Chapter XXXVI: Still on the Road

"Will you never learn wisdom?" demanded Mishka, when, after a few minutes, he returned. "Why could you not rest here in safety?"

"Because I wanted to walk some of my stiffness off," I replied coolly. "I had quite a good time, and met an old acquaintance."

"Who gave you much interesting news?" he asked, with a sardonic inflection of his deep voice that made me guess Yossof had told him what passed at our interview.

"Why, no; I can't say that he did that," I confessed. Already I realized that I had learned absolutely nothing from the Jew save the new password, and the fact that he was, or soon would be, in direct communication with Anne.

Mishka gave an approving grunt.

"There are some who might learn discretion from Yossof," he remarked sententiously.

"Just so. But who is he, anyhow? He might be 'the wandering Jew' himself, from the mysterious way he seems to get around the world."

"Who and what he is? That I cannot tell you, for I do not know, or seek to know, since it is no business of mine. I go to bed; for we must start betimes in the morning."

Not another word did he speak, beyond a surly "good night;" but, though I followed his example and got into bed, with my revolver laid handily on the bolster as he had placed his, hours passed before sleep came to me. I lay listening to Mishka's snores,--he was a noisy sleeper,--and thinking of Anne; thinking of that one blissful month in London when I saw her nearly every day.

How vividly I remembered our first meeting, less than five months back, though the events of a lifetime seemed to have occurred since then. It was the evening of my return from South Africa; and I went, of course, to dine at Chelsea, feeling only a mild curiosity to see this old school-fellow of Mary's, whose praises she sang so enthusiastically.

"She was always the prettiest and smartest girl in the school, but now she's just the loveliest creature you ever saw," Mary had declared; and though I wasn't rude enough to say so, I guessed I was not likely to endorse that verdict.

But when I saw Anne my scepticism vanished. I think I loved her from that first moment, when she came sweeping into Mary's drawing-room in a gown of some gauzy brown stuff, almost the color of her glorious hair, with a bunch of white lilies at her bosom. She greeted me with a frank friendliness that was much more like an American than an English girl; indeed, even then, I never thought of her as English. She was, as her father had told his friend Treherne he meant her to be, "cosmopolitan to her finger-tips." She even spoke English with a curious precision and deliberation, as one speaks a language one knows perfectly, but does not use familiarly. She once confided to me that she always "thought" either in French or German, preferably French.

Strange that neither Mary nor I ever imagined there was any mystery in her life; ever guessed how much lay behind her frank allusions to her father, and the nomadic existence they had led. I wondered, for the thousandth time, how it was that Jim first suspected her of concealing something. How angry I was at him when he hinted his suspicions; and yet he had hit on the exact truth! I knew now that her visit to Mary was not what it had seemed,--but that she had seized upon the opportunity presented by the invitation to snatch a brief interval of peace, and comparative safety. If she had happened to encounter Cassavetti earlier, doubtless her visit would have terminated then. Yes, that must be the explanation; and how splendidly she had played her dangerous part!

I hated to think of all the duplicity that part entailed; I would not think of it. The part was thrust on her, from her birth, by her upbringing, and if she played it gallantly, fearlessly, resourcefully, the more honor to her. But it was a bitter thought that Fortune should have thrust all this upon her!

As I lay there in that frowzy room, staring at a shaft of moonlight that came through a chink in the shutters, making a bar of light in the darkness like a great, unsheathed sword, her face was ever before my mind's eyes, vividly as if she were indeed present,--the lovely mobile face, "growing and fading and growing before me without a sound," now sparkling with mirth, now haughty as that of a petulant young queen towards a disfavored courtier. Mary used to call her "dear Lady Disdain" when she was in that mood. Again, it appeared pale and set as I had seen it last, the wide brilliant eyes flashing indignant defiance at her accusers; but more often with the strange, softened, wistful expression it had worn when we stood together under the portico of the Cecil on that fatal night; and when she waved me good-bye at Charing Cross.

In those moments one phase of her complex nature had been uppermost; and in those moments she loved me,--me, Maurice Wynn, not Loris Solovieff, or any other!

I would not have relinquished that belief to save my soul; although I knew well that the mood was necessarily a transient one. She had devoted her beauty, her talents, her splendid courage, her very life, to a hopeless cause. She was as a queen, whose realm is beset with dangers and difficulties, and who therefore can spare little or no thought for aught save affairs of state; and I was as the page who loved her, and whom she might have loved in return if she had been but a simple gentlewoman. Once more I told myself that I would be content if I could only play the page's part, and serve her in life and death, "_a la vie et a la mort_" as the new password ran; but how was I even to begin doing that?

An unanswerable question! I must just go on blindly, as Fate led me; and Fate at this moment was prosaically represented by Mishka. Great Scott, how he snored!

We were astir early; I seemed to have just fallen asleep when Mishka roused me and announced that breakfast was waiting, and the horses ready.

We rode swiftly, and for the most part in silence, as my companion was even less communicative than usual. I noticed, as we drew near to Zostrov, a change for the better in the aspect of the country and the people. The last twenty versts was over an excellent road, while the streets of the village where we found our change of horses waiting, and of two others beyond, were comparatively clean and well-kept, with sidewalks laid with wooden blocks. The huts were more weather-tight and comfortable,--outside at any rate. The land was better cultivated, too, and the _moujiks_, though most of them scowled evilly at us, looked better fed and better clothed than any we had seen before. They all wore high boots,--a sure sign of prosperity. Yesterday boots were the exception, and most of the people, both men and women, were shod with a kind of moccasin made of plaited grass, and had their limbs swathed in ragged strips of cloth kept clumsily in place with grass-string.

"It is his doing," Mishka condescended to explain. "His and my father's. He gives the word and the money, and my father and those under him do the rest. They try to teach these lazy swine to work for their own sakes,--to make the best of their land; it is to further that end that all the new gear is coming. They will have the use of it--these pigs--for nothing. They will not even give thanks; rather will they turn and bite the hand that helps them; that tries to raise them out of the mud in which they wallow!"

He spat vigorously, as a kind of corollary to his remarks.

As he spoke we were skirting a little pine wood just beyond the village, and a few yards further the road wound clear of the trees and out across an open plain, in the centre of which rose a huge, square building of gray stone, crowned with a cupola that gleamed red in the rays of the setting sun.

"The castle!" Mishka grunted.

"It looks more like a prison!" I exclaimed involuntarily. It was a grim, sinister-looking pile, even with the sun upon it.

Mishka did not answer immediately. There was a clatter and jingle behind us, and out of the wood rode a company of horsemen, all in uniform. Two rode ahead of the rest, one of them the Grand Duke himself.

Mishka reined up at the roadside, and sat at the salute, and I followed his example.

The Duke did not even glance in our direction as he passed, though he acknowledged our salute in soldierly fashion.

We wheeled our horses and followed well in the rear of the imposing escort,--a whole troop of cavalry.

"You are right," Mishka said, in a husky growl, that with him represented a whisper. "It is a prison, and yonder goes the prisoner. You will do well to remember that in your dealings with him, Herr Gould."