By Right of Sword Part 2

She waited a while until there was no one near us, and then said in a low tone:--

"My brother is mixed up with the Nihilists in some way. I don't know how, quite: but I believe they suspect him of having played them false, and I think his life is threatened. Those two men you saw at the station were spies, sent either to stop him, or, if he got away, to follow him."

"But they didn't attempt to stop him."

"No, they mistook you for him, thinking they could see through the disguise of a clean shaven face. Had you entered the train, they would very likely have told you openly not to go, or have warned you of the consequences."

"And what would be the consequences?"

"Surely you know what it means for a Nihilist to disobey orders? It is death." She was white now and agitated. "I am so ashamed at not having told you before you took the first step."

"It would have made no difference in my decision," I replied promptly.

I thought more of clearing her clouded face than of any possible consequences to me. "But tell me, are you also mixed up with them in any way?"

"I am putting my liberty and perhaps my life into your hands," she said, in the same very earnest tone and manner. "My brother has drawn me in with him to a certain extent. You know they like to have many women in the ranks."

"I am sorry for you. I have rarely known a Nihilist who was capable of getting much pleasure out of life." A cold touch of fear seemed to contract her features, as she glanced at me and shrank a little from me.

"You! What--how come you to know anything of this? You said you were--an Englishman?"

"I am an Englishman: but I lived the first sixteen years of my life in Russia: the last six of them in Moscow here; and I know much of Russian life. I have made only one visit to Russia since I left; and this time I arrived only last night, and intended to go on to St Petersburg as I told you to-day. It will save time in this matter if you can make up your mind to believe absolutely in my good faith."

I looked into her face as I said this, and I held out my hand. She laid hers in it, and we clasped hands in a strong firm grip as a token of mutual faith and friends.h.i.+p. I believed in the little soul, and meant to stand by her.

"I will trust you now," she said, simply, after a pause.

"As for what you have told me, it can make no difference to me," I declared. "If I go out and meet this fellow Devinsky to-morrow, and he beats me, it will be all the same to me whether I am a Nihilist or an Englishman. There is only one soul in all the world who will care; and I shall give you a letter to be posted to him--if things go wrong."

I stopped to give her an opportunity of promising to do this; but she remained silent, and walked with her head bent low. I felt rather a clumsy fool. She was such a sensitive little body, that the thought of my being killed, as the result of her having got me to help her brother away, naturally upset her. She couldn't know how gladly I should welcome the other man's sword-point between my ribs.

After a pause of considerable constraint she said:--

"There is no need whatever for you to go out and meet Major Devinsky.

You can do as Alexis said; be ill in bed until the pa.s.sport comes back, and then leave."

"Oh, I'm not one to play the coward in that way," said I, lightly, when a look of reproach from those most expressive eyes of hers made me curse myself for a clumsy fool for this reflection on her brother's want of pluck. "I mean this. If I take up a part in anything I must play it my own way; but there's more than that behind. I don't want to look like bragging before you; but I have come out here to Russia to volunteer for the war which everyone says must come with Turkey. I've done it because--well, you may guess that a man has a pretty strong reason when he wants to volunteer to fight another country's battles.

It's the sort of thing in which he can expect plenty of the kicks, while others get all the ha'pence. I've not been a success in England and I've had a stroke lately that's made me sick of things. I can't explain all this in detail: but the long and short of it is that if anything were to happen to me to-morrow morning, it would be the most welcome thing imaginable for me. Now, you'll understand what I mean when I tell you that nothing you can say as to the danger of the business can do anything but attract me. If I could only feel my blood tingling again in a rush of excitement, I'd give anything."

My companion listened carefully to this, and her tell-tale face was all sympathy when I finished. Obviously she was deeply interested.

"Have you no mother or sister?" she asked.

"No--fortunately for them."

"Have you never had anyone to lean on you and trust to you for guidance and protection? That helps a good man."

"No. But I've had those who've taken good care to break my trust in them--and everything else." This with a bitter little reminiscent sneer and a shrug of the shoulders. "Still, it has its advantages.

Any new part I might wish to play could not be more barren than the old."

My companion shot a glance up in my face as I said this, but made no answer. It was I who broke the silence.

"Time is flying," I said, in a lighter tone: "and I have much to learn if I am to be your brother for the next two or three days. I want to know where I live, where you live, all that you can tell me about my brother officers and my duties--everything. Indeed that is necessary to prevent my being at once discovered."

After some further expostulation she told me that she and her brother were orphans; that they had come about a year or so before to Moscow on her brother being transferred to this regiment; and that the brother had private quarters in the Square of St. Mark, while she lived with an aunt, their only relative, in a suite of rooms close to the Cathedral.

They were of a very old family, neither rich nor poor, but having enough to live comfortably and mix in some amount of society.

I gathered, however, that Alexis had been the source of much trouble.

He had embarra.s.sed his money affairs; lived a fast life, become involved with the Nihilists; dragged in his sister; and had ended by compromising himself in many quarters. She told me the story, so much as she knew of it, very deftly, intending no doubt to screen her brother; but I could read enough between the lines to understand that his life had been anything but saintly. Moreover, I was very much mistaken if he were not as arrant a coward as ever crowed on a dung-hill and ran away when the time came for fighting.

All this gave me plenty of food for thought--some of it disagreeable enough. It was no pleasant thing to take up the part of a coward and a scape-grace. Scapegrace I had been all my life in a way: but no man ever thought me a coward.

I take no credit to myself for not being a coward; and I am quite ready to believe that there are sound physiological reasons for it. Nature may have forgotten to give me those nerves by which men feel fear; but it is the case that never in my life have I experienced even a pa.s.sing sensation of fear. I would just as soon die as go to sleep. I have seen men--much better men than I, and quite as truly brave--shudder at the idea of death and shrink with dread from the thought of pain. But at no time in my life have I cared for either; and I have come to regard this as due to Nature's considerate omissions in my creation.

Certain other omissions of hers have not been so considerate.

This will explain, however, why the thought of the danger which troubled my new "sister" so much did not cause me even a pa.s.sing uneasiness, especially at such a time. What I was anxious to do was to get hold of as much detail as possible of my new character; and I was sufficiently interested by it to wish to play it successfully.

To this end I questioned my companion very closely indeed about the names and appearance of the brother's friends and fellow officers, about the habits of military life, and in short about everything I deemed likely to help me not to stumble.

At the close of the examination I said:----

"At any rate we two must begin to rehea.r.s.e. You must call me Alexis and must allow me to call you Olga; and we must do it always to avoid slips."

She saw the need but blushed a bit when I added:---"And now, Olga, we'll make our first practical experiment. We'll go together to my rooms and you must shew me what sailors call my bearings."

"Shall we walk--Alexis?" she asked, her eyes bright and her cheeks ruddy with pretty confusion.

"By all means--Olga," I answered, returning her smile, and imitating her emphasis on the Christian name. "Do you know that my sister's name has a very quaint sound in my ears, and comes very trippingly to a brother's tongue?"

"But you don't like it and you think it common," she returned.

"I?"

"Yes, you have often said so, Alexis. Surely you remember. Why, only this morning you said how silly you had always thought it," she replied, demurely.

"Oh, I see," I laughed. "Ah, I've changed that opinion. A good many other things have changed too, since this morning," I added drily; and we both laughed then, and, considering the circ.u.mstances, were in extremely good spirits.

"Alexis," she cried, with a sudden warning, as we turned a corner into the Square of St. Gregory. "Don't you see who is coming toward us?

Major Devinsky and Lieutenants Trackso and Weisswich. The major will pa.s.s next you. What will you do?" She asked this in a quick hurried voice.

"Cut him as dead as a door nail," said I, instantly, drawing myself up.

"And the other fellows too; are they friends of mine, by the way?"

"No, they are his toadies," she whispered.

Olga bent her face down and would not see them; but I squared my shoulders and held my head aloft, fixing my eyes steadily on the three men as they approached. At first they did not recognise me. Then I saw one of them start, and making a rapid motion of his hand across his chin, he whispered to his companion, both of whom started in their turn and laughed.

As we pa.s.sed the major made an effusive bow to my "sister" which the other two copied, while all three sneered with an air of insolent braggadocio and simultaneously put their hands to their chins as their eyes fell on me.