CHAPTER VIII
THE RED ROOSTER
As chauffeur to one of the most ingenious adventurers who ever staked alouis at the tables, and travelling constantly up and down Europe, as Idid, I frequently came across strange romances in real life--stranger byfar than any in fiction. My profession often took me amid excitingscenes, for wherever there was a centre of unusual excitement on theContinent, and consequent opportunities for pilfering, there wegenerally were.
I have acquaintances in every capital; I chatter in half a dozentongues; I have the reputation of being an authority on hotels and thebest routes hither and thither; while I believe I am known in most ofthe chief garages in the capitals.
Yes, mine was a strange life, full of romance, of constant change, ofexcitement--sometimes of peril.
The latter was quickly apparent when last winter, after two days of hardtravelling over those endless frozen roads and through the dark forestsof Eastern Poland, I pulled up before a small inn on the outskirts ofthe dismal-looking town of Ostrog. The place, with its roofs coveredwith freshly fallen snow, lay upon the slight slope of a low hill,beneath which wound the Wilija Goryn, now frozen so hard that the bridgewas hardly ever used. It was January, and that month in Poland is alwaysa cold one.
I had come up from Budapest to Tarnopol, crossed the frontier at thelittle village of Kolodno, and thence driven the "forty" along thevalleys into Volynien, a long, weary, dispiriting run, on and on, untilthe monotony of the scenery maddened me. Cramped and cold I was,notwithstanding the big Russian fur shuba I wore, the fur cap withflaps, fur gloves, and fur rug. The country inns in which I had spentthe past two nights had been filthy places, where the stoves had beensurrounded by evil-smelling peasantry, where the food was uneatable, andwhere a wooden bench had served me as a bed.
I was on my way to meet Bindo, who was to be the guest of a Russiancountess in Ostrog. Whenever I mentioned my destination, the post-housekeepers held up their hands. The Red Rooster was crowing in Ostrog, theysaid significantly.
It was true. Russia was under the Terror, and in no place in the wholeempire were the revolutionists so determined as in the town whither Iwas bound.
As I stood up and descended unsteadily from the car my eyes fell uponsomething upon the snow near the door of the inn. There was blood. Ittold its own tale.
From the white town across the frozen river I heard revolver shots,followed by a loud explosion that shook the whole place.
Inside the long, low common room of the inn, with its high brick stove,against which half a dozen frightened-looking men and women werehuddled, I asked for the proprietor, whereupon an elderly man withshaggy hair and beard came forth, pulling his forelock.
"I want to stay here," I said.
"Yes, your Excellency," was the old fellow's reply in Polish, regardingthe car in surprise. "Whatever accommodation my poor inn can afford isat your service;" and he at once shouted orders to a man to bring in mykit, while the women, all of them flat-faced peasants, made room for meat the stove.
From where I stood I could hear the sound of desultory firing across thebridge, and inquired what was in progress.
But there was an ominous silence. They did not reply; for, as Iafterwards discovered, they had taken me for a high police official fromPetersburg, thus accounting for the innkeeper's courtesy.
"Tell me," I said, addressing the wrinkle-faced old Pole, "what ishappening over yonder?"
"The Cossacks," he stammered. "Krasiloff and his Cossacks are upon us!They have just entered the town, and are shooting down peopleeverywhere. The fight for freedom has commenced, Excellency. But it ishorrible. A poor woman was shot dead before my door half an hour ago,and her body taken away by the soldiers."
Terrible reports of the Russian revolution had filtered through toEngland, but I had no idea when I started that I was bound forthe disturbed district. I inquired for the house of the CountessAlexandrovsky, and was directed to it--across the town, they said.With a glance to see that my revolver was loaded, I threw aside myshuba, and leaving the inn walked across the bridge into a poornarrow street of wretched-looking houses, many of them built of wood.A man limped slowly past me, wounded in the leg, and leaving blood-spotsbehind him as he went. An old woman was seated in a doorway, her faceburied in her hands, wailing--
"My poor son!--dead!--dead!"
Before me I saw a great barricade composed of trees, householdfurniture, paving-stones, overturned carts, pieces of barbed wire--infact, everything and anything the populace could seize upon for theconstruction of hasty defence. Upon the top, silhouetted against theclear, frosty sky, was the scarlet flag of the Revolution--the RedRooster was crowing!
Excited men were there, armed with rifles, shouting and giving orders.Then I saw that a small space had been left open against the wall of ahouse so that persons might pass and repass.
As I approached, a wild-haired man shouted to me and beckonedfrantically. I grasped his meaning. He wished me to come within. I ranforward, entered the town proper, and a few moments later the openingwas closed by a dozen slabs of stone being heaped into it by as manywilling hands.
Thus I, an inoffensive chauffeur, found myself in the very centre of theRevolution, behind the barricades, of which there were, it seemed, sixor seven. From the rear there was constant firing, and the streets inthe vicinity were, I saw to my horror, already filled with dead andwounded. I wondered why Count Bindo should come there--except, perhaps,that the Countess owned certain jewels that my master intended tohandle. Women were wailing over husbands, lovers, brothers; men overtheir daughters and wives. Even children of tender age were lyinghelpless and wounded, some of them shattered and dead.
Ah! that sight was sickening. It was wholesale butchery.
Above us bullets whistled as the Cossacks came suddenly round a sidestreet and made a desperate attack upon the barricade I had entered onlya few minutes before. A dozen of those fighting for their freedom fellback dead at my feet at the first volley. They had been on top of thebarricade, offering a mark to the troops of the Czar. Before us andbehind us there was firing, for behind was another barricade. We were,in fact, between two deadly fires.
Revolver in hand, I stood ready to defend my own life. In those excitingmoments I disregarded the danger I ran from being struck in thatveritable hail of lead. Men fell wounded all around me, and there wasblood everywhere. A thin, dark-haired young fellow under thirty--aMoscow student I subsequently heard--seemed to be the ringleader, forabove the firing could be heard his shouts of encouragement.
"Fight, my comrades!" he cried, standing close to me and waving the redflag he carried--the emblem of the Terror. "Down with the Czar! Kill thevermin he sends to us! Long live freedom! Kill them!" he shrieked. "Theyhave killed your wives and daughters. Men of Ostrog, remember your dutyto-day. Set an example to Russia. Do not let the Moscow fiasco berepeated here. Fight! Fight on as long as you have a drop of life-bloodin you, and we shall win, we shall win. Down with the Autocrat! Downwith the----"
His sentence was never finished, for at that instant he reeledbackwards, with half his face shot away by a Cossack bullet.
The situation was, for me, one of greatest peril. The whole place was inopen revolt, and when the troops broke down the defences, as I saw theymust do sooner or later, then we should all be caught in a trap, and noquarter would be given.
The massacre would be the same as at Moscow, and many other townsin Eastern Russia, wherein the populace had been shot downindiscriminately, and official telegrams sent to Petersburg reporting"Order now reigns."
I sought shelter in a doorway, but scarcely had I done so than a bulletembedded itself in the woodwork a few inches from my head. At thebarricade the women were helping the men, loading their rifles forthem, shouting and encouraging them to fight gallantly for freedom.
A yellow-haired young woman, not more than twenty, emerged from a houseclose by where I stood, and ran past me to the barricade. As she passedI saw that she carried something in her hand. It lo
oked like a smallcylinder of metal.
Shouting to a man who was firing through a loophole near the top of thebarricade, she handed it up to him. Taking it carefully, he scrambled uphigher, waited for a few moments, and then raising himself, he hurled itfar into the air, into the midst of an advancing troop of Cossacks.
There was a red flash, a terrific explosion which shook the whole town,wrecking the houses in the immediate vicinity, and blowing to atomsdozens of the Czar's soldiers.
A wild shout of victory went up from the revolutionists when they sawthe havoc caused by the awful bomb. The yellow-haired girl returnedagain, and brought another, which, after some ten minutes or so, wassimilarly hurled against the troops, with equally disastrous effect.
The roadway was strewn with the bodies of those Cossacks which GeneralKinski, the governor of the town, had telegraphed for, and whomKrasiloff had ordered to give no quarter to the revolutionists. InWestern Russia the name of Krasiloff was synonymous with all that wascruel and brutal. It was he who ordered the flogging of the five youngwomen at Minsk, those poor unfortunate creatures who were knouted byCossacks, who laid their backs bare to the bone. As everyone in Russiaknows, two of them, both members of good families, died within a fewhours, and yet no reprimand did he receive from Petersburg. By the Czar,and at the Ministry of the Interior, he was known to be a hard man, andfor that reason certain towns where the revolutionary spirit wasstrongest had been given into his hands.
At Kiev he had executed without trial dozens of men and women arrestedfor revolutionary acts. A common grave was dug in the prison-yard, andthe victims, four at a time, were led forward to the edge of the pit andshot, each batch being compelled to witness the execution of the fourprisoners preceding them. With a refinement of cruelty that was onlyequalled by the Inquisition, he had wrung confessions from women andafterwards had them shot and buried. At Petersburg they knew thesethings, but he had actually been commended for his loyalty to the Czar!
And now that he had been hurriedly moved to Ostrog the people knew thathis order to the Cossacks was to massacre the people, and moreespecially the Jewish portion of the population, without mercy.
Where was Bindo? I wondered.
"Krasiloff is here!" said a man whose face was smeared with blood, as hestood by me. "He intends that we shall all die, but we will fight forit. The Revolution has only just commenced. Soon the peasants will rise,and we will sweep the country clean of the vermin the Czar has placedupon us. To-day Kinski, the Governor, has been fired at twice, butunsuccessfully. He wants a bomb, and he shall have it," he addedmeaningly. "Olga--the girl yonder with the yellow hair--has one forhim!" and he laughed grimly.
I recognised my own deadly peril. I stood revolver in hand, though I hadnot fired a shot, for I was no revolutionist. I was only awaiting theinevitable breaking down of the barricade--and the awful catastrophethat must befall the town when those Cossacks, drunk with the lust forblood, swept into the streets.
Around me, men and women were shouting themselves hoarse, while the redemblem of terror still waved lazily from the top of the barricade. Themen manning the improvised defence kept up a withering fire upon thetroops, who, in the open road, were afforded no cover. Time after timethe place shook as those terrible bombs exploded with awful result, forthe yellow-haired girl seemed to keep up a continuous supply of them.They were only seven or eight inches long, but hurled into a company ofsoldiers their effect was deadly.
For half an hour longer it seemed as though the defence of the townwould be effectual, yet of a sudden the redoubled shouts of those aboutme told me the truth.
The Cossacks had been reinforced, and were about to rush the barricade.
I managed to peer forth, and there, sure enough, the whole roadway wasfilled with soldiers.
Yells, curses, heavy firing, men falling back from the barricade todie around me, and the disappearance of the red flag, showed that theCossacks were at last scaling the great pile of miscellaneous objectsthat blocked the street. A dozen of the Czar's soldiers appearedsilhouetted against the sky as they scrambled across the top of thebarricade, but next second a dozen corpses fell to earth, riddled bythe bullets of the men standing below in readiness.
In a moment, however, other men appeared in their places, and still moreand more. Women threw up their hands in despair and fled for their liveswhile men--calmly prepared to die in the Cause--shouted again andagain, "Down with Krasiloff and the Czar! Long live the Revolution!Victory for the People's Will!"
I stood undecided. I was facing death. Those Cossacks with orders tomassacre would give no quarter, and would not discriminate. Krasiloffwas waiting for his dastardly order to be carried out. The Czar hadgiven him instructions to crush the Revolution by whatever means hethought proper.
Those moments of suspense seemed hours. Suddenly there was anotherflash, a stunning report, the air was filled with debris, and a greatbreach opened in the barricade. The Cossacks had used explosives toclear away the obstruction. Next instant they were upon us.
I flew--flew for my life. Whither my legs carried me I know not. Women'sdespairing shrieks rent the air on every hand. The massacre hadcommenced. I remember I dashed into a long, narrow street that seemedhalf deserted, then turned corner after corner, but behind me, everincreasing, rose the cries of the doomed populace. The Cossacks werefollowing the people into their houses and killing men, women, and evenchildren.
Suddenly, as I turned into a side street, I saw that it led into a largeopen thoroughfare--the main road through the town, I expect. And there,straight before me, I saw that an awful scene was being enacted.
I turned to run back, but at that instant a woman's long, despairingcry reached me, causing me to glance within a doorway, where stood a bigbrutal Cossack, who had pursued and captured a pretty, dark-haired,well-dressed girl.
"Save me!" she shrieked as I passed. "Oh, save me, sir!" she gasped,white, terrified, and breathless with struggling. "He will kill me!"
The burly soldier had his bearded face close down to hers, his armsclasped around her, and had evidently forced her from the street intothe entry.
For a second I hesitated.
"Oh, sir, save me! Save me, and God will reward you!" she implored, herbig dark eyes turned to mine in final appeal.
The fellow at that moment raised his fist and struck her a brutal blowupon the mouth that caused the blood to flow, saying with a savagegrowl--
"Be quiet, will you?"
"Let that woman go!" I commanded in the best Russian I could muster.
In an instant, with a glare in his fiery eyes, for the blood-lust waswithin him, he turned upon me and sneeringly asked who I was to givehim orders, while the poor girl reeled, half stunned by his blow.
"Let her go, I say!" I shouted, advancing quickly towards him.
But in a moment he had drawn his big army revolver, and ere I becameaware of his dastardly intention, he raised it a few inches from herface.
Quick as thought I raised my own weapon, which I had held behind me, andbeing accredited a fairly good shot, I fired, in an endeavour to savethe poor girl.
Fortunately my bullet struck, for he stepped back, his revolver droppedfrom his fingers upon the stones, and stumbling forward he fell dead ather feet without a word. My shot had, I saw, hit him in the temple, anddeath had probably been instantaneous.
With a cry of joy at her sudden release, the girl rushed across to me,and raising my left hand to her lips, kissed it, at the same timethanking me.
Then, for the first time, I recognised how uncommonly pretty she was.Not more than eighteen, she was slim and petite, with a narrow waistand graceful figure--quite unlike in refinement and in dress to theother women I had seen in Ostrog. Her dark hair had come unbound inher desperate struggle with the Cossack and hung about her shoulders,her bodice was torn and revealed a bare white neck, and her chest heavedand fell as in breathless, disjointed sentences she thanked me again andagain.
There was not a second to lose, however. She was, I
recognised, aJewess, and Krasiloff's orders were to spare them not.
From the main street beyond rose the shouts and screams, the firing andwild triumphant yells, as the terrible massacre progressed.
"Come with me!" she cried breathlessly. "Along here. I know of a placeof safety."
And she led the way, running swiftly, for about two hundred yards, andthen turning into a narrow, dirty courtyard, passed through an evil,forbidding-looking house, where all was silent as the grave.
With a key, she quickly opened the door of a poor, ill-furnished room,which she closed behind her, but did not lock. Then, opening a dooron the opposite side, which had been papered over so as to escapeobservation, I saw there was a flight of damp stone stairs leading downto a cellar or some subterranean regions beneath the house.
"Down here!" she said, taking a candle, lighting it and handing it tome. "Go--I will follow."
I descended cautiously into the cold, dank place, discovering it tobe a kind of unlighted cellar hewn out of the rock. A table, a chair,a lamp, and some provisions showed that preparation had been made forconcealment there, but ere I had entirely explored the place my prettyfellow-fugitive rejoined me.
"This, I hope, is a place of safety," she said. "They will not find ushere. This is where Gustave lived before his flight."
"Gustave?" I repeated, looking her straight in the face.
She dropped her eyes and blushed. Her silence told its own tale. Theprevious occupant of that rock chamber was her lover.
Her name was Luba--Luba Lazareff, she told me. But of herself she wouldtell me nothing further. Her reticence was curious, yet before long Irecognised the reason of her refusal.
Candle in hand, I was examining the deepest recesses of the darkcavernous place, while she lit the lamp, when, to my surprise, Idiscovered at the farther end a workman's bench upon which were variouspieces of turned metal, pieces of tube of various sizes, and littlephials of glass like those used for the tiny tabloids for subcutaneousinjections.
I took one up to examine it, but at that instant she noticed me andscreamed in terror.
"Ah! sir, for Heaven's sake, put that down--very carefully. Touchnothing there, or we may both be blown to pieces! See!" she added in alow, intense voice of confession, as she dashed forward, "there arefinished bombs there! Gustave could not carry them all away, so he leftthose with me."
"Then Gustave made these--eh?"
"Yes. And see, he gave me this!" and she drew from her breast a smallshining cylinder of brass, a beautifully-finished little object aboutfour inches long. "He gave this to me to use--if necessary!" the girladded, a meaning flash in her dark eyes.
For a moment I was silent.
"Then you would have used it upon that Cossack?" I said slowly.
"That was my intention."
"And kill yourself as well as your assailant?"
"I have promised him," was her simple answer.
"And this Gustave? You love him? Tell me all about him. Remember, I amyour friend, and will help you if I can."
She hesitated, and I was compelled to urge her again and again ere shewould speak.
"Well, he is French--from Paris," she said at last, as we still stoodbefore the bomb-maker's bench. "He is a chemist, and being an Anarchist,came to us, and joined us in the Revolution. The petards thrown over thebarricades to-day were of his make, but he had to fly. He leftyesterday."
"For Paris?"
"Ah! how can I tell? The Cossacks may have caught and killed him. He maybe dead," she added hoarsely.
"Which direction has he taken?"
"He was compelled to leave hurriedly at midnight. He came, kissed me,and gave me this," she said, still holding the shining little bomb inher small white hand. "He said he intended, if possible, to get overthe hills to the frontier at Satanow."
I saw that she was deeply in love with the fugitive, whoever he mightbe.
Outside, the awful massacre was in progress we knew, but no sound of itreached us down in that rock-hewn tomb.
The yellow lamp-light fell upon her sweet, dimpled face, but when sheturned her splendid eyes to mine I saw that in them was a look ofanxiety and terror inexpressible.
I inquired of her father and mother, for she was of a superior class, asI had, from the first moment, detected. She spoke French extremely well,and we had dropped into that language as being easier for me thanRussian.
"What can it matter to you, sir, a stranger?" she sighed.
"But I am interested in you, mademoiselle," I answered. "Had I not been,I should not have fired that shot."
"Ah yes!" she cried quickly. "I am an ingrate! You saved my life;" andagain she seized both my hands and kissed them.
"Hark!" I cried, startled. "What's that?" for I distinctly heard a soundof cracking wood.
The next moment men's gruff voices reached us from above.
"The Cossacks!" she screamed. "They have found us--they have found us!"and the light died out of her beautiful countenance.
In her trembling hand she held the terrible little engine ofdestruction.
With a quick movement I gripped her wrist, urging her to refrain untilall hope was abandoned, and together we stood facing the soldiers asthey descended the stairs to where we were. They were, it seems,searching every house.
"Ah!" they cried, "a good hiding-place this! But the wall was hollow,and revealed the door."
"Well, my pretty!" exclaimed a big leering Cossack, chucking thetrembling girl beneath the chin.
"Hold!" I commanded the half-dozen men who now stood before us, theirswords red with the life-blood of the Revolution. But before I couldutter further word the poor girl was wrenched from my grasp, and theCossack was smothering her face with his hot, nauseous kisses.
"Hold, I tell you!" I shouted. "Release her, or it is at your ownperil!"
"Hulloa!" they laughed. "Who are you?" and one of the men raised hissword to strike me, whilst another held him back, exclaiming, "Let ushear what he has to say."
"Then, listen!" I said, drawing from my pocket-book a folded paper."Read this, and look well at the signature. This girl is under myprotection;" and I handed the document to the man who held little Lubain his arms. It was only my Foreign Office passport, but I knew theycould not read English and that it was a formidable screed, with itscoat-of-arms and visa.
The men, astounded at my announcement, read what they took to be someall-powerful ukase beneath the lamp-light, and took counsel amongthemselves.
"And who, pray, is this Jewess?" inquired one.
"My affianced wife," was my quick reply. "And I command you at once totake us under safe escort to General Krasiloff--quickly, without delay.We took refuge in this place from the Revolution, in which we have takenno part."
I saw, however, with sinking heart, that one of the men was examiningthe bomb-maker's bench, and had recognised the character of whatremained there.
He looked at us, smiled grimly, and whispered smoothly to one of hiscompanions.
Again, in an authoritative tone, I demanded to be taken to Krasiloff;and presently, after being marched as prisoners across the town, pastscenes so horrible that they are still vividly before my eyes, we weretaken into the chief police-office, where the hated official, a fat,red-faced man in a general's uniform--the man without pity or remorse,the murderer of women and children--was sitting at a table. He greetedme with a grunt.
"General," I said, addressing him, "I have to present to you this orderof my sovereign, King Edward, and to demand safe conduct. Your soldiersfound me and my----"
I hesitated.
"Your pretty Jewess--eh?" and a smile of sarcasm spread over his fatface. "Well, go on;" and he took the paper I handed him, knitting hisbrows again as his eyes fell upon the Imperial arms and the signature.
"We were found in a cellar where we had hidden from the revolt," I said.
"The place has been used for the manufacture of bombs," declared one ofthe Cossacks.
The General looked my pretty companion
straight in the face.
"What is your name, girl?" he demanded roughly.
"Luba Lazereff."
"Native of where?"
"Of Petersburg."
"What are you doing in Ostrog?"
"She is with me," I interposed. "I demand protection for her."
"I am addressing the prisoner, sir," was his cold remark.
"You refuse to obey the request of the King of England? Good! Then Ishall report you to the Minister," I exclaimed, piqued at his insolence.
"Speak, girl!" he roared, his black eyes fixed fiercely upon her. "Whyare you in Ostrog? You are no provincial--you know."
"She is my affianced wife," I said, "and in face of that document sheneed make no reply to any of your questions. Read what His Majestycommands."
"Thank you, sir. I have already read it." But I knew he could not readEnglish.
A short, stout little man, shabbily dressed, pushed his way forward tothe table, saying--
"Luba Lazareff is a well-known revolutionist, your excellency. TheFrench maker of bombs, Gustave Lemaire, is her lover--not thisgentleman. Gustave only left Ostrog yesterday." The speaker was, it wasplain, an agent of secret police.
"And where is Lemaire now? I gave orders for his arrest some days ago."
"He was found this morning by the patrol on the road to Schumsk,recognised and shot."
At this poor little Luba gave vent to a piercing scream, and burst intoa torrent of bitter tears.
"You fiends!" she cried. "You have shot my Gustave! He is dead--_dead_!"
"There was no doubt, I suppose, as to his identity?" asked the General.
"None, your Excellency. Some papers found upon the body have beenforwarded to us with the report."
"Then let the girl be shot also. She aided him in the manufacture of thebombs."
"Shot!" I gasped, utterly staggered. "What do you mean, General? Youwill shoot a poor defenceless girl--and in face of that ukase beforeyou--in face of my demand for her protection! I have promised hermarriage," I cried in desperation, "and you condemn her to execution!"
"My Emperor has given me orders to quell the rebellion, and all whomake bombs for use against the Government must die. His Majesty gave meorders to execute all such," said the official sternly. "You, sir, willhave safe-conduct to whatever place you wish to visit. Take the girlaway."
"But, General, reflect a moment whether this is not----"
"I never reflect, sir," he cried angrily; and rising from his chair withoutstretched hand, he snapped--
"How much of my time are you going to lose over the wench? Take heraway--and let it be done at once."
The poor condemned girl, blanched to the lips and trembling from head tofoot, turned quickly to me, and in a few words in French thanked me andagain kissed my hand, with the brief words, "Farewell, you have doneyour best. God will reward you!"
Then, with one accord, we all turned, and together went mournfully forthinto the street.
A lump arose in my throat, for I saw, as the General pointed out, thatmy pretended ukase did not extend beyond my own person. Luba was aRussian subject, and therefore under the Russian martial law.
Of a sudden, however, just as we emerged into the roadway, theunfortunate girl, at whose side I still remained, turned, and raisingher tearful face to mine, with sudden impetuosity kissed me.
Then, before any of us were aware of her intention, she turned, andrushed back into the room where the General was still sitting.
The Cossacks dashed back after her, but ere they reached the chamberthere was a terrific explosion, the air was filled with debris, the backof the building was torn completely out, and when, a few minutes later,I summoned courage to enter and peep within the wrecked room, I saw ascene that I dare not describe here in cold print.
Suffice it to say that the bodies of Luba Lazareff and General StephenKrasiloff were unrecognisable, save for the shreds of clothing thatstill remained.
Luba had used her bomb in revenge for Gustave's death, and she had freedRussia of the heartless tyrant who had condemned her to die.
An hour later I found the blackened ruins of the house of CountessAlexandrovsky, but hearing no news of Bindo I returned to the car, andset out again towards the Austrian frontier.
Yes, that brief run in Russia was full of excitement.