VOLNA appealed to me. “What shall I do?”
“Let us get away if we can,” I said.
“Come then. We can leave the house by the garden. But suppose they do not seek me?”
“We can’t risk waiting to find out If not, your maid can call to us.”
We hurried to the door leading to the garden, and as we closed it the servant admitted the police at the front.
It was quite dusk and the heavy snow covered the sound of our footsteps as we hurried through the shrubbery to a small door in the high wall which bounded the garden at the end.
As we paused a few seconds on the chance of the servant recalling us, I whispered a warning to Volna. “There may be some one posted on the outside. Let me open it.”
She gave me the key and I turned it as softly as the stiff lock would permit. I was opening the door gently when it was pushed quickly, and a man entered and seized Volna by the arm.
“We thought you might——”
Before he could finish the sentence I grabbed him by the throat. Fortunately for us he was a small man and like a child in my hands. I gave him a pretty rough shaking and then pitched him backwards into the middle of a wide laurel bush where he lay kicking helplessly, struggling to extricate himself, and gasping for breath to call for help.
Before he succeeded in getting out his first loud cry we were out of the garden, had locked the door upon him, and turned the first corner. We had to run for it, and by good luck there was no one about to notice us in the first two or three streets.
When we reached the main thoroughfare we slackened our pace to a quick walk until we got a sleigh which carried us out of the chance of immediate pursuit.
“Almost like a moment of Bratinsk,” said Volna.
“I wish we were there, or anywhere out of the city. We’ll change sleighs in a minute.” I stopped the sleigh soon afterwards at the door of an hotel, and held the porter in talk while the driver whipped up and left. Then we hurried away in the opposite direction.
“Now where are we going?” asked Volna.
“An old nurse of mine lives in the Place of St. John, No. 17; I shall be safe there until we decide what to do.”
“Is it far?”
“Not too far to walk if you think that safer.”
“I do, because a sleigh driver can always be found and questioned.”
During the walk, evidence of the popular unrest was to be seen on all sides.
“The city is not like itself,” said Volna, as we crossed the great Square of St. Paul. The place was half filled with groups of workmen engaged in sullen discussion, while numbers of police stood at hand watching. “Sunday evening usually finds every one holiday making.”
We paused a moment near one or two of the groups. Everywhere the subject of talk was the same—the massacre at St. Petersburg.
Whenever we paused near any group I noticed one or two men leave it, saunter up to us and scrutinize us curiously. Whether they were police or workmen it was impossible to say.
“You are interested in these matters, friend?” asked one of them.
“All are interested,” I answered.
“You were listening?” he returned suspiciously.
“Yes, I was listening.”
“There are only two kinds of listeners in Warsaw, sympathizers and spies. Those who sympathize draw close; those who spy had better move away.”
“I am a foreigner.”
“There are spies of all nationalities.”
“I am no spy, but I’ll take your advice;” and we moved on.
Almost every street corner had its cluster of men, and always the talk was the same. If the workmen of St. Petersburg were massacred, what could those of Warsaw expect? Were they to go on suffering like sheep? Which was the better, to be slaves for the master’s gain, or to be men and resist?
Two or three times the anger of the strikers took violent form. Men were caught making notes of the names of the talkers, the cry of “spy” was raised, and in a moment fifty hands were outstretched, fifty oaths leapt from wrathful lips, and the victims were hustled, battered, kicked, and sent sprawling into the gutters.
“And Ladislas believed there would be no violence,” I said to Volna as we hurried on after one of these episodes.
“Poor Ladislas! But I am frightened for what will happen to-morrow. I have never seen this temper among the people before. How will it affect my mother’s case? If there should be any popular outbreak, the difficulty of helping her will be infinitely increased. The friends on whom we could rely at any other time will then be helpless. They are all Poles.”
“There is another way to look at it. Bremenhof’s powers will be much greater and he can more safely hold back the evidence against your mother which you said he had. Is he really such a brute?”
“He boasted to me one day, when my mother and I were at his house, that he had it in a private safe, and that it rested with me whether it should ever leave there.”
“Umph! A courteous gentleman. Will he use it now?”
“If I know him, he will not until he has given up every hope of carrying his purpose with me.”
“Even after your splendid defiance of him to-day?”
She smiled. “He has that quality which so often wins—patience. I believe he suspected from the first what the object of the betrothal was, and just set himself to rivet the chain until I should not dare to break it. While I was away he threatened my mother that if I did not return at once, her arrest would be used to force me back.”
“Well, look at it as we will, he has us tied up in a tangle bad enough to satisfy even him.”
“It is not so bad as if his men had caught me just now. He would have been much nearer his end. So long as I am free, I can fight him; but he knows what his power would be if he had both mother and me in his hands.”
It was in truth a devil of a tangle. With Madame Drakona in prison, Bremenhof had his hand on the lever which controlled everything; and to get her out seemed hopeless.
“This is the Place of St. John,” said Volna, presently. “That is the house, No. 17, across there. I will leave you here. What will you do?”
“I shall go to Ladislas and let him know what has occurred.”
“Poor Ladislas! What do you think he can do? You will find him with his hands full of more serious matters than even my troubles.”
“Nothing could be more serious in his eyes,” I said. “And you, what will you do?”
“Wait until to-morrow, that is all.” She spoke with a rather weary smile.
“That is not the courage that defied Bremenhof. The people may win in the impending struggle, and then everything will be changed.”
“They may,” she agreed, but with no hope in her voice.
“You don’t believe it?”
“There is always hope.”
“We may find another way. Nothing is impossible for such courage as you have shewn.”
“There is always one way open to me in the last resort.”
“You mean?”
She looked up steadily. “What should I mean but surrender?”
“Not that, for God’s sake,” I cried impetuously.
“Don’t think me a coward for naming it. It would take all the courage you think I have. But he knows how I love my mother, and that it would kill her to remain in prison. To-morrow she must be freed at any cost.”
“No, no, don’t think of that. Think of your own brave words in defying him.”
She smiled again. “That is just it. Brave words, nothing else. He knows they were but words.”
“I’ll find some other way. You’ll think differently to-morrow.”
She paused and then gave me her hand. “I’ll try. If any one can give me confidence you can.”
“How shall I see you to-morrow? Is there any risk in my coming to the house?”
“It will be better not. One never knows. I will be in the Square of St. Paul—where the strikers’ meetings were—at eleven o’clock. But, remember, my mother must be freed to-morrow at any cost.”
“Then I know what I have to do,” I answered, confidently, “and I repeat, I’ll do it somehow.”
As I turned away, having watched her enter the house she had indicated, I could not resist applying the phrase—“brave words, nothing else”—to my own resolve to find some means of bringing Bremenhof to terms. I could see no way to make it good, to make it more than mere words intended to encourage her. It looked a sheer impossibility.
Short of calling the man and shooting him for the old insult to me or forcing a fresh quarrel upon him, there was nothing I could do, and the utter futility of any such crude plan was too patent to do more than increase my impotent anger.
I was hurrying to Ladislas’ house when I remembered that I had had no food for some hours and had nowhere to sleep. So I went to the big hotel, the Vladimir, and had dinner and engaged a room, lest Ladislas should deem it imprudent for me to stay with him.
As I sat over my dinner brooding, it appeared to me that the only hope for Volna lay in the success of the popular movement; and after dinner I lingered some time in the streets, intensely interested in the progress of affairs.
The excitement and general unrest were certainly increasing fast, and the temper of the people was rising. The groups of strikers were growing larger. In some places crowds had gathered, and were openly cheering speakers who no longer took pains to lower their voices. In many places the agents of the Fraternity were busily distributing leaflets embodying the workers’ demands. There were many proofs of this growing confidence.
More than once the police and the people came into open conflict; and each time the police were worsted, to the great delight and manifest encouragement of the crowd. Then, as men moved from one spot to another, the idea of a procession was generated; bands were formed and united, and began to parade the streets. And in all places at all times men appeared ready primed to take the lead, all acting together as though the whole work had been carefully prepared and rehearsed.
A blind man could have seen that grave trouble was in the making, and I saw abundant proof that, although such leaders as my friend might counsel peaceful methods, the populace were in that ugly mood which would lead them to laugh at peaceful counsels and to rely on force and violence.
It was a night of such crisis for the city that I was surprised to find the authorities apparently heedless of the rapidly growing peril.
At Ladislas’ house, however, I had a glimpse of their plans. There were lights in some of the windows and everything was apparently as usual. A servant admitted me and when I asked for my friend, he ushered me into the library, saying his master would come to me directly.
Instead of Ladislas, however, a stranger came—a young man, well-dressed, courteous, and politely insinuating.
“The leaders of the Fraternity are now in conference and the Count cannot leave them for the moment. Will you join them or can I carry any message?”
He referred to the Fraternity with a sort of secretive suggestiveness; but it nevertheless surprised me that the subject should be mentioned so openly.
“I can wait,” I said. “I merely wish to see him privately.”
“Let me carry a message. He may be some time. On such a night as this the meeting must necessarily be lengthy. I am in his confidence, his private secretary, in fact,” he added, when I made no reply. “And of course, in full sympathy with him in all.”
“I didn’t know he had a secretary, but you will probably know my name, Robert Anstruther.”
“Oh, are you Mr. Anstruther? Yes, indeed. I am glad to meet you, if you will allow me to say so. You have probably come to see him about——?” He paused as if inviting me to finish the sentence.
“Well?”
He laughed pleasantly. “You will think it very stupid of me, but in the multiplicity of things which in this crisis in the city have crowded upon me, I have lost the clue. Let me think;” and he put his hand to his forehead as if in perplexity.
He was evidently a very sharp, clever fellow, but it struck me that his sudden forgetfulness was a little overacted.
“I am not surprised you can’t remember it,” I said with a smile intended to be as frank and pleasant as his.
A quick glance from his keen eyes, not intended for me to notice, put me further upon my guard. “That is very good of you. But I take it what you have to say is for the Count’s own ears?”
I looked steadily at him a moment. “I am thinking where I have seen you before,” I said, preparing to make a shot.
“I have not had the pleasure, I am sure,” he replied, with another smile; deprecating this time. He had as many different smiles as a woman. “I do not forget faces and should instantly recognize such a friend of the Count as Mr. Anstruther, if we had met before.”
“I have it,” I exclaimed, banging my hand on the table. “You were in the Police Headquarters when I was arrested and taken there from Solden.”
It was a good guess, and his surprise unmasked him for an instant. “What do you mean, sir?”
“That you are an agent of the Department. Your people arrested me as a conspirator and imprisoned me until my friend, General von Eckerstein, explained the mistake. Count Ladislas Tuleski and I are old friends, and as the General has advised me to leave Warsaw, I did not wish to go away without bidding my friend good-bye. But I suppose you have raided the house, and made it a trap for any one you think you should suspect. Not a nice trick perhaps, but then our English methods differ from yours. Now, how do I stand? Do you wish to repeat the farce of arresting me?”
In view of the ugly incident with the police agent when helping Volna to escape, I was a great deal more anxious about his reply than my easy smile may have led him to believe.