Grand Rapids Herald-Review Newspaper, April 22, 1899, Page 6

© THE BLACK TERROR A Romance of Russia. By JOHN K. LEYS. CHAPTER XXIX. Retribution. Of course I was not going to be tak- en back to: the castle without a strug- gle, and for several minutes we wrest- led for the mastery with all our might. No house was near, but there was al- ways a chance that someone might come by that way, and more than once the Prince shouted lustily for help. I was under a serious disadvantage, for, though I strove with all my might to free myself from the Prince's grasp, and used his Highness more roughly than he had probably ever been us¢ before, still I could not bring myself ce him to powetlessness by a The Prince, on the other hand, 1 no such scruples. He struck me eral times savagely on the face with his clenched fist, and these blows weakened me considerably. I was in a difficulty; for, cordial; the P I could not forget that he was the father of the girl I loved, and that the dearest wish of my heart was to have the right to call him by that sacred name. Yet I felt that I could not keep up the unequal fight much longer. The Prince was a strong, heavy v heavy for me to throw by main force. and I knew none of the tricks of the wrestler’s art. I did know something of boxing, but that was just the sci- ence that, for the time, was useless to me My strength was f: going, for the blows I had received every now and then had their effect, when the sound of sledge bells again fell on my ear. The Prince threw back his head and shouted for help. I had one hand fr and I was sorely tempted to grasp the great red throat of the man, and squeeze it until I had squeezed the breath out of it. I am glad now that I resisted the temy ion. The jingle of the bells sounded near- er and nearer. The sledge was not coming along the road; it Was coming down the avenue. But that mattered nething. The help the Prince had shouted for was at hand. Even if L had struck him to the earth—even if [ had killed him on the spot—I could not escape. I made up'my mind to yield; but before I could utter the word the Prince had knocked me down and grasping me by the throat. The horses were going at a gallop, but the man who was driving, seeing two men struggling together in the middle of the road, reined them in sud- denly and leaped out. “Hold him!” said the Prince to the newcomer; rose slowly to his feet, still holding my collar on one side, while the strang- er laid his grip on the other. They led ine up the avenue, perhaps a bundred yards: the sledge, driven by’ a second traveler, following slowly be- now,” said the stranger. I steod stock-still with amazement. as the voice of Paul Von Mitsch- He let go my collar, and the nee also let me go without thinking he was doing, so great was his mishment. So what they told me was true,” said the conspi yeaking with de- liberate incisivenes: ou have not merely broken your pledged word in respect of t gentleman, but yor would close his mouth forever | handing him over to the Czar—in ot er Wo you would have rewarded him for r asing you from pris sending him to the seaffeld. Cur reprobate! death is too good for Is there anything you can say in de fense of your conduct? No?” “You are entirely mistaken, my R00’ sir. You have been grossly misi formed,” said the Prince, after looking up the avenue and back towards the gates. “If you and Mr. Heath will come to the Castle with me, I shall be able to explain everything to your sat- tion, and carry out the promises which, in a moment of we: “You must think us fools like y self, if you expect us to walk into a trap so easil} id Von Mitschka, in a tone of scorn. Then, in another voice, as solemn as that of a judge pronouncing sentence, he said: “Your atrocious treachery has been reported to us, and you have been con- demned to die. If you can repent of your sins, do so, for your hour has come!” “No, no!” I cried. “It would be mur- der! >» matter what he has done to me, you must not kill him. Gr heavens! it would be too horrible For the space of a minute, we were all three silent, each one of us looking j from one to the other. Our faces w just visible in the light of the lamps ean standing close to us. “I repeat—make your peace with God, for you have not many moments to live,” said the Nihil ealm voice he had spoken in before. The Prince laughed, an uneasy laugh, and, for my part, I saw that Von Mitschka was in deadly ear- nest. I had learned that when he was ; most calm he was most dangerous. “You shall not do such a thing!’ I eried, seizing the Nihilist by the arm. He never stirred, but made an imper- ceptible movement with his head in my direction, and the look was under- stood. His companion stole up behind me, and before I had time to grapple with him he had flung his arms about me, carried me off my feet and thrown me down in the snow. I fell on my face, and I was still struggling to rise, when I heard the crack of a'revolver— then the sound of a heavy fall, a deep groan, and all was still. “So perish all traitors!” said Von Mitschka: and a guttural “Amen!” qwas whispered in response. and, panting heavily, he | k we have gone far enough | 1 by the sledge, which was now | , in the same ; I rose to my feet. What to say I did not know. I owed my liberty, if not my life, to this man. And he had set me free by committing what the world would ‘call a cold-blooded murder. To say that I was shocked and horrified is to say only the truth. But to say that I looked with abhorrence on the deed, or the man who had done it, would be untrue. Murder or no mur- der, on Mitschk words found me echo in my own sense of justice. Nev- | er was there a man who more de- ed to die. You will come with me?’ said Von Mitschka, as he moved towards the sledge. “It is not. particularly safe for you to-accompany me, but I can think of no better plan.” “1 cannot leave the Princess Irene,” said I. “I will go back to the castle.” “Are you mad?” said Von Mitschka, turning on me with a look of amaze- ment. “Don’t you see that everyone will take you for the murderer? Even you were to tell the truth about the —which I am sure you would not cept at the last extremity—you would not be believed.” o matter,” said I. the Princess Irene. lam going back. “I dare not stay now,” said this sin- ay man, “but if you will give me ress that will find you, I will write | to you. I gave him an address in London, | me, without offering to shake hands. I have no doubt that he thought I might hesitate to take in mine hand upon which, as it were, stain of blood was not yet dry. He oned to his companion, who had been examining the body of the Prince to make sure that life had fled. The | two men took their seats in the sledge, i the horses sprang for rd, and I was | left alone, standing beside the dead. | I feaned over the body, but I could not bring myself to touch it. A mor- sel of white paper had been fastened to the Prince’s.coat by Von Mitschka’s friend—no doubt a protest that it wa not a common murder that had been comnitted, but a deliberate act of re- prisal or of vengeance. I did not read it. After one look at the face of the/ corpse, I turned and ran back to the j and he left I knew it was the hour when the ants would be at supper, and that I would be sure to find the Princess Irene in the drawing room. Fortun- ately, I met no one as I made my way in at a side door and passed to the front of the building where the draw- ing room lay. Irene spang up from her low chair as I entered the room, and her white hands went up to her. throat. She ut- tered a cry of astonishment, and stared at me as though I had been a ghost. “Why are you here?” she gasped. I said, going close up to her, “I have come back te tell you—I bring you sad news.” *Is it about my father?’ she whis- 1 ent.” trembling, into the nearest at. “Where is he? How did it happen? But was it an accident? Are you sure that it was not a man’s hand ‘that ! killed him? Oh, what am I saying? } Take me to him!’ “He is past your help, or the help of anyone.” I said, gravel “And you vight. It was no accident that killed him. I had nothing to do with his death. I tried to prevent it, but L was myself taken unawares and over- powered. All the same, if it ever be- ‘comes known that I was at liberty during the time he met with his death-~ wound, I will be looked upon as his murderer. I repeat that; as I hope for mercy hereafter, Thad no part in his death. But I will die for it if my flight has been discovered. I think only you and the man you bribed know that I have not been in the tow- ev room all this time. He will keep his own counsel, we may be sure; so all you have to do is to send for me some time to-night, or to-morrow morn- ing, to let the gaoler know that I am still in the tower-room. And if you for the Prince, and say that some- one had better go to meet him, you will then learn—all there is to know.” I spoke hurriedly, knowing that my one chance lay in reachtag the room in which I had been confined before anyone in the Castle saw me, and the moment the last word left my lips I rushed out. It was fortunate that it was, as I have said, the servants’ supper hour, or I must have been noticed half & dozen times on my way to the tower. As it was, I saw no one, Only 1 heard at a distance the sound of the servants laughing and chatting over their meal. The-door at the foot of the stairs had been closed but not locked. I pulled it open, sprang up the narrow stone steps, and in anoth- er second was safe in the room T thought never to see again. Half an hour later the door of my cell was pushed gently open; a cunning, fright- ened face peered in, and was quickly gone. Then the key was turned in the lock, and I was again a prisoner. * * * * * * ‘Three days later the Prince was con- signed to his last home on earth. Late in the afternoon the Princess Irene ent for me, I was conducted to the sat hall, where she sat at a table! covered with papers and parchments, A number of grave, elderly men, whom I supposed to be neighboring magnates, were on the right and left of her. I was marched up to the table | between two of the servants of the castle. “This is the gentleman I told you of.” she said, never looking at me, but turn- ing her eyes now to the left and now to the right, “As you know, he is the “My. place is | | privat ! vor person whom the Prince, my father,] whom I could rely. . I. traveled as chose to superintend the new build-| his servant, . ings and make plans for them. He has been absent for some weeks, and when “The Committee had already signed a conditional decree condemning the he presented himself at the castle the | Prince to death in the eyent of his be- other evening, my father, doubtless traying you, and my companion and I for some wise reason, had him ar-} were charged to put the decree into rested. But, unfortunately, he did not mention his reason for making Mr. Heath a prisoner to anyone—certainly not to me. I might send him to St. Petersburg, but it seems to me that it would be rather foolish to send a pris- oner to St. Petersburg without. men- tioning what he is accused of.” “Perhaps the man has been embez- zling,” croaked an old, lawyer-like man from the end of the table. “It| lived, treacherous and cruel. execution if we found that cireum- stances warranted our doing so. We learned enough at the castle to make us certain that it was you whom the Prince had imprisoned in+the tower, and we did not mean to leave the vi- cinity until we had made an effort to set you at liberty. As you know, fate delivered that prince of scoundrels in- to our hands. He died as he had We will may be that an examination of the| speak of him no more. Prince’s money affairs will yield us a clew to the mystery.” “You have not heard how matters went after you left the Alexandr “No, no!” exclaimed Irene, a little | Our plans succeeded to perfection. No too eagerly, I thought. never had anything to do with money matters.” “Mr. Heath} one imagined—how could anyone im- agine?—that the steward whom his mate half-tipsy | under- were kindly “Still, the Prince would not have a¥-| assisting to walk ashore, in the midst rested him without good reason,” per-| of feeble protests from him, was the sisted the old man. “No doubt—if we only knew what it said the Princess, with a medi- tative air. “Why not question him?” said the] boat from the Narka was waiting to lawyer. “Here, you, sir. What had you, been doing that caused the Prince to have you arrested?’ e T made no answer to him; and when the Princess repeated the question, forcing herself, as I saw, to look me in the face, I answered firmly, but with deep respect, that I had not been j guilty of any wrong-doing; that I be-| lieved the Prince had made a mistake in arresting me. “All the same, I should send him to St Petersburg,” said the lawyer, spite- fully. “ “In that case,” sald I, “I shall cer- demand compensation from the ze, threugh the British beg her Highness will get that I am a British subject, and that I came to this country on the 1 | invitation of the late Prince, her fath- “It seems to me,” said the Princess, g, as if ¢0 show that the discus- nm was at an end, “that it would serve no gdod purpose, and might lead to future troubles, if I were to detain this gentleman in custody any longer. You will see that he is set at liberty at once, and that a sledge and horses are provided to carry him to the neare: town at which he can hire a sledg And, without another look at. me went on with some other business, I purpesely delayed my preparations. that I might give the Princess an op- portunity of speaking to me again in But I suppose she fow i impossible to do this. I left the C without a sight of her, without a word. It was not until I had reached No- K nd was in the act of handing a douceur to the man who had driven me from Lovyna, that he pulled out an envelope, dirty from contact with his pocket, and, without a word, put it into my hand, It bore no address, but inside was a slip of paper, containing the words, hurriedly ‘scrawled in Irene’s hand- writing: “If your heart leads you, go to In- sterburg, across the Prussian frontier, and wait for me there.” CHAPTER XXX. A Farewell Letter. As I thought it safer to travel on foot, my progress was slow; and it | Was nearly three weeks before I ar- rived at Insterburg. Irene was not in the town, and I was tortured by the thought that she had kept the tr and, not finding me, had gone back to Russia. But fate was not so unkind to us. | ilway station for: After haunting the r 3 some days, I canght sight of the face that was dearest to me at the ~indow of a railway carriage; and the next moment we had forgotten our anxiety in the rapture of our meeting. Irene told me she had delayed in the hope of being able to save something cut of her father’s estate. But she had not been successful. Prince Kro- penski had left nothing behind him but the family estates, which were practically entailed upon his cousin, and a considerable number of debts. She had nothing in the world, she told me, beyond. the clothes in her trunks and a few thousand roubles left to her by her mother. =. She went on to say that Count Alex- is, now Prince Kropenski, had tried to prevent her obtaining a passport, and that she had been obliged to pretend that she meant to spend the winter in Iialy before she could get permission to leave the country. We left Insterburg next day, and arriyed safely in London, where, after the senseless delay imposed by the law. we were joined together for life. Yes! Wildly improbable as it had seemed at. one time that my dreams would ever be anything but dreams, ti.e Princess Irene and I were actually married. We went to Teignmouth for our short honeymoon, and came back to town early in January. On the day after our return I took my wife into the city to see my office, which I had not given up during my engagement in Russia. My room looked drearier than usual on that gloomy winter's morning, with a fire half-buried under half a peck of coal dust, and a blind- ing yellow fog instead of air. How- ever, these discomforts were forgotten as we caught sight of one or two for- eign letters on my desk. 1 snatched up one and tore it open. It w as I expected, from Von Mitschka. But I knew this only from the contents of the sheets, It bore nei- ther the customary address nor signa- ture. “You must have been surprised,” it began, “that I appeared at Lovna when’ * T did. But, as the most important part of our work was over, I had time to attend to your affairs. From the first I expected that, notwithstanding his solemn promise, the treacherous hound of a noble might play us false, and 1 sent one or two men to make inquiries ; at Loyna. Before they returned, I heard, from the landlord of the inn at Virnorsk that stranger, who called himself a-German and seemed to be very determined to get to Lovyna, had stopped a night at his house. When L she } Czar of All the Russias. He was tak- en in a carriage that was in waiting at a little distance, and driven to a solitary spot on the shore, where #& receive him. Tour days later His M esty was safely immured in the secret 2. “There he remains—well treated, ac- cording to our promise to you—thou, we should have treated the captive monarch well in any case. We have no quarrel with him, but only with the intolerable system of tyranny, which he has inherited. “I fear the seclusion. of His Majesty may last some time. But the situa- {tion can only end in one way. The people about the Court have kept the secret well. Not a soul out of Russia, and yery few in Russia, suspect the truth. I trust you have some tim> since safely landed in England, and that by this time you have received the reward for which you risked so much. | Allow me to convey to you the united | thanks of the Committee, and to as- sure you that you have contributed in no small measure to the liberation of my unhappy country., Farewell!” On the fourth page of the sheet I read a postscript: “T open the envelope to s: morning, quite unexpected sent for my, and told me that he ceded to all our demands! not tell the emotions that sv my heart and filled my eyes to over- flowing as I listened to the gracious words that told ma that the fond de- ire we had cherished was to be, at st, fulfilled. Ye our country, after i centuries of sem’ nation of freemen! “We have promised to set free all our prisoners. Our establishment here will be broken up. “The Czar, with true royal generosi- ty, having once made up his mind, made no difficulties about the precise lterms of the compact. Henceforth he is to reign only as a constitutional sov- ereign. His will is to be no longer above the law. A parliament is to be ‘at once convoked, and representative government is to be gradually intro- ; duced. We are to have no more mar- tial law, no more secret trials, no more detentions in prisons for an indefinite time without trial, no more press pros- ecutions, no more arbitrary suspen- sions of newspapers, no more childish oiling of foreign journals by a pub- lic censor, no more opening of private leiters in the postoffice, no more flog- ; ging of wretched peasants because i they cannot pay their taxes, no more robbing prisoners of their food. The acceptance of a bribe by a government official will mean instant dismissal and a year’s imprisonment. These changes will transform the face of Russia in five years’ time. Czar 1s to be taken back to at once, and restored secretly palace, so that his recent experi- ences and the reason of the adminis- trative changes which are to follow, will be known to none but the mem- bers of the Committee, the Czar and yourself. In a‘ few weeks shall know whether the word of a monarch is any better than that of a simple prince.My belief is that the Czar is to be trusted. We shall see. Again, farewell.” i My wife had been reading with me, | line by line. When we had finished, I turned and looked into her beautiful eyes. “Tam so glad!” she murmured; but there was something in her face that I did not understand, “What is the matter, Irene?’ I asked. “You have had a letter, too, I see. Have you had bad news?’ “It is very sad news,” said she, turn- ing away her head. “The letter is from my lawyers. They tell me that iy cousin—has been killed—in a duel— with an aid-de-camp of the Czar.” “Must you go to Russia?’ I asked, after a pause. “They seem to think it will be neces sary. ‘My couSin left no will.” ” We went together to Insterburg, and I waited there, while my wife, resum- ing for the time her maiden naine and title, went on to St. Petersburg and ar- ranged her affairs. Some of the land she bestowed upon the tenants who tilled it; the rest she sold, and the meney arising from the sale is suffi- cient to give me a good start in my profession and to insure us against want. When all had been settled, we returned to England, where we have made our home. It is doubtful wheth- er we shall ever revisit Russia. Cer- inly, years must pass, old memories must grew dim and old woufids cease | to burn before my wife and I care to see again the land of the Black Ter- ror. , H (The End., ' Child Was Not to Blame. King Oscar Il. of Sweden takes a deep interest in elementary education, and, going into a girls’ school began to | put the pupils through their history. ‘. “Can you mame some of the great tings of Sweden?” he asked. “Gustavus Adolphus,” answered one. “Charles XII,” put in another. “Oscar IL,” then chimed in a very small girl, in a very short frock. The king, hugely diverted, eyed his novel sycophant for a moment, ana then asked her to name some great achievement of his reign. “I don’t know one,” the child said, and she began to ery. “Don’t cry on that account,” the king added, patting her on the head. heard that, I set out for Lovna at| “Truth to tell, I don’t know one my- once, accompanied by a friend upon] self.” avery, is to be a of knowledge of the trouble belief in her advice at once inspires hope. This of itself is a great help. O* reason Mrs. Pinkham’s treatment helps women so promptly is that they have confidence inher. § |_| Through some of the many thousands of Mis. 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