Part 17

“But where is the Princess Daria?” I demanded; “has she hidden herself from me--or is it the prince’s doing?”

“A little of both, monsieur,” replied the girl roguishly; “she is afraid of you, I believe; you know husbands so often beat their wives and----”

“_Sapristi!_” I exclaimed; “do you imagine--does she dream that I would strike a woman?”

Lissa’s blue eyes opened wide. “Would you not?” she asked blankly. “Do not your men beat their wives?”

“The saints forbid!” I said piously. “A French gentleman beat his wife? Nay, mademoiselle, never!”

She looked at me with curiosity, and then clapped her hands gleefully.

“Look you, monsieur, I will marry a Frenchman!” she cried. “Why, my uncle beat his wife six times a week--and thought it too little.”

I bit my lip. “Perhaps, he also beats his daughter,” I said furiously.

“He used to,” Vassalissa replied, and turned pale. “He is a dreadful man, monsieur, when he is angry, but you know we women must obey.”

I choked down my anger. “Tell me no more,” I said harshly, “or I may kill him--even if he is her father. But where is she? I must see my wife!”

A roguish look came back into the child’s face.

“She is safe, monsieur,” she said, “and she may see you, if we can manage it without his knowledge, but if he catches us,” she nodded her head at me like a little bird, “he will kill us all--everyone!”

“I will risk it,” I said joyfully; “but where and when?”

She looked at me with her head on one side, as mischievous a little vixen as ever lived.

“I will tell you next week,” she said wickedly.

I caught her round young arm and held her, in spite of her struggles.

“When, child, when?” I demanded savagely; “do not trifle!”

“To-morrow,” she drawled mischievously, “I will tell you.”

I gave her a little shake. “When?” I said, “and where? ’Tis no jest, mademoiselle, but life and death!”

She looked up at me with wondering blue eyes.

“Do you really love her so?” she whispered.

“Better than life,” I answered solemnly.

She sighed deeply and smiled. “I think she----” The minx broke off, looking at me sideways.

“Does she?” I cried in a fever, “does she love me?”

She slipped out of my hands and danced off, laughing gleefully.

“I do not know,” she cried, “she is a princess, sir, and no one knows her mind.”

I could have shaken the provoking little witch.

“Ah, perhaps she loves Prince Galitsyn,” I suggested coldly; “he had her miniature.”

The girl’s face sobered. “I gave it to him,” she said, “to plague Daria; she did not mean to do it. We changed the pictures to tease Sophia, and I gave it to Galitsyn; I was wrong, for all this ill came of it, but”--she stopped and rubbed her shoulder comically--“I got a beating for it!” she said, pouting.

“But when can I see her?” I cried passionately. “I will follow you and find her.”

“No, no,” she retorted, like a flash, “you would not find her, but old Yekaterina,” and she laughed like a chime of bells.

Then she listened and held up her finger.

“She calls and I must go,” she said, “and Daria will see you here, monsieur, to-night--at sundown--if all goes well--adieu,” and she fled from me, perhaps three yards, and then:

“Surely, I shall marry a Frenchman,” she cried to me, her blue eyes shining; “they do not beat their wives,” and away she ran.

Strangely elated--not only by the thought that the princess had made an appointment with me, but by her cousin’s manner, which seemed to imply Daria’s friendliness also--I walked toward the straggling village, where I could see knots of pilgrims gathered in conversation, and here and there, on the road, one approached slowly, on his knees at every five paces, to utter a penitential prayer.

It was broad noonday; the beautiful domes and minarets of the monastery loomed against a sky as blue as turquoise; in the fields the moujiks had left their ploughing and knelt, facing the cloister, for the bells were ringing the call to prayers. A long line of bowed brown figures trailed slowly up the road to the gate, and the chant of a psalm came softly to me.

My heart was full of mingled emotions; the thought of her, of the cry of joy in her cell in the palace, of her manner just before we met her father, of a look I had surprised once when her eyes dwelt on me. All these things, that lovers dwell upon and hug to their bosoms, filled my mind and deafened my ears. I was far away from the pilgrims now and the houses; I had turned into a path that led across the fields and was walking slowly--the sunshine golden about me--when suddenly a stunning blow fell on the back of my head and there was thick blackness before my eyes, as I reeled and fell, face downwards, and knew no more.

_XXXII: THE MAN WITH THE PURPLE SCAR_

WHEN I came to myself my first thought was of the tryst: was it the hour to meet the Princess Daria? and then my mind trailed off into confused recollections; I was conscious of a sharp pain in my head and my nostrils were assailed by the ill-smelling smoke from a fire of dried dung and straw. Fuel not being over-plentiful on the wide steppes of Russia, the moujik commonly resorted to these unsavoury materials. I opened my eyes slowly, as we do after a heavy sleep or a swoon, and perceived that I was lying on the ground in a hovel. The door--too low for a man to stand in upright--was open, and the draught from it made the fire smoke, while two men were squatted at the threshold, throwing dice. I tried to turn over to gain a better view of these ruffians, but I found that I was bound, hand and foot, and, determined to learn something of my surroundings before they discovered my revival, I lay still, looking askance at them and little reassured by my observations. They were as pretty a pair of knaves as any man would care to see, and a closer inspection showed me the purple mark on the forehead of one, that I had seen on the man at Troïtsa, and now, at closer quarters, it seemed even more familiar. At last, I recognised him; it was my Streltsi of the Zemlianui-gorod, the dispenser of roubles, Martemian, son of Stenko. Was it possible that the rogue had pursued me even to Troïtsa, that this was the fruit of the steward’s revenge? I could not think so, but I did think that these ruffians were hired by the Prince Voronin to remove me, and why they had not killed me I could not divine, but reflected that they might think they had, and it behoved one to lie still and await developments. Meanwhile, however, the two rogues were deeply engaged in their game and helping themselves to frequent potations from a large jug that stood between them. As I watched from under my half-closed eyelids, one of them turned and looked at me, while he was holding the jug to his lips.

“Thou hast killed him, Martemian,” he said gruffly, “and thou hast exceeded thine orders--now the pay will be lost!”

Martemian cast a scowling glance at me.

“He’s not dead,” he said, in his deep bass; “think you I do not know a dead rat, when I see it? He’ll come about presently and start on his journey,” and he laughed harshly. “The Prince Galitsyn is a blockhead to show such squeamishness; the fellow is better dead than in Archangel.”

Prince Galitsyn! Ah! I strained my ears at that; not Voronin, but Galitsyn--yet it might be both.

“What’s he doing it for?” asked the first speaker thickly, his mouth full. “Is the fellow a Naryshkin?”

Martemian laughed. “What do you care?” he asked. “’Twill bring you your wages, and”--he shrugged his shoulders--“if he is over-troublesome, Mikhail, there are accidents that can happen on the road to the north.”

Mikhail laughed deeply and threw his dice, but after a moment he looked up shrewdly at the other man--his superior in rank and in intelligence.

“What do you get for it, comrade?” he asked sharply, “what d’ye get? There’ll be a fair division, or I’ll not go with you, not I.”

Martemian glared at him fiercely. “You rogue,” he said; “who saved your back from the lash a month since? You’ll get your pay and hold your tongue, or by Saint Nikolas of Mojaïsk, I’ll hold it for you!”

The other villain cowered, and I scarcely blamed him; there was something terrible in the fierce face with the purple mark on the forehead. Yet, though cowed, Mikhail was not content; he would have said more, if I had not stirred--my bonds cutting my wrists--and Martemian’s quick ear caught the sound, and he rose and, striding up to me, bent down and scrutinised my face. He thought I knew no Russ.

“He’s well enough, Mikhail,” he said, stirring me with his foot; “bring the horses--we must travel.”

My blood boiled at his touch and I tried to rise, but could not, and he stood watching me grimly until I heard the horses come to the door. Then Mikhail was bidden to loose my bonds, and I rose with some difficulty, for my head swam. They had stripped me of my weapons and now they did not untie my wrists. Not yet determined on my line of action, I let them think I knew no Russ, hoping to hear more from them, and they resorted to signs, accented with flourishes of their pistols, to make me understand that I was to mount one of the three horses. It is no time to disobey when two pistols are held to your head, and I got on the horse and awaited developments. I thought that I could, at least, guide the horse with my knees, and if the opportunity offered, I could run for it. But opportunities were not to be plentiful. We started northward, in single file, Mikhail ahead of me and Martemian behind; both men armed and ready, as I knew, to shoot me down at the first sign of flight.

It was not until we were mounted that I became aware of my surroundings, and saw that we had been lying in a hut on the outskirts of the pilgrims’ village at Troïtsa. I could see the great dome of the monastery, and the light of the setting sun shone on the crosses. I gnawed my lip in silence; it was the hour that the Princess Daria would look for me. Ah, if my hands had but been free to fight them! Something of my wrath and disappointment must have showed on my face, for Martemian gave me a grim look and touched my horse on the flank.

“Get on with you!” he commanded harshly; “no loitering--forward, march!”

It was on the tip of my tongue to offer him a bribe, when it occurred to me that my money must have gone with my weapons, and as I rode between the two ruffians, I tried to feel, by raising my bound hands to my bosom, and to my surprise the bag was there and felt as weighty as ever. This perplexed me until a sudden thought solved the mystery. Martemian was master of the situation and Martemian intended to have all the gold. He had not searched further than my pockets with Mikhail, because he meant to keep the spoil, and later I found this surmise to be correct and it gave me a clew to a solution of my trouble, and set me to plotting and planning as we jogged along the long straight road, due north from Troïtsa. As we travelled I heard far off, and fainter and fainter, the sweet call of the bells to prayer--to prayer--but I never felt less like praying; I was in a perfect tempest of passion and baffled rage, the captive of two ruffians and as helpless as a clown--with my hands tied.

And yet it was May, and the breath of the northern spring was in the air. The afterglow softened the wide sweep of the steppe, shadows lay here and there, before us grew some trees. There was a sublimity in the solitude of the scene, wide stretching as the sky above us, and tipped at the western edge with crimson.

Before me rode Mikhail, and as he rode he sang a Slavic love song:

“‘_Little did I, the young one, slumber at night, Little did I slumber, but much did I see in sleep. Just as if in the middle of our court-yard there grew a cypress-tree, And another sugar-sweet tree; And on the tree were golden boughs, Golden boughs and boughs of silver_,’”

sang the soldier, at the top of his trumpet voice:

“‘_Golden boughs and boughs of silver._’”

Behind me came Martemian--pistol in hand--a grim, purple-scarred man, who had no mercy and no music in him. Between the two, I made my choice. If I could have killed them then--and I would have done it if I could--Martemian would have been the first.

We rode thus--passing, once or twice, a peasant pilgrim travelling slowly and patiently toward the shrine of Saint Sergius, a brown-skinned, lean moujik with a sheepskin caftan, and legs swathed in folds of cloth, and shoes of lime-tree bark; a man whose life was only labour and starvation and prayer. They came many, many leagues, on foot, to pray, and they went back, on foot, praying still. They looked at us with dull eyes, like dumb beasts, and passed with bowed heads. On we went riding swiftly, ever northward; on and on, and night fell and the stars shone overhead.

At last Martemian halted us, and getting me off my horse, coolly bound my ankles and tethered me to a stump. Then they built a fire of fagots, for we were on the edge of a little wood, and Mikhail cooked a meal of fish, and while he was thus engaged, Martemian, aided by the light of the fagots, came nearer to me and, taking a moment when the other’s back was turned, searched me, and I lay still waiting, determined, now, on my course. He found the bag of roubles and hid it quickly in his own breast and was back, sitting on the ground and feigning sleep when Mikhail brought the fish and bread. Liquor they had in plenty, but they offered me only a cup of water, from a stagnant pool beside us, and a piece of bread. Evidently my food was to be only sufficient to keep body and soul together, but I ate it and said nothing; as yet I knew no Russ, and I saw already a way to deal with this matter and watched the two--suspicious enough now of each other--with grim satisfaction. If I could not outwit two clownish rogues, surely I deserved my fate, and yet--all night I lay, tied to a tree as helpless as a log, and heard them snore beside me. And all the while I cursed my fate and thought of the Princess Daria. It was madness, too, to think of her. I had not kept the tryst; did she suspect the truth, or think me a poor craven frightened by her father? I writhed then in my bonds and plotted vengeance on Martemian; the other villain was but a slave and a dupe.

_XXXIII: I SOW DISSENSION_

IN the morning my two rogues had a very pretty quarrel over the breakfast, and the result was that I only got a morsel of dry black bread, while Martemian devoured all the meat and left bread and a little fish for Mikhail. The latter, purple with rage, choked furiously over his meal and eyed his superior so fiercely that more than once I entertained wild hopes. However, the trouble blew over and we mounted a little after sunrise, Martemian leading now, at least five yards ahead, and Mikhail, sulky and hungry, in the rear, while I rode between, and to-day they did not tie my hands; they knew full well that escape was impossible, while one or the other could shoot me down at leisure.

At first, we passed through a belt of firs, sparse and storm-beaten on the northern side, their trunks coated with grey lichens, and the shadows were black here, in contrast to the endless sunlight on those vast plains that surrounded us as we journeyed on. Plains where I could see a man so far off that he was but a speck, and where the hardy, shaggy-coated cattle grazed, travelling slowly southward in search of the fresh green upon the slopes. Though it was spring and the sun shone, it made me shudder to think of the snow on those steppes in winter, of the rolling, soft, shimmering, deadly whiteness, and the cold and the north wind.

As I rode, I studied the square outlines of Martemian’s figure; his short, thick neck, red and folded at the nape, like a bull’s; his brutal head, his wide shoulders and strong, muscular limbs gripping the horse tightly with the knees. Not an easy man to kill, I reflected, and as if my thoughts were carried to him by the current of the air, he turned sharply, and looked me between the eyes, and scowled, meeting my glance. Then he rode on, and once I saw him slyly peep at my bag of roubles; meanwhile, however, I heard Mikhail’s horse plodding steadily behind, but to-day he did not sing. It is a dangerous sign when a noisy knave falls silent; I have ever found it so. The villain who stabbed Henri Quatre did not sing, I warrant, or whistle either.

As the sun travelled upward in the heavens, we travelled upward too, and the road lay straight and white before us, but now some low bushes grew beside it, sprayed with green, and presently we rode through the main street of a little hamlet, where the log houses were sparsely planted about the chapel and the graveyard. And here the peasants came out to stare at us and Martemian bought bread and meat and liquor--with my money; and I saw the women swinging in public--a sport that the Russian women loved so much that a swing of boards was made in every village green, and a slave regularly appointed to swing the wives and daughters of the freedmen. And some of these were very pretty, as I saw, but all were painted on their faces, and their arms and hands, and they were so curious at the sight of a foreigner in “German clothes,” that they must needs run up to me and feel of my clothing, and many of them forgot to drop the _fata_ over their faces, and looked up at me coquettishly, for which one stout woman was seized by a puny, jealous husband and well beaten as we rode away.

This journeying on and on in silence grew more and more oppressive, and the pain in my head, though less than yesterday, was bad enough; yet, as I looked from the brutal, dogged face of Martemian to the sulky, watchful face of Mikhail, I grew hopeful. If I could but speak to the duller rogue--but therein lay my difficulty, and the beasts travelled well. We passed verst-stone after verst-stone, and all the way I tried to remember and to mark the road, and yet had no means of even blazing a tree trunk or casting a stone by the wayside, and the plains seemed to stretch to the edge of the world. My plan--a desperate one--would miscarry too, without fresh horses, and, as the day wore on, I stirred uneasily in my saddle. It could scarcely be to-day, and--the Princess Daria? Ah, but that way lay madness!

It was past noon and we had not halted; the horses began to lag and hang their heads, and I saw Martemian shading his eyes with his hands, looking, as I knew, for water, and the rogue behind, who had fallen so silent all the forenoon, shouted to his leader.

“Will ye ride forever on an empty stomach, Martemian, son of Stenko?” he roared. “If you had meat, I had nothing but bread and a fishbone, and, by all Koshchei’s devils, I’ll have both meat and drink now!”

At the mention of Koshchei, a demon of the Russian forests, Martemian, the brutal and the fierce, crossed himself and looked behind him, for there is ever a leak-hole somewhere in a bully’s spiritual armour, and this brute feared devils and prostrated himself at every wayside shrine, red-handed though he might be, and branded seventy times seven with the mark of Cain.

“You’ll have meat and drink too,” he growled at Mikhail, “and may it choke you, if you summon devils here with your idle tongue. May the Baba Yaga get you! Yonder is a spring; we’ll bait the horses here and eat ourselves; there’s no hurry while Galitsyn pays,” and he laughed deeply, the purple mark showing sharply on his forehead.

They were an hour or more at their dinner, eating greedily, and they kept me between them that I might get no chance to run while they ate. I looked well at the horses, and, seeing that they were fagged, set my teeth to bide my time. So, after this, we rode again until nightfall, through vast plains, and at last skirted a forest--black and gaunt in its nakedness, not yet covered, but only tasselled here and there with green and red. At sunset Martemian halted us for the night and, after supping, and tying me, like an old horse, to a tree, they slept, but they left the fire of fagots burning, for we heard more than once, in the still darkness, that long, fierce, far-reaching yelp, the cry of the wolf,--Saint Yegory’s dog,--and the horses snorted, and tugged at their halters, shivering. I kept a vigil that night, the blackest--as I thought--of my life, and the angel that visited it had the face of Daria, but all the while I knew that she drifted from me, yet to-morrow, to-morrow,--I told myself!

My plans were ripe, and the hour, for the horses would be fresh, the woods a covert, and the goal--life and liberty. I watched the stars go and saw the paling of the sky, the white finger of morning running along the east, and, at last, daybreak. Martemian was ever the first to stir; if the man slept, I think it was with one eye only, for he always knew if I moved or struggled to be free, and he would rise, in the dead of night, and tighten the very cord that I had loosened, but to-day he played into my hands. He rose and went to the stream to drink, and Mikhail, who lay near me, awoke and sat up and rubbed his eyes, yawning until I thought the top of his head would surely split off the lower half.

“A curse on it!” he grumbled; “I’m stiff as a stake, and half fed and half paid, to boot. Curse the rogue, I’ll get more to-day or I’ll----” He caught my eye and stopped--staring at me.

“Curse me!” he said, “if I don’t believe you know Russ!”

“I do,” I replied calmly, in a low voice, “but keep your tongue still, if you would win. Look you,” I went on, “you have not ill-used me, I owe you a good turn. Yonder rogue, at the stream, took a bag of roubles from me--fifty roubles--and he has them at his belt.”