Chapter VII: What Happened in Russograd

Though Katina was an avowed foe of all Muscovites, she nevertheless possessed a characteristic in common with them,--a passion for furious driving.

With a stamp of her pretty red shoes, and with cries that sounded somewhat wild on the night air, she urged the horses to their full speed. She carried a short-handed whip with a long leathern thong, but she used it only to lash the air.

Amid the tintinnabulation of a peal of silvery bells hung from the duga, the spirited coursers plunged forward, as if each were holding a race with the other, Katina handling the team with a dexterity that evoked Paul's admiration.

Now where the road was broad she would spread the galloping horses outwards like a fan; and now where its narrowness seemed to preclude all possibility of passage, she would draw them together till they appeared to occupy the space of one, without delaying for a moment her onward rush.

Occasionally she would rise from her seat and bend gracefully forward over the horses in an attitude suggestive of a Grecian charioteer, bidding the two friends with a merry laugh to "Hold fast," and the next moment they would be racing down a steep descent; a sudden splash, a drenching shower of spray, and ere the two friends had time to realize that they were crossing a stream, the ponies would be tugging the troika up the opposite bank.

The marvels performed by this daughter of Mazeppa in guiding her vehicle along the edge of a declivity, or in avoiding some obstacle that suddenly appeared in her path, are past all belief; and though Paul expected every moment to see the troika fall to pieces, the rapid see-saw motion which in some persons causes all the sensations of _mal de mer_, was both novel and pleasant, the rush of air producing an exhilaration of spirits that quickly effaced from his mind the uneasy presentiment caused by the words of the old istvostchik.

"At this pace we ought soon to overtake Marshal Zabern," remarked Paul.

"We are not following the same road," replied Katina. "In journeying to Slavowitz I myself always take this route, though it is more circuitous. I renew my patriotism when in sight of that building."

She had brought the troika to a standstill, and was now pointing to a large monastery that rose in solemn mediæval grandeur at the distance of about a hundred yards from the roadside.

"The Convent of the Transfiguration," said Katina. "On some Czernovese monasteries you will see a crescent beside the cross; it is a sign that the place was once in the hands of the Turks. But the crescent gleams not here," she continued proudly. "The pavement of the Convent of the Transfiguration has never been trodden by the foot of pagan or heretical foe. A strong fortress as well as a monastery, it has often checked the march of Muscovite and Turkish conquest."

A liturgical service was taking place in the convent. The chant of the monks was plainly audible, intermingled with the notes of the organ.

"They are supplicating for Poland," said Katina. "They pray for nothing else. Day and night their one cry is, 'How long, O Lord, how long?'"

The voices of the chanting friars produced a singular, nay, a weird impression upon Paul. Paganini himself could not have devised anything more awe-inspiring and unearthly than the refrain that now rose upon the night air.

"Some of the holy brethren," continued Katina, "are men who were once in Siberian mines. And such men! If you thought my back a pitiable sight, Captain Woodville, what would you think if you could see some of the dreadful forms hidden behind those walls?"

Her words, her looks, and above all the wild plaint proceeding from the convent, increased Paul's eerie sensations.

"Come here what hour you will of the twenty-four, you shall never miss the chant of those monks; their prayer never ends."

"A perpetual service? I have heard of such."

"When our fatherland was conquered in '95," continued Katina, "the then abbot of yon convent ordained that from that time forth the brethren should pray for no other thing than the restoration of Poland.

"To this end he drew up a liturgy and divided the whole body of the monks into three parts, directing that each in turn should recite this liturgy, band to succeed band without a moment's break. The convent has never wanted for devout men to consecrate themselves to this service.

"Day and night unceasingly for over fifty years their supplication has been going up to the saints above," said Katina. "Is it not time their prayer was answered?"

She clasped her hands and turned her face to the starlit heaven,--a face made beautifully touching by its earnestness.

"Oh! Queen of heaven," she murmured, "look down upon our country. Give us the thing we long for."

For a moment she stood in silent prayer, and then, taking up the reins again, she began to urge the horses forward, as if finding in that act a relief to her overwrought feelings. Once more the troika skimmed along, scarcely seeming to touch the earth, and the majestic convent with mysterious voices faded away in the gloom.

"Abbot Faustus still maintains his attitude of defiance towards the new archbishop," said Trevisa addressing Katina.

"And he will ever maintain it," she replied. "Be sure that Ravenna, anathematize as he may, will never be permitted to enter that convent."

"Your mysterious smile, fair Katina, disposes me to believe that you know the reason of the abbot's defiance."

"I _do_ know it," asseverated Katina, "but I must not reveal it. Ask the marshal to make you one of the 'Transfigured,' and you will understand the mystery. Faster, faster, my little doves," she added, shaking the whip over the heads of her team.

Onward flew the horses _ventre à terre_, and within an hour of the time of setting out, there glimmered into view the battled walls of Slavowitz, with its towers, spires, and domes standing out in gray relief against a background of blue sky dimly set with stars.

"Shall I take the Troitzka Gate?" asked Katina.

Trevisa nodded assent.

"'T will save a circuit," he said, "and will serve to show my friend the two sides of Slavowitz. You have seen Cracovia, the fashionable suburb," he added, addressing Paul; "now take a view of Russograd, the Muscovite quarter."

Katina accordingly drove through an arched gateway, where, armed with a long halbert, stood a Polish sentinel, who, at sight of Paul, saluted, mistaking him for an officer of the Blue Legion.

As the troika, leaving the city gate behind, rolled forward over the smooth wooden pavement of the main thoroughfare known as the Troitzkoi Prospekt, it became quickly evident that the dwellers in this quarter had become aware both of the princess's Romanist faith and likewise of the duke's arrest,--matters that naturally tended to produce a state of great excitement. Indeed, it looked as if there would be little sleep that night in Russograd; for though the hour was late, all the denizens of the faubourg, men and women alike, were abroad, discussing in shrill tones and with fierce gesticulations this latest phase of Czernovese politics. Russians, Tartars, Cossacks, and representatives of other nationalities, who at ordinary times were ready to cut each other's throats, were now united by the bond of a common religion against "Natalie the Apostate."

"Now the saints confound these Long-beards!" murmured Katina, compelled to exercise great care in steering her course. "Is it Butter-week, that they throng so? Our short route is proving a long one."

Owing partly to the crowded state of the street, and partly to the condition of the wooden pavement, which a recent shower had rendered somewhat slippery, it was impossible for the vehicle to proceed other than at a walking pace, and thus the trio could not fail to overhear the remarks made by some of the throng.

"I saw the duke brought in through the St. Florian Gate," cried a woman, addressing a circle of bystanders.

"They knew better than to bring him in through the Troitzka Gate," observed a man beside her, apparently her husband. His face was disfigured by a long smear of dried blood.

"He was riding with downcast eyes in the centre of a troop," continued the woman. "And when my goodman cried, 'Long live our prince,' one of the troopers struck him across the face with the flat of his sabre, bidding him begone for a traitor. Look at the mark of the sword," she screamed.

"Yes," chimed in her husband, "and the princess herself passed by a minute later in her droshky, and drove off to the Palace, not looking one whit troubled by the thought of the duke's imprisonment."

"Troubled, do you say?" cried his wife. "I never saw her looking more glad than she did to-night. And to think that a mere girl should have the power to arrest a big handsome man like our Duke John! We want a full-grown, bearded soldier to rule over us, and not a silly maid."

"Especially a maiden under the thumb of Cardinal Ravenna," interjected a bystander. "We all know why she has imprisoned the duke; because he is a Greek, and loves the Muscovites and the great White Czar."

"And the princess hates the Czar," cried the woman.

"The shoes she wears in her palace are stamped on the sole with the portrait of our little father Nicholas, so that she may tread his image under foot whenever she walks."

This little anecdote, entirely without truth, found ready credence among the haters of the princess.

"She is removing the duke from his command to make way for Zabern. And why Zabern? Because he is a Pole, and a Catholic, and hates the Muscovites."

Amid these observations, and others of a like character, the troika moved, its rate of progress gradually diminishing, until the vehicle was finally brought to a standstill by the immobility of the crowd in front, who either could not, or would not, move out of the way.

"_Na pravo_--to the right!" cried those on the left angrily; while just as angrily those on the right cried,--

"_Na levo_--to the left!"

Unable either to advance or retire, the occupants of the troika remained stationary, the centre of a crowd evidently bent on mischief, a crowd composed mainly of the lower orders,--or, to use the suggestive phrase of the Russians themselves, the "Tshornoi Narod," or "Black People."

Russograd was at no time a safe place for the adherents of the princess; but in the present political crisis the sight of one wearing, as they supposed, the uniform of her _corps du garde_ raised the fanaticism of the Muscovite mob to a dangerous pitch. The three friends were ill prepared for repelling an attack. Paul was armed with his sabre only; Katina had her savage-looking whip; Trevisa was without weapon of any kind.

Paul's chief fear was for Katina; but the maiden who had bravely endured the knout did not seem at all disconcerted by the circle of scowling faces.

"My little mother, step aside there," she cried, toying with her whip, and gently endeavoring to urge the horses forward. "Now, old soldier, have a care."

"Have a care yourself," exclaimed a harsh voice in front,--the voice of a red-bearded individual in a blue caftan. "Would you ride over me?" he added fiercely, grasping the bridle of one of the horses.

His was a voice which Katina had previously heard that same day in the parlor of her own inn. Springing immediately to her feet, she looked fearlessly around.

"In the name of the princess," she cried, "I call upon all loyal citizens of Russograd to arrest that man and to convey him to the Citadel, for he is an escaped prisoner."

"The more welcome for that!" said the man with the bloody smear.

"In the name of the Czar," cried the spy, "I call upon all loyal citizens of Russograd to arrest that woman, and to convey her to Orenburg, for she is an escaped prisoner, a fugitive from Russian justice. What?" he continued, advancing into the ring of space around the troika, "do you not know Katina Ludovska, the Polish harlot with whom Zabern takes his pleasures?"

Quivering with indignation, Katina leaped from the troika, bent on chastising the insulter. One lash from the thong of her whip would have laid open his cheek as effectually as a sabre-stroke; but ere she could carry out her purpose, the more prudent Paul had laid hand upon her belt and swung her lightly back again.

"And do you not recognize this fellow?" continued Russakoff, pointing to Trevisa. "He is the princess's paramour; private secretary is the name used in court circles."

A coarse laugh greeted these words.

"The princess will never marry the duke. Why? Because the secretary has poisoned her mind against him."

The mob grew more menacing in their attitude.

Katina laughed defiantly.

Trevisa glanced around, wondering what had become of the night watch appointed to patrol the streets of Russograd.

Paul, casting about for a way of escape, observed that the crowd facing the horses was but a few ranks deep. If Trevisa and he put on a bold front, while Katina plied her whip vigorously, there was a possibility of breaking through the hostile circle. He whispered this idea to the two, who both nodded assent.

"Be it known to all that the princess has arrested our duke for duelling. And here," continued Russakoff, pointing to Paul, "is the man that fought with him. Before St. Nicholas I speak the truth. I lie not," he added, taking out one of those sacred icons which the Russian usually carries with him, and kissing it as he spoke. "The princess imprisons the duke; she lets this man go free. Men of Russograd, is this justice?"

"No! No!" cried the mob.

It was impossible to rescue their beloved duke from the grim Citadel with its massive walls loop-holed with artillery; it was impossible to do hurt to "Natalie the Apostate" in her strong palace, which the foresight of the ministers had surrounded with a military cordon. But here were persons almost as obnoxious as the princess herself, and a hurricane of yells arose from all sides, the women exhibiting more fury than the men.

"Down with the Jesuits!"

"Drag them from the car!"

"Tear them limb from limb!"

"Hurl their bloody heads through the princess's windows!"

As the crowd surged madly forward, Paul sprang to his feet, sabre in hand.

"Now, Katina, now! Ah! the cowards!" he muttered in an agony of rage, as a stone flung by one of the mob caught her on the temple.

Their escape seemed a doubtful matter. On all sides men, and women too, were attempting to clamber into the troika, and dealing blows with fists, sticks, and knives. They yapped and snarled like so many dogs as they were hurled off again by the sturdy Englishmen, Paul standing on the left side and using the flat of his sabre, Trevisa on the right dependent merely upon the weapons supplied by nature, to wit, his fists.

While this contest was being waged Katina, though dizzy from the effects of the stone, bent backwards, and with a strength of wrist marvellous in a slender maiden, she pulled the horses so far back on their haunches as to cause their front hoofs to rise and describe circles in the air. Poised thus she lashed them with a savagery justified only by the occasion, though even in that moment of peril it went to her heart to ill-treat her favorites; and then, with a warning shout, she launched the maddened steeds pell-mell upon the crowd in front, endeavoring also to clear the way by striking out to right and left with her reddened whip.

The crowd facing the troika divided like water cleft by the hand, and the vehicle flew forward with nothing to oppose it. A double line of faces seemed to be rushing by; oaths and cries; a jolt, occasioned by the troika bounding over a prostrate body; another, more violent, which left a sickening sensation in the mouth; and the moment afterwards the vehicle, with its bells wildly jangling, was clear of the press and racing down the Troitzkoi Prospekt, the very embodiment of the wind, followed by the yells of the baffled crowd.

"Bravo, Katina!" cried Paul. "You are the princess of charioteers. A narrow shave, that--eh Noel?"

But, on turning to his companion, Paul gave a cry of horror. Trevisa lay helplessly on the seat of the troika, his face as white as china, his teeth set in agony, in his eyes an awful look.

Paul's cry drew Katina's attention to Trevisa. She immediately pulled up the horses.

"Mary, mother of angels!" she cried in a tone of anguish. "He has been stabbed; stabbed in the side!"

And all the womanhood of her nature asserting itself, she gently raised Trevisa's head, and pillowed it upon her breast, regardless of the blood that flowed down her dress.

"It was Russakoff," gasped Trevisa. "Paul," he continued, seizing his friend's wrist. "Remember! it is the furies, the furies of--of--"

The act of speaking brought a rush of blood to his mouth, and ere he could finish the strange utterance, he was gone.

"Jesu Maria, he's dead!" murmured Katina in awe; and then, her mood changing, she added with a wild laugh, "Russakoff has earned his roubles."

The whole affair had happened so quickly that it was almost impossible to believe in its reality, though the dead form of Trevisa lay there before their eyes. For fully half a minute Paul stared helplessly at the silent figure. Amazement--grief--horror kept him mute and motionless; then in a moment these feelings gave way to the wild desire for vengeance.

"I'll find the assassin," he muttered, springing from the troika, "and sabre him on the spot, though I die the next moment for it."

"Would you go back among those wolves?" cried Katina. "No, no; they will kill you too." She also sprang from the troika, and held Paul by the wrist. "Indeed you shall not go. Leave the assassin to Zabern. Zabern will find him. And thank heaven, here is the marshal!"

As she spoke the clatter of horse-hoofs was heard, and turning in the direction of the sound, Paul saw a troop of lancers approaching with Zabern at their head.

On nearing the troika the marshal halted his men, saluted Paul with his sword, and then eying the crowd that was still impotently yelling in the distance, he said,--

"In the fiend's name, what possessed you three to drive through Russograd on such a night as this?"

His eye now caught sight of the limp appearance presented by the silent form reclining on the troika. He sprang from his horse with consternation written on his face.

"Good God! don't say that Trevisa is dead!--Trevisa, whom I hoped to see fighting under the banner of the princess! Dead!" he muttered under his breath, "and just as he was on the point of deciphering the secret despatch, too!"

"He is dead," said Paul; "but this is no time for words. The assassin is among yon crowd, and his name is Ivan Russakoff."

The name of the spy acted like magic upon Zabern. He shouted some order, and in a moment more ten uhlans trotting forward with couched lances scattered the crowd; the object of these troopers was to secure the Troitzka Gate, and so prevent the assassin from making his escape by this exit. Like precautions were promptly taken with the rest of the city gates. The remainder of his forces Zabern skilfully disposed around the suburb of Russograd, forming them into a cordon through which no one could break without detection.

Meanwhile, in answer to his summons, fresh detachments of troops arrived together with a numerous corps of police; and to both he briefly explained the object of the muster.

Zabern was well aware that, owing to the hostility with which Polish authority was viewed in this quarter, he would have considerable difficulty in inducing the Muscovites to surrender the spy, whose act in slaying a government official would be certain to enlist their sympathies. Every dweller in Russograd would take a pride in concealing the felon. Hence the marshal was necessitated to make his arrangements with almost the same care as if conducting a siege. For a few hours Russograd was to become subject to martial law,--no new experience for this riotous faubourg.

"Remember, Russakoff must be taken alive; his dead body is of no use to me," said Zabern. "But as to the rest, don't hesitate to shoot if there should be any resistance. Nikita," he added, addressing his orderly, "dismount, and assist Katina in conveying the body to the palace. Captain Woodville, here is a horse at your service. You will accompany us?"

Zabern's elaborate precautions failed to secure the person of the spy.

Though all the streets of Russograd were traversed by the military, and every individual subjected to scrutiny; though private dwelling and public building were explored by keen-eyed police; and though the marshal and his staff formed a sort of inquisitorial tribunal and interrogated and cross-examined during the whole night, yet no one answering to the description of Russakoff could be found.

Still the marshal continued the search, encouraged by the statement alike of the sentinels at the city gates as of the members composing the military cordon, that the spy had not passed outwards.

"So, Nariskin," he said at seven next morning, and addressing a patriarchal, long-bearded individual who carried himself with some show of authority, "so, Nariskin, another government official murdered in your ghetto! A pretty guard your night-watch keep!"

Nariskin, chief of the ward council that directed the affairs of Russograd, became voluble in attesting his grief,--his indignation, his horror, that anything so--so--

"It isn't an oration that I want," said Zabern brusquely, "but the person of Russakoff. You will assemble your council this morning and make two announcements: first, that henceforth Russograd shall cease to do its own policing; that shall be my care. And, secondly, that unless the spy is surrendered before six this evening Russograd shall pay a fine of fifty thousand roubles."

Nariskin protested by Saint Vladimir that there was not so much money in all Russograd, but the marshal turned contemptuously away.

"It's useless," he said to Paul, "to search longer for a fugitive whom a whole people are bent on concealing."

In gloomy mood he gave orders for the withdrawal of the soldiery from Russograd. The military cordon, however, was still maintained, and fresh injunctions were issued to exercise strict supervision over every person passing outwards.

Paul accompanied Zabern at his request to the Vistula Palace, and entered the apartments lately tenanted by Trevisa.

Beneath a catafalque of black velvet, surrounded by lighted tapers set in tall silver candlesticks, reposed the body of Trevisa, his hands folded across his breast, and holding within them lilies placed there by Katina.

"A sad fatality!" murmured Zabern, his somewhat grim and hard nature touched by Trevisa's early and mournful ending. "A sad fatality! And partly of my own causing, too!"

"How so?"

"The cipher-despatch which I entrusted to his care has occasioned his death."

"You mean that he was assassinated in order to prevent him from deciphering it?"

"Precisely. The duke hesitates at nothing to conceal his treason."

"What proof have you of his complicity in this affair?"

"Actual proof--none, else would the headsman be now putting edge to his axe. But here are matters that have a suspicious aspect. Not till yester-morn did the duke learn that Russakoff was a prisoner in the Citadel, and that Trevisa was occupied with the document found on the spy. I did my best to keep the affair a secret, but our premier, unthinkingly, revealed it; and, according to him, the duke, on hearing of Russakoff's imprisonment, looked ill at ease. Why, unless the matter concerned him? Subsequently the duke paid a visit to the Citadel--in his official capacity, of course; but, mark the result! Two hours afterwards Russakoff's cell was found empty. How? Great is the power of the rouble-note!"

"Why, then, send the duke to the Citadel, since the itching palm that opened the gate for Russakoff may do the like for Bora?"

"I have thought of that, and therefore I have appointed some of my own troopers--fellows whom I can trust--to be the duke's jailers. But to return to the cipher letter," continued Zabern, in a tone of profound dejection. "It still keeps its secret. And Trevisa had just hit on the clue! Did he speak of the matter at all on the way to Slavowitz? Did he give you any hint?"

"None."

But scarcely had Paul given this reply than he started, as he suddenly recalled Trevisa's dying utterance.

"Marshal, I believe he tried to make a communication to me in his last moment. His words were 'Remember the furies!'"

"Passing strange! what meaning can there be in that?"

The two men puzzled themselves to no purpose over the singular saying.

"That cipher letter," said Zabern, reflectively, "was perhaps the last thing in Trevisa's mind. With that sudden intuition which sometimes belongs to the dying, he recognized why he had been assassinated, and tried to give you a clue. 'Remember the furies!' Humph! here's an enigma indeed!"

He paced the apartment gloomily, while Paul, looking down upon the face of his dead friend, breathed a silent prayer for justice upon all who had part in the cruel deed.

"The interpretation of that cipher letter," said Zabern, "would enable us to defeat Russia's secret scheme for the subversion of Czernova; but alas! where shall we look for the interpreter?"

"Give me the letter," said Paul with a sudden impulse, "and let me try my wits upon it. I am not altogether ignorant of cryptography; it was Trevisa's favorite pursuit when we were at college. He sought to interest me in it, and I remember something of his methods."

There was at first some hesitancy on the part of Zabern. Was it wise to trust such a weighty matter to one who owed no allegiance to the Czernovese government?

Paul understood the scruples of the other.

"You may trust me; or if not, I will take whatever oath you wish. My sole desire is to serve your beautiful princess."

Zabern's opposition vanished.

"You shall have the letter," he replied. "You defeated Russia's aim in the East; now defeat her aim in the West. But, if you are like me, you must feel the need of a little sleep. There is a bed in the next apartment. Sleep for an hour or two, and rise fresh for the work."

Paul accepted this advice, and retired to the next apartment.

"Shall I call this Fate?" he murmured, as he laid his head on the pillow. "Without any seeking on my part I am now beneath the same roof as Barbara."