Princess Zara Part 28

"Are you a traitor, also? Was Michael right?"

There was that sneering smile upon his face now, but I held my ground.

"I am not a traitor, but I will not carry out your request, and I will not permit it to be carried out." He was aghast at my effrontery. He could only gaze at me in amazement, too greatly confounded for speech; and I continued: "Listen to me one moment, your majesty."

"I will not listen to you. The road to Siberia may be traveled by you as well as by the friends whom you apprehended last night, and by heaven, you shall follow it!"

"You forget one thing," I said. "You have forgotten----"

"What have I forgotten?"

"The Fraternity of Silence."

"Bah!"

"I foresaw this moment, your majesty, and my men have their orders to meet it. If I am molested, every nihilist who was arrested last night--every one who was in prison in the city before that time--will be liberated in an hour, and you have not soldiers nor policemen enough to stop the tide that will flow against you then. Your empire will crumble like dust, and your life will go out like the snuffing of a candle. For the present, I am the Czar of Russia, and you are only Alexander Alexandrovitch." He sat still and looked at me with staring eyes. "You are only a man, after all, monsieur," I continued more softly. "In your fears for the safety of your family, for your empire, and for yourself, you are led to do unjust things. Only an hour ago you said that you owed me a debt that you could never repay. You do owe me a debt, and you can repay it if you will forget for a moment that you are a monarch, and remember that you are a man. You can repay all you owe me, and more, if you will still be my friend, and forget that this scene has occurred; and when you have done that, I will tell you that Zara de Echeveria is to be the wife of Daniel Derrington; is to leave Russia forever with her husband, and were she the worst nihilist in the empire--and I know that she is not--she will be far away from any temptation to do you harm, and under the guidance of one who has proven his devotion to you. I will tell you more: I will leave the direction of the affairs of the fraternity in the hands of one of my men who is as expert as I am, and who is in every way as worthy of your confidences as I have proven myself to be--Canfield."

The czar rose unsteadily to his feet and came towards me with his right hand extended.

"Derrington," he said, slowly, "I have been unjust. If I had other friends like you, who dared to tell me the truth as it is, and not distort it out of all recognition--if there were others here who dared to defy me when defiance alone will make me see things in their right light, Russia would be the better for it. Go to Zara d'Echeveria. Tell her that I wish her to come here. Tell her that the Czar of Russia will ask her forgiveness for an act that he could not avoid committing. She will understand. You shall be married in the palace, and you will both remain in Russia."

Then he put his arms around me in Russian fas.h.i.+on and bade me go.

CHAPTER XXIV

SABEREVSKI'S PROPHECY

All this time I had forgotten Ivan, whom I had left, bound and helpless, at my rooms, and who, I knew, must be suffering untold tortures of doubt and dread, concerning the happenings of the night. So now I hastened to him with all speed. Poor chap, he was nearly done for by the strained position he had been compelled to maintain for so long a time, but I have always believed that it did him good, and that without it he might have been less tractable, when the time came for a reconciliation with his sister. It gave him an opportunity for the right sort of meditation, which, perhaps, he had never enjoyed before.

Every time the temptation came to him to break his bonds and make his escape, he remembered that he must remain where he was, for the sake of the sister he loved so well, whose life would be forfeited so easily, if he should carry to his nihilistic friends the knowledge he possessed. I found him weak, and worn, but still firm in the determination to await my coming. I unbound him, gave him food and wine and as soon as he was sufficiently recovered ordered my droshka and took him to Zara's house.

I made him wait until I had gone to her, and told her of my last interview with the emperor, and I succeeded in securing her reluctant consent to go to the palace with me that day. Then I called to Ivan, and when I saw the brother and sister clasped in each other's arms, I left them alone together. What pa.s.sed between them, I have never been told, and I never thought it necessary to ask. I only know that when I was presently called into the consultation, Ivan offered me his hand, tenderly, and I grasped it, warmly.

"You are to be my brother," he said; "and Zara tells me that you two are going to America, to live. May I go with you, Dubravnik? Will you take me, also, out of this h.e.l.l of plotting and scheming, and this chaos of exile and death? Will you make an American of me, and let me be your brother, indeed?"

After that, we three pa.s.sed a very happy hour together, after which I hurried away, with the a.s.surance that Zara would accompany me into the presence of the czar, that evening. I had not told her of the death of Prince Michael, for the knowledge of it, and why he had killed himself, could only cast a shadow over the great joy she was now experiencing; afterward, there would be a time and place for the telling, and I did not want the knowledge of it to come upon her with a shock, just now.

Weeks afterward, when we were on the deck of the steamer that was taking us to my own country, as we stood together, overlooking a moonlit sea, she reached up, and with one of her soft, fair hands, turned my face towards hers with a gesture that was characteristic; and I loved it.

"Dubravnik," she said--she still insists that she will always address me so, because it is the name by which she first knew me--"I do not know myself, any more. I am not the same woman who was once so vengeful. Love has taught me how to forgive. Love has made me over again. I am no longer the same Zara."

"No," I said lightly, "for now you are Zara Derrington."

"Tell me," she asked, after another interval of gazing across the waters, "shall we see Alexis Saberevski, over there, where your home is?"

I did not answer the question, for upon the instant she mentioned the name of my friend, it recalled to me the circ.u.mstance of my last parting with him. I remembered the sealed envelope he had given me, and the instructions that came with it. I had forgotten it entirely, until that moment; but now, without replying to her question, I drew the missive from my pocket and broke the seal.

What I read there seems wonderfully prophetic to me, even now, and I read it over a second time, in my amazement. Then I gave it to Zara.

"Read," I said, "for there is the answer to your question."

And this is the letter Zara read aloud to me, while we two leaned against the rail of the vessel that was bearing us to our home across the sea. The man in the moon was looking down, and smiling upon our happiness, and shedding sufficient light for my sweetheart-wife to see Saberevski's written words. They were:--

Derrington, these written words are to make you and Zara de Echeveria known to each other. Months will pa.s.s, and many of them may do so, before you will read what is written here; and it may be, it likely will be, that you are standing side by side when you break the seal of the last communication, written or oral, which I shall probably ever submit to you. For our paths, henceforth, will lead us widely apart, Derrington. You are a free agent, the arbiter of your own destiny; I am one who can take no initiative regarding the paths I must tread. But this letter is not to speak of myself, but is to tell you about her, if, perchance, when you read these words, you have never met.

Yesterday, when a s.h.i.+p sailed away from its pier in the North River, you accompanied me to the dock, amazed that I should ask you to do so, and doubtless wondering all the while why I made no effort to see, or to speak with any person, there. But when the s.h.i.+p had swung into the stream, you saw me wave my hand in farewell to some person among those who thronged her decks. That person was Zara de Echeveria, the princess to whose presence in New York you lately called my attention, but respecting which I was already informed; for at the moment of your communication I had already seen her, and talked with her, and we had parted as you and I will do when I place this letter in your hands--forever.

You are going upon a mission, Derrington, although it may be that you have not decided in your own mind to do so; but the decision is there, awaiting your recognition of it. Your mission will take you to Russia, to accomplish the great work I have suggested to you. I have willed it that you must go, and go you will. You will serve the czar as faithfully as I have done; but better, because you are not a Russian, and you have not the inborn awe of t.i.tle and rank.

And you will have been successful in that mission when you have read these written words, for I shall instruct you not to break the seal until you are ready to take your departure from that country, which you will never do without having attained success. You are to serve the czar, and for him and in his name, will achieve the disruption of the nihilist societies of St. Petersburg, and therefore of the empire. I know your thoroughness, and I antic.i.p.ate that very many among the prominent revolutionists will soon be known to you. Among them you will find the name I have written here--Zara de Echeveria.

I present her to you, Derrington, by this letter, as if we three were standing together in the form of formal introduction. I am a fatalist, and I know that you two will meet, and read your destinies in each other's souls. If you are already together, there will be no need of this letter, save to tell you how thoroughly and how well I love you both. G.o.d has written your futures on the same page of the book of destiny, and I have read the writing. You are created for one another, and as surely as G.o.d's love watches over us all, just so surely has He put the seal of enduring human love upon you both. Why it will be so, and how it will come about, I have not the skill to tell, but my prophetic vision looked into the futures of you both, when I talked with you, one after another, yesterday; and I saw you pa.s.sing down the declining years of life, hand in hand, and heart with heart, like one.

If Zara be not with you, seek her.

The name will be familiar to you, by reason of your late employment, even though she may have escaped your personal recognition till now. Therefore, I repeat, if Zara be not with you now, turn about and seek her. I charge you so.

But something tells me that you will be together, standing side by side, happier in the great love that has come to you both, than all your dreams have ever promised. Therefore, I bless you and may the good G.o.d who made you for each other, hold you in his keeping always.

SABEREVSKI.

Zara and I were both strangely silent after the reading of the letter, but I took her quietly in my arms, and she pillowed her head against my shoulder while we looked out across the moonlit sea, praising G.o.d, and insensibly calling down blessings upon the name of our good friend.

"Saberevski knew me to be a nihilist, and warned me against it that day," she said to me.

"He was the dearest friend I ever had," I replied; and she murmured:

"He was a good man."

Who can tell how Alexis Saberevski could have foreseen this meeting of the ways, between Zara and me? What was it that directed his prophetic vision across the mystery of many months, to discover us two, standing side by side, when we perused his letter? What was it that told him that we would love and wed?

Many years have pa.s.sed since that night on the steams.h.i.+p's deck, and we have never seen nor heard from Saberevski since.

He was a mystery to me when I knew him; he remains a mystery still.

But the greatest mystery of all is love.

THE END

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