CHAPTER XVI
I GET A BIT OF MY OWN BACK
AT the sight of the man who had used his official power to give me the lie and then have me treated like a felon my rage flashed at once into a flame.
But for that, my astonishment at seeing Volna would have drawn some sign of recognition before my instinctive caution could have prevented it. As it was, however, my gaze fastened on Colonel Bremenhof.
“It’s you, is it?” I said, and I jumped up and stepped toward him.
He retreated, and the two warders interposed quickly and pushed me back. But the incident had served a purpose. It prevented the bully’s noticing Volna’s start of dismay on recognising me.
“That’s right,” I sneered. “Keep your bulldogs about you. It’s not safe to come near me without some one to take care of you.”
His anger and chagrin were intense. I knew afterwards what he had hoped to gain by bringing Volna to my cell; and the failure of the plan galled him.
“This is the fellow, Volna, who was found with your uncle——” he began, when I broke in.
“Have you communicated with my friend General von Eckerstein?”
“Silence, prisoner,” he cried, angrily. “Now, Volna, I want you——”
“Am I a show for all Warsaw to see? I have suffered your brutality——”
“Silence, I say. Disobedient scoundrels get the lash here.”
I sneered and shrugged my shoulders. “You miserable coward; a mere cur in office, barking only when you think it safe.”
This had the infuriating effect I wished. He lost control of himself, and, pushing the two warders aside, he rushed forward with hand raised to strike me.
I let him come quite close, and then hit him full on his insolent mouth, putting all my weight and strength behind the blow. He went down like a ninepin, and so far as he was concerned, the interview was over.
A pretty considerable row followed. The two warders threw themselves on me and shouted lustily for help. Others rushed to the cell in a ferment of excitement and clustered between me and the bully, much as though I were a wild beast. He was carried off, and Volna, in a maze of distress and consternation, was taken away at the same time.
I was now considered to be a desperate and dangerous prisoner. Handcuffs were placed on my wrists and irons on my legs, neither of the operations being gently performed.
But I did not care. I had got back a little of my own from the brute, and they might do what they pleased with me now. What that would be, I was soon to learn.
I was huddled up on my pallet in the exceedingly uncomfortable position which the irons permitted when the governor of the gaol and a couple of other officials entered with some warders.
He read me a short lecture upon the heinousness of my awful offence, told me that men had been killed who had done less, and then announced that my punishment would be the knout. Three hundred lashes to be administered at intervals of a week, a hundred lashes each time.
“I am an Englishman, and claim the right to communicate with the British Consul, and also my friend, General von Eckerstein.”
“You don’t dare to deny that you struck Colonel Bremenhof?”
“My quarrel is personal with him. He sent me here in the first instance without any cause and was going to strike me just now when I hit him.”
“Enough,” was the stern reply. “You have admitted your infamous act. The first portion of your punishment will be administered to-morrow;” and with that he turned on his heel and left me to my own reflections.
They were gloomy enough. I had once seen a man knouted, and had winced as the lash tore the flesh from the poor devil’s back. I would rather have been sentenced to be shot at once; and for a few mad moments I indulged in wild thoughts of self-destruction or of attempting a fierce attack on some one in the prison which would bring a capital sentence.
Sanity returned presently, however, and after a time the extraordinary circumstances of Volna’s visit began to claim my thoughts.
What baffled me as much as anything was that Colonel Bremenhof had addressed her by her Christian name. What could he be to her, or she to him? He had evidently brought her to the prison to identify me; but what could be his motive? Could she have fallen under suspicion? What did he know, and how had he guessed that she and I had been together? Had she been confronted with the police agent of the Devil’s Staircase incident? Was she to be charged? That did not seem possible in view of the fact that she was apparently free and he had spoken to her as to a friend.
I raked my wits over and over again in repeated attempts to answer these questions, only to give up the puzzle as hopeless.
No one came near me again all that afternoon and evening, and as the hours passed, the thought of what was in store for me on the morrow became more and more oppressive. And when, at length, I heard the warders going their night rounds, I am free to confess I was very close to despair.
I dreaded the lash as fully as any poor devil who was ever sentenced to it deservedly; and I found myself speculating, with a coward’s fear, upon the gruesome ordeal.
I could not sleep for the shuddering horror of the thing. In vain I told myself that men had gone through it before, and that what they had endured, I could probably endure. There was no consolation in that. The one thought that did afford me a gleam of grim comfort was that if I did get through it and was ever free, Colonel Bremenhof should taste something of the horrors he had caused me to endure before I would call my account with him square.
There was a great deal of the brute in me in those lingering hours of despair.
I was still in this mood of self-torturing apprehension, trying vainly to get to sleep and shake off the horrors of it when my cell door was opened and two warders entered. By the lantern which one carried I saw two other figures in the gloom beyond, and I jumped to the conclusion that the time for my knouting had been put forward.
“This is the prisoner.” I recognized the governor’s voice.
The warder’s lantern flashed to my face, and out of the gloom came a sonorous “Good God!” Then some one rushed forward and took my hands. “My dear boy, what in the name of heaven and earth does all this mean?”
It was my old friend, General von Eckerstein; and as I felt the grasp of his hands I closed my eyes with a deep, deep sigh of intense thankfulness.
“There has been a bad mistake, that’s all,” I said, scarcely knowing what I said or did for the moment. The sense of relief was so intense as to be almost overpowering. I found myself laughing fatuously.
“This is your friend, General?” asked the governor.
“Why, of course it is. It’s the most extraordinary thing in the world. Why on earth didn’t you send for me before?”
“I tried to, but—I had better explain everything.”
“He has proved himself a very dangerous and desperate man, General,” said the governor. “Will you answer for him?”
“Answer for him? Yes; with my life, man. Can you let me see him privately? I’m lost in amazement.”
“Take off his irons,” ordered the governor.
“Fettered, too. Heavens! what would your father have said?”
The irons were taken off and I was allowed to go with the General to one of the governor’s rooms where we were left alone. This gave me time to regain my self-control.
“Now perhaps you’ll tell me all about it,” said my friend.
“Two things first. Give me a cigar, and tell me how you have come from Petersburg just in the nick of time.”
“From Petersburg? I have not come from Petersburg; I am in Warsaw for a time. But what do you mean? You knew that when you sent me this.”
He handed me a letter as follows:
“DEAR OLD FRIEND,—
“Come to me at once to the Kreuzstadt fortress. I am a prisoner. For God’s sake.
“ROBERT ANSTRUTHER.”
“I cannot write this myself, but do not fail me.”
His shrewd eyes were fixed upon me as I looked up. “Umph! Who’s the woman?” he asked. I hesitated and smiled as I laid the letter down, and, to fill the pause, lighted my cigar. “Don’t,” he jerked. I started; for the warning came so pat on my thoughts of the best tale to make.
I looked across and met his keen, penetrating gaze.
“Young Bob Anstruther, if you try and lie to me I’ll throw up the whole thing. Trust me with the truth, and I’ll do for you what your father’s friend should.”
“The secret is not mine and——”
“Devil take the boy,” he burst in vehemently. “Don’t I love John Anstruther’s son like my own child, or do you think an old diplomat gabs and blabs like a washerwoman? Confound you, do you want to make me give you my word of honour, you young idiot?”
I hesitated no longer, but told him the whole story from the meeting with Volna at Bratinsk railway station down to that moment, omitting only the part which referred to Father Ambrose and the Fraternity signals.
“The portion I don’t tell you doesn’t affect my case, General; and I am under my pledged word not to reveal it.”
“You’ve told me about enough,” he retorted grimly; and for a while we sat and smoked and looked at one another in silence.
Presently, with a short laugh, he took his cigar from his lips. “You’re a hot-headed young fool, Bob, just that and nothing more. But”—he paused, brushed back his grey hair, sighed, and then smiled—“I suppose at your age I should have done pretty much the same, and I’m cock-sure your father would.”
“I’ll take my gruelling, sir, if it comes to it.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, boy. Do you think I’ll let ’em touch you? But we must move very warily. Will you apologize to Colonel Bremenhof?”
“I’ll see him hanged first,” I cried.
He grinned and nodded. “You mean to make it as stiff for me as you can. That’s always the way with young folk.”
“Would you have me apologize to him?”
His face stiffened and his eyelids came together till they were mere slits through which his pupils gleamed. “I’m glad you hit him; although that blow is just the toughest nut to crack. But we must get to work. Thank Heaven, he put himself in the wrong as usual.”
He rang the bell and sent for the governor. His manner became suddenly as stern as with me it had been kind.
“There has been a very serious miscarriage of justice here, Major Pruladoff. This is Mr. Robert Anstruther, the son of a man who was the intimate friend of half the Berlin Court and trusted by the Emperor. His imprisonment is nothing short of an outrage, and what makes it really serious is that his demand, made as his right, to see the British Consul and to communicate with me, was refused.”
“I know nothing of that, of course, General. He was brought here on the order of Colonel Bremenhof.”
“Oblige me by calling him up on the telephone, and let me speak with him.”
Some minutes passed before the governor announced that the Colonel was waiting. My old friend went to the instrument.
“Is that Colonel Bremenhof? This is General von Eckerstein. I wish to know why, when the young Englishman, Robert Anstruther, was brought before you, you refused to allow him to communicate with the British Consul and with me, his friend? What’s that? That does not answer my question. By what right did you refuse? What’s that? I can’t hear you. Oh, your mouth is swollen and you can only speak with difficulty?”
This was for my benefit, I knew, and I would have smiled if Major Pruladoff hadn’t been frowning grimly at me.
“You can give me a direct answer all the same,” continued the General at the instrument. There was a pause, filled by the insistent buzz of the voice replying. “That is no reason. You know that, sir. What? Well, you can’t treat Englishmen like that. It will be my countryman’s turn next. But you had his papers. Very well, then, I am going now to the governor. Yes, of course I will, as for my own countryman, as my own son, in fact. Nonsense. What your men thought doesn’t touch the point of your refusal. You know that. Well, if you don’t think the thing had better be hushed up, there’s an end of it. Mr. Anstruther will communicate with the Consul here and wire to the Ambassador at Petersburg. What do you mean? Do you dare to try and make me a party to your illegal act? Then you shouldn’t suggest it. Certainly. If you don’t send down an order for his release I shall not exert any further influence to restrain Mr. Anstruther from using his unquestionable rights, and shall myself wire to the Minister of the Interior. An hour. No, sir, not five minutes. At once!” and the General hung up the receiver.
The telephone bell rang furiously.
“Just write a short note to Mr. Hardy, the Consul, Robert, and I’ll take it to him myself. He will at once communicate with Petersburg and in the meantime I’ll wire to the Minister. You’ll permit the letter to be written, Major?”
The bell was going all the time.
“I am in a difficult position, General,” replied the governor. “That is probably Colonel Bremenhof. Won’t you answer?”
“Certainly not. You’d better ask him if he persists in his refusal; and you may add it doesn’t matter, because I shall see Mr. Hardy.”
“The Colonel wishes to speak to you again, General,” said the Major from the instrument.
“I have no more time to waste over the telephone;” and my friend put on his overcoat. “You must go back to your cell, Robert; but Mr. Hardy is a prompt man, and before morning we shall have word of some kind from Petersburg. Good-night, boy;” and as he shook my hand he winked.
“General von Eckerstein is going, Colonel,” said the governor through the telephone. “The Colonel wishes to know where you are going, General.”
“Tell him to mind to his own business and I’ll mind mine,” was the angry reply, and it was repeated over the wire.
The General walked to the door and opened it.
“The Colonel urgently begs you to speak with him, General.”
“Am I to wait for that letter to be written or not, sir?” His face might have been a stone mask in its sternness.
“Please wait a moment, General. As a personal favour to me. I really don’t know what to do.”
“I have no more time to waste, I say. I demand a reply now.”
“Mr. Anstruther, will you ask the General? It may be of the highest moment to you.”
A very different sort of governor this from the one who had lectured me so sternly in my cell, and then glibly sentenced me to the knout.
“No. I have been treated too infamously. I prefer to put the matter in the hands of the British authorities,” I answered. “All Europe shall know how foreigners are treated in Warsaw.”
A glance from the General approved my reply.
“You can write to your Consul, then.” We both understood that this was merely intended to gain delay, and we wasted some time in pretended difficulty about phrasing the letter, while a conversation continued over the wire which clearly showed the man at the other end was in trouble.
“That’s enough, Bob,” said the General presently. “You can tell him all when he comes.”
“Thank Heaven,” breathed the governor with a sigh of relief as the receiver was hung up again. “One moment, General. The Colonel is sending an order for Mr. Anstruther’s release upon your giving me your assurance to be responsible for him.”
“Just in time,” exclaimed my old friend, curtly and ungraciously, as he tore up the paper, on which, by-the-bye, I had not written a line. “And about that infernal knouting?”
“The affair is now out of my hands;” and the governor gave another sigh of relief.
Half an hour later the order arrived, and we left the prison together.