The Vultures Part 42

Cartoner nodded his thanks and sat down. Their att.i.tude towards each other had the repose which is only existent in a friends.h.i.+p that has lasted since childhood.

"Well?" he inquired.

"Gad!" exclaimed the other, "we are in a queer way. I went to the opera the other evening. He showed his face in the imperial box and the house was empty in half an hour. He always drives alone in his sleigh now, so that only one royal life may go at a time. They'll get him--they'll get him! And he knows it."

"Fools!" said Cartoner.

"They are worse than fools," answered the other. "The man is down, and they strike him. His asthma is worse. He has half a dozen complaints.

His policy has failed. It was the finest policy ever tried in Russia.

He is the finest Czar they have ever had. He gave them trial by jury; he abolished corporal punishment. Fools! they are the sc.u.m of this earth, Cartoner!"

"I know," replied Cartoner, in his gentle way, "students who cannot learn--workmen who will not work--women whom no one will marry."

"Yes, the sons and daughters of the serfs that he emanc.i.p.ated. It makes one sick to talk of them. Let me hear about yourself."

"Well," answered Cartoner, "I have had nothing to eat since breakfast."

"That is all you have to tell me about yourself?"

"That is all."

x.x.xI

THE PAYMENT

It was on every gossip's tongue in St. Petersburg that Jeliaboff had been arrested.

"It is the beginning of the end," men said. "They will now catch the others. The new reign of terror is over."

But Jeliaboff himself--a dangerous man (one of the Terrorists), the chief of the plot to blow up the imperial train at the Alexandroff Station--said that it was not so. This also, the mere bravado of an arrested criminal, was bandied from mouth to mouth.

For two years the most extraordinary agitation of modern days had held Russian society within its grip. All the world seemed to whisper. Men walking in the streets turned to glance over their shoulders at the approach of a step, at the sound of a sleigh-bell. The women were in the secret, too; and when the women touch politics they are politics no longer. For there should be no real emotion in politics; only the stimulated emotion of the platform.

For two years the Czar had been slowly and surely ostracized by a persecution which was as cruel as it was unreasoning.

In former days the curious, and the many who loved to look on royalty, had studied his habits and hours to the end that they might gain a glimpse of him or perhaps a bow from the courteous Emperor. Now his habits and his daily life were watched for quite another purpose. If it was known that he would pa.s.s through a certain street, he was now allowed a monopoly of that thoroughfare. None pa.s.sed nearer to the Winter Palace than he could help. If the Czar was seen to approach, men hurried in the opposite direction; women called their children to them.

He was a leper among his own people.

"Do not go to the opera to-morrow," one lady would say to another. "I have heard that the Czar is to be there."

"Do not pa.s.s through the Little Sadovaia," men said to one another; "the street is mined. Do not let your wife linger in the Newski Prospect; it is honeycombed by mines."

The Czar withdrew himself, as a man must who perceives that others shrink from him; as the leper who sees even the pitiful draw aside his cloak. But some ceremonies he would not relinquish; and to some duties he remained faithful, calmly facing the risk, which he fully recognized.

He went to the usual Sunday review on the 12th of March, as all the world knows. It was a brilliant, winter morning. The sun shone from a cloudless sky upon streets and houses buried still beneath their winter covering of snow. The houses always look too large for their inmates, the streets too wide for those that walk them. St. Petersburg was planned on too large a scale by the man who did everything largely, and made his window looking out upon Europe a bigger window than the coldness of his home would allow.

The review pa.s.sed off successfully. The Czar, men said, was in good spirits. He had that morning signed a decree which was now in the hands of Loris Melikoff, and would to-morrow be given to the world, proving even to the most sceptical for the hundredth time that he had at heart the advance of Russia--the greater liberty of his people.

Instead of returning direct to the Winter Palace, the Czar paid his usual visit to his cousin, the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Catherine. He quitted her palace at two o'clock in his own carriage, accompanied by half a dozen Cossacks. His officers followed in two sleighs. It was never known which way he would take. He himself gave the order to the coachman. He knew the streets as thoroughly as the driver himself; for he had always walked in them unattended, unheeded, and unknown--had always mixed with his subjects. This was no French monarch living in an earthly heaven above his people. He knew--always had known--what men said to each other in the streets.

He gave the order to go to the Winter Palace by way of the Catherine Ca.n.a.l, which was not the direct way. Had he pa.s.sed down the Newski Prospect half of that great street would have been blown to the skies.

The road running by the side of the Catherine Ca.n.a.l was in 1881 a quiet enough thoroughfare, with large houses staring blankly across the frozen ca.n.a.l. The ca.n.a.l itself was none too clean a sight, for the snow was old and soiled and strewed with refuse. In some places there were gardens between the road and the waterways, but most of its length was bounded by a low wall and a railing.

The road itself was almost deserted. The side streets of St. Petersburg are quieter than the smaller thoroughfares of any other city in the world. A confectioner's boy was alone on the pavement, hurrying along and whistling as he went on his Sunday errand of delivery. He hardly glanced at the carriage that sped past him. Perhaps he saw a man looking over the low wall at the approach of the cavalcade. Perhaps he saw the bomb thrown and heard the deafening report. Though none can say what he heard or saw at that minute, for he was dead the next.

The bomb had fallen under the carriage at the back. A Cossack and his horse, following the imperial conveyance, were instantly killed. The Czar stepped out from amid the debris on to the torn and riven snow.

He stumbled, and took a proffered arm. They found blood on the cus.h.i.+ons afterwards. At that moment the only thought in his mind seemed to be anger, and he glanced at the dying Cossack--at the dead baker-boy. The pavement and the road were strewn with wounded--some lying quite still, others attempting to lift themselves with numbed and charred limbs. It was very cold.

Ryssakoff, who had thrown the bomb, was already in the hands of his captors. Had the crowd been larger, had the official element been weaker, he would have been torn to pieces then and there. The Czar went towards him. Some say that he spoke to him. But no clear account of those few moments was ever obtained. The noise, the confusion, the terror of it seemed to have deadened the faculties of all who took part in this tragedy, and they could only act mechanically, as men who were walking in their sleep.

Already a crowd had collected. Every moment added to its numbers.

"Stand back! Stand back! A second bomb is coming!" cried more than one voice. There are a hundred witnesses ready to testify that they heard this strange warning. But no man seemed to heed it. There are moments in the lives of men when their contempt for death raises them at one bound to the heights of immortality.

Those around the Czar urged him to quit the spot at once. In such a crowd of people there must be some enemies. At last he turned and went towards the sleigh which had been brought forward to take the place of the shattered carriage. He was pale now, and walked with an effort.

The onlookers stood aside to make a pa.s.sage for him. Many raised their hats, and made silent manifestations of their respect and pity.

One man, alone, stood with folded arms, hat on head, and watched the Czar. He was on the pavement, with his back to the iron gate leading to the ca.n.a.l. The pavement was not six feet wide, and the Czar came along it towards him. For a moment they faced each other. Then the freed son of the serf raised both hands and threw his missile on the stones between them--at the feet of the man who had cut the chain of his slavery.

It was the serf who shrieked. The Emperor uttered no plaint. A puff of white-gray smoke rose to heaven. And those who watched there no doubt took note of it.

A shower of snow and human debris was thrown into the air. The very stones of the pavement were displaced.

The Emperor was on the ground against the railings. He was blind. One leg was gone, the other torn and mutilated to the hip. It was pitiful.

He uttered no sound, but sought to move his bare limbs on the snow.

This was the end--the payment. He discharged his debt without a murmur.

He had done the right--against the counsel of the wise, against his crown and his own greatness, against his purse and his father's teaching. He had followed the dictates of his own conscience. He had done more than any other Czar, before or since, for the good of Russia.

And this was the payment!

The other--the man who had thrown the bomb--was already dead. The terrific explosion had sent his soul hard after the puff of white smoke, and in the twinkling of an eye he stood at the bar of the Great a.s.size.

It is to be hoped that he made a good defence there, and did not stammer in the presence of his Judge.

The Czar's gentlemen in attendance were all killed or wounded. He was left to the care of his Cossack escort, who were doing what they could to succor him--though, being soldiers, they knew that he had pa.s.sed beyond all human aid. The crowd parted to make way for a tall man who literally threw aside all who stood in his path. It was the Emperor's brother, the Grand Duke Michael, brought hither by the sound of the first explosion. He knelt on the blood-stained snow and spoke to the dying man.

The sleigh towards which he had been walking was now brought forward again, and the Czar was lifted from the snow. There was no doctor near.

The mob drew back in dumb horror. In the crowd stood Cartoner, brought hither by that instinct which had made him first among the Vultures--the instinct that took him to the battle-field, where he was called upon to share the horror and reap none of the glory.

His quiet eyes were ablaze for once with a sudden, helpless anger. He could not even give way to the first and universal impulse to kill the killer.

He stood motionless through the brief silence that succeeded to the second explosion. There is a silence that follows those great events brought about by a man which seems to call aloud for a word from G.o.d.

Then, because it was his duty to draw his buzzing thoughts together, to be watchful and quick, to think and act while others stood aghast, he took one last look at the dying Emperor, and turned to make his way from the crowd while yet he could. He had pieced together, with the slow accuracy that Deulin envied him, the small sc.r.a.ps of information obtained from one source or another in Warsaw, in London from Captain Cable, in St. Petersburg from half a dozen friends. This was Poland's opportunity. A sudden inspiration had led him to look for the centre of the evil, not in Warsaw, but in St. Petersburg. And that which other men called his luck had brought him within sound of the first explosion by the side of the Catherine Ca.n.a.l.