by Edith Nesbit
‘Oh, yes,’ rejoined Percival. ‘If we get there we’re all right. But these clothes of yours; we must hide them, or they’ll tell tales.’
‘Oh, bring them with you, and leave the room in order.’
‘Yes, and I must take a revolver myself. We’ll give a good account of a few of those brutes if they come too close.’
‘Are we ready? I’ll take the portmanteau, you carry those clothes. Now then, lights out. Give me your hand.’
The candles were blown out, and Litvinoff led the way through the bedroom and through a tiny door in the panelled wall, of whose existence Percival had been up to this moment ignorant. They passed down a narrow staircase, in a niche of whose wall they left the wet garments, and, passing through a stone passage or two, suddenly came out into the ice-cold air at an angle of the house quite other than that at which Percival had expected to find himself.
Litvinoff shivered. ‘I miss my cloak,’ he said. ‘However, there are plenty of skins in the sleigh.’
The snow fell lightly on them as they hurried quietly away; it did its best with its cold feathery veil to hide the footsteps of the fugitives.
‘Is this exciting enough for you?’ asked the Count as they strode along under cover of the trees.
‘Quite, thanks — I think I should be able to submit to a little less excitement with equanimity. It won’t be actually unpleasant to be out of the dominions of his sacred majesty.’
‘This excitement is nothing to what we shall have in getting over the frontier,’ said Litvinoff; ‘that’s where the tug of war will come. Percival,’ he went on after a pause, ‘I shall never forgive myself if you suffer in this business through me.’
‘My dear fellow,’ Percival answered cheerfully, ‘ if it had not been for you I should have been out of it all long ago, and if the worst comes to the worst, there’s still a way out of it. As long as I have my trusty little friend here,’ tapping the revolver in his breast pocket, ‘I don’t intend to see the inside of St Peter and St Paul.’
As he spoke they heard the sound of horses’ restless hoofs.
‘What’s that?’
‘All right!’ returned Litvinoff. ‘They’re our horses.’
Behind a clump of fir trees the sleigh was waiting, and beside it a man on a horse.
The two friends entered the sleigh, and adjusted the furs about them, and Litvinoff took the reins.
‘Good speed,’ said Zabrousky; ‘a safe journey, and a good deliverance.’
‘Good-bye,’ Litvinoff said. ‘ Don’t stay here a moment. It may cost you your life.’
In another instant the horseman had turned and left them, and the jingling of the harness and the noise of the fleet hoofs were the only sounds that broke the dense night silence as the sleigh sped forward.
‘Have you any idea what the time is?’ said Litvinoff, when they had travelled smoothly over three or four miles of snow.
‘It’s too cold to get watches out, and too dark to see them if we did.’
‘It must be past two,’ said Percival. ‘It must have been past midnight when you came in. I wonder what time those devils will reach the empty nest.’
‘The later the better for us, and the servants will mix things a bit by telling them that I’ve not been home. At this rate we shall reach Eckovitch’s place about four. We can stretch our legs there while he rubs the horses down a bit.’
‘Will that be safe? Is he to be trusted?’
‘My dear Percival, this line of retreat has been marked out a long time. Eckovitch has been ready for me any time these three years.
Nothing more was said. The situation was too grave for mere chatter, and there was nothing of importance that needed saying just then. Percival leaned back among the furs, which were by this time covered with snow, and Litvinoff seemed to be concentrating all his attention on his driving, using the horses as gently as possible, and continually leaning forward and peering into the darkness to make out the track, which was becoming no easy task, as the steady falling snow was fast obliterating the landmarks.
The secretary, overcome by that drowsiness which results from swift movement through bitterly cold air, was almost asleep, when the horses slackened speed, and the change in the motion roused him.
‘What’s up? What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘All right. Here’s Eckovitch!’ and as he spoke the sleigh drew up in front of a long, low wooden building. He handed the reins to Percival, sprang to the ground, and battered at the door. After a short pause a light could be seen within, and a voice asked, —
‘Who’s there?’
The Count answered with one word which had a Russian sound, but which Percival had never heard before.
The door was opened at once, and after a few low-spoken words between Litvinoff and someone within, a man came out and took the reins, and Percival left the sleigh and followed his friend into the house.
A woman was already busy in fanning into new life the red ashes that had been covered over on the hearth. She flung on some chips and fir cones, and soon the crackling wood blazed up and showed the homely but not uncomfortable interior. As the two travellers shook the snow off their furs, Percival asked in English who this man was.
‘A friend,’ Litvinoff answered. ‘He’s supposed to be an innkeeper, but there aren’t many travellers on this road. We make up deficiencies in his income.’
They drew seats up to the fire, and the woman brought them some glasses and a flask of vodka.
‘You shall have some tea in a minute.’
‘I hate this liquid fire,’ said Percival, ‘and I like tea better than I did at Monte Carlo. I’ll wait for that.’
‘Drink this, and don’t be too particular. It’ll help to keep us going, and we’ll take the fag end of the flask with us,’ Litvinoff answered.
When the tea was ready, and some sausage and bread were set before the strangers, the woman sat down on the other side of the hearth and looked at them as they ate, which they did with fairly good appetites.
Presently a low wailing cry arose from the further corner of the room, and the woman went and took up a funny old-fashioned looking little baby, and, returning to her seat by the fire, sat hushing it with low whispers of endearment. It was a strangely peaceful little scene, between two acts of a sufficiently exciting drama, which, for aught any of the actors knew, might end as a tragedy.
The spell of silence which had been over them in the sleigh was broken now, and they chatted lightly over their hasty meal. The Count’s demeanour in the face of danger was a thing after Percival’s own heart, and he had never admired his friend so much as he did, when, the meal being over, Litvinoff leaned back nonchalantly, stroking his long fair moustache and stirring his final cup of tea.
The secretary’s own calmness was really more remarkable, however, since he was in the position of a young soldier under fire for the first time, whereas Litvinoff had known for eight years that at any moment he might be arrested, or might have to fly.
‘Your horses will do to get to Kilsen now,’ said the man, opening the door; ‘you were wise to give them this rest. They’d not have done without it.’
‘Poor brutes,’ said the Count, ‘I wish we could give them longer, but every minute’s of consequence.’
‘You’ll cross the frontier at Ergratz, I suppose,’ said the innkeeper, as they came out into the air. The weather had changed in the little time they had been in shelter. The snow was no longer falling; through a break in the clouds one or two stars twinkled frostily, and the wind was blowing the snow off the road in drifts.
As the sleigh glided away the man re-entered his house and bolted the door, and in five minutes the fire was raked together and covered over, the light was extinguished, and no sign left to show that wayfarers had been entertained there that night.
‘We’ll take the horses easily a bit now,’ said Litvinoff; ‘there’ll be some stiffish hills by-and-by.’
They seemed to have been on the road for about six
nights instead of one, when, nearly half way up one of these same stiffish hills, Percival laid his hand on Litvinoffs shoulder.
‘Stop a moment,’ he said, ‘I heard hoofs behind.’
They stopped, listened, and heard nothing.
‘It must have been the echo of our own hoofs among these hills. If they are near enough to be heard, it’s all up with us. They’re sure to be well mounted. However, we’ll do our best to get on to Kilsen, and get mounted ourselves before morning.’
But morning was beginning to break, and with it came fresh snow.
At the foot of the next hill the secretary spoke again.
‘Litvinoff, I’m certain I hear hoofs, and a good many of them.’
‘So do I. We’ll whip on — they can’t hear us, the wind blows from them. We’ll try another chance presently. I don’t think we can win by speed.’ He urged on the tired horses with voice and whip, and the weary animals put forth their strength in a wilder gallop. They were now rushing very swiftly through the icy air, and every moment increased the pace.
They had to slacken a little in going up the last and highest hill, near the crown of which they turned back their heads, and saw that what they had been flying from all night was close upon them now.
Over the brow of a lower hill immediately behind them came a band of horsemen, about a dozen strong as it seemed in the pale grey of the dawn.
We must leave the sleigh,’ said Litvinoff. ‘Almost in a line across country to the left, not more than two versts off, is the house of Teliaboff; there we are safe for a day or two, if we can get there unseen. It’s a desperate chance, but we must try it. Prop up the portmanteau and the furs to look like our figures. We’ll tie the reins here, and get out just over the brow. They’ll see us as we go over. Those Cossacks have eyes like eagles. We’ll lash the horses on, and they’ll go some distance without us; and when those devils find we’re not in the sleigh they won’t know exactly where to begin to search for us. Thank God, it’s snowing harder and harder. That will help to hide our traces; and over this broken ground to the left our legs will serve us better than their horses will them.’
‘There’s barely a chance,’ said the secretary. ‘Let’s stay and fight it out.’
‘We’ll fight if the worst comes to the worst; but as it is we’ve a very fair chance of escape. We have our revolvers.’
As they crossed the brow of the hill a wild shout borne by the wind told them that the Count had been right. They had been seen.
Litvinoff stopped the horses, and the two men got out, leaving the counterfeit presentment of themselves, which the secretary’s deft hands had invested with a very real appearance.
The Count gave two tremendous lashes, the horses sprang madly forward at three times the pace they had made hitherto, and the two fugitives plunged through the snow to the left of the road.
‘Don’t go too fast,’ whispered Litvinoff; ‘you’ll need all your wind presently. We’ve a fair start now, and they can’t follow on horseback.
They had not gone two hundred yards before they heard the troop sweep by.
‘We weren’t a minute too soon,’ the secretary said.
‘There goes another of them,’ said the Count, as again they caught the sound of a horse’s snow-muffled hoofs.
On they went, struggling over rough ground, sometimes waist-deep in snowdrifts, sometimes tripping over concealed stones or broken wood.
‘We shall do it now,’ said Litvinoff.
‘They’re on us, by God!’ cried the secretary at the same instant.
They turned; they had been tracked, but only by one man. One of the pursuers, who had been a little behind the others, either better trained in this sort of sport than his fellows, or guided by some sixth sense, seemed to have divined what they had done, and had dismounted just at the right place, and followed them on foot.
He gave a yell of triumph as he saw a grey figure struggling up the incline before him.
‘Aha, Mr Secretary,’ he cried, and, raising his carbine, fired; the grey figure stumbled forward into the snow. ‘You’re done for, at any rate!’
The Cossack’s triumph was a short one. As he dashed forward to secure his fallen quarry, another figure sprang from the snowy brushwood a little ahead of him, walked calmly towards him, raised a revolver, and shot him through the heart.
* * * * *
A week or two later one of those short and inaccurate paragraphs which date from St Petersburg appeared in several European papers. It was to the effect that Count Michael Litvinoff had been captured, after a desperate struggle, near the frontier, and that his private secretary, a young Englishman, had been shot in the fray.
But the French papers knew better, and that report was promptly contradicted.
The Débats, while confirming the news of the secretary’s death, asserted that Count Michael Litvinoff was at that moment at the Hôtel du Louvre, and his bankers would have confirmed the statement And in the rooms of the Count at the Hôtel du Louvre a haggard, weary-faced man, almost worn out by the desperate excitement and the horrors of the last few weeks, was pacing up and down, unable to get away from the picture, that was ever before his eyes, of his friend’s dead face, bloodstained and upturned from the snow, in the cold, grey morning light; unable to escape from that triumphant shout, ‘Aha, Mr Secretary, you’re done for, at any rate,’ which seemed as if it would ring for ever in his ears.
‘I would give ten years of my life to undo that night’s work. I shall never meet another man quite like him. I wish the brute had shot me,’ he said to himself over and over again.
CHAPTER I. FATHER AND SONS.
THE light was fading among the Derbyshire hills. The trees, now almost bare, were stirred by the fretful wind into what seemed like a passionate wail for their own lost loveliness, and on the wide bare stretch of moorland behind the house the strange weird cry of the plovers sounded like a dirge over the dead summer. The sharp, intermittent rain had beaten all the beauty out of the few late autumn flowers in the garden, and it was tender of the twilight to hasten to deepen into a darkness heavy enough to hide such a grey desolate picture.
Inside Thornsett Edge another and a deeper darkness was falling. Old Richard Ferrier was sick unto death, and he alone of all the household knew it. He knew it, and he was not sorry. Yet he sighed.
‘What is it, Richard? Can I get you anything?’
A woman sitting behind his bed-curtain leaned forward to put the question — a faded woman, with grey curls and a face marked with deep care lines. It was his sister.
‘Where are the boys?’
‘Gone to Aspinshaw.’
‘Both of them?’
‘Yes; I asked Dick to take a note for me, and Roland said he’d go too.’
The old man looked pleased.
‘Did you want either of them? ‘ she asked.
‘I want them both when they come in.’
‘Suppose you are asleep?’
‘I shall not sleep until I have seen my sons.’
‘Art thee better to-night, Richard?’ she asked in a tone of tender solicitude, dropping back, as people so often do in moments of anxiety, into the soft sing-song accent that had once been habitual to her.
‘Ay, I’m better, lass,’ he said, returning the pressure of the hand she laid on his.
‘Wilt have a light?’
‘Not yet a-bit,’ he answered. ‘I like to lie so, and watch the day right out,’ and he turned his face towards the square of grey sky framed by the window.
There was hardly more pleasantness left in his life than in the dreary rain-washed garden outside. And yet his life had not been without its triumphs — as the world counts success. He had, when still young, married the woman he passionately loved, and work for her sake had seemed so easy that he had risen from poverty to competence, and from competence to wealth. Born in the poorest ranks of the workers in a crowded Stockport alley, he had started in life as a mill ‘ hand,’ and he was ending it now a millow
ner, and master of many hands.
He had himself been taught in no school but that of life; but he did not attribute his own success to his education any more than he did the fatuous failure of some University men to their peculiar training; so he had sent his sons to Cambridge, and had lived to see them leave their college well-grown and handsome, with not more than the average stock of prejudices and follies, and fit to be compared, not unfavourably, with any young men in the county.
But by some fatality he had never tasted the full sweetness of any of the fruit his life-tree had borne him. His parents had died in want and misery at a time when he himself was too poor to help them. His wife, who had bravely shared his earlier struggles, did not live to share their reward. She patiently bore the trials of their early married life, but in the comfort that was to follow she had no part. She died, and left him almost broken-hearted. Her memory would always be the dearest thing in the world to him; but a man’s warm, living, beating heart needs something more than a memory to lavish its love upon. This something more he found in her children. In them all his hopes had been centred; for them all his efforts had been made. They were, individually, all that he had dreamed they might be, and they were both devoted to him; and yet, as he lay on his deathbed, his mind was ill at ease about them. Did he exaggerate? Was it weakness and illness, the beginning of the end, that had made him think, through these last few weeks, that there was growing up between these two beloved sons a coolness — a want of sympathy, an indisposition to run well in harness together — which might lead to sore trouble?
There certainly had been one or two slight quarrels between them which had been made up through his own intervention. How would it be, he wondered, when he was not there any more to smooth things over? Somehow he did not feel that he cared to live any longer, even to keep peace between his boys. That must be done some other way. Truth to say, he was very tired of being alive.
The October day faded, and presently the sick-room was lighted only by the red flickering glow of the fire, which threw strange fantastic shadow’s from the handsome commonplace furniture, and made the portraits on the walls seem to look out of their frames with quite new expressions.