Chapter XVI: Under Surveillance

I paid my bill, strolled out, and in the doorway encountered a man I knew slightly--a young officer--with whom I paused to chat, thereby blocking the doorway temporarily, with the result that I found my friend the spy--as I was now convinced he was--at my elbow. My unexpected halt had pulled him up short.

"Pardon!" I said with the utmost politeness, stepping aside, so he had to pass out, though I guessed he was angry enough at losing my conversation, for I was telling Lieutenant Mirakoff of my arrest,--as a great joke, at which we both laughed uproariously.

"They should have seen that you were a foreigner, and therefore quite mad,--and harmless," he cried.

"Now, I ought to call you out for that!" I asserted.

"At your service!" he answered, still laughing, as we separated.

The spy was apparently deeply interested in the contents of a shop window near at hand, and I went off briskly in the other direction; but in a minute or two later, when I paused, ostensibly to compare my watch with a clock which I had just passed, I saw, as I glanced back, that he was on my track once more.

This was getting serious, and I adopted a simple expedient to give him the slip for the present. I hailed a droshky and bade the fellow drive to a certain street, not far from that where Mishka's cafe was situated. We started off at the usual headlong speed, and presently, as we whirled round a corner, I called on the driver to stop, handed him a fare that must have represented a good week's earnings, and ordered him to drive on again as fast as he could, and for as long as his horse would hold out.

He grinned, "clucked" to his horse, and was off on the instant, while I turned into a little shop close by, whence I had the satisfaction, less than half a minute after, of seeing a second droshky dash past, in pursuit of the first, with the spy lolling in it. If my Jehu kept faith--there was no telling if he would do that or not, though I had to take the risk--_monsieur le mouchard_ would enjoy a nice drive, at the expense of his government!

In five minutes I was at the cafe, where I dropped my coin; it rolled to a corner and the waiter picked it up, while I sipped my tea and grumbled at the scarcity of lemon. I asked the prescribed question when he restored the piece; and almost immediately Mishka himself joined me. This was better than I had dared to hope, for I knew I could speak to him freely; in fact I told him everything, including the ruse by which I had eluded my vigilant attendant.

"You must not try that again," he said, in his sulky fashion. "It has served once, yes; but it will not serve again. When he finds that you have cheated him he will make his report, and then you will have, not one, but several spies to reckon with; that is, if they think it worth while. Still you have done well,--very well. Now you must wait until you hear from my master." Mishka never mentioned a name if he could avoid doing so.

"But can't you give me some idea as to where she is likely to be?" I demanded. To wait, and continue to act my part, as if there was no such person as Anne Pendennis in the world and in deadly peril was just about the toughest duty imaginable.

"I can tell you nothing, and you, by yourself, can do nothing," he retorted stolidly. "If you are wise you will go about your business as if nothing had happened. But be in your rooms by--nine o'clock to-night. It is unlikely that we can send you any word before then."

Nine o'clock! And it was now barely noon! Nine mortal hours; and within their space what might not happen? But there was no help for it. Mishka had spoken the truth; by myself I could do nothing.

It was hard--hard to be bound like this, with invisible fetters; and to know all the time that the girl I loved was so near and yet so far, needing my aid, while I was powerless to help her,--I, who would so gladly lay down my life for her.

Who was she? What was she? How was her fate linked with that of this great grim land,--a land "agonizing in the throes of a new birth?" If she had but trusted me in the days when we had been together, could I have saved her then? Have spared her the agony my heart told me she was suffering now?

Yes,--yes, I said bitterly to myself. I could have saved her, if she had trusted me; for then she would have loved me; would have been content to share my life. A roving life it would have been, of course, for we were both nomads by choice as well as by chance, and the nomadic habit, once formed, is seldom broken. But how happy we should have been! Our wanderings would never have brought us to Russia, though. Heavens, how I hated--how I still hate it; the greatest and grandest country in the world, viewed under the aspect of sheer land; a territory to which even our own United States of America counts second for extent, for fertility, for natural wealth in wood and oil and minerals. A country that God made a paradise, or at least a vast storehouse for the supply of human necessities and luxuries; but a country of which man has made such a hell, that, in comparison with it, Dante's "Inferno" reads like a story of childish imaginings.

Yes, Russia was a hell upon earth; and Petersburg was the centre and epitome of it, I said in my soul, as I loitered on one of the bridges that afternoon, and looked on the swift flowing river, on the splendid buildings, gleaming white, as the gilded cupolas and spires of the churches gleamed fire red, under the brilliant sunshine. A fair city outwardly, a whited sepulchre raised over a charnel-house. A city of terror, wherein every man is an Ishmael, knowing--or suspecting--that every other man's hand is against him.

There was a shadow over the whole land, over the city, over myself, the stranger within its gate; and in that shadow the girl I loved was impenetrably enveloped.

I raised my eyes, and there, fronting me across the water, sternly menacing, were the gray walls of the fortress-prison, named, as if in grim mockery, the fortress of "Peter and Paul." Peter, who denied his Lord, though he loved Him; Paul, who denied his Lord before he knew and loved Him! Perhaps the name is not so inconsistent, after all. The deeds that are done behind the walls of that fortress-prison by men who call themselves Christians, are the most tremendous denial of Christ that this era has witnessed.

Sick at heart, I turned away, and walked moodily back to my hotel. The proprietor was in the lobby, and the whole staff seemed to be on the spot. They all looked at me as if they thought I might be some recently discovered wild animal, and I wondered why. But as no one spoke to me, I asked the clerk at the bureau for my key.

"I have it not; others--the police--have it," he stammered.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" I said. "They're up there now? All right."

I went up the stairs--there was no elevator--and found a couple of soldiers posted outside my door.

"Well, what are you doing here?" I asked, in good enough Russian. "This is my room, and I'll thank you to let me pass."

The one on the right of the door flung it open with a flourish, and motioned me to enter.

As I passed him he said, with a laugh to his fellow, "So--the rat goes into the trap!"