_OLGA DAVIDOFF'S HUSBAND._
I.
Tobolsk, though a Siberian metropolis, is really a very pleasant placeto pass a winter in. Like the western American cities, where everybodyhas made his money easily and spends it easily, it positively bubblesover with bad champagne, cheap culture, advanced thought, Frenchromances, and all the other most recent products of human industry andingenuity. Everybody eats _pate de foie gras_, quotes Hartmann andHerbert Spencer, uses electric bells, believes in woman's rights,possesses profound views about the future of Asia, and had a grandfatherwho was a savage Samoyede or an ignorant Buriat. Society is extremelycultivated, and if you scratch it ever so little, you see the Tartar.Nevertheless, it considers itself the only really polite and enlightenedcommunity on the whole face of this evolving terrestrial planet.
The Davidoffs, however, who belonged to the most advanced section ofmercantile society in all Tobolsk, were not originally Siberians, oreven Russians, by birth or nationality. Old Mr. Davidoff, thegrandfather, who founded the fortunes of the family in St. Petersburg,was a Welsh Davids; and he had altered his name by the timely additionof a Slavonic suffix in order to conciliate the nationalsusceptibilities of Orthodox Russia. His son, Dimitri, whom for thesame reason he had christened in honour of a Russian saint, removed theRussian branch of the house to Tobolsk (they were in the Siberianfur-trade), and there marrying a German lady of the name of Freytag, hadone daughter and heiress, Olga Davidoff, the acknowledged belle ofTobolskan society. It was generally understood in Tobolsk that theDavidoffs were descended from Welsh princes (as may very likely havebeen the case--though one would really like to know what has become ofall the descendants of Welsh subjects), if indeed they were not evenremotely connected with the Prince of Wales himself in person.
The winter of 1873 (as everybody will remember) was a very cold onethroughout Siberia. The rivers froze unusually early, and troikas hadentirely superseded torosses on all the roads as early as the verybeginning of October. Still, Tobolsk was exceedingly gay for all that;in the warm houses of the great merchants, with their tropical plantskept at summer heat by stoves and flues all the year round, nobodynoticed the exceptional rigour of that severe season. Balls and dancesfollowed one another in quick succession, and Olga Davidoff, justtwenty, enjoyed herself as she had never before done in all herlifetime. It was such a change to come to the concentrated gaities anddelights of Tobolsk after six years of old Miss Waterlow's Establishmentfor Young Ladies, at The Laurels, Clapham.
That winter, for the first time, Baron Niaz, the Buriat, came toTobolsk.
Exquisitely polished in manners, and very handsome in face and bearing,there was nothing of the Tartar anywhere visible about Baron Niaz. Hehad been brought up in Paris, at a fashionable Lycee, and he spokeFrench with perfect fluency, as well as with some native sparkle andgenuine cleverness. His taste in music was unimpeachable: even MadameDavidoff, _nee_ Freytag, candidly admitted that his performances uponthe violin were singularly brilliant, profound, and appreciative.Moreover, though a Buriat chief, he was a most undoubted nobleman: atthe Governor's parties he took rank, by patent of the Emperor Nicholas,as a real Russian baron of the first water. To be sure, he was nominallya Tartar; but what of that? His mother and his grandmother, he declared,had both been Russian ladies; and you had only to look at him to seethat there was scarcely a drop of Tartar blood still remaining anywherein him. If the half-caste negro is a brown mulatto, the quarter-caste alight quadroon, and the next remove a practically white octoroon, surelyBaron Niaz, in spite of his remote Buriat great-grandfathers, might wellpass for an ordinary everyday civilized Russian.
Olga Davidoff was fairly fascinated by the accomplished young baron. Shemet him everywhere, and he paid her always the most marked andflattering attention. He was a Buriat, to be sure: but at Tobolsk, youknow----. Well, one mustn't be too particular about these littlequestions of origin in an Asiatic city.
It was at the Governor's dance, just before Christmas, that the Barongot his first good chance of talking with her for ten minutes aloneamong the fan palms and yuccas in the big conservatory. There was a seatin the far corner beside the flowering oleander, where the Baron led herafter the fourth waltz, and leant over her respectfully as she playedwith her Chinese fan, half trembling at the declaration she knew he wason the point of making to her.
"Mademoiselle Davidoff," the Baron began in French, with a lingeringcadence as he pronounced her name, and a faint tremor in his voice thatthrilled responsively through her inmost being; "Mademoiselle Davidoff,I have been waiting long for this opportunity of speaking to you alone,because I have something of some importance--to me at least,mademoiselle--about which I wish to confer with you. Mademoiselle, willyou do me the honour to listen to me patiently a minute or two? Thematter about which I wish to speak to you is one that may concernyourself, too, more closely than you at first imagine."
What a funny way to begin proposing to one! Olga Davidoff's heart beatviolently as she answered as unconcernedly as possible, "I shall beglad, M. le Baron, I'm sure, to listen to any communication that you maywish to make to me."
"Mademoiselle," the young man went on almost timidly--how handsome helooked as he stood there bending over her in his semi-barbaric Tartaruniform!--"mademoiselle, the village where I live in our own country isa lonely one among the high mountains. You do not know the Buriatcountry--it is wild, savage, rugged, pine-clad, snow-clad, solitary,inaccessible, but very beautiful. Even the Russians do not love it; butwe love it, we others, who are to the manner born. We breathe there theair of liberty, and we prefer our own brawling streams and sheerprecipices to all the artificial stifling civilization of Paris and St.Petersburg."
Olga looked at him and smiled quietly. She saw at once how he wished tobreak it to her, and held her peace like a wise maiden.
"Yes, mademoiselle," the young man went on, flooding her each momentwith the flashing light from his great luminous eyes; "my village in theBuriat country lies high up beside the eternal snows. But though we livealone there, so far from civilization that we seldom see even a passingtraveller, our life is not devoid of its own delights and its owninterests. I have my own people all around me; I live in my village as alittle prince among his own subjects. My people are few, but they arevery faithful. Mademoiselle has been educated in England, I believe?"
"Yes," Olga answered. "In London, M. le Baron. I am of Englishparentage, and my father sent me there to keep up the connection withhis old fatherland, where one branch of our House is still established."
"Then, mademoiselle, you will doubtless have read the tales of WalterScott?"
Olga smiled curiously. "Yes," she said, amused at his _naivete_, "I havecertainly read them." She began to think that after all the handsomeyoung Buriat couldn't mean really to propose to her.
"Well, you know, in that case, what was the life of a Highland chieftainin Scotland, when the Highland chieftains were still practically all butindependent. That, mademoiselle, is exactly the life of a modern Buriatnobleman under the Russian empire. He has his own little territory andhis own little people; he lives among them in his own little antiquatedfortress; he acknowledges nominally the sovereignty of the most orthodoxCzar, and even perhaps exchanges for a Russian title the Tartarchieftainship handed down to him in unbroken succession from hisearliest forefathers. But in all the rest he still remains essentiallyindependent. He rules over a little principality of his own, and caresnot a fig in his own heart for czar, or governor, or general, orminister."
"This is rather treasonable talk for the Governor's palace," Olga putin, smiling quietly. "If we were not already in Tobolsk we might both,perhaps, imagine we should be sent to Siberia."
The Baron laughed, and showed his two rows of pearly white teeth to thebest advantage. "They might send me to the mines," he said, "for aught Icare, mademoiselle. I could get away easily enough from village tovillage to my own country; and once there, it would be easier for theCzar to take Constantinople and Bagdad and Calcutta than
to track anddislodge Alexander Niaz in his mountain fortress."
Alexander Niaz! Olga noted the name to herself hurriedly. He wasconverted then! he was an orthodox Christian! That at least was a goodthing, for so many of these Buriats are still nothing more than the mostdegraded Schamanists and heathens!
"But, mademoiselle," the young man went on again, playing more nervouslynow than ever with the jewelled hilt of his dress sword, "there is onething still wanting to my happiness among our beautiful Siberianmountains. I have no lovely chatelaine to help me guard my little feudalcastle. Mademoiselle, the Buriat women are not fit allies for a man whohas been brought up among the civilization and the learning of the greatWestern cities. He needs a companion who can sympathize with his highertastes: who can speak with him of books, of life, of art, of music. OurBuriat women are mere household drudges; to marry one of them would beutterly impossible. Mademoiselle, my father and my grandfather came awayfrom their native wilds to seek a lady who would condescend to lovethem, in the polite society of Tobolsk. I have gone farther afield: Ihave sought in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg. But I saw no ladyto whose heart my heart responded, till I came back once more to oldTobolsk. There, mademoiselle, there I saw one whom I recognized at onceas fashioned for me by heaven. Mademoiselle Davidoff,--I tremble to askyou, but--I love you,--will you share my exile?"
Olga looked at the handsome young man with unconcealed joy andadmiration. "Your exile!" she murmured softly, to gain time for amoment. "And why your exile, M. le Baron?"
"Mademoiselle," the young Buriat continued very earnestly, "I do notwish to woo or wed you under false pretences. Before you give me ananswer, you must understand to what sort of life it is that I venture toinvite you. Our mountains are very lonely: to live there would beindeed an exile to you, accustomed to the gaieties and the vortex ofLondon." (Olga smiled quietly to herself, as she thought for a second ofthe little drawing-room at The Laurels, Clapham.) "But if you canconsent to live in it with me, I will do my best to make it as easy foryou as possible. You shall have music, books, papers, amusements--butnot society--during the six months of summer which we must necessarilypass at my mountain village; you shall visit Tobolsk, Moscow,Petersburg, London--which you will--during the six months of holiday inwinter; above all, you shall have the undying love and devotion of onewho has never loved another woman--Alexander Niaz.... Mademoiselle, yousee the conditions. Can you accept them? Can you condescend of yourgoodness to love me--to marry me?"
Olga Davidoff lifted her fan with an effort and answered faintly, "M. leBaron, you are very flattering. I--I will try my best to deserve yourgoodness."
Niaz took her pretty little hand in his with old-fashioned politeness,and raised it chivalrously to his trembling lips. "Mademoiselle," hesaid, "you have made me eternally happy. My life shall be passed intrying to prove my gratitude to you for this condescension."
"I think," Olga answered, shaking from head to foot, "I think, M. leBaron, you had better take me back into the next room to my mother."
II.
Olga Davidoff's wedding was one of the most brilliant social successesof that Tobolsk season. Davidoff pere surpassed himself in thecostliness of his exotics, the magnificence of his presents, thereckless abundance of his Veuve Clicquot. Madame Davidoff successfullycaught the Governor and the General, and the English traveller fromIndia _via_ the Himalayas. The Baron looked as gorgeous as he washandsome in his half Russian, half Tartar uniform and his Orientaldisplay of pearls and diamonds. Olga herself was the prettiest and mostblushing bride ever seen in Tobolsk, a simple English girl, fresh fromthe proprieties of The Laurels at Clapham, among all that curious mixedcosmopolitan society of semi-civilized Siberians, Catholic Poles, andorthodox Russians.
As soon as the wedding was fairly over, the bride and bridegroom startedoff by toross to make their way across the southern plateau to theBaron's village.
It was a long and dreary drive, that wedding tour, in a jolting carriageover Siberian roads, resting at wayside posting-houses, bad enough whilethey were still on the main line of the Imperial mails, but degeneratinginto true Central-Asian caravanserais when once they had got off thebeaten track into the wild neighbourhood of the Baron's village.Nevertheless, Olga Davidoff bore up against the troubles and discomfortsof the journey with a brave heart, for was not the Baron always by herside? and who could be kinder, or gentler, or more thoughtful than herBuriat husband? Yes, it was a long and hard journey, up among thoseborder mountains of the Chinese and Tibetan frontier; but Olga felt athome at last when, after three weeks of incessant jolting, they arrivedat the Buriat mountain stronghold, under cover of the night; and Niazled her straightway to her own pretty little European boudoir, which hehad prepared for her beforehand at immense expense and trouble in hisupland village.
The moment they entered, Olga saw a pretty little room, papered andcarpeted in English fashion, with a small piano over in the corner, alamp burning brightly on the tiny side-table, and a roaring fire of logsblazing and crackling upon the simple stone hearth. A book or two layupon the shelf at the side: she glanced casually at their titles as shepassed, and saw that they were some of Tourgenieff's latest novels, apaper-covered Zola fresh from Paris, a volume each of Tennyson,Browning, Carlyle, and Swinburne, a Demidoff, an Emile Augier, a _Revuedes Deux Mondes_, and a late number of an English magazine. She valuedthese things at once for their own sakes, but still more because shefelt instinctively that Niaz had taken the trouble to get them there forher beforehand in this remote and uncivilized corner. She turned to thepiano: a light piece by Sullivan lay open before her, and a number ofairs from Chopin, Schubert, and Mendelssohn were scattered loosely onthe top one above the other. Her heart was too full to utter a word, butshe went straight up to her husband, threw her arms tenderly around hisneck, and kissed him with the utmost fervour. Niaz smoothed her wavyfair hair gently with his hand, and his eyes sparkled with consciouspleasure as he returned her caress and kissed her forehead.
After a while, they went into the next room to dinner--a small hall,somewhat barbaric in type, but not ill-furnished; and Olga noticed thatthe two or three servants were very fierce and savage-looking Buriats ofthe most pronounced Tartar type. The dinner was a plain one, plainlyserved, of rough country hospitality; but the appointments were allEuropean, and, though simple, good and sufficient. Niaz had said so muchto her of the discomforts of his mountain stronghold that Olga was quitedelighted to find things on the whole so comparatively civilized, clean,and European.
A few days' sojourn in the fort--it was rather that than a castle or avillage--showed Olga pretty clearly what sort of life she was henceforthto expect. Her husband's subjects numbered about a hundred and fifty(with as many more women and children); they rendered him the mostimplicit obedience, and they evidently looked upon him entirely as asuperior being. They were trained to a military discipline, andregularly drilled every morning by Niaz in the queer old semi-Chinesecourtyard of the mouldering castle. Olga was so accustomed to a Russianmilitary _regime_ that this circumstance never struck her as beinganything extraordinary; she regarded it only as part of the Baron'sancestral habits as a practically independent Tartar chieftain.
Week after week rolled away at the fort, and though Olga had absolutelyno one to whom she could speak except her own husband (for the Buriatsknew no Russian save the word of command), she didn't find time hangheavily on her hands in the quaint, old-fashioned village. The walks andrides about were really delightful; the scenery was grand and beautifulto the last degree; the Chinese-looking houses and Tartar dress were oddand picturesque, like a scene in a theatre. It was all so absurdlyromantic. After all, Olga said to herself with a smile more than once,it isn't half bad being married to a Tartar chieftain up in the bordermountains, when you actually come to try it. Only, she confessed in herown heart that she would probably always be very glad when the wintercame again, and she got back from these mountain solitudes to thecongenial gaiety of Tobolsk or Petersburg.
And Niaz--
well, Niaz loved her distractedly. No husband on earth couldpossibly love a woman better.
Still, Olga could never understand why he sometimes had to leave her forthree or four days together, and why during his absence, when she wasleft all alone at night in the solitary fort with those dreadfulBuriats, they kept watch and ward so carefully all the time, and seemedso relieved when Niaz came back again. But whenever she asked him aboutit, Niaz only looked grave and anxious, and replied with a would-becareless wave of the hand that part of his duty was to guard thefrontier, and that the Czar had not conferred a title and an order uponhim for nothing. Olga felt frightened and disquieted on all suchoccasions, but somehow felt, from Niaz's manner, that she must notquestion him further upon the matter.
One day, after one of these occasional excursions, Niaz came back inhigh spirits, and kissed her more tenderly and affectionately than ever.After dinner, he read to her out of a book of French poems a grand pieceof Victor Hugo's, and then made her sit down to the piano and play himhis favourite air from _Der Freischuetz_ twice over. When she hadfinished, he leant back in his chair and murmured quietly in French(which they always spoke together), "And this is in the mountains ofTartary! One would say a soiree of St. Petersburg or of Paris."
Olga turned and looked at him softly. "What is the time, dearest Niaz?"she said with a smile. "Shall I be able to play you still that dance ofPinsuti's?"
Niaz pulled out his watch and answered quickly, "Only ten o'clock,darling. You have plenty of time still."
Something in the look of the watch he held in his hand struck Olga asqueer and unfamiliar. She glanced at it sideways, and noticed hurriedlythat Niaz was trying to replace it unobserved in his waistcoat pocket."I haven't seen that watch before," she said suddenly; "let me look atit, dear, will you?"
Niaz drew it out and handed it to her with affected nonchalance; but inthe undercurrent of his expression Olga caught a glimpse of a hang-doglook she had never before observed in it. She turned over the watch andlooked on the back. To her immense surprise, it bore the initials "F. deK." engraved upon the cover.
"These letters don't belong to you, Niaz," she said, scanning itcuriously.
Niaz moved uneasily in his chair. "No," he answered, "not to me, Olga.It's--it's an old family relic--an heirloom, in fact. It belonged to mymother's mother. She was--a Mademoiselle de Kerouac, I believe, fromMorbihan, in Brittany."
Olga's eyes looked him through and through with a strange new-bornsuspicion. What could it all mean? She knew he was telling her afalsehood. Had the watch belonged--to some other lady? What was themeaning of his continued absences? Could he----but no. It was a man'swatch, not a lady's. And if so--why, if so, then Niaz had clearly toldher a falsehood in that too, and must be trying to conceal somethingabout it.
That night, for the first time, Olga Davidoff began to distrust herBuriat husband.
Next morning, getting up a little early and walking on the parapet ofthe queer old fortress, she saw Niaz in the court below, jumping andstamping in a furious temper upon something on the ground. To herhorror, she saw that his face was all hideously distorted by anger, andthat as he raged and stamped the Tartar cast in his features, neverbefore visible, came out quite clearly and distinctly. Olga looked on,and trembled violently, but dared not speak to him.
A few minutes later Niaz came in to breakfast, gay as usual, with afresh flower stuck prettily in the button-hole of his undress coat and asmile playing unconcernedly around the clear-cut corners of his handsomethin-lipped mouth.
"Niaz," his wife said to him anxiously, "where is the watch you showedme last night?"
His face never altered for a moment as he replied, with the same blandand innocent smile as ever, "My darling, I have broken it all to littlepieces. I saw it annoyed you in some way when I showed it to youyesterday, and this morning I took it out accidentally in the lowercourtyard. The sight of it put me in a violent temper. 'Cursed thing,' Isaid, 'you shall never again step in so cruelly between me and mydarling. There, take that, and that, and that, rascal!' and I stampedit to pieces underfoot in the courtyard."
Olga turned pale, and looked at him horrified. He smiled again, and tookher wee hand tenderly in his. "Little one," he said, "you needn't beafraid; it's only our quick Buriat fashion. We lose our temperssometimes, but it is soon over. It is nothing. A little whirlwind--and,pouf, it passes."
"But, Niaz, you said it was a family heirloom!"
"Well, darling, and for your sake I ground it to powder. Voila, tout!Come, no more about it; it isn't worth the trouble. Let us go tobreakfast."
III.
Some days later Niaz went on an expedition again, "on the Czar's servicefor the protection of the frontier," and took more than half hisable-bodied Tartars on the journey with him. Olga had never felt solonely before, surrounded now by doubt and mystery in that awfulsolitary stronghold. The broken watch weighed gloomily upon herfrightened spirits.
Niaz was gone for three days, as often happened, and on the fourthnight, after she had retired to her lonely bedroom, she felt sure sheheard his voice speaking low somewhere in the courtyard.
At the sound she sprang from her bed and went to the window. Yes, there,down in the far corner of the yard, without lights or noise, andtreading cautiously, she saw Niaz and his men filing quietly in throughthe dim gloom, and bringing with them a number of boxes.
Her heart beat fast. Could it be some kind of smuggling? They lay sonear the passes into Turkestan and China, and she knew that the merchanttrack from Yarkand to Semi-palatinsk crossed the frontier not far fromNiaz's village.
Huddling on her dress hastily, she issued out alone and terrified, intothe dark courtyard, and sought over the whole place in the black nightfor sight of Niaz. She could find him nowhere.
At last she mounted the staircase to the mouldering rampart. Generallythe Tartar guards kept watch there constantly, but to-night the wholeplace seemed somehow utterly deserted. She groped her way along till shereached the far corner by a patch of ground which Niaz had told her wasthe Tartar burial-place.
There she came suddenly upon a great crowd of men below on the plain,running about and shouting wildly, with links and torches. Niaz stood inthe midst, erect and military, with his Russian uniform gleamingfitfully in the flickering torchlight. In front of him six Turcomanmerchants, with their hands bound behind their backs, knelt upon theground, and beside him two Tartars held by either arm a man in Europeandress, whom Olga recognized at once as the English traveller from Indiaby way of the Himalayas. Her heart stood still within her with terror,and she hung there, mute and unseen, upon the rampart above, wonderingwhat in Heaven's name this extraordinary scene was going to end in. Whatcould it mean? What could Niaz be doing in it? Great God, it was toohorrible!
A Tartar came forward quietly from the crowd with a curved sword. At aword from Niaz he raised the sword aloft in the air. One second itglanced bright in the torchlight; the next second a Turcoman's head layrolling in the dust, and a little torrent of blood spurted suddenly fromthe still kneeling corpse. Olga opened her mouth to scream at the horridsight, but happily her voice at once forsook her as in a dream, and shestood fixed to the spot in a perfect fascination of awe and terror.
Then the Tartar moved on, obedient to a word and a nod from Niaz, andraised his sword again above the second Turcoman. In a moment, thesecond head too rolled down quietly beside the other. Without aminute's delay, as though it formed part of his everyday business, thepractised headsman went on quietly to the next in order, and did notstop till all six heads lay grim and ghastly scattered about unheeded inthe dust together. Olga shut her eyes, sickening, but still could notscream for very horror.
Next, Niaz turned to the English traveller, and said something to him inhis politest manner. Olga couldn't catch the words themselves because ofthe distance, but she saw from his gestures that he was apologizing tothe Englishman for his rough treatment. The Englishman in reply drew outand handed to Niaz a small canvas bag, a purse, and a watch. Niaz tookt
hem, bowing politely. "Hands off," he cried to the Tartars in Russian,and they loosed their prisoner. Then he made a sign, and the Englishmanknelt. In a minute more his head lay rolling in the dust below, andNiaz, with a placid smile upon his handsome face, turned to give ordersto the surrounding Tartars.
Olga could stand it no more. She dared not scream or let herself beseen; but she turned round, sick at heart, and groped her way, halfparalyzed by fear, along the mouldering rampart, and then turned in atlast to her own bedroom, where she flung herself upon the bed in herclothes, and lay, tearless but terrified, the whole night through inblinding misery.
She did not need to have it all explained to her. Niaz was nothing more,after all, than a savage Buriat robber chieftain.
IV.
What a terribly long hypocrisy and suspense those six weeks of drearywaiting, before an answer to her letter could come from Tobolsk, and theGovernor could send a detachment of the military to rescue her from thisnest of murderous banditti!
How Olga hated herself for still pretending to keep on terms with Niaz!How she loathed and detested the man with whom she must yet live as wifefor that endless time till the day of her delivery!
And Niaz couldn't help seeing that her manner was changed towards him,though he flattered himself that she had as yet only a bare suspicion,and no real knowledge of the horrible truth. What a sad thing that sheshould ever even have suspected it! What a pity if he could not keep herhere to soothe and lighten his winter solitude!--for he loved her: yes,he really loved her, and he needed sympathy and companionship in all thebest and highest instincts of his inner nature. These Buriats, what werethey? a miserable set of brutal savages: mere hard-working robbers andmurderers, good enough for the practical rough work of everyday life(such as knocking Turcoman merchants on the head), but utterly incapableof appreciating or sympathizing with the better tastes of civilizedhumanity. It was a hard calling, that of chieftain to these Tartarwretches, especially for a man of musical culture brought up in Paris;and he had hoped that Olga might have helped him through with it by herfriendly companionship. Not, of course, that he ever expected to be ableto tell her the whole truth: women will be women; and coming to a roughcountry, they can't understand the necessities laid upon one for roughdealing. No, he could never have expected her to relish the full detailsof a borderer's profession, but he was vexed that she should alreadybegin to suspect its nature on so very short an acquaintance. He hadtold her he was like a Highland chieftain of the old times: did shesuppose that the Rob Roys and Roderick Dhus of real life used to treattheir Lowland captives with rose-water and chivalry? After all, womenhave really no idea of how things must be managed in the stern realitiesof actual existence.
So the six weeks passed slowly away, and Olga waited and watched, withsmiles on her lips, in mute terror.
At last, one day, in broad daylight, without a moment's warning, or asingle premonitory symptom, Olga saw the courtyard suddenly filled withmen in Russian uniforms, and a friend of hers, a major of infantry atTobolsk, rushing in at the head of his soldiers upon the Tartar barrack.
In one second, as if by magic, the courtyard had changed into a roaringbattlefield, the Cossacks were firing at the Tartars, and the Tartarswere firing at the Cossacks. There was a din of guns and a smoke ofgunpowder; and high above all, in the Buriat language, she heard thevoice of Niaz, frantically encouraging his men to action, and shoutingto them with wild energy in incomprehensible gutturals.
The surprise had been so complete that almost before Olga realized thesituation the firing began to die away. The fort was carried, and Niazand his men stood, disarmed and sullen, with bleeding faces, in themidst of a hastily formed square of stout Cossacks, among the dead anddying strewn upon the ground.
Handsome as ever, but how she hated him!
His arm was wounded; and the Russian surgeon led him aside to bind itup. To Olga's amazement, while the surgeon was actually engaged inbinding it, Niaz turned upon him like a savage dog, and bit his arm tillthe teeth met fiercely in the very middle. She shut her eyes, and halffainted with disgust and horror.
The surgeon shook him off, with an oath; and two Cossacks, coming uphastily, bound his hands behind his back, and tied his legs, quiteregardless of his wounded condition.
Meanwhile, the Russian major had sought out Olga, "Madame la Baronne,"he said respectfully, "I congratulate you upon your safety and yourrecovered freedom. Your father is with us; he will soon be here. Yourletter reached him safely, in spite of its roundabout direction; and theGovernor of Tobolsk despatched us at once upon this errand of release.Baron Niaz had long been suspected: your letter removed all doubts uponthe subject."
A minute or two later, the Cossacks marched their prisoners out of thecourtyard, two and two, into the great hall of the stronghold.
"I wish to bid farewell to my wife," Niaz cried to the major, in a loudvoice. "I shall be sent to the mines, I suppose, and I shall never seeher again in this world most probably."
The major allowed him to come near within speaking distance, under guardof two Cossacks.
"Madame la Baronne," he hissed out between his clenched teeth, "this isyour hand. It was your hand that you gave me in marriage; it was yourhand that wrote to betray me. Believe me, madame, come what may, yourhand shall pay the penalty."
So much he said, passionately indeed, but with the offended dignity of acivilized being. Then the Tartar in him broke through the thin veneer ofEuropean culture, and he lolled his tongue out at her in savagederision, with a hideous menacing leer like an untamed barbarian. Tillthat moment, in spite of the horrible massacre she had seen with her owneyes, Olga had never suspected what profound depths of vulgar savagerylay unperceived beneath Alexander Niaz's handsome and aristocraticEuropean features.
One more word he uttered coarsely: a word of foul reproach unfit to berepeated, which made Olga's cheek turn crimson with wrath andindignation even in that supreme moment of conflicting passions. Sheburied her face between her two hands wildly, and burst into a suddenflood of uncontrollable tears.
"March him away," cried the major in a stern voice. And they marched himaway, still mocking, with the other prisoners.
That was the last Olga Davidoff then saw of her Buriat husband.
V.
After Niaz had been tried and condemned for robbery and murder, and sentwith the usual Russian clemency to the mines of Oukboul, Olga Davidoffcould not bear any longer to live at Tobolsk. It was partly terror,partly shame, partly pride; but Tobolsk or even St. Petersburg she feltto be henceforth utterly impossible for her.
So she determined to go back to her kinsfolk in that dear old quietEngland, where there are no Nihilists, and no Tartars, and no exiles,and where everybody lived so placidly and demurely. She looked back nowupon The Laurels, Clapham, as the ideal home of repose and happiness.
It was not at Clapham, however, that Madame Niaz (as she still calledherself) settled down, but in a quiet little Kentish village, where theLondon branch of the Davids family had retired to spend their Russianmoney.
Frank Davids, the son of the house, was Olga's second cousin; and whenOlga had taken the pretty little rose-covered cottage at the end of thevillage, Frank Davids found few things more pleasant in life than todrop in of an afternoon and have a chat with his Russian kinswoman. Olgalived there alone with her companion, and in spite of the terriblescenes she had so lately gone through, she was still a girl, very young,very attractive, and very pretty.
What a wonderfully different life, the lawn-tennis with Frank and thecurate and the Davids girls up at the big house, from the terror andisolation of the Buriat stronghold! Under the soothing influence ofthat placid existence, Olga Davidoff began at last almost to outlive thelasting effects of that one great horror. Stamped as it was into thevery fabric of her being, she felt it now less poignantly than of old,and sometimes for an hour or two she even ventured to be careless andhappy.
Yet all the time the awful spectre of that robber and murderer Niaz, whowas neve
rtheless still her wedded husband, rose up before her, day andnight, to prevent her happiness from being ever more than momentary.
And Frank, too, was such a nice, good fellow! Frank had heard fromMadame Davidoff all her story (for madame had come over to see Olgafairly settled), and he pitied her for her sad romance in such a kind,brotherly fashion.
Once, and once only, Frank said a word to her that was not exactlybrotherly. They were walking together down the footpath by the mill, andOlga had been talking to him about that great terror, when Frank askedher, in a quiet voice, "Olga, why don't you try to get a divorce fromthat horrible Niaz?"
Olga looked at him in blank astonishment, and asked in return, "Why,Frank, what would be the use of that? It would never blot out the memoryof the past, or make that wretch any the less my wedded husband."
"But, Olga, you need a protector sorely. You need somebody to soothe andremove your lasting terror. And I think I know some one, Olga,--I knowsome one who would give his whole life to save you, dearest, from asingle day's fear or unhappiness."
Olga looked up at him like a startled child. "Frank," she cried, "dear,dear Frank, you good cousin, never say again another word like that, oryou will make me afraid to walk with you or talk with you any longer.You are the one friend I have whom I can trust and confide in: don'tdrive me away by talking to me of what is so impossible. I hate theman: I loathe and abhor him with all my heart; but I can never forgetthat he is still my husband. I have made my choice, and I must abide byit. Frank, Frank, promise me,--promise me, that you will never againspeak upon the subject."
Frank's face grew saddened in a moment with a terrible sadness; but hesaid in a firm voice, "I promise," and he never broke his word from thatday onward.
VI.
Three years passed away quietly in the Kentish village, and every dayOlga's unreasoning terror of Niaz grew gradually fainter and fainter. Ifshe had known that Niaz had escaped from the mines, after eight months'imprisonment, and made his way by means of his Tartar friends across thepasses to Tibet and Calcutta, she would not have allowed the sense ofsecurity to grow so strong upon her.
Meanwhile Frank, often in London, had picked up the acquaintance of acertain M. de Vouillemont, a French gentleman much about at the clubs,of whose delightful manners and wide acquaintance with the world and menhe was never tired of talking to Olga. "A most charming man, indeed, DeVouillemont, and very anxious to come down here and see Hazelhurst.Besides, Olga, he has been even in Russia, and he knows how to talkadmirably about everybody and everything. I've asked him down for Fridayevening. Now, do, like a good girl, break your rule for once, and comeand dine with us, although there's to be a stranger. It's only one, youknow, and the girls would be so delighted if you'd help entertain him,for he speaks hardly any English, and their French, poor things, ishorribly insular and boarding-schooly."
At last, with much reluctance, Olga consented, and on the Friday shewent up to the big house at eight punctually.
Mrs. Davids and the girls were not yet in the drawing-room when shearrived; but M. de Vouillemont had dressed early, and was standing withhis back to the room, looking intently at some pictures on the wall, asOlga entered.
As she came in, and the servant shut the door behind her, the strangerturned slowly. In a moment she recognized him. His complexion wasdisguised, so as to make him look darker than before; his blackmoustache was shaved off; his hair was differently cut and dressed; butstill, as he looked her in the face, she knew him at once. It wasAlexander Niaz!
Petrified with fear, she could neither fly nor scream. She stood stillin the middle of the drawing-room, and stared at him fixedly in an agonyof terror.
Niaz had evidently tracked her down, and come prepared for his horridrevenge. Without a moment's delay, his face underwent a hideous change,and from the cultivated European gentleman in evening clothes that helooked when she entered, he was transformed as if by magic into agrinning, gibbering Tartar savage, with his tongue lolling out oncemore, as of old in Siberia, in hateful derision of her speechlessterror.
Seizing her roughly by the arm, he dragged her after him, not so muchunresisting as rigid with horror, to the open fireplace. A marble fenderran around the tiled hearth. Laying her down upon the rug as if she weredead, he placed her small right hand with savage glee upon thatready-made block, and then proceeded deliberately to take out a smallsteel hatchet from inside his evening coat. Olga was too terrified evento withdraw her hand. He raised the axe on high--it flashed a second inthe air--a smart throb of pain--a dreadful crunching of bone andsinew--and Olga's hand fell white and lifeless upon the tiledhearthplace. Without stopping to look at her for a second, he took itup brutally in his own, and flung it with a horrible oath into theblazing fire.
At that moment, the door opened, and Frank entered.
Olga, lying faint and bleeding on the hearth rug, was just able to lookup at him imploringly and utter in a sharp cry of alarm the one word"Niaz."
Frank sprang upon him like an angry lion.
"I told her her hand should pay the penalty," the Tartar cried, with ahorrible joy bursting wildly from his livid features; "and now it burnsin the fire over yonder, as she herself shall burn next minute for everand ever in fire and brimstone."
As he spoke he drew a pistol from his pocket, and pointed it at her withhis finger on the trigger.
Next moment, before he could fire, Frank had seized his hand, flung thepistol to the farther end of the drawing-room, and forced the Tartardown upon the floor in a terrible life-and-death struggle.
Niaz's face, already livid, grew purpler and purpler as they wrestledwith one another on the carpet in that deadly effort. His wrath andvindictiveness gave a mad energy to his limbs and muscles. Should he bebaulked of his fair revenge at last? Should the woman who had betrayedhim escape scot-free with just the loss of a hand, and he himself merelyexchange a Siberian for an English prison? No, no, never! by St.Nicholas, never! Ha, madame! I will murder you both! The pistol! thepistol! A thousand devils! let me go! I will kill you yet! I will killyou! I will kill you! Then he gasped, and grew blacker andpurpler--blacker and purpler--blacker--blacker--blacker--ever blacker.Presently he gasped again. Frank's hand was now upon his mumblingthroat. They rolled over and over in their frantic struggles. Then along, slow inspiration. After that, his muscles relaxed. Frank loosedhim a little, but knelt upon his breast heavily still, lest he shouldrise again in another paroxysm. But no: he lay quite motionless--quitemotionless, and never stirred a single finger.
Frank felt his heart--no movement; his pulse--quite quiet; his lips--nota breath perceptible! Then he rose, faint and staggoring, and rang forthe servants.
When the doctor came hurriedly from the village to bandage up theRussian lady's arm, he immediately pronounced that M. de Vouillemont wasdead--stone dead--not a doubt about it. Probably apoplexy under stressof violent emotion.
The inquest was a good deal hushed up, owing to the exceedingly painfulcircumstances of the case; and to this day very few people about Torquay(where she now lives) know how Mrs. Frank Davids, the quiet lady whodresses herself always in black, and has such a beautiful softenedhalf-frightened expression, came to lose her right hand. But everybodyknows that Mr. Davids is tenderness itself to her, and that she loveshim in return with the most absolute and childlike devotion.
It was worth cutting off her right hand, after all, to be rid of thatawful spectre of Niaz, and to have gained the peaceful love of FrankDavids.