CHAPTER XVI

HAPPENINGS IN A STRANGE LAND

--I ventured to remind her, I suppose with a voice of less steadiness Than usual, for my feeling exceeded me, --Something to the effect that I was in readiness Whenever God should please she needed me. --ROBERT BROWNING.

To the English imagination, Siberia is mainly a land of cold and darkness, through which gangs of despairing convicts are driven with the lashings of governmental whips.

But its beauties and its resources are being by degrees revealed through that wonderful agency for the uniting of the isolated and the rejoining of the divided, which we call the railway.

The province of Barralinsk is one of the most beautiful, lying, as it does, not far east of the Ural Mountains and being well wooded in its southern part.

To reach the Savlinsky Copper Mines one must leave the Trans-Siberian railway at Gretz and drive for five hundred miles in a northwesterly direction. The last three hundred miles of the journey are, for the most part, across a treeless, rolling steppe, like some heaving sea transformed into dry land without losing its rise and fall. But Savlinsky itself lies not more than ten miles from a beautifully wooded district, known as Nicolashof, where the present Governor of the province, Stepan Nikitsch, or as he was usually called, Stepan Stepanovitch, had built himself, not far from a woodland village, a summer residence, in which he was accustomed to pass the hot weather, his solitude being shared by his only and motherless daughter, Nadia Stepanovna.

The foothills of the Urals begin to rise, very gradually, out of the plain at this point. In the distance faint blue summits and gleaming snow peaks border the western horizon. The summer climate is delicious, and but for the isolation Nadia would have enjoyed her Siberian summers. With her was an English lady, Miss Forester, formerly her governess, now her companion.

Stepan Stepanovitch was by no means the traditional Russian despotic governor, grinding the faces of the poor. He was a just man, if a somewhat hard one. He knew the people with whom he had to deal, and was respected for his steady justice. He was a man with a hobby, and the nature of his enthusiasm was one which is rare among his race.

He greatly desired to see the resources of this vast tract of practically useless country opened up and developed. He saw in Siberia the future of Russia. To anyone who did anything for the furtherance of his great idea he showed the utmost encouragement and kindness. And within driving distance from Nicolashof there was such a man established.

Vronsky had bought the mining rights of the copper which had been newly discovered at Savlinsky, and in the midst of the steppe had called into being a center of industry.

For this reason Stepan Stepanovitch loved him. His burly figure was constantly to be seen, side by side with Vronsky's tall, thin one, among the wooden huts, not unlike Swiss cottages, which clustered thickly where Vronsky had gashed the plain with his excavations. And Vronsky was at all times a welcome guest at Nicolashof, where also went constantly his secretary and adopted son, Felix Vanston; for the young man had abandoned his alias upon passing into Asia.

Vronsky was on the way to become a rich man. He had a genius for the development of industry--a genius which the delighted Governor could not sufficiently admire.

His workmen were all Kirgiz, among whom there is practically no Nihilism and no treachery. In fact, these things attract but small attention in the remote province. The Kirgiz, besides being a more reliable person, works for lower wages than the Russian. Work in those parts--good, regular work with good, regular wages--was not easy to come by. The venture had prospered exceedingly.

One glorious summer day, about two o'clock Vronsky was in bed, a most unwilling victim of a bout of fever. He lay in his pleasant room, under his mosquito net, smoking lazily and glancing at the papers. Presently, with a tap on the door, a young man entered in an English suit, brown shoes, and straw hat. A racquet was in his hand.

"Well, old man, I suppose you can't go to Nicolashof to-day? I must make your excuses to the Governor?" he said, lightly.

Vronsky grunted. "They won't mind my absence, if you don't fail them," he remarked, grimly, but with a twinkle in his eye. "Take my apologies to the Governor. He knows what fever is; and there is something else which you must take--something of more importance to you than my regrets--of a confounded deal more importance! Give me my dispatch-box."

The time which had elapsed since Felix Vanston and Vronsky first met at Basingstoke railway station had made a vast difference in the younger man. Felix had, even at that time, looked older than his age. Now this trait was more marked. But the lines upon his face were those traced by experience and discipline. This was a man who had himself well in hand. His boyhood lay far behind him; he had learnt in the school of adversity. The result was that Felix had become, in the fullest sense of the word--a Man. You looked at him, and instinctively you trusted him. There was strength in the expression of his mouth and truth in the steady light of his deep-set gray eyes. These eyes had humor in them of a quiet sort. They were the eyes of one who knew the harder side of life, and did not fear it: unlike those of the elder man. Vronsky's were the eyes of a dreamer, and beamed with the idealistic love which is the virtue of the Slav race. To him this young man was as a son. He had found him, taken him up out of despair, restored to him his self-respect, and given him, into the bargain, the love for lack of which the young man's soul had starved until that hour. Felix had satisfied the warmest hopes of his adopted father. He had proved clever, persevering, trustworthy. Together they had accomplished much, and meant to accomplish more.

Felix placed upon the bed the black tin dispatch-box. Vronsky felt under his pillow, drew forth a key, opened with care, and took out a far smaller box of the same kind. This he set down, and drew from his own neck a string upon which was suspended another key with which he opened the smaller box.

There was a sharp knock upon the door, and before Vronsky could cry out "Who's there?" a clerk had entered abruptly.

The man paused just inside the door, while Vronsky cried, angrily, "Get out, you fool! I am busy! Wait outside!"

Felix rose, went to the door, and closed it behind him. "What is it? Is it important?" he asked.

"They rang up from the mine to know if the No. 40 was dispatched," said the clerk, sulkily.

"When Mr. Vronsky is in bed, and I am in his room, you are never to enter without permission," said Felix, severely. "It is an order--do you understand?"

"Yes, sir. I am sorry," mumbled the young clerk, who was new to his work, and possibly over-zealous. He went off, and Felix returned to where Vronsky sat, flushed and disturbed, grasping a folded paper.

"Is that it?" whispered Felix, having locked the door.

"Yes--and he saw it. He saw the key round my neck," replied Vronsky, furiously, though under his breath. "It was intentional. I have suspected him ever since he entered my service. Now, the question is, What am I to do?"

Felix made a motion of his head towards the paper.

"That is the evidence of the guilt of Cravatz?"

"It came late last night."

"And I am to take it to the Governor to-day?"

"Yes; he told me that the moment it was in his hands he would have Cravatz arrested. There is ground enough for hanging him here."

Felix stood immovable, while the blood came slowly into his face. He might be nearer death than he knew, and the thought showed him that life was sweeter than at times he was wont to think.

The entrance of Streloff, the new clerk, in that summary way, was the first evidence he had had of Cravatz's spies among their own people. It shook him a little.

"I wonder where he is--Cravatz, I mean?" he slowly said.

"Not too near, but near enough to keep in touch with your movements, you may depend. At Gretz, I daresay."

Felix pondered. "What I have to do is to leave the house in safety with these papers. The clerk must be detained until I have started."

"Yes," said Vronsky, after a moment's thought. "I will have him in to take down a typed statement from my dictation. Summon him, and let Hutin come with him--a man I thoroughly trust. I will keep them until you are an hour upon your journey. By that time you will be out of reach. But, Felix, will it not be more prudent for you to remain at Nicolashof to-night? Not to return?"

"Oh, no," said Felix, impatiently. "What good would it do to waylay me on the way back? I shall not then have the thing they want. And besides, who is to do it? Even if this man Streloff is a traitor--and we have no proof that he is--what could he do against me? I am a match for any two of them, and so far as we know, he has no accomplices. No fear! He is here to steal if he can, but not to fight. Fighting is not in the line of the Brotherhood. Assassination is safer, far." He spoke with the slow, concentrated bitterness which came into his voice whenever he thought of the toils in which he had been caught in his hot youth.

"Give me the papers, little father," he said, "and I will put them in the inner pocket that is upon my shirt, and button my coat and vest over them. They will be safe enough then. There! That is all right. Shall I summon Streloff and Hutin?"

Vronsky sighed. "I suppose so. Heaven bless you, little son." He paused a long minute, and then added, while the blood rose under his olive cheek, "Make my compliments to Nadia Stepanovna."

Felix looked at him with sudden sympathy, made a movement to speak, but thought better of it. "I will do so, most certainly," he said, very gently. He bent over Vronsky and kissed him, gave him a drink of iced lemonade, and with a wave of his hand, bright and full of confidence, he left the room. Crossing a wide passage he pushed open a door on the other side and entered an office where two or three clerks sat busy.

"Streloff!" he cried. There was no reply. "Hutin, where is Streloff?"

"The master sent him to carry a message to the mines, sir."

"The master did nothing of the kind," cried Felix, angrily. "He is lying, for some reason of his own. How did he go? Horse, or on foot?"

Hutin rose. He was a strong-looking young man. "He can hardly be gone yet, sir. He went to the stables to saddle a horse."

"Run after him and bring him back," commanded Felix.

Hutin ran swiftly out. Felix fumed, but commanded himself. He would not go back and distress Vronsky until he knew that the spy had got clear off. For three long, endless minutes he stood there frowning by his own table in the office, turning over sheets of figures in an aimless way, until there was a sound in the doorway and Hutin came in, followed by the truant Streloff, with a scowl upon his dark features. Felix turned to him a face full of kindness and tinged with amusement.

"You are too zealous, Streloff," said he. "It is quite true, the message for the mines was somewhat urgent, but don't go off without express orders, for, you see, as it happens, you are wanted at once by the master. I will not tell him that you were absent, as he is apt to be a good deal vexed by that sort of thing."

Streloff was young, and he could not quite conceal the look of malevolence which he cast upon the man who had foiled him. Felix watched him collect his things and go across the passage to Vronsky's room. He said, low, in Hutin's ear, "Don't let him out of your sight till I come back, if you can help it."

Hutin lifted big, dog-like eyes to the young man's face, and squared a huge fist with an amiable smile.

Felix waited a moment, shrugged his shoulders, and went out to where his tarantasse waited at the door, in the brilliant sunshine. Max, his driver, nodded gayly as the young master appeared, seated himself in the elegant little carriage, took the reins from his servant, shook them lightly, and with the sound of bells they shot off along the good road that led straight from the mines to Nicolashof.

For the first three miles still the bare, treeless plain, of coarse grass, in undulations like the waves of a dirty gray-green sea suddenly solidified, and overblown with dust. But on the western horizon was a dark purple line which, as they approached it, showed itself to be the edge of the huge black forest, stretching for miles and miles. Straight into the trees led the white ribbon of road. First there were birch trees, light and fanciful, a wood full of sunshine and wild-flowers. But in another mile or so their place was taken by the black firs, the straight, unbending shafts of the dim mysterious pines. Still, the forest was not here so deep. Glades intervened and broke the monotony. After a while they came out upon a large clearing, whereon was built a prosperous-looking village, with its church and school: just beyond it, the park gates of Nicolashof. Max opened them, and the tarantasse shot lightly up the well-kept road, and came to a standstill before the door of a long, low house, built of wood, but massive and comfortable-looking.

Felix's face, as he threw the reins to Max and alighted from his carriage, bore a look of preoccupation. For several months there had hung over his head the malign shadow of the Brotherhood. The order sent to him to remove the Governor was, of course, merely a pretext for his own murder. Cravatz knew well that Felix would not, at the command of any secret society, assassinate his friend. But after the lapse of the appointed time, Cravatz would be justified in accomplishing the murder of Felix himself.

That the sinister order should have been conveyed to him was a part of the policy of the Brotherhood. They knew that the young man had thrown off their influence. To them he was a renegade, though he had not, by any overt action, proved himself so. As he went about at all hours, quite fearlessly, he could have been shot many times over by some lurking conspirator with practical certainty of immunity. But the Brotherhood knew its own business. It had to keep together a number of desperate men, of all nationalities, in faithful subservience. The way to do this was by fear, the fear of a vengeance that could not fail to fall upon the traitor; and it is well known that there is one sort of fear which more than any other will weaken the courage, even of a strong man, and wear down the resolution even of the most determined. It is the policy of the Sword of Damocles.

They worked by means of the threat of a fate that never failed to overtake, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, but certainly: the threat of a concealed power always on the watch. After a few weeks the strongest nerves are frayed by these tactics.

A message is received; the victim disregards it. Days pass; nothing happens. Then, one day, upon dressing-table, or pillow, or through the post, there is some small reminder of the existence of the deadly machinery which can compel obedience.

Such a jolt had the mind of Felix Vanston received that day. The brusque irruption of Streloff into the sleeping-room of Vronsky at the moment when the fatal papers were being dealt with was like the flash of the bull's-eye of a dark lantern. Cravatz was on the watch.

It was not so much the presence of the spy in the place which disturbed him. It was practically certain that Cravatz must be keeping him under observation. But Streloff's action of that day seemed to suggest the fact that Vronsky's own movements against Cravatz were known to the enemy. And this was serious.

Ever since the deadly message first came to Felix, Vronsky had been at work. Acting upon secret information which had come to him, he had been busily, privately, with the aid of the first detectives in Gretz, in Petropavlosk, in St. Petersburg, tracking down Cravatz to his just end. And now the threads of the case were all in his hands. In Felix's pocket lay the complete indictment. Acting upon the Governor's order, Cravatz could be at once arrested.

The young man had a moment of triumph in thinking that for the time he had outwitted the enemy. Streloff the spy was shut up in Vronsky's room, in charge of the vast and formidable Hutin; and Felix, the papers safely in his coat, was entering the cool, dim hall at Nicolashof, where the abundant flowers, the Persian rugs, the elegant furniture, showed traces of the English influence of Miss Forester.

"The ladies are in the garden," said the old man-servant who opened the door.

"Thank you, Petro Petrovitch," said Felix. "But first, please ask the Governor to give me ten minutes in his library."

He was shown into the big comfortable room, which overlooked a beautiful garden. Its walls were decorated with the antlers and wolf-skins and wild-boar tusks which Stepan Stepanovitch had secured as the spoils of his rifle. On the writing-table, where the father's eye could always rest upon it, stood a panel portrait of a beautiful young girl--Nadia Stepanovna, as she appeared when she made her first bow to the Czar at Court.

Felix stood where he could see the photograph, and gazed upon it while he waited.

It was a vivid face, truly Russian in its intensity. The great eyes seemed to hold almost too much expression: a woman who would both love and hate with passionate fervor, to whom the sober tenor of existence which comes natural to English girls would be a thing impossible.

This was the second summer in which she and Felix had seen one another constantly. But there was an image upon the young man's heart which Nadia's had by no means availed to shake. Though his feeling rested upon so small a basis of actuality--though the hours he had spent in the society of Rona were hardly more than the years of his life in number--he yet was hers, body and soul. You cannot pour wine, however fine the vintage, into a vessel already full.

His impassivity was a marvel to Vronsky, who worshiped at the shrine of Nadia with the hopeless intensity of disparity of years and rank intervening to prevent his love from ever descending from the clouds into an atmosphere of practical reality.

He adored her as a saint is adored by her votary. He loved her, but would have rejoiced to see her beloved and possessed by his dearly cherished adopted son, Felix. It was, to him, an inexplicable thing that young Vanston should remain constant to the memory of a girl who was apparently far from reciprocating his devotion. Vronsky was working, slaving, that Felix might be wealthy. He knew that his birth was good. Why should he not become suitor for this lovely young lady? What a couple they would make! He had, however, the good sense not to confide his desires to Felix, who was himself, as a rule, most reserved upon the subject in which all his heart was involved.

The door opened, and the Governor came in, with cordial greeting. "Where is my friend Vronsky?" he cried, wringing the young man's hand.

Felix explained. "I have brought a message from him," he continued, bringing out the papers from his coat pocket. "These documents, sir, are of the very gravest importance. They contain the evidence upon which Vronsky wishes you to order the arrest of Gregor Cravatz."

The Governor, instantly full of attention, sat down by the table. "The man whom he suspected of Nihilism?"

"The same. The justification is here. Not merely Nihilism, but murder; and that not once nor twice. But now, sir, comes a point at which I wish to be perfectly frank with you. There are two strong reasons why Vronsky would urge you to have this man put out of the way. The first will, I believe, seem enough to you. It is simply that the society to which he belongs has determined to remove you from your Governorship. In other words, while he lives your own life is in danger----"

He broke off short, and both men turned towards the garden with a simultaneous movement; for there was a cry of horror. And they saw, too late, that Nadia stood in the open window, in her white dress and straw hat, her lovely face blanched with apprehension.