Chapter XXV: Conclusion

Their horses were tolerably refreshed by the halt at Schlusselburg, and the nags which drew the light kabitka had been quite unused, so the whole party pushed on at a brisk pace, by the road towards the frontiers of Finland, the Cossacks of the escort, whatever they thought, making neither remark nor inquiry, as they trusted obediently and implicitly to the officer who led them; but the darkness of the October morning, the deep and muddy, stony and rough, nature of the roads, and the violence of the storm, erelong began to have a severe effect upon their cattle, and, to the great satisfaction of Balgonie, two of the troopers gradually dropped to the rear, and were seen no more.

Now the Corporal of the Cossacks ventured to hint, that "perhaps they were not pursuing the way they had come, as the lights in St. Isaac's Cathedral must have been visible long ago;" but Balgonie replied, haughtily and briefly, that he "had _special_ orders."

Then the Corporal urged a short halt, as the horses were sinking; but again Balgonie replied, that he "had peculiar orders, and must push on."

After passing a little village with a windmill, several miles from the shore of the Lake of Ladoga, the road dipped down into a dark hollow, between impending crags of granite, the grey faces of which were already beginning to brighten in the first light of the lagging October sun. The rain and wind were over; the hollow way was fall of rolling and perplexing mist; but Usakoff affirmed with confidence that he knew the country well.

Out of the grey vapour, from both sides of the path, there flashed, redly and luridly, five or six muskets! One bullet struck white splinters from the kabitka eliciting a shriek from its occupant; another whistled through the mane of Charlie's horse; and a third killed one of the Cossacks, who died without a groan, for it passed fairly through his temples.

The way was beset by armed men, whose numbers and disposition the dim light, or, rather, the darkness and the mist, alike served to conceal.

"Make way, in the name of the Empress!" cried Balgonie, dashing forward, with his sabre drawn; "Nay, I command you, on your peril and allegiance!" he added, as the threatening words of Vlasfief occurred to him; and, to his astonishment and dismay, he saw that personage actually appear, mounted and armed, wearing a regimental hat and plume, with a kind of dark green tunic, or patrol jacket, richly braided with gold, and trimmed heavily with black fur. His party, who seemed all on foot, were clad like peasants, but were armed with muskets, which they were rapidly casting about and reloading.

"Halt, in the name of the Empress--halt, I command you! for this is _not_ the way to St. Petersburg, whither the prisoner and treasure were to be conveyed. Treason! treason!" shouted the Staff Captain Vlasfief.

Balgonie fired a pistol at his head; but the Captain's horse reared, or was compelled to do so by bit and spur, for the bullet pierced its throat; and with an oath, Vlasfief fell on the pathway, entangled in the stirrups as the animal sank under him.

The three remaining Cossacks, who were somewhat bewildered by the attack, by the appearance of Vlasfief, whom they knew, and whose confident bearing confirmed certain gathering suspicions that something was wrong as to their route, now drew their sabres, aimed several blows at Usakoff's head, and endeavoured to cut the reins of his horse, or stab it between the shafts, as he lashed the animal almost to racing speed, and the light kabitka jolted, rolled, and bounded along the rough road behind it.

By another pistol-shot Balgonie rid himself of the Cossack Corporal, whose bridle arm he broke, while facing about and galloping in rear of the kabitka; and now with wild hallooes, the entire party of armed men followed it on foot, with all speed, up a steep slope, over which the path wound.

Usakoff ground his teeth, for he was without weapons, and passive in the flying combat; but, being fertile in expedients, he tore open a bag of roubles, and scattered them on the upland road with a ready and reckless hand.

The bright silver coins proved too exciting for the cupidity of the pursuers, who loitered to pick them up, tumbling, scrambling, rising and falling over each other, with shouts, curses, and maledictions, their fire-arms sometimes exploding the while; and so the whole were speedily left behind, as the kabitka, guarded now by Balgonie alone, was driven along a lonely and unfrequented road, that led to the little town of Pomphela.

"Thanks, dear Usakoff--thanks for your presence of mind," said Balgonie; "I had forgot all about those roubles."

"Silver has achieved for us what neither our lead or steel would have done!"

"But, to lighten the kabitka, let us throw out those remaining bags--this perilous lumber, the intended recapture of which has nearly cost us our lives--honour--all, at the hands of Vlasfief."

"Nay, nay, never! Lumber, say you? The roubles are Natalie's--hers and mine--hers and yours, when you wed her; they have saved us once, and may do so again," replied Usakoff cheerfully, as the sun burst forth in his clear October splendour, and they saw the dome-shaped cupola of the Church of Pomphela rising with a golden gleam from amid the white morning haze.

There Balgonie's uniform and a display of gold and roubles operated powerfully on the Postmaster, who, without asking for passports or other papers, at once, and in the name of the Empress, supplied them with fresh horses for the frontier, towards which, after procuring some proper nourishment and restoratives for Natalie, they pushed on without a moment of unnecessary delay.

"Ah," thought Balgonie, with a shudder and a prayer; "had Jagouski's name not been omitted in that order of Weymarn, where would she have been now?"

Pale with sorrow and long suffering, her face was still beautiful, though sorely wasted; the deep thoughtful eyes had yet a wealth--a world of tenderness in their liquid depths; and the long dark hair was thick, soft, and wavy as ever, as it fell in masses behind the small, compact, and finely-formed head.

Yet withal, her wretchedness had been extreme, having been so suddenly and rudely rent from all those habits of luxury and tender nurture, which had become, as it were, a second nature; and often, very often, had it occurred to her in her later misery of soul "that the repose of the grave is sweet, and that there cometh after death a levelling and making even of things which would at last cure all her evils."

But all was changed now; and, as she laid her head on Charlie's breast, she felt content--almost happy; and the horrors that hung over her family alone prevented her, as yet, from being completely so.

No trace of pursuers were behind them now, though their flight must by this time have been known both in the capital and at Schlusselburg. But in those days there were neither railroads nor electric telegraphs; so, riding on more leisurely, Balgonie changed horses again near Viborg, and erelong the great Lake of Saima appeared before them, with the distant hills of Swedish Finland beyond its friendly waters.

A boat was procured there; the kabitka was abandoned; and, with a shout of joy, Usakoff assisted the Finnish boatman to hoist the great lug-sail to catch the breeze of a balmy and beautiful evening, as they bade a long farewell to Russia and all its terrors.

In a quaint old Church of Finland, by the eastern shore of the Lake of Saima, and in view of its little archipelago of granite isles,--a lonely little fane, buried amid groves of plum and cherry trees, built of wood and painted red, with a little holy bell jangling in its humble belfry,--Charlie Balgonie and his fugitive bride were united by the old Curate, with the consent of the Lutheran Bishop of Heinola; and there a thousand roubles spent among the poor spread in the primitive district a happiness, the tradition of which is still remembered with many a grateful exaggeration.

After this, poor Usakoff, finding himself perhaps, as a third person, rather in the way, left them to become a soldier of fortune; and he is supposed to have perished in one of the Polish struggles for freedom; at least, they heard of him no more, after their final journey to Scotland.

Two years before these events, it would appear that Charlie's uncle, "the godly and upright" Gamaliel Balgonie, merchant, magistrate, and elder, had departed in peace to sin no more, leaving the lands and possessions of Balgonie unimpaired; and a long tombstone in that famous city of the dead, the Howff of Dundee, records at length all the virtues which his contemporaries in general and the Presbytery in particular believed him to possess.

So Carl Ivanovitch became once more Balgonie of that Ilk; and the roubles of Natalie added many a turret and many an acre to his patrimonial dwelling in beautiful Strathearn.

L'ENVOI.--ILLUSTRATIVE NOTE.

To convince the reader how nearly History has been followed in the previous pages, we shall take the liberty of inserting the subsequent manifesto, published with reference to the death of Ivan IV.

"By the Grace of God, we, Catharine the Second, Empress and Autocratrice of all the Russias, &c., &c., to all whom these presents may concern:

When by the divine will, and in compliance with the unanimous desires of our faithful subjects, we ascended the throne of Russia, we were not ignorant that Ivan, son of Anthony, Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, and of the Princess Anne of Mecklenburg was still alive. This Prince, as is well known, was immediately after his birth unlawfully declared heir to the imperial crown; _but_, by the decrees of Providence, he was soon after irrevocably excluded from that high dignity, and the sceptre was placed in the hands of the lawful heiress, Elizabeth (daughter of Peter the Great), our beloved aunt of glorious memory.

"After we had ascended the throne, and offered up to Heaven our just thanksgivings, the first object that employed our thoughts, in consequence of _that humanity which is so natural to us_, was the unhappy situation of that Prince, who was _dethroned_ by _divine Providence_, and had been unfortunate since his birth.

"To prevent, therefore, ill-intentioned persons from giving him any trouble, or from making use of his name to disturb the public tranquillity, we gave him a guard, and placed about his person two officers, in whose fidelity and integrity we could confide. These were Captain Vlasfief and Lieutenant Tschekin, who by their long military services deserved a suitable recompense, and a station in which they might pass quietly the remainder of their days. They were accordingly charged with the care of the Prince, and were strictly enjoined to let none approach him. Yet all these precautions were not sufficient....

"A _Put-parooschick_ (a sub-lieutenant) of the Regiment of Smolensko, a native of the Ukraine, Basil Mierowitz (grandson of the first rebel that followed Mazeppa), took it into his head to make use of this Prince, to advance his fortune at all events, without being restrained by a consideration of the bloody scene that such an attempt might occasion. In order to execute this detestable, dangerous, and desperate project, he contrived, during our absence in Livonia, to be upon guard in the fortress of Schlusselburg, where the guard is relieved every eight days; and the 15th of last month, about two in the morning, he called out the main guard, formed it in line, and ordered the soldiers to load with ball. Bernikoff, Governor of the fortress, came out of his apartment, and asked Mierowitz the reason of the disturbance, but received no other answer from this rebel than a blow with the butt-end of his musket.

"Captain Vlasfief and Lieutenant Tschekin seeing that it was impossible to resist such a superior force, and considering the unhappy consequences that must ensue from the deliverance of THE PERSOX who was committed to their care, after deliberating together, took the only step that they thought proper to maintain public tranquillity, which was to _cut short the days of the unfortunate Ivan_. Mierowitz, on seeing the dead body of the Prince, was so confounded by a sight he so little expected, that he acknowledged his temerity and guilt, and discovered his repentance to the troops, whom, about an hour before, he had seduced from their duty, and rendered the accomplices of his crime.

"Then it was that the two officers who had nipped this rebellion in the bud, joined the Governor of the fortress in securing this rebel, and bringing back the soldiers to their duty. They also sent to our Privy Councillor Count Fanin, _under whose orders they acted_, a relation of this event, which, though unhappy, has nevertheless, _under the protection of Heaven_, prevented still greater calamities. This Senator despatched immediately _Pulovnick_ (Colonel) Caschkin, with sufficient instructions to maintain tranquillity on the spot (or where the assassination was committed), and sent us, at the same time, a circumstantial account of the whole affair. In consequence of this, we ordered Lieutenant-General Weymarn, of the division of St. Petersburg, to take the necessary information on the spot; and the confession of the villain himself, who has acknowledged his crime.

"Sensible of its enormity and consequences with regard to the peace of our country, we have referred the whole affair to the consideration of our Senate, which we have ordered, jointly with the Synod, to invite the three first classes and the Presidents of all the Colleges to hear the verbal relation of General Weymarn, who has taken the proper informations, to pronounce sentence in consequence thereof, and to present it to us, for confirmation of the same.

"CATHARINE."

By a singular species of sophistry, the guilt of Ivan's death is thus, by a subsequent document, transferred to Basil Mierowitz:--

"As the violent death of the unfortunate Prince Ivan was the immediate consequence of the desperate attempt of Mierowitz, so must this officer be considered as the principal cause of this assassination--nay, even regarded as _the murderer of that unhappy Prince_."

To this, five Russian Bishops appended their signatures.

Vlasfief was made a General, and his Lieutenant a Colonel, in the following year, with a pension of ten thousand roubles each.

THE END.

PRINTED BY W. H. SMITH AND SON, 186, STRAND, LONDON.

9-8-69.