William Le Queux

“ I asked excitedly, remembering how much Kassatkin knew of the conspiracy we were forming.
“The papers you hold in your hand will prove what I allege,” she replied. Then she continued wildly: “Find the spy. Let death be his reward for ingenuity and double-dealing. Kill him! Promise me! Do not let him send to Siberia other innocent supporters of the Cause!” Clutching my hand, she added, “Tell me that you will avenge the deaths of the men and women who fell victims to his treachery. Promise me!”
“I promise,” I replied. “If he is a spy he shall die.” ”

“ The people who vainly awaited liberation at the hands of their rulers will then free themselves. They will demand an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The sins of the past will be visited on the guilty with all the horrors to which the oppressed in time past have been subjected by them. Then the Polish revolution will be mere child’s play in comparison with the great drama on the day of vengeance, and that such a day will surely come is inevitable.
The Russian people will judge who insulted them, who mistrusted them, who enslaved them, who spilt their blood. ”

“ I have acted my ignominious, dishonourable part in Petersburg society, and been the means of sending dozens of unoffending persons to their terrible doom—to rot in the dungeons under the Neva, or toil in the dark silver mines of the Trans-Baikal—while you, the ex-Chief of Secret Police, live here in luxury and pose before your Imperial Master as the great detector of conspiracies! ”

“ Lonely and weary, I sometimes rode for three and four days without reaching a post-house or seeing a single human being, and frequently I was in a half-starved, half-frozen condition. Time passed, and I kept no count of it. My thoughts were only of eventual freedom. Having destroyed the note left by the dying man, together with my convict’s rags, I knew the post-house keeper would be puzzled at finding the corpse had been plundered, and as there was no telegraph to Yakoutsk, I was confident that I should not be forestalled by the news of the courier’s death. ”

“ Addressing Tseklinski, whom I recognised as the renowned and expert Petersburg detective, she shrieked, “When you were my lover I protected you; and through me you escaped the plot for your assassination. Now you arrest me for murder, merely because I removed a tyrant whose inhuman delight was to send innocent persons to Kara——”
“Enough, jade!” cried Tseklinski, his face flushed with rage. “We have sought for you long enough, and if Captain Matvyèich is weak enough to be tricked and fooled by you, I am not.” ”

“ Even when he crossed Siberia the officials who surrounded him took every precaution to prevent him from witnessing the troops of wretched, shivering humanity trudging through trackless snows and driven to their gloomy tombs with knouts and butt-ends. Revolutionists are the creation of circumstances, of the general discontent of the people, of the striving of Russia after a new social framework. Discontent only grows the more when it is repressed. ”

“ Sitting at table with Liustig and Boris Soliviof—the proprietor of the confectioner’s shop, who had admitted me—I watched Mascha’s face as she chatted and drew tea from the shining samovar. In repose, its expression was one of infinite gentleness; yet in a moment, at a word regarding the revolutionary movement, it would change: the rosy, child-like lips would meet, the fair cheeks glow, the delicate nostrils dilate, and the eyes would flame with an enthusiasm begotten of wrong and long suffering. ”

“ I asked, greatly surprised at this expression of opinion in such direct contrast to the views set forth in her various articles.
“A Russian never dares to publicly express his or her political convictions. As for me—well, I have ceased to trouble my head about them. In a sense, I am an exile.”
What an admirable actress she was; yet how charming! I had not been thinking of her as an accomplished spy, but as a woman who yearned for sympathy and affection. As the sun declined, the river grew more tranquil, and the cawing of the rooks, as they went to bed, told that day was drawing to a close. ”

“ It is such heartless officials as you who curse our country, who carry out the ukases of the Autocrat with fiendish delight, and who are the catspaws of the Persecutor of our race. What mercy ought I to expect from you, General Martianoff, who sent Anna Ivanovna to the mines merely because she displeased you, and who condemned Paul Souvaroff to solitary confinement in Petropaulovsk for no offence except that he endeavoured to save a defenceless woman from your merciless clutches. ”

“ Without trial, I had been sentenced by the Provincial Governor of Moghilev, upon the report of General Martianoff, to hard labour for life. Such, alas! was my punishment for endeavouring to rescue my poor defenceless sister from the inhuman wrath of the dissolute representative of the Tzar! I was well aware that for the Russian political convict is reserved a death by slow torture to which any other means of ending life is preferable. The silver mines in the terrible district beyond Lake Baikal are the tombs of political suspects. ”

“ Sounds of woe float over the mighty Russian rivers from Archangel to the Caspian. They call it a song, the chant of the bourlaki (workmen) dragging the boats along, but alas! it is the sorrowful dirge of an endless agony.
Until the new era dawns—as it certainly must ere long—the Great White Terror will continue its deadly combat with the cruel and despotic Autocracy; its Damoclean force becoming even stronger and more irresistible, until it brings another disaster upon the House of the Romanoffs [320] that will startle the world. Then a time will follow like that under Ivan the Terrible. ”

“ Attired in a rather shabby velvet coat and gaiters, he looked like a gamekeeper, but was, in fact, General Martianoff, late Governor of Mstislavl, and now Chief of the Russian Secret Police in Paris.
“I really can’t make you out, Gaston,” he said, as they sighted the Château; and, shifting his gun to the other shoulder, he took occasion to glance searchingly at his companion. “How confoundedly glum you are!”
The younger man laughed, but not very merrily, and there was a touch of sullenness in his tone as he answered—
“How absurd! A man cannot be always grinning.” ”

“ You love me not—you——”
“I love you better than life. I would do anything to save you, yet, by a devilish conspiracy of circumstances I am compelled to kill you!”
“Kill me!” she gasped in Russian. “God! You are an imbecile—mad!”
Her face blanched; she tottered and almost fell.
“Yes, I was mad,” I said bitterly. “Mad to love you when I knew that I must kill you. I am a Nihilist!”
“A Nihilist!”
“Yes. By your evidence some members of our Organisation have been sent to Siberia, and the sentence the Executive has passed upon you is death.” ”

“ We desire peace; and while staying our hand and refraining from dealing the blows that are at this moment in our power to strike at the Imperial Autocracy, we are living in the expectation that the flood of popular indignation will sweep off the face of the Russian soil the bureaucracy, the tchinovniks, and the present ruinous and shameful system of organised robbery and tyranny, and create something better than the existing brutality and corruption that has plunged so many millions in abject misery. ”

“ Yes. I—I’m a vile wretch; as degraded as the woman who walks the pavement. I killed my son! For twenty years he was ignorant of his parentage, but, alas! he discovered the secret of his dishonourable birth. As the living evidence of my shame he declared he would denounce me—I, who had supplied him with money and secretly guided his career. When he knew I was his mother he loathed me; he cursed me for my sin! His hatred stung me; he threatened to expose me to my husband. Moreover, he fell in love with my lawful daughter, Wanda, then studying in Petersburg! ”

“ General Martianoff lost no time in wreaking vengeance upon my hapless sister. She had been arrested and taken to prison immediately after firing the shot, and he had condemned her to receive fifty lashes of the knout. Such a sentence was tantamount to death, for punishment by the knout is so barbarous a torture that few strong men could survive so many strokes. Yet whippings were of everyday occurrence in the Tzar’s empire, and even women are not spared by the officials. ”

“ Before I could rise I was surrounded by three gendarmes and a rough crowd of men, nearly all of whom were half mad with drink and excitement. Cries of joy were heard on all sides, and a dozen hands seized me in no gentle grasp.
“What do you want?” I cried.
“We want you,” replied one of the gendarmes, [235] stepping forward, “Your name is Anton Prèhznev!”
My heart stood still. The police had tracked me!
“Well, and if it is? What then?” I asked.
“We arrest you for murder and conspiracy!” ”

“ At the outset it is my earnest desire to disabuse the minds of English readers that the Narodnaya Volya, or the Party of Freedom, are mere murder leagues. Unfortunately, English writers, unacquainted with Russian life, ignorant of the true objects of the organisation, or of its inner working, and only recognising its far-reaching influence, have surrounded Nihilism with a glamour and mystery that would be highly amusing to us were it not for the fact that their sensational and sanguinary narratives injure our cause. ”

“ As her mother tossed wearily upon her pallet, moaning in pain, Mascha fell upon her knees and kissed the cold, drawn face.
“Are you suffering much, mother dearest?” she asked, tenderly, smoothing away the dark hair from the clammy forehead.
“Yes—I—I’m sinking fast, my child,” she replied in a faint, hoarse voice. “I shall leave you very soon, Mascha, and you will be alone, with no other protector except God, to whose mercy I confide you. Trust in Him in the hours of affliction or misfortune, and by His infinite power He will guide your footsteps and protect you from all harm.” ”

“ My passport was perfectly legitimate, stating that my name was Alexandrovitch Charushin, Russian subject, born at Odessa, and living in Munich; that my calling was that of chef, and, further, that I had returned to Petersburg in search of employment. So completely was I disguised by the removal of my beard and moustache, and the application of theatrical “make up,” that even the spies of the London division of the Secret Police would pass me by unnoticed. Therefore I felt confident of security. ”

“ But it is not, and therefore the Executive are compelled to be merciless, and are determined to strike enemies of Russia without pity or remorse.
To sweep the Autocrat from his throne, to break his power, to destroy the corrupt ministers and infamous advisers by whom he is surrounded, to bring enlightenment, peace, and freedom to millions of honest, God-fearing men, women, and children in Russia, are the objects and aims of those who are so frequently designated as murderers. ”

“ Without a moment’s hesitation I cast the hammer aside, thrust the revolver into my pocket, and grasping the box, dashed downstairs to the street door.
At that moment I heard a man passing outside, whistling a music-hall air. It was Grinevitch; I knew that no one was watching outside. Opening the door, I carried the box down the steps and hurried quickly away in the opposite direction to that by which I had approached. Walking down Deacon Street, in order to return to the Walworth Road, I was surprised to find so many police constables, for fully a dozen passed me. ”

“ In the fields and along the highways, in prisons and dungeons, at the mines in shackles of iron, by the side of hayricks and empty barns, under the waggons and on the steppes, the air is everywhere filled with groaning—groaning in hovels, cursing even the sunlight, groaning before the palaces of justice, and buffeted at the entrance of garish mansions, groaning alike in town and village, the wretched moujik is even ready to rise and strike a desperate blow for liberty. ”

“ A tall, graceful figure, well set off by her picturesque peasant dress, tiny hands, delicate and white, a clear, fresh complexion, deep violet eyes with long black lashes, wavy auburn hair, and small white teeth just visible between a pair of lips that seemed made alone for kisses, while her features had that sweet, half-sad expression that is the birth-gift of every Russian woman, rich or poor. ”

“ Curious adoration, eh?”
“It’s false!” she cried hotly. “He was wrongly accused; denounced by some unknown enemy, and sent straight to Irkutsk without any chance of defence.”
“Ha! ha! my pretty champion. So that is the way you speak of the justice of His Majesty! Your words betray you: they show that you, too, have become imbued with the revolutionary teaching of the propaganda.”
Mascha saw she had been trapped. In a moment she knew that he suspected her of Nihilistic tendencies.
Martianoff noticed her alarm, and said: “You need not fear. I don’t intend that you should share your father’s fate. ”

“ A Russian District Governor is locally as much of an autocrat as his Imperial Master, the Tzar. He can do exactly what he pleases with the poor, cringing wretches over whom he is given authority. He can condemn Jew or Gentile to prison without trial; he can order any one who displeases him to be knouted, and with his colleague, the ispravnik, and his myrmidons, can enforce inhuman tortures not a whit the less terrible than those of the Spanish Inquisition. ”

“ The officer commanding our escort, who had been smoking a cigarette, and looking with calm indifference upon this touching scene, suddenly shouted the stern order, “Stroisa!” (“Form Ranks”) , and at the word “March,” a few moments later, we crossed ourselves, and with a confused jingling of chains and leg-fetters, moved slowly away, past the boundary post, into Siberia.
Day after day, week after week, hungry, cold, and fatigued, we trudged across the bleak, snow-covered steppes, until life became so burdensome that we longed for death. ”

“ Those who are strange to them see only the peeling plaster, the discoloured stone, the desolate courts, the grass-grown flags, the broken statues, the straying, unkempt vines, the look of utter loneliness and decay. But those who know them well, love them and learn otherwise; learn the infinite charm of the silent halls, of the endless echoing corridors, of the wide, frescoed, wind-swept, and sun-bathed chambers, and of the shadowy logge where the roseglow of the oleander burns in the dimness of the arches, and the lizards bask in the sunlight. ”

“ She offered me a cigarette from her case, and taking one herself, lit them both with the air of an inveterate smoker. What could be more delicious? A balmy breeze, full of the odour of meadow-sweet, a bewitching woman by one’s side, with nothing absolutely to do but admire her eyes and lips, while she discoursed with logical clearness upon the struggle of the Russian people against the iron rule of the Great White Tzar. ”

“ My readers will probably remember that about two years ago a new Russian literary and social star appeared in the London firmament, in the person of Madame Vera Kovalski. Her sudden appearance in English society, and her ostentatious parade of wealth aroused our suspicions that she was an agent of the Russian Government, a surmise which was quickly confirmed, for one morning we saw in certain London daily newspapers a long letter signed by her in defence of Russian bureaucracy, and eulogising the humane Tzar for his paternal interest in the millions who called him “father.” ”

“ I had not been joined by Grinevitch as I had arranged, and supposed that he had remained behind to ascertain the cause of the sudden arrival of the police.
It was well that I left the house as quickly as I did, for I afterwards learnt that a raid was made upon the place almost immediately. But beyond finding three rooms full of furniture, some locksmith’s tools, and the chief spy lying insensible, their vigilance was unrewarded.
A week later Guibaud had recovered from the blow I had dealt him, and I was again “shadowing” him. ”

“ Since that time the Prince had remained at his gloomy old palace near Markovka, in Little Russia, while his wife, accompanied by an old man-servant and her maid, had resided for brief periods in Petersburg, Paris, and London.
Since her arrival in England it was apparent that she was fulfilling some mission as a Russian Government agent, yet the suspicion she excited in some quarters in no way hindered her from obtaining social influence, and she dispensed hospitality to a very select circle. She went everywhere, and her daily doings were chronicled in the personal columns of the newspapers. ”