CHAPTER XXXIV
THE OLD JEW
We halted for the night at a small town, with some five or six thousand inhabitants as I judged, of whom three-fourths appeared to be Jews. Compared with the villages we had passed, the place was a flourishing one; and seemed quiet enough, though here again, as at Wilna and Riga, there was something ominous in the air. Nearly all the business was in the hands of the Jews; and their shops and houses, poor enough, according to civilized notions, were far and away more prosperous looking than those of their Russian neighbors; while their synagogue was the most imposing block in the town, which is not saying much, perhaps.
We put up at the best inn in the place, where we found fresh horses waiting us, as we had done at a village half-way on our day’s march, under the care of a couple of men in uniform. There was a telegraph wire to Zostrov, and Mishka had sent word of our coming. I learned later that, when the Grand Duke was in residence, a constant line of communication was maintained with relays of horses for carriages or riders between the Castle and the railroad.
I had wondered, when Mishka told me the arrangements for the journey, why on earth motor cars weren’t used over this last stage, but when I found what the roads were like, when there were any roads at all, I guessed it was wise to rely on horses, and on the light and strong Russian travelling carriages that go gayly over the roughest track, rather than on the best built motor procurable.
The landlord of the inn was a Jew, of course, – a lean old man with greasy ear locks and a long beard, above which his hooked nose looked like the beak of a dejected eagle. He welcomed us with cringing effusion, and gave us of his best. I’d have thought the place filthy, if I hadn’t seen and smelt those Russian villages; but it was well appointed in a way. The dinner-table, set in the one bedroom which we were to share, so that we might dine privately and in state, was spread with a cloth, which, though grimy to a degree, was of fine damask, and displayed forks, spoons, and candlesticks of solid silver. The frowsy sheets and coverlids on the three beds were of linen and silk. Evidently Moses Barzinsky was a wealthy man; and his wife, – a fat dame, with beady eyes and a preposterous black wig, – served us up as good a meal as I’ve ever tasted. I complimented her on it when she brought in the samovar; for here, in the wilds, it didn’t seem to matter about keeping up my pretended ignorance of the language. She was flattered, and assumed quite a motherly air towards me; she didn’t cringe like her husband. As I sat there, sipping my tea, and chatting with her, I little guessed what would befall the comfortable, homely, good-tempered old lady a very few days hence. Mishka listened in disapproving silence to our interchange of badinage, and, when our hostess retreated, he entered on a grumbling protest.
“You are very indiscreet,” he grunted. “Why do you want to chatter with a thing like that?”
He jerked his pipe towards the doorway; Mishka despised the cigarette which, to every other Russian I have met, seems as necessary to life as the air he breathes; and when he hadn’t a cigar fell back on a distinctly malodorous briar.
“Why in thunder shouldn’t I talk to her?” I demanded. “She’s the only creature I’ve heard laugh since I got back into Holy Russia; it cheers one up a bit, even to look at her!”
“You are a fool,” was his complimentary retort. “And she is another – like all women – or she would know these are no days for laughter. But, I tell you once more, you cannot be too cautious. You must remember that you know no Russian. You are only an American who has come to help the prince while away his time of exile by trying to turn the Zostrov moujiks into good farmers. That, in itself, is a form of madness, of course, but doubtless they think it may keep him out of more dangerous mischief.”
“Who are ‘they’? I wish you’d be a bit more explicit,” I remonstrated. He did make me angry sometimes.
“That is not my business,” he answered stolidly. “My business is to obey orders, and one of those is to bring you safely to Zostrov.”
I could not see how my innocent conversation with the fat Jewish housewife could endanger the safety of either of us; but I had already learned that it was quite useless to argue with Mishka; so, adopting Brer Fox’s tactics, “I lay low and said nuffin.” We smoked in silence for some minutes, while I mused over the strangeness of my position. I had determined to return to Russia in search of Anne; had hailed Mishka’s intervention, seized on the opportunity provided by the Grand Duke’s invitation, as if they were God-sent. And yet here I was, seemingly even farther from news of her than I had been in England, playing my part as a helpless pawn in a game that I did not understand in the least.
The landlord entered presently, and obsequiously beckoned Mishka to the far end of the room, where they held a whispered conversation, which I tried not to listen to, though I could not help overhearing frequent references to the starosta (mayor), an important functionary in a town of this size, and the commandant of the garrison. From my post of observation by the window I had already noticed a great number of soldiers about; though whether there was anything unusual in the presence of such a strong military force I, of course, did not know.
Mishka crossed over to me.
“I am going out for a time. You will remain here?”
“I’ll see. Perhaps I’ll go for a stroll later,” I replied. It had occurred to me that he regarded me almost as a prisoner, and I wanted to make sure on that point.
“Please yourself,” he returned in his sullen manner. “But if you go, remember my warning, and observe caution. If there should be any disturbance in the streets, keep out of it; or, if you should be within here, close the shutters and put the lights out.”
“All right. I guess I’m fairly well able to take care of myself,” I said imperturbably; though I thought he might have given me credit for the possession of average common sense, anyhow!
I went out soon after he did, more as a kind of assertion of my independence than because I was inclined for a walk. It was some time since I’d been so many hours in the saddle as I had that day, and I was dead tired.
It was a glorious autumn evening, clear and still, with the glow of the sunset still lingering in the western sky, though the moon was rising, and putting to shame the squalid lights of the streets and shops. The sidewalks – a trifle cleaner and more level than the rutted roadway between them – were thronged with passers; many of them were soldiers swaggering in their disreputably slovenly uniforms, and leering at every heavy-visaged Russian woman they met. I did not see one woman abroad that evening who looked like a Jewess; though there were Jews in plenty, slinking along unobtrusively, and eying the Russian soldiers and townsmen askance, with glances compounded of fear and hatred.
I attracted a good deal of attention; a foreigner was evidently an unusual object in that town. But I was not really molested; and, acting on Mishka’s advice, I affected ignorance of the many and free remarks passed on my personal appearance.
I walked on, almost to the outskirts of the little town, and turned to retrace my steps, when I was waylaid by a pedler, who had passed me a minute or so before. He looked just like scores of others I had seen within the last few minutes, except that he carried a small but heavy pack, and walked heavily, leaning on his thick staff like a man wearied with a long day’s tramp.
Now I found he had halted, and as I came abreast with him, he held out one skinny hand with an arresting gesture. For a moment I thought he was merely begging, but his first words dispelled that notion.
“Is it wise of the English excellency to walk abroad alone, – here?” he asked earnestly, in a voice and patois that sounded queerly familiar. I stopped short and stared at him, and then, in a flash, I knew him, though as yet he had not recognized me, save as a foreigner.
He was the old Jew who had come to my flat on the night of Cassavetti’s murder!
CHAPTER XXXV
A BAFFLING INTERVIEW
“It is less safe than the streets of London, perhaps,” I said quietly, in Russian. “But what of that? And how long is it since you left there, my friend?”
He peered at me suspiciously, and spread his free hand with the quaint, graceful gesture he had used before. I’d have known the man anywhere by that alone; though in some ways he looked different now, less frail and emaciated than he had been, with a wiry vigor about him that made him seem younger than I had thought him.
“The excellency mistakes!” he said. “How should such an one as I get to London?”
“That is for you to say. I know only that you are the man who wanted to see Vladimir Selinski. And now you’ve got to come and see me, at once, at the inn kept by Moses Barzinsky.”
“Speak lower, Excellency,” he stammered, glancing nervously around. “In God’s name, go back to your inn. You are in danger, as all strangers are here; yea, and all others! That is why I warned you. But you mistake. I am not the man you think, so why should I come to you? Permit me to go on my way.”
He made as if to move on, and I couldn’t detain him forcibly and insist on his accompanying me, for that would have drawn attention to us. Fortunately there were few people hereabouts, but those few were already looking askance at us.
An inspiration came to me. I thought of the red symbol that had dangled from the key of Cassavetti’s flat that night, and of the signal and password Mishka had taught me in Petersburg.
In two strides I caught up with him, touched his shoulder with the five rapid little taps, thumb and fingers in succession, and said in his ear: “You will come to Barzinsky’s within the hour, – ‘For Freedom.’ You understand?”
I guessed that would fetch him, for I felt him thrill – it was scarcely a start – under the touch.
“I will come, Excellency; I will not fail,” he answered promptly. “But go you now, – not hurriedly.”
I hadn’t the least intention of hurrying, but passed on without further parley, and reached the inn unhindered. Mishka had not yet returned, and I told the landlord a pedler was coming to see me, and he was to be brought up to my room at once.
As I closed the shutters I wondered if he would come, or if he’d give me the slip as he did in Westminster, but within half an hour Barzinsky brought him up. The landlord looked quite scared, his ear-locks were quivering with his agitation.
“Yossof is here, Excellency,” he announced, so he evidently knew my man.
I nodded and motioned him out of the room, for he hovered around as if he wanted to stay.
Yossof stood at the end of the room, in an attitude of humility, his gray head bowed, his dingy fur cap held in his skinny fingers; but his piercing dark eyes were fixed earnestly on my face, and, when Barzinsky was gone and the door was shut, he came forward and made his obeisance.
“I know the Excellency now, although the beard has changed him,” he said quietly. His speech was much more intelligible than it had been that time in Westminster. “I remember his goodness to me, a stranger in the land. May the God of our fathers bless him! But I knew not then that he also was one of us. Why have you not the new password, Excellency?”
“I have but now come hither from England at the peril of my life, and as yet I have met none whom I knew as one of us,” I answered evasively. “What is this new word? It is necessary that I should learn it,” I added, as he hesitated.
“I will tell you its meaning only,” he answered, watching me closely. “It means ‘in life and in death,’ – but those are not the words.”
“Then I know them: à la vie et à la mort; is it not so?” I asked, remembering the moment he spoke the names by which Anne was known to others besides members of the League; for the police officer who had superintended the searching of my rooms at Petersburg, and later, young Mirakoff, had both mentioned one of them.
I had hit on the right words first time, and Yossof, evidently relieved, nodded, and repeated them after me, giving a queer inflection to the French.
“And where is she, – the gracious lady herself?” I asked. It was with an effort that I forced myself to speak quietly; for my heart was thumping against my ribs, and my throat felt dry as bone dust. What could – or would – this weird creature tell me of Anne’s present movements; and could – or would – he tell me the secret of Cassavetti’s murder? Through all these weeks I had clung to the hope, the belief, that he himself struck the blow, and now, as he stood before me, he appeared more capable, physically, of such a deed than he had done then. But yet I could scarcely believe it as I looked at him.
He met my question with another, as Mishka so often did.
“How is it you do not know?”
“I have told you I have but now come to Russia.”
He spread his hands with a deprecatory gesture as if to soften his reply, which, however, was spoken decisively enough.
“Then I cannot tell you. Remember, Excellency, though you seem to be one of us, I have little knowledge of you. In any matter touching myself I would trust you; but in this I dare not.”
He was right in a way. Such knowledge as I had of the accursed League was gained by trickery; and to question him further would arouse his suspicion of that fact, and I should then learn nothing at all.
“Listen,” I said slowly and emphatically. “You may trust me to the death in all matters that concern her whom you call your gracious lady. I was beside her, with her father and one other, when the Five condemned her, – would have murdered her if we had not defended her. She escaped, God be thanked, but that I only learned of late. I was taken, thrown into prison, taken thence back to England, to prison again, accused of the murder of Vladimir Selinski, – of which I shall have somewhat more to say to you soon! When I was freed, for I am innocent of that crime, as you well know, I set out to seek her, to aid her if that might be; and, if she was beyond my aid, at least to avenge her. I was about to start alone when I heard that she was no longer threatened by the League; that she was, indeed, once more at the head of it; but I failed to learn where I might find her. Therefore I go to join one who is her good friend, in the hope that I may through him be yet able to serve her. For the League I care nothing, – all my care is for her. And therefore, as I have said, you may trust me.”
He watched me fixedly as I spoke, but his gaunt face remained expressionless; though his next words showed that he had understood me well enough.
“I can tell you nothing, Excellency. You say you care for her and not for the League. That is impossible, for she is its life; her life is bound up in it; she would wish your service for it, – never for herself! This I will do. If she does not hear otherwise that you are at Zostrov, as you will be to-morrow – though it is unlikely that she will not have heard already – I will see that she has word. That is all I can do.”
“That must serve. You will not even say if she is near at hand?”
“Who knows? She comes and goes. One day she is at Warsaw; the next at Wilna; now at Grodno; again even here. Yes, she has been here no longer than a week since, though she is not here now.”
So I had missed her by one week!
“I do not know where she is to-day, nor where she will be to-morrow; in this I verily speak the truth, Excellency,” he continued. “Though I shall perchance see her, when my present business is done. Be patient. You will doubtless have news of her at Zostrov.”
“How do you know I am going there?”
“Does not all the countryside know that a foreigner rides with Mishka Pavloff? God be with you, Excellency.”
He made one of his quaint genuflexions and backed rapidly to the door.
“Here, stop!” I commanded, striding after him. “There is more, – much more to say. Why did you not keep your promise and return to me in London? What do you know of Selinski’s murder? Speak, man; you have nothing to fear from me!”
I had clutched his shoulder, and he made no attempt to free himself, but drooped passively under my hand. But his quiet reply was inflexible.
“Of all that I can tell you nothing, Excellency. It is best forgotten.”
There was a heavy footstep on the stair and next moment the door was tried, and Mishka’s voice exclaimed: “It is I. Open to me, Herr Gould.”
There was no help for it, so I drew back the bolt. The door had no lock, – only bolts within and without.
As Mishka entered, the Jew bowed low to him, and slipped through the doorway. Mishka glanced sharply at me, muttered something about returning soon, and followed Yossof, closing the door behind him and shooting the outer bolt.
CHAPTER XXXVI
STILL ON THE ROAD
“Will you never learn wisdom?” demanded Mishka, when, after a few minutes, he returned. “Why could you not rest here in safety?”
“Because I wanted to walk some of my stiffness off,” I replied coolly. “I had quite a good time, and met an old acquaintance.”
“Who gave you much interesting news?” he asked, with a sardonic inflection of his deep voice that made me guess Yossof had told him what passed at our interview.
“Why, no; I can’t say that he did that,” I confessed. Already I realized that I had learned absolutely nothing from the Jew save the new password, and the fact that he was, or soon would be, in direct communication with Anne.
Mishka gave an approving grunt.
“There are some who might learn discretion from Yossof,” he remarked sententiously.
“Just so. But who is he, anyhow? He might be ‘the wandering Jew’ himself, from the mysterious way he seems to get around the world.”
“Who and what he is? That I cannot tell you, for I do not know, or seek to know, since it is no business of mine. I go to bed; for we must start betimes in the morning.”
Not another word did he speak, beyond a surly “good night;” but, though I followed his example and got into bed, with my revolver laid handily on the bolster as he had placed his, hours passed before sleep came to me. I lay listening to Mishka’s snores, – he was a noisy sleeper, – and thinking of Anne; thinking of that one blissful month in London when I saw her nearly every day.
How vividly I remembered our first meeting, less than five months back, though the events of a lifetime seemed to have occurred since then. It was the evening of my return from South Africa; and I went, of course, to dine at Chelsea, feeling only a mild curiosity to see this old school-fellow of Mary’s, whose praises she sang so enthusiastically.
“She was always the prettiest and smartest girl in the school, but now she’s just the loveliest creature you ever saw,” Mary had declared; and though I wasn’t rude enough to say so, I guessed I was not likely to endorse that verdict.
But when I saw Anne my scepticism vanished. I think I loved her from that first moment, when she came sweeping into Mary’s drawing-room in a gown of some gauzy brown stuff, almost the color of her glorious hair, with a bunch of white lilies at her bosom. She greeted me with a frank friendliness that was much more like an American than an English girl; indeed, even then, I never thought of her as English. She was, as her father had told his friend Treherne he meant her to be, “cosmopolitan to her finger-tips.” She even spoke English with a curious precision and deliberation, as one speaks a language one knows perfectly, but does not use familiarly. She once confided to me that she always “thought” either in French or German, preferably French.
Strange that neither Mary nor I ever imagined there was any mystery in her life; ever guessed how much lay behind her frank allusions to her father, and the nomadic existence they had led. I wondered, for the thousandth time, how it was that Jim first suspected her of concealing something. How angry I was at him when he hinted his suspicions; and yet he had hit on the exact truth! I knew now that her visit to Mary was not what it had seemed, – but that she had seized upon the opportunity presented by the invitation to snatch a brief interval of peace, and comparative safety. If she had happened to encounter Cassavetti earlier, doubtless her visit would have terminated then. Yes, that must be the explanation; and how splendidly she had played her dangerous part!
I hated to think of all the duplicity that part entailed; I would not think of it. The part was thrust on her, from her birth, by her upbringing, and if she played it gallantly, fearlessly, resourcefully, the more honor to her. But it was a bitter thought that Fortune should have thrust all this upon her!
As I lay there in that frowzy room, staring at a shaft of moonlight that came through a chink in the shutters, making a bar of light in the darkness like a great, unsheathed sword, her face was ever before my mind’s eyes, vividly as if she were indeed present, – the lovely mobile face, “growing and fading and growing before me without a sound,” now sparkling with mirth, now haughty as that of a petulant young queen towards a disfavored courtier. Mary used to call her “dear Lady Disdain” when she was in that mood. Again, it appeared pale and set as I had seen it last, the wide brilliant eyes flashing indignant defiance at her accusers; but more often with the strange, softened, wistful expression it had worn when we stood together under the portico of the Cecil on that fatal night; and when she waved me good-bye at Charing Cross.
In those moments one phase of her complex nature had been uppermost; and in those moments she loved me, – me, Maurice Wynn, not Loris Solovieff, or any other!
I would not have relinquished that belief to save my soul; although I knew well that the mood was necessarily a transient one. She had devoted her beauty, her talents, her splendid courage, her very life, to a hopeless cause. She was as a queen, whose realm is beset with dangers and difficulties, and who therefore can spare little or no thought for aught save affairs of state; and I was as the page who loved her, and whom she might have loved in return if she had been but a simple gentlewoman. Once more I told myself that I would be content if I could only play the page’s part, and serve her in life and death, “à la vie et à la mort” as the new password ran; but how was I even to begin doing that?
An unanswerable question! I must just go on blindly, as Fate led me; and Fate at this moment was prosaically represented by Mishka. Great Scott, how he snored!
We were astir early; I seemed to have just fallen asleep when Mishka roused me and announced that breakfast was waiting, and the horses ready.
We rode swiftly, and for the most part in silence, as my companion was even less communicative than usual. I noticed, as we drew near to Zostrov, a change for the better in the aspect of the country and the people. The last twenty versts was over an excellent road, while the streets of the village where we found our change of horses waiting, and of two others beyond, were comparatively clean and well-kept, with sidewalks laid with wooden blocks. The huts were more weather-tight and comfortable, – outside at any rate. The land was better cultivated, too, and the moujiks, though most of them scowled evilly at us, looked better fed and better clothed than any we had seen before. They all wore high boots, – a sure sign of prosperity. Yesterday boots were the exception, and most of the people, both men and women, were shod with a kind of moccasin made of plaited grass, and had their limbs swathed in ragged strips of cloth kept clumsily in place with grass-string.
“It is his doing,” Mishka condescended to explain. “His and my father’s. He gives the word and the money, and my father and those under him do the rest. They try to teach these lazy swine to work for their own sakes, – to make the best of their land; it is to further that end that all the new gear is coming. They will have the use of it – these pigs – for nothing. They will not even give thanks; rather will they turn and bite the hand that helps them; that tries to raise them out of the mud in which they wallow!”
He spat vigorously, as a kind of corollary to his remarks.
As he spoke we were skirting a little pine wood just beyond the village, and a few yards further the road wound clear of the trees and out across an open plain, in the centre of which rose a huge, square building of gray stone, crowned with a cupola that gleamed red in the rays of the setting sun.
“The castle!” Mishka grunted.
“It looks more like a prison!” I exclaimed involuntarily. It was a grim, sinister-looking pile, even with the sun upon it.
Mishka did not answer immediately. There was a clatter and jingle behind us, and out of the wood rode a company of horsemen, all in uniform. Two rode ahead of the rest, one of them the Grand Duke himself.
Mishka reined up at the roadside, and sat at the salute, and I followed his example.
The Duke did not even glance in our direction as he passed, though he acknowledged our salute in soldierly fashion.
We wheeled our horses and followed well in the rear of the imposing escort, – a whole troop of cavalry.
“You are right,” Mishka said, in a husky growl, that with him represented a whisper. “It is a prison, and yonder goes the prisoner. You will do well to remember that in your dealings with him, Herr Gould.”