Kitabı oku: «Boris the Bear-Hunter», sayfa 7
CHAPTER XIV.
TAKEN PRISONER
The fortress of Azof, upon the sea of that name, was principally used by the Turks and Tartars, who at this time occupied it, as a centre for their plundering and marauding expeditions inland. Some sixty-five years before this, in 1627, the city had been surprised and captured by the enterprising Don Cossacks, who found that it lay too close to their own hunting-grounds to be an altogether acceptable neighbour. Having possessed themselves of the city, the Don Cossacks offered it as a free gift to their liege lord, the then Tsar of Muscovy, Michael, Peter's grandfather.
The Tsar sent down officers and experts, before accepting the gift, to report upon the place; but these announced that the fortress was rotten and indefensible, and not worth having. The Cossacks were therefore directed to evacuate the city; which they did, but not before they had razed every building to the ground, so that not one stone stood upon another.
But now, at the date of my story, the young Tsar Peter was full of schemes for aggrandizement by land and sea; his mind was intent upon fleet-building as well as upon army-organizing. But the difficulty was, as one of his intimates pointed out to the Tsar, "What was the use of building a large number of ships with no ports for them to go to?" for, besides Archangel—which was a terribly long way off—Russia had at this time no windows looking out to the sea. The Baltic was in the hands of Sweden, the Black Sea was held by the Turk, the Caspian by Persia. In one of these directions Russia must look for new outlets to the ocean highroads. Peter's reply was characteristic. He said, "My ships shall make ports for themselves"—a boast indeed, but, as events showed, not an idle one.
But the question arose, which foreign power should be first attacked and made to disgorge that without which the development of Russia was hampered and impracticable? The Caspian was, after all, but an inland sea; that could wait. The Baltic was well enough, but Peter knew that he was as yet quite unprepared to tackle Sweden, either by land or sea; that must wait also. There remained the Black Sea. And here Peter would fulfil a double purpose in attacking the dominions of the Turk. He would secure a much-needed port to begin with—that was reason sufficient in itself for the contemplated onslaught; but besides this, he would be dealing a blow for Christianity by smiting Islamism in its stronghold, and chasing from their lair the enemies of Christ.
So Peter decided upon the siege of Azof as a first step towards greater ends. In 1694 he sent down from Moscow several regiments of his new troops, the Preobrajensk, of which the Tsar was himself a member, having entered the regiment at the very lowest grade, and enjoying at this time the rank of "bombardier;" Lefort's regiment of twelve thousand men, mostly foreigners; the Semenofski, and the Batusitski. Besides these were our old friends the Streltsi; and the entire army, numbering one hundred thousand men, was led by Golovnin, Schéin, Gordon, and Lefort. Accompanying this force went, as we have seen, Boris, late bear-hunter, now captain in the Preobrajensk regiment. Though our friend had bidden farewell to the Tsar at Moscow, Peter nevertheless changed his mind and followed the expedition in person, joining the troops beneath the walls of Azof, still as "Bombardier Peter Alexeyevitch," which character he kept up throughout the subsequent proceedings, being determined, as an example to his people, to pass through every grade of both the military and the naval services.
Boris greatly enjoyed the march southwards. He welcomed with all his heart the change from the close, stuffy life in the Moscow drawing-rooms and barracks to his beloved woods and moors and open air at night and day. He was the life of the regiment throughout the long march, entertaining the officers with exhibitions of his animal-calling talent, and teaching them the arts of the forest at every opportunity. Big game naturally kept out of the way of the great host of men, and never came within a mile of the road, though answering calls from wolves might frequently be heard in the distance; but the officers' mess was indebted daily to Boris and his knowledge of woodcraft for constant supplies of toothsome partridge, or delicious willow-grouse, with sometimes a fine blackcock, or even a lordly capercailzie. There was no more popular officer of the Preobrajensk than Boris, whose position was thus very different from that he had held in his late Streltsi regiment, where every officer had been at heart a revolutionist, and therefore hated him for his known devotion to the person of the Tsar.
But the long march was finished at last, and the entire force assembled beneath the walls of Azof.
And now "Bombardier Peter Alexeyevitch" realized with sorrow that without ships to support his land forces he was likely to have a tough struggle to capture the city. When, seventy years before, the Don Cossacks had surprised and taken it, Azof had been a very inferior stronghold to this which now frowned upon him but a mile or less from his outposts. The new city now possessed a high wall, strongly built, and likely to defy awhile the assault of the heavy but feeble ordnance of that time. Peter accordingly determined, in council with Lefort and the rest, that rather than lay siege to the place, it would be advisable, in the absence of ships, to attempt its capture by assault.
Arrangements were made that the artillery fire should be concentrated upon that portion of the wall which appeared to be the weakest, and that the instant a breach was made the Preobrajensk, supported by the rest, should advance to the assault and carry the town vi et armis. The attack was fixed for the following morning.
During that evening an unfortunate quarrel took place between the general Schéin and the principal artillery officer, a German named Jansen, familiarly known to the Russian soldiers as "Yakooshka." Schéin fixed upon one portion of the wall as that to be attacked, while Jansen was determined that another spot offered a more suitable mark for the Russian guns. Schéin insisted, and Jansen, with blunt German obstinacy, insisted also. Schéin lost his temper and abused Jansen, when Jansen grew angry also and said, no doubt, what was unbecoming in an inferior to a superior officer. Then Schéin lost control over himself, and commanded the guard to arrest poor "Yakooshka," whereupon the latter was led away and actually bastinadoed for insubordination.
That night Jansen escaped from his undignified captivity, and having first made the round of the Russian guns and spiked them all, quietly shook the dust from off his feet, turned his back upon the Russian lines, and went over to the enemy, being admitted into Azof by its Mussulman holders with joy and thanksgiving.
On the following morning, when the order was given to train the guns upon the city walls and to open fire, the treachery of Jansen was discovered. The Bombardier Peter Alexeyevitch, when this information was brought to him, was a terrible object to behold. Great spasms of passion shook him from head to foot, while his face—black as any storm-cloud—worked in contortions and grimaces like the features of one in a terrible fit. For a few moments he said no word. Then he took his note-book and wrote therein large and prominent the name Jansen. After which he gave orders for the assault of Azof, guns or no guns, and in a few moments the brave Preobrajensk were in full career towards the walls of the city.
The guns opened fire upon them so soon as the guard became conscious of the surprisingly rash intentions of the Russians; but the shot flew over their heads. Boris, mindful of the Tsar's words to him while still in Moscow, that he should do his best to be the first man into Azof, led his company cheering and waving his sword. Russians have never held back when there was storming work to do, and the troops advanced quickly at the double, singing, as Russians love to do, one of their stirring military songs.
The musketry fire opened from the top of the walls as they came to close quarters, and though the shooting was very wild, still many wide gaps were made in the ranks. In a moment the foot of the wall was reached, and now came the difficult work of ascending. Scaling-ladders were placed, and knocked ever from above, and placed again. Scores of men endeavoured to climb the wall without the aid of ladders, but were easily shot down or knocked on the head if they ever succeeded in climbing within reach of the sharp swords and scimitars waving in readiness above.
The din was deafening, the cries of Christian and Mussulman outvying the roar of musketry. Now and again a squad of Russians firing from below would clear the wall, and a ladder would be placed for half-a-dozen brave fellows to rush upwards and be cut down by new defenders who came to fill the gaps of the fallen. Once a roar of applause was set up by the Russian hosts as a Russian officer, followed by half-a-dozen men, rushed up one of the ladders, and with a shout of triumph stood upon the top of the wall, waving their swords, and shouting to their companions to follow. This triumph was short-lived. First one man fell, pierced through the heart by a bullet; then another and another was knocked on the head, while those who essayed to come to their rescue were shot down in their attempt to mount the ladder. At length there remained alive the officer alone, he who had first surmounted the wall. This officer was Boris, whose superior agility had once more stood him in good stead, and enabled him to climb where the rest had failed. That same activity appeared, however, to have got him into a terrible fix. Alone he stood for a few moments, fighting bravely but hopelessly against a dozen swords, until at length, to the consternation of his friends below, he was seen to receive a blow which tumbled him off the wall upon the Azof side, and no more was seen of him.
For an hour or more the Russians fought bravely on, endeavouring to obtain a foothold upon those grim walls, but all in vain. The Tartar women brought boiling water and threw it down upon the "Christian dogs," together with every sort of filth, and large stones. Every inhabitant of the city appeared to have come out upon the walls in order to assist in beating off the infidel; and though many fell pierced by Russian bullets, they were entirely successful in their patriotic endeavours, for, with the exception of the half-dozen men who followed Boris upon the walls, no single Russian succeeded in mounting the ladders, or in any other way effecting a footing within the Mussulman stronghold.
Meanwhile the guns of the town, probably aimed by the treacherous though much provoked Jansen, rained fire and hail upon the main body of the besiegers, who, with spiked guns, were unable to retaliate. Peter the Bombardier was gloomy and black. He strode among his guns, superintending the efforts of his smiths to get them into working order; he swore at his generals right and left, in a manner ill-befitting a humble bombardier; he swore with yet more deadly wrath at Jansen, and with greater justice. But in spite of all his ferocity and fury he did not lose his discretion; and finding that his troops were doing and could do no good under present circumstances, the Tsar gave orders that the assaulting columns should retire. Thus the day, the first of many, passed without result.
As time went on, and Peter found that his attacks upon Azof made no progress, but that he lost daily large numbers of his best soldiers to no purpose, he decided reluctantly that until he should become possessed of a fleet which could blockade the city by sea, while he attacked it at the same time, and in force, by land, he must abandon all hope of capturing the place. At present, as he had now realized to his loss, the city could be reinforced and revictualled at any moment. Besides this, his mainstay in the science of artillery attack, Jansen, had basely failed him; he had no one competent to take his place. Such an officer, together with clever engineers, must be invited to enter his service as quickly as might be—an Englishman, a Frenchman, even a German again, but not a touchy and quarrelsome and treacherous one, such as Yakooshka had proved himself.
So Peter wisely, but sorrowfully, abandoned the siege of Azof for that season, promising himself a speedy return in the following summer, when he was fully determined he would possess a fleet capable of blockading the city from the sea side, as well as capable and experienced foreign officers, who should lead his brave fellows to that victory which had been snatched from them this season through no fault of their own.
Peter had still much to learn in the art of war; but, like a man of sense, he accepted defeat on this and on future occasions as object-lessons for the benefit of his own inexperience. The great Tsar had his own patient way of attaining his ends through many defeats and much discouragement. He learned from his enemies at each repulse, assimilating the experience thus gained until he was in a position, in his turn, to teach. How thorough was his method of impressing a lesson upon those who had once been his teachers, let Pultowa and Nystad testify.
Nevertheless, Peter's rebuff at Azof in 1695 was to him an exceedingly serious matter in the peculiar condition of affairs in the Russia of that day; for it gave to his enemies, and the enemies of progress, the opportunity to point the finger of scorn at his foreign soldiers and his un-Russian policy generally, and smile and say, "Ha, we told you so! these foreigners will be the ruin of Russia. The priests are right, and we shall yet see this young man, the Tsar, acknowledge the error of his ways, and turn his great energies to clearing the land of the foreigner, with his alien manners and civilization."
But these men imagined a vain thing; and the young Tsar, like a young lion, did but shake his mane and lick his wounded paw, and sally forth once again to encounter and slay the enemy who had wounded him.
CHAPTER XV.
AN EXCITING ESCAPE
When the Tsar returned to Moscow and set himself deliberately to count up his losses, he was obliged to admit that what affected him more grievously than anything else was the disappearance of poor Boris; a disappearance which he could not but feel certain meant death, or captivity and torture, in comparison with which death would be vastly preferable. Peter missed his devoted servant and friend at every turn and at every hour of the day.
On the second day after his arrival, the Tsar was surprised to receive a request for an audience from, as his orderly informed him, "a little English fairy." Permission being given, the door opened, and in walked Nancy Drury, now nearly fifteen years old, and as sweet-looking an example of English maidenhood as any could wish to see. Nancy was very grave and hollow-eyed, and her face showed signs of many tears.
"Is it true?" said Nancy, advancing towards the Tsar, and speaking in the hollowest and most tragic of voices.
"Is what true, my dear?" asked Peter kindly, taking the child on his knee, though he thought he knew well enough what she required of him.
"Is it true that he is lost—my Boris—and perhaps dead?" Poor Nancy burst into tears as she spoke the last word, and hid her face in her hands. "Oh, what have you done with him, and why did you let the Tartars have him?" she continued, through sobs and tears.
Peter did his best to pacify the child, assuring her, against his own convictions, that Boris was certainly alive and well, and promising faithfully that at the renewed campaign next summer his troops should certainly release Boris from captivity before they did anything else.
When Nancy had extracted this promise from the Tsar, she dried her tears, and thanked him and smiled. Peter kissed the sweet English face. "If only I were not married already, Nancy," he said, laughing, "I declare I should be tempted to make an empress of you when you were old enough! Would you like to be an empress?"
Nancy blushed. "I love your Majesty very much," she said, "but I would never be empress—" She hesitated.
"And why not, my little English fairy?" said the Tsar kindly.
"I—I shouldn't like to live in a big palace all my life," faltered Nancy. "I love the woods and the fields, and—"
"But if Boris were emperor?" laughed the Tsar.
Nancy hid her face, and flushed scarlet. Then she jumped off his knee and burst into tears again, throwing herself at his feet, and sobbing, "Oh, save him from the Tartars, your Majesty—do save him! Take him away from the enemies of Christ, and God will bless you for it!"
There was not much of the man of sentiment about this practical young potentate, but Peter could not help feeling greatly touched to see the child's anxiety and sorrow. Once more he assured her that all would be well, and Nancy accepted his assurance and left the Tsar's cabinet smiling and hopeful.
But my readers will wish to know what has become of poor Boris all this time. They will think, very properly, that the fate of a single Christian falling wounded into the hands of an excited mob of the children of the Prophet must be pretty well settled before ever his feet have touched the ground. So it would be, undoubtedly, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred; but Boris was not quite "done for" when he fell, and therefore the swords and knives which were anxiously awaiting the opportunity to dip into his Christian blood were obliged first to fight for the privilege. He had received a terrific blow, certainly, but had guarded in time, and though overbalanced and tumbled off the wall, he was still unhurt. Regaining his feet in an instant, he had placed his back against the wall, and stood to receive attack. Half-a-dozen swords soon sprang out to give him battle, and in a minute he was engaged in an encounter compared with which his fight with the Streltsi was the tamest of toy battles. Boris felt that there was little hope of his keeping his antagonists at bay until some of his friends should have mounted the wall and arrived to give him the much-needed assistance; but he was resolved, nevertheless, to keep up the game until either death or assistance came, and to exact at least twelve Mussulman lives as the price of his own!
Boris fought a good fight that day. Turk after Turk fell before his big swinging sword, and whenever one fell another took his place. Bravely he cut and thrust and guarded, and the very Turks themselves stayed their crowding upon the walls to see out this fine exhibition of skill and endurance and Muscovitish pluck. But cutting and thrusting and guarding one's body from two or three assailants at once is tiring work, and poor Boris felt his strength failing him, and his eye grew dim, so that he could scarcely see accurately where he struck, and some of his blows began to fall at random. His breath came and went in gasps, and his arms ached with weariness. In another moment one of those flashing blades would find a billet somewhere in the region of his stout heart, and the career of the brave bear-hunter would be over and done with.
But fate had decided that the readers of these records of Boris should have many more pages of his history to peruse, and just when the hunter was making up his mind that he had fought his last fight and lost it, this same fate, in the person of a Turkish pasha who had watched the fray admiringly from the beginning, strode up and knocked aside the swords of the assailants of Boris just in time to prevent them from dyeing themselves red in his blood. The pasha felt that here was a splendid slave being wasted, or perhaps a prisoner for whom a good ransom might be eventually forthcoming. So he struck away the swords, and skipping aside to avoid a savage thrust from poor dim-eyed Boris, who could not see and knew not the signification of this new assailant's interference, he rushed in and pinned the half-fainting Russian to the wall. The sword dropped from Boris's hand as the fingers of the pasha closed around his throat, a thick film came over his eyes, black fog enveloped his brain, and the shouts and cries of the battle around him receded further and further into space; his consciousness faded and failed, his senses vanished one by one like the extinguishing of candles, and Boris knew no more.
When Boris came to himself he was in a small room, whose only window was at a height of some five feet from the floor and iron-barred. He could hear a sentinel pass and repass beneath it, and from a distance came the sounds of musketry and artillery fire, which quickly recalled to his mind the events of the morning—or of yesterday, for he was without means of ascertaining how long he had remained unconscious. Food—some coarse bread and a dish of water—stood upon the floor beside the straw upon which he found himself outstretched. Boris was very hungry, and at once ravenously consumed the food, finishing the bread to the last crumb, and wishing there were more of it, coarse though it was. He felt very weary still, and though unwounded, save for a prick or two in the hand and fore-arm, quite incapable of and disinclined for thought or exertion. So Boris lay still, and presently fell asleep.
He was awakened at night by voices as of people conversing within the room, and opened his eyes to find the pasha, his captor, with another Turk and a third figure whose presence first filled him with joy, and then, as he remembered, with bitter loathing. It was Jansen, the treacherous gunner, to whose perfidy and desire for vengeance was due the repulse of Peter and his army, and, indeed, indirectly, his own present situation.
Boris was for upraising his voice in angry denunciation of the traitor, but the pasha dealt him a blow in the mouth and bade him roughly be silent. Boris felt for his sword, but found it was no longer at his side, neither was his dagger nor his big clumsy pistol; he was entirely unarmed.
Jansen and the Turks were conversing in a language unknown to Boris, the pasha asking questions and putting down Jansen's replies in a note-book. Then Jansen, addressing Boris, informed him that the pasha had spared his life in order to employ him in his own service, either to teach his soldiers the art of swordsmanship, in which, the pasha had observed, he excelled, or perhaps to help him, Jansen, in managing the big guns mounted upon the walls.
But at this point the tongue of Boris would be silent no longer, and burst into furious invective. That this man should desert his master the Tsar in his need was bad enough, but that the traitor should expect him, Boris, to employ his skill in gunnery against his own beloved sovereign and his own people passed the patience of man, and Boris was with difficulty prevented from casting himself upon the deserter and throttling him as he stood. Three swords flashing out of their scabbards at the same moment, however, reminded the captive of his helplessness, and Boris relinquished, reluctantly, the pleasure of suffocating the traitor.
Whether Jansen persuaded the pasha of the impracticability of compelling Boris to do any useful work with the guns, or whether it struck the pasha that Boris might easily do more harm than good at the walls, I know not, but the prisoner was never requested to take part in artillery practice at the Russian lines. His duties, he found, consisted chiefly in helping to carry the pasha's palanquin about the streets of the city—an occupation rendered exceedingly disagreeable by the rudeness of the population, who pushed, and jostled, and cursed, and spat upon the "Christian dog" whenever he appeared. Occasionally he was directed to practise sword exercise with chosen Mussulman swordsmen; and this he was glad enough to do, for it gave him amusement in plenty to teach these Easterns all manner of Western malpractices, tricks of swordsmanship of an obsolete and exploded nature such as would undoubtedly expose them, should they come to blows with an experienced fencer, to speedy defeat. Besides these occupations Boris was ever busy in another way—a field of activity in which his energies were employed without the sanction or the knowledge of his master, for he was labouring every day to loosen the iron bars of his prison room. By means of peeping out of his window at moments when the sentry was at a distance Boris had discovered that between him and the outer wall of the city there was but a space of thirty yards of stone pavement, up and down which paced the sentinel. Beyond this was the wall; and over the wall, not indeed the plain whereon the Russian troops had till lately been encamped, but the shining waters of that arm of the Black Sea known as the Sea of Azof.
Day by day Boris worked at his bar, choosing those moments when the sentinel was farthest from him. Once, during the sword instruction in the courtyard, a sword broke, and the broken end of the weapon, a blunt piece of steel about eight inches in length, was left on the ground. Boris found an opportunity to seize this and secrete it before leaving the spot, and the fragment proved of the utmost service to him in scraping the mortar from beneath and around the iron bars. Two months after his capture Boris saw to his delight that he could now at any moment he chose remove these bars and attempt his escape.
The opportunity arrived at last: a warm, dark night, drizzling with rain; the sentry, muffled in his bashlik, could see little and hear less; no one else would be about the walls in such weather and so late. The bit of sword end, by constant working, had worn to itself by this time a sharp and formidable edge; it was no longer a weapon to be despised. In Boris's wallet were stored the economized savings of many meals—food enough to keep him alive for several days. The hunter removed carefully the iron bars which had made this little room a prison-house for two long months, and clambering upon the somewhat narrow ledge, sat in the darkness and waited. Would the sentinel never pass close enough for his purpose? To and fro the man went, but he did not guess what was required of him, and passed along rather further from the window than exactly suited the designs of Boris.
Seeing that the man was evidently a person of method, and stepped time after time in his old tracks, Boris determined that he must accept the inevitable and deal with matters as they were, without waiting longer for desirable contingencies which destiny refused to bring about. Standing crouched upon the ledge, Boris waited until the sentinel was opposite, as nearly as he could guess in the darkness; then setting every muscle in his body, he sprang out as far as he could towards the spot where he judged the man to be. So vigorous was his leap, that though the soldier was upwards of five yards from the window, Boris alighted with tremendous force upon his shoulders, bearing him to the ground and himself falling over him.
The wretched sentry, conscious only that something very heavy indeed had fallen down upon him, apparently from the skies, was about to howl to his Prophet for help; but in an instant Boris had one big hand over the fellow's mouth, and with the other felt for a spot where a dig of his little weapon might serve to silence for ever the man's appeals, whether to Mohammed or to any one else. A quick struggle as they rolled together on the ground, a sharp dig, and the sentinel lay still and harmless, and Boris had accomplished his task so far.
Taking the man's outer garment and bashlik, and leaving his own, taking also the fellow's musket and pistol, Boris clambered up the outer wall and looked for a moment into the darkness beneath. That the sea was there was certain, for he could hear the sound of the wavelets lapping the wall below him; but how far down was the water—in other words, how high was the wall?
However, this was no time for anxious reflection. If Boris ever wished to see his home again, and his beloved Tsar, and, lastly, his little friend Nancy Drury, he must jump now and at once. Murmuring a prayer, then giving one somewhat trembling look down into the grim darkness beneath him, Boris took a long breath and jumped.
It must have been a high wall, for as Boris fell through the air it seemed to him as though he would never reach the water. At last he felt the cold waves close over him, and then it seemed as though he would never rise to the surface again; but when his breath was nearly exhausted, and he was well-nigh choked for want of air, his head emerged once more, and he was able to float quietly for a while, in order to obtain a fresh supply of breath, and to listen for any sound which might either warn him of danger, or indicate the direction in which he ought to strike out in order to make the shore.
Presently Boris heard the sound of oars, and remained where he was until the boat should pass. It was a party of fishers putting out to sea, and Boris judged that by going in the opposite direction he would reach land; so he struck boldly out for the point whence the boat had come. Soon his intently listening ears caught the sound of the twittering of sand-pipers, and Boris guessed that he neared the shore. This was the case, and in some twenty minutes from the time of his plunge the hunter had the satisfaction of feeling the bottom, and of wading, drenched and somewhat cold, but exceedingly rejoiced, ashore. There was no one about. The city lay to the left; he could hear the crowing of cocks, and caught the occasional glimmer of a light. Boris took the opposite direction, and walked along what seemed to be the edge of an arm of the sea or of a large river. All night he toiled along, sometimes swimming or wading, in order to put possible pursuers off the track.
When morning came, Boris found himself on the skirt of a large forest, and here he concealed himself, and dried his clothes and his food in the sun. Then, deep in the shade of a birch thicket, he lay down and enjoyed a good rest until the evening, when he rose up and recommenced his flight, always keeping to the shore of the river, which, as he afterwards discovered, was the Don. Thus Boris travelled for three days, pushing on at night and resting during the day, until his food was well-nigh exhausted. Then, to his joy, he reached a rough-looking village where he found the Russian language was understood. Here he was received kindly and entertained hospitably by the rough but good-hearted inhabitants, a tribe of Don Cossacks; and here he rested for several days, and collected his exhausted energies amid his kind Cossack friends, in preparation for the long journey for Moscow and home!
