CHAPTER XVI.
THE NEXT NIHILIST PLOT.
It seemed to me when I thought over my interview with Paula Tueski,that the complications which surrounded me could not possibly beincreased. It was of course hopeless to think of leaving Russia exceptby some stratagem, or in disguise; and this would be all the moredifficult because Olga must leave first, and her flight wouldundoubtedly turn attention on me.
A positively baffling set of conditions faced me therefore, whicheverway I turned. If I stayed on, Paula Tueski would insist on themarriage, and the crisis would come that way. If I attempted to go,she herself would join with the police in following me, and the mereendeavour to fly would give just that colour to her story which wouldmake all the world ready to believe it.
Again, if I tried the remaining alternative of proclaiming my identity,I had so egregiously compromised myself that I could not hope to escapeheavy punishment of some kind; while it would certainly implicate Olgaand at the same time have no effect against the direct lies PaulaTueski was ready to swear.
Above all, a great change had come over me. I wished to live and keepmy freedom. The old indifference and apathy were gone. My object nowwas to get both Olga and myself out of the country in safety; and thusI took diametrically opposite views of difficulties which a few dayspreviously--before I had made the discovery of my love for Olga--wouldhave caused me little more than a laugh of amused perplexity.
Baffling as the puzzle was, however, it became infinitely more involvedand perilous a few days later. Two fresh complications came to killeven every forlorn hope.
My Nihilist friends were responsible for the first.
The belief that I had struck down the Chief of the Secret Police andhad done it in a manner so secret, mysterious, and impenetrable that itstaggered the most ingenious police spies and defied the efforts of theastutest detectives, surrounded me with a glamour of wholly undeservedand undesired reputation.
The first intimation of this had reached me through Olga, and wasfollowed by several others; and I received clear proof that I was nowregarded as a sort of leader of the forlorn hopes of these wild anddesperate men. A man who could alone and unaided achieve what I wasbelieved to have accomplished was held capable of the greatest deeds.So they appeared to argue; and I was accordingly picked out next for atask of infinite danger and hazard in a plot of even more tremendousconsequences than that of the recent murder.
It was nothing less than the assassination of the Czar.
It was resolved, by whom and in what centre of the Empire I never knew,to follow up the murder of Christian Tueski by the greater blow, and tostrike this with the utmost possible despatch: as a proof of thedesperate courage and daring of the Nihilists.
I was chosen to play one of the chief parts. I had no option torefuse. There was no choice given me. The task was committed to me;just as a command might have been given me by my military superiorofficer. When I attempted to decline, I was given to understand thatrefusal meant death.
I was thus placed in a position of cruel difficulty and I pondered withclose self-searching what I ought to do. Looking back I think I made ablunder in not disclosing all I knew to the authorities, leaving themto take what steps they pleased; but in forming my decision at the timeI was swayed by a number of considerations most difficult to weigh.
One of my chief reasons for holding my tongue was that as the plotfollowed so soon after the Tueski murder--for the plans were all madewithin a week--the fact that I knew so much of Nihilist plots at such atime, would bring both Olga and myself under suspicion of having beenprivy to the former one. In such a case everything I wished to winwould be jeopardised. A single breath of suspicion would have beenenough to sweep us both into a gaol; and once there, no one could saywhen, if ever, we should come out; for the whole country was red-hotagainst the Nihilists, and men of the highest rank and wealth wererotting in gaol side by side with the most abject and destitute paupers.
I was also much concerned as to my supposed past. I knew that the oldAlexis was gravely compromised; but what he had actually done, I didnot know. If any old offences were raked up I should be certain to becalled to account for them now, while Olga would inevitably suffer withme.
For those reasons I decided to hold my tongue and to seek my own meansfor causing the infernal scheme to miss its aim. I reckoned that, as Iwas to have a principal part assigned to me, I could by my own effort,either through apparent stupidity or by wilful design, wreck the wholeproject; and with this object I thought carefully over every detail ofit which was entrusted to me.
The scheme was ingenious and, save in one respect, simple enough. Afortnight later the Emperor was to pay a visit to Moscow, and alreadypreparations had commenced for his reception. At one time it wasthought he would refuse to come because of the Tueski murder; but withthat unerring accuracy that always made me marvel, till I ascertainedthe cause, the Nihilist leaders learnt the Imperial intentions beforethey were known in some of even the closest official circles.
What the Czar decided to do was to have all the preparations continuedas though the original arrangements for the visit were to be carriedout; but at the last moment to make a change which would baffle anyplots. He meant to alter the arrangement of the train by which hewould travel: and this at the very last moment.
The object of this was, of course, to thwart any plot that might belaid to attack the train in which he travelled, so that thus theplotters might be discovered.
But the double cunning of the Nihilists was quite equal to this change:and the plot was indeed exactly what the officials had anticipated--towreck the train in which the Czar travelled--and I think it was chosenfor the very reason of its apparent obviousness. Given preciseinformation of the Imperial movements and a little double cunning inthe plans, it was likely enough that the authorities would beespecially vulnerable in just that spot in which they believed they hadmost effectively guarded themselves.
The official reasoning was that if the train in which the Czar waspublicly but erroneously believed to be travelling could pass safely,then that in which His Majesty would actually be, would be sure to getby without mishap. The Nihilist plans were laid in full knowledge ofthe official theory.
A part of the line about ten miles from the city where the rails ran ina dead straight course over a comparatively flat country for some fiveor six miles was chosen for the attack; and it was chosen because itwas that which the authorities would the least suspect, since it wasmost easy to watch and guard. A man standing at either end of thelong, flat, straight stretch could with a glass watch, not only theline itself, but also the land adjoining the line. Of all the spotsthe train would pass this was by far the unlikeliest to be selected forany Nihilist attack.
The most prominent and conspicuous spot of all was that, moreover,which was picked out for the actual attempt. At that particular pointa shallow dip in the fields caused the line to be embanked to a heightof some ten or twelve feet; and the key of the plan was to fix leversto two of the rails so that they could be moved at the very lastmoment, just when the train was within a few yards of them. In thisway the train would be turned off the metals and sent over theembankment into the field.
The levers, worked by electric motive power, were of course out ofsight under the wooden sleepers: and the wires were trailed in tubesdown inside the embankment and away through field-drains to a housemore than half a mile distant from the line, where the operators wereto remain until after the "accident."
Personally, I did not dislike the scheme: because I thought I could seeseveral ways in which I could prevent any fatal outcome; should I haveto remain in the country long enough to compel me to take part in it.It would be easy enough for me to appear to lose my head at the lastmoment, for instance, and so bungle matters that the men who were tokill the Emperor would be in fact prevented from approaching him.
But there was also in this a desperate personal risk to myself. I knewthat these men would be picked from among
the most reckless and daringspirits in the Empire; men suffering under the grossest personal wrongsas well as motived by wild political fanaticism. To them the blood ofeither friend or foe was as nothing if it stood in the way of whattheir unbalanced minds deemed justice and right.
It was thus a perilous and slippery eminence to which I had beenthrust, and it increased infinitely the hazard of my course.
My thoughts returned to the idea of flight with redoubled incentive,therefore; and a circumstance occurred which seemed to promise me somehelp in this direction.
A letter came to me from "Hamylton Tregethner." Olga's brother hadescaped, as we knew, and had made his way to Paris. He was going on,he said, to America as soon as he had enjoyed himself: and when hefound himself in New York, he purposed to change his name andnationality once more and be a Pole.
"I have not had many adventures," he wrote; "nor do I seem to have metmany men who know me. But I had one encounter that was rather amusing.I was at breakfast and saw a man staring hard at me from the other sideof the room. I thought he might be a friend, and so I did not look athim. But he would not let his eyes move from me, and when I left thetable he followed and spoke to me. 'Hamylton, old man, I did not knowyou at first. You're looking frightfully ill and altered. You're notgoing to cut me.' This gave me a cue, though I did not understand allhe said, when he added something about 'on account of somebody'sconduct.' I did cut him, however; looked him hard in the face andcurling my lip as if in profound contempt, I turned on my heel. I hadthe curiosity to ask afterwards who he was, and they gave me his nameas the Hon. Rupert Balestier. I suppose I know him, but I thought thebest way was not to speak. I did not shake him off, however: for thatnight he saw me again just when I was speaking English to some othermen. I saw him listening as if he could not believe his ears; and assoon as I was alone he came up and asked me who I was and what right Ihad to masquerade as his old friend, Hamylton Tregethner. For answer Igave him another stare and got away. Then I changed my hotel and amgoing away from Paris for a few days. I do not intend to be botheredby the man."
My first impression of this incident was that it boded further danger.I knew Balestier. He was a man of great resolution and if he imaginedthat anyone was masquerading in my name in Paris, he would thinknothing of rousing both the English and Russian Embassies; or of comingon to Moscow himself to probe the thing to the bottom. He lovedmysteries; was most active, energetic, and enterprising; and nothingwould suit him better than to have imported into his rather purposelesslife some such task as a search for me half over Europe. He was quitecapable, too, of jumping to the conclusion that the man he had met hadmurdered and was personating me; and in a belief of the kind he wasjust the man to raise the hue and cry in every police office on theContinent.
What the real Alexis called "speaking English" was of course bad enoughto brand him anywhere as an impostor, should he try to pass himself offas an Englishman. Balestier had no doubt listened in amazement to thestrange jargon coming from lips that looked like mine; and theextraordinary likeness and "my" peculiar conduct would quite completehis perplexity.
Probably I should hear more of the matter; and this set me consideringwhether I could not manage in some way to communicate with Balestierand get him to help in smuggling Olga across the frontier. He wouldrevel in the work if I could only find him.
I turned to "Tregethner's" letter therefore to find the name of thehotel, and to my infinite annoyance the fool had not mentioned it;while his intention to run away from Paris and Balestier would causemore delay. The fellow was not only a coward but an idiot as well; andI could have kicked him liberally, if my foot would only have reachedfrom Moscow to Paris.
As it was, Balestier, with the best will in the world, would probablybe blundering about and plunging me still deeper into the mud, when henot only could, but would, have given me valuable help if I could havegot at him to tell him what to do.
I felt like Tantalus, when I thought of it.