"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 Kreml[A]," 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 coa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sage. 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 pa.s.s 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 gla.s.ses, 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, antic.i.p.ating 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] "Kreml" is literally Kremlin, one of the places of detention in 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 gla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 t.i.tle), "once you carried a book for me."

"I remember." Malcolm smiled in spite of himself.