CHAPTER XLVI
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
The whole thing happened far more quickly than it can be told. I dragged Anne back from the window, slammed the shutters to, – for one of the Cossacks’ favorite tricks was to fire at any one seen at a window in the course of a street row, – and, curtly bidding Anne stay where she was for the moment, rushed downstairs and out into the street, revolver in hand.
Mishka and half a dozen of our men were before me; there were very few of us in the house just now; most of the others were with Loris and Vassilitzi, attending a big procession and meeting in Marchalkowskaia, with their usual object, – to maintain order as far as possible, and endeavor to prevent conflicts between the troops and the people. It was astonishing how much Loris had achieved in this way, even during these last terrible days of riot and bloodshed. He was ever on the alert; he seemed to know by instinct how to seize the right moment to turn the temper of the crowd or the soldiers, and avert disaster; and his splendid personality never failed in its almost magnetic effect on every one who came in contact with it. He was a born leader of men!
And, although he was always to the fore in every affair, as utterly reckless of his own safety as he was anxious to secure the safety of others, he had hitherto come unscathed through everything, though a couple of our men had been killed outright, several others badly wounded, and the rest of us had got a few hard knocks one way or other. I’d had a bullet through my left arm, the arm that was broken in the scrimmage outside Petersburg in June, a flesh wound only, luckily, though it hurt a bit when I had time to think of it, – which wasn’t often.
By the time we got into the street, the affair was over. The Cossacks, urging their ponies at the usual wild gallop, and firing wantonly up at the houses, since the people who had been in the street had rushed for cover, were almost out of sight; and on the road and sidewalk near at hand were several killed and wounded, – mostly women, – besides Madame Levinska, who had been the cause of it all, and had paid with her life.
She was a hideous sight, she who five minutes before had been so gay, so audacious, so full of vivacity. The brutes had riddled her prostrate body with bullets, slashed at it with their whips, trampled it under their horses’ hoofs; and it lay huddled, shapeless, with scarce a semblance to humanity left in it.
I head a low, heartfelt cry, and saw Anne beside me, her fair face ashen white, her eyes dilated with horror and compassion, as she stared at her friend’s corpse.
“Go back!” I said roughly. “You can do nothing for her. And we will see to the rest; go back, I say. There may be more trouble.”
“My duty is here,” she said quietly, and passed on to bend over a woman who was kneeling and screaming beside a small body, – that of a lad about eight or nine years old, – which lay very still.
It was, as I well knew, useless to argue with Anne; so I went on with my ambulance work in grim silence, keeping near her, and letting the others go to and fro, helping the wounded into shelter and carrying away the dead. Natalya had run out also and joined her mistress. Yossof was not at hand; it was he whom we expected to bring the news we were awaiting so eagerly. He had come with us to Warsaw, and though he lived in the Ghetto among his Jewish kindred, was constantly back and forth. He was invaluable as a messenger, – a spy some might call him, – although he knew no language but Yiddish and Polack, and the queer Russian lingo that was a mingling of all three. But of course he learned a great deal from his fellow Jews. Hunted, persecuted, wretched as they are, the Polish and Russian Jews always have, or can command, money, and the way they get hold of news is nothing short of marvellous, – in the Warsaw Ghetto, anyhow!
There was quite a crowd around us soon, as the people who had fled before the Cossacks came back again, – weeping, gesticulating, shouting imprecations on the Tzar, the Government, the soldiers, – as they always did when they were excited; but, as usual, doing very little to help.
All at once there was a bigger tumult near at hand, and a mob came pouring along the street, a disorderly procession of men and women and little children, flaunting banners, waving red handkerchiefs, laughing, crying, shouting, and singing, as if they were more than half delirious with joy and excitement. And what was more remarkable, there were neither police nor soldiers in sight, nor any sign of Loris or his men. Many such processions occurred in Warsaw that day, when the great news came, – news that was soon to be so horribly discounted and annulled; and that, for me, was rendered insignificant, even in that first hour, by the great tragedy that followed hard upon its coming, – the tragedy that will overshadow all my life. Even after the lapse of years I can scarcely bring myself to write of it, though every incident is stamped indelibly on my brain. Clear before my eyes now rises Anne’s face, as, with her arm about the poor mother – who was half fainting – she turned and looked at the joyous rabble.
“What is it?” she cried, and at the same instant Yossof hurried up, and spoke breathlessly to her.
She listened to his message with parted lips, her eyes starry with the light of ecstatic joy.
“What is it?” I asked in my turn, for I couldn’t catch what Yossof said.
“It’s true, – it’s true; oh, thank God for all His mercies! The end is in sight, Maurice; the new era is beginning – has begun. The Tzar has yielded; he has issued the manifesto, granting all demands – ”
I stood staring at her, stricken dumb, not by the news she told, but by her unearthly beauty. The face that was so worn with all the toil and conflict and anxiety of these strenuous days and weeks was transfigured; and above it her red-gold hair shone like a crown of glory.
I know what was in her mind at that moment, – the thought that all had not been in vain, that the long struggle was almost ended, victory in sight; with freedom for the oppressed, cessation of bloodshed, a gradual return to law and order, the patient building up of a new civilization. Had I not heard her and Loris speak in that strain many times, the last only a few hours back, when the reassuring rumors began to strengthen?
“They were dreamers, dreaming greatly!”
For a few seconds only did I stand gazing at her, for the mob was upon us. It jostled us apart, swept us along with it, and, as I fought my way to rejoin her – she and Natalya still supported the woman whose little son had just been killed – a quick revulsion of feeling came over me, and with it a queer premonition of imminent evil.
The mob was so horrible; made up for the most part of the scum of Warsaw, reeking with vodka, drunk with liquor and excitement.
Pah! They were not fit for the freedom they clamored for, and yet it was for them and for others like them, that she toiled and plotted in peril of her life!
Before I could win to her side, a warning cry arose ahead, followed instantly by the crackle of rifle fire, the phut of revolver shots, yells, shrieks, an infernal din. A squadron of Cossacks was charging the crowd from the front, and as it surged back, the same hellish sounds broke from the rear. More soldiers were following, the mob was between two fires, – trapped.
Gasping, bleeding, I struggled against the rush, striving to make my way back to where I could see the gleam of Anne’s golden hair, close against the wall. I guessed that, with her usual resource, she had drawn her companions aside when the turmoil began, and they had their backs to the wall of one of the houses.
The soldiers were right among the mob now, and it was breaking into groups, each eddying round one or more of the horsemen, who had as much as they could do to hold their own with whip and sabre. It was impossible to reload the rifles, and anyhow they would not have been much use at these close quarters. I saw more than one horse overborne, his rider dragged from the saddle and hideously done to death. The rabble were like mad wolves rather than human beings.
A fresh volley from the front, – more troops were coming up there, – yells of triumph from the rear, where the soldiers had been beaten back and a way of retreat opened up. The furious eddies merged into a solid mass once more, a terror stricken sauve qui peut before the reinforcements.
Impossible to make headway against this; and yet every instant I was being swept along, further from Anne. All I could do was to set my teeth and edge towards the sidewalk. I got to the wall at last, set my back to it, and let the rout pour by, the Cossacks in full chase now, felling every straggler they overtook, even slashing at the dead and wounded as they rode over them.
I started to run back, and the wild horsemen did not molest me. I still wore the uniform in which I had left Zostrov; it was in tatters after this frenzied half-hour, but it stood me in good stead once again, and prevented my being shot down.
There was Anne, still alive, thank God; she was kneeling beside the woman; and Natalya, also unhurt, stood by her, trying to raise her, and seemingly urging her to seek shelter.
I tried to shout, but my mouth was too dry, so I ran on, stumbling over the bodies that strewed the ground.
Some of the Cossacks had turned and were riding back; a group passed me as I neared Anne, and one of them swung his rifle up and fired. Natalya fell with a scream, and Anne sprang up.
“Shame, shame, you cowards, to shoot defenceless women!” she cried indignantly.
He spurred towards her, but I was first. I flung myself before her and fired at him. He reeled, swerved, and galloped on, but his companions were round us. I fired again, and yet again; something flashed above me; I felt a stunning blow on my forehead, staggered back, and fell.
The last thing I heard was a woman’s shriek.
CHAPTER XLVII
THE TRAGEDY IN THE SQUARE
It was the flat of the sabre that had got me on the forehead, otherwise there’d have been an end of me at once. I was not unconscious for very long, for when I sat up, wiped the blood out of my eyes, and stared about me, sick and dazed, unable for the moment to recollect what had happened, I could still hear a tumult raging in the distance.
The street itself was quiet; the soldiers, the mob were gone; all the houses were shut and silent, though scared faces were peeping from some of the upper windows. Here and there a wounded man or woman was staggering or crawling away; and close beside me a woman was sitting, like a statue of despair, with her back against the wall, and something lying prone across her knees – the little mangled body of the boy who had been killed in the first scuffle, that Marie Levinska had provoked.
I remembered all then, and looked round wildly for Anne. There was no sign either of her or of Natalya.
I scrambled up, impatiently binding my handkerchief tight round my wounded head, which was bleeding profusely now, and stood over the silent woman.
“Where are they? Where is the lady who was with you?” I demanded hoarsely. “Answer me, for God’s sake!”
“They took her away – those devils incarnate – and the other woman got up and ran after,” she answered dully. “There was an officer with them; he cried out that they would teach her not to insult the army.”
I felt my blood run cold. Since I returned to this accursed country I had seen many – and heard of more – deeds of such fiendish cruelty perpetrated on weak women, on innocent little children, that I knew what the Cossacks were capable of when their blood was up. They were, as the women said, devils incarnate at such times.
My strength came back to me, the strength of madness, and I rushed away, down that stricken street, with but one clear idea in my mind, – to die avenging Anne, for I knew no power on earth could save her.
As I ran the tumult waxed louder, coming, as I guessed, from the great square to which the street led at this end.
Half-way along, a woman, huddled in the roadway, clutched at me, with a moaning cry. I shook off her grasp, glanced at her, and saw she was Natalya. The faithful soul had not been able to follow her mistress far.
“Where have they taken her?” I cried.
She could not speak, but she glared at me, a world of anguish and horror in her dark eyes, and pointed in the direction I was going, and I hurried on. I had a “killer” in my hand, the deadly little bludgeon of lead, set on a spiral copper spring, that was the favorite weapon of the mob, though I haven’t the least notion as to when I picked it up.
Now I was on the fringe of the crowd that overflowed from the square, and was pushing my way forward towards the centre, a furious vortex of noise and confusion. A desperate fight was in progress, surging round something, some one.
“It is Anna Petrovna!” a woman screamed above the din. “They tore her clothes from her; they are beating her to death with their nagaikas! Mother of Mercy! That such things should be!”
“‘À la vie et à la mort.’ Save her; avenge her,” some one shouted, I myself I think, and the cry was taken up and echoed hoarsely on all sides. So, there must be many of the League in the turmoil.
Now I was in the thick of it, a swaying, struggling mass of men and horses; many of the horses plunging riderless as the wild horsemen were dragged from their saddles, and disappeared in that stormy sea of outraged humanity. The Cossacks were getting the worst of it, for once, not a doubt of that.
“Back,” roared a mighty voice. “We have her; back I say; make way there, – let us pass!”
Mishka’s voice, and Mishka’s burly figure, mounted on a horse, pressed forward slowly, forcing a way through for another horseman who followed close in his wake.
“Make way, comrades,” shouted Mishka again, and at the cry, at the sight of the grim silent horseman in the rear, a curious lull fell on all within sight and hearing; though elsewhere the strife raged furiously as ever.
Loris sat erect in his saddle, as if on parade; bareheaded, his face set like a white mask, his brilliant blue eyes fixed, expressionless, no, that’s not the right word, but I can’t say what the expression was; neither horror nor anguish, nor despair, just a quiet steady gaze, without a trace of human emotion in it. Save that he was breathing heavily and slowly, he might have been a statue, – or a corpse. I am sure he was quite unconscious of his surroundings. The reins lay loose on his horse’s neck, and, though its sides heaved, and its coat was a plaster of sweat and foam and blood, the good beast took its own way quietly through that densely packed, suddenly silent mob, as if it, like its master, was oblivious of the mad world around them.
But it was on the burden borne by the silent horseman that every eye was fixed; a burden partly hidden by a soldier’s great coat. I knew she was dead, – we all knew it, – though the head with its bright dishevelled hair, as it lay heavily on her lover’s shoulder, seemed to have a semblance of life, as it moved slightly with the rise and fall of his breast. Her face was hidden, but from under the coat one long arm swayed limp, its whiteness hideously marred with jagged purple weals, from which the blood still oozed, trickling down and dripping from the tips of the fingers, – those beautiful ringless fingers that I knew and loved so well.
I had no further thought of fighting now; my brain and heart were numb, so I just dropped my weapon and fell in behind the horse, following close on its heels. Others did the same, the whole section of the crowd on this side the square moving after us, in what, compared with the chaos of a few minutes back, was an orderly retreat.
Well it was for some of them that they did so, for we had scarcely gained the street when the rattling boom of artillery sounded in the rear; followed by a renewed babel of shrieks and yells. The guns had been brought up and the work of summarily clearing the square had begun. But before the panic-stricken mob overtook us, flying helter-skelter before the new terror, Loris had urged his horse forward, or it quickened its pace of its own accord as the throng in front thinned and gave way more easily. I think I tried instinctively to keep up with it, but the crowd closed round me, the rush of fugitives from the rear overtook, overwhelmed us, and I was carried along with it.
I suppose I must have kept my footing, otherwise I should have been trampled down, as were so many others on that awful day. But where I went and what I did during the hours that followed I don’t know, and I never shall. I lost all sense of time and place; though I’ve a hazy recollection of stumbling on alone, through dark streets, sodden with the rain that was now falling in a persistent, icy drizzle. Some of the streets were silent and deserted; in others I paused idly to watch parties of sullen soldiers and police, grumbling and swearing over their gruesome task of collecting the dead bodies, and tossing them into carts; and again I stared into brilliantly lighted cafés and listened to the boisterous merriment of those within. Were they celebrating an imaginary victory, or acting on the principle, “Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow – perchance to-night – we die?”
Death brooded over the city that night; I felt His presence everywhere, – in the streets that were silent as the grave itself; in those whence the dead were being removed; most of all where men and women laughed and sang and defied Him! But I felt the dread Presence in a curious detached fashion. Death was my enemy indeed, an enemy who would not strike, who passed me by as one beneath contempt! And always, clear before my eyes, in my ears, above all other sights and sounds, I saw Anne’s face, heard her voice. Now she stood before me as I had first known her, – a radiant, queenly vision; a girl whose laughing eyes showed never a care in the world, or a thought beyond the passing moment. Her hands were full of flowers, red flowers, red as blood. Why, it was blood; it was staining her fingers, dripping from them! Yet the man didn’t see it; that man with the dark eager face, who was standing beside her, who took a spray of the flowers from her hand. What a fool this Cassavetti is not to know that she is “La Mort!”
Now she is changed; she wears a black gown, and the red flowers have vanished; but she is lovelier, more queenly than ever, as she looks at me with wide, pathetic eyes, and says, “I have deceived you!”
Again she stands, with hands outstretched, and cries, “The end is in sight; thank God for all His mercies;” and her face is as that of an angel in Heaven.
But always there is a barrier between her and me; a barrier impalpable yet unpassable. I try to surmount it, but I am beaten back every time. Now it is Cassavetti who confronts me; again, and yet again, it is Loris, with his stern white face, his inscrutable blue eyes. He is on horseback; he rides straight at me, and he bears something in his arms.
I struggled up and looked around me. I knew the place well enough, the long narrow room that had once been the salle à manger in the Vassilitzi’s Warsaw house, but that, ever since I had known it, had been the principal ward in the amateur hospital instituted by Anne. A squalid ward enough, for the beds were made up on the floor, anyhow, and every bit of space was filled, leaving just a narrow track for the attendants to pass up and down.
Along that track came a big figure that I recognized at once as Mishka, walking with clumsy caution.
“You are better? That is well,” he said in a gruff undertone.
“How did I get here?” I demanded.
“Yossof brought you; he found you walking about the streets, raving mad. It is a marvel that you were not shot down.”
Then I remembered something at least of what had passed.
“How long since?” I stammered, putting my hand up to my bandaged head.
“Two days.”
“And – ?”
“I will answer no questions,” he growled in his surliest fashion. “I will send you food and you are to sleep again. He will see you later.”
“He – Loris; he is safe, then?”
He nodded, but would say no more, and presently I drifted back into sleep or unconsciousness.