Chapter V: On the Russian Frontier

The afternoon was drawing to a close as Paul Woodville and Noel Trevisa made their way to the frontiers of Czernova.

From Slavowitz they had driven in a troika or three-horse car, adopting by preconcerted arrangement a route different from that taken by Bora and his second.

Having put up their vehicle at a roadside hostelry, Trevisa conducted his friend to the place of assignation, the path lying through a series of charming woodland glades, collectively known as the Red Forest.

"Grand pines!" remarked Paul, admiring the erect and stately columns presented by these trees.

"The haunt of wolves in winter," observed Trevisa. "They sometimes devour the Russian sentinels. Who henceforth shall say that a wolf has not its uses?"

Following the beaten track, they came to an extensive clearing.

"The frontier line runs somewhere through this glade. Yes; there is the boundary mark."

Trevisa directed Paul's attention to an upright rectangular block of stone, the sides of which fronted the four cardinal points. On the northern face, deeply cut, were the letters R-U-S-S-I-A, and on the southern face C-Z-E-R-N-O-V-A.

"We are now breathing the air of despotism," remarked Trevisa, as they left the stone in their rear, "and unless we keep a lookout we may experience the effects of it in a shot fired at us by some hidden sentinel."

"What? Is it the fashion of Russian sentries to take pot-shots at passing strangers?"

"Occasionally; at least, on this frontier. It is purposely done to provoke hostilities from Czernova. Ah! there's a sentry. I thought we shouldn't advance far without meeting one."

There under the shadow of the trees, about a hundred yards distant, sitting on horseback with lance erect, was a wild-looking Cossack, with Hessian boots, red breeches, and a small red turban-shaped cap. He was chanting the Russian anthem, and his voice, mellowed by the distance, had a strange plaintive effect.

The sight of this equestrian was well calculated to stir reflection in Paul's mind.

Far, far away on the icy shores of Kamchatka other Russian sentinels were keeping watch. The distance between the two frontiers was over six thousand miles as the crow flies.

And this empire, so colossal in extent, the very incarnation of military force, was threatening little Czernova, Barbara's own principality! There was no hope of her emerging victorious from the contest. The very idea was insanity. She would be but as an infant struggling in the hands of a giant. And the nations of Europe would look on unmoved, as they have often looked on and condoned the conquest of the Weak by the Strong. There was none to pity or help her. And as Paul thought of all this his heart grew hot within him. He began to feel something of the spirit that animated the Polish patriots of Czernova.

Suddenly the Cossack sentinel, catching sight of strangers, turned his horse's head in their direction, and lowering his lance, he came on at full speed.

On nearing the two friends he reined in his shaggy steed with such quickness as to throw the animal almost on its haunches.

"Your passport, little fathers?"

"Here is the universal passport, in Russia as elsewhere--cash," replied Trevisa, displaying some rouble-notes. "We come no farther, and are here simply to fight a duel."

"A duel! That's against the law of Russia. The guard-house is but half-a-mile distant among those trees yonder," said the Cossack, indicating the direction with his lance. "The captain is a terrible fellow. If he should come this way he'll order your arrest and mine too."

"Not he. He'll be only too pleased to witness a good fight. Besides, we have rouble-notes for him also. He has his price, I dare be sworn, otherwise he would be a novelty among Muscovites."

The Cossack reflected. A duel was a pleasant thing; a _douceur_ still more pleasant. Why, then, seek to prevent the fight? He would take his chance of discovery at the hands of his captain. So having first looked cautiously round, he stuffed the rouble-notes into his left boot and made no more opposition.

"Let the Czernovese slay each other," he muttered. "The fewer for our Czar to fight when the talked-of war takes place."

"We are first on the field, it seems," remarked Trevisa, referring to his watch. "Hum! five minutes yet to the appointed time."

Paul having presented the Cossack with a cigar, lighted one himself, and paced leisurely to and fro, seemingly far more at ease than his second.

"This duel is a very serious matter," muttered Trevisa.

"One can die but once."

"Just so. If one could die half-a-dozen times the first death would not matter much. I, however, am not anticipating your death, Paul, but the duke's. You may be doing grave hurt to the princess by killing him."

"How so? Have you not said that it would be a good thing if the princess could be released from him?"

"True; but your way of releasing her has its disadvantages. Forget not that the duke is a near kinsman of the Czar, and that at the present time the Czar hath no great love for Czernova. If Bora should fall Nicholas may accuse the Czernovese cabinet of being privy to the death of his kinsman, and with some show of justice, inasmuch as Radzivil, the premier, though cognizant of the coming duel, has taken no steps to prevent it. You perceive my meaning. The Czar might demand an indemnity such as he foreknows that Czernova could not, and would not pay. The result--annexation of the principality."

Paul reflected a moment.

"The duel was to have been _à la mort_, and I came intending to kill or be killed, but your remark has set the matter in a different light. I cannot retire nor apologize without loss of honor, yet it is equally clear that I must do nothing to the hurt of the princess. There's but one way out of the difficulty: I'll so wound him that he shall not be able to use sword-arm for a month."

"If you can do that--well," replied Trevisa, very much doubting, however, Paul's ability to make good his word, for was not John the Strong the most expert swordsman in Czernova?

It was quite thirty minutes after the appointed time when the Duke of Bora made his appearance attended by his second, Baron Ostrova. They brought no surgeon with them, for Ostrova, in arrogant vein, had declared that his principal had never yet required one; and Trevisa, not to be outdone in bravado, had made the same avowal respecting Paul.

While the duke remained at a little distance his second advanced, gracefully raising his hat to Trevisa.

"You are late, baron."

"Accept our sincere regret. Our vehicle broke down on the way." Then, adopting a somewhat submissive air, and addressing Paul and Trevisa in common, he said,--

"Can we not terminate this little matter amicably? His grace is willing to apologize for his hasty action of this morning."

To do the duke justice, it was not Paul's sword that he feared, but loss of the princess. During the course of the day he had begun to realize the force of Radzivil's words,--that if the affair should come to the knowledge of the princess it might seriously affect the projected marriage.

He would, therefore, swallow his pride, and for the first time in his career as duellist cry off from the combat by making an apology.

"All's well that ends well!" murmured the delighted Trevisa. "You'll accept the _amende honorable_, Paul?"

But Paul seemed bent on chastising the duke.

"It is pleasant to learn," he said, speaking sufficiently loud for Bora to hear, "that his grace realizes that he has acted like a ruffian. 'Liar' and 'coward' were the epithets he applied to me; his action, a cane-stroke across my cheek. And now does he deem that simply to express regret will be a sufficient satisfaction for an affront offered to the uniform of the Twenty-fourth? Well, I will accept the apology on this condition," continued Paul, breaking a slender sapling from a tree overhead and leisurely stripping off the foliage, "that the duke's cheek shall receive from this wand a stroke similar to that bestowed upon mine. It will be a convincing token of his repentance."

Ostrova, to whom had been committed the charge of bringing the weapons, smiled satirically, and presented two sheathed sabres to Trevisa.

"Take your choice."

Trevisa first measured the blades, and finding them of equal length next proceeded to test their temper; and then, having made his selection, handed the same to Paul, who in the meantime had doffed his coat and vest and now stood ready for the fray.

The victor in thirty duels, humiliated beyond measure at the rejection of his conciliatory address, did not wait for further preliminaries but snatched the remaining sabre from the hand of Ostrova, and with the fury of a lion darting upon his victim, he flew upon Paul as if purposing to lay him _hors de combat_ at the first brunt.

But scarcely had the heavy sabres clashed together, sparkling in the rays of the setting sun, when there came the command,--

"Let fall your swords in the name of the law."

The words were spoken in a woman's voice,--a voice that sent a thrill to Paul's heart.

Parrying a thrust from the duke, Paul took a swift backward step, and while maintaining his defensive attitude, contrived to glance sideways.

And there, beautiful and pale, and so close to him that he could see into her eyes, was Barbara, breathless as if from hurrying. From what quarter she had so suddenly sprung none present could tell. Complete absorption in the duel had prevented them from hearing her light footfall upon the turf of the woodland.

Paul forgot his guard. He forgot everything. From sheer surprise his sword dropped to the ground.

He looked at her in silence, striving to learn what were her feelings towards him. She gave no token of recognition. Love on her part, if it existed, was veiled at present in sorrowful reproach. In the light of that look how ignoble seemed his desire for vengeance. His glance fell even as his sword had fallen. He had acted, and knowingly acted, in a way calculated to forfeit her esteem.

A death-like stillness fell upon the circle as they perceived that the fair princess of Czernova, sternly hostile to duelling, was present, a spectator of their misdeed. True, she was but one maiden, but that maiden symbolized in her own person all the power of a state.

"Who first proposed this duel? Who issued the challenge?"

"I did, and with reason."

And stalking up to the princess, the Duke of Bora bent his head, and said in a fierce, jealous whisper,--

"Cousin Natalie, how comes yon fellow to be in possession of the seal I gave you?"

The princess stepped backward, and drawing her robe around her with a stately grace, she exclaimed,--

"It ill becomes one of my ministers to be found setting himself above the law. Marshal, conduct your prisoner to the Citadel."

Paul, following the wave of her arm, perceived that she had not come without an escort.

On the Czernovese side of the frontier-stone stood Marshal Zabern with folded arms, outwardly as inscrutable as the sphinx, inwardly delighted at the course taken by events.

Some distance in his rear, drawn up across the woodland path, the narrowness of which did not admit of more than two abreast, was a posse of mounted lancers belonging to the Blue Legion. Fronting these troopers was the vehicle evidently used by the princess in her journey to this spot,--a light, elegant droshky, expressly adapted for swift travelling.

And the Cossack sentinel, likewise noting all this, felt ill at ease. The sound of his bugle would instantly have summoned a party from the Russian guard-house, but as this might have led to the exposure of his own participation in the affair, he refrained from the act, and looked on in silence.

"Marshal, conduct your prisoner to the Citadel."

"You would arrest _me_?"

There was an emphasis on the last word which was intended to remind the princess that it behoved her to consider who he was. It was clear to her that relying on his kinship to the Czar, he set little store by the law of Czernova. His pitying smile cut the constitutionalist princess to the quick.

"You talk bravely, fair cousin, forgetful in whose territory you now stand. I put myself under the protection of this sentry, the representative of the Czar."

The duke was not mending matters in appealing to the Czar for protection against the law of Czernova.

"O silly duke!" murmured Zabern. "How nicely you are playing into my hands! You have lost the princess by that speech."

The Cossack sentinel, now heartily regretting that he had become compromised by an affair in which the great ones of Czernova were involved, nevertheless at the duke's abjuration rode off to the princess.

"What is this?" he cried, with an air of authority. "Prisoner? No arrest can take place here. Little mother, you are standing on Russian ground; therefore--your passport, signed by the Russian consul at Slavowitz."

"Princesses do not carry passports," replied Barbara disdainfully.

"Then the little mother must retire to her own side of the frontier."

Barbara seemed disposed at first to maintain her ground, but wiser thoughts prevailed.

"You do but your duty," she replied.

And with this she retired, and took her station by the side of Zabern.

"Princess, I commend your celerity," smiled the marshal. "I was five years in getting out of Russia,--you have accomplished it in as many seconds."

Then lowering his voice to a whisper, he continued,--

"We cannot arrest the duke while he is on Russian ground. Were we to do so, this Cossack would report the matter. In their present mood Russian ministers would gladly seize upon the violation of their territory as a _casus belli_, and we don't want war at present."

"John Lilieski," said the princess, addressing the duke from her own side of the frontier, "you will either return under guard to Slavowitz, or you will not return at all. Take your choice betwixt imprisonment during my pleasure, or perpetual banishment from Czernova."

This decision from one whom he had been accustomed to regard as his affianced bride completely confounded his grace of Bora. His first surprise over, he proceeded to take counsel with his second. Though they spoke in low tones, Paul nevertheless caught a few words.

"They dare not harm you," said Ostrova, "and you will command more interest, more sympathy, more power as a prisoner in the Citadel than as a hanger-on at the Czar's court."

This argument seemed to decide the duke, for he immediately crossed to the Czernovese side.

"Since you make a voluntary surrender of yourself," said the princess, "declare it aloud that the Russian sentry may hear you."

"Of my own free will I enter the Czernovese territory," said Bora, addressing the Cossack.

"Your sword," said Zabern.

Though not as yet deposed from his command of the army, Bora did not doubt that this would follow, and that Zabern would be his successor. Very bitter, indeed, then, was his smile as he handed the sabre over to the marshal.

"I am curious to learn, fair cousin," he sneered, "the punishment you reserve for my opponent, equally guilty with myself of breaking the law."

"There is your escort to Slavowitz," said Barbara haughtily, pointing to the posse of uhlans.

And Bora, with a dark glance at Paul, walked in the direction indicated.

"For my part," observed Baron Ostrova airily, "I prefer liberty. I shake the dust of Czernova from my feet."

"Forever," decreed the princess.

"Oh, your Highness, your reign will not last so long as that," replied the other, with a peculiar smile, adding to himself, "Your reign, my lady, is but a question of a few weeks."

Taking off his hat, he dropped it to the ground, and bowed so low over it as almost to touch the turf with his fingers, herein imitating an old custom of the Polish serf when addressing his lord.

"I kiss the feet of the dainty Lady Natalie," he said.

Then, picking up his hat, the Baron walked off to a little distance, where he stood watching the sequel.

Paul longed to thrash the fellow for his insolence, but prudently refrained from creating a disturbance in Russian territory.

"Trevisa," said the princess, "in remembrance of your many services I remit the penalty due by law, but," and there was genuine sorrow in her tone, "you lose your secretaryship."

"Your Highness," stammered Trevisa, his whole manner showing how deeply he felt the loss of his office. "Fine. Imprisonment. Any punishment but that."

"The cipher, your Highness," murmured Zabern. "The cipher letter! We cannot do without Trevisa."

"Let me intercede for him," said Paul, bending his knee.

The princess had last heard that voice in the twilight hour by the dark blue sea on the shore of Isola Sacra. The memory of that event came back with a rush that almost stifled her breath.

"His only fault is," pleaded Paul, "that he has been too great a friend."

"To you, but not to our law," she murmured faintly. "My servants must not be law-breakers."

There was a brief interval of silence.

"Your Highness," said Paul, rising to his feet, "I await my sentence."

"You are safe where you stand," she faltered.

Her manner plainly besought him to remain where he was, and thus relieve her from a painful situation.

"I will not take advantage of _that_."

And by a few steps Paul passed from the jurisdiction of the Czar to that of Barbara.

The look in her eyes was like that of a fawn at bay. Love forbade her to punish Paul, and yet, while meting punishment to others, how, without bringing reproach to herself, could she let him go free?

"Your Highness," intervened Trevisa, "my friend Captain Woodville has received extreme provocation from the duke, and when he accepted the challenge, was ignorant of the Czernovese law relating to duelling."

Barbara had heard the whole story from Zabern as she was whirled along in the droshky from Slavowitz to the frontier. She glanced at the weal that disfigured Paul's cheek, and her anger grew hot against the duke. No! come what might, she would not punish Paul.

"I appeal to the marshal," said Trevisa boldly, "whether he would not have taken to the sword under the like provocation."

"Princess," replied Zabern, "Captain Woodville, as a soldier, had no other course than to maintain the honor of his queen's uniform." The foolish Barbara became jealous at the thought that Paul should owe allegiance to a lady other than herself. Lowering his voice to a whisper, Zabern continued, "Your Highness has authority to imprison the duke, inasmuch as he is your own subject; but you will be exceeding that authority if you venture to arrest an English citizen for an offence committed on Russian ground. Let the Russians themselves see to it."

The princess flashed a quick glance of interrogation at him.

"What would you imply? That the Russians will demand Captain Woodville's extradition?"

"I clearly foresee that they will try to make political capital out of this affair. Be sure that Baron Ostrova will give them his version of it. Always excepting your Highness and myself," continued Zabern with a grim smile, "there is no one upon whom the Russian Government would more willingly lay hands than the Englishman who prevented them from taking the Afghan fortress of Tajapore."

This reference to Paul's bravery brought a glow of pride to Barbara's cheek. A new tie seemed to unite them. While she was contending with Russian intrigue in one part of the world, he had been contending with it in another.

"Captain Woodville," she said aloud, "the marshal informs me that I have no legal ground for arresting you. And as I have not the authority, so neither have I the wish to punish a soldier whose name has become known throughout Europe."

While speaking, she had drawn nearer to him, and now with a face made more beautiful by the love shining from her eyes, she whispered, "Paul, keep my secret. Come and see me at the palace. Immediately."

Paul's eyes assured her of his ready acquiescence. The princess turned to depart.

"One moment, your Highness," said Paul, humbly kneeling. "If I, the principal in this duel, am innocent, how can Trevisa, my second, be guilty?"

"The cases are not the same," replied the princess. "Still," she added with a smile that brought back hope to the heart of the ex-secretary, "still my decision may not be irrevocable."

Taking the proffered arm of Marshal Zabern, the princess returned to her droshky. The cavalcade then set in motion and vanished almost as mysteriously as it had appeared; and Paul was left standing there, with the overwhelming revelation that Barbara's love towards him was unchanged.