Chapter XVII: The Wood of the Honey Tree

The noon of the following day saw Charlie Balgonie--after an anxious and almost sleepless night--proceeding on foot along the road that leads southward to Tosna, a little town which stands on a stream of the same name, a tributary of the Neva, but some thirty versts distant from Schlusselburg.

His military ardour was already fading, so far as the Russian service was concerned, amid his pressing anxiety for the dangers that menaced Natalie; and he felt himself only a species of serf in an imperial uniform. Unlike the Admirals Douglas, Mackenzie, Count Balmaine, and hundreds of other Scotsmen who served the Empress by sea and land, he had thoughtlessly omitted to stipulate, as they had more warily done, that he was to be at perfect liberty, as a British subject, to return to his native land whenever he felt disposed to do so. The poor friendless boy--the kidnapped palatine, who had been rescued from the burning wreck of the _Piscatona_, while floating adrift in the North Sea--could know little how necessary such stipulations were when he joined the Regiment of Smolensko as a cadet; and now he felt himself literally a military slave of the ambitious and lascivious Catharine II.

Before him rose the tall fir trees of the forest where he was to meet Olga--the Wood of the Honey Tree, as it was named from an episode (related by Demetrius, the ambassador, in his History of Muscovy) which occurred to a serf of Bernikoff's, Alexis Jagouski, father of the same man whom he slew so wickedly and ungratefully in the flight from Zorndorf; and the whole anecdote reads so very like one of the adventures of Baron Munchausen, or Sir Jonah Barrington's "bounces," that we may be pardoned translating it here.

"This man," says Demetrius, "when seeking honey, got into a hollow tree, where the bees had concealed such a quantity thereof, that it sucked him up to the breast, and being unable to extricate himself, he subsisted for two day upon honey alone, and finding that his shouts were answered only by the echoes of the vast forest, he began to despair of being freed from his sweet captivity. At last, to his terror, there came a large brown bear from the Neva, to eat of the honey which the old tree contained, and of which these animals are greedily fond. As the bear was descending with hinder part foremost, the poor serf caught hold of his loins. This sudden grasp among his fur so terrified the bear, that he started and fled, and in doing so, drew the peasant from that sweet prison, which otherwise had proved his grave: hence was the forest named, the Wood of the Honey Tree."

There, as Balgonie approached, all was still save the voice of the valdchnep, or woodcock, and the hum of insects; he lingered for a few minutes on the outskirts, just where the highway to Tosna dipped down into a deep and gloomy dingle of intertwisted branches, which formed a species of leafy tunnel overhead.

Three miles distant to the northward, he could see the place he had left, the gloomy Castle of Schlusselburg, moated round by the Neva and Lake of Ladoga, jutting into the latter on its rock, its towers wearing a sombre brown tint even in the noonday sunshine, as if no light could brighten them; and the white flag of Russia was fluttering on the summit of the keep, where Ivan was pining away the years of youth in silence and seclusion.

Balgonie heard a voice waking the echoes of the dingle; three notes were struck on a tambourine, as a signal to him, and Olga approached singing a verse of that prophetic song, which is so soothing to Russian military and religious vanity:--

"But when the hundredth year
Shall three times doubled be;
Then shall the end appear
Of all our slavery.
Then shall the warlike powers
From distant climes return,
Egypt again be ours,
While the Turkish domes shall burn!"

"I have kept my appointment, Olga," said he.

"And I mine," she replied gaily, while tripping towards him in a playful manner; "now follow me, Hospodeen, and I shall take you to those who will be right glad to see you."

"First let us be sure that we are unwatched."

"Right," said she; and stooping in her earnestness, her keen, dark, and glittering eyes swept the whole landscape that lay between the wood and Schlusselburg, and glanced keenly beyond the stems of the trees into the dingles and vistas; but, save the birds on the branches and the gnats revolving in the sunshine, no living thing was visible.

"Follow me, Hospodeen," said the gipsy; "we have not far to go."

They descended into the dark dingle, or hollow, and then quitted the highway; Olga gathering up her skirts that she might tread with greater facility among the thick gorse and long rank grass, displaying, as she did so, two very handsome and taper ankles cased in scarlet stockings with elaborate clocks of yellow braid.

She explained to Balgonie that, as there was no path to guide them, her chief clues were a set of notches, cut to all appearance carelessly, as if with a woodman's axe, on the bark of the great pine trees.

"These marks seem fresh, and recently cut--who made them?" asked Balgonie.

"The Hospodeen, Basil Mierowitz," she whispered.

"Poor Basil!" responded Charlie, in a low tone.

After toiling through the dense forest for more than half an hour, pausing ever and anon to listen and watch whether they were observed, they arrived at the foot of a grey granite cliff, the face of which was screened, or nearly covered, by masses of depending ivy, creepers, and green lichens, forming a background which, at a little distance, blended with the greenery of the woods.

"We have arrived," said she, turning, with a flush on her dark face which made it radiantly beautiful. She struck three strokes on her tambourine, and shook its bells.

Charlie thought of her kinsman, Nicholas Paulovitch, and instinctively grasped one of the pistols at his girdle, on seeing the dark and bearded face of a man appear among the ivy leaves some twenty feet above him. A rope ladder was lowered, and whatever doubts or misgivings were in his mind, he felt himself constrained now to go through the adventure to its end.

He clambered up, and on the great screen of ivy being lifted aside, found himself face to face with his old friend Basil Mierowitz, the subaltern of his company, who, grasping both his hands with kindly warmth of manner, led him into a cavern or grotto, one of a series of many, into which the granite rocks had there been hollowed by some long past convulsion of nature.

Another hand was instantly laid on his,--a smaller and softer one,--and two beautiful dark eyes were bending tenderly on his face.

"Natalie!" he exclaimed, in a tremulous voice, and would have pressed her to his breast, but for the presence of Basil and several other men.

Amid the twilight of the cavern, he could perceive its rough natural walls and arch, with hazy but sunny rays that streamed faintly in the background, athwart the obscurity, as if the vault communicated with other galleries in the rock, through which the upper light of day stole in by the crannies and chasms. He was also enabled to see, that with Natalie, her brother Basil, and her cousin Usakoff, who had been a Lieutenant of the Valikolutz Grenadiers, there were about twenty men in the place, all clad in sheepskin shoubahs, canvas doublets, or the caftan, the invariable dress of the Russian peasant, and nearly all had red serge breeches, rough boots, and girdles of rope or untanned leather.

Though attired like woodmen or labouring serfs, all these men had unmistakably the bearing of well-trained soldiers: all were strong, active, and resolute in aspect; and Balgonie had no doubt that they were those natives of the Ukraine, the deserters from the Livonian frontier, of whom Bernikoff had spoken; for against the walls of the cavern were ranged a number of muskets and bayonets, with sets of accoutrements, sabres, and pistols. There, too, stood a regimental drum, decorated with the imperial arms, and the forbidden name of the Emperor _Ivan_!

Every moment seemed to increase the perils that surrounded the luckless Balgonie, for now he was in the very den of the conspirators.

All carried in their girdles a dagger or knife and double brace of pistols. They seemed to be chiefly soldiers of the Regiment of Valikolutz: and his sudden appearance among them, in the full uniform of the Smolensko Infantry, evidently excited, if it did not alarm them; for discipline becomes so completely a habit--a second nature; and, as if the presence of an epaulette rendered them uneasy, they all withdrew into the back or more obscure portion of the cavern, leaving him and their two leaders together.

"Oh! Basil--Usakoff--my friends, if indeed I may yet dare to call you so, and live," said Balgonie, in a voice that was broken by emotion, "for what rash and dreadful purpose do I find you and these unfortunate fellows here?"

"You, and all Russia too, shall learn ere long," replied Mierowitz calmly and sternly, yet with a grave and noble air, with which his coarse canvas caftan assorted oddly.

"And poor Natalie!" exclaimed Balgonie, in a tone of grief and reproach; "have you no pity for her?"

"Until Natalie informed me, I knew not, my friend, Carl Ivanovitch, that _you_ were the bearer of that secret dispatch, which might have cost you limb or life, when it was too late to arrest those I had set upon your track."

"Well, certainly, I was not much indebted to the good offices of your rogue, Podatchkine."

"The Corporal's orders were simply to abstract the document, and bring it to me; not to slay its bearer, unless such a catastrophe became unavoidable."

"He fell into his own snare--a dark and deadly one."

"Happily you escaped it; and I have saved two hundred silver roubles, for the service of the Emperor."

"Who do you mean?" asked Balgonie, in a whisper.

"Ivan--the Prisoner of Schlusselburg!" exclaimed Usakoff, with enthusiasm.

"Alas!" added Balgonie, "you court but your own destruction."

"Think not so; but join us, and share our perils and our glory," replied the other.

"I am bound by allegiance to the Empress."

"You are but a tool in her hands, Carl Balgonie."

"Perhaps so; but one with a devilish sharp edge, I hope," replied Balgonie, who felt only genuine sorrow; and a silence of nearly a minute ensued.

The manner and voice of Basil Mierowitz were singularly soft and winning, yet he was bold and resolute; and though a young man, he had all the free and easy bearing of a courtly soldier, blended with something of the calm severity of a priest--a manner that was very impressive.

The Polish and Cossack blood that mingled in the veins of Apollo Usakoff gave a freer and bolder, perhaps a wilder, bearing and style of language; his nose was aquiline, and expressed fierceness of disposition; yet his features otherwise were essentially delicate and noble, and his eyes were strangely beautiful in colour and variety of expression. They were dark grey, encircled by a ring of light, clear brown; and when he spoke, or became excited, the iris contracted and expanded, as the blood flowed and ebbed in his fiery and enthusiastic heart, for he was a grandson of the Hetman Mazeppa--that Pole, whose story is so well known, and who, after being bound naked on a wild and maddened horse, to punish him for having an intrigue with a noble lady of his own country, was carried by his steed through woods and wastes, and herds of wolves and bears, into the heart of the Ukraine, where he lived to become the prince and leader of those wild Cossacks who dwell upon the banks of the Dnieper.

Sleeping in a cavern, among rough soldiers, on a bed of dried leaves and moss, had not improved either the costume or the appearance of Natalie Mierowna. With pain and sorrow,--almost with agony,--Charlie Balgonie could perceive how her once rich dress of yellow silk, with its trimmings of narrow ermine, was faded and soiled--even tattered and worn; her laces and her soft hair alike dishevelled and uncared for; and that already had a hunted and haggard expression been imparted to her beautiful eyes, and soft, pale, delicate face. Anger and pride alone remained; but both were for a time subdued by the sudden presence of Balgonie, and the love she was compelled to repress outwardly, at least, when before so many eyes.

Katinka, the sturdy Polish attendant, who loved Natalie dearly, alone seemed unimpaired by the hardships of a forest life.

"Concerning the secret dispatch of the woman, Catharine Christianowna, to the Governor of Schlusselburg," said Usakoff, resuming the subject of conversation, "you, Carl, are perhaps aware of its contents?"

"Yes," replied Balgonie, and then paused.

"Say on, my friend," said Usakoff; "we can hear anything now."

"They were to the effect, that a scheme had been formed to free the Unknown Person in Schlusselburg, and that he was not to be permitted to fall _alive into the hands of any one who came to seek him_."

"Savage orders, which there can be no mistaking."

"Orders which Bernikoff is quite capable of fulfilling," added Mierowitz in a sad and stern voice, while their listening followers burst into low and whispered, but fierce imprecations against the Empress.

"Bernikoff is a man without one human sympathy," said Basil.

"And no marvel is it?" exclaimed Usakoff, while the strange light already described gleamed in his dark grey eyes; "his mother, like a true Tartar woman, is said to have anointed her breasts daily with blood, as she suckled him, even as Dion tells us the mother of Caligula did, that her child might, in manhood, be merciless."

Vlasfief they stigmatised as "the son of a goat," being originally a boy of the great foundling Hospital at Moscow, where, when the increase of children became so great that nurses could not be found, the lacteal food of animals was introduced, and a herd of goats adopted as wet-nurses for the establishment.

"Carl," said Basil, taking the hand of Balgonie, "Natalie has told me all."

"All!"

"Yes--all that passed in Louga. Dear Natalie has never had a secret from me."

"And you forgive me?" said Balgonie earnestly.

"I do--but on this condition."

"Oh name it, Basil!"

"That if you do not join us, you will, at least, not actively oppose our scheme."

"I scarcely know what it is."

"Know this then," replied the other emphatically, yet softly, "that on its success depends the success of your love; for if it fails, then all our lives are lost!"

"You say that you love my cousin Natalie?" said young Usakoff, in a somewhat loftier tone.

"With all my heart--with all my soul, I do!" replied Balgonie, pressing a hand of Natalie between his own.

"Yet, Carl, if you valued generosity and loved pity--if you loved glory and honour, as a soldier should, you would risk the loss even of _her_,--yea, give her up, if necessary,--and join us!"

"What would either life or glory be after such a sacrifice? Ah, my friend, you never loved as I do!" replied Charlie, with some irritation of manner.

"Perhaps; but I have always thought how grandly terrible a figure was made by Mohammed the Great, when, on a stage, before his discontented army, he struck off the head of a favourite Sultana to convince his soldiers that he preferred glory to love."

"Cousin, cousin," said Natalie, who felt all the peril and delicacy of her lover's position, "you talk thus to-day, when last night you shed tears--yes, bitter tears for the loss of your sister. We were all taken prisoners together, Carl--my poor father, Mariolizza, and I. Bound with cords,--see, the marks are on me still," she added, showing her white wrists, while her dark eyes filled with a dusky fire,--"we were conveyed in a covered kabitka towards St. Petersburg, on the way to which it broke down, in a wood near Paulovsk, not far from the outer walls of the imperial gardens. There, in the confusion, I was enabled to escape, by the aid of the gipsy girl Olga, who, hoping some such chance might occur, had followed us afoot from Louga; and through her further knowledge and assistance, I was enabled to join my brother Basil here."

"My dear old father--and my soft and tender Mariolizza--a blow must be rapidly struck, if we would save them from greater horrors than those they now endure!" exclaimed Basil: "the die has been cast now; and if I cannot save them and our legitimate Emperor, we can at least all perish together."

"Dangers menace you closely; the roads around the fortress are patrolled, and gun-boats watch the shores of the lake. A coin of Ivan found in a tea-house----"

"Malediction--yes! 'twas I, Carl, who dropped it there," exclaimed Basil: "well, and this coin?"

"Has roused all the suspicions of Bernikoff; and he knows that you and your cousin have deserted from your posts in Livonia."

"Already, does he know of this?"

"Yes, with many other details."

"Then," replied Basil Mierowitz, with growing sternness, "we have not an hour to lose. Who informed him?"

"Lieutenant-General Weymarn, by a special messenger, while I was loitering at Louga."

"So, so! By our Lady of Kazan, we must be prompt in action. I have cruised thrice round Schlusselburg disguised as a fisherman, and know well all the approaches."

"Basil, Usakoff, I implore you by all you hold dear on earth and sacred in Heaven to pause while there is yet time--to abandon your wild scheme, and make your peace, if possible, with the Empress."

"You were right to add 'if possible,' my friend," replied the other calmly but bitterly. "Already compromised by desertion, my father and betrothed wife chained in a fortress by the Neva, what terms would Catharine offer us? Carl Ivanovitch," he added, with a lofty smile, "I do not press you to join us, or seek to lure you into the dangers of an enterprise the enthusiasm of which you cannot share. I do not seek even to turn your presence as a trusted staff officer in Schlusselburg to account, though it might further our objects, and be the means, perhaps, by strategy, of saving many a valuable life. Still less do I desire to turn to account your intimacy with the young Emperor Ivan, though I envy you that great privilege. Even in the love I bear my sister (though it might tempt you to cast your lot with us--_with her_ shall I say?), I leave you unquestioned and free."

"I thank you, Basil," said Balgonie sadly, and with a heightened colour, caused by irrepressible annoyance at the last remark of Mierowitz.

"But we have all sworn before the altar of our Lady of Kazan, and the image of St. Sergius, to devote our lives to the matter in hand; so retreat is impossible--advice and entreaty alike unavailing."

Balgonie felt an acute pang on hearing this; for he knew that in Russia no place was esteemed as more holy than the church of our Lady of Kazan in St. Petersburg. Around its shrine--the _sanctum sanctorum_ of which no woman has ever entered--are the keys of conquered cities, the banners of a thousand slaughtered armies, and the batons and sabres of their leaders, the Frenchman, the Turk, the Pole, the Persian, and the Dane, the Swede and the German; and he knew, too, that no image, to the Muscovite mind, is more sacred than that of St. Sergius--the same absurd idol which the Kazan column bore with them at the battle of the Alma, and displayed in vain to the advancing bayonets of old Sir Colin's Highland Brigade.

"The blow once struck," resumed Basil, "we shall be joined by the Cossacks of the Ukraine and the Don, among whom we have many impatient adherents, and by all who hold of the Houses of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, of Holstein Grottorp, and of all who hate Anhalt Zerbst; all Russia will soon follow, from the shores of the Black Sea to those of the White--from Revel to the Ural Mountains. We have not forgotten the reign of Elizabeth: how many noses were slit, how many foreheads were branded, how many ears cropped, and tongues shortened, and how many eyes were darkened for ever during that time of tyranny; how many backs flayed by the knout; how many nobles banished to Siberia, or drowned in prison vaults by the swollen waters of the Neva. Pure nationality is dying now; but we must revive Russia--not as it is ruled by a lascivious woman and her jealous lovers, but Holy Russia of Peter the Great--strong, invincible, and the terror alike of the Eastern and Western world. Let us save our country from those who oppress it, and replace upon its throne the Grand Duke, the Czar--the Emperor Ivan; for the right given by God and by inheritance can never be destroyed!"

A murmur of applause from his followers succeeded this outburst (which we can render but feebly in English), and they clashed their weapons in approval, while, fired by her brother's energy, Natalie sung a verse of a well known Russian song:--

"Now, as of old, the sabre's ready,
And its might they'll feel afar,
When but three short words are utter'd,
God, our Country, and the Czar!"

"Without cannon, you cannot mean to assault a place so strong as Schlusselburg, fortified as it has been by all the skill of Todleben?" said Balgonie, after a pause.

"Ask me not what we mean to do, Carl: for your own sake, my dear friend, the less you know of us, and of our plans, the better. We shall come upon you all when you least expect us, and in that hour take no heed of what you see or hear. Mix yourself up with it as little as you can: if we fail, we perish in our failure; if we triumph, and Ivan is replaced upon his throne, be assured that Basil Mierowitz will not forget the lover of his sister--the comrade of many a brave and happy day with the Regiment of Smolensko. Now adieu--and come hither no more, lest your steps be watched."

Balgonie pressed the hands of his two friends, whom he viewed as fated and foredoomed men; he kissed Natalie with a tenderness that was alike sorrowful and despairing, for he trembled in his heart lest he should never see her more; and, in another moment or so, like one in a bewildering dream, he had descended the rope ladder, and was traversing the forest--the Wood of the Honey Tree--forgetful or oblivious of whether he was watched or not.

He foresaw but woe and ruin now; and proceeded slowly back to Schlusselburg, with his mind a prey to doubt, anxiety, and dread of what might be the sequel to the impending catastrophe. He felt assured of one thing only--that a deed, bold, reckless, and desperate, would be the result of his friend's desertion from Livonia, their political rancour, and personal desire for vengeance on the Empress and her favourites.

In that deed, and its too probable failure, he foresaw the destruction of his love; and he felt bitterly that rather than have known and lost Natalie, it would have been better had fate drowned him when the Palatine ship was burned, or shot him when warring in Silesia!