The rebellion of the Princess

THE sight of her grief, or her terror, so far unmanned me that my hand shook until I spilled some of the wine upon the table, and noting this, and feeling my own weakness, I set the glass down and turned away. The room, which had served as an office for Maître le Bastien, was sparsely furnished, and the light of the tapers, pale and flickering, gave it a cold and uninviting aspect. It was a poor place to bring the Princess Daria—after all the magnificence of her home, and after that fearful day, for—as I reflected—half that she had endured would have crushed a weaker woman. Peril and mortification and the strain of wild excitement had doubtless worn her out, and she was finding, at last, a woman’s relief in tears. She wept, indeed, with such passionate abandon, such an agony of suppressed sobs and sighs, that it would have moved a man of stone—and I was her lover. For the moment I forgot that I was not privileged to comfort her, that, though her husband, I was less known to her than the very slaves in her kitchen, and of less moment.

The sight of her distress touched me so nearly that I forgot all this, I say, forgot the restraint that I had meant to lay upon myself, and going to her, I laid my hand lightly and gently on her bowed head.

“I pray you be comforted,” I said softly, my voice shaken by emotion; “if I can——”

I got no further. She recoiled from my touch as if I had stung her, looking at me with something akin to terror in her eyes.

“Do not touch me!” she cried, her white lips quivering; “do not—dare—to touch me!”

It was my turn to recoil, suddenly apprised of her horror and dread of me—of the man who loved her and had risked his life for her. It hardened my heart. I drew back and, walking to the other end of the room, stood looking at her, with folded arms. And she looked at me; her eyes shining and large and dark in her white face, and her whole figure—as I saw plainly—quivering like a leaf. She tried twice to speak, and in my anger and grief I let her struggle, and at last she hid her face in her hand and spoke to me in a strange, shaking tone.

“I am in your power,” she said; “you—you have gone through a ceremony with me; perhaps—you think you are my—my husband——” Her voice trailed off in a sob of terror.

“I am your husband,” I said brutally, for my heart was bitter.

She wrung her hands. “You are not!” she cried pitifully, “how can you be? I do not know who you are! I was forced into it, I——”

“You knew me,” I interrupted, with cruelty, watching her agony.

She hung her head, and the silence of the room oppressed me. The old house—usually full of creaking noises, as old houses are wont to be, as if the spirits of past inmates walked there—was suddenly so still that I heard her heavy breathing. Her bowed head—the white arch of the brow, the soft flowing hair, the humiliated aspect—moved me more than her words.

“You mistake me, Princess Daria,” I said coldly. “Though a poor man, I am a gentleman.”

At that she laid her head on the table and fell to weeping, like a child, and I was seized with so keen a longing to take her in my arms and comfort her with caresses, with the deepest protests of my love, that I had to turn my back upon her and force my thoughts on other things.

Indeed, I had need to think of her safety. Any hour, any moment, this house, too, might be sacked. I could not keep Voronin’s daughter here, nor anywhere in Moscow, and there was no time so propitious for flight as night. I cast about in my mind for the means, and found them, and then I looked again at her bowed head. She had ceased to weep and lay there, half prone across the table, a picture of despair and weakness, and it was so foreign to all that I had seen of her, of her high spirit and fortitude, that a cruel thought smote me. Was it for her lover she mourned?—for Prince Galitsyn? I set my teeth. If she desired him, doubtless, she would find a way to cut off my claim upon her—if Sophia did not cut off his. In this, at least, the czarevna and I were of one mind and purpose, and I smiled grimly at the thought.

But it was many moments before I schooled myself to speak to the princess with composure, and to tell her of my plans, and the necessity for them. When I finally spoke her name, however, she raised her head and, pushing her disordered hair back from her white face, she looked at me and listened quietly, while I told her of the impossibility of keeping her in that house or even in Moscow, and explained my belief that Maluta had delivered a message to her father ere this, if the dwarf had escaped with his own life.

“You told me that your cousin was at Troïtsa, did you not?” I asked.

She bowed her head, scarcely enough a mistress of herself to speak as yet.

“Then we—you must go to her,” I said firmly. “I will get horses from the stable and ride with you to-night. I believe we can pass the gates, and once out of the city, all will be well. When you are safe at Troïtsa, your father can more easily save himself; here, you only enhance his danger.”

I think she realised this, for she neither assented nor dissented, but seemed to be collecting all her forces.

“I cannot leave him here—to—to die!” she exclaimed, in a broken voice.

“Can you save him?” I asked grimly.

My only answer was a low sob.

“If you stay here, the czarevna will use you to threaten him,” I continued; “and if you are out of the way, she has no real grievance against Prince Voronin.”

The force of this argument went home to her, and she sat a while in silence, looking at the ground, so pale and still that she might have been dead, for any sign of life about her. Far off—but sometimes nearer—I began to hear cries and the roll of drums. I grew impatient.

“Will you go, madame?” I asked, “or will you fall into the hands of the mob? I have saved you once—but I am not omnipotent, and your stay here may ruin your father.”

Her lips quivered, but she looked up and searched my face with her dark eyes.

“I will go—to Troïtsa,” she said.

I bowed profoundly.

“I thank you, Princess,” I replied drily; “I pray you wait here while I go, but a few steps, to the stable and bring the horses.”

“I will wait, monsieur,” she said, and cast down her eyes, blushing painfully under my glance.

I delayed no longer, but taking a taper, went hastily through the house, and finding the back door, unbarred it, and went out into the court; here, for security’s sake, I locked the door of the house and put the key away in my bosom, fearing to leave any bolts undrawn, even while I went to the stable. The lock was hard, and I had to keep the taper shielded by my hand, until I got it fastened, and then, remembering the darkness of the outhouses, I carried it carefully across the yard and entered the stable with it in my hand. The horses, two in number, were in their places, and I began to look about for saddles and bridles for them, moving as speedily and as softly as I could. There was no sound, or I heard none, save the occasional stamp of one of the horses, and I had found my saddle, in the farthest corner from the door, when my taper began to flicker, as if from a sudden draught, and looking up over it, half dazzled by it, I thought I saw someone opening the door. Instinct made me extinguish my taper, and then I saw plainly the burly figure of a man standing on the threshold, outlined sharply by the red glare that suddenly blazed behind him. There were no windows, and but one outlet. I drew my pistol, but, as I did it, the court-yard suddenly swarmed with men and torches, and the fire streaming in the darkness showed me that the fellow on the threshold was Kurakin’s red-bearded steward. He seized a light, and flinging the radiance full on my face, he shouted gleefully:

“We have him, friends! Here is the knave of a goldsmith who beats honest men!”

It was his hour of vengeance, but his last.

I took deliberate aim and, the next instant, he wallowed in his blood upon the floor, and his torch went out. Then, I sprang—if I could only get out, and so lead them away from the house and from her! I knocked another villain senseless in the doorway; I leaped out, and, in a moment, the blaze of torches surrounded me, half a dozen men shouted madly, and I rushed headlong for the gate. I gained it, and they followed. Another moment and I had trailed them ten—twenty yards from the house, and then they were upon me; they had me down and blows rained on me. I fired once more and someone fell heavily upon me; I got a blow on the head, and lights and voices went out together into utter darkness.