CHAPTER XVII
“DO YOU LOVE VOLNA DRAKONA?”
THE next day I did nothing except fit myself out with some new clothes, and speculate about my future course.
I could not decide anything until I saw the General; and before I rose he had gone out and had left word for me to wait in the house for him.
After the harrassing uncertainty of my spell in prison, the scene with Bremenhof on the previous day, and the disturbing ordeal of the crisis it had produced, the mere rest and sense of security were indescribably welcome.
I had plenty to think about, of course, but it was more like floundering speculation than consecutive thought. How Volna had returned to Warsaw? What was behind her visit to the prison? What the connection was between her and Colonel Bremenhof? What his motive could be in bringing her to the prison? Whether she had fallen under suspicion? How was I to set about ascertaining the truth? How to find means of seeing her again? With no facts to guide me, I could not answer the puzzling questions which suggested themselves thus readily.
“I have settled your matter,” said the General when we were closeted together in the evening. “Here are your papers, passport, and letter of credit; and I have succeeded in making Colonel Bremenhof understand that the affair with him had better be regarded as a personal quarrel. I have pledged my word for you—that you are no more a revolutionary than I am; that in anything you may have done, you were just a tool in others’ hands.”
“That’s rather rough on the ‘others,’” I protested.
“There will be an opportunity given to you, the day after to-morrow, to say all you know about the partner of your flight from Bratinsk.”
“It will be devilish awkward,” I murmured.
“Better than three hundred lashes, isn’t it?” he returned drily. “But you don’t see the point. The day after to-morrow.”
“One day is just as awkward as another.”
“You’re not as sharp as your father, Bob.”
“Sons never are,” I agreed, with a grin.
“He’d have known what to do with a day and a half’s grace, and a passport put back in his hands.”
“Oh! You mean I should bolt?”
“Are you going to make an egregious young ass of yourself again?”
“It looks like it to you, no doubt,” I said, a little sheepishly.
“Umph. There’s a train west at midnight.”
There was a long pause. “Do you think my father would have bolted?” I asked.
He pursed his lips and frowned. “Is she so much to you?”
“She is the one woman in the world to me.”
He appeared to expect the answer and yet to regret it. “Then, of course, you’ll stay. You see what it means?”
“I don’t care what it means.”
“I’ve got you out of this mess, but if you give Bremenhof another chance against you, you’ll have to shift for yourself. I shall be powerless to help you. I can’t tell you official secrets, but I may warn you that we are face to face with events the results of which no man can foresee. It may spell revolution and bloodshed; and to be even a suspect then will be full of hazard and peril.”
“The more reason for me to stop.”
“Bremenhof has already great power, and if a crisis comes, he will have a free hand. He hates you,—not only for what you have done to him, but for another reason. Volna Drakona is betrothed to him.”
“To that brutal bully? I can’t believe it.”
“I know what I say. If he gets half a chance at you, you’ll feel his hand. Take my advice and go.” He was very earnest.
“Not for fifty infernal Bremenhofs,” I cried passionately.
He flung the end of his cigar away and rose. “That’s your last word? It may prove a serious mistake for the girl’s sake.”
“My last word—absolutely.”
A half-quizzical smile relieved the earnestness of his look for a moment. “I believe you’ll make an awful mess of things, Bob; but it’s glorious to be young. If I can help you, I will; but——” a shrug of the shoulders and a toss of the hands finished the sentence, as he turned away to his desk.
I bade him good-night a few minutes later and thanked him again for his help.
“Sleep over it all; perhaps it will look different in the morning and you may be able to see how your staying can help the girl. I can’t.” Then with the same kindly, half-quizzical smile he added: “But then I’m only a thin-blooded old cynic and you’re a pulseful young fellow in love. A tremendous difference, Bob. Eh? Tremendous.”
Sleep over it I did not, at least for some hours; but worry over it I did certainly, tossing and turning restlessly until near the dawn; striving to understand this new complication of Volna’s betrothal to Bremenhof.
If he knew or suspected that I had helped her at Bratinsk, I could understand his treatment of me. A beast by nature and a bully by official opportunity, if his jealousy had been roused it was quite likely to render him the brute he had shewn himself to me. It would explain his having brought her to my cell. He had probably wished to confirm or dissipate his suspicion that Volna had been my companion in the flight. Yet he could have done that in a moment by confronting her with either of the police agents. Why had he not done that?
Puzzling over this question I stumbled on what might possibly be the key. He might wish for private reasons to convince himself and yet be unwilling to do this officially. If the police agents recognised her, he might be unable to shield her from the consequences of her act.
This gave me another idea. If he was afraid to have Volna publicly and officially identified, I saw how to bluff him. I could demand to have my examination a strictly official one; and so outplay him.
His object was now to frighten me away from Warsaw by threatening to have me examined as to my part; but if I could convince him that I meant that examination to end in the public identification of Volna, he would be as loath to hold it as I was to face it.
But I must first satisfy myself of the facts behind this betrothal. I recalled her reference to an entanglement; but I laughed at the notion that she cared for him. Yet how could I get at the truth?
This question was still unsettled when I rose the next morning; and then Fortune did me a good turn and put the answer in my reach.
The General looked a little troubled when he met me. “I have had a telephone message about you, Bob. From Count Ladislas Tuleski.”
I beamed. He was the very man to tell me all I wished to know. “He’s one of my best friends, General. He saved my life a couple of years ago in the Alps at the risk of his own. It’s a stroke of luck if he’s in the city.”
“There are two kinds of luck, so that may be true. He had heard you were here and wants to see you.”
“Not half so badly as I want to see him.”
“You know he is one of the Fraternity leaders?”
“He’s the gentlest soul in the world and wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“If you go to his house under the circumstances, it will be looked upon as suspicious; to-day of all days in the year. I warn you.”
“Why to-day?”
“I forgot you had been in prison for nearly a week and don’t know the news. Every eye in Russia to-day is waiting on events in Petersburg. The strikers are going to the Winter Palace to petition the Czar, and if bloodshed follows, as seems inevitable, it may spread over the whole Empire.”
“What has that to do with my seeing my friend?”
“You are playing with words, boy,” he answered sternly. “He is a leader of this movement; you are half suspect now; and if the trouble we fear comes, you will give Bremenhof the chance he seeks against you.”
“I am not afraid of Colonel Bremenhof. I have some questions to ask Ladislas that cannot wait.”
“I can only warn you, of course, but if you were my son, I declare to God I’d put you under lock and key to stop this madness,” he burst out almost fiercely.
His vehemence seemed to me quite unwarranted and all out of perspective. “I shall come to no harm, sir.”
“You don’t see what you are doing, boy. It is madness—nothing short of it. Remember my warning when the trouble comes, as it certainly will,” and he turned away.
“I am sorry to anger you, sir; but I fear I haven’t made you understand all that this means to me. I value your friendship and, believe me, I would take your advice now if I could. But all I care about in the world is concerned in this, and I must find out the truth.”
He turned, paused, appeared to hesitate, and then shook his head. “No, I will be no party to foolishness of this kind. I must not. You are taking a risk you don’t or won’t understand;” and he left me.
I knew that real solicitude for me was at the bottom of my old friend’s anger and I was genuinely sorry for the misunderstanding which had arisen; but I could not listen to his counsel. Find out the truth about Volna’s betrothal I must and would; and short of going to Volna herself for it—an obviously impossible course—to see Ladislas was the only thing to do.
As I hastened to his house I perceived one thing, however. I could no longer remain under the General’s roof. That might compromise him: and I resolved to write him from Ladislas’ house that I should not return.
I found my friend in a condition of excitement unusual even with him. He was always impulsive and a slave to the mood of the moment, and I had long ceased to be surprised by his neurotic impetuosity and feverish unrest. It was this very self-regardless impetuosity, indeed, which had led him to offer his life for mine when he had dashed to my rescue in the mountaineering incident which had bound us together in bonds of close and affectionate friendship.
“I had no idea you were in Warsaw, Ladislas,” I said, as I gripped his hand, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.”
He held my hand and wheeled me round to the light as he stared into my eyes. “Let me look at you. Do you come as a friend?”
I should have smiled, but for his careworn, harrassed, eager expression as he put the strange question. “I hope I shall never come to you as anything but a friend.”
His black eyes shone for the second he continued to stare at me. Then he dropped my hand, and exclaimed. “My God, I hope so. My God, I hope so; but there are things which turn even friends into enemies;” and he sighed as he thrust his fingers through his hair—he had the head of a poet or musician and wore his fair hair quite long—and began to pace up and down the room. It was difficult for him to keep still at any time; and in moments of unusual excitement he was as volatile as quicksilver.
“It will have to be something serious to turn us into enemies, Ladislas,” I replied. “But tell me what it is you think might do it. I shan’t shirk a test, I promise you.”
“Ah, you know there is something, then, Robert,” he cried, wheeling round abruptly and with quite a suggestion of fierceness. He was the only intimate I had who refused to call me Bob. He considered it undignified, he had once said.
“I only know that you sent for me, my dear fellow, and I can see for myself that you are upset. Tell me.”
He started on his walk again and in the pause I lighted a cigar. Five or six times he crossed and recrossed the room, his hands in his hair, in his pockets, and tugging at the lapels of his coat in turn. Then he came and stood over me and fixed his great eyes on mine.
“Do you love Volna Drakona? Answer me; on your solemn word of honour, for the love of God.”