John R. Carling

“ Wilfrid Courtenay’s life should have been cast in the Middle Ages. He was a romantic freelance, whose ideas were more akin to the age of chivalry than to the nineteenth century. The spirit that finds a zest in danger, the spirit that made the vikings the terror of all coasts from the North Cape to Sicily, the spirit that sent the Crusaders forth to do battle with the Paynim beneath the blazing sun of Syria, the spirit that has caused Englishmen to plant colonies in the very teeth of hostile savages—that spirit still ran strong in the blood of the Courtenays. ”

“ Helens became full of dismay, as he realised that Wilfrid was perfectly serious in his utterance. If Alexander were equally determined there was no power on earth to stay the duel; and since Wilfrid had no peer in swordsmanship, what but ill would befall the Czar in a mortal combat? In cooler moments Wilfrid might not wish to kill the Emperor, but in the hot excitement of the duel, when he saw before him the man who was persecuting the Princess with unwelcome attentions, there was no knowing what might happen, especially if Wilfrid’s anger should be aggravated by the smarting of a wound. ”

“ It was a new thing for Wilfrid to be stealing along a corridor at night like a thief, fearful of being seen or heard—an altogether humiliating experience, made endurable only by the thought that it was necessary for the honour, the safety, perhaps even the life, of the Princess. Twenty paces—he had a reason for taking accurate measurement—brought him to a landing, whence a short staircase led to the floor above, where was a corridor, similar in all respects to the one he had just left.
Moving forward twenty paces along this, Wilfrid paused before a certain door. ”

“ And Wilfrid, if Baranoff had spoken truly, was certain of gaining her love! To woo and carry off a fair princess from the power of a jealous Czar was just the sort of enterprise that appealed to his knightly and romantic character. He could no longer hesitate.
“Do you assent?”
“Assent!” echoed Wilfrid. “Is it possible to dissent? You say that provided I succeed in marrying this lady you will add to the pleasure by paying me the sum of three hundred thousand roubles! Really, your proposal is so extraordinary, so captivating, that I am almost inclined to think that you are trifling with me. ”

“ He looked cautiously round as he spoke—“Let her be nameless, for who knows what ears may be within hearing? You meet her [204] secretly at midnight in the Michaelovski Palace; you meet her with kisses and embraces at this masquerade; you are seen leaving her bed-chamber in the inn at Gora. You, who have brought shame upon her—do you talk of honour?”
Through the holes of his mask the man’s eyes glowed like fire; a great rage seemed to hold him. He fingered his sword-hilt, as if longing to hurl himself upon Wilfrid and end his life there and then, without troubling to wait for the morning. ”

“ Indifferent as to whether you kill Alexander, indifferent as to whether the Peace Treaty be signed, indifferent as to whether you plunge an empire into mourning, or cover European politics with inextricable confusion, you wish for the duel merely to boast of being the only man in history to cross swords with a Czar, merely to be talked about. Not honour, or truth, or justice, calls you to this duel, but sheer vanity, and vanity alone. ”

“ The face of every soldier, like that of his Imperial master, carried the ornament of a snub, upturned nose; and, as if to render the face still more grotesque, the moustaches were brushed upwards to the ears.
Not only did Wilfrid’s erect attitude give displeasure, but his six feet of handsome and athletic manhood was likewise an affront to a ruler, who, on account of his diminutive and ugly appearance, had been so sneered at by his mother’s tall and shapely courtiers that he had come at last to hate the sight of a well-favoured person, and was jealous even of his own son’s stature and beauty. ”

“ Not wishing, therefore, to deprive her of the desired interview, Wilfrid walked slowly out upon the terrace, thinking that, if the Duchess were really in the ballroom, and had seen the embroidered scarf, she would perhaps, after a reasonable time, follow in his wake.
From the terrace a flight of steps descended to the palace gardens, now in all the glory of their summer foliage. Voices and laughter from near and far showed that many of the masqueraders preferred the purer air of night to the atmosphere of the ballroom. ”

“ Yours!” he retorted with ineffable disdain.
“Mine,” returned Wilfrid. “And never yet did Courtenay speak falsely, or—sign a placard that his father had died of apoplexy!”
“By heaven, you die for that saying!” cried Alexander, clapping his hand upon his sword-hilt.
“Faith! ’tis hard if one must die for speaking the truth!”
“Get you from the side of that lady,” said the Czar, his eyes blazing with wrath.
“Do not leave me, Wilfrid!” murmured Marie.
“The Czar bids, but the Czarina forbids!” returned Wilfrid. “Honour enjoins me to obey the lady.” ”

“ Petersburg was like a city of the dead.
Wilfrid soon began to see that he was with a guide of peculiar excellence; the real reason, perhaps, why he had been selected for the trust. On a foggy night blindness is better than sight.
In walking down the staircase of the hotel Wilfrid had guided Alexis; in the street it became the turn of Alexis to guide Wilfrid. Linking Wilfrid’s arm within his own he walked forward with no more hesitation than an ordinary man would have shown in traversing the street in broad daylight. ”

“ Pauline had no great liking for the coarse burly Benningsen, but was compelled by parity of political interests to keep on friendly terms with him.
Far different was the case with Baranoff: him she loathed, as every pure woman was bound to loathe the ex-lover of the dissolute Catharine. It always cost Pauline an effort to treat him with ordinary civility.
“Aha, Baroness!” cried Benningsen. “What is this you’ve been doing? Rescuing in broad daylight a prisoner of the Czar, and whisking him into the Embassy. By Heaven, you’re a bold one!” ”

“ As Alexander stood there, he said, ‘I wonder you don’t draw my profile also!’ ‘Why, so I will,’ was my reply, and placing a lamp on this column here, I made him stand in such a position that his side-face was silhouetted upon the panel, and—there you have it! Now, Lord Courtenay, you are an artist, that is to say, one who has, or ought to have, a keen eye for beauty. Don’t you think that Alexander’s profile is perfect?”
Wilfrid ventured to dissent, though with some diffidence, because it was clear that his fair hostess regarded it as an ideal head. ”

“ One day when Wilfrid was in the armoury teaching Beauvais some secrets in swordsmanship, Marie ventured to question the Baroness on this matter. And she came to the point without any skirmishing.
“Pauline, do you love Lord Courtenay?”
The Baroness gave a start.
“Have I ever shown that I do?”
“No,” answered Marie, not altogether truthfully.
“Then why should you ask?”
“Because,” said Marie evasively, “Lord Courtenay is so brave, so handsome, so—so winning—that’s the word—that—that——”
“It is difficult for woman to avoid falling in love with him. Is that what you would say?” smiled Pauline. ”

“ Upon the departure of General Benningsen from the Embassy, Pauline de Vaucluse was left, a victim to troubling thoughts.
Dear to her father’s heart was the Franco-Russian Alliance, and yet she, his daughter and confidante, had been secretly working to bring it to nought; and all to no purpose, so it seemed.
To be a successful traitress is bad enough, but to be an unsuccessful one——!
In too melancholy a mood to seek Wilfrid’s society again, she left her father to entertain him; and, on the plea of a headache, retired to her own room, wondering what the morrow would bring forth. ”

“ Wilfrid listened with some indifference as Pauline ran over the list of the Czar’s accomplishments. Truth to tell, Wilfrid felt a latent spirit of antagonism to the new ruler, finding—somewhat absurdly it must be confessed—a ground of complaint in the very fact that he should owe his recovered freedom to the action of this Czar, for the power to set free implies likewise the power to imprison. That the liberty of an Englishman and a Courtenay should depend upon the irresponsible will of an autocrat of twenty-three was galling to his high spirit. ”

“ This disdainful indifference towards men with whom lay the power of banishment to Siberia, kindled the anger of the two ministers, anger that increased as they continued their way.
They smiled at this fair lady; they saluted that grandee, but met with no recognition whatever. It was clear that the élite of St. Petersburg had made up its mind to ignore them. Why?
Fallen ministers have no friends—in Russia. Was it possible that the Czar had made up his mind to dismiss them, and that his determination had somehow become known to the people? ”

“ He was, and that because he wished to disillusion her of her idea that Alexander was a hero. “Women are all alike,” he thought; by “women” meaning the Duchess and Pauline. “A crown dazzles them. A king can do no wrong.”
“Has her majesty,” he continued aloud, “any plan for me, or am I left to follow my own devices?”
“In view of the peril attendant upon the enterprise—for those who slew a Czar may not hesitate to slay the man who publishes their crime—the Empress has thought of a plan that can be carried out with secrecy, and yet with effect. What you did once, the Empress bids you do again.” ”

“ If that, outlined beside it, were really a human shape, and not merely a figure woven upon the tapestry, there could be but one solution of the mystery. The victim must be a dumb man, belonging perhaps to the class of those tongueless eunuchs often to be found in the seraglios of the East, though seldom, if ever, in the palace of a Czar.
Was he writhing in silent agony?
Wilfrid listened for any sound indicative of human presence. But there was no movement; there was not even a breath audible in the place where the handless man should be. ”

“ Wilfrid stared hard at the speaker, upon whose lips there now appeared a sinister smile. Then, vivid as fire upon a dark night, the full meaning of the proposal flashed upon him. He was deliberately to set to work to corrupt a woman’s innocence! The lady in question had given some offence to the powerful diplomatist, who chose this diabolical method of revenge. The fall from purity, the shame that is worse than death, would destroy whatever influence she possessed in Court circles, and probably at the same time remove a political obstacle from Baranoff’s path. ”

“ We Courtenays are not accustomed to take insults, even from emperors.”
“Brave words from the hero that fled the duel!”
“There was no fleeing on the part of Lord Courtenay,” said Pauline. “He would have met your Majesty, but when on his way to the rendezvous he was seized by my orders and brought to Runö.”
“An act of treason!” commented the Czar, the autocrat asserting himself above the lover.
“It was the saving of your life,” was Pauline’s answer, a tacit assumption of Wilfrid’s superior swordsmanship that galled Alexander’s vanity.
“Stand aside from my wife!” he cried angrily to Wilfrid. ”

“ Trotting quietly in his rear, as if to keep an eye upon him, came Benningsen upon his black horse Pluto.
“Men of the Paulovski Guards,” gasped Voronetz in a hollow voice, “do not ... shout for ... Alexander! Listen! I have a tale ... to ... tell....”
“Tell it, then, in hell!” growled Benningsen, as he whirled his sabre on high.
Men talked for days afterwards of that mighty stroke. When Benningsen lifted his sabre again Voronetz lay on the ground, cloven from skull to breast! ”

“ Peering warily through the shrubbery Wilfrid caught a glimpse of four men, three sitting upon a rustic seat and a fourth, Izak, standing in the attitude of addressing them. All were masked, and all clad in the chocolate-coloured velvet and gold lace that marked the livery of Prince Sumaroff. But something told Wilfrid that, in spite of this attire, Izak was no lackey; the dress was assumed for that night only. The man no longer carried himself with an obsequious and servile air. ”

“ But why should she, more than other women exposed to similar temptation, be put on her guard? Respect for her fair name, the memory of her altar-vows, the imperial diadem itself, should each be a sermon to her. To warn her would be to put her into a state of enforced virtue. Why should Alexander retain a wife willing to go wrong but kept in the right only by the fear of discovery? ”