The rebellion of the Princess

WHEN we reached the street Maître le Bastien stopped, panting and wiping the cold perspiration from his forehead.

“Lack-a-day, M. le Marquis, you have undone us now!” he cried, between his gasps. “These Russians—holy Virgin! to tell the prince, to his face, that you had married this Princess Daria, and to defy him, too! And he’s on the crest of the wave, and just declared the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, in the place of Larion Ivanof!”

“Precisely, monsieur,” I replied, smiling, “and let him desert the Czarevna Sophia for the pursuit of the Princess Daria,—of my wife,—and he will find that his house is of cards and falls at a breath.”

The force of this argument struck even the goldsmith, and he was silent for a moment, but the next his equilibrium was again destroyed by the sudden appearance of a band of Streltsi at the further end of the street. He seized me by the arm, without ceremony, and hurried me into a deserted garden close at hand, and there, drawing me into the shadow of the stone wall, he began to recount the horrors of the preceding day, many of which I had witnessed, and to argue from this point that I was powerless to save the Princess Daria, and that my marriage was of as little moment as the cooing of two pigeons on the stone arch over our heads.

“The power of the Naryshkins has all crumbled to pieces; Matveief is dead, and Dolgoruky. Athanasius Naryshkin, the czarina’s brother, was betrayed by the dwarf, Homyak, and cut to pieces in the Cathedral of the Assumption. Even the patriarch barely escaped; they are determined to have Ivan Naryshkin and the Jew Von Gaden. They killed the privy councillor Ivanof, and his son, and two lieutenant-colonels on the portico, between the banqueting-hall and the Cathedral of the Annunciation; the Boyar Ramodanofsky is butchered, the Boyars Soltykof, father and son; Peter Naryshkin, and—this morning—Kirillof and Dr. Gutemensch, and there are others—by the score. They declare to-day that the serfs shall be free, and now ’tis thought that many slaves will betray their masters; it was a servant who betrayed the elder Soltykof. ’Tis just as I predicted: the devils are let loose and no man can curb them, and Sophia Alexeievna is the only one in the royal family equal to facing the crisis; she alone can plead with and influence these beasts, and yet you think to get the Princess Daria from her!” The good man threw up his hands with an expression of despair.

Outside the garden wall I heard the Streltsi screaming and singing as they passed—a tipsy crowd. About us the weeds and plants grew thickly and almost blocked the doors and windows of a deserted house. One great clump of bushes opposite choked the entrance to the cellar.

“I have seen enough, and been through enough, to realise my difficulties,” I said calmly, “but what is a man’s right arm for, Maître le Bastien, if it be not to fight in a good cause? I will not allow even Sophia to snatch my wife away, and I will not leave her in the hands of her enemies. But tell me, how fares it with you? I would not imperil you.”

“I am safe enough,” he replied at once. “Galitsyn will protect me; against me he has no quarrel, and has sent some Streltsi already to keep my house from the mob. I fear nothing for myself, but you, monsieur, you are lost!”

I laughed, although my reflections were grim enough.

“Nay,” I replied, “was I not lost in Paris? Did I not flee from the Place Royale, with the provost-marshal at my heels? Tush, monsieur, I am inured to perils; fear not for me. But now, I would give much for a single clew of her whereabouts; whether she went of her own will or not, and who she went with?”

Deeply flushed with embarrassment, Maître le Bastien hesitated, and then ventured to speak his mind.

“Pardon me, monsieur,” he said; “did you not marry her against her will, and almost—well, yes, M. le Marquis—almost, we might say, by force?”

I assented gloomily, my eyes on the bushes opposite, that swayed, though there was no wind.

“Then—may she not have fled—of her free will—monsieur?” suggested the goldsmith, avoiding my eye.

“’Tis not impossible,” I replied, “yet I think it improbable. She had less to fear from me than from others, and I thought her at the last inclined to trust me.”

“‘Souvent femme varie,’” quoted Maître le Bastien softly.

I did not reply; instead, I went across the garden and, diving my arm into the bushes, drew forth—by the nape of the neck—that rogue, Michaud.

At the sight of him the master goldsmith’s face flushed with mortification; he felt that I had borne much from his apprentice; and he was more severe now than I, who knew, by the knave’s looks and his chattering teeth, that he had hidden there in an agony of terror and from no sinister motive.

“What are you doing here, you rogue?” demanded his master harshly; “have you not done harm enough already, without playing also the part of eavesdropper?”

The scenes that he had witnessed, and the near approach of violent death, had cowed the fellow completely, and he hung his head, sullen and wretched to the last degree.

“I hid here to escape these savages,” he said, “and had no thought of seeing you, Maître le Bastien.”

“That may be!” retorted the goldsmith sharply, “but when you saw only M. de Cernay and me here, why did you lurk like a snake in the bushes!”

Michaud turned deeply red and glanced aside at me.

“I thought that you despised me,” he said bluntly, “and could well dispense with the sight of me.”

But Le Bastien was not appeased, and would have said more but that I interposed.

“We cannot judge him too severely, monsieur,” I said, laughing; “only last night I hid in a wine-butt!”

The goldsmith, who knew me for a choleric man and a fighter, smiled in spite of himself at this, and Michaud cast a look of something akin to gratitude at me. The fellow loved his master. I myself had once just such a follower, devoted to jealousy, and full of sullen fits and the changeful moods of a woman.

“You speak truly, M. le Marquis,” said Le Bastien thoughtfully; “we cannot judge too harshly; but where have you been, Michaud?”

“I got out of the palace in the tumult, monsieur,” replied the apprentice, “and I have been hiding in one place and another, ever since; only an hour ago I got out of the Kremlin through the kindness of a soldier, whom I knew, and who got me through the guard at the Gate of Saint Nikolas, for a rouble—all I had.”

“Ah, then money still has its virtue, has it?” I exclaimed, seeing a gleam in the thick cloud of trouble.

Michaud shuffled his feet in the weeds and stood looking down without answering, and then suddenly he lifted his head and looked at me—squarely—for the first time since he had released the fat chamberlain.

“M. le Marquis, I have somewhat to tell you,” he said slowly. “Last night, as I hid under the portico of the banqueting-hall, I saw the palace guards under that man—the stout man—you know whom I mean?” I nodded. “He who was imprisoned in Maître le Bastien’s house. They came by, bringing a lady, veiled and muffled, and afterwards one of their number, who speaks a little French,—the man I bribed—told me that she was taken from our quarters and—was the Princess Daria.”

I drew a deep breath, and then I took two roubles and put them into Michaud’s hand.

“To repay your loss,” I said, “and to thank you; your good deed outweighs your evil.”

But Maître le Bastien shook his head. “’Tis ill news, M. le Marquis,” he said ponderously, “and an ill wind that will blow nobody good.”

“No news can be worse than bad news, monsieur,” I replied, as lightly as I could, though, I confess, my heart sank. “At least I know now where to look.”

He regarded me in despair. “You cannot dream, monsieur, of going there?” he exclaimed, pointing toward the Kremlin with a shudder of repulsion.

I nodded gaily, as if I thought it a light matter.

“Ay, and at once,” I said.

He held up his hands. “’Tis madness,” he cried, “sheer madness! The dead lie there to warn you!”

“And she is there!” I retorted, and drawing my pistol from my belt, I primed it.

“Tut, tut, monsieur!” said Maître le Bastien, “you dream! Why rush to death? The Church accounts suicide sin, and what is this you contemplate but suicide? Come, monsieur, come home with me,” and he plucked at my sleeve, in honest consternation.

I thanked him pleasantly. “You are a good friend, Maître le Bastien,” I said, “and I am glad to feel that you will be safe. Cut loose from me, monsieur, however, for I will be henceforth a marked man—the Princess Daria’s husband,” and I smiled bitterly.

He shook his head despondently, knowing me too well to interfere further.

“Michaud,” I said, looking to my sword, “where is your Streltsi? I must get into the Kremlin, instead of out of it.”

But at these words the apprentice turned white as paper.

“I cannot go back there, monsieur,” he protested; “I dare not.”

“Are you a woman?” I asked scornfully, eyeing him in a way that brought the blood to his face, but he stood sullenly silent.

“Bah!” I said; “where are your petticoats?”

But Maître le Bastien was inclined to support him, if only to thwart me, and my temper was rising when—happily for all—the dwarf, Maluta, suddenly appeared in the gateway, and, at the sight of me, came pattering in, and ’twas he, as usual, who found a way to cut the knot. In fact, in those five bloody days of the insurrection, it was these little creatures—these playthings of the court—who wrought much good and evil. Homyak, the dwarf, betrayed the czarina’s brother to his death; Komar, the dwarf, saved the son of the Chancellor Matveief and Feodor Naryshkin; and Maluta, the dwarf, was my true friend and ally. Yet they were the veriest waifs of fortune, the most miserable toys of tyrants, the outcasts of society—and its spies. Misery and secret power, degradation and triumph, merriment and despair, these things made up the sum of their short lives, but love and happiness and honour passed them by and left them to perish by the wayside.