Chapter IX: The Dead Exile

On reaching the chief surgeon's quarters he found that irritable petty tyrant possessed of much temper on account of his long absence.

"If you don't pay more attention to your duties, I will have you sent into the mines."

"Pardon me, sir, but I found the old man very low, and, tried to comfort him," said Barnwell, respectfully.

"Curse him, let him die. He only lingers from pure obstinacy to make trouble here. The wolves are waiting for his carcass. Go and bring my dinner!"

Barnwell hurried from the presence of the brute; but he could have choked the life out of him for what he had said.

But, brute that he was, he fell upon the food that was soon placed before him, and after gorging himself and washing it down with fiery Russian brandy, he showed more of his brute instincts by becoming more peaceable, and finally going to sleep in his chair.

Barnwell removed the wreck of the feast as noiselessly as possible, and left him alone, not daring, however, to go far away, for fear of again exciting his ire, knowing that he had the power to consign him to the underground mines, or even to kill him like a dog. And so he sat and waited his pleasure.

But his anxiety was hardly to be mastered, for he wanted a few more words with Batavsky regarding the solution of the diagram he had given him, not knowing whether he would be alive when he might see him next.

What new thoughts crowded themselves into his mind now!

And although his desire to escape was no greater than ever, yet the possibilities that would now attend it were overwhelming, almost.

But how was he to give force to all this--how could he escape from that closely-guarded colony, with armed sentinels at every turn, and trained bloodhounds ready to follow any scents even if he escaped from the guards. He would be sure to be missed, and the guards knowing nothing of his whereabouts, let it be supposed, those savage brutes would be started out in every direction until they found his scent, and then run him down to death from their fangs or for an easy capture.

He had seen too much of it during the terrible year he had lived in Siberia. Many a wretch, ambitious to be free, he had known to set his life upon the hazard of a chance, and attempt to escape into the Ural mountains, only to be run to bay by those terrible hounds, and either killed by them or dragged back into the captivity sure to be made worse than before.

And he had seen men have their flesh stripped from their naked backs with the cruel knout, in the hands of unfeeling wretches.

And had he not been buoyed up by hope of one day escaping, he would surely have taken his own life as he had actually seen others do when hope failed them.

The situation was a dreadful one, even to a criminal; but what was it to an innocent man like William Barnwell? But, after all, it gave nerve to his heart.

While cogitating thus, Kanoffskie, the chief surgeon, awoke with a snort.

He glared wildly around the room in a startled way.

Barnwell looked at him inquiringly.

"Did you see anything?" he finally asked.

"Nothing unusual, sir."

"Did you hear anything?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Did I cry out in my sleep?"

"No, sir, not that I heard."

"It must have been a nightmare, but it was dreadful," mused Kanoffskie.

"They are sometimes very horrid, sir."

"Very strange. How is old Batavsky?"

"I have not seen him since, sir."

"I thought in my dream that he had me by the throat, and was strangling me with his bony fingers. And I thought he hissed in my ear that he was going to take me with him. I was powerless in his dreadful grasp, and I thought he dragged me down, down, through some huge volcano's crater, sulphurous and suffocating, growing hotter and hotter all the while as we plunged downward, until finally I saw the blue and yellow flames dart up as though to meet and welcome us, and heard the agonized cries of anguished beings far below! Anon I could see them writhing in their fiery torment, and I recognized many faces there that I had seen on earth. As I drew nearer they seemed to forget their agonies, and joined in a glad, wild chorus of imprecating welcome to me. Fiends came at me with blazing swords and fiery prongs, and in my extreme terror I awoke. Oh, it was dreadful!" he added, hiding his face in his hands.

"It surely must have been, sir, and I have read of such sleeping agonies. But, after all, it was but a dream," said Barnwell.

"Oh, but such a dream! Barnwell, I would not go through the agony of such a dream again for Alexander's crown. You are an educated, well-read man. Tell me, do you believe there is such an awful place?" he asked, and he seemed to have forgotten all his old hauteur.

"Our common religion teaches us that there is."

"Oh, Heaven, forgive and keep me from it," said he, bowing his head abjectly.

"My dear sir, you lay too much stress on an ugly dream. Remember that you went to sleep after eating a hearty dinner and they often cause ugly dreams," said Barnwell, for thought it would best serve his purpose to attribute it to it might be, rather than to what it probably was--a warning of the future.

"Oh, if I could only think so I would abandon the sin of gluttony at once. But that terrible face, those bony fingers, which seemed to penetrate my neck like eagle's claws!" and involuntarily he placed his hand upon his neck, as if he really expected to find lacerations there, showing that he was greatly frightened.

"Barnwell, go and see how Batavsky does," he added.

"I will, sir."

"And hurry to let me know."

Barnwell withdrew, and Kanoffskie bowed his head upon the table before him, repeating a simple prayer of the Greek Church which he had not quite forgotten.

The young man made haste to Batavsky's cell, but there the old exile, dead, with his eyes staring wide and glassy.

He had died alone, without a friendly hand to close his eyes with a prayer.

In truth, his death at any moment was not unexpected by Barnwell, but coming as it did at the very moment of Kanoffskie's dream, made it seem more strange and horrible.

Indeed, there seemed to be something horribly supernatural about it.

He stood for a moment gazing upon the rigid features of the poor old man, hardly daring to return and tell Kanoffskie of his death.

"But it serves him right," he thought; and covering the dead man's face with a blanket, he returned to the surgeon's office.

"Well?" he asked, with quick anxiety.

"The old man is dead, sir."

"Dead--dead, say you?" shrieked Kanoffskie, springing to his feet, trembling and pale.

"Yes, sir, he is dead."

"How--how long since, do you think?" he asked, in a choked voice.

"Probably fifteen or twenty minutes; he is scarcely cold yet."

"Heavens!" he exclaimed, and sank back in his chair.

"It might have been expected, sir."

"Yes, but in connection with my dream! Barnwell, my dream! It must have come simultaneously with it!" and the wretched man seemed scarcely able to sit in his chair, so greatly did he tremble, while great beads of perspiration stood out upon his forehead.

Barnwell hastened to set a glass of wine before him, which he tremblingly bore to his mouth and swallowed at a gulp.

"More!" he gasped, and Barnwell poured him out another.

"That will revive you, sir, I hope."

But the surgeon made no reply. He sat there glaring at vacancy for fully five minutes, and neither of them spoke a word.

Finally he pointed to the empty glass, and again Barnwell filled it with brandy, which he drank.

He was evidently trying to nerve himself up.

"What a strange coincidence, Barnwell."

"Very strange, indeed, sir; but do not let it weigh too heavily on your mind, I beg of you. Regard it as simply a strange coincidence, nothing more."

"Oh, Barnwell, it must be something more! I have ill-treated that man, and even his death may be laid to my door and I have abused others even to death--those whose faces I saw in that deep-down, horrid hole--they who welcomed me with such fiendish and exultant shouts," said he, with his head bowed low.

There could be no doubt but that he spoke the truth, and this made it seem all the more strange. He had always been a tyrant in his office, and many a poor wretch had he sent to his long home after he became useless to the government.

He had never been credited with possessing either fear or a heart, but now he showed that he was a moral as well as a physical coward, and was racked by most agonizing fears.

"Barnwell," he finally said, "see that the old man is decently buried, and a prayer said over his grave. Yes, be sure and bury him decently in a coffin, and a grave so deep that the worms may not reach it, and then come to me again. But see that you bury him tenderly, and say nothing of this to any person living."

"You shall be obeyed, sir," said Barnwell, hurrying from the room, glad to carry out such an order in the dead old exile's behalf.