The Red Symbol
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“Mishka has told me all,” he began, speaking in English, though still in the hoarse low growl appropriate to his assumed character. “And I have learned much since. There is to be a meeting to-night, and if things are as I suspect she will be brought before the tribunal. We must save her if we can. Will you come? To say it will be at the risk of your life is to put it mildly. It will be a forlorn hope.”
“I’ll come; tell me how,” I said.
“You will go to the place where you met Mishka to-day, dine there, and change your clothes. They will have some for you, and you need not use the formula. They expect you already; I knew you would come! Mishka will join you, and will accompany you to the rank where I shall be waiting with my droshky. You will hire me in the usual way; and we will tell you my plans when we are clear of the city. Have you any weapon?”
“No.”
He felt in an inner pocket of his filthy greatcoat and brought out a revolver and a handful of spare cartridges.
“It’s loaded; you can have these, too, though if there’s any shooting I doubt if you’ll have the chance of reloading. Let’s hope you won’t fall in with the police for the third time to-day! Mishka will join you between nine and ten. We need not start till then, – these light nights are a drawback, but that cannot be helped. The meeting will be held as usual, after midnight. That is all now. I must not stay longer. Give me the note you spoke of. A blank sheet – anything – I will destroy it immediately.”
I put a sheet of note-paper into an envelope, and addressed it to Lieutenant Mirakoff at his barracks. His was the first name that occurred to me.
“You know him?” he asked, pointing to the name.
“Very slightly.”
He nodded and picked up the note, holding it carefully by one corner between his filthy thumb and finger.
I unlocked the door as quietly as I had locked it, and a moment later he opened it noisily and backed out, growling guttural and surly thanks; backed right up against the servant, who, as we both guessed, was waiting just outside. Even I was surprised at the altercation that followed. A Russian droshky driver has a bigger command of bad language than any other cabby in the world, and the Grand Duke Loris had evidently studied his part from life. He was letter perfect in it!
I strode to the door and flung it open.
“Here, stop that!” I shouted. “Be off with you, Ivan; you impudent rascal!”
He leered at me and shambled off, but I could hear the coarse voice growling ribaldries all the way down the staircase.
It was a masterpiece of impersonation!
I waited a while, till I judged it safe to start on the first stage of my expedition. I meant to take a circuitous route to the café, in case I was still being watched. I would run no unnecessary risks, not for my own sake, but I guessed that the success of our enterprise – whatever it was – would depend on the exercise of infinite caution, at the beginning, anyhow. I felt strangely elated, happier than I had done for many a long day; although I knew that the worst, or almost the worst, had come to pass, and that Anne was here, in the power of her enemies. But we were going to save her, – we would save her. “A forlorn hope” even Loris Solovieff had called it. Nothing of the kind. Could anything that such a man as he attempted be a forlorn hope; and together, working loyally side by side, what could we not dare, and accomplish? Nothing seemed impossible to-night.
“Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part!”
I kept a wary lookout as I made my way along the streets, most of them thronged at this hour of the summer evening. The air was sultry, and huge masses of cloud were piling up, ominous of a storm before long.
I reached the café eventually and, so far as I knew, unobserved, and came out of it an hour or so later, looking, I hope, as like a shabbily attired Russian student as the Grand Duke Loris looked like a droshky driver, accompanied by a man of the artisan type, who might have been my father, – none other than Mishka himself.
The sky was overcast, and already, above the rumble of the traffic, one could hear the mutter of distant thunder. It reminded me of that eventful night in London, little more than a month ago, though I had seemed to live a lifetime since then.
“The storm comes soon,” said Mishka. “That is well, very well.”
We came to a rank where several droshkys were standing; and he paused irresolute, fumbling in his pocket.
“We will drive, Paul,” he asserted aloud, with the air of a man who has just decided to indulge in an extravagance. “Yes, I say we will; the storm comes soon, and thy mother is alone.”
He began to haggle, after the usual fashion, with the nearest driver; and again I marvelled at the Duke’s disguise; for it was he, of course.
Once clear of the city Mishka unfolded the plan.
“Presently we turn across country and come to a house; there we leave the droshky; and there also will be horses for us in readiness if we should need them – later. Thence we go on foot through the forest to the meeting-place. We must separate when we get near it, but you will keep close to Ivan” – we spoke always of the Duke by that name – “and I will come alone. You will be challenged, and you will give the word, ‘For Freedom,’ and the sign I showed you. Give it to me, now.”
He held out his hand, palm upwards; and I touched it with my thumb and fingers in turn; five little taps.
“Good, you are a quick learner – Paul! The meeting will be in an old chapel, – or so we imagine; the place is changed many times, but it must be there, or in the clearing. Either way there will be little light, there among the pines. That is in our favor. If she is there, we shall know how to act; we must decide then. She will be accused – that is certain – but the five may acquit her. If that comes to pass – good; we shall easily get speech with her, and perhaps she may return with us. At least she will be safe for the moment. But if they condemn her, we must act quickly and all together. We must save her and get her away, – or – die with her!”
“Well said!” growled “Ivan.”
The rain was pattering down now in big drops, and the lightning flashes were more frequent, the thunder nearer each time. The horse shied as there came a more vivid flash than before, followed almost instantly by a crackling roll – the storm was upon us.
As the thunder ceased, I found “Ivan” had pulled the horse up, and was listening intently. I listened also, and above the faint tinkle of our bells and the slight movements of the horse, I heard, faint, as yet, but rapidly approaching, the thud of hoofs and the jangle of accoutrements.
“A patrol,” said “Ivan” quickly. “They are coming towards us; I saw them by the lightning flash. They will challenge us, and I shall drive on, trusting to the darkness and storm. If they follow – as they probably will – and shoot, you two must seize your opportunity, and jump. There is just the chance that they may not see you; I shall drive on. If I distance them, I will follow you. But we must not all be taken, and it will be better for me than for you.”
He started again on the instant, and another flash showed several mounted figures just ahead.
A challenge rang out, and “Ivan’s” reply was to lash the horse into a gallop. We charged through them, and they wheeled after us, and fired. I heard the “zsp” of a bullet as it ripped through the leather hood close to my ear; but in the darkness and confusion they fired wildly. And, for the present at any rate, our gallant little horse was more than a match for theirs, and was distancing them rapidly.
Another flash, and “Now!” roared “Ivan,” above the roar of the thunder. I had already sprung up, knowing that I must jump before the next flash came; and Mishka, as I found afterwards, did the same.
Steadying myself for a moment, I let myself drop, stumbled backward for a few steps, fell, and rolled into the ditch, just as the pursuers clattered past, in a whirlwind of oaths.
For the moment I, at least, had escaped; but where was Mishka?
CHAPTER XIX
NIGHT IN THE FOREST
As the sounds of flight and pursuit receded, I crawled out of the ditch, and called softly to my companion, who answered me, from the other side of the road, with a groan and an oath.
“I am hurt; it is my leg – my ankle; I cannot stand,” he said despairingly.
As the lightning flared again, I saw his face for a moment, plastered with black mud, and furious with pain and chagrin. I groped my way across to him, hauled him out of the ditch, and felt his limbs to try to ascertain the extent of his injury.
It might have been worse, for there were no broken bones, as I had feared at first; but he had a badly sprained ankle.
“Bind it – hard, with your handkerchief,” he said, between his set teeth. “We must get out of this, into the wood. They will return directly.”
His grit was splendid, for he never uttered a sound – though his foot must have hurt him badly – as I helped him up. Supporting him as well as I could, we stumbled into the wood, groping our way through the darkness, and thankful for every flash that gave us light, an instant at a time, and less dazzling – though more dangerous – here under the canopy of pine branches than yonder on the open road.
Even if Mishka had not been lamed, our progress must have been slow, for the undergrowth was thick; still, he managed to get along somehow, leaning on me, and dragging himself forward by grasping each slender pine trunk that he lurched up against.
He sank down at length, utterly exhausted, and, in the pause that followed, above the sound of our labored breathing and the ceaseless patter of the rain on the pines, I heard the jangle of the cavalry patrol returning along the road. Had “Ivan” eluded or outdistanced them? Were they taking him back with them, a prisoner; or, worst of all, had they shot him?
The sounds passed – how close we still were to the road! – and gradually died away.
“He has escaped, thanks be to God!” Mishka said, in a hoarse whisper.
“How do you know that?”
“If they had overtaken him they would have found the droshky empty, and would have sought us along the road.”
“Well, what now? How far are we from the meeting-place?”
“Three versts, more or less. We should have been there by this time! Come, let us get on. Have you the pocket lamp? We can use it now. It will help us a little, and we shall strike a track before long.”
The lamp was a little flash-light torch which I had slipped into my pocket at the last moment, and showed to Mishka when I was changing my clothes. It served us well now, for the lightning flashes were less frequent; the worst of the storm was over.
I suppose we must have gone about half a verst – say the third of an English mile – when we found the track he had mentioned, a rough and narrow one, trodden out by the foresters, and my spirits rose at the sight of it. At least it must lead somewhere!
Here Mishka stumbled and fell again.
“It is useless. I can go no further, and I am only a hindrance. But you – what will you do – ?”
“I’m going on; I’ll find the place somehow.”
“Follow the track till you come to an open space, – a clearing; it is a long way ahead. Cross that to your right, and, if your lamp holds, or the storm passes, you will see a tree blazed with five white marks, such as the foresters make. There is another track there; follow it till you are challenged; and the rest will be easy. God be with you.”
We gripped hands and parted. I guessed we should not meet again in this world, though we might in the next, – and that pretty soon!
I pushed on rapidly. The track, though narrow, was good enough, and I only had to flash my torch occasionally. I was afraid of the battery giving out, which, as a fact, it did before I emerged in the clearing Mishka had mentioned. But the light was better now, for the storm had passed; and in this northern latitude there is no real night in summer, only “the daylight sick,” as Von Eckhardt would say. Out in the clearing I could see quite a distance. The air felt fresh and pleasant and the patch of sky overhead was an exquisite topaz tint. I stood to draw breath, and for a moment the sheer splendor of the night, – the solemn silence, – held me spellbound with some strange emotion in which awe and joy were mingled. Yes, joy! For although I had lost my two good comrades, and was undertaking, alone, a task which could scarcely have been accomplished by three desperate men, my heart was light. I had little hope, now, of saving Anne, as we reckon salvation in this poor earth-life; but I could, and would, die with and for her; and together, hand in hand, we would pass to the fuller, freer life beyond, where the mystery that encompassed her, and that had separated us, would vanish.
I was about to cross the clearing, keeping to the right and seeking for the blazed tree, as Mishka had told me, when I heard the faint sound of stealthy footsteps through the wet grass that grew tall and rank here in the open. In the soft light a shadowy figure came from the opposite side, passed across the space, and disappeared among the further trees, followed almost immediately by two more. The time was now, as I guessed, after midnight, and these were late comers, who had been delayed by the storm, or perhaps, like myself, had had to dodge the patrol.
I followed the last two in my turn, and at the place where they re-entered the wood I saw the gleam of the white blazes on the tree. I had struck the path right enough, and went along it confidently in the gloom of the trees, for perhaps a hundred yards, when a light flashed a few paces in front of me, just for a second, and I saw against the gleam the figures of the two men who were preceding me. They had passed on when I reached the place, and a hand grasped my shoulder, while the light was flashed in my face. I saw now it was a dark lantern, such as policemen carry in England.
“The password, stranger, and the sign,” a hoarse voice whispered in the darkness that followed the momentary flash of light.
I felt for his hand, gave both word and sign, and was allowed to go on, to be challenged again in a similar manner at a little distance. Here the picket detained me.
“You are a stranger, comrade; do you know the way?” he asked. All the questions and answers had been in Russian.
“No. I will follow those in front.”
He muttered something, and a second man stepped out on to the path, and bade me follow him. How many others were at hand I do not know. The wood seemed full of stealthy sounds.
My guide followed the path for only a short distance further, then turned aside, drawing me after him, his hand on my coat-sleeve.
“Be careful; the trees are thick hereabouts,” he said in a low voice, as he walked sideways. He seemed to know every inch of the way. I followed his example, and after a minute or two of this crab-like progress we emerged into a second clearing, smaller than the first, made round a small building, from which came the subdued sound of voices, though for a moment I could see no light. Then a door was partially opened, emitting a faint gleam, and two men passed in, – doubtless those whom I had seen in front of me just now.
Without a word my guide turned back into the darkness, and I walked forward boldly, pushed the door, which gave under my touch, and entered the place.
CHAPTER XX
THE TRIBUNAL
It was a small, ruinous chapel, the windows of which had been roughly boarded up; and, so far as I could see by the dim light cast by two oil lanterns hung on the walls, all those assembled inside were men, – about fifty in number I guessed, for the place was by no means crowded. There was a clear space at the further end, round the raised piece where the altar had once stood, and where four men were seated on a bench of some sort. I could not distinguish their faces, for they all wore their hats, and the lamplight was so dim that it only served to make the darkness visible. The atmosphere was steamy, too, for we were a drenched and draggled lot.
There was no excitement at present; one of the four men on the dais was speaking in a level monotonous voice; but, as I cautiously edged my way towards the front, I felt that this silent, sinister crowd was in deadly earnest, as was the man who was addressing it. He was speaking in Russian, and I could not make out quite all he said.
I gathered that some resolution was about to be passed, for just as I got sufficiently forward to peer round and convince myself that Anne was not there, each man present, except myself and two others, held up his right hand. I followed suit instantly, judging that to be wisest, and one of the other two – he was standing close beside me – put his up, after a momentary hesitation that I think was unnoticed save by myself. I took a sidelong glance at him. He was an elderly, distinguished looking man, with a short gray beard cut to a point, and an upturned gray mustache. He was listening intently, but, though I couldn’t see his face distinctly, I got the impression that he also was a stranger, and that he understood even less than I did what was going on.
The president spoke again.
“Are there any here who are against the election of Constantine” – I could not catch the other name, which was a long Polish one, I think – “to the place on the council, vacant since the murder of our comrade, Vladimir Selinski?”
Selinski! Cassavetti! He little guessed as he spoke that the man who found Cassavetti’s body was now within five paces of him!
Not a hand was raised, and the man who had not voted stepped on to the dais, in obedience to a gesture from the president, and took his seat in silence.
A hoarse murmur of approval went round; but that was all. The grim quietude of these men was more fearful than any amount of noise could have been, and, as the president raised his hand slightly, a dead silence fell.
“Remains now only that we do justice on the murderess of Selinski, the traitress who has betrayed our secrets, has frustrated many of our plans, has warned more than one of those whom we have justly doomed to death – her lover among them – with the result that they have escaped, for the present. We would not condemn her unheard, but so far she is obdurate; she defies us, endeavors once more to trick us. If she were other than she is, or rather than she has been, she would have been removed long since, when suspicion first fell upon her; but there are many of us who love her still, who would not believe her guilty without the evidence of their own eyes and ears; and therefore we have brought her here that she may speak for herself, defend herself if that is possible. It will rest with you to acquit or condemn her!”
He spoke quite quietly, but the cool, deliberate malignity of his tone was horrible; and somehow I knew that the majority of those present shared his animosity against the prisoner, although he had spoken of “many of us who love her.”
The man beside me touched my arm, and spoke to me in French.
“Do you understand him?”
“Yes, do you?”
“No.”
There was no time for more, for, at a signal from the president, a door at the side near the dais was opened, and a woman was led in by two men, each holding her by an arm. They released her, and she stepped back a pace, and stood against the wall, her hands pressed against it on either side, bracing herself like a royal creature at bay.
It was Anne herself, and for a moment I stood, unable to move, scarcely able to breathe. There was something almost unearthly about her beauty and courage. The feeble lamplight seemed to strengthen, and to concentrate itself on her face, – colorless save for the vivid red lips, – on her eyes, wide and brilliant with indignation, on the bright hair that shone like a queenly crown. Wrath, and scorn, and defiance were expressed by the beautiful face, the tense figure; but never a trace of fear.
They were all looking at her, as I was, in silence, – a curious hush that lasted but a few seconds, but in which I could hear the beating of my own heart; it sounded as loud as a sledge hammer.
The spell was broken by a cry from the man with the pointed beard next me who sprang forward towards her, shouting in English: “Anne! Anne! It is I, your father!”
I was only just less quick; we reached her almost together, and faced about, shielding her with our bodies, and covering those nearest us with our revolvers.
“Father! Maurice!” I heard her sob. “Oh, I knew, I knew you would come!”
“What is this devilry?” shouted Anthony Pendennis in French. “How comes my daughter here? She is a British subject, and you – you shall pay dearly – ”
He got no further. Our action had been so swift, so unexpected, that the whole crowd stood still, as if paralyzed by sheer astonishment, for a few breathless seconds.
“Spies! Traitors! Kill them all!” shouted the president, springing forward, revolver in hand.
Those words were his last, for he threw up his arms and fell as my first shot got him. The rest came at us all together, like a mob of furious wild beasts. They were all armed, some with revolvers, others with the horrible little bludgeons they call “killers,” – a short heavy bar of lead set on a strong copper spring, no bigger than an ordinary round office ruler, but more deadly at close quarters than a revolver.
I flung up my left hand, tore down the lamp that hung just above us, and hurled it among them. It was extinguished as it fell, and that gave us a small advantage, for the other lamp was at the far end, and its faint light did not reach us, but only served to dimly show us our antagonists. I felt Anne sink down to the floor behind me, though whether a shot had reached her or she had fainted I did not know.
When I had emptied my revolver I dropped it, grabbed a “killer” from the hand of a fellow I had shot pointblank, and laid about me with that. I suppose Pendennis did the same. As Loris had warned me, when it came to shooting, there was no time for reloading; but the “killer” was all right. I wonder he hadn’t given me one!
We were holding our own well, in spite of the tremendous odds, and after a while – though whether it was five minutes or fifty I couldn’t say – they gave back a bit. There was quite a heap of dead and wounded round about us; but I don’t think Anne’s father was hurt as yet, and I felt no pain, though my left arm hung limp and useless, numbed by a blow from a “killer” that had missed my head; and something warm was dripping down my right wrist.
“What now?” I heard Pendennis say, in that brief lull in the pandemonium.
“God knows. We can’t get to the door; we must fight it out here; they’re coming on again. On guard!”
We swung up our weapons, but before the rush could reach us, there was a crash close at hand; the door through which Anne and her guards had entered the chapel was thrown open, and a big man dashed in, – Loris himself, still in his disguise. So he had reached us at last!
He must have grasped the situation at a glance, for he shouted: “Back; back for your lives! By the other door. We are betrayed; the soldiers are here. They are coming this way. Save yourselves!”
CHAPTER XXI
A FORLORN HOPE
They were a craven crew, – bold enough when arrayed in their numbers against two men and one helpless girl, but terror-stricken at these fresh tidings.
That was my opinion of them at the time, but perhaps it was unjust. Every man who attended that meeting had done so at the deliberate risk of his life and liberty. Most of them had undoubtedly tramped the whole way to the rendezvous, through the storm and swelter of the summer night, and they were fatigued and unstrung. Also, the Russian – and especially the revolutionary Russian – is a queer psychological amalgam. Ordinarily as callous and stoical as a Chinaman in the infliction or endurance of death or torture, he is yet a bundle of high-strung nerves, and at any moment his cool cynicism is liable to give place to sheer hysteria.
Therefore at the warning shout, panic seized them, and they fled, helter-skelter, through the main door. In less than a minute the place was clear of all but ourselves and the dead and wounded on the floor.
Loris slammed the door, barred it, and strode back to us. Pendennis was kneeling beside Anne, calling her by her name, and I leaned against the wall, staring stupidly down at them. I was faint and dizzy all at once, incapable for the moment of either speech or action.