CHAPTER IV
NO RIVAL
What unheard-of audacity, to spoil the sport of such an aristocratichunting-party!
"Who fired that shot?" cried the foremost of the huntsmen, with athreatening crack of his whip.
The hounds dashed furiously on towards the open gate, their sense of thedignity of the hunt equally insulted.
The question had been put in Russian; and the action was in accord withthe speech, although the speaker's face was close shaven in the Frenchstyle, while the other members of the hunt all wore short whiskers.
"I took that liberty!" returned a woman's voice; and from under thefir-trees, whose branches overhung the gate, appeared a woman's form,slender as one of the Amazons of the "Kalevala" Saga, her pale oval facesurrounded by loose-falling hair of reddish gold, like a lion's mane;the nose, straight and delicate, and full lips recalling the Niobegroup; while at sight of the great flashing eyes, instinct with magicbeauty, one was irresistibly reminded of a peri from the "Sakuntala." Avery fairy, who united in herself the threefold myths.
"I dared do it!" she said, coming forward alone, unattended. Andcarelessly dispersing the excited dogs with one hand, she raised thepistol she held in the other, and, pointing it at her interlocutor,continued: "And there is another shot in it for you if you do notinstantly lower your whip."
The hounds were cringingly snuffing about her whom the moment beforethey had been ready to tear in pieces; the huntsman, too, was not lesssusceptible to the charm than was the pack. Raising his whip, he touchedhis cap courteously with it, and addressed her in French, the languageof Russian society:
"It were unnecessary, madame, that you should use firearms, possessingas you do in your eyes such powerful weapons."
By this speech the huntsman betrayed the school of Versailles, where menwere accustomed to carry on war with compliments, and to mask retreatwith gallant words.
Meanwhile the rest of the hunting-party had come up to the gates. Thegentlemen, seeing with whom their comrade was in conversation, held intheir horses, as though not wishing to take part in it; only an olderman, wearing an order set in diamonds on his fur-lined coat, approachednearer; and one of the ladies, galloping straight up to the gate, pulledup her horse at its threshold, the body of the dead stag aloneseparating her from the other woman.
The huntswoman wore a blue, fur-bordered jacket, with hunting-cap tomatch, under which her fair hair hung in ringlets to the shoulders. Herface was crimsoned with eagerness and the extreme cold, giving to hersomewhat prominent eyes a still more dazzling brilliancy than they werewont to have; her thin, delicately shaped lips were half open; the blueveil falling over her forehead, and the blue band she wore under herchin as a protection from the cold, did not allow more of her face to beseen. But as she drew up close beside the other lady she pushed back thechin band, perhaps in order to speak more freely, thereby displaying apretty, rosy chin, divided by charming dimples.
"How dared you shoot that stag?" she cried to the other lady. "Did younot know it was an imperial one?"
"How dared you chase that stag to the very gates of the hospital? Didyou not know that it is a hospital for cripples?"
"I hope you recognize that the Czar is the first gentleman in Russia."
"Throughout the whole world the first gentlefolks are the sick."
"You are foolhardy, madame."
"That I admit."
Now the huntswoman lifted her veil. She was heated. She toyedimpatiently with the riding-whip in her hand.
"Why am I not a man?" she muttered, between her pearly teeth.
The huntsman with the clean-shaven face, reading from his companion'sworking features and piercing eyes that there was something more indispute than the shot stag, now bending towards her, addressed heraudibly enough in German. For though the French language--that of thebest-beloved enemy--is the language of society in the Russian capital,German--that of the most hated friend--is only spoken by the exclusive.German is therefore spoken when the servants are not desired tounderstand.
"A rival, eh?" asked the clean-shaven one.
The huntswoman projected her lips scornfully, and, knitting her brows,answered aloud in German:
"Neither rival nor----"
The lady standing by had distinctly heard the short colloquy, and wasperfectly aware that she had another charge in her pistol.
The speaker had turned pale as she spoke, like a duellist who, havingfired his shot and wounded his adversary, now awaits the other's fire.
The owner of the park did not do this, however. There are words, looks,and gestures which can strike deeper than the most deadly weapon.Placing one foot on the crowned antlers of the stag lying prone beforeher, she smiled full in the face of her adversary; and, as though toemphasize the insulting challenge, raising her pistol, she fired theremaining shot into the air. For an insult loses its sting if directedby an armed person against one unarmed. Now once more she stoodconqueror.
The huntswoman's face flamed with fury. She twisted her riding-whip inher hands like a serpent, as though inwardly debating whether to strikeit across the other's face, and thus wipe away the irritating smile.
One of the other two ladies was young, little more than a child. Herface a perfect oval, with exquisitely formed chin, a little rosebudmouth, large, deep-blue eyes, looking black in the distance, dark,finely pencilled eyebrows, and hair hanging in soft, shining plaits downher back.
Her whole face wore the astounded expression of a school-girl. Thestrangest thing about her was that she rode a gentleman's saddle, withwhich her costume was in keeping--the Circassian beshmet, the broad,white salavar, high boots, and flowing cashmere, with hanging kindzsal.Every one but she knew what the two women were saying to each other. Hewho happened to be ignorant of the language could understand thegestures, the contemptuous expression of the features, the crossfire ofeyes. The young girl did not understand even that. She merely looked onin amazement. That the two ladies were angry with each other shesaw--and about a stag's antlers! The riding-whip was twisted about inthe huntswoman's nervous fingers until it snapped. She made use ofanother weapon.
"Bethsaba!" she exclaimed, turning to the girl, and speaking to her in alanguage unknown to any of their auditors--possibly Circassian; but theexpression on the speaker's face, and the terror-stricken, pallid lookon that of the young girl, said as plainly as words:
"You have asked me what the devil looks like? Look at that woman; thereyou have the fiend in human form."
The girl, bending her head, crossed herself as she cast a frightenedside glance at the dreadful woman, who was the embodiment of his SatanicMajesty. Then the Amazon, turning her own horse, and at the same timeseizing the reins of that upon which the young girl was mounted,galloped back the way she had come, huntsmen and hounds following. Thestag remained where it had fallen.