Kitabı oku: «The Price of Power», sayfa 11
Chapter Twenty One.
Hot Haste across Asia
I resolved to push forward in all haste and at all hazards. I lost no time.
With only forty-eight hours’ stay at the wretched Hotel Million in Tomsk we went forth again, our faces set ever eastward on that wide, straight road which first runs direct for a hundred miles to Marinsk, a poor, log-built place with a dirty verminous post-station and an old postmaster who, when I presented my Imperial permit, sank upon his knees before me. Fortunately the mail was two days behind me, hence, at every stancia I was able to obtain the best horses, though it seemed part of Vasilli’s creed to curse and grumble at everything.
With the snow falling continuously our journey was not so rapid as it had been to Tomsk. Winter had now set in with a vengeance, although it still wanted a few days to the English Christmas. Yet the journey from Marinsk to Krasnoyarsk, two hundred miles, was one of wondrous beauty. It was cold, horribly cold. Often I sat beside the sleepy Petrakoff cramped and shivering, even in my furs.
But those deep, dark woods, with their little glimpses of blue sky; the dashing and jingling along under the low-reaching arms of the evergreen trees, league after league of the forest bowed down to the very earth and in places prostrated with its white weight of snow, the weird ride over hill and mountain, skirting ravine and precipice, the breaks along and across the numerous watercourses, over rude bridges or along deep gullies where rough wooden guards protect the sleds from disaster – with this quick succession of scenery, wild and strange, was I kept constantly awake and charmed.
At the stancias we met the travelling merchants from the Far East and from China with their long train of goods hauled in sleds or packed on the backs of horses. Five pood, we found, was the regulation load, and all packages were put up in drums bound with raw hide and so strapped that they could easily be transported by the pack-horse, which carried half a load on either side of a saddle-tree prepared for the purpose.
But those stancias were filthy, overcrowded, evil-smelling places, wherein one laid in one’s sleeping-bags upon a bench amid a crowd of unwashed, vodka-drinking humanity in damp, noxious sheep-skins.
Fortunately the moon was at that moment nearly full, and often at night I went forth alone to smoke, sometimes with the snowy plain stretched on every hand about me, and at others with gigantic peaks lifting their hoary heads far into the blue night vault of heaven; silent, frigid, white. Ah! what grandeur! I rejoiced that it was night, when I could smoke and ponder. So cold and still was it that those snowy summits, bathed in the silver radiance of the Siberian moon, filled me with awe such as I had never before experienced.
Yes, those were wonderful nights which will live for ever in my memory – nights when my thoughts wandered far away to the gay promenade at Hove, wondering how fared the little madcap, and whether her peril were real or only imaginary.
Ever obsessed by the knowledge that Markoff was aware of my journey, and would endeavour to prevent its successful issue, I existed in constant anxiety and dread lest some prearranged disaster might befall Madame de Rosen ere I could reach her.
Siberia is, alas! the country where, as the exiles say: “God is nigh, and the Tzar is far away.”
Thus, after three weeks more of hard travelling, I passed through the big, straggling, snow-covered town of Krasnoyarsk, and arrived at the wretchedly dirty stancia of Tulunovsk, where the road to Yakutsk – distant nearly two thousand miles – branches to the north from the Great Post Road, up the desolate valley of the Lena.
We arrived in Tulunovsk in the afternoon, and, having sent a telegram to Her Highness from Krasnoyarsk, eight days before, I was delighted to receive a charming little message assuring me that she was quite well and wishing me a continuance of good fortune on my journey.
Since I had left Tomsk no traveller had overtaken me. At Tulunovsk we found a party of politicals, about sixty men and women, in the roughly-constructed prison rest-house, being permitted a few days’ respite upon their long and weary march.
Already they had been six months on the road, and were in a terrible condition, almost in rags, and most of them so weak that death would no doubt have been welcome.
And these poor creatures were nearly all of them victims of the bogus plots of His Excellency General Markoff.
To the Cossack captain in charge of the convoy I made myself known, and after taking tea with him I was permitted to go among the party and chat with them.
One tall, thin-faced man, whose hair was prematurely grey, begged me to send a message back to his wife in Tver. He spoke French well, and told me his name was Epatchieff, and that he had been a doctor in practice in the town of Tver, between Moscow and Petersburg.
“I am entirely ignorant of the reason I was arrested, m’sieur,” he declared, hitching his ragged coat about him. “I have not committed any crime, or even belonged to any secret society. Perhaps the only offence was my marrying the woman I loved. Who knows?” and the sad-eyed man, whose life held more of sorrow in it than most men, went on to say:
“I had been attending the little daughter of the local chief of the police for a week, but she had recovered so far that I did not consider a further visit was necessary. One morning, six months ago, I was surprised to receive a visit from the police officer’s Cossack, who demanded my presence at once at the house of his master, as the child had been seized with another attack. I told him I would go after breakfast as the matter was serious. But the Cossack insisted that I should go at once, so I agreed and went forth. Outside, the Cossack told me that I must first go to the police office, and, of course, I went wonderingly, never dreaming for a moment that anything was wrong. So I was ushered into the office, where the chief of police told me that I was a prisoner. ‘A body of exiles are ready to start for Siberia,’ said the heartless brute, ‘and you will go with them.’ I laughed – it was a good joke, but the chief of police assured me that it was a solemn fact. I was completely dumbfounded. I begged for a delay in my transportation. Why was I deprived of my liberty? Who was my accuser? What was the accusation? But I got no answer save ‘administrative order.’
“I begged to be allowed to revisit my house under guard, to procure necessary articles of clothing – to say farewell to my young wife. But the scoundrel denied me everything. I waited in anguish, but they placed me in solitary confinement to await the departure of the convoy, and in six hours I was on my way here – to this living tomb!”
Of course the poor fellow was half crazed. What would become of his young wife – what would she think of him? A thousand thoughts and suspicions racked his mind, and he had already lived through an age of torture, as his whitening head plainly showed.
At my suggestion he wrote a letter to his wife informing her of his fate, and using my authority as guest of His Imperial Majesty I took it, and, in due course, posted it back to Russia.
Not until three years afterwards did I learn the tragic sequel. The poor young lady received my letter, and as quickly as she could set out to join him in his exile. With womanly wit she managed to apprise him of her coming and a light broke in upon his grief. He had been sent to Irkutsk, and daily, hourly he looked and longed for her. Yet just as he knew she must arrive, he was suddenly sent far away to the most northerly Arctic settlement of Sredne Kolimsk.
The poor young lady, filled with sweet sympathy and expectation, hoping to find him in Irkutsk, arrived there a fortnight too late. Imagine her anguish when, having travelled over four thousand miles of the worst country on the fact; of the world, she learned the cruel news. Still three thousand miles distant! But she set out to find him. Alas! however, it was too much for her. She lost her reason, raved for a little while under restraint and died at the roadside.
Is it any wonder that there were in Russia real revolutionists, revolting not against their Tzar, but against the inhuman system of the camarilla?
Petrakoff and I spent a sleepless night in that rat-eaten post-house where the food was bad, and our beds consisted only of a wooden bench. We had as companions half a dozen drivers, who had come with a big tea-caravan from China, ragged, unwashed, uncouth fellows in evil-smelling furs.
Indeed the air was so thick and intolerable that at two o’clock in the morning I took my sleeping-bag outside and lay in the sled, in preference to staying in that vermin-infested hut.
Next morning, the twenty-second of January, I signed the postmaster’s book as soon as it grew light, and with three fresh horses approved of by Vasilli, we were away, leaving the Great Post Road and striking north along the Lena.
From that moment we entered an uninhabited country, the snowy dreariness of which was indescribable, and as day succeeded day and we pushed further north the climate became more rigorous, until it was no unusual thing to have great icicles hanging from one’s moustache.
One day, a week after leaving Tulunovsk, we passed through an entirely deserted village of low-built huts. I asked Vasilli the reason that no one lived there.
“This is a bad place, Excellency,” was the fellow’s reply. “All the people died of smallpox six months ago.”
And so we went on and on, and ever onward. Sometimes we would travel the whole twenty-four hours rather than rest in those horrible post-houses, and on such journeys we often covered one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty versts, changing horses every twenty to thirty versts.
We covered seven hundred and fifty miles to Dubrovsk in sixteen days, and here, at the post-house, we met a party of Cossacks coming south after taking a convoy of prisoners to Olekminsk – half-way between Dubrovsk and Yakutsk – and handing them over to the guard sent south to meet them.
While taking our evening tea I chatted with the Cossack captain, a big, muscular giant in knee-boots who sat with his legs outstretched on the dirty floor, leaning his back against the high brick stove.
I was making inquiries regarding the prisoners he had recently brought up, whereupon he said:
“They were a batch of politicals from Tomsk. Poor devils, they’ve been sent to Parotovsk – and there’s smallpox there. I suppose General Tschernaieff has sent them there on purpose that they shall become infected and die. Politicals are often sent into an infected settlement.”
“To Parotovsk!” I gasped, for it suddenly occurred to me that the woman of whom I was in search might be of that party!
And then I breathlessly inquired if Madame de Rosen, Political Number 14956, had been with them.
“She and her daughter were ill, and were allowed a sled,” I added.
“There were two ladies, Excellency, mother and daughter. One was about forty, and the other about eighteen. They came from Petersburg, and were, I believe, well connected and moved in the best society.”
“You do not know their names?” I asked anxiously.
“Unfortunately, no,” was his reply. “Only the numbers. I believe the lady’s number was that which you mentioned. She was registered, however, as a dangerous person.”
“No doubt the same!” I cried. “How is she?”
“When they left Olekminsk she was very weak and ill,” he replied. “Indeed, I recollect remarking to my lieutenant that I feared she would never reach Yakutsk.”
“How far are they ahead of us?” I inquired eagerly. The bearded man reflected for some minutes, making mental calculations. “They left Olekminsk a fortnight ago, therefore by this they should be nearing Yakutsk.”
“And how long will it take me to reach Yakutsk?” I asked.
He again made a calculation and at last replied:
“By travelling hard, Excellency, you should reach Yakutsk, I think, in twenty-five to twenty-seven days. It would be impossible before, I fear, owing to the heavy snowdrifts and the bad state of the roads.”
“Twenty-seven days!” I echoed. “And before I can reach there the ladies will already be inmates of that infected settlement of Parotovsk – the place to which they have been sent to sicken and die!”
“She was marked as ‘dangerous,’ Excellency. She would therefore be sent north at once, without a doubt. Persons marked as ‘dangerous’ are never permitted to remain in Yakutsk.”
Could I reach her in time? Could I save her?
Chapter Twenty Two.
In the Night
From that day and through twenty-two other dark, weary days of the black frosts of mid-winter, we travelled onward, ever onward. Sometimes we crossed the limitless snow-covered tundra, sometimes we went down into the deep valley of the frozen Lena river, changing horses every thirty versts and signing the post-horse keeper’s greasy road-book.
At every stage I produced my Imperial permit, and at almost every station the ignorant peasant who kept it fell upon his knees in deep obeisance to the guest of the great Tzar.
We were now, however, off the main road, for this highway to the far-off Arctic settlements, used almost solely by the convict convoys, ran for a thousand miles through a practically uninhabited country, the only sign of civilisation being the never-ending telegraph-line which we followed, and the lonely post-stations half-buried in the snow.
Ah! those long, anxious days of icy blasts and whirling snow blizzards. My companion and I, wrapped to our eyes in furs, sat side by side often dozing for hours, our ears tired of that irritating jingle of the sled-bells, our limbs cramped and benumbed, and often ravenously hungry, for the rough fare at the post-house was very frequently uneatable.
For six dark days we met not a single soul upon the road, save a party of Cossacks coming south. But from them I could obtain no news of the last batch of “politicals” who had travelled north, and whom we were following in such hot haste.
Again I telegraphed to Hartwig in Brighton, telling him of my whereabouts, and obtaining a reply from him that Her Highness was still well and sent me her best wishes.
That in itself was reassuring.
Hard travel and bad food told, I think, upon both of us. Petrakoff dearly wished himself back in his beloved Petersburg again. Yet our one-eyed half-Tartar driver seemed quite unconscious of either cold or fatigue. The strain of driving so continuously – sometimes for twenty hours out of the twenty-four – must have been terrible. But he was ever imperious in his dealings at post-stations, ever loud in his commands to the cringing owners of those log-built huts to bring out their best trio of horses, ever yelling to the fur-clad grooms not to keep His Excellency waiting on pain of terrible punishment.
Thus through those short, dark winter days, and often through the long, steely nights, ever following those countless telegraph-poles, we went on – ever onward – until we found ourselves in a small wretched little place of log-built houses called Olekminsk. Upon my travelling map, as indeed upon every map of Siberia, it is represented in capitals as an important place. So I expected to find at least a town – perhaps even a hotel. Instead, I discovered it to be a mere wretched hamlet, with a post-house, and a wood-built prison for the reception of “politicals.”
We arrived at midnight. In the common room of the post-house, around which earth and snow had been banked to keep out the cold, was a high brick stove, and around the walls benches whereon a dozen wayfarers like ourselves were wrapped in their evil-smelling furs, and sleeping. The odour as I entered the place was foetid; the dirt indescribable. One shaggy peasant, in heavy top-boots and fur coat, had imbibed too much vodka, and had become hilarious, whereat one of the sleepers, suddenly awakened, threw a top-boot at him across the room, narrowly missing my head.
The post-house keeper, as soon as he saw my permit, sent a man to the local chief of police, a stout, middle-aged man, who appeared on the scene in his hastily-donned uniform and who invited me to his house close by. There I questioned him regarding the political prisoners, “Numbers 14956 and 14957.”
Having read my permits – at which he was visibly impressed when he saw the signature of the Emperor himself – he hastened to obtain his register. Presently he said:
“The two ladies you mention have passed through this prison, Excellency. I see a note that both are dangerous ‘politicals,’ and that the elder lady was rather weak. Judging from the time when they left, they are, I should say, already in Yakutsk – or even beyond.”
“From what is she suffering?” I asked eagerly.
“Ah! Excellency, I cannot tell that,” was his reply. “All I know is that the captain of Cossacks who came down from Yakutsk to meet the convoy considered that being a dangerous political, she was sufficiently well to walk with the others. So she has gone on foot the remainder of the journey. She arrived her in a sled.”
“On foot!” I echoed. “But she is ill – dying, I was told.”
The chief of police shrugged his shoulders and said with a sigh:
“I fear. Excellency, that the lady was somewhat unfortunate. That particular captain is not a very humane person – particularly where a dangerous prisoner is concerned.”
“Then to be marked as ‘dangerous’ means that the prisoner is to be treated with brutality – eh?” I cried. “Is that Russian justice?”
“We do not administer justice here in Siberia, Excellency,” was the man’s quiet reply. “They do that in Petersburg.”
“But surely it is a scandal to put a sick woman on the road and compel her to walk four hundred miles in this weather,” I cried angrily.
“Alas! That is not my affair,” replied the man. “I am merely chief of police of this district and governor of the étape. The captain of Cossacks has entire charge of the prisoners on their journey.”
What he had told me maddened me. In all that I heard I could plainly detect the sinister hand of General Markoff.
Indeed, when I carefully questioned this official, I felt convinced that the captain in question had received instructions direct from Petersburg regarding Madame de Rosen. The chief of police admitted to me that to the papers concerning the prisoners there had been attached a special memorandum from Petersburg concerning Madame and her daughter.
I smoked a cigarette with him and drank a cup of tea – China tea served with lemon. Then I was shown to a rather poorly-furnished but clean bedroom on the ground floor, where I turned in.
But no sleep came to my eyes. Such hard travelling through all those weeks had shattered my nerves.
While the bright northern moon streamed in through the uncurtained window, I lay on my back, pondering. I reflected upon all the past, the terrible fate of Madame and her daughter, the strange secret she evidently held, and the peril of the Emperor himself, so helpless in the hands of that circle of unscrupulous sycophants, and, further, of my little madcap friend, so prone to flirtation, the irrepressible Grand Duchess Natalia.
I reviewed all the exciting events of those many months which had elapsed since the last Court ball of the season at Petersburg – events which I have attempted to set down in the foregoing pages – and I was held in fear that my long journey might be in vain – that ere I could catch up with the poor wretched woman who, though ill, had been compelled to perform that last and most arduous stage of the journey through the snow, she would, alas! be no longer alive. The vengeance of her enemy Markoff would have fallen upon her.
A sense of indescribable oppression, combined with the hot closeness of the room, stifled me. For hours I lay awake, the moonlight falling full upon my head. At last, however, I must have dropped off to sleep, fagged out after twenty hours of those jingling bells and hissing of the sled-runners over the frozen snow.
A sense of coldness awakened me, and opening my eyes I saw, to my surprise, though the room was practically in darkness with only the reflected light of the snow, that the small treble window stood open. It had certainly been tightly closed when I had entered there.
I raised my eyes to peer into the darkness for the atmosphere, which when I had gone to sleep was stifling on account of the iron stove, was now at zero. Suddenly I caught sight of a dark figure moving noiselessly near where I lay. A thief had entered by the window! He seemed to be searching the pockets of my coat, which I had flung carelessly upon a chair. Surely he was a daring thief to thus enter the house of the chief of police! But in Siberia there are many escaped convicts roaming about the woods. They are called “cuckoos,” on account of their increase in the spring and their return to the prisons when starved out in winter.
A “cuckoo” is always a criminal and always desperate. He must have money and food, and he dare not go near a village, as there is a price on his head. Therefore, he will not hesitate to murder a lonely traveller if by so doing he thinks he can secure a passport which will permit him to leave Siberia and re-enter European Russia, back to freedom. Some Siberian roads are in summer infested with such gentry, but winter always drives them back to the towns, and consequently into prison again. Only a very few manage to survive the rigours of the black frosts of the Siberian winter.
Rather more amused than alarmed, I lay watching the dark figure engaged in rifling my pockets. I was contemplating the best method by which to secure him and hand him over to the mercies of my host. A sudden thought struck me. Unfortunately, being guest in the house of the chief of police I had left my revolver in the sled. I never slept at a post-house without it. But that night I was unarmed.
Those moments of watching seemed hours. The man, whoever he was, was tall and slim, though of course I could not see his face. I held my breath. He was securing my papers and my money! Yet he did it all so very leisurely that I could not help admiring his pluck and confounded coolness.
I hesitated a few seconds and then at last I summoned courage to act. I resolved to suddenly spring up and throw myself upon him, so that he would be prevented from jumping out of the window with my property.
But while I was thus making up my mind how to act, the mysterious man suddenly left the chair where my coat had been lying, and turning, came straight towards me, advancing slowly on tip-toe. Apparently he was not desirous of rousing me.
Once again I waited my opportunity to spring upon him, for he fortunately was not yet aware that I was awake and watching him.
I held my breath, lying perfectly motionless, for, advancing to me, he bent over as though to make absolutely certain that I slept. I tried to distinguish his face, but in the shadow that was impossible.
I could hear my own heart beating.
He seemed to be peering down at me, as though in curiosity, and I was wondering what could be his intentions, now that he had secured both my money and my papers.
Suddenly ere I could anticipate his intention, his hand was uplifted, and falling, struck me a heavy blow in the side of the neck just beneath the left jaw.
Instantly I felt a sharp burning pain and a sensation as of the running of warm liquid over my shoulders.
Then I knew that the fluid was blood!
I had been stabbed in the side of the throat!
I shrieked, and tried to spring fiercely upon my assailant, but he was too quick for me.
My eager hand grasped his arm, but he wrenched himself free, and next instant had vaulted lightly through the open window and had disappeared.
And as for myself, I gave vent to a loud shriek for help, and then sank inertly back, next second losing consciousness.
The man had escaped with all my precious permits, signed by the Emperor, as well as my money!
My long journey was now most certainly a futile one. Without those Imperial permits I was utterly helpless. I should not, indeed, be allowed to speak with Madame de Rosen, even though I succeeded in finding her alive.
My loss was irreparable, for it had put an end to my self-imposed mission.
Such were the thoughts which ran through my overstrung brain at the moment when the blackness of insensibility fell upon me, blotting out both knowledge of the present and apprehension of the future.
