The Red Symbol

CHAPTER XI

“LA MORT OU LA VIE!”

I took a cab from the newspaper office to Von Eckhardt’s address, – a flat in the west end.

I found him, as Medhurst had reported, considerably agitated. He is a good-hearted chap, and a brilliant writer, though he’s too apt to allow his feelings to carry him away; for he’s even more sentimental than the average German, and entirely lacking in the characteristic German phlegm. He is as vivacious and excitable as a Frenchman, and I fancy there’s a good big dash of French blood in his pedigree, though he’d be angry if any one suggested such a thing!

He did not know me for a moment, but when I told him who I was he welcomed me effusively.

“Ah, now I remember; we met in London, when I was there with my poor friend. ‘We heard at midnight the clock,’ as our Shakespeare says. And you are going to take his place? I have not yet the shock recovered of his death; from it I never shall recover. O judgment, to brutish beasts hast thou fled, and their reason men have lost. My heart, with my friend Carson, in its coffin lies, and me, until it returns, you must excuse!”

I surmised that he was quoting Shakespeare again, as he had to Medhurst. I wanted to smile, though I was so downright wretched. He would air what he conceived to be his English, and he was funny!

“Would you mind speaking German?” I asked, for there was a good deal I wanted to learn from him, and I guessed I should get at it all the sooner if I could head him off from his quotations. His face fell, and I hastened to add —

“Your English is splendid, of course, and you’ve no possible need to practise it; but my German’s rusty, and I’d be glad to speak a bit. Just you pull me up, if you can’t understand me, and tell me what’s wrong.”

My German is as good as most folks’, any day, but he just grabbed at my explanation, and accepted it with a kindly condescension that was even funnier than his sentimental vein. Therefore the remainder of our conversation was in his own language.

“I hear you’ve left the Zeitung,” I remarked. “Going on another paper?”

“The editor of the Zeitung dismissed me,” he answered explosively. “Pig that he is, he would not understand the reason that led to my ejection from Russia!”

“Conducted to the frontier, and shoved over, eh? How did that happen?” I asked.

“Because I demanded justice on the murderers of my friend,” he declared vehemently. “I went to the chief of the police, and he laughed at me. There are so many murders in Petersburg, and what is one Englishman more or less? I went to the British Embassy. They said the matter was being investigated, and they emphatically snubbed me. They are so insular, so narrow-minded; they could not imagine how strong was the bond of friendship between Carson and me. He loved our Shakespeare, even as I love him.”

“You wrote to Lord Southbourne,” I interrupted bluntly. “And you sent him a portrait, – a woman’s portrait that poor Carson had been carrying about in his breast-pocket. Now why did you do that? And who is the woman?”

His answer was startling.

“I sent it to him to enable him to recognize her, and warn her if he could find her. I knew she was in London, and in danger of her life; and I knew of no one whom I could summon to her aid, as Carson would have wished, except Lord Southbourne, and I only knew him as my friend’s chief.”

“But you never said a word of all this in the note you sent to Southbourne with the photograph. I know, for he showed it me.”

“That is so; I thought it would be safer to send the letter separately; I put a mere slip in with the photograph.”

Had Southbourne received that letter? If so, why had he not mentioned it to me, I thought; but I said aloud: “Who is the woman? What is her name? What connection had she with Carson?”

“He loved her, as all good men must love her, as I myself, who have seen her but once, – so beautiful, so gracious, so devoted to her country, to the true cause of freedom, – ‘a most triumphant lady’ as our Sha – ”

“Her name, man; her name!” I cried somewhat impatiently.

“She is known under several,” he answered a trifle sulkily. “I believe her real name is Anna Petrovna – ”

That conveyed little; it is as common a name in Russia as “Ann Smith” would be in England, and therefore doubtless a useful alias.

“But she has others, including two, what is it you call them – neck names?”

“Nicknames; well, go on.”

“In Russia those who know her often speak of her by one or the other, – ‘La Mort,’ or ‘La Vie,’ it is safer there to use a pseudonym. ‘La Mort’ because they say, – they are superstitious fools, – that wherever she goes, death follows, or goes before; and ‘La Vie’ because of her courage, her resource, her enthusiasm, her so-inspiring personality. Those who know, and therefore love her most, call her that. But, as I have said, she has many names, an English one among them; I have heard it, but I cannot recall it. That is one of my present troubles.”

“Was it ‘Anne Pendennis,’ or anything like that?” I asked, huskily.

“Ach, that is it; you know her, then?”

“Yes, I know her; though I had thought her an English woman.”

“That is her marvel!” he rejoined eagerly. “In France she is a Frenchwoman; in Germany you would swear she had never been outside the Fatherland; in England an English maiden to the life, and in Russia she is Russian, French, English, German, – American even, with a name to suit each nationality. That is how she has managed so long to evade her enemies. The Russian police have been on her track these three years; but they have never caught her. She is wise as the serpent, harmless as the dove – ”

I had to cut his rhapsodies short once more.

“What is the peril that threatens her? She was in England until recently; the Secret Police could not touch her there?”

“It is not the police now. They are formidable, – yes, – when their grasp has closed on man or woman; but they are incredibly stupid in many ways. See how often she herself has slipped through their fingers! But this is far more dangerous. She has fallen under the suspicion of the League.”

“The League that has a red geranium as its symbol?”

He started, and glanced round as if he suspected some spy concealed even in this, his own room.

“You know of it?” he asked in a low voice.

“I have heard of it. Well, are you a member of it?”

“I? Gott in Himmel, no! Why should I myself mix in these Russian politics? But Carson was involved with them, – how much even I do not know, – and she has been one of them since her childhood. Now they say she is a traitress. If possible they will bring her before the Five – the secret tribunal. Even they do not forget all she has done for them; and they would give her the chance of proving her innocence. But if she will not return, they will think that is sufficient proof, and they will kill her, wherever she may be.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Carson told me before I left for Wilna. He meant to warn her. They guessed that, and they condemned, murdered him!”

He began pacing up and down the room, muttering to himself; and I sat trying to piece out the matter in my own mind.

“Have you heard anything of a man called Cassavetti; though I believe his name was Selinski?” I asked at length.

Von Eckhardt turned to me open-mouthed.

“Selinski? He is himself one of the Five; he is in London, has been there for months; and it is he who is to bring her before the tribunal, by force or guile.”

“He is dead, murdered; stabbed to the heart in his own room, even as Carson was, four days ago.”

He sat down plump on the nearest chair.

“Dead! That, at least, is one of her enemies disposed of! That is good news, splendid news, Herr Wynn. Why did you not tell me that before? ‘To a gracious message an host of tongues bestow,’ as our Shakespeare says. How is it you know so much? Do you also know where she is? I was told she would be here, three days since; that is why I have waited. And she has not come! She is still in England?”

“No, she left on Sunday morning. I do not know where she is, but she has been seen at Ostend with – the Russian Grand Duke Loris.”

I hated saying those last words; but I had to say them, for, though I knew Anne Pendennis was lost to me, I felt a deadly jealousy of this Russian, to whom, or with whom she had fled; and I meant to find out all that Von Eckhardt might know about him, and his connection with her.

“The Grand Duke Loris!” he repeated. “She was with him, openly? Does she think him strong enough to protect her? Or does she mean to die with him? For he is doomed also. She must know that!”

“What is he to her?”

I think I put the question quietly; though I wanted to take him by the throat and wring the truth out of him.

“He? He is the cause of all the trouble. He loves her. Yes, I told you that all good men who have but even seen her, love her; she is the ideal of womanhood. One loves her, you and I love her; for I see well that you yourself have fallen under her spell! We love her as we love the stars, that are so infinitely above us, – so bright, so remote, so adorable! But he loves her as a man loves a woman; she loves him as a woman loves a man. And he is worthy of her love! He would give up everything, his rank, his name, his wealth, willingly, gladly, if she would be his wife. But she will not, while her country needs her. It is her influence that has made him what he is, – the avowed friend of the persecuted people, ground down under the iron heel of the autocracy. Yet it is through him that she has fallen under suspicion; for the League will not believe that he is sincere; they will trust no aristocrat.”

He babbled on, but I scarcely heeded him. I was beginning to pierce the veil of mystery, or I thought I was; and I no longer condemned Anne Pendennis, as, in my heart, I had condemned her, only an hour back. The web of intrigue and deceit that enshrouded her was not of her spinning; it was fashioned on the tragic loom of Fate.

She loved this Loris, and he loved her? So be it! I hated him in my heart; though, even if I had possessed the power, I would have wrought him no harm, lest by so doing I should bring suffering to her. Henceforth I must love her as Von Eckhardt professed to do, or was his protestation mere hyperbole? “As we love the stars – so infinitely above us, so bright, so remote!”

And yet – and yet – when her eyes met mine as we stood together under the portico of the Cecil, and again in that hurried moment of farewell at the station, surely I had seen the love-light in them, “that beautiful look of love surprised, that makes all women’s eyes look the same,” when they look on their beloved.

So, though for one moment I thought I had unravelled the tangle, the next made it even more complicated than before. Only one thread shone clear, – the thread of my love.

CHAPTER XII

THE WRECKED TRAIN

I found the usual polyglot crowd assembled at the Friedrichstrasse station, waiting to board the international express including a number of Russian officers, one of whom specially attracted my attention. He was a splendid looking young man, well over six feet in height, but so finely proportioned that one did not realize his great stature till one compared him with others – myself, for instance. I stand full six feet in my socks, but he towered above me. I encountered him first by cannoning right into him, as I turned from buying some cigarettes. He accepted my hasty apologies with an abstracted smile and a half salute, and passed on.

That in itself was sufficiently unusual. An ordinary Russian officer, – even one of high rank, as this man’s uniform showed him to be, – would certainly have bad-worded me for my clumsiness, and probably have chosen to regard it as a deliberate insult. Your Russian as a rule wastes no courtesy on members of his own sex, while his vaunted politeness to women is of a nature that we Americans consider nothing less than rank impertinence; and is so superficial, that at the least thing it will give place to the sheer brutality that is characteristic of nearly every Russian in uniform. Have I not seen? But pah! I won’t write of horrors, till I have to!

Before I boarded the sleeping car I looked back across the platform, and saw the tall man returning towards the train, making his way slowly through the crowd. A somewhat noisy group of officers saluted him as he passed, and he returned the salute mechanically, with a sort of preoccupied air.

They looked after him, and one of them shrugged his shoulders and said something that evoked a chorus of laughter from his companions. I heard it; though I doubt if the man who appeared to be the object of their mirth did. Anyhow, he made no sign. There was something curiously serene and aloof about him.

“Wonder who he is?” I thought, as I sought my berth, and turned in at once, for I was dead tired.

I slept soundly through the long hours while the train rushed onwards through the night; and did not wake till we were nearing the grim old city of Konigsberg. I dressed, and made my way to the buffet car, to find breakfast in full swing and every table occupied, until I reached the extreme end of the car, where there were two tables, each with both seats vacant.

I had scarcely settled myself in the nearest seat, when my shoulder was grabbed by an excited individual, who tried to haul me out of my place, vociferating a string of abuse, in a mixture of Russian and German.

I resisted, naturally, and indignantly demanded an explanation. I had to shout to make myself heard. He would not listen, or release his hold, while with his free hand he gesticulated wildly towards two soldiers, who, I now saw, were stationed at the further door of the car. In an instant they had covered me with their rifles, and they certainly looked as if they meant business. But what in thunder had I done?

At that same moment a man came through the guarded doorway, – the tall officer who had interested me so strongly last night.

He paused, and evidently took in the situation at a glance.

“Release that gentleman!” he commanded sternly.

My captor obeyed, so promptly that I nearly lost my balance, and only saved myself from an ignominious fall by tumbling back into the seat from which he had been trying to eject me. The soldiers presented arms to the new-comer, and my late assailant, all the spunk gone out of him, began to whine an abject apology and explanation, which the officer cut short with a gesture.

I was on my feet by this time, and, as he turned to me, I said in French: “I offer you my most sincere apologies, Monsieur. The other tables were full, and I had no idea that these were reserved – ”

“They are not,” he interrupted courteously. “At least they were reserved in defiance of my orders; and now I beg you to remain, Monsieur, and to give me the pleasure of your company.”

I accepted the invitation, of course; partly because, although it was given so frankly and unceremoniously, it was with the air of one whose invitations were in the nature of “commands;” and also because he now interested me more strongly than ever. I knew that he must be an important personage, who was travelling incognito; though a man of such physique could not expect to pass unrecognized. Seen in daylight he appeared even more remarkable than he had done under the sizzling arc lights of the station. His face was as handsome as his figure; well-featured, though the chin was concealed by a short beard, bronze-colored like his hair, and cut to the fashion set by the present Tsar. His eyes were singularly blue, the clear, vivid Scandinavian blue eyes, keen and far-sighted as those of an eagle, seldom seen save in sailor men who have Norse blood in their veins.

I wonder now that I did not at once guess his identity, though he gave me no clue to it.

When he ascertained that I was an American, who had travelled considerably and was now bound for Russia, he plied me with shrewd questions, which showed that he had a pretty wide knowledge of social and political matters in most European countries, though he had never been in the States.

“This is your first visit to Russia?” he inquired, presently. “No?”

I explained that I had spent a winter in Petersburg some years back, and had preserved very pleasant memories of it.

“I trust your present visit may prove as pleasant,” he said courteously. “Though you will probably perceive a great difference. Not that we are in the constant state of excitement described by some of the foreign papers,” he added with a slight smile. “But Petersburg is no longer the gay city it was, ‘Paris by the Neva’ as we used to say. We – ”

He checked himself and rose as the train pulled up for the few minutes’ halt at Konigsberg; and with a slight salute turned and passed through the guarded doorway.

“Can you tell me that officer’s name?” I asked the conductor, as I retreated to the rear car.

“You know him as well as I do,” he answered ambiguously, pocketing the tip I produced.

“I don’t know his name.”

“Then neither do I,” retorted the man surlily.

I saw no more of my new acquaintance till we reached the frontier, when, as with the other passengers I was hustled into the apartment where luggage and passports are examined, I caught a glimpse of him striding towards the great grille, that, with its armed guard, is the actual line of demarcation between the two countries. Beside him trotted a fat little man in the uniform of a staff officer, with whom he seemed to be conversing familiarly.

Evidently he was of a rank that entitled him to be spared the ordeal that awaited us lesser mortals.

The tedious business was over at last; and, once through the barrier, I joined the throng in the restaurant, and looked around to see if he was among them. He was not, and I guessed he had already gone on, – by a special train probably.

The long hot day dragged on without any incident to break the monotony. I turned in early, and must have been asleep for an hour or two when I was violently awakened by a terrific shock that hurled me clear out of my berth.

I sat up on the floor of the car, wondering what on earth could have happened. The other passengers were shrieking and cursing, panic-stricken, though I guess they were more frightened than hurt, for the car had at least kept the rails. I don’t recollect how I managed to reach the door, but I found myself outside peering through the semi-darkness at an appalling sight.

The whole of the front part of the train was a wreck; the engine lay on its side, belching fire and smoke, and the cars immediately behind it were a heap of wreckage, from which horrible sounds came, screams of mortal fear and pain. Even as I stood, staring, dazed like a drunken man, a flame shot up amid the piled-up mass of splintered wood. The wreckage was already afire, and as I saw that, I dashed forward. Others were as ready as I, and in half a minute we were frantically hauling at the wreckage, and endeavoring to extricate the poor wretches who were writhing and shrieking under it, before the fire should reach them.

A big man worked silently beside me, and together we got out several of the victims, till the flames drove us back, and we stood together, a little away from the scene, breathing hard, and incapable for the moment of any fresh exertion.

I looked at him then for the first time, though I had known all along that he was my courtly friend of the previous morning. His stern face, seen in the sinister light of the blazing wreckage, was ghastly; it was smeared with the blood that oozed from a wound across his forehead, and his blue eyes were aflame with horror and indignation.

He was evidently quite unaware of my presence, and I heard him mutter: “It was meant for me! My God! it was meant for me! And I have survived, while these suffer.”