered, “beyond that door, is a room with no windows, and in it is the Princess Daria.”

I caught my breath sharply. “Let us go in,” I cried.

But he seized my sleeve. “Stay,” he whispered, and his thin, three-cornered face showed white in the dusk.

“In the entry there is a soldier, but he drinks good wine,” he said, “wine that thy servant bought, and also the stuff from the Gostinnoi Dvor, and at this hour he troubles us but little. But one false step--one outcry--one whisper--and----”

He put his hand to his throat with a significant gesture.

“It is death,” he said, “for you--and for her, the shaved head!”

And that was a living death for a Russian woman.

_XXVII: “IS IT THOU?”_

WE stood in the parvis of the cathedral, in the deep shadows that fall at dusk, but the light still streamed broadly over the Red Place--the Palace Beautiful, as the Russians love to call it--and across the square I caught the gleam of golden crosses against the sky. It was silent--with the silence of terror. A guard of Streltsi sat on the Red Staircase, throwing dice, but their voices were subdued. Some dark figures flitted softly across the portico, between the cathedral and the banqueting-hall. Lights shone fitfully in the windows of the palace. An officer of the guard lighted a pine torch, and it flared up in a vivid tongue of flame, throwing his burly figure and dark face into relief. He was scarcely twenty yards away from the spot where Maluta and I stood waiting. I pressed my hand heavily on the dwarf’s shoulder.

“Whether it is death or not, I must enter that prison,” I said, in a low tone.

He nodded, motioning to me to be silent, and pointing. I followed the direction of his finger with my eyes and saw a short, stout female figure on the portico, accompanied by two men. The three stood a while talking together, in subdued voices, and then they entered the palace and I drew my breath more easily. At least, they had not entered by that low door that would lead them to the princess. Meanwhile the officer with the torch had walked away and the soldiers were busy with their dice. Maluta stripped off a short cloak he wore and drew his dagger.

“I am going in,” he said, “and when I whistle, the door will be unbarred. Then it will rest with you, O excellency!”

“Go, then,” I exclaimed, with impatience, “and make haste, in the name of your patron saint!”

He stooped low and scudded across the space that intervened between the cathedral and that low door, and I watched eagerly to see how he intended to enter, for I purposed following without more delay. But a few moments sufficed to show me the futility of such a design, for the dwarf did not go to the door; he made straight for a window ten feet away--to the left--and swinging himself up on the ledges of the stone copings, as I had seen him do that first day in Kurakin’s court-yard, he reached the window-sill, and here I thought to see him balked, for I could plainly perceive the iron bars across it. However, I was destined to another surprise, for he stopped, and, hanging on the ledge, began to work at the farthest bar on the left-hand side, and in a moment he had it out and began to wriggle through the opening, which was scarcely large enough, to my eyes, to admit a monkey, and, small as the dwarf was, he had much ado to squeeze and twist his body through, but finally he disappeared within, and left me writhing with impatience without. The creature’s cleverness had, by this time, so far impressed me that I was given to expecting marvels from him, and I knew that he had a liberty about the palace--in common with the other dwarfs--that no one else had, or even dreamed of. So I forced myself to await his signal and to use all the caution that I could, reflecting that a misstep now would ruin the adventure, and, perhaps, separate me from the princess. In this frame of mind, certainly not a happy one, I waited in the ever increasing shadow, and watched and listened for ten minutes, which I took--in that mood--for two hours, though sober reflection afterwards showed me that the time was short, as men count it. I thought of Maluta’s possible failure, of the death or removal of the prisoner, while we had delayed, of a change of guard, of the arrival of Sophia, of a dozen things, in fact, that might wreck my happiness for all time.

And then I heard Maluta’s shrill whistle.

I drew my sword, trusting the silent weapon rather than the noisy one, and in a moment I was at the door and had pushed it inward. So far all was well: I stepped in and closed it quickly behind me. Before me I saw a long narrow passage lighted by a single lanthorn swung on the wall. Under it stood Maluta, and farther on I saw the figure of a man sitting at a table with his back toward me. The light shone on me, and Maluta saw me grasp my weapon more tightly, and he laughed--his shrill little laugh.

“He sleeps, O my master,” he said, wagging his head; “he sleeps well--come and look at him.”

I thought the rogue had killed him, but a glance told me that the man slept heavily, as a drunken or a drugged person does. His head hung forward on his breast and his mouth was open, while he breathed deeply, and his arms hung limp at his sides. I drew a bunch of keys from his belt.

“Is that the door?” I asked Maluta, pointing at the end of the passage.

He nodded and I went swiftly forward. It was strongly secured with both locks and bars, but I removed the latter and found a key, in the guard’s bunch, to undo the former. Then I tapped upon the door and called the princess by name. At first there was no answer, nor indeed any sound within, though there was a grille in the upper half, doubtless to admit the air, and I was on the point of opening it when I heard a soft step on the other side, and then silence as though she listened.

“Princess,” I called gently, “Princess Daria--open the door, I pray you.”

I heard a little cry--quivering and soft and, I thought, joyful--and the door was opened.