The shears of destiny

AT the coming on of dusk the next afternoon Sonya set out for the Fortress. All was staked on that one bold cast of the die—her brother’s freedom if she won, her capture if she lost. Drexel had besought her to let him be the partner of her danger, but she had replied that for him to come would be merely a useless risk, since he could not possibly save her if trouble rose; moreover, the governor certainly would not speak in the presence of a third person. So she rode on her errand alone.

She had the courage of her ancient race, but when she drew up at the gate of that great gray pile she could not keep down the pulsing fears. Such a world of things hung upon the next few moments; and here, before those high grim walls, how small the chance of success became, how great and instant seemed the dangers! The governor, perhaps thinking to regain lost favour with the Government, might hear her through and then virtuously reject the offer. He would say a word, lift a hand, and she would be caught in that giant trap.

To insure her admission she had sent ahead a note to Governor Delwig, stating that she was calling to give him important information relative to one of the prisoners. At the announcement of her name (she had signed the note Madame Smirnova) she was admitted to the Fortress and conducted to a room opening into the governor’s office. But she was not to see him at once; the governor esteemed his life too dearly to let a stranger come straight into his presence. A sentry made a search of her, uncoiling even her thick black hair, peering even into her mouth, to see that no compact explosive was hidden there. This ceremony completed, word was sent in to the governor that all was well; whereupon an order came out for her admission.

Governor Delwig looked curtly up from a big flat-topped desk as the door closed behind her. But his manner changed at sight of his visitor. Sonya knew what a powerful ally is good dress in dealing with officials, and had attired herself accordingly.

He arose. “Madame Smirnova, I believe?” he said, and with a bow he offered her a chair.

She sat down, and through her veil made a quick study of the man upon whom her life now hung. He was half bald, but amends were made by a proud, wide-flaring beard, and a thick, upturned moustache. His face was puffed with good feeding and written over with the red script of a thousand wine bottles—a face that could show hearty good fellowship among friends, and that now regarded Sonya with bland and deferential courtesy, but behind which she saw a cruel, selfish, unprincipled nature.

“I believe you have some information to give regarding one of the prisoners,” he said. Near his seemingly uncognizant right hand lay a pistol—silent warning to visitors to make no suspicious move.

With an effort she got her dread and dislike of this man under control. “Yes,” she said. “Regarding the prisoner Borodin.”

His face took on a blank expression. “Borodin? There is no such prisoner here, madame.”

“I am aware, Governor Delwig, that you are under orders to pretend ignorance of him. But I have definite knowledge that he is in the Fortress.”

Her positive tone, no less than her positive words, had its effect upon him. He hesitated. “And what did you wish to say?”

She knew that gradual approach to her purpose would count for nothing here. “First, I desire to say, governor, that I realise that in coming here I have put my life in your hands.”

“Eh?” said he, raising his heavy eyebrows.

“For I am a revolutionist.”

“What!” He sat up straight and reached for the pistol.

“I have been searched, you know,” she quietly reminded him.

He drew back his hand. “What is your business here?” he asked sharply.

“I wish to free Borodin.”

He fairly gasped. “And you tell me that! And here in Peter and Paul! You certainly are a bold one!”

“We thought that you might help us.”

“Help you?”

“Yes. We knew you were incensed at the Government. We thought you might consider casting in your future with us, and riding into power when the revolution succeeds.”

“Bah!” he cried. “It will never succeed!”

“Had you seen fit to join us,” she continued quickly, “the first business we thought to entrust to you was the freeing of Borodin. We have a large sum of money to be devoted to that purpose. That sum we had decided to put into your hands to be expended as you see fit.”

He did not speak. His fat lids narrowed and his small eyes stared at her with piercing intentness. She waited with stilled breath.

His face suddenly grew dark. “I see!” he breathed between his closed teeth. “Well, madame, your little scheme won’t work!”

Her heart went out of her.

His heavy face had grown malignantly inflamed. “You, and those who sent you, are clever—very clever! And you thought you could bribe me, and get me involved in a plan to free Borodin, eh?”

She could not deny it.

“But I see straight through your plot against me!”

She caught her breath. “Plot against you?” she exclaimed.

“Plot against me, madame. Oh, I see through it! You are an agent of my enemies. You were to trick me into this Borodin business; when I was thoroughly involved, my enemies thought to expose me, and use the case to complete my ruin. Did you think to catch me by such an old trick?”

On his desk stood a bronze alarm bell. He stretched out a hand to strike it.

She caught and stayed his arm. “Stop—what are you doing?”

“Ringing for a guard.” His little eyes gleamed with vindictive triumph. “Perhaps I cannot reach my enemies, but at least I shall make their agent suffer! I shall have you punished for what you pretend to be—a revolutionist.”

“You are mistaken!” she cried. “I am a revolutionist!”

“Bah!” sneered he. “There have been too many schemes laid against me, not to see through a simple one like this!”

“But I am a revolutionist, I tell you!”

He sneered again and he reached a second time to strike the belt.

Again she seized his arm. “Wait, wait!” she cried desperately. “I can prove that I tell you the truth!”

“Prove it?”

“Yes, I can prove it! You have a description of the woman charged with the attempted shooting of Prince Berloff?”

“I have.”

She raised her veil. “Compare the two faces.”

He scrutinized the flushed countenance thus revealed. “A—ah!” he breathed.

“Did I not speak the truth?” she cried.

“You did,” said he deliberately. “And you spoke it also when you said you had put your life in my hands.”

There was a new light in his little eyes—a gloating light. It sent a shiver through her.

“There is a reward of ten thousand rubles for your arrest. Madame”—he bowed to her—“I thank you for those ten thousand rubles!”

His words, the gleam of his eyes, left no doubt of his purpose. She steadied herself and looked at him with calm eyes.

“But you are not going to arrest me,” she said. “To let me go, to help free Borodin, will mean much more to you than ten thousand rubles.” She tossed a packet of notes upon the desk.

His face grew black again, and he did not even glance at the notes. “You try to bribe me!”

“I suggest that you look at the money.”

But he held his menacing scowl upon her.

“There is fifteen thousand rubles there,” said she. “And there will be five more, twenty thousand rubles in all, when the work is completed.”

His gaze grew even blacker. “What—you dare insult me!”

“Twenty-five thousand.”

“I tell you my honour is not for sale!” And he raised his hand above the bell.

“Thirty thousand,” said Sonya, “would be our limit.”

The hand paused—then sank to his side. He glowered at her, stormed at her—then at length he said:

“Why, even if I were willing, it could not be safely done!”

Twenty minutes later she left the Fortress, the agreement made, though the plan was but vaguely formed. She drove swiftly home, bringing vast relief to Drexel, and with him hurried off to The White One’s where Dr. Razoff and Pestel were already waiting in anticipation of the meeting. Sabatoff was not present; his position in the Ministry of the Interior was too valuable to the Committee for him to endanger it by running any avoidable risks. They discussed the plan for half the night, and discussed it the next night, and the next; and Sonya had further interviews with the governor to perfect the Fortress arrangements. Sonya and Drexel went over the plan with Freeman several times in the house in Three Saints’ Court. Freeman was full of keen, able suggestions and was of tireless energy in arranging the details of Borodin’s flight.

Four days of consultation and work, and the plan was complete. The governor had demanded its first requisite to be that it should make him seem guiltless of complicity in the escape. Among the prison guards were two of his creatures of such dark records that, should they turn against him, their word would count for nothing. For a thousand rubles each these two gladly undertook the roles of scapegoats. At the hour set for the escape they were to be the watch before Borodin’s cell; a guard’s uniform was to be smuggled in to him; and, aided by a clever disposition of the prison forces which would keep all eyes off the cell for a few moments, he would be whisked out at the time of the changing of the guard and would march away as one of the relieved watch, and so out of the Fortress. A sleigh would be in readiness to carry him to the house in Three Saints’ Court, where he would change his guard’s clothing for a disguise, and from thence he would immediately set out for the German frontier. As for the two guards, they would straightway take to flight and would be far over the Finnish border before Governor Delwig made his discovery of the escape.

The plan had dozens of details, and Sonya and Drexel were ever on the move—always on their guard to avoid a sudden meeting with Captain Nadson. But though Drexel’s every hour was filled his mind went more than once to his relatives at the Hotel Europe, and he reached one definite decision regarding Alice’s approaching marriage. The hour this escape was consummated (two days before the day set for the wedding) he would return to his hotel, share with uncle, aunt and cousin the secret of Berloff’s position and character, and do whatever else might be needed to save his cousin from that arch-villain. In the meantime, to still any possible uneasiness, he wrote a letter to his uncle stating that he would be back from Moscow in time for the wedding, and this he sent to a friend in Moscow to be mailed.

These days made a deep impression on Drexel. He was in constant contact and coöperation with men and women whom he had to admire, yet whose ideals were the exact opposite of those that had ruled his life till two weeks before. Self-interest did not enter into their thought; their ideas, their energies, their very lives, were all directed to the interest of the people. Living in the midst of this fire of devotion, he felt for an instant now and then that a strange new fire was being kindled in him; but in the tense activity he did not analyze the impression made upon him, indeed he was not wholly conscious of it. He was stirred, he was busy—that was all.

Of another matter he was more conscious. His love made him sensible to every change in Sonya’s manner to him. She was engrossed with the plan for her brother’s deliverance; yet little things, the way she looked at him, the way she spoke to him, made him daringly hope that her comradely feeling might be turning to something more.

At length the darkness of the fifth evening settled like a black sediment into Three Saints’ Court, and found all in readiness. Sonya, Drexel and the housekeeper were on duty in the house to receive Borodin and aid his quick transformation; the others were assigned to assist his flight hither from the prison. On the table in Ivan’s room stood a bottle of hair-dye, and beside it were a pair of scissors and shaving utensils; across a chair lay a new suit of clothes; at nine o’clock, the hour set, a swift horse would wait in a side street. Thirty minutes after the bearded, brown-haired prison guard entered, a black-haired, smooth-chinned business man would ride off to the railway station.

As the appointed hour drew on, Sonya and Drexel hardly spoke. Sonya, tense, nervous, paced to and fro; and Drexel, in almost equal suspense, watched her pale strained face. How glad he would be when Borodin had come and gone and her dangerous task was ended, for though he had rejoiced in this close comradeship, he loved her far too dearly not to wish her safely out of this great and constant peril.

The bells of Three Saints’ Church rang seven. Two more hours, and all would be under way.