Part 12

It was a filthy scene, and while I looked at them I thought of the Princess Daria, and groaned in spirit. Where was she? How fared it with her, alone in that house, without even a slave to defend her? If my bonds had been fiery cords they could not have cut more deeply into my flesh, while my soul cried out with impatience to fly to her aid. Meanwhile the men drank and cursed and sang, and the smoke from the torches rose and hung above my head in a black cloud. And, in the midst of it, the door opened and one who seemed to be of higher rank than the others stood and looked at them; a tall man, with a fierce face and a great purple mark across his forehead. At the sight of him they shouted, and held up their cups to pledge him.

“Drinking yet, ye dogs!” he said contemptuously; “and we have not slain that arch traitor, the Jew, Von Gaden--nor the Prince Voronin.”

At this I pricked up my ears, but I kept my eyes closed, scenting danger. The Streltsi shouted and snarled.

“To-morrow, Martemian, son of Stenko,” they said, “to-morrow, you shall lead us--to-night we are aweary.”

He spat at them. “Weary,” he said; “drunk, ye devils, drunk! And who is the German there?”

“’Tis the French goldsmith, Martemian,” they cried, “and he is dead, or as good as dead.”

“Better dead,” he retorted. “A goldsmith has no use save to give us his hide or his gold.”

At this pleasantry they laughed and clapped each other on the shoulder, and the man in the door, suddenly opening a pouch he carried, threw a handful of roubles in their midst.

“Your pay,” he said, “your pay--as we get it! Catch who can.”

They fell upon the floor grovelling for it, and fighting and rolling over, like swine in a pen, and he laughed harshly.

“Bless thee, O Martemian Stenkovitch!” they cried; “thy gift is good in our sight, and fair. _Prebavit!_” which is to say, “Add to it!”

Again he tossed a handful, and again they rolled and grovelled and fought for it, and one man stabbed another and threw the body through the window, crying as he did it:

“Thy gift is good, O Martemian, son of Stenko--_prebavit_!”

But at this he swore.

“_Prebavit!_” he cried, mocking; “_prebavit!_ Yea, and ye would slay each other for it, and tear each other as a pack of wolves, until only the blood and hair and bones remained. _Prebavit!_ By Saint Nikolas of Mojaïsk, no! but the _pravezh_ to every man of you unless ye bring me Von Gaden’s head to-morrow!” and with that he flung away, cursing them.

Von Gaden, the Jewish physician of the late Czar, was much hated in Moscow and was, on the third day, cruelly tortured and executed. But of him I knew nothing.

The second gift of roubles had borne a very devil’s harvest among these drunken, savage creatures. No sooner had the man who gave it gone than they fell to fighting again, each one determined to have the other’s share. One great brute beat out another’s brains with a club, and a small man stabbed the victor in the back, and while he was rifling the pockets of his victim, a fourth threw him out the window and grappled with a fifth over the two dead bodies. While others, too stupefied to care even for gold, drank and drank yet more deeply, and one torch after another burned out and semi-darkness fell upon the hideous scene, and I was as little heeded as the dead bodies that lay upon the floor. The liquor meanwhile was doing its work, and one by one the survivors of the fray fell from their seats to the floor and slept, or lay stupid; until, at last, only two old gamesters played at dice in the filthy room, and between them was a pile of stolen gold. And I watched, watched narrowly, hoping for a chance to break loose, though my bonds held like iron. Yet these two villains played and drank, and neither showed a sign of failing, though the heavy breathing of the sleepers came even from under the table where I was tied.

Time, dragging with leaden feet, went on, and still they played and cursed each other, and once, one of them sang a Russian song, a wild melody, not without sweetness, and his voice was full and rich, and flung its notes out, like a great bell, in the night.

“‘_My mother is--the beauteous sun_,’”

he sang;

“‘_And my father--the bright moon; My brothers are the many stars, And my sisters--the white dawns!_’”

And while he sang, he won and gathered in the roubles. Then the other, a smaller and paler rogue, who had his knife drawn under the table, began to quarrel with him, purposely, as I saw.

“Ivan Andreivitch,” he growled, “you sing and cheat--look you, the gold is mine!”

The big fellow laughed and brought his fist down on the table.

“Curse you, Nikolas!” he roared, “’tis mine, you thief, and son of a thief!”

At which the white face--sudden and swift as a tiger--thrust him in the breast with his long knife, and the other sighed and rolled over--dead--upon the table.

Then did I see terror--terror of men and angels--on the murderer’s face. He stood with his knife dripping, his features set like a mask, his eyes staring, his teeth chattering, and he looked askance even at the dead. It was the fit that comes upon some men after they have killed. So he stood, for full ten minutes, and then gathering up the gold with eager hands, and hiding it about his person, he turned and fled out into the night.

And I sat and stared. There was the same low room, only one torch burning now, and on the floor dead men and drunken sleepers, and no one to watch. Surely, no man ever saw a sight more horrid or more blasting, but I had no time to meditate upon it. I set to work to gnaw at my bonds and struggled to be free, and yet to no purpose. I could neither bite nor break them, and the golden moments slipped away--as sand runs through the fingers. I struggled desperately; I even succeeded so far as to roll over, chair and all, upon the floor, but, though the crash of my fall startled all the sleepers, it did not break a cord, and I lay--no better off--bound fast upon the floor. The noise that I made in falling had roused one of the wretches, however, so far that he did not sink back, as the others did, into slumber. Instead, he raised himself on his elbow and watched me struggle, and, at last, he began to put two and two together, and his thirst came upon him and he sat up and stared at me.

“I want more brandy!” he said thickly. “Have you taken it?” and he lurched to his feet and tried to drain a drop from the empty flagon on the gamblers’ table.

“I can show you more drink,” I said craftily, “if you will cut these bonds.”

“Where is it?” he demanded, and fell to hiccoughing, and, reeling toward me, “where is it, brother?”

“Undo this cord,” I said, holding out my hands, “and I will take you to it.”

He leered at me slily, as if he suspected me, and then he began to fumble with the knots and the perspiration stood out on my forehead. I started at every sound lest someone should come upon us, and the tipsy fool fumbled and cursed.

“Be swift!” I whispered, “be swift, friend, and I will show you a river of drink.”

At this he swore with joy, and wrenching at the knot, until the cord cut my wrists, he got it loose and I pulled my hands out. Once with free fingers I made short work of the bonds on my ankles and leaped up, just as he began to curse me, and cry out that I had fooled him.

“Come!” I said, and pushed him toward the window.

He reeled against it and I sprang upon the sill. The night was black before me and the city seemed full of noises, cries, and discordant sounds, and above, in the sky, there was that luminous pallor that precedes the dawn.

“Where’s your drink?” the tippler mumbled, trying to pull me back, but I knocked him aside.

“Yonder!” I said; “go to the river, fool, and drink it dry,” and I dropped out of the window and left him cursing, too far gone to follow me, though I think he tried.

I felt my way along by the wall of the house; I was in the court-yard, a _cul-de-sac_ between the huts, and it was like pitch, but at last I came to a gate and, fumbling at the latch, got it open and went out into a street--a street that I did not know--in the Zemlianui-gorod, and beset on all sides with dangers, seen and unseen. I went swiftly forward, guided only by the dimly seen towers of the Kremlin, until the light above grew fuller and I saw the crosses gleam on the cathedrals, and so kept steadily on.

The wild night--full of its horrors--was spent; another day was breaking, and here and there I stumbled on a man lying in the street, either dead or in a drunken stupor, and once or twice I turned aside to avoid a group of tipsy ruffians, but, in places, there was quiet, the quiet of fear or worse, and I went on. The thought that I might be too late drove me well-nigh to madness and winged my feet, yet the way seemed endless.

But at last I came in sight of Kurakin’s house, and beyond it saw Le Bastien’s, the windows still shuttered. There were no signs of outrage, the street was quiet, the house closed and silent. I hurried to the door and tried it and found it barred within. My heart beat high with hope, and I made for the rear door and, crossing the court, tried my key in the lock, but here, too, there were bars within.

Day dawned, a ghastly whiteness shone on the scene, even the sky was white rather than blue. I beat upon the door. Silence. Then I heard a step within, and beat upon the door and shouted. At my voice the bars were lifted, the door opened softly, and Maluta’s white face and great ears appeared.

“Where is the Princess Daria?” I cried, pushing past him.

He fell to trembling, his teeth chattered, he clutched at my knees.

“Be not angry, O my master,” he cried shrilly; “as the saints live, I know not--she is not here!”

_XXIII: A SPRIG OF RUE_

I HAD entered the hall, and the dwarf closed the door and secured it 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_