MICHAEL KIRSAKOFF was seated at a table writing a letter by the light of a candle when Wassili knocked at the door of his room. The old general’s eyes lifted to the door and made a pair of gleaming points against the gloom behind him. The broad gold straps on the shoulders of his uniform jacket set off his white old head so that it appeared to be resting on a golden tray which threw out a quivering sheen of yellow light with the trembling of his shoulders. His thin white hand dropped the pen. He motioned to Katerin to move behind him so that she stood in the shadow of his body, and recognizing Wassili’s cautious knock, he ordered the moujik to enter.
“Master, Ilya Andreitch has come with news of the government.”
“Who is Ilya Andreitch?” demanded the old general.
“Ilya, he who once cut wood for the Excellence. I know the man well. He has often bought food for us in the bazaar since we came here. He helped me to bring many things to this house from the other, but he is drunk to-night. Yet he vows he has news of the government.”
The old general was puzzled. Katerin stepped into the light and looked at Wassili eagerly.
“What is the news Ilya brings?” she asked gently, afraid that her father might say something which would discourage Wassili from permitting Ilya to tell his story.
“There is an American officer come to Chita to find the Excellence,” said Wassili, with a bow. “I do not know—it is Ilya Andreitch who says it and he——”
Katerin struck her hands together and gave a cry of joy. “An American!” she cried. “Can it be, my father, that our friends have at last sent help to us?”
“You say an officer?” exclaimed Michael, his eyes on Wassili, and burning with an eager light.
“So it is said, master.”
“By the Holy Saints!” exclaimed Michael. “We shall escape Zorogoff if this is true! Who else can have sent him but our friends?”
Katerin was crying with joy. She threw her arms about her father’s neck and kissed him. Till now she had restrained her emotions, hidden her fears, and faced death calmly, but the news that aid was at hand released all her terrors and flooded them with a burst of happiness.
“True, our friends have got our letters and have sent an American to save us!” she exclaimed through her tears. “God of the heavens is good to us, and has answered our prayers at last, so that we shall have peace and safety. This is the end of your tortures, my father!”
“It is of you I think, Katerin Stephanovna,” said Michael, and he grasped her hands and pulled them to his mouth to kiss them. “What I have suffered I have suffered for you, for death means nothing to me if you can be safe.”
“Tell us, Wassili,” urged Katerin. “Did the American officer bring word from friends? Is he to come here for us and take us away? And did he say who sent him?”
The gray old head of Michael snapped forward, the wisps of white hair waving gently. His eyes bored into Wassili while waiting for the moujik to answer.
“Ilya Andreitch told me but little, master. At first I thought he was drunk and did not trust him. And when I told him that he must tell me, he said he would talk with no one but Excellence, and that it was secret. Thus I would not bring him up till you had given the order for his coming.”
“Then he is below now? Bring him up, and hasten, for we have no time to lose. Zorogoff may be here again with the light of morning and I am but now writing what shall be done when he has killed me. We must see this American officer with all speed before the Ataman is able to balk him. By the Holy Saints! This will save my daughter from death—for she will die before she submits to the will of this Mongol brigand! Go! Bring Ilya Andreitch before me and we shall hear his say!”
Wassili ran out into the hall and down the stairs, well pleased with the results of his report to his master, for he had feared that he had made a mistake in admitting Ilya at all.
Michael and Katerin could scarcely wait for Ilya to come up. The news of deliverance from their dangers—safety so close at hand after long weary months of hiding and worry—came like a pardon to two who were condemned to death. It had been five days since the Ataman had left them. He was still torturing them, for his threat against Katerin would undoubtedly be carried out unless she killed herself. They knew that Zorogoff would attempt to take them to his “palace” in revenge for their insults. And they had planned to die together rather than to permit the Mongol to carry out his evil purpose. That was the only way in which they could defeat him.
“Our letter to the Baranoffs got through,” said Michael. “It is they who have sent this American.”
“And do you think he will come here—to-night?” asked Katerin, her pale, drawn face alight with the joy of escape. “I cannot believe yet that we are to be safe again! God has answered my prayers! My father, I had given up hope!”
“Perhaps Ilya brings a letter from the American officer,” said Michael. “If he has sent word to us by Ilya, he must have also given Ilya something so that we shall know the American comes from friends. We cannot delay. If the Ataman should hear of this American——”
“They are coming up,” said Katerin, and they heard Wassili and Ilya mounting the stairs. Soon the light of a shaking candle appeared down the hall, and Katerin threw open the door of the room.
Wassili blew out the candle when he entered, and thrust Ilya in ahead of him.
“Here is Ilya Andreitch, master,” said Wassili, and Ilya blinked at the candle on Michael’s table, bowed, and stood nervously fingering his cap.
“You bring us news, Ilya Andreitch,” began Michael when Katerin had closed the door. Michael’s thin, weak voice took on some of the relief he felt at knowing that help was at hand after months of danger in a world which had apparently gone mad, and he spoke somewhat in his old manner of authority.
“I?” asked Ilya. “Yes, Excellence. I bring good news to your house—and to the mistress.” He bowed again, this time to Katerin, who had gone to her father.
“Wassili says an American officer has sent you,” prompted Katerin, seeing that Ilya was perturbed and might be stricken dumb by fear of being before the former Governor.
“He is at the Dauria, mistress,” said Ilya faintly, and turned to Wassili as if he expected the moujik to take up the story now, and go on with it.
“At the Dauria Hotel,” agreed Katerin. “And you have brought a message from him to us?”
Ilya looked round the room wildly, seeking some escape from the eyes of Michael which bore upon him steadily.
“Have you a message from the American?” asked Katerin gently.
“I?” Ilya looked at her in amazement, and turned toward the door. Then he bowed again to Michael and Katerin to cover his confusion.
“What did the American say?” urged Katerin, and Wassili gave utterance to a faint snort of disgust and prodded Ilya in the back.
“What did the American say? Who knows?” asked Ilya.
“The fool is drunk!” growled Michael. “Come! Speak up! Or have you drowned your tongue in vodka and come here to make fools of us?”
Ilya’s face began to perspire, and he twisted his cap into a rope.
“Have no fear, Ilya,” said Katerin soothingly.
“May God smite me!” cried Ilya. “It was Rimsky who told me about it and I ran here to tell the Excellence!”
“And who is Rimsky?” demanded Michael. “Where did he learn of the man who has come to see me?”
Ilya brushed his brow with the back of his hand. “Rimsky is an old friend of mine—a good man, Excellence, who means harm to no one and is a loyal man to his Czar.”
“And what did this Rimsky tell you?”
“That the Excellence would pay me well to bring the news.”
Michael laughed and his irritation disappeared.
“So you have a friend named Rimsky who gives away my money, eh? And so I will pay you—if we can dig the news out of your skull. Now tell us what it is that the American said.”
Ilya began to twist his cap into a rope with both hands, and swallowed spittle.
“Excellence, I have done no harm,” he began. “I am a poor man. I once cut wood for the Excellence. I am very secret. Rimsky tried to fish it from me where the Excellence was living, but I did not tell him. I left him drunk, and he does not know that I know where the Excellence lives, and he does not know I have come to the house of Excellence.”
Ilya looked triumphantly at Katerin after this speech, and bowed again, feeling that he had handled the matter well, though he sought a sign of approval from the daughter of the Governor.
“What has all this to do with the American officer?” asked Michael. “That is what we are talking about, Ilya. You are very smart to have done what you did—now tell us more of it.”
“Rimsky sells cigarettes in an old isba in the Sofistkaya,” resumed Ilya. “He told me it was a pity he did not know where the Excellence lived, and he fished me for it. That is all. And I have come to tell Excellence.”
Michael expressed his dismay by a look at Katerin. He believed now that Ilya’s visit was only some drunken foolishness, or probably a trick.
“They have told this to Ilya so that they might follow him here. This is the work of enemies,” said Michael.
“Master!” began Wassili, holding up his hand, and then turning to Ilya, said, “You told me it was a matter of government. You said there was an American. Tell the master, as you told me, fool!”
“May God smite me, it is as I say!” retorted Ilya to Wassili with a show of anger. “There is an American come for Michael Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff, the master general and Governor. It is truth!”
“You say it, but how do you know it?” asked Katerin. She was beginning to feel that her father was right—that there were no grounds for their hopes other than a desire of this crafty moujik and some of his fellows to squeeze money from her father. But she concealed her disappointment.
“Rimsky told me, mistress, that is how I know,” said Ilya with a bow.
“And it was Rimsky who sent you to this house?” said Michael. “Now, the truth!”
Ilya stared at the floor and tried to think. In a way, it was true that Rimsky had sent him to the house, and yet it was not true in just the way that Michael was saying. The moujik’s brain was not equal to a quick and accurate reply when folk of education twisted things up so.
“I? No, master. Rimsky does not know I came to this house. How could he send me here when he has no knowledge of where the Excellence lives? I told no one because I am very secret, master.”
“Then the American did not send you?” snapped Michael.
Ilya turned to Katerin. “There is an American, mistress,” he insisted.
“You know nothing of an American but what this fool Rimsky told you?” insisted Michael. “Come! You have not seen the American?”
“How could I see him, master?” asked Ilya.
Michael gave a snort of disgust and leaned back in his chair. “It is nothing,” he said sadly. “Send Ilya away,” with a look at Wassili.
“I can see the American, mistress,” pleaded Ilya, aghast at the idea that his visit had come to nothing and fearful of what Wassili might do once they were in the courtyard again. “I speak truth! There is an American officer come seeking the master general!”
“Ilya Andreitch, I will give you fifty rubles if you will find this American,” said Katerin, hopeful again as she saw that Ilya was in earnest—at least she was determined not to make the mistake of sending Ilya away without making sure of what he did know. She knew that he was frightened, and that behind his fear there was more information than he was able to put into words.
“I can find him, mistress, if he is at the Dauria—I know the place well. I was there but yesterday with pig-livers.” His eyes glittered with the richness of the reward promised.
“This is a trap of Zorogoff’s to get us to leave the house,” growled Michael.
“Not if there is an American in the city to see us,” said Katerin.
“Some spy got Rimsky to tell this story to Ilya and then watch him to see where he went. I do not like it. Or perhaps they want you to go to the hotel seeking this mythical officer and seize you there. I tell you it is a trap, my daughter.”
But Katerin picked up the pen on the table and wrote on a sheet of paper this note in Russian:
The man who takes this to you can find us again. Time is precious for we are in great danger. Be discreet. Say who sends you that we may know you are from friends.
She did not sign the note, but dried the ink over the candle, folded it, and handed it to Ilya with a handful of rubles which she took from between the leaves of a book on the table.
“Give this to the American officer if you find him at the Dauria. If he has come for us, let him tell you so. But you are not to come back here to our house—Wassili will meet you at the sobrania at midnight, and you are to tell Wassili what the American says. Do not tell the American where we are but let him send a message and the name of the friend who has sent him. That will be our proof that he is not an enemy. Talk with no one about this—and when you have told Wassili what the American says, go home to bed and do not drink. If you give a true message to Wassili you shall have fifty rubles more to-morrow.”
“He will be drunk as an owl ten minutes after he gets to the Sofistkaya and the first kabak,” grumbled Michael. “And if he finds this American, how is the American to read Russian?”
“If he come from friends, he must know something of Russian, else he would not have come by himself—and perhaps he has with him some man who can read it for him.”
“You are wasting your breath and my ink,” said Michael. “I think nothing of this business.”
“God’s blessing on you, mistress,” said Ilya, crossing himself twice and turning to follow Wassili out of the room. “I shall be very secret and do as you command—and I shall not go drinking wine with the money.”
Wassili lighted his candle from the flame of the one burning on the table and opened the door. Ilya went out before him, and they both descended the stairs.
“It is all a trap, as I have said,” Michael went on again, staring disconsolately into the flame of the candle, his head bent forward on his breast. “This is the Ataman’s work—and he will come again in the morning to mock us.”
“I have faith that God has saved our lives,” said Katerin. “If an American is in the city who seeks us, I shall go to him myself in case Ilya fails us.”
“Then you would be going to your doom, my daughter,” and Michael dropped his face into his outspread arms upon the table to conceal the dejection which had come over him again since he believed that Ilya had come on a fool’s errand.
“Hope is greater than fear, my father,” said Katerin, and lifted his head from the table to kiss him. “Who knows? By dawn we may be safe with this American. We must pray that Wassili will bring us a message at midnight which means the end of our troubles. Zorogoff will not dare defy an American officer.”
“Zorogoff will defy the devil himself,” said Michael. “I put little hope in this fool’s tale, but if it will make you happy, I will hope and believe till we know that there is nothing to be gained from this Ilya and his foolishness. And what you have just said about going to the hotel yourself—that must not be. I shall not let you out of my sight.”
“Then perhaps we may both go,” said Katerin. “We would be in no greater danger if we tried to find the American than if we waited here for Zorogoff.”
“We shall stay here,” said Michael. “I am too old and wise to be fooled by Mongol tricks. If I knew you could be safe I would be happy to say farewell to you forever—but God tells me that we are in greater danger now than ever, and we must trust no one. Come! Hand me my pen again, that I may write down the things you should remember when I am dead.”