The rebellion of the Princess

I  HAD entered the hall, and the dwarf closed the door and secured it with shaking hands. On the floor a lanthorn burned low, casting a dim light, and the house—with its tight-closed shutters—was as dark as pitch. There was a settle in the hall and, overcome with fasting and exertion, I walked over to it and sat down in pure weariness and dejection. Maluta meanwhile shied off from me and cowered behind the lanthorn; for some reason the creature seemed to expect a beating whenever I was displeased or disappointed. But I regarded him as little at the time as a toad; I looked at him with dull eyes. The event had only justified my fears.

“Where has the princess gone?” I asked slowly; “do you even know that?”

“No,” he answered, shaking his head forlornly. “I came here last night and found the house barred and silent, and yet I saw a light under one of the shutters. I knocked and scratched there, and at last the Princess Daria came and spoke to me; she thought you had returned; she had been alone an hour or more, and she had heard cries in the stable-yard.” He stopped and looked at me anxiously.

I nodded. “Go on,” I said briefly.

“She let me in,” he continued more quietly, seeing that I was not angry, “and I gave her the message from her father.”

“Ah! you saw the prince?” I interrupted.

“Yes, I saw him and delivered your message,” he replied meekly.

“How did you escape the rioters in the palace?” I asked sharply. “I thought you were surely trailing them to your death.”

He smiled, his little face puckering. “No,” he rejoined, “I ran down the gallery—I am light of foot. I outran them and leaped out of a window and left them to bay at the air. Then I found Prince Voronin hidden in the Church of Saint Basil the Blessed, and I told him of his daughter, but”—Maluta hesitated—“but not of you, O my master!”

“Your wit is as long as your ears,” I said approvingly; “go on, you little rogue.”

“He bade me tell her to meet him at Troïtsa; he dared not leave his hiding-place till night.”

“And he did not think of her peril?” I asked drily.

The dwarf shrugged his shoulders. “She is only a daughter, excellency; the prince divorced her mother because she bore him no sons, and he has wedded since, and will wed again.”

“Is that four times?” I asked absently, my mind dwelling on the princess.

“Nay,” said Maluta, “four times can no Russian marry; even if he presents himself before the priest he receives punishment, he——”

“And you found the princess here?” I said, cutting him short. “What then? There has been no struggle here, no housebreaking—where is she?”

Maluta’s face showed white in the dim light of the lanthorn.

“I gave her the message and she sent me to the stable to look for a trace of you. I was gone scarcely twenty minutes, and when I returned she was gone—gone as completely as though the earth had swallowed her.”

I sat staring at the feeble flame of the lanthorn; burning low. She had gone, then—as I had felt from the first—of her own free will, but where and how? She had seemed to shrink from me; she probably distrusted me, and she had fled—but whither? The wild disorder of the city, the perils that beset her on every side, would have stayed the most intrepid, and how could she go, alone, in the darkness of that night? The atmosphere of the house suddenly grew choking. I rose and, opening a shutter, let in the light of morning and the chill spring air. Then I fell to pacing the floor, pondering upon it, and taking no notice of the dwarf. I was, indeed, half frantic at the thought of the girl alone and unprotected, fleeing from me into such awful danger. It might be that she had friends near at hand, but it was unlikely; the Russian girl—kept behind “the twenty-eight bolts” of the terem—made few friends, and though I knew the Princess Daria had enjoyed a greater freedom than others and that old-time rules were everywhere relaxing, it was not at a time like this. Even while I meditated I heard the roll of drums, the shouts of soldiers, and a man lay in his blood in the very stable, and yet she had gone alone!

I went into the room where I had seen her last, weeping so bitterly, and I opened a shutter there and looked about me for some sign of her. The room was just as she had left it, and lacking her presence it was bare and sombre: a candle had burned out and guttered in the candlestick upon the table; beside it stood her chair, pushed aside, and the whole aspect of the place spoke of her presence. I stood and looked at it with a heavy heart. She despised me, and I was still her husband. The miracle of it made my brain swim, but, nevertheless, my heart was very heavy. I sat down in her chair and leaned upon the table, thinking, thinking of her, and of what fate had befallen her, and as I sat there I saw something lying on the table—a little sprig of rue, broken, doubtless, from her wedding crown and caught in her hair to fall here. I took it up sadly and was looking at it, when Maluta came sidling into the room and, approaching me cautiously, laid a curious buckle on the table and looked up at me with a wrinkled forehead. I glanced at the buckle and then at him with some impatience.

“Well,” I said sharply, too weary and heartsore for trifles, “what ails it?”

“’Tis such as the guards at the palace wear,” said he, an expression of rare intelligence in his sharp eyes.

“Where did you find it?” I asked quickly.

“In the lobby, O my master,” he replied.

I rose and looked about me for some weapons, but as I did it I turned dizzy, and remembered that, in twenty-four hours, I had eaten nothing but a piece of bread. The dwarf had been watching me and, with his usual singular penetration, he divined my need and ran toward the kitchen. I stood leaning on the window, glad of the air, and pondering on many things, while I put that bit of rue into my bosom, a keepsake—and a sad one. I was still standing there, in strange perplexity, when Maluta came back with some rice bread and a little cold meat and wine, all that he could find in the desolate larder, which he had doubtless visited heavily on his own account. He set the food on the table and I ate hurriedly and in silence, for I was sad enough. If the palace guards had been there, if Sophia had entrapped the princess, what fate might not befall her? Yet, the mystery of her disappearance was wholly unsolved. I could not believe that she would go willingly with the czarevna’s emissaries, and there could scarcely have been a forced entrance where no trace of violence appeared.

At last I spoke my thought aloud.

“I must go to Sophia Alexeievna,” I said; “she shall tell me where the princess is.”

I had scarcely spoken before Maluta fell on his knees beside me and clasped my ankles, with every sign of terror.

“Never!” he cried; “oh, never go to her, my master; she would hang you. She never forgets or forgives—not she!”

“But the Princess Daria?” I said sharply.

“There are other ways,” he pleaded; “let your servant find her, let——”

I rose, casting him aside. “Let you find her,” I cried, with passion; “you little fool, do you take me for a man of stone?”

And I went, searching for a sword and pistol, to another room, and had found them and fastened them at my belt, and chosen a long cloak that would muffle me, when I found him again on his knees at my feet.

“You little rogue,” I said kindly, “why beset me? Do you think a man fears to risk his neck?”

He shook his head and, laying both hands over his heart, besought me with mute gestures.

“You will kill her also,” he protested, “the Princess Daria!”

At this I paused; the little creature’s wisdom had been almost equal to his devotion. I could not afford to spurn either the one or the other.

“What, then, can I do?”

“Let me go,” he pleaded.

“Ay, go, by all means,” I said promptly, “but I also must be stirring. But content you, I will not go to the czarevna until all else fails, but I will find the princess if she is still on the face of this old earth of ours—that I swear, on the honour of a French gentleman!”

His face lighted a little at the opening of my speech, but clouded at the end, and I saw that he feared that I would blunder, and, touched by the creature’s devotion, I laid my hand kindly on his head and thanked him for his courage and his wit in saving us in the palace and for his willingness to serve me. It pleased him; a strange light flickered in his eyes, he touched my coat hurriedly, and kissed his own hand afterwards.

“You saved my life,” he said; “I am yours, O my master!”

And after that we went out together into the streets, where the glare of day shone horridly upon a scene of death and turmoil, and those things that night had cloaked with charity glared at noonday and sent a shudder even to a strong man’s heart.