Chapter X: The Deed of Michael the Guardsman

Accompanied by Zabern, Paul returned to the palace, where he was met by the court chamberlain, who conducted him to a fine suite of apartments, which by the special command of the princess were assigned to the new secretary.

Supplied by Zabern with the cipher despatch, and by the court librarian with a copy of the "Eumenides," Paul, having first requested to be left to himself, sat down to work out the cryptographic problem.

The paper given to him by the marshal was covered with rows of numerals, separated from each other by dots.

The first eight numbers were as follows,--

6 . 42 . 50 . 37 . 97 . 39 . 65 . 21

What did these figures represent? Certain words in the Greek play? If the sixth word of the "Eumenides," the forty-second, the fiftieth and so forth, were picked out and placed in immediate sequence, would they yield an intelligible sentence?

He tried this method with the above numbers, but the result did not encourage him to proceed.

It was not likely that the writer of the despatch intended to forward such intelligence as: "Of gods and a name a daughter of an art was seated into an oracle."

On reflection Paul perceived the improbability that the numbers stood for words, inasmuch as the vocabulary of an ancient Greek poet would be insufficient to supply all the terms required by the usages of modern civilization, such, for example, as passport, banknote, or rifle. And to clench the matter, Paul observed that towards the end of the despatch there was the number, .8537. Now the total of words in the "Eumenides" falls considerably short of that sum.

But if all the letters that composed the words of the play were numbered in consecutive order from Π the first to ς the last, then, indeed, the sum total would far exceed 8537.

Paul resolved to test this theory, namely, that 6 was intended to mean the sixth letter in the "Eumenides," 42 the forty-second letter, etc.

Great was his delight when he produced the following result,--

. 6 . 42 . 50. 37 . 97 . 39 . 65 . 21 .

ν ι κ ο λ α ο ς

Nicholas, the name of the reigning Czar!

Proceeding in the same fashion, Paul found that the numbers following those which stood for Nicholas yielded the intelligible word ουναινεται, "assents."

"To what does Nicholas assent?" murmured Paul.

"Let me endeavor to ascertain, since it is quite clear that the key to the cipher is now in my hands."

Obviously his best course would be to go through the "Eumenides" first, marking, say, every tenth letter with its proper consecutive number. This done, the work of decipherment would take but a few minutes.

Paul started on this most monotonous task,--a task that occupied him more than four hours, from the necessity imposed upon him of verifying his enumeration from time to time, for a single error in his calculation would have confused the whole issue. And when at last his copy of the "Eumenides" lay ready figured for use, the misgiving seized him that perhaps, after all, his labor had been in vain.

"Various readings occur in the manuscripts of the 'Eumenides,'" he muttered. "If the writer of this despatch has used a different edition from mine,--_Dindorf, Lips._ 1827,--well, then, lack-a-day!"

Fortunately, however, the result falsified his misgiving.

Once during his calculations the eager Zabern had entered the apartment with the question, "What progress?"

"Return in two hours, and you shall have the solution."

And the marshal had withdrawn, somewhat doubtful of Paul's ability to make good his promise.

However, before the expiration of the two hours Paul had mastered the contents of the document. It was written in Greek, and, as the marshal's knowledge of that language was extremely limited, Paul spent some time in endeavoring to produce a faithful translation. And his rendering was as follows,--

_Nicholas assents. So proceed quickly. Risk of discovery in
transmitting document. Therefore burn as soon as seized.
When done, report matter. Envoy will follow to demand
production._

_Lipski's measure approved. Money shall be forwarded by
usual route. Let him bribe freely. The success of his bill
Russia's justification. Impossible, then, for Europe to
oppose annexation.--ORLOFF._

The signature seemed to show that the letter came from the governor-general of Warsaw, the knouter of Katina, but there was nothing to indicate the person for whom it was intended. Paul had little doubt as to the correctness of his decipherment, though the meaning was far from clear to him.

Zabern would doubtless be able to understand the allusions, and if the marshal should not soon make his appearance Paul was resolved to go in quest of him.

The night was now far advanced, and, having been at work several hours in a close chamber, Paul was beginning to feel somewhat languid. He therefore walked forward and opened a casement to gain a breath of the fresher air without.

It was dark and cloudy, and as he stood looking forth a mournful wind dashed rain-drops into his face.

The part of the palace in which this apartment was situated formed the extremity of an architectural wing, which was fronted at the distance of about a hundred feet by a second wing equal in length to the first and parallel with it. These two wings formed with the main structure the three sides of a court.

As he casually turned his eyes upon the opposite wing, at the point where it formed an angle with the main building, Paul thought he detected a movement on the part of somebody or something about half-way between the roof and the ground. Straining his eyes to the utmost, he became convinced that what he saw dimly outlined against the gray wall was the figure of a man poised in mid-air; for as Paul could detect no ladder beneath him, he could only come to the conclusion that the fellow was suspended by a rope.

The man made no attempt to ascend or descend, but continued in the one position; and as far as Paul could discern in the darkness his arm was moving to and fro with horizontal motion.

Now just at the place where this man hung there was, as Paul had observed earlier in the evening, a small window, a window crossed by iron bars.

A grated window in a palace suggests the idea that the room thus secured is used for the preservation of things valuable; at any rate this was Paul's idea. He believed that the fellow was quietly removing the iron bars with the view of procuring whatever it was that lay behind them.

It was an extremely hazardous enterprise. True, the man was favored by the darkness, and by the noise of wind and rain, but at any moment he was liable to be surprised by the night-watch going its rounds, either in the courtyard below or on the roof above.

Two sentinels paced the very battlements overlooking this court. Earlier in the evening Paul had heard their footsteps overhead and their challenges. Were they asleep? If not, they must be keeping a very lax watch to permit this man to perform such work under their very eyes.

Then the truth flashed upon Paul. The man himself was a soldier, one of the two appointed to patrol this particular part of the roof. The other was his confederate. Both were engaged in some nefarious work. Treason was afoot in the palace!

Rejecting his first impulse, which was to steal quietly downstairs and summon the guard, Paul resolved to tackle the two single-handed. As there was no staircase from his room to the roof, he determined to mount to the battlements by means of a water-pipe adjacent to his window.

Thrusting a loaded pistol within his breast, he stepped out upon the window-sill, and pulling himself up by the water-pipe silently and quickly, he clambered over the battlements without detection. Keeping within an embrasure, he peered out along the roof. There, a few yards distant, outlined against the sky, was the tall, cloaked figure of a sentinel leaning upon his rifle and with his eyes turned towards the grated window.

Paul, glancing in the same direction, could no longer see the man hanging in mid-air. A faint glow of light stole through the mysterious window. Hence Paul concluded that the fellow was now within the chamber occupied upon the matter that had brought him there.

Stealing noiselessly forward, Paul suddenly clapped his hand upon the sentinel's shoulder, and, pointing to the grated window he cried,--

"Do you intend to arrest that villain, or are you his confederate?"

The sentinel instantly turned, with confusion and guilt written upon his face. Misled by the uniform, he took Paul for a Czernovese officer, and as such he was one that must be silenced at all costs, for it was death to be caught thus in the act of treason.

Lowering his bayonetted rifle to the charge, he made a thrust at Paul's body. But Paul, on the watch for this movement, sprang aside, wrested the rifle away, and clubbing it, dealt the fellow a fearful blow on the head. The sentinel staggered back and dropped to the pavement, where he lay senseless and still.

Peering over the battlements to learn whether this action on his part had been observed, Paul was surprised to see a blue light at the chamber-window. The man was flashing a lantern to and fro, an action that lasted for a few seconds.

Recovering from his surprise, Paul sped onward, and reached the battlement to which the rope was attached.

Kneeling within an embrasure and glancing downwards, he perceived a faint cloud of smoke proceeding from the window.

What was taking place within? Was the fellow setting fire to this part of the palace?

It was not in Paul's nature to remain inactive while evil was in progress. He instantly resolved to descend to the chamber for the purpose of putting a stop to what he could not doubt was nefarious work. Grasping the rope with both hands, he swung himself downwards, not neglecting, however, at the same time to keep an eye upon the window. As soon as his feet touched the sill he drew forth his pistol, and without pausing to notice what was happening within the room, without a glance, even, he sent his feet through the space between the bars, a space barely sufficient to admit the passage of his body.

The room was in darkness,--this much he was conscious of as he shot forward, and a smell as of smoke hung in the air. Paul fell supine upon the stone flooring, but he was up again in an instant, endeavoring to ascertain through the gloom what strange thing had happened or was happening.

His attention was immediately arrested by a strange voice,--a voice lowered to a whisper that was full of guilty terror.

"Is that you, Peter? What has brought you down? In God's name make no noise. Gabor is on guard in the corridor outside."

"Then let Gabor enter," shouted Paul in a voice of thunder. "Ho! without there! Gabor, Gabor, whoever you may be, here is a prisoner for you."

Directed by the voice, Paul rushed forward through the darkness, and with his left hand he clutched the fellow by the throat, intending to reduce him to submission by pressing the barrel of the pistol to his forehead. The uplifting of the fellow's arm sent the weapon flying from Paul's hand, and next moment the two men were grappling savagely together.

The soldier, for Paul could tell that he was such by the feel of his uniform, was a powerful fellow, and desperation had now doubled his strength. He knew that the chamber-door was strong, and that the key was not in the hands of the sentinels outside; if he could overcome this present antagonist in the interval that must elapse before the key could be procured, there was a possibility of his escaping. He wrestled, therefore, with all the fury of a wild beast.

Locked in each other's arms, the two men swayed backwards and forwards, and then fell, rolling over and over.

Paul's cry, together with the noise of the scuffle, had attracted the notice of the guard posted at the end of the corridor leading to this chamber. The shouting of voices and the running of feet were heard on the other side of the door.

"Ho! Lasco, off to the captain for the key. The devil's work is going on within. How have they managed to get inside? Ah, by the window! Melchior, up to the battlement, and cover the window with your rifle. See they escape not! Now, Lasco, dolt! dullard! slowbody! don't stand gaping there. Run for the key. The key, man, the key!"

"The key _is_ here!" cried a deep, powerful voice. And above the oaths and gasps of his struggling opponent, Paul could hear Zabern's Hessian boots clattering along the corridor.

"Lasco, quick! Yon lamp! hold it up!" cried the marshal. "Gabor and Melchior, as I open the door, rush in and cover them with your rifles. Now!"

The key rattled in the lock; the massive door swung back upon its hinges, and the two sentinels, eager to learn what was taking place, rushed in with rifles levelled, ready to fire at any one who should offer resistance.

They paused in blank amazement at beholding by the light of the lamp one of their own corps stretched supine and panting, with Paul Woodville above pinning him to the floor by the throat.

"Why, it's Michael!" cried Gabor.

Even in the midst of his excitement Paul observed that Zabern was carrying in his hand a sheet of paper which he recognized as his translation of the cipher despatch.

"In time, thank heaven!" murmured the marshal, from which remark Paul concluded that the mission of the traitor-sentinel was connected in some way with Orloff's letter.

"Gabor, Lasco, Melchior, leave us. Close the door; retire to the far end of the corridor, and on your lives stir not from that spot till I call."

The three sentinels retired.

"Good-night to Michael!" whispered Gabor to his two comrades. "We shall never see him again. I know that look in the marshal's eye."

Paul, little the worse for the struggle, released his hold of the soldier and rose to his feet. But it was beyond the power of the other to rise. Fear, inspired by the presence of the dark-frowning Zabern, kept him motionless and mute. He sat the picture of abject terror.

Now that Paul was free to look around, he observed that he was within a vaulted stone chamber, about twenty feet square, and but scantily supplied with furniture. In one part there was a small iron chest fixed to the wall with staples. Paul, by some intuition, divined that Michael's nefarious attempt was directed against the contents of this chest.

Zabern made one swift stride towards the coffer, and seemed relieved at finding it locked.

Turning again, he folded his arms and faced the man with a terrible frown.

"I shall not ask your object in coming here. You and I both know that. So you haven't got it?"

Michael made no reply.

"It is still safe?"

Michael remained mute. He seemed literally frozen with terror.

"Why so silent, fellow? Your tongue wagged ever loudest in the guard-house."

"When I first entered," observed Paul, "smoke hung about the place."

An enthusiastic orator in the Diet had once described Zabern as "the man who had never known fear." The statement, if true at the time of the utterance, was certainly not true now. Fear in all its power fell upon the heart of the marshal as his eye caught sight of a passage in the paper which he held: "Risk of discovery in transmitting document. Therefore burn as soon as seized."

"Hell shall seize you, fellow, if you have done so!" he cried. "Did you come provided with a key, then? Where is it?"

Still Michael made no reply. Zabern, following the direction of his eyes, perceived a key lying upon the floor. The marshal placed it within the lock of the chest, turned it, raised the lid, and saw that the coffer contained nothing but a heap of charred parchment. Zabern, his mouth drawn in an agony that showed all his white teeth, rose, and with a dreadful look in his eyes turned slowly round upon the guilty man.

A cry for mercy rang through the chamber as the marshal sprang forward with drawn sabre. His was not a 'prentice hand; he knew exactly where to find the fifth rib. A swift stab,--the fall of a body, and then all was silent, save for the mournful plash of the rain outside.

Paul was shocked by the ferocity of Zabern's action, which had been performed with a quickness that left no time for intervention.

"Without a court-martial!" he said, severely. "We act not so in England."

"I dare not let him live to see those fellows outside again, lest they should learn from him what he has done. Not a hint as to his deed must ever get abroad; for he who knows it holds the destiny of Czernova in the hollow of his hand. Not even to a secret tribunal must the truth be whispered. And, Captain Woodville," continued Zabern, raising his dripping sabre with so menacing an air that Paul immediately stepped backward, and set hand to his own sword-hilt, "if I thought that you could not hold your peace I would slay you, too."

"What has he done?" asked Paul, impressed by the marshal's strange manner.

"The blackest deed that could be done against the princess, and one that has destroyed the liberties of a whole people. Your decipherment of the secret despatch has come too late to do us good,--too late. Oh! the bitterness of it, by a few moments only."

"I am still in the dark, marshal."

"On what is the liberty of Czernova based? On the Charter granted to us by Catherine of Russia. And that Charter is now burnt paper. This is the first act in the drama. The next will be, as this despatch shows, the appearance of an envoy from the Czar to demand on what grounds Czernova, formerly a part of Russian Poland, claims to be independent. What answer can we give? What title can we show? Without our Charter we are completely at the mercy of the Czar. His ministers will loudly affirm that such Charter was never granted, that we have obtained autonomy by a lying statement, that all extant copies of the Charter are based upon a mythical document, that its mention in history is no proof of its past existence. 'Let us see the original,' will be their cry. 'Produce the autograph signature of the Empress Catherine.' Now do you understand the crime that this miscreant has wrought?"

The diabolical nature of the plot struck Paul with a feeling akin to horror. His thoughts immediately flew to Barbara, sleeping peacefully at that moment in her distant quarter of the palace, all unconscious of this new peril that threatened her throne. He felt little pity now for the slain wretch lying at his feet.

"Why did he not carry off the document to Russia?"

"The secret despatch assigns the reason. It was more expedient to destroy it as soon as it fell into his hands. The sequel proves the serpentine wisdom of Orloff. Had this fellow concealed the Charter upon his own person it would now be in our keeping again. Oh! I could tear out my eyes for having kept such sorry watch! 'Warden of the Charter' is one of my titles. A pretty warden, truly! Fortunately you and I alone know that Russia's plot has succeeded, for those sentries at the end of the corridor are ignorant of it; in fact they do not even know that the Charter was kept here, in this, the Eagle Tower."

"I fear, marshal, that there are others who know," said Paul, picking up a lantern with a blue glass slide. "This was flashed to and fro at the window,--what else but as a signal to some distant watcher that the Charter is no more?"

The marshal ground his teeth as he recognized the force of Paul's inference.

"Then we may expect the Czar's envoy at an early date," he replied. "This villain," he continued, examining the window, "gained ingress by removing the concrete in which the bars were embedded,--a task which must have occupied two or three nights. What were the patrol on the roof doing to allow of this?"

"He himself was one of the patrol," said Paul, quickly adding, "Ah! that reminds me. There is a second fellow on the battlements whom I knocked senseless with his own rifle."

"Another? By heaven, Captain Woodville, you have done wrong in forgetting him. If he should have escaped with the tidings of what has been done!"

Zabern darted from the chamber, and, rushing past the three sentinels standing at the end of the corridor, he ran up a winding staircase that led to the roof. He was closely followed by Paul. The traitor-sentry was still lying in the place where Paul had left him. Zabern's examination did not last a moment.

"He will never play the traitor again," remarked the marshal. "You have shattered his skull for him. And without a court-martial, too!" he added, dryly.

Having called up Gabor and his two companions, Zabern directed them to inter the two bodies, at the same time enjoining the trio to observe strict secrecy upon the events of that night; after which orders he proceeded to pace moodily to and fro upon the battlements in company with Paul, who, puzzled by one circumstance in the affair, sought enlightenment of the marshal.

"Since Orloff's letter authorizing the plot was not delivered to its intended recipient but fell into your hands, how comes it that the plot has nevertheless been carried out?"

"Two messengers may have been sent, each carrying a similar communication; or it may be that when Russakoff did not return within an assigned time, Orloff, growing alarmed, despatched a second letter, which, alas! has produced the desired result."

"Do you believe that the Czar is really accessory to this plot?"

"Accessory? Why not its author?" queried Zabern, ever ready to see in the Czar the incarnation of wickedness. "There is a Byzantine finesse about this plot which accords very well with the character of Nicholas, who has been styled a 'Greek of the Lower Empire.' But whether accessory or not, be sure that he will avail himself of the weapon with which the action of his subordinates has supplied him. You know who works the plot on this side of the Czernovese border."

"The Duke of Bora?"

"Who but he? And yet I still lack decisive proof of his treason. I fear I acted somewhat too hastily in slaying Michael the guardsman. I should have endeavored first to extract the names of his principals. I am without hold upon the duke."

Paul here ventured to remind the marshal of Bora's suspicious conduct in burning his copy of the poet Æschylus.

"True," replied Zabern, "that the cipher despatch depends for its solution upon 'The Eumenides,' and equally true that the duke burns a book containing this same play. But what of that? 'Mere coincidence,' his defenders would reply. Besides, I dare not bring the duke to trial, either secretly or openly, upon this charge."

"'I dare not' from the marshal!"

"Why, consider. I should have to proclaim to his judges the startling fact that Czernova is now without her Charter, a secret that must be kept concealed from all men; nay, even from the princess herself. Captain Woodville, let not her Highness know of this loss. She has political embarrassments enough already. Why should we spring a new trouble upon her?"

"Count me tongue-tied, marshal, where the princess's peace of mind is concerned."

Zabern continued to pace backwards and forwards, glancing from time to time at the translation of the cipher letter which he still held in his hand, and muttering language, the drift of which was not altogether clear to Paul.

"What is this? Lipski's measure approved because its success would justify Russia in annexing Czernova. Ha! so that's the motive that prompts Lipski's action. His bill is aimed not so much at the Catholic Church of Czernova as at the Convent of the Transfiguration. Some inkling of the interior workings of that monastery has reached him, and he would fain turn the light of publicity upon them. No wonder that Orloff desires this bill to pass, and that he is sending Lipski rouble-notes with which to corrupt the Polish members of the Diet. 'Money shall be forwarded by usual route.' Ha! I'll set a watch on Lipski, and on those who visit him. 'T were no great shame if some of those rouble-notes should find their way to our own Exchequer. Humph! Czernova at present is in a truly critical state. But, no matter," he added, with his face grimly set, "let perils come! They shall find me equal to them. What said Peter the Great: 'It takes three Jews to outwit a Russian'? It will take a good many Russians to outwit a Zabern."