Chapter XXIII: Will He Succeed?

As Balgonie left the presence of General Weymarn, a sudden light broke through the darkness of his mind--an unlooked-for thought and hope suddenly inspired him, and a prayer of thanks to Heaven rose to his lips therefore. No prisoner was actually designated by name in the written order of the General!

Thus, in lieu of the Cossack Jagouski, he would demand that Natalie Mierowna be given into his custody; and with her he would escape, quit Russia and the service of the Empress at all risks.

He had no papers--no leave of absence, or passport; but, as the epaulette is an all-powerful badge in Russia, his uniform and his sabre would be passports enough. For the rest, he must trust to his own love and courage, and to his knowledge of the country. But then there was the Cossack escort--how was he to rid himself of it? The same kind Heaven which favoured and inspired him now, would not fail to do so, he hoped, when the crisis came.

While his best horse was being saddled and accoutred, and even when the escort was at the door, he consulted, till the last moment, the map of Russia, and also that of Finland, which was not ceded to the latter till forty-four years after; and he made notes of his proposed route. Escape by sea, by the Lake of Ladoga, or by the shores of the Gulf, were alike impossible.

There was no way for it but to ride, at all hazards, towards the frontier of Finland, or the shores of the Lake of Saima; they would there be safe beyond pursuit--safe among the hospitable Swedes, who are always hostile to the grasping and aggressive Russians. And so for nearly an hour he sat, compass in hand, calculating the chances and measuring the distances, while his brain grew giddy, and his heart was sick, with mingled hope, anxiety, and a love that was full of terror and compassion.

At last he saw his way clearly, as he thought, through Viborg, from Schlusselburg, north-westward, in safety. He put all the money he possessed--not much, certainly--about his person in gold; filled his cartridge-box with ammunition, and buckled on his sabre.

"By this time to-morrow," he muttered, as he glanced at his watch, "the game will have been won or--lost!"

He then mounted, with a resolute heart, and set forth, having with him a light kabitka, or covered waggon, drawn by a single horse, and attended by his escort--six Malo-Russian Cossacks who wore the uniform of Hussars, and who were all stout, athletic, and noble-looking fellows, whose clean-limbed, active, and hardy little horses, unmatched for strength and speed, made Balgonie speculate painfully and anxiously on his slender chance of outstripping them, if pursued.

It was considerably past the noon of an October day--a dark, lowering, and ominous day--when they set out for Schlusselburg, and erelong the rain began to fall heavily, soaking the Hussar finery of the Cossacks of the Guard; but Charlie Balgonie rode silently on at their head, heedless of the blinding torrents and the bellowing wind; though he little knew that as the darkness increased, and the early night drew on, that the waters of the lake and river were rising fast, and that a peril, of which he had no conception, already menaced the existence of Natalie.

But her voice seemed to be ever whispering in his ear--

"Carl, Carl--my beloved Carl, come to my aid--save me--help me, if you love me!"

When they were mid-way to Schlusselburg, the kabitka driver, who was either sleepy or tipsy, fell awkwardly from his seat, and broke his right arm. What was to be done now?

No Cossack of the Guard would condescend to supply his place, and for more than an hour the party remained halted in a desolate spot, near a pine wood, while looking about to capture the first peasant, serf, or civilian of any kind, whom they might meet, and press him into the service, as a temporary whip, in the employ of the Empress.

A skulking and somewhat sulky boor, in a fur cap and canvas caftan, leather leggings and bark shoes, who had been smoking his pipe under a great tree, was, erelong, discovered, dragged forward, and, with sundry oaths and threats, commanded to mount the shaft and act as driver, which he did, with a reluctance he was at no pains to conceal.

Knowing how necessary it was to control or to conciliate this new acquisition, Balgonie asked him a few questions, with sternness, but yet with politeness.

The serf was a singularly handsome young man, with eagle-like eyes, and an aquiline nose, that was almost hooked; he was without his mustache, which seemed to have been recently shaved off; but he had a curly red beard, with a complexion of well-nigh Asiatic darkness.

"Trust me, dear Carl Ivanovitch," said he, in a low and impressive voice, that was strangely familiar to Balgonie. "My disguise, I find, is complete indeed, when it deceives even you; but speak in French."

"Your disguise--yours?"

"Yes,--I am Apollo Usakoff," he added through his teeth.

"Heaven be blessed for this new omen of success!" exclaimed Balgonie, in French. "And you were not drowned?"

"No; I swam down the Neva, under water, escaping many a bullet--got ashore, and reached the old place in the wood, where Olga, the gipsy, stained my face, trimmed and dyed my beard, as you see. She is quite an artist, that girl! Even Mariolizza would not know me now."

Balgonie sighed as the poor fellow spoke. Mutilated and disfigured as she was now, would he have known _her_? He evidently knew nothing of the barbarities to which she had been subjected, so Balgonie resolved, mercifully, to keep him in ignorance; and they proceeded at an easy pace together, he keeping his horse close by the shaft of the kabitka, on which the pretended peasant rode; and, as they spoke in French, a language unknown to their ignorant and half-savage escort, Usakoff, in referring to the late event and its failure, poured out all the bitterness, the hate, and fury of his soul, against the Government, the Councillors, and the rule of the Empress; and, of course, entered with fervour into the scheme of an escape with Natalie. But still their ultimate plans were undecided, when they saw the red flash of the evening gun, as it pealed from Schlusselburg, amid the murky haze of a wet and stormy sunset; and erelong they saw the lights that glittered at times from amid the massive towers and black outline of that old castle (the scene of so many terrors, sufferings, and atrocities) streaming and wavering on the turbulent waters of the lake, and the wet slime of the sluices and ditches.

When, all dripping and jaded, the escort halted and dismounted under the castle arch, Balgonie found that some changes were taking place in the executive of the fortress.

Bernikoff, whose wounds had been inflamed to gangrene, by passion, rage, and vodka, was at that moment actually on his death-bed, with Father Chrysostom kneeling by his side. The old sinner was in all the agonies and terrors of reviewing his past life on one hand, and anticipating the coming change on the other. Many pounds of perfumed wax candles were flaming now round the effigy of St. Sergius, whom, in weak and querulous accents, he implored for intercession, alternately with the Chaplain, to whose cassock he clung tenaciously, and to whom he was mingling threats of punishment, if he permitted him to fare ill in the other world, or omitted masses for his soul's repose. And that superstition and absurdity might not be wanting amid this solemn but repulsive scene, from which Balgonie hurried away with more disgust than pity, Bernikoff was dying in the habit of a _friar_, with cowl, cord, beads, and sandals, hoping even on his death-bed, as Ivan the Terrible hoped, when similarly arrayed and disguised, to cheat the devil, if that dread personage came for his sinful soul.

The cowl and other paraphernalia he had obtained from the Chamberlain, or wardrobe-keeper, of the Troitza monastery near the Louga--a cowl that had lain on the mummy of the uncorrupted saint in the silver shrine;--and almost with his last breath, he threatened Father Chrysostom with a drum-head court-martial for venturing to hint that this attempt to mask his past life was vain without true repentance.

Leaving this scene, Balgonie presented the order of General Weymarn and that of the Treasurer, to Captain Vlasfief, who was now in command, and to whom he stated that "the prisoner referred to was Mademoiselle Natalie Mierowna."

"Carl Ivanovitch," said the Captain, "you cannot think of leaving to-night in such a storm of wind and rain?"

"I've seen worse in Silesia," said Balgonie, looking to the locks of his pistols.

"What of that?"

"But the _verbal_ order of the General was most peremptory."

"Ah!--and you have brought a kabitka for the money?"

"A kabitka for the prisoner also--so be quick, Captain."

"'Tis a large sum in roubles," mused the other.

"I am in haste to be gone!--the prisoner--you hear me, sir?" said Balgonie impatiently.

"By all the devils, you seem more anxious about the prisoner than the treasure!" responded Vlasfief sulkily, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe, but still delayed to move.

"You have my orders--I come in the name of the Empress--let there be no delay, Captain Vlasfief," was the curt reply.

"Bring in two Cossacks of the escort; the money is here in seventy bags, each containing a thousand roubles."

"Excuse me, but the order of the Imperial Treasurer says expressly _eighty_ sealed bags of a thousand each," said Balgonie, trembling with anxiety, yet compelled to appear to take an interest when he really felt none.

"Ten thousand are missing," said Vlasfief, leisurely, refilling his pipe.

"Missing!"

"Yes. Suppose," he added in a whisper, "suppose we divide the lost sum between us, and offer a thousand to the Treasurer."

"Impossible, sir!" said Balgonie, with a fiery and impatient manner.

"Well, well--there are the other ten sealed bags," added Captain Vlasfief, with a dark and stealthy frown of greed and hate, as the Cossacks tossed the whole among the straw of the kabitka: "it matters little; but I hope you may not find the road beset, and so lose the whole."

"To be forewarned, sir, is to be forearmed," said Balgonie, touching his pistols; for he quite understood the treachery implied, and only trembled lest it might mar his dearest plans. "And now, sir, for my prisoner."

"If she be not drowned; for the lower vaults are apt to be flooded on such a night as this," said Vlasfief spitefully.

Writhing under the keen glances of this low-born Muscovite, Balgonie felt that all now depended upon his outward and assumed bearing of coolness and carelessness. Night favoured him in this, and his face was almost concealed. Could any one then have read his heart, as he, Usakoff, two Cossacks, and two soldiers of the main-guard made their way down, down through dark and slimy passages and stairs, till they were foot deep and then knee deep in the water that flooded the low and humid corridors, off which were the arched doors of numerous cells--corridors where spiders spun their webs, rats were swimming, and terrified bats flew wildly to and fro!

Erelong they reached the door, through the crannies of which despairing cries and painful gaspings had been heard, and, after unlocking, forced it open by main strength.

"A great flood of water poured from the aperture amid the darkness," says the _Utrecht Gazette_, "and with it came the body of the poor lady, who was well-nigh drowned."

So the red light seen by Natalie was no fancy, but that of the lamp which was borne by one of those who came just in time to save her from the same terrible death by which the Princess Orloff perished.

Lest all might be perilled by a recognition, Balgonie was compelled to retire and leave her in the Chaplain's hands till she was restored to consciousness, to warmth, and till she was habited anew; and he passed three dreadful hours of doubt and anxiety, while pacing to and fro in the cold and gloomy archways of the fortress, and having to conceal his face when she was brought forth and supported into the kabitka, to which two _fresh_ horses were now traced. Usakoff sprang on the shaft and flourished his whip; then the Cossacks and Balgonie put spurs to their chargers, and clattered over the wet drawbridge, just as the passing bell for the departure of Bernikoff's tortured spirit rang ominously and solemnly on the stormy gusts of that black and gloomy night.

Balgonie, instead of proceeding by the way he had come, avoided the town of Schlusselburg, and wheeled off to the right, committing himself partly to the guidance of Usakoff, and quite in ignorance that, about an hour before, Vlasfief, who could by no means let so many roubles escape without paying toll, had beset two of the roads by chosen followers of his own--men whom he hoped might pass for some of the adherents of the late Prince Ivan, rescuing the daughter of the exiled Count Mierowitz.

A strange incident occurred before the interment of old Bernikoff, who had a pompous military funeral. The bottom of his grave was found to be on fire!

A Scottish doctor (named Rogerson, we believe) at Catharine's Court attempted to explain this phenomenon, as resulting from a species of ironstone which was saturated with the phosphorus supplied by the bones of old interments, and which had been ignited by the friction of the sexton's shovel; but the superstitious Russians took a very different and much more diabolical view of the matter, and laughed to scorn the learned opinion of the Scottish pundit.