CHAPTER VIII
THE RIVERSIDE MEETING
The Nihilists were not long in taking up my challenge; and on thefollowing afternoon, the man whom I had interviewed in my rooms met mein the street and told me I was to meet him on the south side of theCathedral Square at nine o'clock the next night. There was aperemptory ring in the message which I didn't care for, but I promisedto keep the appointment.
I had thought out my plans and had come to see that the impulse underwhich I had spoken was as shrewd as the proposal itself was risky. IfI was not to be a perpetual mark for their attacks, I must make animpression on them; and I saw at once that the safest thing that couldhappen was at the same time the most daring--I must take the lead. Ifsome desperate scheme were placed in my hands for execution, I shouldcertainly be allowed a free hand to carry it out, and as certainly havetime in which to do it. That was what I needed.
I did not place the danger of attending the meeting very high. If Iwere not murdered on my way to the place, wherever it might be--andthat was highly improbable--I did not think they would venture to killme at the meeting itself. Moreover I reckoned somewhat on the effect Ibelieved I had created on the man in my rooms.
I took a revolver with me as a precaution; but I had little doubt aboutgetting through the night safely.
It turned out to be a very different affair from anything I hadanticipated, however, and taken on the whole it was perhaps one of themost thrilling experiences I have ever passed through. Whether I wasreally in danger of death at any time, or whether the whole businesswas merely intended to try and scare me, I don't know. But I believethat if I had shewn any signs of fear, they would have murdered methere and then. Certainly they had all the means at hand.
I met the man by the Cathedral, and muttering to me to follow him attwenty paces distance, he walked on and presently plunged into alabyrinth of streets, leading from the Cathedral down to the river inthe lowest quarter of the town. The place was ill lit and worsedrained, and the noisome atmosphere of some of the alleys which wepassed and the mess through which we trudged, were horribly repulsive.
In the lowest and darkest and dirtiest of the streets the man stoppedand with a sign to me not to speak, pointed to a dark tumbling doorway.As I entered it, I saw it was about the aptest scene for a murder thatcould have been chosen.
The place was almost pitch dark, and as we had stepped out of a verybright moonlight, I had to stand a moment to let my eyes accustomthemselves to the change. Then I made out a broken, rambling stairwayjust ahead of us. Taking it for granted that I was to go up these,ignorant whether I was supposed to know the place, and quite unwillingeven to appear to wish to hang back, I stumbled up the stairs asquickly as the gloom would let me. When I reached the top I foundmyself in a long, low shed that ran on some distance in front of me toa point there I thought I could discern a faint light.
I groped my way forward, the boards giving ominously under my feet,when suddenly a voice said in a loud whisper out of the gloom and as ifat my very ear:--
"Stand, if you value your life."
I stopped readily enough, as may be imagined; and then the silence wasbroken by the swishing, rushing swirl of the swiftly flowing river,while currents of cold air caused by the moving water, were wafted upfull in my face. I strained my ears to listen and my eyes to see andcraning forward, I could make out a huge gap in the floor wider than aman could have leapt, which opened right to my very feet.
What happened I don't know; it was too dark to see. But after a timethere was a sound of a heavily moving body close at my feet, the noiseof the water grew faint, and I was told to go forward. I went on untilI was again called to a halt; and after a minute the sound of therushing water came again clear and distinct, this time from behind me.Then a flaring light was kindled all suddenly and thrown down into thewide gap until with a hiss it was extinguished in the river below.
I knew what that meant. It was a signal that all hope of retreat wascut off, and the signal was given in this dramatic fashion to frightenme if my nerves should be unsteady. As a matter of act it had ratherthe opposite effect. I have generally found that when men are reallydangerous they are least demonstrative. These things--the darkness,the silence, the rushing water, the means of secret murder--were allcalculated to frighten weak nerves no doubt, but they did not frightenme.
At the same time I saw that if the men wished to murder me, they hadample means of doing it safely, and that the situation might easilybecome a very ugly one.
Without wasting time I went forward again, and passing through a doorwhich was opened at my approach, I found myself in the end room of adisused and tumbling riverside warehouse; the side next the river beingquite open and over-hanging the waters. The place was unlighted savefor the bright moonlight which came slanting in from the open end, anddown through some chinks and gaps in the roof.
Scattered round the place were some thirty or forty men, their facesundistinguishable in the gloom, though care was taken to let me seethat each man carried a knife: and when I entered, five or six of themclosed round the door, as if to guard against the possibility of myretreat.
I glanced about me to see whom to address, or who would speak to me.
For a couple of minutes or more, not a soul moved and not a word wasspoken. The only sounds audible were these which came from the riverwithout; the hushed burr of night life from the dim city beyond.
"You plea has been considered," said a voice at length in a tonescarcely above a whisper; but I thought I could recognise it as that ofthe man who had been in my rooms. "It has been resolved not to acceptit. You have been brought here to-night to die."
"As you will; I am ready," I answered promptly. "I am as ready to losemy life as you are to take it."
"Kneel down," said the man.
"Not I," I cried, resolutely. "If I am to die, I prefer to stand. Buthere, I'll make it easier for you. Here's the only weapon I have.Take it, someone." I laid my revolver on the floor in a little spotwhere a glint of moonlight fell on it. Then I threw off my coat andwaistcoat and turning back my shirt bared the heart side of my breast.If they could be dramatic, so could I, I thought. "Here, strike," Icried. "And all I ask is for a clean quick thrust right to the heart."I was growing excited.
"Here, strike," I cried.]
"No 13," said the man, after a long pause.
A tall, broad, huge man loomed up out of a dark corner and stoodbetween me and the light from the river. As he laid his hands on me,the clasp was like a clamp of iron, and his enormous strength made meas a child in his clutch.
With a trick that seemed to tell of much practice, he seized mesuddenly by the right arm, holding it in a grip I thought no man onearth could possess, and bending me backwards held me so that either mythroat or my heart were at the mercy of the long knife he held aloft.
I let no sound escape me and did not move a muscle. The next instantmy left hand was seized and a finger pressed on my pulse. In thisposition I stayed for a full minute. I do not believe that my pulsequickened, save for the physical strain, by so much as one beat.
"It is enough," said the man who had before spoken; and I was released.
"You are no coward," he said, addressing me. "I withdraw that. Youcan have your life, on one condition."
"And that?"
"That you swear..."
"I will swear nothing," I interposed.
"You have taken the oath of fealty."
"I will swear nothing. Take my life if you like, but swear I will not.If I had meant treachery, I should have had the police round usto-night like a swarm of bees. You have had a proof whether I'm trueor not; and when I turn traitor, you can run a blade into my heart orlodge a bullet in my brain. But oaths are nothing to a man who meanseither to keep or break his word. What is the condition? I told youmine before."
"Yours is accepted. Your task is"--here he sunk his voice andwhispered right into my ear--"the death of Christian Tueski."
; "I accept," I answered readily. I would have accepted, had they toldme to kill the Czar himself. "But it will take time. I will have noother hand in it than mine. It is a glorious commission. Mine alonethe honour of success, and mine alone the danger, or mine alone thedisgrace of failure." I looked on the whole thing now as more or lessof a burlesque; but I played the part I had chosen as well as I could.And when the little puny rebel put out his hand in the darkness andclasped mine, I gripped his with a force that made his bones crack, asif to convey to him the intensity of my resolve and my enthusiasticpleasure at the grim work they had allotted me.
Then I was told to leave; and in a few minutes I was once more in theopen air, quite as undecided then as I have always remained, as to whathad been the real intentions in regard to myself. One of my chiefregrets was not to be able to see the burly giant who had twisted meabout on his knee as easily as I should a fowl whose neck I meant towring. He was a man indeed to admire; and I would have given much fora sight of him.
But my guide hurried me back through the labyrinth of streets intorespectable Moscow once more, and I was soon busy with my thoughts asto how long a shrift I should have before my new "comrades" would growimpatient for me to act.
Certainly they would have plenty of time for their patience to growvery cold before I should turn murderer to further their schemes. ButI could not foresee the strange chain of events which was fated tofasten on me this new character that I had assumed so lightly anddramatically--the character of a desperate, bloodthirsty, andabsolutely reckless Nihilist.