_ CHAPTER XVII. LOVE, HONOR AND OBEY
The princess paused and bent her head until it almost touched me. I waited, wondering how it could be that the czar still lived. When death was so near, within a few inches of his face, what could have saved him?
"Hush!" she continued. "The end is not yet--not quite yet. You pulled the trigger, but the charge in the pistol did not explode. That is what you thought, when you leaped backward and raised the hammer for another trial. But it was even worse than that, for there was no charge to explode; the pistol was not loaded. Your poor mind, so overburdened, had forgotten the most necessary thing of all, and you had not prepared your weapon for the work it had to do. You discovered your error too late; but the czar had discovered it also."
"He was bigger and stronger than you. With a bound he was upon you. He seized the pistol and tore it from your grasp, and then, while he held you--for you were still weak and he always was a giant--he struck you with it, bringing it down again and again upon your unprotected head, until your brains were battered out, and were spattered upon the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling of the room. And then, when you were quite dead, killed by the hand of the czar himself, when he for once in his life was spattered with real blood, with blood that he had shed in person and not by deputy, His Imperial Majesty staggered to the door, called for assistance, and fainted."
Again she left me, this time crossing the room and throwing herself upon a couch, where she cried softly, like one who has an incurable sorrow which must at times break out in tears. After all, tears are the safety valves of nervous expansion, and there are times when they save the heart and the brain from bursting. I knew that, and I left her to herself. But I also believed that she had not yet told me quite all; that there must be a sequel to all this, and I was soon to hear it. After watching her for a long time, I left my seat and went to her.
She raised her head from the pillow, and looked at me, and I have never seen such a combination of emotions expressed in one glance, as there was in her eyes at that instant. Love for me, sympathy for the fate of the man whose story she had told, sorrow for that poor sister.
"There is more?" I asked.
"Very little more. I have not yet told you why I am a nihilist, and that is what this story is for. Yvonne was my most intimate friend. I loved her as I would have loved--no,--better than I could have loved a sister. Her brother Stanislaus, was my betrothed. We were to have been married within the year when Yvonne was taken away. Now you know all"; and she turned her head away again. I could see that she had dreaded this confession.
"No, not all, yet," I said. "What became of the officer who made all the trouble?"
"He returned," she replied, without again raising her eyes.
"Where is he now?"
"He is here."
"Here? In St. Petersburg?"
"Yes."
"Do you know him? Do you see him?"
"Yes, frequently. He was here last night."
"Will you tell me his name?"
"No."
"Shall I tell it to you?"
"Shall you tell it to me! Do you mean to say that you know it?"
"I can guess it."
"Well?"
"He is a nihilist. He has just returned to the city. All these years he has been absent, and had Stanislaus waited for his coming your story, and mine also, would have had a different ending. But Stanislaus did not wait. The man you mean is Captain Alexis Durnief."
She started bolt upright.
"You knew it? You knew it?" she cried. "Tell me how you knew it?"
"I guessed it only just now. I guessed it from the expression of your eyes when you greeted him last night, that is, coupling that expression with the recital of to-day, and with one or two hints of his character that I gleaned from him. He is the man?"
"Yes. He--is--the--man!!!"
"And you receive him here?"
"I cannot help it. My hands are tied."
"How are they tied?"
"You have already said."
"Yes? How?"
"He is a nihilist. He does not know that I am aware of all his foulness and villainy. He has been assured that I do not know it! And"--here she leaped to her feet and confronted me like an enraged tigress--"he has the effrontery to pretend that he is in love with me, and to believe that I can love him. Pah!"
"And you?" I asked.
"I?"
She crossed the room, but turned and retraced her steps, reseating herself upon the couch. She was smiling now. Her composure had returned though she was still pale, and there were deep rings under her eyes which told of the suffering she had undergone.
"Until you came I had thought that I would marry him," said she, calmly. I was more utterly amazed than I could have supposed possible.
"Indeed?" I remarked, raising my brows, but otherwise not showing the surprise I felt. Here was still another phase of the character of the woman I loved so madly. But I could see that she spoke in the past tense; of something no longer considered.
"Yes; I thought that. Why not? It seemed the only way by which I could secure the revenge I believed I must have. I could have obtained it in that way. Long ago he sheltered himself from anything that I could do, under the cloak of our order. I could have married him, and in six months have tortured him into the grave; or, if that had failed, I could have poisoned him. Ah! did you ever hate--truly hate--anybody? If you never did, you cannot imagine the rage that has been in my heart against those two men. No, they are not men; they are beasts, reptiles." So she spoke of Alexis Durnief and Alexander, the czar. I could scarcely recognize this woman who could hate others with such intensity.
"Do you think, princess," I said, slowly, "that if Stanislaus were alive, he would approve of such a method of taking revenge for the wrong done to him, and to his sister?" I asked the question impersonally, and without any resentment in my tone, or manner. Indeed, I felt none. We were referring to a possibility that was now as far in the past as were the incidents of the story she had related. But I desired to probe that other side of her, the vengeful one, as deeply as possible, and when she did not reply, I added: "Do you think he would have rested contentedly in his grave, if you had become the wife of the man who wronged him most, no matter what your purpose might be?"
"No," she said. "I do not. But I had not thought of it in that light. I remembered only Yvonne--and him."
"Zara, did you love Stanislaus?"
She sighed deeply. She raised her eyes to mine, and she stretched forth a tentative hand for me to clasp, and hold. My touch gave her a sense of personal protection.
"How you probe the innermost secrets of one's heart, Dubravnik," she smiled at me. "I will tell you the truth, and the whole truth. It is because I never loved him, because I never knew and appreciated his worth, until he was dead, that I believed that I could not live and bear the thought that he should continue unavenged, while Alexis Durnief, the perpetrator of such outrages, appeared boldly here at St. Petersburg, and even dared to make love to me. I was a girl then, and I did not appreciate all the love that was lavished upon me. I am a woman now, and you have taught me what love is. I am not the same creature, now, that I was a few short hours ago. You have changed the world for me, for you have made what was once a hell, a heaven of sweet thoughts."
"Zara, had you already abandoned the insane idea of becoming Durnief's wife, before we referred to it, now?"
"Yes, I never really entertained it. It only occurred to me as a means of accomplishing an end. I hate the man so, for all he did to Yvonne; and when he dared to raise his hopes to me, knowing that I had been her nearest and dearest friend, knowing also that I was once pledged to Stanislaus, I was filled with a bitter hatred more terrible than words can describe. Oh, if you knew the bitterness of one who is used only for a tool, because she happens to possess beauty. But you cannot know; you cannot guess."
"True, I do not know; but I can guess. Remember, I heard what you said to your brother, on this same subject, in the garden."
"Ah!"
Like a flash of light through the darkness, my own peril returned to her.
"You! What are you going to do?" she exclaimed.
"I am going about my daily duty just as though nothing had happened," I replied.
"Those men out there are waiting to kill you. Come! Let us see if they are there still."
We went to the window together and peered out. The
karetta was still waiting.
"Tell me your true name again," she demanded, rather irrelevantly I thought, as we drew back. "You told me, but I have forgotten. To me you are Dubravnik; but I suppose I must learn the other one."
"You must learn how to answer to it, also, for it is to be yours as well as mine." Then I mentioned it, and she repeated it after me several times, under her breath.
"Do you know of any way, no matter how, to escape those men who are waiting outside?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied, "I know of one."
"What is it?"
"I can have them arrested where they are--every one of them; that is, if one of your servants can be induced to carry a message a short distance, for me."
"He would be stopped. The message would be taken from him, and read."
"He would be permitted to go on again, for the message would mean nothing to those who stopped him. It would be in cipher, and assistance would not be long in coming, once it were delivered. Men in whom I can implicitly trust would soon clear the streets for us. We would have nothing to fear after that."
"Then you
are connected with the police, Dubravnik." But when she made the statement I noticed with joy that there was no suggestion of her former displeasure. There was no indication now that she would love me the less because I was associated with the powers she had been taught all her life to abhor.
"No, Zara, not with the police. I have nothing to do with them, nor with any department of that service. The men I shall send for are not even Russians; and they serve me, not this government. They will serve you, as well."
"I believe you, dear one; forgive me. You shall have the messenger."
"You have forgotten one thing, princess."
"What?"
"Your own danger."
She shrugged her shoulders and laughed at that. It was a return to the Zara I had first known. "I have forgotten much since you came," she said. "In what way am I in danger?"
"If those men are arrested, they will know that you have betrayed them to me. Their friends will know it, also."
"You mistake. I had not forgotten that. But I have remembered that you are here to protect me, Dubravnik. What have I to fear when you are near me?" It was sweet indeed to hear her say such words, sweeter still to realize the full import of them. But there was a phase of our present dilemma which had not yet claimed her attention, but regarding which it was necessary to remind her. Her brother Ivan was doubtless one of the assassins, waiting outside.
"What of Ivan, your brother?" I asked her.
She raised her eyes and looked at me, startled, and they were suddenly moist with unshed tears. There was that same indescribable pain in them, that I had noticed several times since our interview began; that same expression which I could not fathom. But the explanation was ready.
"I have found that there comes a time in a woman's life," she said slowly, "when all her pet theories fall flat and useless, and when every idol that she has worshipped is demolished. Let us not talk of the danger to me. Let us not even speak of my brother, until the message is prepared for my servant to carry."
"No, Zara," I told her, with decision. "I do not understand what you meant, just now, when you referred to the demolition of your pet theories. But it is imperative that we should speak of your brother."
"What of him?"
"Is it not more than possible that he is one of the men out there who are waiting for me?"
"Yes, it is. I had forgotten that. But----"
"He would be caught in the net with the others. He would suffer the same fate that fell to them. Are you willing to run the risk of his being there? He has been to Siberia once, you tell me. Are you willing that he should go there again?"
"No, oh, no!" she cried. "No; that must not be."
"You see, then, how impossible it is for you to give me a messenger, unless you can promise for Ivan as well as for yourself."
"Promise? And for Ivan? What promise need I make for him? If he is there shall he not take his chance with those who are with him? But no, no. You are right, Dubravnik. I cannot let him be captured, perhaps killed, in this way," she said brokenly. "I cannot sacrifice Ivan. Cannot you see how I am suffering? Even though I try with all my strength to conceal it, can't you see it? Is there not some other way? Is there not something that can be done? Will you not help me? Great God! Must my brother be sent back to the hell of Siberia--or must you----"
"Zara," I interrupted her, deliberately taking a step backwards and putting my hands behind me, fearing that I might clasp her in my arms in spite of my resolution to remain calm and to continue to be master of the situation, "I think there is another way; I believe that something can be done; I will help you; I do see why you suffer. You are torn by so many conflicting desires, child; you do not know which way to turn. Here am I, your lover; out yonder, waiting to kill me, is your brother. But, dear, if you will trust to me, and will obey me implicitly in all that I direct you to do, there is a way, and neither you nor your brother shall come to harm. Will you trust to me?"
"Yes, oh, yes," she cried unhesitatingly. "What am I to do?"
"Call the servant who is to take the message."
She turned to the door without another word, and disappeared beyond it. The moment she was gone, I took a fountain pen and a pad of paper from my pocket, and wrote rapidly--or seemed to write, for the pen left no trace upon the paper.
My invisible note was completed and I was writing with another pen upon a second sheet of paper when the princess reentered the room. This time the writing was plainly visible, and while I asked her for an envelope I passed it to her to read.
It was addressed to my friend Canfield who had charge of the messenger service, and merely instructed him to "forward the packages that had been left with him that morning" to their several addresses without delay. It was signed, "Dubravnik."
"Is this the note my servant is to take?" she asked, incredulously.
"Yes."
I folded the apparently blank sheet with the other and placed them both in the envelope which I had already addressed.
"You see there is no harm in that note, even if the men outside should read it," I added, when the servant had departed. "Your man, who is of course a spy, will read the note, which I purposely left unsealed, as soon as he is out of sight of the house. In an hour every man who is waiting to take my life will be in prison. If your brother is among them, he will not be harmed and you----"
I hesitated, and she raised her eyes to mine and said:
"Well, and I?"
"You will have to do as you have agreed to do, obey me." I hesitated again and then with a desperate courage, added: "Love, honor, and obey me." _