CHAPTER XXXI
MISHKA TURNS UP
“You must have found Cornish history very fascinating, Maurice,” Mary declared at breakfast-time next morning. “Jim says it was nearly twelve when you got back. You bad boy to keep such late hours, after you’ve been so ill, too!”
“I’m all right again now,” I protested. “And the vicar certainly is a very interesting companion.”
There were a couple of letters, one from the Courier office, and another from Harding, Lord Southbourne’s private secretary, and both important in their way.
Harding wrote that Southbourne would be in town at the end of the week, en route for Scotland, and wished to see me if I were fit for service. “A soft job this time, a trip to the States, so you’ll be able to combine business with pleasure.”
Under any other circumstances I could have done with a run home; but even while I read the letter I decided that Southbourne would have to entrust the matter – whatever it might be – to some one else.
I opened the second letter, a typed note, signed by Fenning the news editor, enclosing one of the printed slips on which chance callers have to write their name and business. I glanced at that first, and found it filled in with an almost indecipherable scrawl. I made out the name and address right enough as “M. Pavloff, Charing Cross Hotel,” and puzzled over a line in German, which I at length translated as “bearing a message from Johann.” Now who on earth were Pavloff and Johann?
“Dear Wynn,” the note ran:
“One of your Russian friends called here to-night, and wanted your address, which of course was not given. I saw him – a big surly-looking man, who speaks German fairly well, but would not state his business – so I promised to send enclosed on to you.
“Hope you’re pulling round all right!
“Yours sincerely,“Walter Fenning.”
A big surly-looking man. Could it be Mishka? I scarcely dared hope it was, remembering how and where I parted from him; but that underlined “Johann” might – must mean “Ivan,” otherwise the Grand Duke Loris. To give the German rendering of the name was just like Mishka, who was the very embodiment of caution and taciturnity.
“Well, I’ve got my marching orders,” I announced. “I’ll have to go back to London to-day, Mary, to meet Southbourne. Where’s the time-table?”
Mary objected, of course, on the score that I was not yet strong enough for work, and I reassured her.
“Nonsense, dear; I’m all right, and I’ve been idle too long.”
“Idle! When you’ve turned out that Russian series.”
“A month ago, and I haven’t done a stroke since.”
“But is this anything special?” she urged. “Lord Southbourne is not sending you abroad again, – to Russia?”
“No fear of that, little woman; and if he did they would stop me at the frontier, so don’t worry. Harding mentioned the States in his note.”
“Oh, that would be lovely!” she assented, quite reassured. I was thankful that she and Jim were settled down in this out-of-the-way place for the next few weeks, any way. It would be easy to keep them in ignorance of my movements, and, once away, they wouldn’t expect to hear much of me. In my private capacity I was a proverbially remiss correspondent.
They both came with me the seven-mile drive to the station; and even Jim, to my relief, didn’t seem to have the least suspicion that my hurried departure was occasioned by any other reason than that I had given.
Anne’s name had never been mentioned between him and myself since my release. Perhaps he imagined I was forgetting her, though Mary knew better.
I sent a wire from Exeter to “M. Pavloff,” and when I arrived at Waterloo, about half-past ten at night, I drove straight to the Charing Cross Hotel, secured a room there, and asked for Herr Pavloff.
I was taken up to a private sitting-room, and there, right enough, was Mishka himself. In his way he was as remarkable a man as his master; as imperturbable, and as much at home in a London hotel, as in the café near the Ismailskaia Prospekt in Petersburg.
He greeted me with a warmth that I felt to be flattering from one of his temperament. In many ways he was a typical Russian, almost servile, in his surly fashion, towards those whom he conceived to be immeasurably his superiors in rank; more or less truculent towards every one else; and, as a rule, suspicious of every one, high or low, with whom he came in contact, save his master, and, I really believe, myself.
At an early stage in our acquaintanceship he had abandoned the air of sulky deference which he had shown when we first met on the car returning to Dunaburg after the accident, and had treated me more or less en camarade, though in a kind of paternal manner; and yet I doubt if he was my senior in years. He was a man of considerable education, too, though he was usually careful to conceal the fact. To this day I do not know the exact position he held in his master’s service. It may perhaps be described as that of confidential henchman, – a mediæval definition, but in Russia one is continually taken back to the Middle Ages. One thing, at least, was indubitable, – his utter devotion to his master.
“So, the little man kept his word, and sent for you. That is well. And you have come promptly; that also is well. It is what you would do,” he said, eying me quite affectionately. “We did not expect to meet again, – and in England, hein?”
“That we didn’t!” I rejoined. “Say, Mishka, how did you get clear; and how did you know where to find me?”
“One thing at a time. First, I have brought you a letter. Read it.”
With exasperating deliberation he fetched out a bulky pocket-book, and extracted therefrom a packet, which proved to be a thick cream envelope, carefully protected from soilure by an outer wrapping of paper.
Within was a letter written in French, and in a curiously fine, precise caligraphy. It was dated August 10th, from the Castle of Zostrov, and it conveyed merely an invitation to visit the writer, and the assurance that the bearer would give me all necessary information.
“I can offer you very little in the way of entertainment, unless you happen to be a sportsman, which I think is probable. There is game in abundance, from bear downwards,” was the last sentence.
It was a most discreet communication, signed merely with the initial “L.”
“Read it,” I said, handing it to Mishka. He glanced through it, nodded, and handed it back. He knew its contents before, doubtless; but still I gathered that he could read French as well as German.
“Well, are you coming?” he asked.
“Why, certainly; but what about the information his Highness mentions?”
He put up his hand with a swift, warning gesture, and glanced towards the door, muttering:
“There is no need of names or titles.”
“Or of precautions here!” I rejoined impatiently. “Remember, we are in England, man!”
“True, I forgot; but still, caution is always best. About this information. What do you wish to know?”
“Why, everything, man; everything! How did you escape? What is – he – doing at this place; have you news of her? That first, and above all!”
“That I cannot give, for I have it not. I think he knows somewhat, and if that is so he himself will tell you. But I have heard nothing – nothing! For the rest, I crawled further into the forest, and lay quiet there. I heard enough through the night to know somewhat at least that was befalling, but I kept still. What could I have done to aid? And later, I made my way to a place of safety; and thence, in due time, to Zostrov, where I joined my master. It is one of his estates, and he is banished there, for how long? Who can say? Till those about the Tzar alter their minds, or till he himself sees reason to go elsewhere! They dare do nothing more to him, openly, for he is a prince of the blood, when all is said, and the Tzar loves him; so does the Tzarina (God guard her), though indeed that counts for little! It is not much, this banishment, – to him at least. It might have been worse. And he is content, for the present. He finds much work ready to his hand. We get news, too; much more news than some imagine, – the censor among them. We heard of your deliverance almost as soon as it was accomplished, and, later, of your – what do you call it?”
“Acquittal?” I suggested.
“That would be the word; you were proved innocent.”
“Not exactly; there was not sufficient evidence of my guilt and so I was discharged,” I answered; and as I spoke I remembered that, even now, I was liable to be rearrested on that same charge, since I had not been tried and acquitted by a jury.
“We know, of course,” he continued, “that you did not murder that swine Selinski.”
“How do you know that?” I demanded.
“That I may not tell you, but this I may: if you had been condemned, well – ”
He blew a big cloud of smoke from his cigar, a cloud that obscured his face, and out of it he spoke enigmatically:
“Rest assured you will never be hung for the murder of Vladimir Selinski, although twenty English juries might pronounce you guilty! But enough of that. The question is will you return with me, or will you not? He has need of you; or thinks he has, which is the same thing; and I can smooth the way. There will be risks.”
“I know all about that,” I interrupted impatiently. “And I shall go with you, of course!”
“Of course,” he acquiesced phlegmatically. But, as he spoke, he held out his big blunt hand; and I gripped it hard.
CHAPTER XXXII
BACK TO RUSSIA ONCE MORE
Two days later I saw Lord Southbourne, and resigned my position as a member of his staff. I felt myself mean in one way, when I thought of how he had backed me right through that murder business, – and before it, when he set Freeman on my track.
He showed neither surprise nor annoyance; in fact he seemed, if anything, more nonchalant than usual.
“Well, of course you know your own affairs best. I haven’t any use for men who cultivate interests outside their work; and you’ve done the straight thing in resigning now that you ‘here a duty divided do perceive,’ as I heard a man say the other day.”
“Von Eckhardt!” I exclaimed.
“Guessed it first time,” he drawled. “Could any one else in this world garble quotations so horribly? If he would only give ’em in German they would be more endurable, but he insists on exhibiting his English. By the way, he has relinquished his vendetta.”
“That on Carson’s account?”
“Yes, he believes the murderer, or murderers, must have been wiped out in that affair where you came to grief so signally. He had heard about it before he saw your stuff, though no official account was allowed to get through; and he gave me some rather interesting information, quite gratuitously.”
“Does it concern me, or – any one I know?” I asked, steadying my voice with an effort.
“Well, not precisely; since you only know the lady by repute, and by her portrait.”
I remembered that Von Eckhardt was the one person besides myself who was aware of Anne’s identity, which I had betrayed to him in that one unguarded moment at Berlin, for which I had reproached myself ever since. True, before I parted from him, I had exacted a promise that he would never reveal the fact that he knew her English name; never mention it to any one. But he was an erratic and forgetful individual; he might have let the truth out to Southbourne, but the latter’s face, as I watched it, revealed nothing.
“Oh, that mysterious and interesting individual,” I said indifferently. “Do you mind telling what he said about her?”
“Not at all. It appears that he admires her enthusiastically, in a quite impersonal sort of way – high-flown and sentimental. He’s a typical German! He says she is back in Russia, with her father or uncle. She belongs to the Vassilitzi family, Poles who have been political intriguers for generations, and have suffered accordingly. They’re actively engaged in repairing the damage done to their precious Society in that incident you know of, when all the five who formed the executive, and held and pulled the strings, were either killed or arrested.”
This was startling news enough, and it was not easy to maintain the non-committal air of mild interest that I guessed to be the safest. Still I think I did manage it.
“That’s queer,” I remarked. “He said the Society had turned against her, condemned her to death.”
Southbourne shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“I’m only repeating what he told me. Thought you might like to hear it. She must be an energetic young woman; wish I had her on my staff. If you should happen to meet her you can tell her so. I’d give her any terms she liked to ask.”
Was he playing with me, – laughing at me? I could not tell.
“All right, I’ll remember; though if she’s in Russia it’s very unlikely that I shall ever see her in the flesh,” I said coolly. “Did he say just where she was? Russia’s rather vague.”
“No. Shouldn’t wonder if she wasn’t Warsaw way. McIntyre – he’s at Petersburg in your place – says they’re having no end of ructions there, and asked if he should go down, – but it’s not worth the risk. He’s a good man, a safe one, but he’s not the sort to get stuff through in defiance of the censor, though he’s perfectly willing to face any amount of physical danger. So I told him not to go; especially as we shan’t want any more sensational Russian stuff at present; unless – well, of course, if you should happen on any good material, you can send it along; for I presume you are not going over to Soper, eh?”
“Of course I’m not!” I said with some warmth. Soper was chief proprietor of several newspapers in direct opposition to the group controlled by Southbourne, and he certainly had made me more than one advantageous offer, – the latest only a week or two back, just after my Russian articles appeared in The Courier.
“I didn’t suppose you were, though I know he wants you,” Southbourne rejoined. “I should rather like to know what you are up to; but it’s your own affair, of course, and you’re quite right to keep your own counsel. Anyhow, good luck to you, and good-bye, for the present.”
I was glad the interview was over, though it left me in ignorance as to how much he knew or suspected about my movements and motives. I guessed it to be a good deal; or why had he troubled to tell me the news he had heard from Von Eckhardt? If it were true, if Anne were no longer in danger from her own party, and was again actively associated with it, her situation was at least less perilous than it had been before, when she was threatened on every side. And also my chances of getting into communication with her were materially increased.
I related what I had learned to Mishka, who made no comment beyond a grunt which might mean anything or nothing.
“Do you think it is true?”
“Who knows? It is over a fortnight since I left; and many things may happen in less time. Perhaps we shall learn when we return, perhaps not.”
In some ways Mishka was rather like a Scotsman.
A few days later his preparations were complete. The real or ostensible object of his visit to England was to buy farm implements and machinery, as agent for his father, who, I ascertained, was land steward of part of the Zostrov estates, and therefore a person of considerable importance. That fact, in a way, explained Mishka’s position, which I have before defined as that of “confidential henchman.” I found later that the father, as the son, was absolutely devoted to their master, who in his turn trusted them both implicitly. They were the only two about him whom he could so trust, for, as he had once told me, he was surrounded by spies.
Mishka’s business rendered my re-entry into the forbidden land an easily arranged matter. Several of the machines he bought were American patents, and my rôle was that of an American mechanic in charge of them. As a matter of fact I do know a good deal about such things; and I had never forgotten the apprenticeship to farming I had served under my father in the old home. Poor old dad! As long as he lived he never forgave me for turning my back on the farm and taking to journalism, after my college course was over. He was all the more angry with me because, as he said, in the vacation I worked better than any two laborers; as I did, – there’s no sense in doing things by halves!
It would have been a very spry Russian who had recognized Maurice Wynn, the physical wreck that had left Russia in the custody of two British police officers less than three months back, in “William P. Gould,” a bearded individual who spoke no Russian and only a little German, and whose passport – issued by the American Minister and duly viséd by the Russian Ambassador in London – described him as a native of Chicago.
Also we travelled by sea, from Hull to Riga, taking the gear along with us; which in itself minimized the chance of detection.
We were to travel by rail from Riga to Wilna, via Dunaburg; and the rest of the journey, rather over than under a hundred and twenty miles, must be by road, riding or driving. From Wilna the goods we were taking would follow us under a military escort.
“How’s that?” I asked, when Mishka told me of this. “Who’s going to steal a couple of wagon-loads of farm things?”
His reply was enigmatic.
“You think you know something of Russia, because you’ve seen Petersburg and Moscow, and have never been more than ten miles from a railroad. Well, you are going to know something more now; not much, perhaps, but it may teach you that those who keep to the railroad see only the froth of a seething pot. We know what is in the pot, but you, and others like you, do not; therefore you wonder that the froth is what it is.”
A seething pot. The time soon came when I remembered his simile, and acknowledged its truth; and I knew then that that pot was filled with hell-broth!
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE ROAD TO ZOSTROV
Even before we left Riga, – where we were delayed for a couple of days getting our goods through the Customs and on to the train, – I realized somewhat at least of the meaning of Mishka’s enigmatic utterance. Not that we experienced any adventures. I suppose I played my part all right as the American mechanic whose one idea was safeguarding the machinery he was in charge of. Anyhow we got through the necessary interviews with truculent officials without much difficulty. Most of them were unable to understand the sort of German I chose to fire off at them, and had to rely on Mishka’s services as interpreter. The remarks they passed upon me were not exactly complimentary, – low-grade Russian officials are foul-mouthed enough at the best of times, and now, imagining that I did not know what they were saying, they let loose their whole vocabulary, – while I blinked blandly through the glasses I had assumed, and, in reply to a string of filthy abuse, mildly suggested that they should get a hustle on, and pass the things promptly.
I quite appreciated the humor of the situation, and I guess Mishka did so, too, for more than once I saw his deep-set eyes twinkle just for a moment, as he discreetly translated my remarks, and, at the same time, cordially endorsed our tyrants’ freely expressed opinions concerning myself.
“You have done well, ‘Herr Gould,’ yes, very well,” he condescended to say, when we were at last through with the troublesome business. “We are safe enough so far, though for my part I shall be glad to turn my back on this hole, where the trouble may begin at any moment.”
“What trouble?” I asked.
“God knows,” he answered evasively, with a characteristic movement of his broad shoulders. “Can you not see for yourself that there is trouble brewing?”
I had seen as much. The whole moral atmosphere seemed surcharged with electricity; and although as yet there was no actual disturbance, beyond the individual acts of ruffianism that are everyday incidents in all Russian towns, the populace, the sailors, and the soldiery eyed each other with sullen menace, like so many dogs, implacably hostile, but not yet worked up to fighting pitch. A few weeks later the storm burst, and Riga reeked with fire and carnage, as did many another city, town, and village, from Petersburg to Odessa.
I discerned the same ominous state of things – the calm before the storm – at Dunaburg and Wilna, but it was not until we had left the railroad and were well on our two days’ cross-country ride to Zostrov that I became acquainted with two important ingredients in that “seething pot” of Russian affairs, – to use Mishka’s apt simile. Those two ingredients were the peasantry and the Jews.
Hitherto I had imagined, as do most foreigners, whose knowledge of Russia is purely superficial, and does not extend beyond the principal cities, that what is termed the revolutionary movement was a conflict between the governing class, – the bureaucracy which dominates every one from the Tzar himself, an autocrat in name only, downwards, – and the democracy. The latter once was actively represented only by the various Nihilist organizations, but now includes the majority of the urban population, together with many of the nobles who, like Anne’s kindred, have suffered, and still suffer so sorely under the iron rule of cruelty, rapacity, and oppression that has made Russia a byword among civilized nations since the days of Ivan the Terrible. But now I realized that the movement is rendered infinitely complex by the existence of two other conflicting forces, – the moujiks and the Jews. The bureaucracy indiscriminately oppresses and seeks to crush all three sections; the democracy despairs of the moujiks and hates the Jews, though it accepts their financial help; while the moujiks distrust every one, and also hate the Jews, whom they murder whenever they get the chance.
That’s how the situation appeared to me even then, before the curtain went up on the final act of the tragedy in which I and the girl I loved were involved; and the fact that all these complex elements were present in that tragedy must be my excuse for trying to sum them up in a few words.
I’ve knocked around the world somewhat, and have had many a long and perilous ride through unknown country, but never one that interested me more than this. I’ve said before that Russia is still back in the Middle Ages, but now, with every verst we covered, it seemed to me we were getting farther back still, – to the Dark Ages themselves.
We passed through several villages on the first day, all looking exactly alike. A wide thoroughfare that could not by any stretch of courtesy be called a street or road, since it showed no attempt at paving or making and was ankle-deep in filthy mud, was flanked by irregular rows of low wooden huts, reeking with foulness, and more like the noisome lairs of wild beasts than human habitations. Their inhabitants looked more bestial than human, – huge, shaggy men who peered sullenly at us with swinish eyes, bleared and bloodshot with drunkenness; women with shapeless figures and blunt faces, stolid masks expressive only of dumb hopeless endurance of misery, – the abject misery that is the lot of the Russian peasant woman from birth to death. I was soon to learn that this centuries’ old habit of patient endurance was nearly at an end, and that when once the mask is thrown aside the fury of the women is more terrible, because more deliberate and merciless, than the brutality of the men.
At a little distance, perhaps, would be a small chapel with the priest’s house adjacent, and the somewhat more commodious houses of the tax-gatherer and starosta– the head man of the village, when he happened to be a farmer. Sometimes he was a kalak keeper, scarce one degree superior to his fellows. One could tell the tax-gatherer’s house a mile away by its prosperous appearance, and the kind of courtyard round it, closed in with a solid breast-high log fence; for in these days the hated official may at any moment find his house besieged by a mob of vodka-maddened moujiks and implacable women. If he and his guard of one or two armed stragniki (rural police) are unable to hold out till help comes, – well, there is red murder, another house in flames, a vodka orgy in the frenzied village, and retribution next day or the day after, when the Cossacks arrive, and there is more red murder. Then every man, woman, and child left in the place is slaughtered; and the agglomeration of miserable huts that form the village is burned to the ground.
That, at least, is the explanation Mishka gave me when we rode through a heap of still smouldering and indescribably evil-smelling ruins, where there was no sign of life, beyond a few disreputable-looking pigs and fowls grubbing about in what should have been the cultivated ground. The peasant’s holdings are inconceivably neglected, for the moujik is the laziest creature on God’s earth. In the days of his serfdom he worked under the whip, but as a freeman he has reduced his labor to a minimum, especially since the revolutionary propagandists have told him that he is the true lord of the soil, who should pay no taxes, and should live at ease, – and in sloth.
The sight and stench of that holocaust sickened me, but Mishka rode forward stolidly, unmoved either physically or mentally.
“They bring it on themselves,” he said philosophically. “If they would work more and drink less they could live and pay their taxes well enough and there would be no trouble.”
“But why on earth didn’t they make themselves scarce after they’d settled scores with the tax collector, instead of waiting to be massacred?” I mused.
“God knows,” said Mishka. “The moujik is a beast that goes mad at the sight and smell of blood, and one that takes no thought for the morrow. Also, where would they run to? They would soon be hunted down. Now they have had their taste of blood, and paid for it in full, that is all. There were no Jews there,” he jerked his head backwards, “otherwise they might have had their taste without payment.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He shrugged his broad shoulders.
“Wait, and perhaps you will see. Have you never heard of a pogrom?”
And that was all I could get out of him at the time.