THE meeting with the troops proved to be an invaluable incident.
There had been a tense moment when the question whether Bremenhof would attempt treachery still hung in the balance. A moment more thrilling than any I had ever known in my life.
With his lame and craven submission, however, a change seemed to come in everything. That I could compel him to cross the city in broad daylight when hundreds of his police and soldiers were swarming everywhere, and so frighten him as to prevent him raising an alarm, had seemed in anticipation little more than the merest forlorn hope.
But when at the first test he had yielded abjectly, my confidence was so strengthened and my domination over him so confirmed, that the thing became almost simple and commonplace.
We met other bodies of police and military as we dashed over the snow to the merry peal of our sleigh bells, but not once was there even the threat of trouble.
It was rather as though we were making a tour of inspection together, jointly interested in the police and military preparations for coping with the excited populace.
We passed many evidences of the popular unrest. But Ladislas had apparently given the driver very shrewd instructions as to his route, for not once did we drive through a street where any actual disturbance was in progress.
More than once we saw conflicts going on between the troops or police and the mob. But always from a safe distance. More than once, too, we passed where trouble had broken out. Wrecked houses and workshops told of the anger of the people, and grim patches of bloodstained snow testified that the troops were not in the city for nothing.
Here and there we passed strikers whose limping walk, bandaged limbs, or bleeding faces bore evidence of recent fighting; and we drove rapidly past more than one small group gathered pale-faced and sorrowful about a figure stretched at length on the snow. These things told their own tale.
Twice Bremenhof was recognized, and howls and shouts and bitter curses were hurled at us. Once we were followed, stones were thrown, and even a couple of shots fired after us; but the swiftness of our horses quickly carried us out of danger.
I could not help speculating what the crowd would have said and done had they known the mission on which we were bent, and the grim cause which had brought us two together upon that strange ride.
We reached his house in safety, and as the driver reined up his panting horses I braced myself for the final trial of nerves.
“Remember my oath,” I whispered, as together we mounted the steps side by side. My fear was that as soon as he found himself once more in the midst of his men, his courage would return sufficiently for him to at least put up some show of fight.
Had he done so, he must have beaten me. Despite my oath and all my fiercely spoken threats, I had no intention of shooting him. It was all just bluff on my part; but I had acted well enough to prevent his having any suspicion of this. He was convinced that I was in grim, deadly earnest, and that his life hung on a thread, and he was poltroon enough to buy it at any cost.
The proceedings in the house were very brief.
He went straight to the library and sent the man on guard out of the room. He was as anxious to be relieved from the menacing barrel of my revolver as I was to get the papers and be off.
In silence he opened the safe and after a hurried search found the papers and offered them to me. They made a somewhat bulky package.
“Shew me,” I said.
He opened the package and held each while I ran my eye over it; and then folded them together in the portfolio and handed it to me.
“One thing more. A written authority from you to me in open terms. Just write ‘The bearer is acting by my authority,’ signed and sealed officially.”
Without hesitation he obeyed and wrote what I wanted.
“You will accompany me to the sleigh,” I said, as I pocketed the paper.
We left the room together arm in arm just as we had entered it, passed the men in the hall and down the steps to the sleigh.
Then I saw trouble.
Some distance up the street a patrol of mounted police was riding toward us at the walk, and in an instant I perceived the danger this spelt for me.
So did Bremenhof. The sight seemed to rouse his long dormant courage. He pushed me away from him, jumped back, and called in a loud ringing tone for help.
The police came running out from his house, the patrol pricked up their horses; and as I sprang into the sleigh, the street seemed suddenly alive with men.
My driver knew his business, however. The horses he had were spirited and full of blood, and in a moment we were rattling along at full speed, the bells ringing and jingling furiously, the driver shouting lusty warnings, and the sleigh jumping and jolting so that I had to grip tight to save myself from being thrown out.
The patrol pulled up to speak with Bremenhof, and, as we dashed round a corner, I saw him mount one of the horses and come clattering after us, leading the rest in hot pursuit.
But we had a good start by that time, and my driver, guiding his team with rare skill and judgment, made a dozen quick turns through short streets. This prevented our pursuers from spurring their animals to the gallop, kept them in doubt as to the direction we had taken, and thus minimized their advantage of saddle over harness.
To that manœuvre was due our success in evading immediate capture.
Doubtful of ultimate success in such a chase, however, I proposed to the driver to pull up and let me get away on foot.
“The Count is close here,” he replied, to my great surprise; and after we had raced along in this fashion for some ten minutes, I saw Volna and Ladislas waiting at a corner. The driver pulled up, and they jumped in.
“Sergius was to look for us here,” said Ladislas, in explanation. “What has happened?”
I told him briefly as we continued the flight.
“We shall get away,” he said confidently. “Sergius knows his work. He has not his equal in Warsaw,” and it looked at that moment as though his confidence was well grounded.
Volna was very calm, but the glances she kept casting behind bore witness to her anxiety.
“I hope you are right,” I replied to Ladislas; “but you should not have come.”
“Were we likely to desert you, Mr. Anstruther?” asked Volna.
“You could do no good, and the risk is too great.”
“We had to know what happened to you. I could not rest.”
I understood then the meaning of her former words. It was never too late for her last desperate sacrifice should our plan go wrong. “The risk is too serious,” I repeated.
It was churlish to reproach them for an act which sprang from a chivalrous regard for my safety; but they had made a grave mistake. They had rendered my escape much more difficult.
Had I been alone I could have left the sleigh and made off on foot. The crowd in some of the streets was thick enough for me to have lost myself among them and so to have got away unnoticed. But with three of us together the case was different. There was nothing for it but to remain in the sleigh and trust to the driver’s skill to save us.
Presently the good fortune which had befriended me changed. Turning into one of the side streets we found the roadway partially blocked by some heavy drays. We had to pull up, and moments, precious to us beyond count, were lost as we waited for room to be made for us to squeeze through.
The street was a long one without a turning, and before we reached the end of it, Volna, who was looking back, gave a cry of dismay.
“They are in sight,” she said; and we saw Bremenhof and three or four men spurring after us at full speed.
Ladislas called to Sergius, who lashed his horses and redoubled his efforts to make up some of the time we had lost.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To Madame Drakona. Three miles out on the Smolna road.”
Sergius began his tactics of sharp turns again, swinging round corner after corner at a reckless speed. But beyond proving his great skill as a daring whip, he did little good.
Bremenhof began to gain fast upon us, and at length came within pistol range.
He called to us to surrender, and when we paid no heed, his men fired at us. Volna winced and shrank at the shots; but we were not hit and held on grimly.
It could not last much longer, however; and just when things were looking bad enough from behind, a big dray heavily laden came lumbering toward us, blocking the whole street.
“We must give it up,” said Ladislas.
But Sergius saw a desperate chance and took it. The heavy vehicle was making for a narrow side street. To wait until it had turned would have brought Bremenhof upon us, and the leading horses of the waggon were actually turning into the side street when Sergius, with wonderful skill, and at the risk of all our lives, swung round into the opening. Our horses and sleigh cannoned against the leaders, the sleigh gave a dangerous lurch, was thrown on to the one roller, all but toppled over, and then righted. It was touch and go; but the luck was ours, and on we went.
We even gained a little by the mishap, for our pursuers being unable to check their horses in time, were carried past the street opening, while the heavy dray blocked the road and delayed them.
But the advantage was too slight to hold out hope of escape.
“We must leave the sleigh and take our chance on foot,” I said.
Ladislas called an order to the driver, and when we had traversed half the length of the street and Bremenhof and his men had just passed the dray, Sergius pulled his animals on to their haunches at the mouth of an alley, waited while we jumped to the ground, and then dashed away again at the same reckless speed.
“We can get through here to the street of St. Gregory, and may find shelter,” said Ladislas, leading the way through the alley in a last desperate dash for freedom.
Then again fortune did us an ill turn. Half way through the place Volna caught her foot and fell. She was up again in a moment, but limped badly. She had twisted her ankle in the fall.
Ladislas and I put each an arm under hers, and in this way made such haste as we could.
But the delay served to bring our pursuers close upon us; and they came running at top speed after us, making three yards to our one.
Again capture seemed inevitable. Then recalling the incident of earlier in the day at the house in the Place of St. John, I repeated it.
I fired my revolver in the air. “The police! The police!” I shouted. “A rescue! A rescue!”
It served us in good stead. The noise brought men and women rushing in alarm and curiosity from the houses on both sides of the alley, while many others ran in from the street beyond. Seeing our plight they cheered us and swarmed between Bremenhof’s party and us, blocking and hampering them so that we reached the end in safety.
The outlet to the alley was a narrow archway. Room was made for us to pass, and we gained the street while our pursuers were struggling and fighting to force their way through after us.
But again the respite seemed only to mock us.
We ran out only to find ourselves on the skirts of an ugly tumult. A short distance to our left down the street of St. Gregory, a fight was in progress between a considerable body of police and a crowd of strikers, and just as we emerged from the alley the police were getting the upper hand and the strikers were beginning to waver.
Some one raised the cry that a large body of police were coming through the alley, and the crowd, afraid of being caught between two fires, gave way and came streaming toward us followed by the police.
At that juncture Bremenhof and his men succeeded in reaching the street and joined the other police in a vigorous attack upon the crowd.
The situation was again critically perilous for us.