Part 9

“You are a fool to come here in the starlight,” growled Wassili. “Are you blind, that you cannot see the brightness of the stars, or have you a mole for an uncle?”

“What does it matter?” whispered Ilya easily. He did not mind being insulted by Wassili, knowing in time that he would have the laugh on Kirsakoff’s _moujik_.

The gate opened a few more inches, and Ilya needed no greater hint, but slipped through, and the gate closed after him.

“You smell like a _kabak_,” grumbled Wassili.

“That is why you opened the gate,” said Ilya with a chuckle. “You have a nose for vodka, even if you are not civil to your friends.”

“But you will be seen by enemies, to come here so boldly,” went on Wassili, not so easily altered in his temper.

“I? No one saw me. I am as secret as an owl. Those fools of soldiers are all drunk and talking in their sleep. They shoot their guns at the moon every night, to scare honest folk away.”

“What brings you?” demanded Wassili. “Am I to stand here freezing because you want to gossip?”

“I came to talk with Michael Alexandrovitch,” said Ilya with pomposity. He swayed unsteadily on his feet, for the vodka he had drunk was again asserting its potency because he had been standing still so long outside the gate. He blew gently down into his whiskers to melt away the ice which had formed in the bristles from his breath.

“Hmf!” growled Wassili. “Perhaps you think Michael Alexandrovitch has baked a pig for your coming? Have you forgotten that Michael Alexandrovitch is an Excellence?”

“I am as good as he, Excellence or no Excellence,” retorted Ilya. “What I remember is the revolution, and that Ilya Andreitch is as good as the Czar. But I have brought news for the Excellence. Are we to stand here warming the night with our breaths, when Michael Alexandrovitch would be glad to know what I know?”

“He could salt his porridge with what you know,” scorned Wassili. “What news do you bring?” He was still doubtful of the legitimacy of Ilya’s visit, and suspected his coming to be a desire for drunken argument.

“When a man brings news in these times, he might have a glass of hot tea,” hinted Ilya. “It is about government, and I have come with big news about what is being done outside this place.”

“You have brought a monkey with you, that is what,” muttered Wassili, meaning that Ilya was foolishly drunk. But he fastened the bolt of the gate. He was now shivering with the cold and sulky about it, though he did not dare risk sending Ilya away if there was any chance of valuable information’s coming to the attention of his master, Kirsakoff.

“Whoosh! Is not a monkey smarter than a fox? You old pothead, you sit here all day looking at your feet, while I learn government news and risk my neck to bring it here and——”

“Be still!” commanded Wassili. “You can be heard to the hills a night like this! You smell of fresh-killed pig and vodka, for all your government talk. Is that the way to come to the house of Excellence? Follow along with that noisy tongue of yours, but keep your fingers on it, for it wags too freely and you will lose it along with your head, if you are not careful.”

“Yes, and I’ll bring a drink of vodka along for you, if you have a fire in your samovar, you old spider.”

“It is good you bring something besides talk,” grumbled Wassili, as he led the way under the overhanging roof of the shed and along through the gloom to the door of the kitchen. Ilya stumbled along after him, blundering among the kettles and other gear and making such a racket that Wassili cursed him for having too many legs. But Ilya, in a gay mood, chuckled into his beard and was only concerned lest he lose his footing and have a tumble that would break the precious bottle in his pocket.

They entered the kitchen, which had its windows hung with old blankets to keep the light hidden. There was a wall-stove and a cooking stove with ovens built of stone. A candle burned on the table. There were partridge feathers in a sink and the remnants of cabbages that had been cut up on a board. A big earthen jar of gooseberry jam stood open on the table and beside it a fat yellow bowl full of white honey, which gave off a sweet odor and made Ilya think of bees in the fields in summer.

Wassili sat down and rested his elbows on the table. His pockmarked face had a glum look, and his pale yellow whiskers bristled with belligerency for Ilya, as if the _moujik_ were in for trouble unless his story should be of sufficient import for the visit. Wassili’s blue caftan, pale and washed out like the garment of a Chinese coolie, was strapped about him with a bit of scarlet cloth which had once been embroidered. His feet were wrapped in skins, ready to be slipped into the big boots standing limply by the bench upon which he sat. He had not put them on when he went out to admit Ilya.

“Let us be merry while we can,” began Ilya, anxious to improve the atmosphere of the kitchen as represented by the scowling Wassili. So Ilya threw himself down sprawlingly on a bench opposite Wassili, and loosened the old rope about his coat. Then he pulled his bottle from his pocket with a flourish of good-fellowship and slammed it down upon the table with a thump. “We will all be dead in time that will come soon enough, so I will have a glass of tea and a spice-cake before I talk with the Excellence.”

“The wind is full of news,” said Wassili sadly, but the sight of the bottle put him in slightly better humor. He leaned down and squinted across it, to gauge its contents.

“How is the health of Excellence?” asked Ilya, his courage bolstered by a sudden remembrance of his own importance and a desire to return to the subject of statecraft in connection with Michael Kirsakoff.

Without answering, Wassili poured himself a generous draft from the bottle into a thick glass, and nodding to Ilya in place of speaking a health, tossed the liquor off with a clicking sound in his throat and a harsh appreciative grunt.

“Bring the spice-cakes and the glasses for tea,” he called out to the other room. An old serving woman peered into the kitchen, appraised Ilya with critical eyes, and then shambled away for the cakes and glasses.

Ilya’s yellowed teeth grinned across the table at Wassili.

“Now when am I to talk with Michael Alexandrovitch, eh?” he demanded, crossing his legs importantly and rubbing one knee with his paw of a hand. “Don’t forget why I have come, Wassili, and that my business is with the master.”

“You will see Excellence when you see him,” said Wassili.

“True!” said Ilya. “But I shall not leave that to you, if I have to hammer him up myself. This is a matter of government.”

“There is no one in the house but the old woman and myself,” said Wassili, with a flourish of his arm. “Excellence is gone, and your whiskers will be longer before you see him.”

“May the devil tear out your tongue, for it does not speak the truth,” said Ilya without anger. “This is not a time for lying, when your master is waiting for news from me.”

Wassili flourished his arm as an expression of his annoyance, and blurted out surlily, “Then go above for yourself and see, if you know better than I.”

The old woman shuffled into the room, and put the glass and a plate of cakes before Ilya, giving him a suspicious eye, and glancing disapprovingly at Wassili for permitting what she regarded as a dangerous intrusion. But she did not linger at the table longer than was necessary to throw down the plate and the tea-glass.

Ilya picked up a spice-cake and inspected it carefully by the light of the candle, the maneuver being nothing but a way of delaying his speech till the old woman had disappeared.

“I have come with news about an American who is in the city,” he began, and bit into the cake.

Wassili turned upon him quickly.

“You are a liar!” he exclaimed with ferocity. “There are no Americans in the city here—they are only in Vladivostok, and you are blowing a trumpet in this house while you eat our cakes.” Wassili’s attitude was almost ferocious.

“Then you know better than I,” said Ilya, blinking at him across the table and munching the dry cake.

“You are drunk, and you dare come here in these times and put a fool’s cap on me—and the master!”

“True, I am drunk,” replied Ilya through a mouthful of dry cake. “And I hope I’ll die drunk and go to heaven. But do you think I’m fool enough to run my legs off and come here, risking bullets in my back when I might be sitting by the fire with my bottle? Do you think I come here just to look at your old mud-head? I cared nothing for your master before the revolution, but now that I’m as good as he, why should I not do him a good turn if I can—and he has a few spare rubles to make it worth my time?” Ilya blew crumbs of dry biscuit at Wassili with the words.

“Don’t come here and preach at me like a pope!” cautioned Wassili, who was puzzled by Ilya’s newly acquired attitude of independence. Ilya was evidently sure of his ground—or gone mad entirely.

“What!” cried Ilya. “You talk to me like that! And I have come to tell the master news! Very good. I know the way home again, and may your bones never know what it means to be buried.”

“Where are these Americans you talk about?” demanded Wassili, as he saw that it would be wiser to let Ilya have his say.

Ilya snorted, but showed his teeth in a grin of triumph. “I shall go and tell the American officer that Kirsakoff and his daughter have gone, eh? That is what you say. Very good. That will be all right, I suppose—till it happens that way, and then Excellence will kick you till you squeal. Then you will wish that you had listened to Ilya Andreitch and had not tried to make yourself into an Excellence with big manners.”

“Come, come,” protested Wassili amiably. “Let us not argue. Tell me what you know and——”

“I shall tell Excellence myself,” broke in Ilya. “I am a free man. What good is a revolution if one man cannot speak to another? Go and tell Excellence that Ilya Andreitch, who cut wood for him in the year of the pestilence, has come with news.”

Wassili laughed, and taking advantage of a fit of sneezing suffered by Ilya from having breathed particles of dry cake, helped himself to another draft from the bottle of vodka.

“Perhaps I had better tell Excellence that a Grand Duke has come to see him, eh?” and Wassili reached across the table and poked Ilya in the ribs.

“Am I not as good as a Grand Duke?” demanded Ilya. “I am alive to enjoy my vodka and many a Grand Duke would like to be able to say that, you old fish-gut! Go and tell the Excellence that I have come.”

Wassili got up. “See that you don’t finish the bottle while I’m gone,” he warned Ilya, and disappeared through a door into a hall, and Ilya heard him climbing a creaky stairs.

X

“AN AMERICAN HAS COME!”

MICHAEL KIRSAKOFF was seated at a table writing a letter by the light of a candle when Wassili knocked at the door of his room. The old general’s eyes lifted to the door and made a pair of gleaming points against the gloom behind him. The broad gold straps on the shoulders of his uniform jacket set off his white old head so that it appeared to be resting on a golden tray which threw out a quivering sheen of yellow light with the trembling of his shoulders. His thin white hand dropped the pen. He motioned to Katerin to move behind him so that she stood in the shadow of his body, and recognizing Wassili’s cautious knock, he ordered the _moujik_ to enter.

“Master, Ilya Andreitch has come with news of the government.”

“Who is Ilya Andreitch?” demanded the old general.

“Ilya, he who once cut wood for the Excellence. I know the man well. He has often bought food for us in the bazaar since we came here. He helped me to bring many things to this house from the other, but he is drunk to-night. Yet he vows he has news of the government.”

The old general was puzzled. Katerin stepped into the light and looked at Wassili eagerly.

“What is the news Ilya brings?” she asked gently, afraid that her father might say something which would discourage Wassili from permitting Ilya to tell his story.

“There is an American officer come to Chita to find the Excellence,” said Wassili, with a bow. “I do not know—it is Ilya Andreitch who says it and he——”

Katerin struck her hands together and gave a cry of joy. “An American!” she cried. “Can it be, my father, that our friends have at last sent help to us?”

“You say an officer?” exclaimed Michael, his eyes on Wassili, and burning with an eager light.

“So it is said, master.”

“By the Holy Saints!” exclaimed Michael. “We shall escape Zorogoff if this is true! Who else can have sent him but our friends?”

Katerin was crying with joy. She threw her arms about her father’s neck and kissed him. Till now she had restrained her emotions, hidden her fears, and faced death calmly, but the news that aid was at hand released all her terrors and flooded them with a burst of happiness.

“True, our friends have got our letters and have sent an American to save us!” she exclaimed through her tears. “God of the heavens is good to us, and has answered our prayers at last, so that we shall have peace and safety. This is the end of your tortures, my father!”

“It is of you I think, Katerin Stephanovna,” said Michael, and he grasped her hands and pulled them to his mouth to kiss them. “What I have suffered I have suffered for you, for death means nothing to me if you can be safe.”

“Tell us, Wassili,” urged Katerin. “Did the American officer bring word from friends? Is he to come here for us and take us away? And did he say who sent him?”

The gray old head of Michael snapped forward, the wisps of white hair waving gently. His eyes bored into Wassili while waiting for the _moujik_ to answer.

“Ilya Andreitch told me but little, master. At first I thought he was drunk and did not trust him. And when I told him that he must tell me, he said he would talk with no one but Excellence, and that it was secret. Thus I would not bring him up till you had given the order for his coming.”

“Then he is below now? Bring him up, and hasten, for we have no time to lose. Zorogoff may be here again with the light of morning and I am but now writing what shall be done when he has killed me. We must see this American officer with all speed before the Ataman is able to balk him. By the Holy Saints! This will save my daughter from death—for she will die before she submits to the will of this Mongol brigand! Go! Bring Ilya Andreitch before me and we shall hear his say!”

Wassili ran out into the hall and down the stairs, well pleased with the results of his report to his master, for he had feared that he had made a mistake in admitting Ilya at all.

Michael and Katerin could scarcely wait for Ilya to come up. The news of deliverance from their dangers—safety so close at hand after long weary months of hiding and worry—came like a pardon to two who were condemned to death. It had been five days since the Ataman had left them. He was still torturing them, for his threat against Katerin would undoubtedly be carried out unless she killed herself. They knew that Zorogoff would attempt to take them to his “palace” in revenge for their insults. And they had planned to die together rather than to permit the Mongol to carry out his evil purpose. That was the only way in which they could defeat him.

“Our letter to the Baranoffs got through,” said Michael. “It is they who have sent this American.”

“And do you think he will come here—to-night?” asked Katerin, her pale, drawn face alight with the joy of escape. “I cannot believe yet that we are to be safe again! God has answered my prayers! My father, I had given up hope!”

“Perhaps Ilya brings a letter from the American officer,” said Michael. “If he has sent word to us by Ilya, he must have also given Ilya something so that we shall know the American comes from friends. We cannot delay. If the Ataman should hear of this American——”

“They are coming up,” said Katerin, and they heard Wassili and Ilya mounting the stairs. Soon the light of a shaking candle appeared down the hall, and Katerin threw open the door of the room.

Wassili blew out the candle when he entered, and thrust Ilya in ahead of him.

“Here is Ilya Andreitch, master,” said Wassili, and Ilya blinked at the candle on Michael’s table, bowed, and stood nervously fingering his cap.

“You bring us news, Ilya Andreitch,” began Michael when Katerin had closed the door. Michael’s thin, weak voice took on some of the relief he felt at knowing that help was at hand after months of danger in a world which had apparently gone mad, and he spoke somewhat in his old manner of authority.

“I?” asked Ilya. “Yes, Excellence. I bring good news to your house—and to the mistress.” He bowed again, this time to Katerin, who had gone to her father.

“Wassili says an American officer has sent you,” prompted Katerin, seeing that Ilya was perturbed and might be stricken dumb by fear of being before the former Governor.

“He is at the Dauria, mistress,” said Ilya faintly, and turned to Wassili as if he expected the _moujik_ to take up the story now, and go on with it.

“At the Dauria Hotel,” agreed Katerin. “And you have brought a message from him to us?”

Ilya looked round the room wildly, seeking some escape from the eyes of Michael which bore upon him steadily.

“Have you a message from the American?” asked Katerin gently.

“I?” Ilya looked at her in amazement, and turned toward the door. Then he bowed again to Michael and Katerin to cover his confusion.

“What did the American say?” urged Katerin, and Wassili gave utterance to a faint snort of disgust and prodded Ilya in the back.

“What did the American say? Who knows?” asked Ilya.

“The fool is drunk!” growled Michael. “Come! Speak up! Or have you drowned your tongue in vodka and come here to make fools of us?”

Ilya’s face began to perspire, and he twisted his cap into a rope.

“Have no fear, Ilya,” said Katerin soothingly.

“May God smite me!” cried Ilya. “It was Rimsky who told me about it and I ran here to tell the Excellence!”

“And who is Rimsky?” demanded Michael. “Where did he learn of the man who has come to see me?”

Ilya brushed his brow with the back of his hand. “Rimsky is an old friend of mine—a good man, Excellence, who means harm to no one and is a loyal man to his Czar.”

“And what did this Rimsky tell you?”

“That the Excellence would pay me well to bring the news.”

Michael laughed and his irritation disappeared.

“So you have a friend named Rimsky who gives away my money, eh? And so I will pay you—if we can dig the news out of your skull. Now tell us what it is that the American said.”

Ilya began to twist his cap into a rope with both hands, and swallowed spittle.

“Excellence, I have done no harm,” he began. “I am a poor man. I once cut wood for the Excellence. I am very secret. Rimsky tried to fish it from me where the Excellence was living, but I did not tell him. I left him drunk, and he does not know that I know where the Excellence lives, and he does not know I have come to the house of Excellence.”

Ilya looked triumphantly at Katerin after this speech, and bowed again, feeling that he had handled the matter well, though he sought a sign of approval from the daughter of the Governor.

“What has all this to do with the American officer?” asked Michael. “That is what we are talking about, Ilya. You are very smart to have done what you did—now tell us more of it.”

“Rimsky sells cigarettes in an old _isba_ in the Sofistkaya,” resumed Ilya. “He told me it was a pity he did not know where the Excellence lived, and he fished me for it. That is all. And I have come to tell Excellence.”

Michael expressed his dismay by a look at Katerin. He believed now that Ilya’s visit was only some drunken foolishness, or probably a trick.

“They have told this to Ilya so that they might follow him here. This is the work of enemies,” said Michael.

“Master!” began Wassili, holding up his hand, and then turning to Ilya, said, “You told me it was a matter of government. You said there was an American. Tell the master, as you told me, fool!”

“May God smite me, it is as I say!” retorted Ilya to Wassili with a show of anger. “There is an American come for Michael Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff, the master general and Governor. It is truth!”

“You say it, but how do you know it?” asked Katerin. She was beginning to feel that her father was right—that there were no grounds for their hopes other than a desire of this crafty _moujik_ and some of his fellows to squeeze money from her father. But she concealed her disappointment.

“Rimsky told me, mistress, that is how I know,” said Ilya with a bow.

“And it was Rimsky who sent you to this house?” said Michael. “Now, the truth!”

Ilya stared at the floor and tried to think. In a way, it was true that Rimsky had sent him to the house, and yet it was not true in just the way that Michael was saying. The _moujik’s_ brain was not equal to a quick and accurate reply when folk of education twisted things up so.

“I? No, master. Rimsky does not know I came to this house. How could he send me here when he has no knowledge of where the Excellence lives? I told no one because I am very secret, master.”

“Then the American did not send you?” snapped Michael.

Ilya turned to Katerin. “There is an American, mistress,” he insisted.

“You know nothing of an American but what this fool Rimsky told you?” insisted Michael. “Come! You have not seen the American?”

“How could I see him, master?” asked Ilya.

Michael gave a snort of disgust and leaned back in his chair. “It is nothing,” he said sadly. “Send Ilya away,” with a look at Wassili.

“I can see the American, mistress,” pleaded Ilya, aghast at the idea that his visit had come to nothing and fearful of what Wassili might do once they were in the courtyard again. “I speak truth! There is an American officer come seeking the master general!”

“Ilya Andreitch, I will give you fifty rubles if you will find this American,” said Katerin, hopeful again as she saw that Ilya was in earnest—at least she was determined not to make the mistake of sending Ilya away without making sure of what he did know. She knew that he was frightened, and that behind his fear there was more information than he was able to put into words.

“I can find him, mistress, if he is at the Dauria—I know the place well. I was there but yesterday with pig-livers.” His eyes glittered with the richness of the reward promised.

“This is a trap of Zorogoff’s to get us to leave the house,” growled Michael.

“Not if there is an American in the city to see us,” said Katerin.

“Some spy got Rimsky to tell this story to Ilya and then watch him to see where he went. I do not like it. Or perhaps they want you to go to the hotel seeking this mythical officer and seize you there. I tell you it is a trap, my daughter.”

But Katerin picked up the pen on the table and wrote on a sheet of paper this note in Russian:

_The man who takes this to you can find us again. Time is precious for we are in great danger. Be discreet. Say who sends you that we may know you are from friends._

She did not sign the note, but dried the ink over the candle, folded it, and handed it to Ilya with a handful of rubles which she took from between the leaves of a book on the table.