CHAPTER XXV

GOG AND MAGOG

The Czar had not undressed at all that night; but, tired out, had thrown himself upon his couch, which had no covering but a bear-skin.

Before sunrise he was up, and, without making a change of dress, went to the window. It was frosted over; he had to open it to see out. He quickly closed it again. The sight was terrible! In feverish excitement he threw on his cloak and hurried out. In the anteroom his physician, Sir James Wylie, was waiting, who at once accosted him with--

"Your Majesty may not go out to-day!"

"I may not? Who commands me?"

"I merely _prescribe_, sire--a right which physicians may exercise towards princes."

"But there is nothing the matter with me."

"But there may be. Your health is endangered."

"That rests in the hands of God." And he passed on.

In the audience-chamber he found Araktseieff.

"Your Majesty _cannot_ go out to-day."

"So you, too, order me, as well as the physician."

"Your Majesty's life is in danger."

"Not for the first time. He who protected me yesterday will not fail me to-day. Be a Christian, and do not treat me like a child who lets himself be frightened by old women's tales. Remain at your post; I go to mine."

Araktseieff knew the Czar, and that opposition only made him more obstinate; so stood deferentially aside as the Czar strode past him.

The Czar passed, alone, down the long corridor hung with pictures of the battles he had fought. At the end of it a little negro groom stood waiting with a note, which he handed in silence. It was the Czarina's page, a birthday present to her of long ago. The Czar hurriedly broke open the note and ran it over, then looked down meditatively. Without a word he went back to his apartment and took off his cloak.

The note was from the Czarina: "I am afraid to be alone in the palace. Please do not leave me now!"

The words were a command; one which even the Ruler of All the Russias had no choice but to obey. His wife was afraid!

Now he is condemned to remain within the palace, like any imprisoned criminal.

For the first time for fourteen years his wife had made a request to him. How could he refuse it? Not only his sense of duty as emperor impelled him to repair to scenes of distress and danger, but also he was urged by that mysterious impulse from within, which ever drove him from one end of his empire to the other, leaving him no rest by night, until he would rise, get into his carriage, and drive from street to street. To stay in one place was torture to him. He had but returned this very week from a journey which led him as far as to the Kirghiz steppes. And now was he to sit idly at home? His wife had asked it. It is not much she asks. She does not beg him to come to her in her apartments, to stay with her, to cheer and comfort her; she only asks him to remain under the same roof.

Now he has leisure to pace from one end to the other of his room, to hearken to the pealing of bells, the roar of the wind, and the splash of the waves, whose surf dashes up to his windows. Suddenly he utters a cry--"Where are you, Sophie?" It is well that no one hears him, that he is alone. In spirit, he is in that solitary house, surrounded by the waves. His eyes search round the empty rooms where wind and weather sport unchecked, and, not finding her, he cries, "Sophie! where are you?" The vision he had called up was even more terrible than the awful reality of raging nature without. He could better bear to look upon that. Rushing to the balcony of the palace, he tore open the glass doors, and gazed down upon the ghastly devastation. The sight was awful indeed!

Wide as an ocean bay, the giant river was rolling back its waves upon Lake Ladoga. Ever and anon from out the misty distance loomed visions reflected in the surface of the madly rushing waters.

When Napoleon, watching the fire of Moscow from the Kremlin, saw how the storm was rolling the sea of flame upon the city, he cried in despair, "But what wind is this?" So now Alexander, as he watched the waves, lashed by the furious storm, dash up against his palace, asked, "But what wind is this?"

Houses roofless and in ruins; half-naked creatures clinging to their framework; here, a tiny hand raised in piteous appeal from its mother's arms; there, a man rowing with a plank, who finds no place to land on. Every gust of wind, every wave, brings some fresh sight to view. Now comes the remnant of a menagerie; its cages, chained together, are being whirled about in eddying circles. A Bengal tiger, who has burst his bonds, dashes wildly from one cage to another. Some men, clinging to the bars, dare not climb on to the top for fear of the infuriated animal. All must perish. Men and beasts shriek and roar in chorus. The waves dash them pitilessly on. Then comes the fragment of a wooden bridge wedged in between two icebergs. Upon it there still stands a carriage, shafts in air, from the interior of which projects a pink dress. Bridge and carriage float past, a flock of croaking ravens flying about them.

Who is sufficient for all these horrors?

The current swept on, swift as an arrow, the waves playing with their icy barriers; now building them into pyramids, now tearing them down, leaving a circling eddy to mark the spot.

Close by the Winter Palace stands the Admiralty, with its copper roof. The furious storm, tearing off a portion of this, rolls it up, with thunderous din, like a sheet of paper, flattens it out again, tosses it into the air, showering down fragments of it like a pack of cards; then, finally, rips off the whole remainder of the roof, hurling it into the principal square. Then follows many thousand casks of flour, sugar, and spices from the flooded warehouses of the Exchange--the whole winter store of a great capital a prey to the waves!

Again another picture. Arrayed in order of battle like a flotilla come a series of black boats, not originally designed to carry their inmates over the water, but under the earth. Coffins! The flood had burst the walls of the military cemetery of Smolenskaja, washed up thousands of graves, and was now bringing back their occupants to the city, of which they had long ago taken farewell. The buried warriors were coming to march past the Czar once more--the hurricane their deafening trumpets, the waves their kettle-drums! They even bring their memorial chapel with them, and their marble crosses, which tower in ghostly fashion from out the icebergs!

Nor is the fearful cyclorama over yet. The horrors of it are ever increasing. In the distance looms a three-master, bearing down upon the city--or, rather, in the cold gray mist it looks the ghost of a man-of-war. It had broken its moorings at Cronstadt in the gale, and now, driven before the wind, was coming down upon the city at full speed!

At that moment the Czar, forgetful of his dignity, hid his face and wept, never thinking whether any eyes were upon him. And many eyes were on him.

All those whom in the course of the previous night the Czar had rescued from the tottering houses in the suburbs--all those who, taken unawares in the tumult of the fair, did not know where to turn, the Czar had lodged in the western division of the Winter Palace, giving up that brilliant suite of rooms to the use of the poor and destitute. Such guests as these the Winter Palace had never harbored before! True, at New-year it was the custom for some forty thousand guests to assemble in the Winter Palace; but they swept the floors with silk, and illuminated the marble halls with their diamonds. Now, however, it was the show-place for rags and tatters. An exhibition of misery and destitution! There were collected together all those who form the shady side of a capital, and of whom the fashionable world have no conception--an aggregate of bitter want and of shameless depravity. They who did not dare to creep forth by day from their dark cellars have given each other rendezvous in the Imperial Palace. The Czar sent them food and drink, and they spent the night singing the _Knife Song_, taught them by the frequenters of the Bear's Paw.

Czar Alexander heard it, and doubtless rejoiced to know his guests were in such good-humor. They opened their windows, and those in front put their heads out, and called to the others to tell them what they saw.

The façade of the Winter Palace had two projecting wings. The refugees were housed in the west wing. Between that and the east, like the middle stroke of the capital letter E, stretched the covered balcony from which the Czar had watched the panorama of destruction.

On seeing him his guests became mute.

He was an imposing figure, with expansive forehead bared to the fury of the storm. As long as he remained impassive his self-control communicated itself to the spectators. But when they saw him break down and shed tears, when they saw that the Czar was but a man after all, they grew furious. Weakness arouses indignation.

A man, brother to the French republican Marat, seizing his opportunity, sprang upon the window-sill and shouted to the Czar:

"Yes, you may cry! Cry for the loss of your fine city! The God of vengeance has sent this destruction upon us as a penalty for your sins! Plague, drought, starvation--all have come upon us through you! For you are deaf to the cry of our glorious brothers the Greeks! Their innocent blood that has been shed cries out to Heaven for vengeance! You are the cause of this devastation! Heaven is punishing us for what you have done!"

The noisy voices of the people within drowned the concluding words; their yells outvied the storm. The mutinous speech had stirred up the already excited people to fury. The refrain of the _Song of the Knife_ resounded to an accompaniment of infuriated noise and confusion. They tried to burst open the strong doors communicating with the corridor leading to the Czar's apartments.

He, standing on the balcony, was rooted to the spot by a double terror--behind him the yelling populace clamoring for his blood; before him the approaching ship. It was one of the largest men-of-war in the navy. When frozen up in the winter the crew is paid off, and the few men left in charge had evidently escaped, so that it came along without guidance of any kind, and was apparently making direct for the Winter Palace.

At the sound of raised and fierce voices every window in the central portion of the palace opened suddenly, displaying a treble row of bayonets. At one of the windows stood Araktseieff, who shouted in his cruel, harsh voice to the rebels:

"Silence, instantly, you cubs of Gog and Magog, or I will have you cast back into the flood from which your sovereign lord saved you! Ungrateful savages that ye are!"

This was adding oil to the flames.

"Oh, oh, Araktseieff!" roared a thousand throats. "There's the evil genius!"

"Come on!" screamed Marat. "Let's just see if your thousand bayonets can conquer our ten thousand knives! Make a beginning, or we will!"

The ship came nearer and nearer.

As it reached within half a cable's length of the Winter Palace, the Czar perceived a man in the wheel-house turning the wheel.

"What are you about, man?" he shouted down angrily to him.

The man knew perfectly what he was about. It was Borbotuseff, a naval officer and a deserter. How came he on board? No one knew. He steered straight for the palace, with the one hope of crashing into it, in order that all within, and he himself, might be buried under it. A red flag was flying from the mast.

The struggling crowd and the guards saw nothing of all this; the balcony gallery cut off their view.

Now the moment had come to prove which was the stronger, the house of wood or the house of stone.

But the current was stronger than either, and instead of the bow of the ship striking the palace, it came broadside on. It drew so much water that its keel crashed on to the granite coping of the moat, throwing the vessel on its side; while, like a knight in a tournament with outstretched lance, it struck with its masts upon its stony adversary. A terrific crashing and grinding--two of the masts broke to pieces against the pillars; the third crashed through one of the windows, shaking the whole massive structure from foundation to gable, yet the stone remained conqueror. The ponderous vessel broke in two; the bow half of the wreck was hurled on to Alexanderplatz; the afterpart, with the helmsman, fell back into the vortex, and was carried away with the current.

The concussion was like an earthquake. Of a sudden there was silence. People, soldiers, even Araktseieff, fell upon their knees. The man upon the balcony alone remained standing. He had seen something in the air. It was a dove.

The dove flew direct to him, hovered for a moment, and then alighted on his shoulder.

It was Sophie's carrier-dove.

Alexander found the letter under its wing, telling him that Sophie was in good keeping. Then, folding his hands in a prayer of thanksgiving, he raised them to Heaven.

But the dove is the sacred and wonder-working bird of Russia.

As it descended upon the shoulder of the Czar the fury of the people changed to superstitious worship. In it they saw the embodiment of the Holy Ghost. He who would not be lost must be converted. It was a miracle from Heaven.

Bozse czarja chrani! An old mujik suddenly started the hymn of praise, and all present joined in it. Araktseieff's bayonets had become unnecessary. Marat's brother, leaving the rostrum, disappeared among the multitude. Who could have found him among the ten thousand there gathered? And even if they had he would have denied his identity.

The flood lasted two days longer, leaving behind it three thousand houses totally wrecked and a countless list of dead.

The people firmly believed that Heaven's judgment had been wrought because the Czar had not come to the assistance of the Greeks in their War of Independence.