Wallace Edgar
The Book of All-Power
CHAPTER XV
THE RED BRIDE
Irene Yaroslav came back to the home which had always been associated in her mind with unhappy memories, to meet the culminating disaster which Fate had wrought. Whatever thoughts of escape she may have treasured in secret were cut into by the sure knowledge that she was watched day and night, and were now finally terminated by the discovery that the big apartment house, a suite of which Boolba had taken for her disposal when he had ousted her from her father's house, was practically in possession of the Soviet Guard.
She drove to the palace with an undisguised escort of mounted men, one on either side of the carriage, one before and one behind, and went up the stairs—those grim stairs which had frightened her as a child and had filled her nights with dreams, passing on her way the now empty bureau which it had been Boolba's whim for her to keep.
Maria Badisikaya, an officer of the Committee for the Suppression of the Counter-Revolution, formerly an operative in the Moscow Cigarette Company, was waiting in the small drawing-room which still retained some of its ancient splendour. Maria was a short, stumpy woman with a slight moustache and a wart on her chin, and was dressed in green satin, cut low to disclose her generous figure. About her stiff, coal-black hair was a heavy diamond bandeau. She was sitting on a settee, her feet hardly touching the ground, cleaning her nails with a little pocket-knife as the girl entered. Evidently this was her maid of honour, and she could have laughed.
The woman glowered up at her and jumped briskly to her feet, closing the knife and slipping it into her corsage.
"You are late, Irene Yaroslav," she said shrilly. "I have something better to do than to sit here waiting for a boorjoo. There is a committee meeting at ten o'clock to-night. How do you imagine I can attend that? Come, come!"
She bustled into an ante-room.
"Here is your dress, my little bride. See, there is everything, even to stockings—Boolba has thought of all, yet he will not see! La! la! What a man!"
Numerous articles of attire were laid out on chairs and on the back of the sofa, and the girl, looking at them, shuddered. It was Boolba's idea—nobody but Boolba would have thought of it. Every garment was of red, blood red, a red which seemed to fill the room with harsh sound. Stockings of finest silk, shoes of russian leather, cobweb underwear—but all of the same hideous hue. In Russia the word "red" is also the word "beautiful." In a language in which so many delicate shades of meaning can be expressed, this word serves a double purpose, doing duty for that which, in the eyes of civilized people, is garish, and that which is almost divine.
Maria's manner changed suddenly. From the impatient, slightly pompous official, conscious of her position, she became obsequious and even affectionate. Possibly she remembered that the girl was to become the wife of the most powerful man in Moscow, whose word was amply sufficient to send even Gregory Prodol to the execution yard, and Gregory's position seemed unassailable.
"I will help you to dress, my little dear," she said. "Let me take your hat, my little dove."
"I would rather be alone," said the girl. "Will you please wait in the next room, Maria Badisikaya?"
"But I can help you so, my little darling," said the woman, fussing about. "A bride has no luck for thirty years if she puts on her own stockings."
"Go!" said the girl imperiously, and the woman cringed.
"Certainly, Excellenz," she stammered, and went out without another word.
The girl changed quickly, and surveyed herself in the pier glass at the end of the room. It was striking but horrible. There came a tap at the door and the agitated Maria entered.
"He has sent for you, my little dove," she said. "Come, take my arm. Do not tremble, my little pretty. Boolba is a good man and the greatest man in Moscow."
She would have taken the girl's arm, but Irene waved her aside, and walked swiftly from the drawing-room into the grand saloon. She wanted the ordeal over as soon as possible.
The room was crowded, and though many of the electric lamps in the great glass chandelier were not in working order and a broken fuse had put half the wall brackets in darkness, the light was almost dazzling. This wonderful saloon, where ten Czars had eaten bread and salt with ten generations of Yaroslavs, was thick with humanity. Some of the men were in uniform, some were in a nondescript costume which was the Soviet compromise between evening-dress and diplomatic uniform. One man wore a correct evening-jacket and a white waistcoat with a perfectly starched shirt, over uniform trousers and top-boots. The women were as weirdly clothed. Some were shabby to the point of rags, a few wore court dresses of the approved pattern, and there was one woman dressed like a man, who smoked all the time. The air was blue with tobacco smoke and buzzing with sound.
As she came into the saloon somebody shouted her name, and there was vigorous applause, not for her, she knew, nor for the name she bore, but for the novelty and the "beauty" of her wedding gown.
At the farther end of the room was a table covered with a red cloth, and behind it sat a man in evening-dress, whom she recognized as one of the newly-appointed magistrates of the city. Nudged behind by Maria, she made her way through the press of people, whose admiring comments were spoken loud enough for her to hear.
"What a little beauty! Too good for a blind man, eh?"
"We have knelt for her many times, now she shall kneel for us."
"Such a dress! This Boolba is a wonderful fellow."
She halted before the table, her hands clasped lightly in front of her. Her head was high, and she met every glance steadily and disdainfully.
The clock struck a quarter after ten when Boolba made his entrance amidst a storm of applause.
They had never seen him in such a uniform before. Some thought it was a new costume which had been sanctioned by the supreme Soviet for its Commissaries; others that it had been planned especially for the marriage. Irene alone knew it, and a cold, disdainful smile lit for a moment her expressionless face.
She had seen Boolba in knee-breeches and white silk stockings before; she knew the coat of green and gold which the retainers of the house of Yaroslav wore on state occasions. Boolba was marrying her in his butler's livery—a delicate piece of vengeance.
The ceremony was short, and, to the girl, unreal. Religious marriages, though they had not altogether been banned, were regarded by the official Russia as unnecessary, and a new marriage service had been designed, which confined the ceremony to the space of a few minutes. The attempts to abolish marriage altogether had been strenuously opposed, not so much by the public women who were on the innumerable councils and committees, but by the wives of the more important members of the organization.
Boolba was led to her side, and reached out his hand gropingly, and in very pity of his blindness she took it. Questions were asked him, to which he responded and similar questions were asked her, to which she made no reply. The whole ceremony was a farce, and she had agreed to it only because it gave her a little extra time, and every minute counted. From the moment the magistrate pronounced the formula which made them, in the eyes of the Soviet law at any rate, man and wife, Boolba never loosened his hold of her.
He held her hand in his own big, hot palm, until it was wet and her fingers lost all feeling. From group to group they moved, and when they crossed the dancing space of the saloon, the revellers stepped aside to allow the man to pass. She noticed that in the main they confined themselves to country dances, some of which were new to her. And all the time Boolba kept up a continuous conversation in an undertone, pinching her hand gently whenever he wanted to attract her attention.
"Tell me, my new eyes, my little pigeon of God, what are they doing now? Do you see Mishka Gurki? She is a silly woman. Tell me, my little pet, if you see her. Watch her well, and tell me how she looks at me. That woman is an enemy of the Revolution and a friend of Sophia Kensky.... Ah! it is sad about your poor friends."
The girl turned cold and clenched her teeth to take the news which was coming.
"They tried to escape and they were shot down by our brave guard. I would have pardoned them for your sake, all but the thief, who broke the jaw of comrade Alex Alexandroff. Yes, I would have pardoned them to-night, because I am happy. Else they would have died with Sophia Kensky in the morning.... Do I not please you, that I put away this woman, who was my eyes and saw for me—all for your sake, my little pigeon, all for your sake!… Do you see a big man with one eye? He has half my misfortune, yet he sees a million times more than Boolba! That is the butcher Kreml—some day he shall see the Kreml1," he chuckled.... "Why do you not speak, my darling little mama? Are you thinking of the days when I was Boolba the slave? Na, na, stoi! Think of to-day, to-night, my little child of Jesus!"
There were times when she could have screamed, moments of madness when she longed to pick up one of the champagne bottles which littered the floor, and at intervals were thrown with a crash into a corner of the room, and strike him across that great brutal face. There were times when she was physically sick and the room spun round and round and she would have fallen but for the man's arm. But the hour she dreaded most of all came at last, when, one by one, with coarse jests at her expense, the motley company melted away and left her alone with the man.
"They have all gone?" he asked eagerly. "Every one?"
He clutched more tightly.
"To my room. We have a supper for ourselves. They are pigs, all these fellows, my little beautiful."
The old carpet was still on the stairs, she noticed dully. Up above used to be her own room, at the far end of the long passage. She had a piano there once. She wondered whether it was still there. There used to be a servant at the head and at the foot of these stairs—a long, green-coated Cossack, to pass whom without authority was to court death. The room on the left had been her father's—two big saloons, separated by heavy silken curtains; his bureau was at one end, his bedroom at the other.
It was into the bureau that the man groped his way. A table had been set, crowded with bottles and glasses, piled with fruit, sweetmeats, and at the end the inevitable samovar.
"I will lock the door," said Boolba. "Now you shall kiss me on the eyes and on the mouth and on the cheeks, making the holy cross."
She braced herself for the effort, and wrenched free. In a flash he came at her, and his hands caught the silken gown at the shoulder. She twisted under his arm, leaving a length of tattered and torn silk in his hand, and the marks of his finger-nails upon her white shoulder. He stopped and laughed—a low, gurgling laugh—and it was to the girl like the roar of some subterranean river heard from afar.
"Oh, Highness," he mocked, "would you rob a blind man of his bride? Then let us be blind together!"
He blundered to the door. There was a click, and the room was in darkness.
"I am better than you now," he said. "I hear you in the dark; I can almost see you. You are by the corner of the table. Now you are pushing a chair. Little pigeon, come to me!"
Whilst he was talking she was safe because she could locate him. It was when he was silent that she was filled with wild fear. He moved as softly as a cat, and it seemed that his boast of seeing in the dark was almost justified. Once his hand brushed her and she shrank back only just in time. The man was breathing heavily now, and the old, mocking terms of endearment had changed.
"Come to me, Irene Yaroslav!" he roared. "Have I not often run to you? Have I not waited throughout the night to take your wraps and bring you coffee? Now you shall wait on me by Inokente! You shall be eyes and hands for me, and when I am tired of you, you shall go the way of Sophia Kensky."
She was edging her way to the door. Once she could switch on the light she was safe, at any rate for the time being. There was a long silence, and, try as she did, she could not locate him. He must have been crouching near the door, anticipating her move, for as her hand fell on the switch and the lights sprang into being, he leapt at her. She saw him, but too late to avoid his whirling hands. In a second he had her in his arms. The man was half mad. He cursed and blessed her alternately, called her his little pigeon and his little devil in the same breath. She felt the tickle of his beard against her bare shoulder, and strove to push him off.
"Come, my little peach," he said. "Who shall say that there is no justice in Russia, when Yaroslav's daughter is the bride of Boolba!"
His back was to the curtain, and he was half lifting, half drawing her to the two grey strips which marked its division, when the girl screamed.
"Again, again, my little dear," grinned Boolba. "That is fine music."
But it was not her own danger which had provoked the cry. It was that vision, twice seen in her lifetime, of dead white hands, blue-veined, coming from the curtain and holding this time a scarlet cord.
It was about Boolba's neck before he realized what had happened. With a strangled cry he released the girl, and she fell back again on the table, overturning it with a crash.
"This way, Highness," said a hollow voice, and she darted through the curtains.
She heard the shock of Boolba's body as it fell to the ground, and then Israel Kensky darted past her, flung open the door and pushed her through.
"The servants' way," he said, and she ran to the narrow staircase which led below to the kitchen, and above to the attics in which the servants slept.
Down the stairs, two at a time, she raced, the old man behind her. The stairway ended in a square hall. There was a door, half ajar, leading to the kitchen, which was filled with merrymakers, and a second door leading into the street, and this was also open. She knew the way blindfolded. They were in what had been the coach-yard of the Palace, and she knew there were half a dozen ways into the street. Israel chose the most unlikely, one which led again to the front of the house.
A drosky was waiting, and into this he bundled her, jumping in by her side, holding her about the waist as the driver whipped up his two horses and sped through the deserted streets of Moscow.
CHAPTER XVI
THE BOOK OF ALL-POWER
Malcolm was the first to hear the sound of wheels on the roadway, and the party listened in silence till a low whistle sounded and their host darted out of the room.
"What was that?" asked Malinkoff. "Somebody has come to the front door."
A few minutes later Petroff staggered through the doorway, carrying the limp figure of Irene. It was Malcolm who took the girl in his arms and laid her upon the sofa.
"She is not dead," said a voice behind him.
He looked up; it was Israel Kensky. The old man looked white and ill. He took the glass of wine which Ivan brought him with a shaking hand, and wiped his beard as he looked down at the girl. There was neither friendliness nor pity in his glance, only the curious tranquillity which comes to the face of a man who has done that which he set out to do.
"What of Boolba?" asked Petroff eagerly
"I think he lives," said Kensky, and shook his head. "I am too weak and too old a man to have killed him. I put the cord about his neck and twisted it with a stick. If he can loosen the cord he will live; if he cannot, he will die. But I think he was too strong a man to die."
"Did he know it was you?" asked Petroff.
Kensky shook his head.
"What is the hour?" he asked, and they told him that it was two o'clock.
"Sophia Kensky dies at four," he said, in such a tone of unconcern that even Malinkoff stared at him.
"It is right that she should die," said Kensky, and they marvelled that he, who had risked his life to save one of the class which had persecuted his people for hundreds of years, should speak in so matter-of-fact tones about the fate of his own blood. "She betrayed her race and her father. It is the old law of Israel, and it is a good law. I am going to sleep."
"Is there a chance that you have been followed?" asked Malinkoff, and Kensky pulled at his beard thoughtfully.
"I passed a watchman at the barricade, and he was awake—that is the only danger."
He beckoned to Malcolm, and, loth as the young man was to leave the girl's side, now that she was showing some signs of recovering consciousness, he accompanied the old man from the room.
"Gospodar," said Israel Kensky (it sounded strange to hear that old title), "once you carried a book for me."
"I remember." Malcolm smiled in spite of himself.
"'The Book of All-Power,'" repeated the Jew quietly. "It is in my room, and I shall ask you to repeat your service. That book I would give to the Grand Duchess, for I have neither kith nor child, and she has been kind to me."
"But surely, Kensky," protested Malcolm, "you, as an intelligent man, do not believe in the potency of books or charms of incantations?"
"I believe in the 'Book of All-Power,'" said Kensky calmly. "Remember, it is to become the property of the Grand Duchess Irene. I do not think I have long to live," he added. "How my death will come I cannot tell, but it is not far off. Will you go with me now and take the book?"
Malcolm hesitated. He wanted to get back to the girl, but it would have been an ungracious act not to humour the old man, who had risked so much for the woman he loved. He climbed the stairs to the little bedroom, and waited at the door whilst Kensky went in. Presently the old man returned; the book was now stitched in a canvas wrapping, and Malcolm slipped the book into his pocket. The very act recalled another scene which had been acted a thousand miles away, and, it seemed, a million years ago.
"Now let us go down," said Kensky.
"Lord," he asked, as Malcolm's foot was on the stair, "do you love this young woman?"
It would have been the sheerest affectation on his part to have evaded the question.
"Yes, Israel Kensky," he replied, "I love her," and the old man bowed his head.
"You are two Gentiles, and there is less difference in rank than in race," he said. "I think you will be happy. May the Gods of Jacob and of Abraham and of David rest upon you and prosper you. Amen!"
Never had benediction been pronounced upon him that felt so real, or that brought such surprising comfort to the soul of Malcolm Hay. He felt as if, in that dingy stairway, he had received the very guerdon of manhood, and he went downstairs spiritually strengthened, and every doubt in his mind set at rest.
The girl half rose from the couch as he came to her, and in her queer, impulsive way put out both her hands. Five minutes before he might have hesitated; he might have been content to feel the warmth of her palms upon his. But now he knelt down by her side, and, slipping one arm about her, drew her head to his shoulder. He heard the long-drawn sigh of happiness, he felt her arm creep about his neck, and he forgot the world and all the evil and menace it held: he forgot the grave Malinkoff, the interested Cherry Bim, still wearing his Derby hat on the back of his head, and girt about with the weapons of his profession. He forgot everything except that the world was worth living for. There lay in his arms a fragrant and a beautiful thing.
It was Petroff who put an end to the little scene.
"I have sent food into the wood for you," he said, "and my man has come back to tell me that your chauffeur is waiting by the car. He has all the petrol that he requires, and I do not think you should delay too long."
The girl struggled to a sitting position, and looked with dismay at her scarlet bridal dress.
"I cannot go like this," she said.
"I have your trunk in the house, Highness," said Petroff, and the girl jumped up with a little cry of joy.
"I had forgotten that," she said.
She had forgotten also that she was still weak, for she swayed and would have stumbled, had not Malcolm caught her.
"Go quickly, Highness," said Petroff urgently. "I do not think it would be safe to stay here—safe for you or for Kensky. I have sent one of my men on a bicycle to watch the Moscow road."
"Is that necessary?" asked Malinkoff. "Are you suspect?"
Petroff nodded.
"If Boolba learns that Kensky passed this way, he will guess that it is to me that he came. I was in the service of the Grand Duke, and if it were not for the fact that a former workman of mine is now Assistant Minister of Justice in Petrograd, I should have been arrested long ago. If Boolba finds Israel Kensky here, or the Grand Duchess, nothing can save me. My only hope is to get you away before there is a search. Understand, little general," he said earnestly, "if you had not the car, I would take all risks and let you stay until you were found."
"That seems unnecessary," said Malinkoff. "I quite agree. What do you say, Kensky?"
The old man, who had followed Malcolm down the stairs, nodded.
"I should have shot Boolba," he said thoughtfully, "but it would have made too much noise."
"You should have used the knife, little father," said Petroff, but Kensky shook his head.
"He wears chain armour under his clothes," he said. "All the commissaries do."
Preparations for the journey were hurriedly made. The girl's trunk had proved a veritable storehouse, and she came down in a short tweed skirt and coat, her glorious hair hidden under a black tam o' shanter, and Malcolm could scarcely take his eyes from her.
"You have a coat," said the practical Malinkoff. "That is good—you may need it."
Crash!
It was the sound of a rifle butt against the door which struck them dumb. Muffled by the thick wood, the voice of the knocker yet came clearly: "Open in the name of the Revolution!"
Petroff blinked twice, and on his face was a look as though he could not believe his ears. The girl shrank to Malcolm's side, and Malinkoff stroked his beard softly. Only Cherry Bim seemed to realize the necessities of the moment, and he pulled both guns simultaneously and laid them noiselessly on the table before him.
"Open in the name of the Revolution!"
A hiss from Kensky brought them round. He beckoned them through the door by which they had made their original entry to the room, and pointed to the light. He gripped Petroff by the shoulder.
"Upstairs to your bedroom, friend," he said. "Put on your night-shirt and talk to them through the window."
Down the two passages they passed and came to the little door, which Kensky unchained and opened. He put his lips close to Malinkoff's ears.
"Do you remember the way you came?" he asked, and the general nodded and led the way.
Last but one came Cherry Bim, a '45 in each hand. There were no soldiers in view at the back of the house, but Malinkoff could hear their feet on some unknown outside road, and realized that the house was in process of being surrounded, and had the man who knocked at the door waited until this encirclement had been completed, there would have been no chance of escape.
They struck the main road, and found the cart track leading to the wood, and none challenged them. There was no sound from the house, and apparently their flight had not been discovered.
Kensky brought up the rear in spite of Cherry's frenzied injunctions, delivered in the four words of Russian which he knew, to get a move on. They had reached the fringe of the wood when the challenge came. Out of the shadow rode a horseman, and brought his charger across the path.
"Halt!" he cried.
The party halted, all except Cherry, who stepped from the path and moved swiftly forward, crouching low, to give the sentry no background.
"Who is that?" asked the man on the horse. "Speak, or I'll fire!"
He had unslung his carbine, and they heard the click of the bolt as the breech opened and closed.
"We are friends, little father," said Malinkoff.
"Give me your names," said the sentry, and Malinkoff recited with glib ease a list of Russian patronymics.
"That is a lie," said the man calmly. "You are boorjoos—I can tell by your voices," and without further warning he fired into the thick of them.
The second shot which came from the night followed so quickly upon the first that for the second time in like circumstances the girl thought only one had been fired. But the soldier on the horse swayed and slid to the earth before she knew what had happened.
"Go right ahead," said the voice of Cherry Bim.
He had caught the bridle of the frightened horse, and had drawn him aside. They quickened their steps and came up to the car, which the thoughtful chauffeur had already cranked up at the sound of the shots.
"Where is Kensky?" asked Malcolm suddenly, "did you see him, Cherry?"
A pause.
"Why, no," said Cherry, "I didn't see him after the lamented tragedy."
"We can't leave the old man," said Malcolm.
"Wait," said the little gun-man. "I will go back and look for him."
Five minutes, ten passed and still there was no sign or sound of Israel Kensky or of Cherry. Then a shot broke the stillness of the night, and another and another.
"Two rifles and one revolver," said Malinkoff. "Get into the car, Highness. Are you ready, Peter?"
There was another shot and then a fusillade. Then came slow footsteps along the cart track, and the sound of a man's windy breathing.
"Take him, somebody," said Cherry.
Malinkoff lifted the inanimate figure from Cherry's shoulder and carried him into the car. A voice from the darkness shouted a command, there was a flash of fire and the "zip" of a bullet.
"Let her go, Percy," said Cherry, and blazed away with both guns into the darkness.
He leapt for the footboard and made it by a miracle, and only once did they hear him cry as if in pain.
"Are you hit?" asked Malcolm anxiously.
"Naw!" drawled his voice jerkily, for the road hereabouts was full of holes, and even speech was as impossible as even riding. "Naw," he said. "I nearly lost my hat."
He spoke only once again that night, except to refuse the offer to ride inside the car. He preferred the footboard, he said, and explained that as a youth it had been his ambition to be a fireman.
"I wonder," he said suddenly, breaking the silence of nearly an hour.
"What do you wonder?" asked Malinkoff, who sat nearest to the window, where Cherry stood.
"I wonder what happened to that boy on the bicycle?"
