THE PLAYGROUND OF SATAN




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Title: The Playground of Satan
Author: Beatrice Baskerville
Release Date: December 04, 2012 [EBook #41560]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8


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[Illustration: Cover]




                                  THE
                         Playground _of_ Satan


                                   BY
                          BEATRICE BASKERVILLE

                               AUTHOR OF
            "Baldwin’s Kingdom," "When Summer Comes Again,"
                  "Their Yesterday," "The Polish Jew,"
           English Translation Of Gogol’s "Taras Bulba," Etc.



                                NEW YORK
                          W. J. WATT & COMPANY
                               PUBLISHERS




                          Copyright, 1918, BY
                          W. J. WATT & COMPANY




                                   TO
                            Janina Korsakova
                               WITH LOVE

                              _Rome_, 1917




                        THE PLAYGROUND OF SATAN



                                   I


Ian went into his mother’s sitting-room, carrying an open telegram.

"Roman Skarbek has wired for horses to meet the express from Posen," he
remarked.  "He says it’s important business."

As Countess Natalie looked up from her letter--she wrote hundreds a
year--her hazel eyes twinkled with a mischievous thought.

"Roman and business, indeed!  He’s after Vanda."

Ian’s brows contracted over his clear gray eyes; they were of the kind
you find in outdoor men, used to gazing over long distances and watching
for wild fowl to come out of the rushes at the dawn of day.  Vanda was
his cousin, and an orphan; she had lived at Ruvno since her babyhood.

"Give me a cigarette," said his mother, leaving her letter.

He obeyed, offered one to Minnie, who refused, and lit another for
himself.  The two smoked on in silence for awhile.  Roman Skarbek was
his cousin, too, though not Vanda’s.

"I don’t think so," he said.

"Why?" asked his mother.

"He’s been to Monte Carlo.  If he’s had any luck he’ll want some
horses."

"He never had any luck.  No.  It’s Vanda.  _She’s_ in love."

"Vanda in love?"  He laughed.  "Nonsense!"

"Why not?" put in Minnie, the English girl, from her seat in the window.

He did not answer.  His mother went on:

"Something has happened to Vanda lately.  I don’t know what, yet.  When
she was stopping with Aunt Eugenie she must have seen Roman every day.
They rode together, too."

He walked over to the long window which opened into the rose garden.  On
the sward beneath it, thirty years ago, his father was shot in a famous
duel with the rakish Prince Mniszek, neighbor and quondam friend.

"What will you say to him, if it is?" he asked.

The Countess considered.  In her little world marriages were "arranged,"
thought out with the help of the Almanach de Gotha and a profound
knowledge of the young couple’s incomes, debts, acres and ancestors.

"Roman," she said, "is generous and chivalrous.  I shouldn’t mind
helping him with his debts, if he’d only stop gambling."

"Does a man ever stop?"

"Not when it’s got into his blood," said Minnie.

"It’s in his right enough," rejoined Ian.  He gambled, too, but with
circumspection, unhampered by passion.

"I wonder what he sees in Vanda," the Countess mused.

"She’s a charming girl," remarked Minnie.

Ian went out, his setters following him.  An hour later he sought the
two women with another telegram, finding them in the rose garden.  The
Countess walked with a stick, though she was only sixty.  Her hair was
perfectly white and her face much lined.  Perhaps her youth, so full of
interests and emotions, had faded too soon.  But she looked the great
lady she was, queen of herself and fit to rule Ruvno, with its
traditions, its wealth and dignity.

"Here’s Joseph now," he announced.  "Wants to be met at the afternoon
train from Warsaw."

"Which Joseph?" asked Minnie.  "You know a dozen."

"Roman’s brother."

"What does he want?" asked the Countess.

"Vanda," he returned, a twinkle in his eye.

They walked down the garden together, Ian and Minnie sparring gently, as
often happened.  But his mother was thinking of Vanda again, for she
said at last:

"If I were her, I’d choose Roman.  Joe is cold."

"I’m sure they’re coming to see us, that’s all," said Ian.  "They’re
coming from opposite directions.  I’ll send a motor for Roman.  He’s
always in such a hurry.  Joe can have horses."

And again he left them.

Until August, in the year of strife nineteen hundred and fourteen, you
could find no pleasanter country house than Ruvno, Poland.  It stood a
little way back from the high road between Warsaw and Kutno, slightly on
a hill, surrounded by pines and hardy hornbeams which guarded it, like
sentinels, from the gaze of passers by.  It had stood thus for
centuries, ever since another Ian, Lord of Ruvno, built him a great
house with the spoils of war against the Turk, laying the foundation of
a hard-fighting, hard-living race, good for anything on earth but trade,
always ready for a row, out of sheer love for adventure and broken
heads.  And of adventures they had full share, both in love and war.
All the hordes of Europe passed over their land during the centuries;
for Poland is Europe’s eastern battlefield, as Belgium is her western.
And the plows were forever turning up human bones, which lay where they
fell; and human treasure, which lay where it was buried, either because
the owners failed to find it when peace came again or because they
happened to go where neither Turk nor Swede, Russian nor Prussian, could
trouble them more.

And so the domestic history of Ruvno, half fortress, half palace, filled
many parchment volumes.  I am not going to bore you with it; but quite
recently, as Ruvno counts time, Napoleon slept there when on his
luckless march to Moscow.  And he supped at the large oaken table which
was carved out of Ruvno oak long before the discovery of America brought
mahogany to Poland. And in his clumsy, violent way, he made love to the
reigning Countess of Ruvno, toasting her in that Hungarian wine which
looks like liquid sunshine and makes your feet like lead.  Some of the
same vintage still lingered in the cellars when one smaller than
Napoleon crossed the Polish borders a hundred years later.

Napoleon, remembering the good cheer, paused here again to take breath
on his homeward flight.  But this time there was neither toasting nor
courting.  The Countess, in solitude, wept for her gallant husband,
whose body lay at Beresina, his gay tongue frozen forever, his blue eyes
staring up at the stars in the fixed gaze of death.  So the great man
sat at the dead one’s board, silent and sullen, surrounded by the weary,
ragged remnants of his staff.  Those who were in Ruvno that night said
that he paced his room, restless and sleepless, till daybreak.  Then he
went his way, no longer a conquerer, but a fugitive.

A century later, Ruvno belonged to another widow and her son Ian, ruddy
of face and broad in the shoulder.  They were both up to date.  They
spoke English and French, and followed the fashions of western Europe.
But their hearts and souls were with Poland, not only because they loved
her, but because, too, race is stronger than love and hatred and death
itself.

Ian spent most of his time on the Ruvno estate, and his mother’s
patrimony in Lithuania; but Ruvno was his heart’s beloved.  The
Lithuanian estate was let on a long lease.  He had a lively sense of his
responsibilities, knowing that two watchful neighbors, Russia and
Prussia, were ever working to denationalize the country and stamp out
his race.  His many acres were well cultivated, the peasants who worked
on them well cared for.  Though the Russian government forbade Polish
schools, he and his mother saw to it that the children on their land
learned to read and write their mother tongue.  The Agricultural Society
that had spread its branches all over Poland, despite opposition from
Russian bureaucracy, had no more energetic member than he.  Modern
machinery and methods were rapidly replacing the old throughout the
country, which was prosperous and enterprising.  Ian did his share of
this good work with intelligence and cheerfulness.

He thoroughly enjoyed his life; was a keen hunter; had no hankering
after urban pleasures; knew no debt, confined his distractions to
racing, in which he was moderate, and to a very occasional supper party
after the opera, in Warsaw, Paris or Vienna.

To his mother he felt bound by a degree of affection and sympathy which
rarely survive a son’s early childhood.  Other women bored him.  His
name had not been linked with one, of good repute or bad.  Indeed, his
circumspection with the opposite sex had become a joke among his
friends, who teased him about it and searched for some well-hidden
passion.  But they did not find one, and contented themselves with
dubbing him a woman-hater; which he was not.  He knew he must marry some
day; for what would become of Ruvno without an heir?  But as the
pleasant years slipped by, he told himself there was still time.  And
far down in his heart he had always relied upon Vanda.

Did he love her?  The question rapped him as he left the rose garden for
the paddock.  He thought not. He liked to have her in the house, driving
with his mother, keeping her company, helping her to entertain visitors
during the shooting season, or going with her to Warsaw for shopping and
the play.  He knew she was fond of him; accepted her affection as he
accepted so many other things which were daily facts in his existence.
In the rare moments when he thought about marriage at all he comforted
himself with the reflection that she was there, ready for the asking
when the inevitable day came.  It never crossed his mind that she might
refuse.  It would be so comfortable, one day, to wed her.  Life would be
the same as before. His mother would go on living with them; Vanda would
wear the family jewels; the rooms that had been his own nurseries would
be reopened and refurnished.  And in due time little people would play
and sleep in them as he and Vanda had done.

He was shy of other girls; they bored him; he never knew what to talk
about.  And he would have had to woo anybody but Vanda; no girl with any
self-respect would marry him without preliminaries in which compliments
and attention played a large part.  Vanda did not ask to be wooed.  They
had met daily for years.  And she was so suitable; so comely and
well-bred, so thoroughly sound in her ideas of life, marriage and
society.  She would not want to drag him off to Monte Carlo and Paris
every year.  She loved the country, and Ruvno; knew his life and would
not expect him to change it.  Another bride might have all kinds of
ideas in her head, might not like the place, or his mother, from whom he
refused to be parted, whatever happened.  Therefore her remarks about
the Skarbeks worried him; if she noticed a difference in Vanda, then a
difference there must be.  He had not noticed it; but then he was
particularly interested in some alterations that he was making in the
Home Farm and had not paid much attention to her and to Minnie Burton,
the English girl who was staying with them.  He and Minnie "got on" very
well; she was a good horsewoman and a good comrade; rode about with him
and Vanda, quite content to talk of whatever work happened to be going
on at Ruvno, or not to talk at all.  He had been to England a good deal,
spent a couple of years at Oxford after leaving Theresarium and made
friends with Minnie’s two brothers, who were coming to Ruvno for
shooting in a month’s time.  She was to return home with them.

Thus the summer had been passing very pleasantly. Crops were promising,
the weather kept fine.  Life had never seemed fairer, he and the two
girls had agreed that very morning, on their way back to breakfast after
an early canter.

And now, the aspect was subtly changed.  He looked up at the sky; it was
still clear.  There would be no rain; his hay was safe.  What meant this
feeling of vague unrest?  Vanda?  The idea was absurd.  Both brothers
could not be coming after her.  Roman and Joseph were as different as
any two men of one class and race can be.  No; they were after horses,
or Roman wanted to buy an estate in the neighborhood. He had often
spoken of it; all he needed was the cash.  Perhaps he had won plenty at
Monte Carlo and was coming to spend it.  Joseph, with his business head,
was meeting him to see he did not spend foolishly.  That was the whole
thing in a nutshell. Anyway, they would be here before long.

Near the paddock he met Vanda.  He was glad; he wanted to watch her
face.

"Not so fast," he called out as she was running past with a nod.  "Where
are you going?"

"Aunt Natalie.  I promised to give her an address and forgot all about
it.  My filly is better.  I’ve just been there."

"You’re very smart to-day," he remarked.

She looked down at her skirts.

"It’s a hundred years old.  You’ve seen it dozens of times."

"And very bonny," he added.  And so she was. She had pretty brown hair
and soft brown eyes, carried herself well and bore the marks of the
healthy outdoor life they all led at Ruvno.  A sweet wholesome girl, he
thought, not for the first time, but with more interest than ever
before.  He did not guess that under her quiet manner lay a capacity for
a deep passion; and pride to quell it.

She blushed at his compliment; he rarely gave her one.

"The Skarbeks are coming," he said, watching her closely.  She was
frankly pleased, but he noticed she did not blush again.

"Oh, how nice.  It’s years since they were here together.  We can have
some long rides."  And she left him.

He watched her closely at lunch; but failed to see signs of the change
which his mother professed to find in her.  And he felt relieved.
Nevertheless, he thought about her a good deal during the afternoon; the
vague uneasiness of the morning returned.  After all, she might find a
lover elsewhere, marry him and leave Ruvno forever.  He would have to do
something to avoid that; and without further delay.  He had waited too
long.  He never doubted that she would marry him.  True, he had not made
love to her; but they were such good friends, and he had always been
fond of her in a quiet, unquestioning way, without passionate
discomforts.  Yes, he must secure her before another man stole her
affections. He went to speak to his mother about it.

He came to this decision whilst riding back from some meadows; but the
Countess he found sitting under the chestnuts behind the garden with
Minnie and Father Constantine, the chaplain who had lived with them for
years and taught Ian his catechism and the Latin declensions.  A moment
later Vanda joined them.  So he put off again.  He would wait till the
evening, when he always had a quiet chat with his mother, in her
dressing-room.

The Skarbeks met in the Countess’ sitting-room.

"You here?" was Roman’s curt greeting.  Ian noted the tone and wondered
what they had quarreled about.

Joseph kissed his aunt’s hand before replying.  They were both fine men,
alike in figure, unlike in feature and temperament; both on the right
side of thirty, straight, lissome and as thoroughbred as you please.
Roman was dark, generous, lithe; Joseph fair, blue-eyed and cold.
Matchmaking mothers were very civil to him; but their daughters liked
Roman better.

"I’ve come from Warsaw," remarked Joseph at his leisure.  He looked
round the room, presumably for Vanda; but he did not ask for her.  Ian
knew she was sitting in the garden with Minnie.  It was unnatural for
her to hold aloof thus; his uneasiness grew.

"I’d no idea you were coming," said Roman hotly. "I ought to have been
here sooner."  He turned to his aunt.  "It’s no use mincing words; I’ve
come to ask for Vanda."

"For Vanda!" echoed Ian blankly.  Then he turned from them, to compose
his face.

"Joe has cone for her, too," pursued Roman.  "It’s in his face.  It’s
just as well to have it out at once. She must choose for herself."

"Yes," said Ian quietly.  "Vanda must make her own choice.  She is quite
free."  Privately, he determined to speak to her himself, as soon as he
could escape from the room with decency.

"You followed me," said Roman to his brother.

"No.  I thought you were still gambling."  Joseph spoke with a sneer.
How well Ian remembered it; it used to drive him to fury in their boyish
days, and many a fight had it caused between him and the superior
Joseph, who could use his fists all the same.

"If I win her I’ll never touch a card again," cried Roman.

"You forget your debts," his brother retorted.

"Debts!" fairly shouted the other.  "Look here, all of you!"

Out of inner pockets, he drew bulky pocket-books, took banknote after
banknote and put them side by side on a table.  And when there was no
room for them to lie singly he set them three and four deep, till a
fortune lay there, in the evening sunlight.

"Look at them!  Count them!" he cried in triumph. "Where are my debts
now?"

They gazed at the money in silent wonder.  Never had they seen so big a
harvest from turf or green table.  The Countess smiled across at Ian; he
said something in a careless undertone.  He would not let even her see
what was on his mind.

"It’s a haul," admitted Joseph.  "You must have broken the bank."

"Luck.  Six weeks of it.  And now I’ve done with gambling forever."

He crammed the notes away carelessly, as men treat money lightly won.
He paced the room, talking.

"I was afraid of it," he admitted.  "I wanted to win.  But it grew so
huge that it became a menace. Luck at play, no luck in love.  And
now..." he swung round to his brother: "I meet you here."

"It’s unfortunate," remarked Joseph.

"Unfortunate?  It’s Destiny!  Oh, you’ll have the family on your side; I
don’t blame ’em.  You’re a deuced-good match, well off, sober,
economical.  I’m not.  I don’t pretend to be."  He measured the room
with his long stride, and hurled at Joseph: "But I’ve something you
haven’t!"

"You?"  This with a sneer.  Ian felt inclined to punch his head, as in
years gone by.

"Me.  It’s love.  You don’t know what it means. Men like you--" he
jerked his head at Ian--"and Ian there, can’t love.  You want to keep up
the race, that’s all.  What could you do to prove your love?"

Ian said nothing, though the challenge was for him as well.  Was Roman’s
reproach true?  Was this new uneasiness, that fast became pain, love, or
but wounded pride?

"I’ll ask her to marry me," Joseph was saying. "Offer my name, home,
protection and ... and affection."

"Ah ... affection!" and Roman laughed.

"What more can any man offer?" put in Ian.

Roman was at the door now.  He threw them a stream of hot words over his
shoulder, and left the room.  He was going to her.

There was silence after he left.  Ian tried to say something, but
failed.  The brothers were poaching on his preserves; yet he could not
find the words to tell them so.  And now Roman had gone to her, and
again he must wait.  What a fool he had been!  He was angry with them
and furious with himself for being angry.  The whole business was a
nuisance. But, after all, why should he mind?  Sitting on one of the
broad window-sills, he lighted a cigarette and tried to calm his
thoughts.  Some time passed.  He heard Joseph and his mother talking in
low tones at the far end of the room, and was glad they did not expect
him to talk.  What was Roman telling Vanda now?  He was the sort of man
girls always liked.  Words would never fail in his wooing.  A
spendthrift, a gambler, yes; but handsome, full of life, eloquent.
There was the rub.  He, Ian, had always to search for words when he
wanted to speak of things near his heart.  Roman, as a lover, surpassed
him by untold lengths.  He realized that now. And yet Roman, as a
husband, could hardly give happiness; but girls don’t think of those
things till it is too late.  And he could not go and tell Vanda so,
either. He had had years in which to tell her many things; and he had
wasted them.  Now, when seconds were of importance, he could not even
get her alone.

He shook the ash off his cigarette, watching it fall on to the bed
outside; glanced at the other two, and determined to go to the stables.
He had only to slide his legs over the window-sill and be off.  They
would not notice his departure, and he would be alone, unwatched, free
to shake off this sudden malaise and regain his old composure.  He
wanted solitude; had new thoughts to worry out, vague awakenings which
he must stifle.  He wanted to be quite honest with himself, to examine
his heart, free it of this new burden and go back to the old, quiet life
of yesterday, of this morning even.

But he did not move.  He knew he would not till Roman came back.  Would
he come hand-in-hand with Vanda, or alone?  He would not come alone.
Vanda would take him and there would be a wedding.  That meant a lot of
fuss.  He had put off his own wedding year by year to avoid a pother,
and here it came, all the same.  And with the same bride, too: only the
bridegroom and best man had changed places.  Roman was right.  Destiny
played odd tricks.  He would see Vanda go off with another man; give her
away to an unconscious rival.  Was it going to hurt?

Suddenly the door opened.  Roman burst in.  He was alone; he addressed
Ian.

"Can I have a car, at once?" he asked.  His sunburnt face was drawn, his
eyes haggard.  No need to ask for Vanda’s answer.  It was written all
over him. They rose; the Countess took his hand and said something to
him, Ian knew not what.  A load had fallen from his heart.  Vanda still
cared for him.  Sweet, loyal little Vanda!  He might have known it, and
saved himself all that worry.

"But you’re not going yet?" he said.

"I am.  I’ll be in Warsaw to-night; and, by God, I’ll never go home
again.  Will you order the car, old man?"

"If you must go."  Ian walked towards the bell that lay on his mother’s
writing-table.  Roman turned to Joseph.

"I put it to her, squarely," he said in hoarse tones. "You’ve won.
She’s in the library."  And he strode from the room before any of them
could speak.

Ian rang the bell and stood by the table, his back to the others.  He
had heard every word that Roman said and it burnt his brain, if not his
heart.  So Joseph had won!  It was preposterous.  Roman as a rival he
could bear.  But that cold, selfish prig!  He could never give a woman
happiness.  Vanda must be saved from herself.  And he would do it.

Mastering his face, he turned round, ready with passionate words to save
Vanda from Joseph, to use his authority as head of the family.  But the
room was empty.




                                   II


Roman tumbled into the car the moment it was ready and insisted on
taking the wheel.  Ian gave in, though he knew his cousin for a wild
driver at the best of times.

They went off at breakneck speed.  The road was clear, for it happened
to be Friday night, when Jews are at rest, so that factors, omnibuses
and other vehicles which belong to the children of Israel east of the
Vistula did not get in the way.  On they rushed through the cool, dark
night, past fields of whispering corn, ready for cutting; skirting
forests of tall trees, racing through little villages where savage dogs,
let loose for the night, chased them, barking like the wolves with whom
they shared parentage, till lack of breath held them in; past flat
country, rich in soil well tilled, past rare towns where no lights shone
except for here and there a candle-decked table where Jews hailed the
Sabbath in squalid tenements; past a rare wagon of non-Jewish ownership,
with the driver fast asleep, his team in the middle of the highway, deaf
to hooting and shouting; past, in short, the various sights and sounds
of the Polish country-side, where life is simpler than in England and
men stick closer to mother earth.  Ian loved it all; even the Jews he
accepted as part of the picture, though his race was divided from theirs
by a deep gulf; he loved the chilly breeze, the stately pine forests,
the night birds’ cry, the smell of rich earth, all the promise of
revolving seasons; the very monotony of the life was dear to him.

Near Sohaczev they dashed into a drove of cattle, on its way to the
capital.  There was much shouting; the drovers swore by all they could
think of that half their fortune was gone.  However, after being able to
check these statements by the help of lanterns, Ian decided that ten
roubles more than covered the damage. Roman’s flow of language left the
others speechless; he had not opened his mouth since leaving Ruvno, and
certainly made up for it when he did.  They started off again.  The
swift, uneven motion over the ill-kept road soothed Ian.  He had come
partly out of sympathy for Roman, partly to avoid searching eyes at
home.  He must get accustomed to the new state of things, let the smart
of Vanda’s engagement wear off, prepare himself to meet Joseph without
picking a quarrel with him.  Neither could he have faced the usual
evening confab with his mother without betraying himself; and he hated
the idea of confession, even to her.  He pondered about many things,
business, politics, crops and the chase; but he always came back to
Vanda.  His memory rediscovered charms he had long ceased to note--her
soft eyes, the dimples that came into her cheeks when she laughed, her
cheerfulness, her nice ways with his mother, her good heart for the
poor, her adaptability to _his_ house and _his_ ways.  What a good wife
Joseph had won!  Then he remembered she was portionless.  Her parents
had been ruined by a combination of adverse circumstances, so that she
had come to Ruvno with little more than the baby clothes she wore and a
box full of toys.

He burnt with the thought of Joseph’s feelings of self-righteousness at
marrying a portionless maid.  But he should not get the chance to crow.
She should have an outfit to make her new neighbors open their eyes;
jewels, sables and linen fit for Ruvno.  He meant to insist on this,
foresaw mild objections from his mother, who knew all about Joseph’s
investments.  But thank God he could afford to set the girl up in such a
way that her groom could not boast.  And the wedding should be in
keeping; the Archbishop of Warsaw, Metropolitan of Poland, must marry
them; Ruvno must entertain the guests royally.  More: Joseph should
never be able to say he had married a penniless girl.  Vanda should have
a generous dowry.  Here he foresaw more opposition from his mother.  But
he was not going to let Joe puff himself out over every check he wrote
for his bride.  For such was Joe’s nature; he would do it with a certain
refinement; but would drive the truth home all the same.  Vanda did not
know this, or had forgotten it, being in love.  But she would suffer
from it later on; and he was determined she should bear as little pain
as possible.

Ian’s landed property represented a rough sum of twenty million roubles;
he had another million invested in sugar refineries, and in a hardware
factory, recently started in Warsaw, which was already paying well. His
father’s debts had been legion.  But he had a minority of twenty years
and good guardians, and found Ruvno almost clear when he took it over.
Now, there was not a rouble’s worth of debt on the place. He never spent
his entire income.  Whenever the chance came, he used to buy up land
around Ruvno, adding to its acres and its efficiency.  Neighbors
wondered that the son was so different from the sire, and declared he
would be one of the wealthiest men in those parts before he reached
middle age.  Not that he cared especially for money.  His one aim was to
add to Ruvno and keep up its name for good farming and good horses, to
entertain generously without ostentation, to have prize cattle and
modern machinery. His tastes were simple; a certain fastidiousness saved
him from such "affaires" as were constantly getting Roman into trouble,
and from pleasures which had ruined his father.  Yes: he could afford to
give Vanda a handsome dowry, and the thought was like balsam.

Arriving in the capital, Roman drew up before the "_Oaza_" a place where
people drank champagne at exorbitant prices and listened to dubious
songs and patter, not bereft of wit, but suited for neither the young
nor the squeamish.  It stood at the corner of the Theatre Square, where
the Opera House is, and the Vierzbova, that narrow street which runs
thence from the Saxon Square.  Ian seldom went to the haunt; but Roman
knew every woman in it.  One, with little on but a feather boa and a
gigantic hat, was screaming a new song at the top of her voice.  The
audience was meager enough, for the races were over, the heat had set
in, and people of pleasure had gone to their country homes, or abroad to
drink the waters at Carlsbad and other places where those who live too
well hope to patch up battered constitutions for future pleasures.
There were a few Russian officers, who made a great deal of noise, a
couple of Polish squires, sunburnt and opulent, some of the inevitable
Children of Israel, of those who no longer keep the Sabbath nor believe
in anybody’s God; and many sirens in marvelous hats and plentiful paint.

Roman ordered the supper and drank freely of champagne.  He took not the
least notice of the entertainment, which went on just above their table,
on a small raised platform.  Ian wondered why he insisted on being so
near it; but to-night he was prepared to give in about everything, as to
a spoilt child who has broken its favorite toy.  Roman drank, ate and
talked, smoking cigarettes all the time.

"What does she see in him?  Tell me what she sees in him?" he asked,
elbows on the table, cigarette between his lips, glaring with his dark
bright eyes at his cousin.  "Now--if it had been you..."

Ian became ruddier than ever and bent over his plate. He said nothing.

"I thought of _you_ as my rival," pursued the disappointed lover.  "A
dangerous one, too."

"You needn’t have," mumbled Ian, his mouth full of lobster mayonnaise.

"I see that now.  But I feared it.  You’ve always been together.  It
seemed the obvious thing for you to make a match of it.  Why, there were
bets on you at the club here."

"The devil there were!" cried Ian indignantly.

"Well, we all do that sort of thing.  Their gossip worried me.  I can’t
think how you managed not to fall in love with her.  I’d have been in
love with any woman under the circumstances, let alone her ... why,
she’s an angel, an..."

He broke off and fumed in silence for some time. Ian finished his
lobster and attacked some cold meat. Roman looked as if he expected some
remark, so he gave it, huskily:

"The obvious never happens."

"But Joe never came into my head.  You could have knocked me down with a
feather when she owned it."

"Me, too," admitted Ian, with more sincerity than he had yet commanded.

"I don’t wonder.  Of course, I’m a rip.  Not worse than most of my
fellows.  I don’t count you.... Can’t make you out.  You must be a
fish."  He cast a glance round the room, nodded to a couple of women,
signed that he did not want them at his table, ordered a bottle of
champagne to be taken over to them, shifted his chair so that his back
was towards them, and went on:

"Who isn’t?  I’ve had my fling.  I was quite ready to settle down.  This
sort of game disgusts me.  I’ve had enough of it."

"I don’t wonder."

"I suppose you people at Ruvno think Joe’s a steady old horse," retorted
Roman vehemently.  "He enjoys life, too.  Only he’s more careful of
appearance than I am."

"Prig!" said Ian savagely.

Roman laughed at the tone.  His dark eyes were very bright.  These, with
his fine head, broad shoulders and open hand, suggested other, less
prosaic days, when men gave fuller play to their emotions, and were not
ashamed of their feelings.  He produced a hundred-rouble note from one
of his fat pocket-books and sent it across to the little orchestra.

"Tell them to play my favorites," he told the waiter.

"Don’t be a fool," admonished his more careful cousin.  "You’ll be glad
enough of your money before you’ve done with the Jews."  He knew Roman’s
reckless ways; and disapproved of them.  A man nearing thirty had no
right to lead the sort of life that concentrated at the _Oaza_ between
midnight and sunrise. The place was stuffy and gaudy and depressing.  He
began to feel sorry he had come.

"The devil take my debts," said Roman.  "The Jews can wait now."  Then
he went back to Vanda.

"Do you imagine that Joe’s in love with her?" he exclaimed.  "Not a bit.
He wants to settle down, doesn’t need money and thinks her _suitable_.
I loathe that word.  It sums up all the hypocrisy of our lives."  He
gulped champagne, wiped his mustache, threw the napkin on the table, and
pursued:

"He thinks she’ll look well at the head of his table. And it saves
trouble to marry her because he’s known her all his life.  He hasn’t got
to waste time paying her attention and risk the publicity of a refusal.
You can’t go near a girl at the races or a dance but everybody knows it.
That’s not old Joe’s plan.  He’s too safe."

Ian bent over his plate again.  Roman had too much insight; he was
attributing to Joe the very thoughts that had passed through his own
mind that morning. But the words gave him comfort.  If Joe was not in
love with Vanda, neither was he.  Their symptoms were alike.  Men in
love talked like Roman, acted like him.  So he was saved.  His precious
armor of male vanity was intact.  Thank God, he could face himself and
his little world again.

"If I thought she’d be really happy, I’d not care so much," remarked
Roman after a short silence.

His cousin looked up in alarm.

"If I doubted it I’d never let him marry her," he muttered.

"What can you do?  She’s set her heart on him.  I don’t mean he’s going
to ill-treat her.  He’ll be so proud of her that he’ll hang on to her
till she’ll long to be left alone a bit.  But she’ll find him a bore
after a time.  She’s not used to bores.  God!  If I had to live with old
Joe I’d blow my brains out."

And he talked on; he had the philosophy of life at his tongue’s tip; and
yet what a muddle he made of his own!  He reminded Ian of agricultural
experts he knew, drawn from the ranks of ruined landed proprietors, yet
ready to give advice to those who prosper on their acres.  Gradually, he
ceased to pay heed to the flow of words.  He was an early riser and his
bedtime hour had long passed.  And he followed his own train of thought,
nodding occasionally at his cousin’s eloquence, and trying to get him
out of the place.

"The essence of real love," remarked the oracle, as they left for the
Hotel Europe at last, "is sacrifice.  A man who’s not ready for that is
no lover."

And again Ian felt comforted.

He stopped two days in town, saw his lawyer anent Vanda’s dowry, looked
at sables, bought her a diamond pendant, and prepared to leave his
cousin.  This last much against his will.  With his old impetuosity, he
was playing heavily at his club, where a few gamblers lingered, detained
for lack of funds to take them abroad.  They hailed Skarbek’s coming
with joy, knew all about his fantastic winnings, and set about fleecing
him.

"You’d be far happier if you settled down," said Ian as they finished
lunch on the day of his departure. He could not understand any
full-grown man caring to live from day to day.  For him, happiness lay
in the even road, a steady income, regular employment and an entire
absence of excitement.

"Settle down?" echoed the other.  "On what?"

"You’ve that money you won at Monte Carlo.  Bank it and let me tackle
your Jews."

Roman laughed bitterly.

"Ten thousand roubles of that money is in other men’s pockets," and he
named two who lived upon their earnings at the green table.  "They’re
off to Ostend this evening."

"You’re a damned fool," was his cousin’s verdict.

"I know it.  But who would gain by my being wise?"

Ian looked him straight in the eyes.  Roman noticed how clear and honest
they were, with their tale of outdoor life, their gaze of the man who
has found himself and keeps his house in order.  Yet there was nothing
priggish about him.  He enjoyed life thoroughly.  It was not the life of
champagne suppers and high stakes; but he took his pint of Veuve
Clicquot and played his game, conformed to the customs of his class.
The difference was that such pleasures were incidents for him; for Roman
they had become necessities.

"You know perfectly well that your Prussian government and my Russian
one like to see us Poles squander our lives and money," retorted the
squire.

"They do," agreed the gambler.

Ian saw his chance and followed it up, speaking earnestly, his habitual
shyness undermost for the moment.

"They like to get us off the land because that is the rock bottom of
national existence," he said.  "Lots of people forget it.  England is
forgetting it.  Every time I go there I see it clearer.  But Prussia
hasn’t forgotten it for a moment these last hundred years.  And she’s
taught the Russians something about it, too."

"I never had any land," protested Roman.  "Joe got it, and has kept it.
I’ll say that for him."

"You can buy land."

"Not under Prussian law."

"Become a Russian subject."

"Easier said than done."

"I’ll help you," Ian said eagerly.  "Do you remember Kuklin?"

"That little place near Ruvno?"

"Yes.  It’s for sale."  He did not add that the owner had ruined himself
in places like the _Oaza_. "The land’s first class.  The house is a
hovel.  But it’s only five versts from us and you can stop at Ruvno till
you’ve built something fit to live in.  I’ll give you the materials and
help you with the labor.  The chief outbuildings are brick and in good
condition.  The squire is a good farmer when he remembers to stop at
home.  It’s a bargain."

Roman was interested.

"I suppose the Jews will buy it."

"Not if I know it.  I was going to buy it myself. But you take it.  I’ll
let you have the money.  Come, Roman, here’s your chance."

"You mean you’d advance me the cash?  Without security?"

"I’ll make you a present of Kuklin."

Roman’s handsome face filled with astonishment. Though not a mean man,
Ian had the reputation of being exceedingly careful.  He gave freely to
causes which he thought furthered the prosperity of his country; but was
wary of giving for the sake of giving, or for the popularity that comes
to the open-handed.  Roman knew him well; he realized that this offer
meant more than cousinship; it meant affection and a firm belief that he
would settle down and "make good."  He was touched, and said so in his
ardent way.

"So you’re willing?  That’s right.  I’ll go to Kuklin tomorrow and wire
when you can see it."  The other’s face clouded, so he added hastily:
"You needn’t come to Ruvno.  I’ll meet you at the station, the owner
will give us something to eat and I’ll motor you back here.  We’ll have
to settle with the Jews before you actually buy, or you’ll get no terms
from them.  I’ll go to Posen with you."

"Old man, you’re the best friend I ever had," cried Roman, wringing his
hand.  "I can’t tell you how I feel about it.  But..."

"What ’but’?"

"I don’t believe I could bury myself in the country--now. With Vanda it
would have been different.  Can’t you understand?"

"No, I can’t."  He was disappointed.  He had never felt lonely in his
life, never knew the yearning after hot, brightly lighted restaurants
filled with men and women on excitement bent.

"You won’t want to come to Warsaw," he argued. "You don’t know how land
draws you.  You’ll have to drag yourself here when you’ve some special
business and hurry back as quick as can be."

Roman doubted it, but gave up the argument.  They parted on the
understanding that he should telegraph when he had made up his mind.

Though he found Joseph still at Ruvno Ian showed a cheerful face and
calm exterior.  He felt completely master of himself again and talked
freely of the coming marriage.  The Countess was full of it.

"I can’t understand what Vanda sees in him," she remarked during their
evening chat "He’s more selfish than ever.  He never does a thing she
wants unless he happens to want it, too.  I suppose that’s why she is so
devoted."

Ian observed, and found that his mother was right. Not that he saw much
of the happy pair.  He only met them at meals, and delegated his mother
to sound Joseph about the marriage settlement.  He won his argument with
her about that, too.  But the thing had yet to be discussed and he put
it off, not wanting to see Joseph alone if he could help it.  There was
time for that.  Meanwhile, the estate kept him busy. But the marriage
date was settled for three months hence.  That was his work.  He would
have had it earlier, but the Countess thought it looked too hasty.

Joseph was quite satisfied to wait.  He wanted to do up his country
house, and furnishing took time.  He did not consult Vanda about the
furniture.  He had ideas of his own and meant to carry them out.  Yet he
seemed proud of the girl and pleased to have won her; the rest of the
family admitted that.  What annoyed them was his boundless
self-satisfaction.  She would be his in the same way as his beautiful
estate in Eastern Prussia, as his horses, or his sound investments.

"She is his chattel," was Ian’s verdict one evening when alone with his
mother.  She gave him a sidelong look, but said nothing for the moment.
Later on she mooted matrimony to him.

"It is high time you settled down," she said.  "It is a great mistake
for people to put off marriage too long.  They lose courage as they grow
older."

"Give me another year of liberty," he pleaded, laughing. "I’m not
thirty-five yet.  By next year I’ll have the new farm buildings finished
and the new forest planted.  Then you shall find me a wife."

"I’ve one for you already," she said, caressing his face with her fine
hazel eyes.

"What a matchmaker!  Tell me the worst.  Who is it."

She hesitated before saying: "Minnie Burton," and watched him closely.

"Minnie?"  This in surprise.  He had never thought of her.  Then: "But
she is a foreigner."

"But she is fond of Poland and of us.  She’s well bred, well connected,
good-looking."

"A heretic."

"That might be changed."

He took alarm at this.  There was nothing more hateful to his thoughts,
just then, than marriage with anybody--but Vanda.  And she had deserted
him.

"I hope you’ve not been ’sounding’ her, as you call it," he cried in
alarm.

"No.  Don’t be afraid.  But bear her in mind.  She’s a dear girl.
She’ll come back to us next year.  I’d like to chaperon her to Nice in
the winter."

"I’m not going to lose my shooting," he said firmly.

"You could run over there for a week or so.  However, there’s no hurry.
Let’s get Vanda safely settled first."  And wisely, she dropped the
subject.  She knew all about his disappointment, and meant to tell him
so one day.  Meanwhile she would throw him and Minnie together as much
as possible.  But there was plenty of time.

The following evening they were finishing dinner when a servant handed
Joseph a telegram.  Thinking it one of many that had arrived since his
engagement, he opened it carelessly.

"Who is it this time?" asked Vanda.

He did not answer, but read the missive twice, his face changing.  She
took alarm.

"It’s bad news?"

He took no notice.  She peered over his shoulder. Everybody was waiting
for him to speak.

"It’s in German," she announced to the expectant table.  "Do tell us,
Joe."

She put out her hand for the telegram, but he gave it to Ian instead.
She sat down again, looking snubbed.

"Read that," he said.  Ian obeyed, aloud, for Vanda’s sake, and in
English, for Minnie’s.

"’The Head of this Military District orders your immediate return, that
you may report at headquarters.’"  He looked up, puzzled.  "It’s signed
by your manager.  What does it mean?"

"Mobilization," answered the Countess promptly. They looked at her in
surprise.  She was the only member of the household who had read the
last batch of papers from Warsaw.

Frowning, Ian reread the telegram.  There was silence round the table.
Joseph, like Roman, was a German subject.  Eastern Prussia, where he
lived, belonged to Poland till Frederick the Great snatched it from the
Polish Republic, weakened by internal strife. And ever since that sad
day the Prussians have done all they know to hound the Poles off their
land.  But the owners stood firm from the first, helping one another to
keep every acre they possessed from the German colonists, who have their
government’s backing in money and legislation.  It is considered a
disgrace for a Pole to sell his land in Prussia or the Grand Duchy of
Poland, because Prussian law forbids a Pole to buy it.  But a Polish
squire or peasant in financial difficulties can always get a more
fortunate compatriot to help him, so that he need not sell.

"I’ve got to go," remarked Joseph gloomily.

Ian’s thoughts ran ahead.  Joseph would be away for some time; perhaps
for months.  The wedding would have to be postponed.  Meanwhile, he and
Vanda would be meeting hourly as in the old days, yet with the
difference that she was no longer free.  At this moment he did not
imagine that Prussia’s mobilization could affect his life.  The thought
that tempted him was that he could undo Joseph’s wooing, win her in his
absence.  Then honor’s voice intervened and he put temptation from him.
Another thought came to his aid.  He would get his mother to send her to
England with Minnie Burton.  When Joseph was ready to wed, she could
come back.  Not till then.

He looked at her.  Her face was no longer bright, she gave her lover a
long, sad gaze.  Then he glanced at Joe over the broad table, handsome
with plate and flowers, covered with the remains of a well-served,
well-cooked meal.  There was nothing supercilious about him now.  He was
frankly downcast.

"It’s for Roman, too," he observed.

"I’ll tell him," said Ian.  The idea of Roman’s going back to Prussia
annoyed him.  He would not be able to finish the Kuklin business.  And
he had set his heart on having his wayward, impulsive cousin near by.
They had always been great friends; but since the affair with Vanda he
found something very comforting in his company.

Everybody began to talk about the telegram and its probable import.
Newspapers were opened and consulted, only to be thrown aside in
disgust.  They said so little.  Father Constantine and the Countess
argued things out according to their ideas of the political situation,
whilst Joseph and Vanda had a final talk together.  Ian saw his duty was
to amuse Minnie Burton, and he did it with thoughts elsewhere.  Joseph
left the house at two in the morning to catch the night express from
Warsaw to Posen.  They all waited up with him; their farewells were
cheerful.  He would soon be back.  Meanwhile, he could set the workmen
at his house.  Ian watched Vanda as they parted.  She was sad, but held
herself bravely.  He liked that.  He noticed, too, that Joseph was
unusually demonstrative. He knew he ought to be glad of it, for her
sake.  But it angered him all the same.  In a group at the open door
they watched the car go down the straight avenue and turn into the road.
On the way Joseph would have to knock up a local petty official and get
his passport viséd.  But he saw no difficulties; nobody dreamed of war
just then, not outside the German Empire. When he had gone they went to
bed, sleepy and unconcerned.

Ian motored to Warsaw for lunch.  The streets were as deserted as usual
at that time of year, except for a sprinkling of troops.  But everybody
was discussing the possibility of Russia’s fighting to help Serbia.  How
could the big Slav brother leave the weak one to be strangled?  He found
Roman at the Europe, eating iced soup, and delivered his message.

"What did old Joe do?" he asked.  The other told him.

"Went off like a lamb?  I thought as much," and he laughed scornfully.

"And you?"

"I’m no friend of the Kaiser’s."

"But he may win," and Ian lowered his voice, for a party of Russian
officers sat at the next table.  "He’ll make it pretty awkward for
Polish deserters if he does."

At this stage Ian had no more dislike for the Kaiser’s army than for the
Tsar’s.  They were both the hereditary enemies of his race.  He was glad
to think that he, at any rate, could keep aloof from the quarrel. Russia
has enough men without taking only sons and had never called him to
serve.  He was no more obtuse that bright July day than thousands of men
in the British Empire, in France, or in Belgium.  Perhaps he had a
greater respect for Prussia’s efficiency and fighting spirit; but this
vaguely, as of a fact that could not touch him.

Not so Roman Skarbek.  With that odd insight you sometimes find in men
who never get the practical hang of life he peered into the future as
few, alas, peered then.  Ian remembered his words long afterwards, in
the warm, humming room, his eyes dim and dreamy with thought.

"He won’t win," he said.  "At least, not in the end. But he will at
first, and let Hell loose on Europe. He’ll apply all the Prussian
methods of persecution on other nations that he and his cursed breed
have tried on us Poles for the past century.  That will send the world
against him.  _We_ know what Prussianism means; the world doesn’t.  But
it will before he’s beaten.  What he’ll do to me for deserting won’t
matter.  The only deuced thing that matters is to stop Prussianism from
spreading all over the world."

"You’ll find it awkward here with a German passport, if Russia does go
to war."

"I’ve not haunted the _Oaza_ and the club for nothing. I expect I know
more influential Russians than you do."

"I wish you would become a Russian subject," said the other, thinking of
Kuklin.  "I’d help you."

"Thanks awfully.  I’ll ask you to, if I can’t manage it myself."

"Oh, the whole thing will blow over.  Why, there’s always a scare about
this time.  The papers made it to have something to write about."  And
they talked of other things, and of Vanda.  Roman asked a dozen
questions about her; and he perforce must answer.

He took home the gossip of the town; they talked politics all the
evening.  Minnie, who had been in St. Petersburg with her elder brother
when he was Military Attaché to the British Embassy, told them with
confidence born of little knowledge that _if_ the Germans were mad
enough to fight, the Russians would be in Berlin by Christmas.  Her
host, knowing Russian ways better than she, doubted her.  Hence came
animated talk.  Yet none of them seriously thought the storm was near.
Least of all Ian, who tried to cheer Vanda for the temporary loss of her
lover by planning a new paddock which must be ready before the wedding.
Never did he feel more secure in his quiet life and snug possession than
when, bound for bed, he crossed the large hall, with its vaulted roof
painted in Gothic blue with faded gilt stars, and its antler-covered
walls. True, there was still a vestige of that uneasy feeling which he
unwillingly put down to Vanda.  But he had plenty to occupy him till Joe
came back; then for a speedy marriage--and oblivion.




                                  III


After much discussion, Father Constantine decided to seek relief for his
rheumatism at Ciechocinek, a place which lies nearer the Prussian
frontier than Ruvno, on the main line between Warsaw and Berlin.  He
felt too old to take a long journey abroad, and hated the idea of some
fashionable place in Austria or Germany.  Ciechocinek was quiet, if
primitive, and near at hand.  He started off in state a couple of days
after Ian’s flying visit to Warsaw, in one of Ian’s motors, the family
at the front door to wish him a pleasant journey.  There was as much
bustle when the old chaplain went away--which rarely happened--as though
the whole household were leaving.  Everybody carried something to the
car for him; everybody heard over and over again what the two
canvas-covered portmanteaux held and knew their owner had packed and
unpacked them half-a-dozen times within the week, in the agony of
indecision and the search for some necessary garment that had been put
at the bottom.  Nothing would induce him to let a servant pack them.
Besides the portmanteaux he carried several loose packages; to wit,
three long loaves of home-made bread, because any other kind gave him
indigestion; a small collection of home-smoked ham, sausage and tongue
to take in the evening with his glass of weak tea (Ciechocinek sausages
were all very well, but Father Constantine would sooner have gone
without than have eaten them).  And, for his morning tea, the
housekeeper had packed up a large _baba_ or cake, whose very name makes
one’s mouth water in days of dark flour and scarce eggs.  There was a
little basket containing his lunch, for he eschewed restaurant cars and
preferred cold chicken and fresh bread and butter to the best meal to be
had at railway stations. I had almost forgotten the parcel of butter
which he carried to his cure, too; it was firm and fresh and creamy,
food fit for the gods, for he would not eat the watery, saltish rubbish
which, so he declared, the hotel-keeper in Ciechocinek provided.  At the
last moment, when he was in the midst of his good-byes, a maid came
hurrying along with a heavy square parcel.  It contained linen sheets.
The baths at the cure place, so Father Constantine declared, were
frequented by many people whom he thought none too clean.  And he had no
faith in the attendant’s scrubbing.  So he had a sheet spread in the
bath before it was filled with the muddy substance that drew out his
pains.  Then there were wraps and pillows and books for the journey,
till you would have thought the good old man was to travel for days,
instead of hours.  Only a generously proportioned Russian railway
carriage would have taken so many bundles on the racks.  For Father
Constantine never trusted his precious portmanteaux to the luggage van.
He was firmly convinced that highway robbers would have learned of his
coming, laid wait and robbed him of his baggage whilst he dozed.  He
invariably counted the sum total of his packets each time the train
stopped, when he awoke and glared suspiciously at new-comers.  But
everybody at Ruvno took his little ways with good humor; he had been
there so long that he was an institution.  They loved his bright eyes
and sharp tongue; they knew his heart was in the right place, and knew
all his anecdotes so well that they could think of other things whilst
he told them, and yet, by force of habit, make the right remark when he
had finished.  Ian was devoted to him; would never have thought of going
off, on his mid-morning round until he had departed.  He asked to be
allowed to go with him as far as the station; in fact, the priest
expected this offer from the sturdy squire whom he had spanked and
taught in by-gone years.  But he would never accept it.  He disliked
being seen off.  It looked as though he was no longer capable of buying
his own ticket or finding a porter.  But the little comedy had to be
enacted all the same.

"Father, I’m going to the station," Ian would say on these occasions,
when the last package was stowed away and the housekeeper had counted
them at least twice.

The priest held up his hands in mock horror.  He was small and rather
shrunken.  His nose was hooked and his scant hair white.  He had seen a
good deal of trouble in his day; was in Siberia for five years in his
youth for defending his church against a sotnia of Cossacks in 1864, and
owed his misshapen ears to frostbite which he got on the terrible
journey, made on foot in those days.  But these things were a memory,
and life was peaceful enough now.

"No, my child," he said.  "Think of the packages. By the way, where’s
the _baba_?  Zosia! where did you put the _baba_?"

"It’s under the seat," said the Countess from the steps.  "I saw her put
it there.  You’d better let Ianek go with you.  He’ll enjoy it."

"No, no, Countess.  Thank you all the same.  He’d crush the bread or sit
on the butter when we begin to bump about on the bad part of the road.
I’ll get on by myself.  The old horse isn’t done yet.  Not by a long
way.  God bless you all.  Farewell!"

Making the sign of the cross, he wrapped the yellow dust-cloak round
him.  Ian gave the word to start and off he went.

The three women strolled over to the chestnuts, glad of the shade that
warm morning, and Ian went to where men were busy laying out his new
paddock. He gave some directions there, had gone over the stables and
was waiting for his horse to be saddled for a visit to some wheat
fields, reported damaged by a shower of early-morning hail, when the
familiar hoot of his motor made him look up in surprise.  He had given
the driver orders to wait for the papers from Warsaw, and knew he could
not have done it in so short a time.  But surprise grew when, as the car
drew nearer, he saw Father Constantine’s dust-cloak. He waved to them to
drive to the stables instead of round by the avenue and the house.

"What has happened?" he asked as they pulled up. "You can’t have lost
the train.  It’s not due for an hour yet."

"There is no train," announced the priest.  "The Muscovites are
mobilizing troops.  We’re cut off from everywhere.  I might have saved
myself the trouble of packing."

"But there’s worse than that, my lord Count," put in Bartek, the young
chauffeur, who had been born on the land and had served first as
stove-tender, then as gun-cleaner before being trained as a mechanic.
"The tales they’re telling at the station made my hair stand on end."

"What tales?" asked Ian.

"Jewish lies," snapped the priest.

Ian turned to the driver, who said:

"The Prussians have crossed the frontier and are in Kalisz."

"Don’t you believe it, Ian," put in Father Constantine. "The Jews will
say anything to scare honest Christians."

"And please, my lord Count," pursued Bartek the driver, "they are
murdering men and women and children there.  First they took a lot of
money, gold, too, from the town, as a bribe to let the people alone.
Then when they’d got the money they went up on that hill that stands
over the town.  And when the people thought they were safe on account of
the gold they had given to the Prussian Colonel, that very officer came
down into the town again, shut the people in their houses and shot at
them through the windows, like rats in a trap."

"The Prussians so near us?" murmured Ian, looking from one to the other.
"It’s incredible.  What are the Russians doing?  There were several
regiments in Kalisz."

"They retired before the Prussians came," answered Bartek, who had kept
his ears open at the station.

"Incredible!" echoed the priest.  "It’s impossible. They wouldn’t dare
to do it."

The boy produced a crumpled newspaper from one of his pockets and handed
it to Ian.

"The ticket man gave it to me," he explained.  "One of the recruits
brought it in a train from Warsaw. He says it tells what the Prussians
are doing in some foreign part, I forget what it’s called, but it’s
smaller than our country, and they’ve ravished the maids and murdered
the children and done such things that haven’t been done in Poland since
the Turks were here.  And they say they’ll do the same thing to us if
they get any further."

"You never told me you’d a paper," cried the priest. "What does it say,
Ianek."

And Ian read the first story of Belgium’s martyrdom.

"It’s some trick to sell the paper," was Father Constantine’s remark,
when he had done.

"I hope so."  Ian glanced at the head of the paper. It was the _Kurjer
Warszawski_, which would hardly have printed such news without reason.
He reread the account, to himself this time, whilst the old priest sat
back in the car and piously called upon God to know if it were true.
Some minutes passed.  Ian read and reread the news, unbelievingly at
first, then with growing conviction.  In the late-news column was a
telegram from London, saying that England would probably declare war on
Germany.

"There must be something in it," he said.  "If England is going to war,
Belgium has been invaded."  He jumped into the car and they drove up to
the house.

His mother and the two girls he found in the Countess’ sitting-room.
Zosia, the housekeeper, was standing there, sobbing bitterly and cursing
the Prussians through her tears.  In the large French window, which
stood open, was a ragged, dusty, fear-stricken Jew, of the poorest
description, one of the dark masses who live by running errands for
their wealthier brethren; the hewers of wood and drawers of water of
their own race; happy to lend a stray rouble in usury to some
agricultural laborer who has fallen on evil days.

From this miserable man’s trembling lips he heard much the same story as
Bartek had learned at the station.  But in addition the Jew brought news
that Zosia’s sister, who lived in Kalisz, married to a prosperous
cartwright, had been murdered by the Prussians.

Ian never forgot the impression this made upon him.  Later on, he grew
more callous, saw and heard so many horrors, proved the Kaiser’s army
capable of anything.  But the thought that Zosia’s sister, a girl who
had grown up at Ruvno and served his mother as maid before her marriage,
had been assassinated in cold blood made his own boil.  He was not a man
to use many words.  He made no effort to express the thoughts and
feelings that rose in him.  He did not speak for some time.  Then he
turned to his mother.

"You women must go to Moscow at once," he said. "God knows, they may
soon be here at the rate they are coming on."

He spoke in a tone of authority he rarely used with her.  She went to
the window and looked into her beloved rose garden, soon to be cut into
trenches and trampled by soldiers’ feet.  But on that morning it was a
beautiful spot, fair with the work and art of many generations of
skilled gardeners and gentle mistresses.  A peacock spread his tail in
the sun; Ian’s two favorite dogs whined to him to go out to them; the
air was very sweet with the odor of roses and pine needles.  A big red
butterfly floated past her into the room.  She could scarcely believe
that only a few miles away war raged; and yet, here was Zosia sobbing
her heart out, here stood the Jewish messenger, who had come to say that
the dead woman’s husband and children were on their way to Ruvno as
refugees, leaving all they possessed behind them, traveling on foot,
with unspeakable bitterness and grief in their hearts.

She turned to her son, smiling a little.  They lived very near to one
another and she loved him better than anything in the world, better than
she had loved his father, for whom she suffered such pain.

"And you?" she asked.

"I shall volunteer," he answered simply.

He had not consciously thought about it before.  The words came without
his knowing exactly why.  He knew that Russia had plenty of men without
him; he bore that country no love, having had to suffer many
humiliations from her since his babyhood.  Every day he had to fight
Russian malevolence in some shape or form.  But he knew that the troops
now speeding to stop the Prussian advance were on the right side.  He
remembered Roman’s words: "The only deuced thing that matters is to stop
Prussianism from spreading."

His mother gave him a frightened look, bit her lip, and said nothing.

"You’re right, my child," said Father Constantine, who, dust-cloak and
all, was sitting in a chair several times too big for him.  In his hand
he held one of the many packets Zosia had prepared for his journey. He
had forgotten about them.  His old heart was filled with a terrible,
helpless anger against the human beasts who had brought such death into
the country.

The Countess put her hands on Ian’s shoulder and kissed him, standing on
tip-toe to reach his honest, sunburnt face.

"And I," she said, "will stop here with our people."

He tried to dissuade her, reminding her of what was happening a few
miles away.  But she was firm.  I don’t believe he thought she would
give in.  He did his duty in trying to make her move; but his own
instinct was to stick to Ruvno till it was burned over their heads.

"If we leave the place goodness knows what would happen," she went on.
"If we are shelled we can live in the cellars.  That’s what they were
built for.  If Ruvno goes, I may as well go with it."

"It is the simplest way, and the simplest is generally the best way,"
said Vanda.  She had not spoken since Zosia burst into the room with her
terrible story.  Ian looked at her face, which had grown pale.  He had
forgotten her for the moment.  Now he remembered that the man she was to
marry had gone home and must fight on the other side, or be shot for a
deserter. Their eyes met: they understood each other; both had the same
thought.  And it flew round the room to the others, for they all looked
at her, wondering what she felt about it.  She covered her face with her
hands. Anxious to draw attention away from her, he turned to Minnie
Burton.

"And you," he said, "must come with me to Warsaw, at once.  I will see
your Consul and send you home the quickest way."

Minnie gave a little laugh.  She was a fair, fresh-colored girl, with
steady brown eyes and a frank manner.  She expected them to talk of
sending her home and had already made up her mind not to leave Ruvno
whilst they remained.  Three years ago, her soldier brother brought Ian
home for a week-end.  They were renting a little place in Leicestershire
for the winter, and he hunted with them.  She liked him at once.  He was
the first foreigner she had met who did not overwhelm her with silly
compliments.  He was more interesting than most of her brother’s
friends, who developed their muscles, but neglected their minds.  And he
liked the things she liked, the country, violent exercise, horses;
appeared much pleased with English country life and arranged for her to
meet his mother and Vanda.  So the two families became very friendly.
Then old General Burton died, the home was broken up and Minnie left
more or less alone in the world, for both brothers were abroad, one, a
sailor, and the other with his regiment in India.  She had been
foolishly happy at Ruvno, she reflected, and allowed friendship with Ian
to ripen into one-sided love.  She was not one of those women who will
renounce a husband rather than marry a foreigner, and prefer to bear no
children rather than see them grow up to citizens of another state than
England.  She longed to "settle down," though she never admitted it and
gave acquaintances to understand that she thoroughly enjoyed her present
way of living.  Ian was free; he liked her.  She saw no reason why he
should not one day love her as she loved him.  Though the Countess had
not dropped a word about her own thoughts in the matter, Minnie felt
sure she would not object to her son’s marrying a comely young
Englishwoman with a tidy fortune and good connections.  There was one
great barrier--the difference in their faith; but Minnie had not thought
about that seriously.  Her mind dwelt more on Ian the possible spouse
than on Ian the Roman Catholic.  In his company she had enjoyed many a
canter across country, many a chat and not a few friendly discussions.
And her heart had succumbed. True, there were times when she suspected
him of being a little cold by nature; a little prosaic, even for her,
who would have been annoyed with a lover of Roman Skarbek’s type.  She
did not guess he felt so comfortable as a bachelor that he thought of
matrimony as an unpleasant plunge, to be taken as late as could be.  All
this seems calculating and unmaidenlike put on paper; but it was not
nearly so clear in her brain; till this fateful morning of bad news from
Kalisz her plans had been vague; her heart alone busy. She would have
been well content to live in Ruvno forever.  And here was sudden danger
of her leaving. Ian might marry another girl before they could meet
again.  Though no husband-angler and too proud to set her cap at any man
she felt that she must stop under his roof, or her romance would be
ruined.  Rapidly, she reviewed heart and conscience.  The first spoke
all too plainly; as to the second, she had no near family beyond her two
brothers, one on the high seas, the other, presumably, to fight in
Belgium.  Her only duties, if she went home all the way through Russia
or Roumania or Greece, would be to help refugees and do her unskilled
best with wounded.  But here were both to succor.  She was nearer that
kind of suffering than she could be at home.  And even though Ian joined
the army--she glanced at his sturdy figure and reflected on his
thirty-four summers with the comforting doubt as to whether Russia
wanted him--she would be in touch with him at Ruvno, and of use to his
mother, whom she liked sincerely.

She did not answer him, but turned to the Countess.

"I’ll stop here with you," she said with flaming cheeks.

"But, my dear child, think of the risks," said her hostess, by no means
unwilling, but anxious to give her a fair chance of escaping from such a
dangerous place.

Here Father Constantine chimed in.  His bird-like eyes saw a great deal
and he shuddered at the thought of Ian’s marrying a heretic.  He had
often wondered of late when those two brothers of hers were coming to
take her away.  And here was a good opportunity to get rid of her at
once.

"You cannot stay here, Mademoiselle."  He spoke French, not trusting his
halting English in so important a matter.  "The Germans will be
exceedingly cruel to the English.  I know how they hate you.  I have
been in Germany many times, for my rheumatism.  If they find you here in
Ruvno they will be capable of doing unspeakable things to you and bad
things to us, for having you here."  He turned to the Countess, nursing
his bundle of sausages, a shriveled, eager figure in his linen
dust-cloak and his air of the family confidant and confessor.  "Madame,
think of the responsibility.  Imagine your terrible remorse if anything
happened to Mademoiselle."

"The same things might just as well happen to me if I left this minute,"
protested Minnie, determined to fight for her cause.  "The steamer might
be captured by the Germans, England might be invaded.  Of course, I hope
it won’t, but my brothers say the government have never bothered to
prepare for this.  I may not even be able to reach home.  Father
Constantine could not get to his cure at that place with the
unpronounceable name.  And it’s lots nearer than England."

"That’s true," agreed the Countess, who knew all about her chaplain’s
dread of heretics.  Besides, she was loth to lose Minnie.  Apart from
her affection for the girl and her reluctance to send her off on a long
journey, dark with unknown perils, she thought of Ian.  Supposing they
were burned out of house and home, as seemed more than likely, it would
be a comfort to her to know that he could settle in England with Minnie
to look after him till, one vague day, the Germans were beaten.  She
told herself that she would never survive the ruin of her home.  It was
almost as great a part of her existence as Ian himself.  No: she did not
want to part with Minnie; Minnie would look after him when she was no
more.  She smiled across at Father Constantine.

"You see," she said, "we can always send her away when danger is really
near.  In the meantime, let us wait till the trains are running again."

Here Ian intervened.  He had been questioning the Jew about Kalisz,
without getting any clear statements from his poor, muddled brain.

"We can’t let Minnie run such risks.  It’s bad enough for us Poles, who
live in a country which is always a charnel house when war comes.  But
why should she get mixed up in it?"

Minnie’s heart sank.  He was so very matter of fact. But she would not
give in.

"Why?  For lots of reasons.  I’d be all alone if I did reach home.  You
know the boys will be fighting."

"England hasn’t declared war yet," said Father Constantine, handing his
sausages over to Zosia.  He had just remembered they were in his lap.
"She may remain neutral."

"She won’t!" cried Minnie hotly.  "If that were possible I’d change my
nationality!"

Father Constantine made a hopeless little gesture and let Zosia help him
off with his execrable dust-cloak, watching the Countess furtively the
while.  He felt very much ashamed of having neglected to remove it in
the hall.  It was not only a breach of good manners, but a sign of his
extreme agitation.

"Take it away at once!" he whispered to poor Zosia. She went off with it
and the sausages, to weep on the ample bosom of old Barysia, Ian’s
long-since-pensioned nurse.

Thinking she had settled the priest, Minnie turned to her host.

"If you go away to fight with the Russians I mean to look after the
Countess--and don’t imagine I’m going to leave Poland and my Polish
friends just because you’re all in trouble!"

This touched them all, even the priest.  The Countess was won over
before, but Ian still meant to get her away that evening.  Vanda would
stop with his mother.  The only feeling he had for Minnie just then was
fear her brothers would blame him for keeping her.

The matter was partially settled by a couple of young Russians, whom a
servant announced as waiting for Ian in the library.  He hurried out to
see them and did not return for some time.  The others eagerly asked his
news.

"It’s true about Kalisz," he said.  "But the Russians are sending troops
up there as fast as they can. Incidentally, they are requisitioning all
the cars and most of my horses."

"Cars!  Then no Warsaw for me to-night," said Minnie.

Ian gave her an odd look.  She rather annoyed him that morning, he knew
not why.

"No," he retorted.  "And you don’t seem to wonder how I’m going to get
in the crops if all my men are called to the colors and my cattle are
taken off."

"Oh, I didn’t think of that," she said, repentant.

"Well, I must get back.  Mother, we’ll have to have these two young
Russians to lunch.  They’re not very presentable ... but it’s war-time."

He hurried put, leaving Minnie in contrition.  She had ruffled him when
she wanted to please him above all things.  Father Constantine could not
believe his ears.  Social intercourse between Russians and Poles was
exceedingly restricted.  A few tufthunters and the descendants of those
men who had winked at Russia’s share in Poland’s three partitions kept
up a certain amount of relationship with the Russian Government; went to
the official receptions given by the Governor General of Warsaw, who was
also Commander of the troops stationed in Poland.  Whilst in office he
was lodged at the Royal Palace in Warsaw, once the winter home of
Poland’s kings.  But these were the very few, as few were the members of
old Polish families who had charges at the Imperial Court of Russia.
The vast majority of Poles, rich and poor, aristocratic and humble,
lived their lives apart from the Russian Bureaucrats in their midst, who
fattened on the country, reaping a harvest in peculation, drawing extra
pay whilst there, on the lying legend that they carried their lives in
their hands and slept with revolvers under their pillows for fear Polish
insurgents should murder them in the night.  They knew perfectly well
that the Poles had long since ceased to dream of independence won by
rebellion; that they had learned the lessons of eighteen sixty-three and
four.  But they made alarming reports to St. Petersburg to enhance the
value of their own services.  The Poles knew that, at least for the time
being, their one way of resisting Russification was to develop the
agricultural and commercial resources of their country as much as
possible, despite their conqueror’s efforts; to preserve their native
customs in spite of persecution; to teach their native language despite
restriction and to cling to their national faith despite persecution
from the Holy Synod and the indifference of Rome, who looked with dread
upon Russia and dared not protest.  But since the Russians in their
midst were there to suppress all signs of their national life, the Poles
shunned intercourse with them as much as possible; those who did not
were marked men.  Ruvno had never shown the least inclination to mix
with Russians.  Both Ian and his father before him declined a charge at
the Imperial Court; it was an unwritten law in the family, as in so many
others, that whilst the men had to learn a little Russian in order to
transact necessary business, the women must not know a word.  This rule
has done more to preserve the Polish language in humble homes and in
great than anything else.

So you can understand Father Constantine’s surprise when he heard Ian
say that two Muscovites, as they are generally called in Poland, were to
sit at his patron’s table.  Nobody had fought harder, in his modest way,
against the Russification of his country than the old priest.  He was
apt to see but Russian faults, just as the Russians had eyes only for
Polish shortcomings.  Had such a thing happened a week ago he would have
expressed his displeasure at the sudden crumbling up of Ruvno traditions
and excused himself from the meal.  But he thought things over for a
minute and remarked to the silent room:

"Well, the Russians are fighting on the right side _this_ time."

In his tone and the gesture of his thin hands were much eloquence, and a
hint that he had wiped his account against Russia off the slate; that
the sufferings of Siberian exile were to rankle no more.  From that day
forth they never heard him say a hard word against Russians, never
caught him speaking of them as Muscovites, a term of hatred and
contempt, but as Russians, children of the big land of Rus, fighting in
a big struggle for the good cause of humanity.

The Countess said nothing for a moment.  She had always avoided
Russians, knew nothing of their language, treated those whom evil chance
threw in her way with dignified civility, which was meant to make them
feel that they were barbarians and she of an old civilization.  But she
was ready to call Russia an acquaintance, a possible friend in the near
future, if they only kept their word to fight the Prussians who were
killing defenseless women and children in Kalisz and Belgium.  Ian had
described the two visitors as "not very presentable."  She knew what he
meant.  She had seen dozens of Russian officers who were not
presentable, in the streets of Warsaw and Plock; at the races, at
restaurants, in trains.  They were noisy and none too clean; they spoke
nothing but Russian and probably put their knives in their mouths.  They
would smell of pitch.  She never quite understood why Russians of this
type smelt of pitch, but the fact remained.  Ian said it was something
to do with the tanning of their shoe-leather.  Perhaps it was.  Anyway,
it was not quite the kind of smell she cared to have at her table or in
her sitting-room.  And yes, they would expect some of the strong, raw
vodka which peasants drink. However, she had always been ready to take a
sporting chance on the sudden events of life, and said cheerfully:

"I expect we shall have more of them before the war is over.  So the
sooner you and I pick up a few Russian words, Vanda, the better for us."

Vanda did not answer.  She was thinking of Joseph, who had gone to fight
with the race that had violated Belgium and slaughtered the children of
Kalisz.

Minnie only nodded.  Her thoughts were for Ian. She felt she had said
too much that morning and was regretting it.




                                   IV


No need to dwell upon Ian’s efforts to enlist as a volunteer in the
Tsar’s army.  Thousands and thousands of loyal Britons were being
snubbed by their own government in the same way just then. Briton’s
rulers had even less excuse for their behavior than Russia, who at least
had a large standing army to draw upon.

Russia needed no men, he was told.  Perhaps, after many years, she would
call on men over thirty to help her.  But then, the war would be over in
a few months. After being refused by the officer in charge of the
military dépôt at Kutno, he went to Warsaw, hoping to find Roman, who
knew a few Russians and might help him.  But he learned at the Hotel
Europe that the impetuous young man had left for St. Petersburg several
days ago and omitted to say when he was coming back.  Ian soon found out
that his only chance of fighting would be with the Cossacks, to whom
they were sending volunteers for the cavalry.  To those whom he begged
for admission he pointed out that he could ride straight and shoot
straight, was sound as a nut and willing to do anything.  One grizzled
old Cossack colonel, reared on mare’s milk, bred in the saddle, with not
a spare ounce of flesh on his bones, gave his ample figure a keen and
contemptuous glance.

"To the devil with riding gentlemen squires!" were his words, spoken in
that strange Russian of the Don; but his tone said: "To the devil with
all Poles!"  He repeated his glance and asked:

"Can you ride without your saddle now?"

"I can."

"And without your bridle?"

"Yes."

The gruff warrior sought his eyes, which firmly met the gaze and with
hostility, too; none have hated one another more bitterly for centuries
than Pole and Cossack.

"And spring on the mare’s back when she’s galloping?"

"I’ve not done that lately," admitted the squire.

"H’m.  I thought not from your belly.  You can shoot, you say.  Bears,
perhaps?"

"Bears, yes.  And quail on the wing.  And wild fowl at dawn.  And men,
too, when they insult me," retorted Ian, his temper fast slipping out of
control.

The Cossack grinned.  This sort of talk he liked. He had wondered
whether the Pole would give as good as he got.  His manner thawed
slightly, as he said:

"Well, you’ve the pigeon-colored eyes of men who shoot straight.  But
you’re too fat for a Cossack, and too old."

"You’re fifty if you’re a day," said Ian.

"Wrong for you.  I’m only forty-five.  But I’ve had a hard life, which
I’m used to.  You, my gentleman, have always had a soft bed to sleep on
and rich food to feed on.  That’s why your stomach is too big for your
years."

Ian suddenly felt very much ashamed of his spare flesh.  Over and over
again he had promised himself he would go to Marienbad and get rid of
it.  But that was out of the question now.  So he said eagerly:

"I’ll get thin soon enough campaigning.  Look here, Colonel, you and I
bear no love to one another.  We’ve a good many old scores to pay off."

"You’re right about that," admitted the other with a grin.  "And the
fault’s not always been on the Cossack side, either."

"But just now we’ve got to beat the Prussians," argued Ian.  "And you’ll
want all the men you can get to do it.  I’ve been in their country and
know it."

The Cossack gave a hoarse guffaw.

"Russia has enough sons to beat the world," he cried. "We’ll be in
Berlin before the New Year and I’ll promise you my men won’t leave much
of their fine shops and their light beer.  And on my way I’ll call in on
your house and give you some loot to prove it. Meanwhile, do you go home
and look after your lady mother and your peasants."

This, delivered in the various accents of the Holy Russian Empire, and
in varying tones, according to the state of culture of the particular
officer who gave it, was the answer which greeted Ian everywhere he
went. He was too old and too heavy.  Bitter thought, when he felt young,
strong, enthusiastic and capable as any Cossack of holding his own with
horse and gun.  There were, he was told, plenty of younger, fitter men
than he.  The Prussians would be utterly destroyed without his help.
His grain, his horses and his peasants were worth more than his blood.

This was the result of two days’ begging, waiting in ante-rooms,
listening to more or less personal remarks, rubbing shoulders with men
who were his enemies of centuries and who were, he thought, childishly
optimistic about the war.  As he told the Cossack of the Don, he knew
Prussia.  And he dreaded to think of how many towns would be captured,
how many women and children butchered, before Berlin loot found its way
to Ruvno....

There was nothing to be done but go home and follow the old colonel’s
advice.  No need to add that everybody in Ruvno, and the women
especially, welcomed him with fervor and relief.  He made preparations
for the war, laying in a large stock of grain, potatoes and other
provisions which would keep.  He feared a food shortage before long.
Ruvno had good cellars, vaulted and spacious.  They had been built in a
time when people quarreled with their neighbors even more violently than
they do nowadays, and laid siege to one another’s houses.  They were
swept and aired under Zosia’s and Martin’s supervision.  Then Ian had
most of his stores bricked up in them, as his forbears did with their
good wines, entering the list in their cellar-book and only opening the
best vintage for weddings, christenings, funerals or the celebration of
some great victory, according to the period of history.  The Ruvno
cellar-book went back to 1539, and he was very proud of it.

He worked hard during these days of preparation, seeking to relieve the
smart of refusal.  Too old and too fat; what a thing to have on his
mind!  He confided his feelings to nobody, not even to the Countess, who
was busy housing refugees and improvising a hospital.  Minnie he had
forgotten; Vanda he avoided. Between them rose the figure of Joseph, in
his Prussian helmet and gray service coat.  _He_ was with their enemies.
Both felt the moment must come when they would open their passionate
thoughts to each other about him; and both tacitly postponed it.
Meanwhile, Vanda helped her aunt and Minnie to prepare wards and
nurseries for the wounded and homeless.

He kept several people busy for the next few days, getting in his
supplies from his various farms and entering them, not in the old
cellar-book, but on a piece of strong paper, showing exactly how the
household could reach various stores bricked up in different parts of
the cellars, which covered as much ground as the big rambling house
itself.

This done, he had to decide where to hide the list, so that, supposing
Muscovites or Prussians made search for food, they would not find it.
For he had little confidence in Russian troops either.  A hungry warrior
has no scruples as to whom he robs. Experience had taught him that, of
the two kinds of oppression against his race, the Prussian was worse
than the Russian; it had more method, persistency and callousness,
beating anything the Russian could do, because the Russian is not
orderly, nor has he a long memory.  Ian knew, too, what rumors were
afloat; that petty Russian bureaucrats were saying that the Poles would
side with the invaders and Polish recruits refuse to fight.  Such talk,
though a tissue of lies, might put Russian troops against Polish houses.
So he made up his mind to hide the food list and ... his family jewels.
He wanted to send the latter to Moscow with the plate and pictures; but
his mother refused to let them go.

"We may want them," she argued.  "I hope we sha’n’t; but you never know.
They will enable us to live and to help others live for the rest of our
lives if we have to bolt."

Ian had never thought of the possibility of leaving Ruvno.  Privately,
he meant to stop there even if the Germans came.  Only thus would he be
able to save his property.  He had already heard enough tales of the
neighborhood to know that an empty house is soon a smoking ruin and an
abandoned farm appropriated by somebody else.  He would send his mother
and Vanda away and see things through alone.  Minnie he would get rid of
beforehand.  But there was no reason why he should not humor his mother
in this matter of the jewels.  Time enough to tell the truth when real
danger came.  So he said nothing.  Father Constantine suggested putting
them in the chapel, under a stone which they would take out of the floor
and replace so that nobody would be any the wiser.

"Prussians don’t respect churches," said the Countess.

"And suppose the chapel should get burnt," remarked Vanda.

Father Constantine shuddered at the thought.  He loved the little chapel
better than any part of Poland, and this is saying a great deal.

"The only place is where everybody goes," said Vanda.

"The horse pond," suggested Ian jokingly.

"Yes," she rejoined seriously, "I vote for the horse pond."

"And ruin the jewels," protested her aunt.

"Vanda is right," said Ian.  "All the soldiers who come use the horse
pond.  They won’t think of looking for loot there.  We should have to
dig on the side furthest from the paddock wall, as that may be
destroyed."

"Yes," said Vanda, "something like that."

"A brilliant idea," said Ian, "but it has a great drawback."

"Which is?"

"How are you going to dig it up if we want to bolt?  All the soldiers in
the place would see and there’s an end to the jewels."

Nobody said anything for a moment; they were floored.  Father
Constantine spoke first.

"There is the high-road," he said in a detached way he had.

"Well?" said Ian.

"The troops won’t make trenches in that, because it forms one of the
lines of communication between Warsaw and Prussia.  If we make a hole,
lined with cement and moss, put some sausages over the jewels, with hard
earth between, they ought to be safe.  For anybody who found the
sausages wouldn’t go further down.  We mustn’t choose a spot near trees,
for they will get felled and the ground torn up around them."

"There are two versts without trees, after you pass the windmills," said
Vanda.

"And no peasants about to pry on you," added Ian.

So the Ruvno jewels were taken out of their caskets and sewn into
waterproof bags.  The girls helped the Countess to make them, for none
of the servants, not even Martin, the old butler, knew anything of the
plan. He was to be trusted, but Ian and his mother agreed it was better
not to let him know; he could then quite truthfully spread the report
that the jewels had gone with the plate.  For so he and the upper
servants were told.  In the washleather bags they put very fine sawdust,
too.

Ian and the old priest dug the hole and lined it with cement, taking
advantage of the bright moon to do it.  Then the jewels were put in.
They had a discussion about putting pearls there, but could not ask an
expert, being cut off from Warsaw again.  Ian said the damp might spoil
them; his mother that she would rather the damp had them than think they
were round the fat neck of some German _frau_; so they made the bag as
thick as possible and put the most valuable pearls into a small thermos
flask which Ian found among his hunting tackle.  You must remember that
the nearest jeweler’s shop was twenty versts from Ruvno and might have
been a thousand for all the good it was, since the Germans were there
and the Russian troops between it and them.  So they had to manage with
the primitive things they found at home. Besides, as Father Constantine
said, their object was to have the stones packed in as small a compass
as possible, because if they wanted them at all during the war it would
be to escape with.

Whilst preparing one hole they decided it would be better to divide the
treasure into two parts, so that if for some reason or other they could
not safely get to one they would have some chance with the other.  So
Ian and Father Constantine set to work on another hole, on the road to
the east of the house, whereas the first was on the west, for so goes
the road from Warsaw to Plovk, and thence follows the river Vistula into
Prussia.  They had to work quickly, for the moon was on the wane, and
they could not be seen digging by the wayside at night.  Even as it was,
they were often interrupted by troops and supplies passing.  One night,
just as they were about to cement the second hole, a _sotnia_ of
Cossacks took it into their heads to bivouac near the secret spot, so
they hastily covered it up and slunk home again, carrying the little
sack of cement on their backs. They looked back and saw two Cossacks
searching on the very spot where they had been working.  This showed how
careful they must be.  At last, however, the two holes were filled with
straw and moss, then the bags with the jewels, with earth beaten down,
potatoes, sausages and more loose rubbish.  The jewels were well at the
bottom and several layers away from the food.  This done, the women were
taken--after dark--to the spots until they knew exactly where to find
the treasure; and each learned by heart how many paces one hole was from
the ditch and the other from the bend in the road that came a few
hundred yards after you passed the windmill. _That_ has been shot down
long ago; but they had all passed the place and visited the spot so
often that they could find the treasure blindfolded.  The two men
covered up the tops so well that none could tell the ground had been
disturbed twenty-four hours after they had finished.

So much for the jewels.  They now had to find a place for the little
plan that would enable them to get food supplies.  There was not so much
secrecy about this, there could not be, for both the butler and
housekeeper had to know where to get things. By this time they had heard
quite enough about the soldiers to be sure that if they were hungry and
thought there was food about they would try to get it.  But the Grand
Duke Nicolai Nicolawitch had his troops well in hand; only the Prussians
ordered their men to loot as much as they pleased; and who could tell
how soon they might come?

Ian had ordered a good stock of foodstuffs to be left in the huge
storeroom, to satisfy any looters that that was all they had.  If that
went, they could fall back on bricked-up supplies; if it were let alone,
so much the better.  But the stores in the cellar had been bricked up in
six different parts; the place underneath the house was a labyrinth of
passages and small cellars.  Ian was for destroying the written list
when they had learnt the geography of the food, and knew the Prussians
were upon them.  Till then, it might be kept in the chapel; for they
knew that the Russians, even the most savage of the Cossacks, would
respect holy ground.  Vanda said nothing, but learnt the contents off by
heart, going down into the cellars with Zosia and Martin, plan in hand,
till they all three soon knew where everything was bricked up.  This set
Minnie to work, for Vanda, who seemed to her childish in far-off days of
peace, had developed nowadays.  Little by little she, too, learned the
mystery of the cellars; so another detail, and a most important one, as
things turned out, was mastered.  In the storeroom were lists of the
food put there, nailed inside the huge cupboards and headed: "Complete
List of Foodstuffs in Hand."  This little trick was an idea of Ian’s.
Later on, when it seemed certain they could not escape a visit from
William’s troops, he had the old Tokay unbricked and put in one of the
open cellars.  Minnie asked him why he was going to give them such good
wine.

"Because they know it is here," he answered.  "I don’t want them to set
about looking for it.  Some old German professor called once with
introductions and asked if he might see the cellar-book.  Like an ass, I
let him.  His essay came out in some German review with extracts from my
cellar-book."

Meanwhile, all the able-bodied men, except only sons and supporters of
widows, had been called to the colors.  Before going off, the men
trooped into the hall, kissed the Countess’ hand and had her blessing
and her promise that neither wife nor child should want so long as Ruvno
could help them.  And Father Constantine, who had taught them all their
catechism and their prayers, said a prayer.  And then they marched away,
singing hymns which have been heard on every battlefield in which Poles
took part since Christianity came into Poland, and swinging their sturdy
arms; for so the Russians teach their soldiers to march....

They went down the shady avenue and along the hot, dusty road to the
dépôt, five miles off.  And at their head rode Ian and Father
Constantine, to give them a send-off.  Long after they were out of sight
the three women could hear their voices, the men singing in unison, and
the wives or sweethearts, who could keep up with them by running
alongside, chiming in with their shrill tones; and Minnie thanked God
that Ian, if he was to die, would die with her in his beloved Ruvno....

And as she watched them disappear into the fields of death and glory a
great sadness came over her; for she knew that between yesterday and all
the days to come in her life lay a deep abyss; that life itself would
never be the same again; that a scale of pleasant illusions had fallen
from her eyes and she must now face hard, unwelcome facts and live a
fuller, sterner life than she had ever dreamed of; and the thought that
the old order had left them all, on this great battlefield, forever,
made her feel that she had lost somebody very very dear to her; and so
the tears came into her eyes, though she tried very hard to swallow
them.

As the voices died in the distance, they heard a long, dull roar.  She
looked at the Countess, who was fighting her tears, too.

"Heavy guns," she remarked.  "In the Kalisz direction."

Their new life had begun.




                                   V


Father Constantine had never much of an opinion about the Kaiser and his
eldest son.  A couple of years before the war he was obliged to take a
cure for his old bones in a little town on the Baltic, where the humble
folk are still Poles and Catholics.  He looked upon the Crown Prince’s
face many times, for the Kaiser had banished him to the little town,
where he swaggered in his blue and silver uniform, leering at the pretty
women and sneering at the old ones.  And he noted that those eyes were
full of evil, though he little dreamed it was God’s will to give his
wicked passions play in Belgium and France.  All the Prussians in that
town used to cringe to him; but Father Constantine took no notice, so
that at last a Prussian subaltern, in a gorgeous uniform like his
master’s stopped him in the street and said he would be punished if he
continued to ignore the Crown Prince when he passed him.  But the old
man never did salute the Crown Prince, because he knew how he and his
father persecuted little Polish children, having them flogged for not
saying their prayers in German, and dragging them from the steps of the
altar at their first communion, to prison.  He told this to the gaudy
officer, whose Teutonic blue eyes blazed with rage.  He quite expected
to be arrested or at least taken back to the Russian frontier by a
couple of German policemen.  But nothing happened: they left him alone.
But Father Constantine thought they might meet again, for war brings
people together in a curious way; and if the Crown Prince should come to
Ruvno he was ready to tell him what he thought of his evil actions, even
if he were hanged for it.  Once in his life, at least, said Father
Constantine, he should hear the truth about himself, for he was always
surrounded by parasites and sycophants, who praised everything he did.

Father Constantine not only talked about these things but set them in
his diary; his old head could not keep its thoughts on one thing, even
on paper, and he found how hard it was to pick out the most important
things he had seen in two months’ war, having learned the habit of
wandering on in his diary about all kinds of matters.  But he felt
lonely without it; and hoped, too, that one day he might be the humble
means of telling the world what happened in a country house in Poland
during the Great War.  Besides, he argued, when some foreigner realizes
what Poland bears, he, whether he were French, English or American,
would understand that Poland, having endured so much, must be saved,
because it is against the laws of God and man to tear a country into
three parts and put each under foreign domination, making father fight
against son, brother against brother.

Ever since Ian and he had left the Ruvno men at the Kutno dépôt, he had
heard the ceaseless roar of heavy guns day and night.  By night he saw
them flash around when walking out by the windmill for a little fresh
air after leaving the wards.  He saw the come and go of large armies and
small detachments, of baggage trains, artillery, field hospitals, of war
accessories whose very names he ignored but which he declared Beelzebub
alone could have conceived.  The Countess had given rest, shelter and
food to Cossacks of the Urals, who think horse flesh better than capon,
and to wild Siberians, who look as shaggy as their little horses and who
are infidels, but whom no hardships can dishearten.  They slept outside,
or in the farm stables.  And a pretty mess they made.  Poor Ian used
strong words when he saw what the first batch had done; but he grew used
to it.  In the house they had fops of the Imperial Bodyguard, who threw
away the soft life of Petrograd, a very wicked city, so the priest said,
to sleep in ditches and eat tinned meat. And they were quite cheerful
about it, for some came back wounded, and the old priest talked to them.
It shocked him to rub shoulders with all these Russians at first.  But
they were friendly and would vow with strange oaths that Poland must
regain her liberty after the war.  Sometimes he wondered if he would be
there to see that glorious day, or if Ruvno would be standing by then.
Even now, poor Ian was half ruined, after only two months of war.  His
forests, once the pride of Ruvno, had either been cut down for military
purposes or burned by shell fire.  So far, those near the house were
spared; but they were not of great value; it broke his heart to see the
stumps and scorched trunks for versts around, and the priest’s, too.  He
had watched some of these forests being planted, years before Ian was
born or thought of.  They had been tended with great care and grew into
the best timber in that part of Poland.  Even the Tsar’s forests, which
began near Ruvno’s boundary, were no better.  One morning, an old Jewish
factor who used to do errands for the house when there was a town they
could send to, came up--God knows how these Jews got about--and told
them that the Prussians had cut down two hundred square versts of the
Tsar’s forest land north of Plock and sent the lumber down the Vistula
into Prussia.  Ian expected they would do the same with his property
when they had the chance.

The autumn crops, especially potatoes, suffered terribly from the
movements of so many troops, though Ian had to own that the Grand Duke
saw that they were spared as much as possible.  But even he could not be
everywhere at once, nor think of an acre of sugar beet when he wanted to
drive back the Prussians. Father Constantine dreaded the Cossacks.  He
saw them at work in 1863, though he had no record of it in his diary,
because they burned down his home and all it contained in the spring of
1864. However, these were old doings, and many Russians who passed
through Ruvno told him they regretted what happened then as deeply as he
did.  Ian managed to gather in a good deal of the Ruvno grain, but the
peasants in most of the villages round had not enough potatoes to keep
body and soul together during the winter.

One afternoon late in September, the priest was in the home-forest
burying a Polish sapper who had died of wounds the night before.  He had
just planted the wooden Cross in the sapper’s grave when he saw a big,
dirty Cossack coming towards him.  This man had a reddish beard, his
shaggy cap and high boots smelt of earth, pitch and a rough life.  He
had seen many like him and knew the look of a man who has been fighting
from that of one who is only going to fight. He could not define the
difference, but it was there, stamped in their faces.  Mud stuck to him,
though it was not the mud which said this Cossack had come from the
battle line.  What with dirt and sunburn he was as black as the pieces
of oak Ian had pulled from the river, where it lay for centuries, to
make house wainscot of.

"Good-day, priest," he began.  Father Constantine noted that he had the
good manners to speak Polish.

"Good-day, my son."  His merry eyes belied his savage-looking red beard.
There was something familiar about him, too.  "I’ve seen you before; but
where?"

"Ah--where?" he guffawed, and sat on the grave, thereby smoothing the
parts that lazy Vitold had left all knobbed.  Father Constantine felt
for his glasses, remembered that he had left them on the window-sill in
the sacristy, and peered at the new-comer helplessly. If any man had
told him three months earlier, that he would be quietly watching a
Cossack seated on a Catholic’s grave and splitting his sides, Father
Constantine would have called that man a liar.  But war, as he admitted,
changes even an old man’s point of view, especially if he happen to be
in the thick of it.

"If you have something to laugh at, tell it me," he said, tired of
seeing the stranger enjoy a joke he knew nothing of.

"Laugh!" he cried.  "Why, I could laugh for a week, just to see Ruvno
again.  And you not knowing me, after all the wallopings you’ve given
me, too."

This made Father Constantine think.  He did thrash a Cossack once, but
it was in 1863, and this man was young.

"Not in 1863?" he asked doubtfully.

"No--more like ’93," and the Cossack laughed again.

"I’ve only walloped village boys lately.  And we’d no Cossacks in these
parts before the war."

"How about Ian?" he asked.

"Count Ian, you mean," said the Father with dignity.  He hated these
democratic ways the Russian soldiers had of saying "thee" and "thou" to
everybody.

"And Roman Skarbek," he went on, unabashed.

"Skarbek?"

"Don’t you remember how you walloped us when we ate up all the cherries
Aunt Natalie’s housekeeper had thrown out of the vodka bottle?  Lord,
how drunk we were!" and he grinned, being tired of laughing, I suppose.

Then the priest remembered the story and recognized him.  It was Roman
Skarbek himself, the young man who won a fortune at Monte Carlo but
could not win Vanda.

"What do you mean, coming here dressed like a savage?" he asked angrily,
for it annoyed him that the trick had succeeded, all through his having
left his glasses in the sacristy.  "Don’t you know what’s due to a Pole
and a Christian?"

"Aren’t Cossacks Christians?" retorted Roman in that pleasant way which
always made the Father forgive his boyish deviltries sooner that he
ought.  "Come, Father, be just."

"Well," he admitted, "some of them are.  But why be a Cossack when you
can help it?"

"Can’t help it.  Being a volunteer, they made me a Cossack."

"Before this war I detested the very sight of their tall caps and with
good reason," said the Father.  "But such is the power of Prussian
brutality that Poles now fight side by side with wild children of the
steppes to drive the soldier of the anti-Christ out of our country.
Where have you been?"

"In Masuria," and Roman told him some of his experiences, adding that he
had come to Ruvno with Rennenkampf, for a few hours.

"Well, I’m glad you’ve killed a few Germans.  But you had better cut off
that red beard before you go to the Countess."

As he got on his feet the priest was glad to see he had finished
Vitold’s work with the sods.  He liked the graves to look neat.

"Aunt won’t mind the beard.  Let’s go to her."

He whistled to his horse, which was browsing near by, and walked towards
the house.  He asked about Vanda, whether she was anxious for Joseph,
how she looked, what she was doing.  The priest answered truthfully,
though it made him sorry to see the shadow come into Roman’s face when
he realized that she thought still of Joseph with great love.

"And yet, she hates the Prussians, and he is fighting with them, I
suppose," he remarked, hotly.

The Father, almost as hotly, explained that, as he knew, several
thousands more Poles were with the Prussian armies, through no fault of
their own but because they had the bad fortune to be German and Austrian
subjects.  Roman agreed that many could not cut away from Germany, but
Joseph had gone back when ordered.

"Like one of the herd all Germans are," he added.

As they passed the windmill, that stood just before you turn into the
high road on the way to Ruvno from the forest, Szmul, a Jewish factor,
stopped them.  His cunning eyes shone with excitement.

"Oh, have you heard that great things are happening in Ruvno?" he cried,
spreading out his hands in the way Jews have and twisting his mouth
about.

"What things?" asked the priest.  "Have they driven the Prussians out of
Kalisz?"

"No, the Prussians are still at Kalisz.  But the great General
Rennenkampf has deigned to come to Ruvno."

"We know that."

He looked disappointed, because he took pride in carrying gossip from
one village to another.  And the Jews always knew the latest news and
spread it like wildfire.

"Anything more?" asked Roman.

Szmul made him a deep reverence.  You would have thought this
dirty-looking man in Cossack uniform was the Grand Duke at least; but
that was Szmul’s way.

"Oh--yes, General," Szmul knew he was only a lieutenant.  "And I’m sure
neither of you know it."  He threw his arms about, so Father Constantine
told him they were in a hurry.

"Well, look over there."  He pointed westwards, where the blackened
stumps of a forest bordered one of Ian’s fish-ponds.

"Well, there’s nothing new there.  Be quick and tell your news if you
have any, for we’re off to the house."

"Out there, by the fish-pond, they’ve caught a spy," he said
importantly.  "He refuses to say who he is. He was caught cutting wires,
and burning the toes of Jewish children."

"He may have been cutting wires but he wasn’t burning Jewish children’s
toes," said Father Constantine sternly.  "The Prussians have sins enough
on their heads without you inventing more.  You know as well as I do
that there are no children, Jew or Catholic, within two versts of those
fish-ponds."

"But," he protested, "they have caught a spy, and if he wasn’t roasting
the toes of Jewish children it’s only because he hadn’t the chance.  I
saw him being taken into the big house, and they say His Excellency
General Rennenkampf is going to shoot him with his own hands to-morrow
morning.  He’d be shot now, only they hope to find out more about the
enemy if they keep him a bit."

"Rennenkampf won’t shoot him, but I hope to," said Roman as they passed
on.

He and the priest parted outside the gates, one to vespers, the other to
seek the Countess and Ian.  Father Constantine excused himself from the
Countess’ table that evening; he preferred to eat in his room when Great
Russians were in the house.  Besides, he had much to do and knew the
General liked to sit over his meals.  On his way to the Countess’
boudoir, which was used as an office in connection with the little
hospital, he met Roman again.

"That Jew was right, Father," he threw over his shoulder.  "The spy is
here, and my men are to have the shooting of him to-morrow at daybreak."

Father Constantine had a busy hour with Ian’s agent, a surgeon and some
refugees who came in from a village ten versts off.  All these people
now walked in and out of the Countess’ boudoir, once a sacred spot, as
if it were a mill.  He and the agent had disposed of the last fugitive
and he was going up to the wards when a Russian corporal blundered in.

"What do you want in here?" he asked sharply.  It annoyed him to see
these louts use his patroness’ room as a passage.

He said something in Russian; Father Constantine had made a point, all
his life, not to speak that language, but he understood that an officer
upstairs had asked for a priest.

"Tell him I’ll see him to-morrow."

The man saluted, grinned and said:

"He will be dead to-morrow."

Then the priest remembered the spy they had caught: it was he.  The
wards would have to wait.  He sent a message up to Vanda and told the
soldier to take him to the condemned man.

They made their way through the broad passages and landings which were
blocked with wounded waiting for treatment, and up a winding stair which
led to the turret.  It was silent as the tomb till they disturbed an owl
and some rats, and almost as dark. Father Constantine had not been up
there since Ian was a boy and kept pets which could not stop outside in
the winter.  He remembered one winter when Roman and Joseph kept a young
dog fox up there in the hopes of taming it.  But it was never even
friendly and when the first signs of spring came through the chinks of
its prison, it gnawed the staple from its chain and made off into the
fields.  He felt glad that this Prussian prisoner would not get away so
easily.

Two sentries stood at the top.  They unlocked the door at a sign from
the corporal and let him into the turret chamber.

It was small and dirty.  A straw mattress lay upon the unswept floor;
and some broken food.  An old packing-case served as table.  A candle,
thrust into the neck of an empty champagne bottle, gave a feeble light
and aft air of sordid debauchery, out of keeping with the place and
circumstances.  The prisoner sat on one end of the packing-case, his
back to the door. He was writing the last letter of his life, and so
intent that he took no notice of their entrance.

The priest dismissed his guide with a nod.  He saluted, went out, and
shut the door noisily after him: and still the man did not turn round.
This was all very well, but Father Constantine was wanted below, in the
wards, where others were under sentence of death, though not at the
hands of Rennenkampf.

"You asked for a priest," he began in his mother tongue, though he knew
German, too.

The prisoner rose and faced him.  As the old man looked upon him his
heart stood still in fear and his knees shook.

"Mother of God!  Joseph Skarbek!" he gasped.

And he must die as a spy!

And his own brother was to shoot him!

These thoughts rushed across his brain.  They stood looking at each
other, both speechless.  Joseph Skarbek, whom he had taught and scolded
and loved with Ian and Roman, who was to marry Vanda, had come to Ruvno,
not to claim his bride, but to spy.  When he found tongue it was for
reproach.

"How dare you come here like this?" he cried angrily, because great fear
always made him furious, and he was aghast at the tragedy which had thus
fallen upon his dear ones.  His next thought was that none of them,
neither Roman, the Countess, Ian nor Vanda must know this hideous
secret, up in the turret chamber.  He must find Rennenkampf, tell him
the tale, plead with him that this prisoner be shot, if die he must, by
another man’s orders, and not Roman’s. There was no time to be lost.

"Wait," he said.  "I’ll be back soon."

Joseph grasped his arm as he made for the door, and he saw how haggard
his face was and how wild his eyes.  Calm, self-contained Joseph had
vanished; he was the incarnation of tragedy.

"For the love of God don’t tell them," he muttered huskily.

"I’m not mad."

"Then where are you going?"

"To the chapel--for the Sacred Vessels."

He hastily prayed God to forgive him for using His Vessels to hide the
truth; but could not tell the boy the real reason for his sudden
departure.  Outside, he had to explain to the sentries, who said they
supposed it would be all right, only he must bring a permit if he wanted
to go into the room again.

It took him some time to find an officer, who said that Rennenkampf had
left Ruvno half an hour ago.

"But somebody must be in charge," he said, for the place swarmed with
troops.

"I am," he snapped.  He was a hard-faced, battered-looking man, hated
the Poles and believed every Catholic priest a Jesuit, bent on his
neighbor’s destruction for the benefit of his Order.  Father Constantine
stated his case, after he had promised to respect the confidence.  He
yawned through most of the story; but when he heard that Roman Skarbek
had been ordered to shoot his own brother, his narrow eyes flashed with
rage.

"A Pole has no business to fight against us!" he cried.

"Colonel, there are several million Poles in Germany and Austria not
through any fault of..."

He stamped his feet.

"Don’t argue, priest!  I won’t have it.  This Polish Count could have
blown his brains out when they told him to fight us--and spy on us.
I’ll make an example of him.  Eh, God, I will!"

"You gave me your word of honor to respect my secret," said the other,
looking into the depths of his narrow eyes till he had to drop them.  He
thought for a moment.

"True," he growled.  "I did give you my honorable word.  But I will not
cancel General Rennenkampf’s order.  This young volunteer will take his
men out to shoot his traitor brother.  It will be a lesson to him, and
to all Poles."

And all eloquence was without avail, though Father Constantine pleaded
earnestly with him.  But war had turned this already hard man into
adamant.

"No and no, and yet once more no!" he said with a calm that was worse
than his rage.  He even grumbled at a request for a pass to show the two
guards; but gave it at last.

As the priest left he met the Countess and she kept him some time.  Then
he had to go to the chapel.  As he felt his way up the turret stairs,
determined to stop with Joseph till the end, he heard steps behind.
Somebody was coming up with an electric torch; he waited, rather than
bruise his shins in the dark.

"Who’s there?"  His heart sank; it was Roman’s voice.

"Go back!" he ordered.  "I forbid you to come up here."

But he came up, put his arm around the old man and helped him up the
stairs.  "I know all," he said.

"All about what?"--this hoping against hope that Roman meant something
else.

"About Joe, up in there."

"That narrow-eyed Muscovite told you.  I suppose he scrupled not to
break word to a priest."

The only thing left was to try and comfort these poor brothers.  Whilst
in the chapel, he had nursed hopes of saving Roman from the agony of
seeing Joseph die.  Now, all was lost; his brain was in a whirl and he
felt, for the hundredth time since August, that old age is a terrible
thing when you want to help the young and strong.

Roman went into the turret chamber first.  He did not rush to his
brother and weep; what he said was:

"You’re writing to Her."

Joseph looked up at the familiar voice.

"Roman!" was all he said; but his haggard face flushed from ear to ear.

"Yes."  He touched his Cossack’s clothes.  "I am on the other side."
And it seemed to the priest that this impulsive and turbulent young man
had put Poland’s greatest sorrow into those few simple words--brother
fighting against brother, flesh against flesh, not of free will, but
because a wicked old cynic called Frederick and an ambitious German
wanton who usurped the Russian throne divided Poland between them more
than a century ago.

"On the other side," repeated Joseph bitterly.  He, too, was suffering.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked, showing them a square of dirty
white doth sewn on to the front of his tunic.

"No."

"The Prussian way of branding Polish conscripts. Easier to shoot us if
we try to desert."

"Such is the way of Prussians," said Father Constantine.  They stood
there looking at one another as though they were three strangers at a
loss for something to say.  Father Constantine put the Sacred Vessels on
the floor and waited.  Joseph, he reflected, had all night in which to
make his peace with God, Who understands these tribulations, and why
they are laid upon us.  As for himself, he felt very old and of small
account by the side of these stalwart boys, each worth ten of a worn-out
priest too infirm to fight, and fit only to watch the young and the
stalwart die before their time.  Joseph spoke first; his thoughts still
ran upon Vanda.

"You’ll be able to marry her now," he remarked hoarsely.  "Make her
happy."

"I’ll do my best," said Roman.

At the time Father Constantine knew not what he meant, for years dull
the mind as well as the eye.  He looked so peaceful despite the
overhanging sorrow, that he began to wonder if the boy thought the prize
of winning Vanda was worth all this.

Joseph took up his sheet of paper and tried to dry the ink at the candle
flame.  The priest noticed there was a fresh wound on his wrist.

"Let me see your hand," he said.

"It doesn’t matter--now."  He smiled nervously. Then: "Do _they_ know
I’m here?"

"No," answered Roman.  "They must never know."

"Never."  Another pause: the candle scorched his raw wound, and he
muttered something.

"How did you know?" he asked Roman.

"Never mind how."  He went near his brother, much reproach in his voice.
"Oh, why did you do it, Joe?  What in the world induced you to put on
this?"  He tugged angrily at the Prussian uniform.

"Because there, in Germany, we were a herd ... and I little thought what
this war was going to be."  Then he turned to the priest, lowering his
voice.  "And I know, too, in the bottom of my heart, that I went with
the herd because it seemed better to die fighting than to be shot for
not going on.  Oh, the misery of it all!"

"My child, God is merciful."

"I have explained what I could, as clearly as I can, here," he went on,
more quietly.  "To Vanda."

"But explain it now, to me," his brother insisted.

Joseph sighed.  "It is too long and too late.  See that she gets this
without knowing I have been here."  He swallowed a lump in his throat
and went on: "I did what I thought best."  He looked round the little
room, and his voice broke.  "To spend my last night here, a prisoner, in
Ian’s house, so near her and yet so..."  His voice refused to come.

Roman was pacing the floor in that impatient way he had.  Suddenly he
stopped, and said with decision:

"There’s not a moment to lose!"

"I have the night before me," remarked Joseph, looking first at the
Sacred Vessels, then at the priest "We must wait till midnight, in any
case."

"I don’t mean that," said Roman.  "You must escape."  He had lowered his
voice: they talked in whispers now.  Joseph’s eyes were alight with
sudden hope.

"Yes, but how?" asked Father Constantine.

"We change clothes," answered Roman, and he began to undress.  "You and
the Father leave the room together, Joe dressed in my things.  In the
dark the men won’t know it isn’t me.  Go down to the chapel together."
He handed his high Russian boots to Joseph, who was taking off his own,
somewhat reluctantly.

"Well, but how about you?" he objected.

"Never mind me.  Father Constantine will hide you in the chapel."

"I know of a place where nobody will think to look for him," said the
priest.

"But what are you going to do?" asked Joseph, still at his first boot.

"Wait till the men outside have fallen asleep.  Then I take off that
Prussian uniform you’ve got on and sneak past them.  I know every corner
of this place, which they don’t."

Joseph was not satisfied.  "You’ll be locked in," he objected.  Roman
pulled out some nippers.

"I’ve got these.  The lock is old.  So hurry up, or we’ll have the men
in, wondering why Father Constantine is still here.  I wouldn’t plan
this if it wasn’t safe."

Joseph obeyed.

"How long am I to keep him in the chapel?" asked the priest.

"Till the rest of the Russians leave.  We’re off at dawn to-morrow.  Ian
can keep him quiet in one of the cellars for a day or two till the spy
affair blows over, then you must go and fight for us.  Promise?"

"I promise," answered Joseph.  Roman did not seem satisfied.

"Swear it," he insisted, holding up his fingers.

Joseph swore; then they embraced, in the Polish way.

"That’s right," said Roman, smiling and happy again.  "I thought we’d
find some way out of this muddle."  He glanced at Father Constantine.
It took some time to persuade Joseph that Roman would get out all right.
Indeed, the priest, too, had fears about it; guards, he said, sleep with
their eyes open.  But Roman was so enthusiastic and hopeful, so
thoroughly master of the situation that he inspired the others with his
optimism.  Besides, the priest knew he was thinking of to-morrow
morning; and the power of the secret they shared overcame his
objections.

They changed clothes at last, Joseph putting the Cossack’s cap well over
his eyes.  Then they embraced again.  Joseph began to talk of gratitude;
but Roman cut him short.

"I’ll see you soon, I hope.  Meanwhile, marry Vanda and fight for us."

"I will.  Oh, Roman, you’re heaping coals of fire on my head."

"Fiddlesticks!  Now, be off, and show a brazen face."

Roman had put on the Prussian clothes far quicker than Joseph had taken
them off, and before the others left, threw himself on the straw
mattress, his back to the door.  The brothers were much the same height
and build, and Roman had shaved his red beard before sitting down to
supper with the Countess and Rennenkampf that night.  His face was
darker than Joseph’s, though he had washed; but the light was so bad and
the guards so indifferent and unsuspecting that Father Constantine felt
almost easy in his mind when a sentry looked in as he let them out.

"He’s got his passport," he remarked, nodding towards the mattress.
"German swine."

He saluted Joseph, who strode downstairs, clanking his spurs and
carrying himself as straight as you please. In one of the corridors they
passed a cornet, who called out to him; but he strode on, muttering
something between his teeth.  Father Constantine noticed that the
subaltern was going up to the turret.  After his visit the sentries
would probably doze.  Roman knew what he was doing, anyway.

It was nearly three when, at last, the priest threw himself into a chair
in the sacristy.  He could not leave the chapel precincts while Joseph
lay hiding there.  Not that he hoped to be any good, supposing that the
Russians took it into their heads to look there for their quarry; but he
felt he would be in a fever of apprehension if he went to his rooms.
With some trouble and many precautions he had managed to hide Joseph
under the altar of a side chapel, dedicated to the Mother of God of
Czenstochova.  The altar was there temporarily, the Countess having
ordered a marble one last time she was in Rome; the war had stopped its
arrival, and only the other day she had said how sorry she was not to
get it sooner.  And now, it looked as if the wooden altar was to save
Joseph’s life.  Its back was hollow, and there he hid.

The priest could not sleep, tired though he felt. His mind was full of
trouble.  Suddenly, he remembered that the narrow-eyed Muscovite knew
the story of Joseph’s arrest and would suspect him when he heard of the
escape, would search the chapel.  But then he comforted himself with the
thought that even _he_ would not order his men to pull out an altar.  He
was not a Prussian.  After that, he began to worry about Roman.  How
could he get past those guards? The more he thought about it the clearer
it seemed that he had run his head into certain danger.  Not only would
he be caught, but all his dear ones would be dragged into the trouble;
that Muscovite would punish every inmate of Ruvno in his rage.  Such
were his thoughts as night gradually left the sacristy.

At last he fell into a troubled doze.  He was awakened by the sound of
musket shots coming through the open window.  With vague fears he
hurried into the garden.  A young subaltern was enjoying the last of the
Countess’ roses; all was quiet.

"Reminds me of Monte Carlo," he remarked.

"What were those shots?"

He turned his head towards a tall pine, where smoke, blue in the air,
still lingered.

"Only a German."  He plucked a large red rose, heavy with dew, saluted
and walked off, whistling.

With shaking knees the old man staggered to the stretch of sward upon
which Prince Mniszek killed Ian’s father, years ago.  Under the pine lay
a huddled form.  Somebody had thrown a blanket over it.  He drew it
aside and knelt before the body.  The film of death had covered his
eyes.  His wounds were horrible.  But it was Roman, dressed in the
Prussian uniform, the one white patch of cloth stained with blood....

Had he been caught?  Did he, when he sent Joseph down, know that this
was the only way to save him? Or did the thought of Vanda’s happiness
urge his sacrifice?  The priest remembered his anxiety that Joseph
should promise to fight against Prussia, his insistence for a solemn
oath.  Did he think that, since one of them must die, better he, rather
than the man Vanda loved?  Who shall look into his heart, one of the
bravest and truest that ever beat?  Father Constantine puzzled his
brains many times, but found no answer. And he could not ask anybody to
help, because he alone knew that Roman Skarbek, and no Prussian spy, lay
under the pine tree in the rose garden.

He never even found that subaltern, who must have gone off while he was
weeping over Roman’s remains. A couple of soldiers came up to take them
away.  He could not bear the thought of their burying him in a ditch,
wanted him to lie amongst the trees and the other soldiers, where he had
been the day before, laughing and joyous because he found Ruvno safe in
the midst of the storm.

"Leave him to me.  He was a Catholic," he pleaded. They looked at each
other.

"We’ve orders to bury him."

"Then take him over there," he pointed to the home forest.

"Too far," said one.  "We’re off this minute."

As they dug a hasty grave for him he went for Holy Water, and gave him
Christian burial.  And much later, when he could control his face, he
told the Countess that the German who had been shot in the Garden was a
Catholic; so they put up one of the wooden Crosses such as you can see
by the thousand in Poland to-day.  And when there was nobody about he
used to pray for his soul.  And sometimes, in the very early morning, he
would take the portable altar out there, and say a Mass for Roman
Skarbek.

And because the burden of his secret was worse than his heart could
bear, he sat up all night when the household thought him asleep and set
it down in his diary.




                                   VI


Ian, on waking that morning, found that all the Cossacks had left.  He
went in to breakfast, feeling a little hurt with his cousin, Roman.  He
might at least have shouted a farewell through the window.

"Has anybody seen Roman this morning?" he asked the rest of the family
as they met for the morning meal.

"He came in last night for a moment, after supper," said the Countess.
"But I was going to the wards and we did not talk.  He said some officer
had sent for him."

"He was going to shoot a spy at daybreak," said Minnie.  Vanda was
silent.  She had not seen him at all, had kept away from the
supper-table, on purpose to avoid him.

At that moment Father Constantine came in.  His face was ashen gray and
distorted with emotion.

"What’s the matter?" they all asked.

"Nothing.  That is..."  He could not speak.  Ian made him sit down and
went to a sideboard for brandy, which he waved aside.

"Joseph Skarbek is here," he stammered.

"Roman, you mean?" suggested Ian.

He shook his head and said with sudden vigor:

"No--not Roman.  He..."  Then, with another effort, painful to see, he
added: "Roman went away this morning."

They thought he was going to faint.  Ian loosened his neckband, the
Countess dipped her napkin in water and dabbed his wrinkled face; Vanda
made him drink something.  Minnie stood near, watching and listening.
He had enough people taking care of him; besides, it took all her time
to follow what was said. They talked Polish; a habit of theirs whenever
they got excited or related thrilling experiences, so that she had to
concentrate all her energies upon listening to them.  They were pained
and puzzled over Father Constantine, speculating as to what had happened
to upset him like this.

"He is overworked," was Vanda’s verdict, "I’m sure he’s not been to bed
last night.  Look how rumpled he is."

He lay back in the chair, his eyes closed, his thin hands, puckered with
age and none too clean, closing and unclosing on the chair arms.

"Worn out," said Ian, whilst his mother watched her faithful chaplain
with deep concern.  "I’ll take him into my room.  It’s quiet there."  He
proceeded to do this; but the patient suddenly sat upright and said
peremptorily:

"Leave me alone!"

"But you must rest," explained the Countess, soothingly.

"Nonsense....  I was never better in my life."  They exchanged glances;
the poor old man was out of his mind; never, in all the years he had
been at Ruvno, had he spoken to her like that.  Before they had
recovered from their astonishment he got up and walked across the room,
tottering a little, but more sure of his step every minute.  They
watched him in silence and Ian, at least, stood spellbound.  This little
old man, with his creased alpaca soutane, muddy shoes and unshaven chin,
dominated the room.

He reached the door, which was a long way off, just as one of the
servants came in with coffee.

"Give me that!  And go away!" he ordered, taking the tray from its
astounded bearer.

"Do as the Father says," said Ian, hurrying to take the heavy tray.

"Be off with you, quick!" repeated Father Constantine. The man obeyed,
filled with curiosity.  He locked the door, and turned to Vanda,
whispering angrily:

"I tell you, Joseph Skarbek is in the chapel."

"Yes, yes," she agreed soothingly.  Her tone only irritated him the
more.  He stamped his foot.

"Not yes, yes--but give me something to eat for him.  He’s starving."

"But where is he?"

"In the chapel.  Behind the altar of the Mother of God of Czestochova."

"Hiding?"  She was white as a sheet

"Of course."  He drew them in a circle, and went on, very low: "Listen.
Yesterday, the Russians took him prisoner."

"And he escaped?" asked Vanda.

"Rennenkampf said he must be shot...."

"What for?" she faltered.

"Mother of God, how should I know?  Don’t keep on interrupting."  He
looked apprehensively at the door, motioned to them to move further away
from it and the windows, and went on: now, he spoke French, not for
Minnie’s benefit, but for secrecy.

"They were to shoot him this morning----"

Minnie, still watchful, saw Ian put his arm round Vanda, who looked
ready to faint; she felt a pang of resentment.  How dare he, seeing
Vanda was betrothed to Joseph!  He said something encouraging to her,
but Minnie could not make out what it was.

"Last night," continued the priest, "a soldier came for me to see a
prisoner.  He takes me up to the turret.  Imagine my horror, Countess,
when I saw it was Joseph."

"Oh--but he’s safe?" sobbed Vanda.

"Yes.  He’s safe."

"But how?" asked Minnie.

"Whilst I was talking to him in the turret, in comes Roman."

"Roman?" they echoed.

"Yes."  He eyed Vanda.  "Roman is the best man who ever lived.  He--he
helped Joseph escape."  He stopped, brushed away some tears with the
back of his hand, and sighed.

"But where is Roman now?" asked the Countess anxiously.

"With his Master."

"With the General?" Ian asked.

Father Constantine nodded, blew his nose with vigor, put his
handkerchief away and went on more calmly:

"Roman planned it all.  He changed clothes with Joseph, who passed the
door with me.  We reached the chapel without seeing anybody but a young
subaltern who ... who saluted him.  I put him behind the altar in the
chapel of the Mother of God of Czestochova.  Roman said he must stop
there till the General and all his soldiers leave Ruvno.  Then, Joseph
must volunteer for our side.  That is what Roman said."

"They’ve all left!" said Vanda, breaking from Ian and going over to the
sideboard, where she hastily piled food upon a plate, smiling and crying
in turns and taking no further interest in what the priest said. The
others were more interested in Roman.

"But how did Roman get out of the turret?" Ian asked.  "Where is he?"

"I told you.  With the General."

"You’re sure?" insisted the Countess, anxiously.

"Quite.  He picked the lock when the guards went to sleep."  He turned
to Ian.  "You remember that lock, how weak it was?"

"But how did he get past the guards?" asked Ian, to whom Roman’s
non-arrival of the evening before was explained.

"I don’t know.  But he managed it.  He is not a child."  Father
Constantine spoke peevishly.

"You’ve seen him since?" asked the Countess.

"Yes, Countess, I’ve seen him since."

"After he was free?"

"As free as air."  He leaned against the paneled wall and put his hand
to his head.  "I am very tired ... had no sleep ... and no food....  I
am getting old."

"You must come and rest now."  Ian put his arm round the stooping
shoulders.  The old man made no further resistance.  He was dead-beat.

"But you must help me give him this," said Vanda, holding up her plate
of food.  Her face was radiant. Joseph was safe, above all he would
never fight with Prussia again.

"Let Father take a mouthful first," said her aunt reprovingly.  "Can’t
you see his condition?"

Vanda’s heart smote her; she blushed and took some food to the priest,
who, however, could eat but little.  All he needed was rest.

"The shock," he explained, seeing their anxious faces.  "Joseph Skarbek
... up there..."

They would not let him go back to the chapel, but Ian and Vanda, with
infinite precaution, took the food to Joseph.  Meanwhile, Minnie went to
see the turret chamber, which she knew only from the outside.  The dark
stairway was littered with rubbish left by the soldiers.  The chamber
door stood open, as if the guards had rushed out of it in vain pursuit
of their prisoner.  She went in.

There were some dirty plates, and a straw pallet. Her eyes searched the
door and the blood rushed to her face.  The lock was intact!  She
examined it. Far from being old and weak, it was quite strong; indeed,
it had been put on when Rennenkampf sent Joseph up to await his death.
Roman had not escaped that way: she was certain of it, the old priest
had hidden the truth.  She turned to the window, which was only a slit
in the wall, protected by a grating of iron bars.  They, too, were firm
and strong in the stone work.  She looked out and saw a sheer drop of
eighty feet, into the moat below.  There was nothing Roman could have
held, even supposing he had accomplished the impossible and squeezed
himself between those bars.

She thought it out rapidly.  The others, including Ian, would be curious
to see Joseph Skarbek’s prison; he would probably come up here himself.
As she failed to see how Roman had escaped, since there was no other
exit, not even a chimney, she supposed that they, too, would be as
puzzled.  The priest, she felt sure, knew exactly what had happened; but
he was not going to tell.  Why should she betray his secret?

She went down to Martin, the old butler, and borrowed some tools he kept
in his pantry, then sneaked up again and took off the lock and bolt.
The bolt was rusty enough and looked as old as the room itself; but it
gave some trouble and she chipped her hands. No prisoner could have
taken them off the door without waking the guards, because the bolt was
on the outside.  She only realized this when she had half finished, for
her nerves were upset.  Then she put the bolt on again and threw the
lock on to the pallet.

On her way back she saw the Countess, Vanda and Ian on the large
staircase.  They said they were off to see how Roman had escaped, and
would she go, too.  The tools were under her white nursing apron, and
she was in no mood to discuss Joseph’s adventure, so she muttered an
excuse and went to her room.

Why had she connived at keeping Father Constantine’s secret? she asked
herself.  Did she want to spare all the family the pain of knowing that
the door had been opened from the outside, or only Ian? What had Vanda
to do with her impulsive action? During that morning, whilst working in
the wards, she searched her heart and found the answer.  She had been
jealous of Vanda for some time past.  She felt, without knowing why,
that Ian’s coldness to herself was connected in some way with Vanda’s
presence in the house.  He had never been the same since that day when
the Jew brought news of the Kalisz atrocities and she had refused to go
home. Where was Vanda to blame?  Ian apparently had no more to say to
his cousin than to his visitor; and yet, she did blame the girl.  The
sooner she married her precious Joseph and went away, the better.
Perhaps she would stop on at Ruvno, since Joseph, it appeared, was to
fight; but she would be married, and that would make a difference.

Thus she explained to herself the lock-picking of the morning; told
herself _she_ would have refused to have anything more to do with Joseph
under the circumstances.  First, he fights for Prussia: then he risks
his brother’s life, gives his brother’s life, to save his own skin.  And
now as Vanda did not know that Roman had given his life in exchange,
offered it for her happiness, she would marry Joseph.  And that is what
Minnie wanted her to do, with as little delay as possible.

Ian, too, examined the door, and the lock that Roman, so he thought, had
picked and put on the dirty pallet.  His mother asked what he made of
the business.

"Roman is worth a thousand Josephs," he answered hotly.  "Think of the
risk!  If the soldiers had shot the bolt, he would have been lost."

"But he saved Joseph so that he might fight for the right side," put in
Vanda.

Their eyes met.  He had his own thoughts on the matter, and his face was
stern.  Instead of speaking, he went out of the room.

He felt irritable.  Though work waited him below he made for the old
priest’s room; he wanted to hear how Roman had persuaded his brother to
accept the exchange.  His contempt for Joseph grew at every step.  How
was he to know the trick would succeed? Yes: Joseph had left his brother
in a trap, from which he escaped by the skin of his teeth, because the
guards were too lazy to shoot the bolt.  And Roman had done it for
Vanda’s sake.  He believed love meant sacrifice and lived up to his
belief.  How _could_ Vanda care for Joseph?  Ian was disappointed in
her, thought she had a juster sense of values.  How blind love made
women!

Father Constantine was asleep, and he had no opportunity that day of
talking about the adventure with him.  And later on, even, Father
Constantine was very reticent about the scene in the turret chamber.
When questioned about it, he would shut his bright, bird-like eyes, fold
his thin hands together and say, in a voice shaking with emotion:

"It was the most terrible evening of my life.  Let us not talk of it."

"Roman will tell me," said Ian, loth to disturb the old chaplain any
more.  "He may be here any day."

But it was some time before any Cossacks stopped at Ruvno, and when the
first contingent rested there for a few hours, they told Ian they knew
nothing of Roman’s regiment, but thought it was fighting in Galicia.

But Joseph’s escape caused changes in the family, all the same.




                                  VII


The Ruvno family had finished supper.  There were no servants in the
room.  Father Constantine was in bed, worn out with the excitement of
the night before; and Joseph was still lying low.  Martin, the old
butler, waited on him; none of the other servants knew he was in the
house.  All they heard was that a Cossack officer who wished to be quiet
had been given the blue guest-room.  He had a nasty wound in his hand;
but Father Constantine, who was something of a surgeon, said he could
treat it without calling in the Russian Red Cross doctor who looked
after the wounded.  So the four, the Countess, Ian, Vanda and Minnie,
were all alone in the room.

Ian had been unusually taciturn during the simple evening meal which
replaced the elaborate dinners of peaceful days, and after several
attempts to make him talk the others let him alone.  Somebody had
brought a batch of papers from Warsaw and he seemed to be absorbed in
them.  Minnie, whose intentions were good, though unfortunate, began the
trouble by saying she supposed there would be a wedding soon.

Ian looked up at once.  He had been listening all the time.  Minnie
scented trouble, because of a gleam in his eyes, and was sorry she had
spoken.  But it was too late now.

"Whose wedding?" he asked.

"Why, mine, of course," put in Vanda.

He thrust aside the paper and took a cigarette from a large box at his
mother’s elbow, set it alight and began to walk up and down the large
room.  He remained in shadow for several seconds; there was no electric
light in Ruvno and they were obliged to economize in oil in these
difficult times.  He passed and repassed under the one lamp and they
noticed that each time he emerged out of the shadows he looked graver,
more determined to perform some unpleasant task.  Vanda had grown as
pale as when the priest told her Joseph was sentenced to death. Minnie,
ever watchful, thought she had changed greatly of late; she used to
think her commonplace and dull; but not now.  She, too, followed Ian
with her eyes.

At last he spoke.  And there was all the authority of the head of the
house in look, tone and manner.

"Vanda, you cannot marry him, now."

"Why?"

He stopped before her, the table between them, the light shining on his
large, well-shaped head.  He was calm, his voice low; yet great emotion
lay beneath.

"Why did Rennenkampf sentence him to death?"

You could have heard a pin drop in that vast room. All knew the answer,
but none had the courage to give it, least of all Vanda, white to the
lips, shaking with nervous excitement.

"Think of it," said Ian, almost in a whisper.  "And on Ruvno soil."

Quivering in every nerve, she sprang to her feet, her face transformed
by passion, indignation, a desire to defend her absent lover.

"It is false!" she whispered hoarsely.  "I swear it is false!  He never
came to spy!  He came because they were near; he wanted to see me.  His
regiment was ordered to France.  He could not bear to leave without
seeing me, without explaining.  He meant to wait by the lake till
nightfall, then creep nearer.  But some Jews saw him and told a company
of sappers, who caught him.  How could he tell why he was there, how
could he get us in ill report with Rennenkampf?  Oh! it is so plain I
wonder you haven’t all guessed it long ago.  And if you don’t believe me
go and ask him."

"I believe you believe that," he admitted.  "But others won’t."

She turned to her aunt, asking for championship. The Countess caressed
her, but her hazel eyes were firm as Ian’s.

"Joseph must clear himself," she said.

"But he has!"

"To you ... but not to those who know he went back to fight for
Germany."

Vanda urged no more, but sat down again, her elbows on the white cloth,
the picture of dejection.  In England, grown-up sons and daughters do
much as they please.  But here, things were different.  Even Minnie knew
that Vanda would not marry against Ian’s will, because he was the head
of her family and the family has an overwhelming moral power in Poland.
Each family, whether that of a prince or a peasant, is a little
community in itself, with laws and traditions which no member can break
without incurring the opposition and anger of the whole.  This spirit of
family discipline, which has largely disappeared in politically free
countries, is, if anything, stronger amongst the Poles since they lost
their political freedom, more than a century ago.  The reason is simple.
Each family is a little unit of social and political resistance, which
for generations has been fighting for religion, language and national
customs ... and in unity is strength.

Minnie sat quiet as a mouse.  They had forgotten her.  A servant came to
clear the table, handed tea, and disappeared.

Ian sat down again, between Vanda and his mother. Minnie had moved to a
shadowy end of the long table.  None of them gave her a thought from the
moment she mooted Vanda’s marriage till the end of their discussion.
She had started it; but there her part ended.  They were all three under
the big lamp, and every line, every change of expression showed clearly.
She kept eyes and ears open.

Ian lighted another cigarette.  He was nervous; drank some tea and began
playing with his spoon, squeezing the slice of lemon left at the bottom
of the cup.

As he glanced up at the clock there was a pained look in his face.
Honor told Minnie she ought to leave the room.  But curiosity held her.
This love affair of another woman was partly hers as well.

"I want to see him before he goes to sleep," Vanda said.  "Have you
anything to say?"

He pulled himself together and began:

"When Joseph obeyed that call to go home I approved.  I even warned
Roman against the possible consequences of disobedience."

"Well?"

"That was before I knew what this war meant, before Kalisz, Liège,
Louvain."

"Joseph loathes all those atrocities as much as any of us..." she broke
in.

"Yes.  That is a double reason why he ought never to have gone on
wearing a Prussian uniform."

"The German soldiers don’t know what really happens----" she began, then
stopped, knowing the argument would not hold.  Joseph was no ignorant
peasant.

"I understand his confusion of mind in the beginning," pursued Ian.  "We
all had it.  But afterwards----"

"He would have been shot," she cried.  "It’s all very well to talk like
that when we’re in Ruvno.  But when your superior officer gives an
order, and you disobey, what happens?  We’re not all heroes, ready to
die for an idea in cold blood.  Battle is different."

"But we must all try to be honest--with ourselves," he said, and with
sincerity; for he found honesty hard that night.

Her bright eyes challenged him and she opened her lips to speak; but he
silenced her with a gesture.

"He disapproved the Prussians.  Yet he stopped with them."

"He has left them," she retorted.

"Yes.  But before he can be honest with himself, or with the family, he
must work out the promise he made when Roman helped him to escape."

"The Russians have not been any too good to us in the past," she
objected.

"You know it is not a question of Russian, but of right.  He can go to
France.  But I’ll have nobody in my family who ends his fighting record
in a Prussian uniform."

Vanda sprang up and faced him.

"You talk a lot about honesty to-night," she cried scornfully.  "And now
I’ll begin.  I would not say one word against this decision if I thought
you were honest, too.  I hated to think of Joseph with the Prussians as
much as anybody.  But that is not the honest reason why you won’t let
Father Constantine marry us to-morrow, here in Ruvno.  _That_ is only a
pretext."

"Vanda!" protested the Countess.

"A pretext," she repeated firmly.  "Look at him! Look how nervous and
insincere he has been all the evening!  Do you know why, Aunt Natalie?
I will tell you.  Because he is the dog in the manger."

"Vanda!" repeated her horrified aunt.

None of them had thought the girl capable of such words.  For a moment
she looked the incarnation of passion.

"Let him deny it!" she retorted.

He looked up, his face flushed; but he was less nervous than a few
minutes earlier.

She turned to her aunt.

"You see," she said.  "He says nothing.  He can’t deny it."

"I don’t wish to," he said quietly.

Minnie knew she ought to have tiptoed from the room.  But the scene held
her.  It was not the novelty of seeing Vanda in a rage, nor the novelty
of hearing Ian’s avowal of love.  It was because she felt her own
sentence lay in their hot words.

"I don’t understand," said the Countess, much troubled.  "Surely you can
deny your lack of honesty?"

"Yes, I can deny that."

There was a pause.  Then he went on: "Just now I asked myself if I was
being entirely honest"--he looked at Vanda--"with you.  All day I have
been asking myself, I was afraid I could not be.  But after searching
myself I think that, whatever my feelings about you--you personally----"

He stopped.  There was no mistaking the nature of his feelings towards
her.  They were written on his face, shone from his eyes.

"I--I have been honest in this," he concluded.

"We are seldom honest with ourselves," she put in.

"I have tried to be.  I believe I have succeeded. And Vanda, on my
honor, I believe that, even if I--even had I never given you more than a
cousinly thought since--since it was too late, I’d be against your
marrying Joseph till he has redeemed his promise to fight on the right
side."

She leaned towards him, forgetful even of her aunt now, full of thoughts
for Joseph, of him alone.

"Do you know," she said in low, passionate tones, "that there were
years, yes, long years, when I loved you, would have died for you; would
have followed you barefooted to Siberia rather than be parted from you?
And you took no more account of me than of this table.  What was I?  The
little orphan cousin. A bit of furniture in your house.  Nothing more."

"Vanda!  How unjust!" cried his mother.

She took no notice; I don’t think she heard.

"You talk about honesty," she went on.  "Take it; bare, ugly truth that
few people can tell one another with impunity.  Whilst I was giving you
every thought, you guessed my devotion, accepted it, put it on a mental
shelf to leave or to take down and use, according to how life worked out
for you...."

"Oh--what injustice!" said his mother again.  This time she heard the
reproach; all she said was:

"Let me speak, Auntie."  Then, to him: "Yes, as things suited you ...
you looked on my devotion, my foolish, dumb devotion, as something to
fall back upon, if, when the time came for you to marry, you found
nobody you liked better.  Oh--I knew you so well....  And through you, I
know men.  I have not watched your face all these years, day by day,
meal by meal across this table, in vain.  Here, in Ruvno, buried in the
country, I have studied life, in your face, through your words, through
the change which has come over you when you knew that both Joseph and
Roman wanted me."

"But why bring----" began his mother.  Vanda silenced her.

"Because we are out for honesty."  Then to him: "Why do you come to me
now, when I have learned to forget you, to look at you with
indifference, killed the love I had for you after many silent struggles?
Why do you try to make Joseph so honest to himself when I want him more
than anything else in the world?  Why do you step in now?"

Her voice broke; she stopped.  As for Ian, the scales had at length
fallen from his eyes; he saw his past folly clearly enough; and it was
too late.  In her "now" lay much meaning.

"You’re unjust.  I’m not so mean as you think ... or so selfish," he
said gently.

She wiped her eyes, damp with unshed tears, but said no more.  It seemed
that her passion had worn itself out in those burning words she flung at
him a moment before.  Once again she was the quiet, unobtrusive Vanda,
who did many things for other people’s comfort and did not always get
appreciation.

He took up an illustrated paper, turned over its pages without seeing
them, furtively glanced at his mother, who gave him a look of deep
sympathy, then left the room.

He did not blame her for this outburst; bore her no bitterness.  The
indictment belonged to him and he admitted it.  But in a way it soothed
him to think that she had cared for him once.  And it had taken him all
this time, all the events of the past few weeks, to teach him what love
meant, that passion he had almost dreaded, never cultivated, because he
liked a quiet even life, free from emotion.  When her hot words fell on
his ears they opened up visions to which he had been blind so long.
Yes; he cared no longer to deceive himself.  He did love her; not as
Roman loved women, but in his own way, shyly, hesitatingly, with
affection of slow growth that had taken deep root.  At last he was
honest with himself, admitted the fullness of his folly.  It maddened
him to think that all the time, whilst he let things drift because he
was too comfortable to plunge into the depths of emotion yet untasted;
whilst he, in his blindness, let chances drift by, enjoying to the full
that pleasant, uneventful life which had been swept away in war’s
hurricane forever, whilst he could have given her all the comforts and
joys of his wealth; whilst he, ignorant of his own heart, not heartless
as she said, but selfish, procrastinating, basked in the sunshine of
peace and security--all that time her proud bruised heart had fought
against the love he held of no account but longed for now with an
intensity which left him sore, wondering, almost indignant at his new
capacity for passion.

Pacing his office, he remembered that he could not even give her the
generous dowry he had planned a few weeks ago.  For the moment he had
forgotten his financial troubles.  Hastily he opened the big safe which
stood in the room, took out account books and deed boxes, made rough
calculations.  He could give her the paltry sum of twenty thousand
roubles, unless the Prussians advanced more rapidly than he expected and
seized the remainder of his invested wealth.  It was a fifth of what he
had planned for her when he took that rapid ride to Warsaw, with Roman
at the wheel.

He put back his papers, locked the safe and sought the blue guest-room.

He found Joseph sitting by a round table on which a lamp burned.  Martin
had put away the Cossack uniform and given him one of Ian’s
dressing-gowns. His hand was bandaged; but except for that he bore no
trace of having passed through the experience of war since he last used
that room.  Yet Ian’s feelings towards him had greatly changed.  Before,
he deemed him rather a prig, but a successful man, a distant relative
who would never give him any trouble but in whom he felt no particular
interest; not one he would have chosen for friend; but a man he
tolerated as a cousin, with whom he had played, quarreled, learnt, and
taken punishment in the long years of childhood.

But now, he hated him; hated him for Vanda’s sake, for Roman’s, for his
coming to Ruvno in Prussian uniform, for his letting Roman risk life to
save him from a death which, after all, was the consequence of his own
conduct.  But he determined to master his feelings and get over the
meeting without an open quarrel.

Joseph welcomed him with unusual warmth, and this, too, he resented, as
he resented his handsome nose and white, even teeth.

"I was hoping you would come," he said.  "Tell me all that’s happened
since this awful war started."

"I won’t sit.  I’ve work downstairs."

Joseph gave him a keen look; the tone was ominous.

"You want to know what I was doing on Ruvno soil yesterday."

"Vanda told me your explanation."

"Explanation!  It was the truth."

Ian’s gray eyes were bright with hostility as he said:

"She has just told me you want to get married at once.  I don’t
approve."

"Indeed!" this sarcastically.  "Why?"

Ian paused for a moment.  It was getting harder and harder for him to
say what he wanted without saying too much, without betraying himself.
He took up the open book that lay on the table, glanced at its title,
laid it down again.  Joseph made no attempt to help him out.  The air
was full of tension.  The least unguarded word would start a quarrel.
And neither of them wanted that.

"For one reason," he began at length, "I don’t like her to leave home
without a rag to her back."  He remembered the sables and fine linen he
had seen at Warsaw for her, and Joseph wondered why he frowned.

"The date was fixed for the end of this month," the bridegroom reminded
him.

"I know.  If not for the war, mother would have had the things ready for
her.  But you know what sort of life we’ve been leading since you were
here last."

Joseph nodded.  He noticed for the first time that his cousin had aged
in those few weeks; there were lines on his face and gray hairs round
the temples that ought not to have been there.

"And then there’s her dowry," he went on.  "Mother talked it over with
you, before."

"She said something about it.  I said I wanted nothing.  She gave me to
understand that you insisted."

"I did.  I had planned for sixty thousand roubles ... _then_.  I haven’t
got it, now."

He took up a paper-knife, inspected it, balanced it on the palm of his
hand, put it down again, and sought his words.  It had been so easy and
so comforting to talk to Roman last night, to tell details of his
losses, discuss possibilities, hopes and fears for the future. And to
Roman’s brother he could scarcely open his lips for bare business.  Not
only did his animosity grow with every thought; but all the while he was
cursing his folly, and Vanda’s words of an hour ago, her: "Why do you
step in _now_?" rang in his ears. He was burning to mar this marriage,
had one pretext, at least, on his side.  Yet, he must be fair, honest
with himself and with them.  Joseph noticed his embarrassment and
misinterpreted it.  He thought: "He was always a bit close-fisted, now
he’s mad with the grief of losing his forest and crops."  Joseph, too,
had his troubles.  Last night, when death had been near, he promised to
fight against Prussia with a light heart.  He did not regret it.  He was
prepared to do his duty, to atone for blind obedience to the Kaiser’s
call of two months back.  He had been miserable ever since the scales
fell from his eyes, showing him the real issues of the war.  But this
step meant beggary. Everything he possessed was invested within the
limits of the German Empire.  Prussia would very soon hear of him, would
set a price upon his head, seize his estates and his money.  After the
war, he would perhaps get them back.  That depended on how things went,
on which side won.  During the evening, thinking over his position, he
remembered his aunt’s talk of Vanda’s dowry with relief.  At the time,
he had pooh-poohed the idea of taking anything from Ruvno.  It had
pleased his vanity to marry a portionless maid and give her all.  But
things were different now.  He had counted on Vanda having enough to
live upon until the war ended.  He knew broadly what Ruvno was worth in
peace time, and Ian’s news shocked him.

"My dear Ian, I’d no idea you’d suffered so heavily. From the little I
saw of Ruvno yesterday things looked pretty bad, especially the forests.
But I comforted myself that you could fall back on your investments," he
said warmly.

"The Vulcan Sugar Refinery, where I was heavily involved, went the first
week of the war," Ian explained stiffly.  He wanted none of this man’s
sympathy.  "It was in the Kalisz Province, and you know what happened
there.  I’ve a certain amount in a hardware factory in Warsaw, now
making field kitchens for the Russian Government.  It’s paying fifteen
per cent.  I can’t sell out or make over all that stock, much as I’d
like to for Vanda’s sake.  There’s Mother to think of, if we have to
bolt, and food to buy if we don’t.  I’ve a lot of starving peasants on
my hands."

"Of course, of course," Joseph rejoined, "I shouldn’t think of letting
you do any such thing."

"I can manage fifteen thousand roubles.  It would have seemed nothing,
for Vanda, two months back.  It means two thousand, seven hundred and
fifty roubles a year.  But it would keep the wolf from the door if--if
anything happened to either of us.  But if the Prussians get to Warsaw,
that goes, too."

"Sell out in time."

"I’d lose half the capital--and where to invest the remainder?  The
rouble is dropping, foreign investments are out of the question."

Joseph was silent.  Ian went on:

"But nowadays we’ve got to take chances.  And Vanda will never want for
what I--I mean Mother and I can share with her.  But there’s the other
reason against your marriage, now."

"What’s that?"  His handsome face grew cold again.  Ian did not answer
at once; the old struggle between honesty and hatred was going on within
his heart.  He decided to let his foe decide.

"Put yourself in my place," he began huskily.  "You come here, a
prisoner, in a German uniform.  You’re all but shot as a spy.  Let’s not
go into the whys and wherefores.  But would you, in my place, let Vanda
marry Roman, if the things happened that have happened to you, till he
had redeemed his promise to fight on the right side?"

Joseph got up and faced his cousin.

"You’re the head of the family, I’ll not go against your decision," he
said quietly.

"I don’t want to decide."

"But why?"

"I’d rather not say."

Joseph gave a little laugh.  "We may as well be frank with each other
and have it out."

Ian made a gesture of dissent.

"Frankness is brutal," he said hastily.  "It leaves rancor ... and I
want to be fair."

"I suppose you despise me for letting Roman take my place, last night,"
said Joseph bitterly.

Ian was silent.  The other watched his face, but could read little
there; his own had flushed.

"It’s easy to talk here."  He glanced round the comfortable room.  "But
it was infernally hard to die, like that, and so easy for Roman to get
past.  He had brought tools with him."

"Yes," said Ian.  "He unpicked the lock....  But there was..."

"There was what?"

"Oh, nothing."  A sudden wave of passion was coming over him.  He could
trust himself no longer.  He felt that, unless he escaped from the room
he would hurl all the bitterness of his soul against Joseph, expose his
deep wound to that cold gaze.  He made for the door.

"Stop!" said the other peremptorily.  He looked back, his hand on the
door.

"Sleep on it," he muttered and would have passed out, but Joseph was
beside him, his sound hand grasping his shoulder.

"I have made up my mind."

"Ah--and what----?"

"You’re right.  After the war--if I’m alive."

"No need for that.  In six months."

"Then in six months we’ll get married.  I’ll tell Vanda."  He put out
his hand.  Ian wrung it and left the room without another word.




                                  VIII


Ian had no morbid intention of brooding over his troubles, sentimental
or material.  He was going to fight the one as he was already fighting
the other, as he struggled against the starvation and disease which
threatened the neighborhood, or against the difficulties of plowing and
sowing within range of German guns.

He went into his mother’s dressing-room that night with the firm
intention of forgetting the evening’s events as soon as possible, and
her greeting helped him.

"What do you think?" she said.  "Vanda wants to go to Warsaw and nurse,
instead of stopping with us."

He looked at her with tired eyes.

"If she wants to, let her.  I expect she’s right."

Then he told her the gist of his talk with Joseph. She listened with
disapproval.  She would never forgive Joseph’s successful wooing.

"I think he ought to wait till after the war," was her verdict.  "What
is the use of their marrying when he has nowhere to live and nothing to
live on?  Let us hope they will both think better of it once they settle
down again."

And there the matter ended, so far as talk went. She had great hopes
that her boy would "take to" Minnie.  England would be a very good port
in the ever growing storm for him.  Of herself she did not think at all.
What was left for her if Ruvno went? She busied herself about getting
Vanda off, wrote to friends in Warsaw who found a vacancy for her in one
of the hospitals which Polish women had started for the Russian wounded.
She would be at least as safe there as in Ruvno and Ian would be all the
better when she was away.  Her own dreams had once been bent on a match
between them.  But things had changed since then and she wanted Ian to
forget that which he could not win.

So she hastened on the day when the girl was to leave the house for work
in Warsaw.  Ian must drive her to the station because he had nobody left
whom he could trust with one of the young, half-broken-in horses that
alone remained of his famous stables.  One afternoon in November the
_bryczka_ stood ready before the front door.  It was one he used to use
for going round the estate, simple and light, the body of basket-work
plaited close and flat, and varnished over.  The shafts were longer than
one sees in western Europe where roads are better than east of the
Vistula; but it went safely over ruts and holes which a closer-harnessed
cart would not have taken at all.  It was the only vehicle he had left
except a heavy closed carriage which needed at least four horses to
pull; stables and coach-house had been emptied of their best by several
relays of requisitioning commissions.

Vanda, a little pale, slim even in her fur coat, said good-bye to the
rest of the family at the front door. The Countess hugged her in
silence, not trusting her voice.  Who knew what might happen before they
met again!  Father Constantine gave her his blessing, after much advice
about the evils and pitfalls of Warsaw, though his patroness reminded
him that she was going to live with an old friend and would be quite
safe.  Minnie kissed her and wished her good luck, half sorry, half
relieved to see her rival leave the field.  Joseph was upstairs.  They
all agreed he had better not be seen by the servants.  When his hand was
well enough to hold a rein he would ride to Sohaczev at night and take
steps to join the Russian army.

Ian helped her to the high seat in front.  Martin put her baggage into
the space at the back.  Off they went, down the avenue and out into the
road, hardened with a sharp frost which had broken up the warm autumn
weather.

It would have been hard for them to talk had they felt in the mood for
it.  The young horse shied a good deal and demanded all Ian’s attention.
He was glad of it.  He Had no wish for commonplaces and could not say
what was in his heart; so they went on in silence, bumping a good deal
over the road, never too good, now cut up with war traffic, Vanda
clinging to her seat to save herself from being pitched out when the
horse grew more restive than usual, or rattled over a particularly bad
stretch of road.

Their way lay through the country which war had so far spared.  The
heaviest losses lay to the north-west, where the Prussians were trying
to break through on their way to Warsaw.  A good many trenches had been
made here, too, ready for the Russian troops to fall back upon; but
there was not that stamp of utter desolation which already lay on the
land nearer Plock. They passed very few troops or supplies; the day had
been fine and transport correspondingly risky. Business on the road
began at night.  He had an odd fancy that they were going for one of
those jaunts he and she had taken many a time before in the same little
cart, when he wanted to try a young horse; that the space behind their
seat carried no baggage but a sporting gun and game bag, and she wore no
nurse’s apron under her coat.  It seemed, as she sat by him, sometimes
to touch him as the cart jolted her, that recent barriers had never
been, that there was neither Joseph, nor war nor ruin, that only the old
free comradeship was there, mellowed into love.  And he felt that they
were boy and girl again, he home from school, she proud and glad to be
with him, that they were driving on forever, into eternity, into the
steel-blue horizon which stretched ahead of him on the straight, open
road, without care or strife, always to be together, forgetful of the
world, sufficient to each other, wanting nothing, asking nothing,
blended into one mind and one heart, clear and limpid as the afternoon
air of the northern autumn.

Never had those versts to the bare wooden station seemed so short.  As
they passed the slatternly town, then the long, poplar-lined avenue, he
wondered of what she was thinking, if she regretted the past, would be
content to put back the years and live without Joseph, only with him.
But he was far to shy to share his fancy.  What was the good?  He did
not even trust himself to search her face, lest he find there tears for
his hated rival, whom she might never see again.

As he pulled up and helped her out, giving the reins to a ragged Jew who
replaced the sturdy ostler of other days, he was relieved to see the
Canon, who lived in the town.  The good man was full of complaints, and
looked to the two young people for sympathy, if not redress.
Rennenkampf’s men had looted his poultry yard, he said, stealing half a
dozen very fine capons as well.

"They stole them for _him_, Count," he whispered, as they made their way
through a crowd of soldiers to the waiting-room, two Jews following with
the luggage.  "They denied it till I threatened to excommunicate them
all, including my housekeeper, who ought to have looked after the fowls
better but is no good when she sees a soldier around.  I excommunicated
the General, too."

"What did he say?" asked Vanda.

"Well, Countess, I’m ashamed to say he roared with laughter," returned
the indignant ecclesiastic.  "But my housekeeper was so frightened that
she spoilt the dinner, which was one good thing, for Rennenkampf had to
eat it.  I’m going up to Warsaw and I’ll complain about it.  I sha’n’t
have a thing left if the men go on like this.  But you, Count, can help
me up there. You know your way about."

"I’m sorry, but I’m not going," he said.  "My cousin is.  I’ve come to
see her off."

The Canon then asked Vanda a dozen questions about her plans and kept
them both busy answering him till the tickets were bought and Ian had
found places in the crowded train for them, glad to give her into the
priest’s care, for he noticed many admiring glances shot at her by a
varied collection of Russian officers in the waiting-room.

For one moment they were alone.  The Canon found a friend and began to
tell him about the capons; the little platform, shadowy even in peace
time, with its scanty lamps, was quite dark now except for feeble spots
of light that came from the railway carriages, from those candles stuck
into lanterns which the railway people thought good enough to travel by.
Ian took courage, and said as he kissed her hand:

"Ruvno is your home.  If you don’t like Warsaw come back at once."

"Oh, Ianek," she faltered.  "Forgive me, for the other night.  I was
mad....  I didn’t know what I was saying."

"There’s nothing to forgive," he stammered.  Then, impulse flung
restraint to the winds; he caught her in his arms, kissed her face,
hair, lips, clasped her to him with all his strength, in a delirium of
love, longing and remorse.  He knew not what words poured forth from the
bottom of his soul, nor how long he held her thus: never remembered how
she got into the train, how he said good-bye to the Canon and got back
to his _bryczka_.  He only knew that it was dark as his horse sped
homewards, without a glance at things that had made him restive on the
way out; that he found calm and strength in the familiar ebon sky,
glimmering with silver stars, put this new-born madness from him,
checked each recurrent thought of her, fixed his mind savagely on
refugees, potatoes, corn and fuel, till the white heat of his passion
had cooled.

Joseph went away a few days later; thus the last link was snapped, he
thought.  And they heard no more of him for a long time, except that he
finally managed to get a commission in a Cossack regiment, which went to
the Carpathians.  Vanda wrote to the Countess and the priest, content
with messages for Ian; and he did the same in return.  She was nursing
in the Cadets’ College, turned into a military hospital, and said she
liked the work.  But her aunt detected homesickness in her letters.

When he let a thought dwell on her at all, Ian felt thankful she was not
in Ruvno.  For in the middle of November they began to live in the
cellars.  They were in the danger zone for a fortnight.  The Prussians
took Kosczielna, a few versts off, so that their shells as well as the
Russians’ sometimes burst near the house.  Ruvno became an inferno of
din and the inmates often wondered that it did not crumble about their
heads.  In their underground retreat they had a certain amount of coal
and coke, so that their quarters though dampish, were not so bad as they
might have been.  A neighboring village fared worse than they did; not a
cottage remained.  The villagers dug themselves into the earth and lived
like rabbits, elected an elder, whom they obeyed, and who ruled the
little community as some of his ancestors must have ruled over as
primitive a settlement many hundreds of years before.  No sooner had
petty officials, in the pay of the Russian government, fled before the
roar of German guns than they organized their village life underground
in a thoroughly sensible way.  Having eaten up the little food which was
left after the Prussians looted them in passing, they subsisted chiefly
on roots and the scanty game yet to be had, and the sparrows and crows.
Ian sent them rations every week, but could not be too liberal because
he had his own villages to think of.  Their worst plight was that they
could hope for neither summer wheat nor potatoes of their own; they had
no sooner finished the winter sowings than the Russian soldiers came and
dug trenches through their land.  They had no seed left, and when Ian
gave them some, the rain washed most of it away. So those at Ruvno felt
they were not so desperately unlucky after all.

Yet they had their troubles.  One night the two armies who have made
Poland their battlefield, seemed to have gone mad.  For twelve hours
there was a ceaseless uproar of heavy artillery, and the earth beneath
them shook as if troubled by an endless earthquake.  They gathered in
one end of the cellars, where Father Constantine had fitted up a rough
chapel, and prayed together for their own salvation and the Russians’
victory.  Towards morning, when they were chanting a hymn, such a
thunderous noise broke over their heads that what had gone before seemed
like some childish pastime.  The earth rocked as if to swallow them in
her entrails.  They stopped singing, and waited for death.  A woman
shrieked, but none could hear her; only the lines of her open mouth and
the horror on her face told them what she was doing. Szmul, the Jewish
factor, his lank hair disheveled, his arms spread out with distended
hands and fingers, rushed in and threw himself on to the ground, rolling
in terror and shrieking continually.  They had but one lamp for
economy’s sake, so that their little chapel, like those the early
Christians used in Rome, was full of shadows.  The Countess and Ian,
after one horrified, questioning gaze at the Cross on the little altar,
returned to their prayers, like the stout hearts and good Christians
they were.  She told her beads.  Minnie, who had been standing at the
back, ran towards Father Constantine with moving lips, but who could
hear words when pandemonium was let loose?  The peasants hugged their
weeping children the closer and prayed for mercy.  The priest, for one,
felt sure his last hour was come, that God had summoned them as He had
summoned so many thousands during the past few months.  And so he said
the prayers for the passing of souls, holding up the Cross, that all
might see this symbol of eternal life.

They did not know how long they stood thus because people lose count of
time when on the brink of eternity.  But gradually the earth ceased to
quiver, the tempest of bursting shells died down to an occasional boom.
And they knew that the Almighty had seen fit to spare them through
another night.  Ian was the first to speak.

"They have brought down the house," he said to his mother.  She nodded,
but said nothing.

"Oh, woe unto Israel!  Woe is me," wailed Szmul, squatting on his hams
and moaning as the hired mourners at a Jewish funeral.  Father
Constantine told him to control himself or leave the chapel; and the
calmer ones managed to comfort the others.  Many peasants who had not
cellars large enough for shelter were living down there with them.
Szmul, whose hovel had no cellar at all, brought his numerous family. On
the whole, they behaved splendidly during this night of anxiety and
fear, when it seemed as if every stone in Ruvno had been brought about
their ears.

The bombardment went on for hours; there was nothing to do but wait till
it died down; only then could they go up and see what had happened.  In
days of ordinary activity the shells fell heaviest between seven at
night and eight in the morning; then came a quiet hour when they managed
to get some air, clean the cellars and examine damage done to house and
village during the night.  Between nine and ten, the "orchestra," as
they called it, began again and went on till noon, when both Prussians
and Russians paused for a meal.  If the household was careful to dodge
chance shells they had another two hours of liberty; if the Russians
meant to begin before their regular time they let them know by a signal,
to which Ian held the secret.  The Russians’ dinner-hour was Ruvno’s
busy time.  Those peasants who had nothing left to eat came for rations;
Ian had every detail of the daily round in clock-work order.  The
management of a large property like Ruvno, with its twenty farms and
sixty square versts of forest land, was good training for him.  Each man
and woman living in the cellars had an appointed task, and Ian, the
Countess, Minnie and Father Constantine saw that it was done.  Their
great trouble was to keep the cellar refuge in a moderately sanitary
condition, because the peasants, none too clean in their houses, had no
idea of the danger they ran from infectious diseases.  Here, Minnie was
invaluable.  They escaped fevers; one child died of bronchitis, which
was very bad when they took her to the cellar, her parents’ cottage and
shop having been razed to the ground by a shell.  Things were in a worse
state down in the village, where Father Constantine and the two ladies
had daily fights with filth and ignorance whilst the heavy guns were
resting.  They could not make the peasants see that they were packed so
much closer together, and subject to greater privations, they had to be
far more careful than in better days.  By one o’clock the rooms and park
became dangerous, though they could dodge the shells between the house
and the village till dusk, if they remembered the dead angles.  But
night fell early, and the rule was for all to answer roll-call in the
passage between the two main cellars at half-past two.  Ian called the
names unless busy outside, or in the house; and then the old priest
replaced him.

After that the weariness began.  Though the family did what they could
to keep the fifty refugees--peasants, children and Jews--amused, time
hung heavy on their hands.  They took down all the furniture they could,
and kept their feet warm with carpets.  But they used straw for the
peasants and Jews because they could burn it when dirty.  Father
Constantine always said Szmul and his family were the filthiest people
he ever saw; it was a trial to have them; but they put up with it, and
had to own that the Jew, with his wretched Polish and his funny stories,
kept the others amused.

Ian could not give them work that needed a good light, because he had to
be careful with oil and sit in semi-darkness most of the evening.  But
he and the Countess read to them and told them stories; they also sang
hymns and Polish patriotic songs, of which they never tired.  One or
two, who escaped from the massacres at Kalisz, told their experiences,
and the villagers never tired of listening to that, either.  Like
children, they loved to hear a story repeated over and over again.

Father Constantine managed to write up his diary, though candles were so
precious.  As they always kept one small lamp in the chapel he wrote
there.  It was colder than near the stove, but he had both his fur coats
on, besides a pair of felt boots in which he used to hunt when younger.
When his fingers got numbed he blew on them and rubbed them till the
blood circulated.  Many of the people went there to say their prayers
and he would do what he could for them before they left again.

When the Russians and Prussians stopped for breakfast after that
dreadful night they all spent in the chapel, Ian called up as many men
as there were picks and shovels, took a pick himself and led the way up
to the house.  He demurred about Father Constantine’s going; but he soon
settled that.  During the night they had decided that they must dig a
way into the air through the ruins of the house.

They left the Countess in great anxiety about Ruvno, which had grown
gray and mellow in sheltering brave men and beautiful women; and Father
Constantine, who was not born there, loved it so dearly that to lose it
meant to lose heart and courage.  He felt that, going up the steps.  And
the peasants who followed Ian up were heavy-hearted, too; he and his
forebears had always been good masters, generous in the days of serfdom,
fair and square with the soccage, and living on their land ten months a
year, unless they went to fight for their country.

They reached the stone entry which led from pantry to cellar and looked
round.  A wintry sun came through a hole in one wall, but the others
were unhurt.  With a shout of joy Ian threw down his pick and bolted
over the debris, through the hole, which had swallowed up the door as
well.  Father Constantine followed as fast as his joints allowed, helped
by Baranski, the village carpenter.  They were both beyond the climbing
age; so, by the time they reached the courtyard, the others had
disappeared.  So far, Ruvno looked as though it stood; but they noticed
several new holes.

"Where’s the tower gone?" cried Ian, pointing westwards.  True enough,
the tower had vanished; from where they stood it looked clean cut off,
but on going nearer they saw that the front floor and part of the
stairway remained, a dejected ruin.  The falling masonry had struck the
west wing.  The cellar chapel was right underneath, which accounted for
the fearful noise they heard in the night.

"The tower can be rebuilt--but the west wing is done for," he said
ruefully.

When Father Constantine saw the tears gather in those clear eyes his own
grew dim.  The bombardment had destroyed the oldest part of the house,
built when the first lord of Ruvno came home from the Crusades; it, and
the moat, were all that the centuries had left of the original building.
The rest was added on at various times.  But the west wing was Ruvno’s
pride.  Weakened by age, it could not stand the weight of the falling
tower, and now lay in hopeless ruins. It housed many relics, too heavy
to remove to Warsaw; and they had perished with it.

Everybody had come up from below, some vainly trying to rescue a few of
the relics from the ruins, when Szmul rushed up in great excitement.  He
had quite recovered from last night’s experience, and boasted to all who
would listen that he had not turned a hair, but slept all night.

"The Grand Duke is coming--make way for the Grand Duke," and he took off
his cap, so as to be all ready for the important visitor.

The others looked up.  A motor car was coming up the drive.  It was easy
to recognize the tall, spare figure, which towered over the other
officers.  The Countess dried her eyes and walked towards the entry. Ian
left the pile of rubbish; Minnie followed him. Father Constantine stood
a little apart; it did not amuse him to talk to important people; he
preferred to watch, and listen.

"Bon jour, Comtesse," the Grand Duke said, and kissed her hand.  Then he
shook hands with Ian, saluted Minnie, and smiled at the priest.  "I have
good news for you at last.  We have retaken Kosczielna after a heavy
bombardment and a bayonet attack.  The Germans have fallen back on
Kutno."

Kosczielna practically belonged to the Countess, the little town being
part of her dowry and, though her husband did his best to give it away
to the Jews, she managed to save it.  She looked at her ruined west wing
and sighed.

"I would rather have lost the town," she remarked.

"I can believe you," he agreed.  "The town is full of Jews--and that was
the most beautiful part of your house.  Never mind, Countess, we will
drive them over the frontier one of these days and you can build up
again."

"Is the fight over?" asked Minnie.

"Yes.  In any case it has gone over there."  He pointed westwards.
"Ruvno is safe now."

"There," she said triumphantly, looking at the Countess.  "What did I
tell you?"

"I must be off," said the Grand Duke.  "I thought you would like to know
you can come above ground once more."  He turned to the little group of
peasants who had come up.  "And you, my children, can go back to the
village again."  Then, to Ian, in French: "I will let you know when
there is fresh danger."  And he went off as suddenly as he came.

The news cheered them all greatly.  For Father Constantine, there was a
little cloud on the horizon; he meant to talk it over with the Countess
and hear what she could advise.  So, when they had settled in the rooms
that were still without holes, he sought her out.  He knew they would be
able to talk undisturbed.  Ian was looking after some men he had told
off to fill up the gaps in an outer wall; and Minnie was looking after
Ian.

"Countess," he began, "don’t you think it would be safer if that English
Miss went away?"

Though this was his first reference to the pursuit of Ian, she knew what
he meant.

"Yes; but she won’t go."

"There is an American Relief man about," he said. "He is sure to hear
about the distress in the Vola, and he can’t reach that without passing
here.  Naturally, seeing the damage done to the house, he would call."

Her hazel eyes, still beautiful in shade and expression, twinkled
merrily.

"But we don’t want relief yet," she said.

"True, but when he sees the damage done and hears that there is an
English girl living here he will be willing to take her to Warsaw ... or
to England.  I think I would not mention Warsaw to him.  He probably has
never heard of it.  So he can take her further off."

"Minnie won’t listen ... she is brave."

"Brave!  She stops here for Ian."

She was silent for a moment.  Father Constantine knew she had fallen
under the girl’s charm.  He admitted the charm; but did not want a
foreigner to rule in Ruvno.

"She is a good girl ... and her people are of an old family.  Her
mother..."

"She is a heretic," he said firmly.  "Ruvno has never had such a thing."

"She might consent to enter the True Church."  The Countess was an
incurable optimist.

"And a foreigner."

She laughed.  "Why, Father, Minnie would love the sort of life we live
in times of peace ... she would not always be wanting to gad about to
Paris and Monte Carlo, like so many young women."

"Do you mean to say that you will encourage her?" he asked in horror.
"How about the little Princess whose father would be only too----"

"I don’t mean to say anything, or encourage anybody," she replied.  "But
I can’t turn Minnie out of doors now that the Grand Duke says Ruvno is
safe."

"The ruined tower looked such a good pretext," he said ruefully.

"And it failed."

"I would not consent to Ian’s marrying a heretic," she went on.
"Besides, he would not want to."

"He would not.  I know him better than that..."  The Poles have suffered
so much for their faith that they put it side by side with their
country.  With them to say a man is Catholic means that he is neither
Russian nor Jew, but a Pole.

"I don’t see that Ian is very keen about her anyway," she said after a
pause.

"In the cellar----"

"We have done with the cellar for the moment.  It is no good meeting
trouble half way.  Cellar or no cellar, I should only be drawing his
attention to her if I warned him.  Men are blind till you open their
eyes.  And then they are mules."

Father Constantine knew her tone; it was final.  So he took his leave,
and ordered all the Jews in the village to keep their ears open for news
of the American Relief man and report when he came to the neighborhood.




                                   IX


It was early in December.  For several days Ruvno had seen neither
soldiers nor officers and received news of no kind.  This had happened
before. Szmul and other Jews in the village circulated the little gossip
there was.  After the Russians retook Kosczielna Szmul went back to his
hovel, whence he had fled when the shells were whistling around, to find
food and shelter for himself and his brood under Ian’s roof.  Then,
being frightened to death, he was loud in expression of gratitude,
vowing by all the vows Jews make, swearing by his progeny to the fifth
and sixth generation that he would never forget how the Count had given
hospitality to a poor Jewish factor.  If you know much about Hebraic
flowers of speech you can imagine what he said; if not, you miss
nothing.  Having settled himself in the village again, he picked up the
gossip of both armies encamped in the neighborhood, for a Jew will get
anywhere and talk to everybody, whether Teuton or Slav, man or maid.  He
knew that the Prussians were within a few versts of Ruvno before Ian or
the Countess suspected they had crossed the river in one place, thereby
cutting Ruvno off from the Russian lines and putting it at the mercy of
the barbarians.

On this particular afternoon, after the _Ave Maria_, Father Constantine
was locking up the chapel when Szmul hurried up.  The priest knew he had
tidings by the way he flapped his skinny arms.  As usual he smelt
horribly of herrings and garlic, and poked his dark thin face against
the old man’s.

"What is it?" asked Father Constantine, backing away.

"The Prussians," he answered, grinning from ear to ear, showing four
yellow teeth which were all that the village barber had saved, for he
suffered much from toothache.

"Coming here?"

"Yes--on this side of the river.  They have crossed and fought their way
through.  Oh, such fine horses and such wonderful shining helmets!  Each
of their chargers cost a thousand roubles at least, some even..."

"Nonsense.  The army pays----"

"The Russian army pays miserably," retorted Szmul with scorn.  "The
Kaiser’s with their wonderful----"

"Hold your tongue!  Now you think they are coming you pander to them and
lick the dust off their boots," cried the priest, angry, not only
because he knew that the Russian cavalry had then the best horses in the
world, but because this news of the Prussians being over the river made
him fear for the immediate future.  Szmul giggled.

"Think!  I _know_ they’re coming.  Listen!"

Father Constantine heard the tramp of horses and a squadron of cavalry
swept round the bend in the avenue.  They were Prussians right enough.
Night was coming on apace, but the day had been fine and frosty; he
could see the spikes of their helmets and the hard, red faces of the
foremost men.

His heart sank; there were more than twenty of them.  For weeks Ruvno
had heard false alarms. Once they were so near that Ian could see their
helmets through his field-glasses.  But the Grand Duke beat them back
every time and the household had grown to trust that tall, gray-haired
Romanov to spare them a visit from their enemies.

"Who’s the owner of this place?" shouted their young officer, pulling up
in front of the priest.  His face was arrogant and coarse, with choleric
eyes.

"I don’t know."

He turned to Szmul, who was sweeping the ground with his greasy fur cap,
anxious to make a good impression.

"Jew!  Find the owner and bring him here!"

"At once, _Herr General_!  At once!"  He ran off to the house as fast as
his spindle legs would carry him.  Whilst he was gone the subaltern
hurled questions at the priest, in German.  How big was Ruvno? How many
inmates?  Their sex?  Ages?  He was answered laconically and in Polish.
Once or twice the Prussian looked ready to lay his whip about the bent
shoulders, but refrained.  Szmul was a long time gone.  When he came
back, he had invented a new title for the German cub.

"Excellency.  The Count is in the palace.  He begs your Excellency to do
him the honor and step inside."

It took him a long time to say this for he was out of breath with haste
and excitement.  Afterwards, Father Constantine asked Ian what message
he had sent; and it was: "If a _boche_ wants me he can come and find
me."  As you see, there was a difference; but Szmul did not stick at
exaggerations when he wanted to please a powerful man.

The Prussian grumbled something about wasting time and all Poles being
servants created to wait upon Teuton pleasure.  But he gave a curt order
to his troopers and made for the house, Szmul running by his stirrup.
Judging by the way he cringed, Father Constantine sadly assessed the
Prussian force around Ruvno at thirty thousand men.

The old man followed them, not that he could help Ian, but because he
had a fond notion that when his dear ones were in danger they would
suffer less if he kept near them.  He tried to check this idea, but in
vain.

Arrived at the large entry, the subaltern dismounted, clanked into the
hall and looked round with the air of expecting to see Ruvno’s master.
But there was only Martin, the faithful butler who had nursed Ian on his
knee.  He led the way to his master’s office.  Half way there, he
noticed Szmul.

"You’re not wanted," he said.

"I--your old friend----"

The Teuton understood Polish right enough, for he wheeled round with:

"This man comes with me."

Szmul giggled in triumph, and Father Constantine grew suspicious.  These
two had met before.

They trooped into the office which stood at the end of a passage,
connecting it with the back of the house in such a way that people could
go in and out without passing the hall or the living-rooms.  Never in
his life had Szmul entered from the large hall; but his elation was not
due to that.  Four troopers escorted their officer and mounted guard
behind him, stiff and pompous as at a review.

Ian stood in the middle of the room, a large place, lined with shelves
and cupboards where accounts and reports were kept.  He looked very like
his mother, the priest thought, well bred, dignified, king of himself.
The four troopers clinked their heels and went through the contortions
common to saluting Prussians; even the surly subaltern put hand to
helmet. Szmul hugged the shadow of the door.  Father Constantine went
beside his old pupil, that fond notion of his uppermost.

Ian returned the visitor’s greeting with a bow; then he saw Szmul.
"I’ll send for you if I want you," he said in the dry tones he used when
giving orders.

"That Jew is with me," blurted the Prussian.

Ian’s gray eyes met his with such cool determination that the other
shifted uneasily.

"He is my servant."  This in frozen tones; then, to Szmul: "You heard
me?"

Szmul looked appealingly at the officer, won no support by word or
glance and slunk out.  Ian’s gaze returned to the Prussian.

"Your business?"

"You have food supplies stored here."  This angrily, in accusation.

"I have.  To feed my household and the starving peasants."

"I hear you have enough to gorge them till the end of the war.  Is that
so?"

"I don’t know how long the war will last."

The Prussian, angry before, became infuriated at this.  He stamped his
foot and bellowed as if he were drilling recruits.

"You’re bandying words, _Herr Graf_," he shouted. "I know you’re
concealing supplies.  I’ll have them of you, _mein Gott_, I will!"

"Your authority?"

Ian’s eyes were ablaze with suppressed passion; but he controlled
himself.  His outward calm maddened the subaltern, who danced in his
rage.  Indeed, if not for the circumstances behind his visit, he would
have been quite funny.

"Authority!" he bawled.  "I _am_ Authority.  I am the representative of
victorious Prussia!  My word is law in this house!  Surrender your
supplies or I’ll burn it down!"

Ian went over to the safe, unlocked it with the key which hung by a
leather strap he kept in his pocket, and swung back the heavy door.

The subaltern whipped out his revolver, strode after him and peered in.
The safe was almost empty except for keys.

"Your plate?" he asked, putting his revolver close to Ian’s head.  And
anxious though he was, Father Constantine could not help thinking the
man must be a fool to imagine the safe big enough to hold Ruvno plate.

"In Warsaw."  Ian lied; it was in Moscow.  But Father Constantine would
gladly have absolved him from murder, were his victim this subaltern.

"Whereabouts in Warsaw?"

"The Commercial Bank."

The looter turned to one of his men:

"Make a note of that," he commanded.  The man obeyed, producing paper
and pencil from a pocket.

"Where are your family jewels?" proceeded the subaltern.

"At the Commercial Bank."  Their eyes met again. Ian’s mirrored a soul
too proud to lie.  And yet they say that eyes cannot hide the truth.

"What are they worth?"

Ian did not answer and murder shone from the Prussian’s evil face.  The
old priest’s heart stood still. What, oh, what could he do to help?  The
sergeant scribbled hard, finished, licked his pencil and awaited further
orders.  The subaltern put his revolver a shade nearer Ian’s head.
Father Constantine knew he was playing to put the looters off the scent.
For if he lost the jewels there would be nothing left to live upon. Ian
thought of the moonlight labor on the Plock road, of Szmul’s prying
eyes, and feared greatly.

"What are they worth?" repeated the Prussian.

"I don’t know.  They have not been valued for fifty years."

"But those emeralds ... you must know what they are worth."

"They are priceless," said Father Constantine.

The man turned to him.

"Hold your tongue," he said rudely.  "You weren’t so ready to talk
outside."  Then to Ian:

"Give me the banker’s receipt for the jewels and plate."

"My lawyers have them."

"Who are they?  But no matter..."  He laughed roughly.  "Next week we
shall be in Warsaw, and if I find you’ve been lying, you’ll be shot."
He withdrew his revolver.  Ian gave a slight breath of relief. "Now for
the food," said the Teuton.

Ian took a bunch of keys from the safe, locked it and rang the bell.
Martin appeared, white as a sheet.  He had heard what was going on.

"Take this officer to the store-room; open the cupboards," said his
master.

"You must come," put in the looter.  Ian gave him a cold look.

"My servant will show you where to find the things."

The Prussians stalked out and Martin with them. Szmul was still in the
passage.

Ian did not speak till the sound of their footsteps died away.  Then he
made sure there were no eaves-droppers, and shut the door, his soul
filled with rage, worry and mortification.  For a few minutes he gave
way and called the looters by names it did the old priest good to hear,
for the soutane put a limit on his own language.

"If not for the women I’d have strangled him at the safe," Ian cried.
"But the day may come when I’ll have to shoot them, to save them from
dishonor."

"Mother of God!" Father Constantine gasped. "Are they going to make
Poland another Belgium?"

The thought of what his Countess and the other women in the house would
have to suffer filled him with horror.  To shoot her!  He could not bear
it. Ian tried to comfort him.

"Cheer up, Father.  It hasn’t come to that yet." Then angry again: "That
swine Szmul has betrayed us."

"What are you going to say about the cellars?"

"Swear I’ve nothing more.  We’ve no list."

"But they’ll tear down the walls?"

"It’ll take time.  Oh, if only I could get in touch with some Russians!
We should have these devils entrapped."

"There must be thousands of Germans about.  Szmul knows it, or he would
not have risked telling about the emeralds and stores," said the priest.

"I’ll punish him when this is over," cried Ian. "After I’ve sheltered
him, too."

Here the Countess came in.  She had heard all.

"Give them everything, rather than they should shoot you," she pleaded.

"They won’t shoot me, Mother, not till they’ve tried the Commercial
Bank.  Where is Minnie?"

"Up in the secret room."

"Thank God!"  He looked relieved.  "And now, you go there, too."

Martin came in.  He was shaking with rage and fear.

"That Jewish pig has betrayed us," he cried. "They’re in the cellar
now."

They looked at each other in consternation.  Martin turned to his
mistress.

"My Lady Countess, it will be well for you to go upstairs ... they are
very coarse."

"Yes, Mother, I insist."

"But perhaps I can do something----"

The question was settled by the subaltern, who stalked into the room,
followed by two of his henchmen.  He was afraid to go about alone.  He
had already found some of Ian’s wine, his face was flushed, and both
troopers smelt of it.  He did not even salute the Countess, who glared
at him in silent rage.

"Nobody to leave this room!" he bellowed.  Then to Ian: "Where are your
supplies?"

"It appears you have them," was the cool answer. "I hear you have
already emptied my stores."

"But the cellar, dolt!" roared the Prussian.  "The Jew says you have
bricked up corn and potatoes to feed an army."

"My cellar holds wine," put in the Countess.  "Judging from your
behavior, you have found it without our help."

She devoured him with her scornful, angry eyes, and he had the grace to
look a little confused.  He saluted and lowered his tone.

"I give you three minutes"--he looked at his watch--"to come down and
show me where to find your supplies.  If you refuse, I’ll not leave one
stone upon another in your cellar, but destroy it as soon as my men have
removed the stores and wine.  You’ll be without food, for, if you
persist in your obstinate refusal, I will not leave you a week’s
rations; and you will no longer have a refuge in case of bombardment.
You will have no choice then but to leave this place."

"Never!"  This from the Countess.

"As you please.  We will begin the three minutes."

There was silence.  He eyed his watch, the Countess looked straight
before her; Ian’s face was like granite, the priest’s eye on the clock
in the corner.  He almost wished Ian would come to terms with the
looter, because perhaps then they would leave enough till Ian could buy
more.  Then he remembered they were probably cut off from Warsaw, and
therefore from grain, and changed his mind.

"Time is up."  He looked at Ian.

"I repeat," he said very distinctly, though the sweat stood on his upper
lip, "I repeat, once and for all, that I have no stores in my cellars."

"Then you choose to have your cellars destroyed?" growled his tormentor.

"You will find nothing but wine.  If the loan of my cellar-book can
shorten your visit..."

The Prussian swung out of the room without waiting for more.  Ian rushed
to the door, shut it, hurriedly took two acetylene carriage lamps from a
cupboard and demanded matches.

Knowing what he used those lamps for, Father Constantine tried to
dissuade him from signaling to the Russians, for, should the Prussians
catch him, his life would not be worth a handful of corn, and there were
surely more foes than friends abroad that night. But he only gave a
short laugh.  He did not believe there were many Prussians about or they
would not have sent a subaltern to seize emeralds.  Such a prize as
Szmul must have promised would have attracted a field-marshal at least.
This, he thought, was a chance visit.  Any way, better to die of a
bullet than see his people die of starvation.

"If there were guns to arm a dozen men from the village, I could entrap
them and hold them down in the cellar," he explained, preparing the
lamps.  "I thought it out when he gave me his precious three minutes.  I
could never manage.  It’s ten minutes to the village, ten to muster
them, ten to bring them back. I’ve only six sporting rifles.  They are
thirty strong."

"But the tower is down," objected the priest

"There’s the village church.  Mother, do you go and tell Martin to
follow me.  Father Constantine, get me a sheepskin."

He was off in a trice.  The priest told his mother it was a wild-goose
chase.

"But six armed men against thirty, and only Ian a good shot," she
objected.  "They would be butchered. After all, they may not find the
stores.  I hope they will all get drunk first."

They tried to get into the cellar, to see how things went.  Two
Prussians guarded the head of the stairs, two stood lower down, and two
at the bottom of the first flight.  Ian was right.  It would be madness
to send six men with sporting rifles against those hardened warriors.
They would not let the Countess pass. She took whispered counsel with
her chaplain in the kitchen, where some frightened maids were huddled
together.

"Try the other way," he suggested.  "I don’t suppose they know about
it."

They made for the library.  It was deserted.  Szmul had forgotten to
tell them of its small door, leading to a passage, at the bottom of
which steps led down to the cellars.  For generations this entrance was
unused, being narrow, steep and dark as the grave.  But during their
sojourn underground it served as a private access for the family, whilst
the refugees and household used the larger staircase.

There were two main cellars, connected by a labyrinth of narrow, vaulted
passages with smaller ones. Many of these passages, however, were blind
alleys, terminating in stout brick walls.  Some were solid and five feet
thick; others hollow, with a good brick crust on either side.  In these
recesses, old Hungarian wine was bricked up till some great family event
justified its being drunk.  In the recesses which were empty at the
beginning of the war, Ian bricked up his food, taking out the wine from
others and storing it in the large cellars.

Once at the bottom of the narrow steps the two had but a few yards to
the part Father Constantine had fitted up as an underground chapel.  To
screen it off he had put a curtain across the narrow passage. The wall
of a recess still supported the little altar. They hid behind the
curtain.  They could hear voices.

"They are in the big cellar," whispered the Countess.

"Now Jew, where is this grain?  Be quick."  It was the subaltern’s
voice.

"Oh, Excellency," began Szmul, and his voice was of honey.  The Prussian
cut him short.

"No nonsense--speak out."

"I was down here one day, when they all thought I had gone out for air,
and I heard the Count talking to the silly old priest who----"

"Go _on_!"

"And they were in the chapel, which they have fitted up because they
stood in deadly fear of the Prussian shells.  And they wondered between
themselves if it would not be better to break into the cellar stores in
the lower part on account of the damp and use that store as rations for
the peasants in the other village, not the village belonging to the
Count but the peasants’ village, for there are----"

There was a thud, as of hard matter against soft, and then a shrill
Hebrew squeal.

"Go on!" roared the subaltern.  "If you waste time I’ll have you
flogged."

"It’s near the second big cellar," he said promptly. "I heard that."

The Countess clutched her chaplain’s arm.  "They’ll find it," she
whispered.  "Oh, that traitor.  And to think we put up with him and his
dirty family."

"Show the way."

It did not take them long to find out which of the two blind alleys off
the big cellar was hollow.  The listeners heard the officer order his
men to begin.  Ian’s bricklayers were good workmen, though, and gave
them plenty to do.  The subaltern swore at the thickness of the wall.
At last they gave a whoop of delight.

"Potatoes," cried a voice in German.  "Trust them to know a good potato
when they see it.

"Take them all out, every sack.  Let the Polish swine starve.  I’ll make
that lying Count smart for this."

"Will you?" said the Countess, and so loud that the priest feared they
would hear her.

There was much running to and fro as they took up their booty.

"Oh, for ten armed men," whispered the Countess. "I’d teach them to loot
us."

Father Constantine begged her to keep quiet, but she went on muttering
against them.  After some minutes a soldier’s voice reported all the
potatoes upstairs, on a cart.  They had taken one of Ian’s.

"And the wine?"

"Three dozen bottles."  Father Constantine squirmed to think of that
good wine going down German throats.

"Get up the rest," ordered the subaltern.  "And send me that Jew."

Szmul had been wall-tapping on his own account. He appeared breathless.

"Oh, Excellency ... there is a hollow wall just over there.  And it’s
wider than the others."

"Lead the way."  Their steps died in the distance.

"Did you hear what he said about Ian?" she asked.

"Yes.  I’ll run over and warn him not to come till they go."

"We have plenty of time," she said bitterly.  "They have a dozen places
yet.  Oh, if I were a man!"

"What would you do?"

"I’d shoot him," and her voice was deadly calm.

Suddenly they heard picks behind the little altar, and sprang up in
consternation.  Szmul had found Ian’s largest grain store.

"Let us go," she said.  There was something in her voice the priest had
never heard before.

They returned to the library.  She shut and locked the door and without
another word went to Ian’s bedroom.  Father Constantine followed, afraid
of the look on her face.  She took her boy’s revolver from a table by
the bed.

"What are you going to do?"

She looked him full in the face, white to the lips but her eyes blazing
with the passion of protecting motherhood.

"Shoot him--before he gets Ian."

"But you’re mad," cried the priest, vainly trying to wrest the weapon
from her.  "The troopers will avenge themselves on you and on Miss."

But she was in no mood to listen.  She made sure the revolver was loaded
and went to the door.  Her chaplain managed to reach it first.

"You’ll shoot me before you leave this room," he cried.

They stood glaring at one another and saying many bitter things--they
who had been friends for half a century.  Then they felt ashamed and
were silent, though each was bent on victory.  This lull in the quarrel
was broken by the sound of horses’ hoofs upon the frozen ground.

"They’re off," she cried, and running to the window had opened and
cleared it before the priest could get there.  And in peace time she
walked with a stick!

He followed her as best he could, but alas! when he reached the ground
she had disappeared.  The place was deserted, the night dark.  He ran
hither and thither looking for her, his one thought to snatch away the
revolver.  He remembered all the terrible things they had done to women
in France and Belgium for less than killing a Prussian officer.  And she
was a good shot.  He had seen her hit the bull’seye over and over again,
in the little shooting-range behind the shrubbery.

A shot rang through the air--it came from the kitchen side.  He was too
late!  He could no longer save her from herself!  Ah, they were already
on her, for he could hear hoarse German oaths and a woman’s screams.
Yes, that was her voice.  Oh, my God, that he should come to this!  They
were torturing her, subjecting her to unspeakable martyrdom, wreaking
vengeance for the death of their chief.

In the kitchen entry he stumbled over a Prussian helmet.  Its owner lay
near by, on his face ... he hurried on...

The huge room resounded with the clash of steel, women’s screams, men’s
oaths.  There was a struggling mass of humanity in the gloom.  Ian, his
face bleeding, was fighting for his life with a trooper. Father
Constantine butted at them, to catch the German in his big paunch.  But
something sharp and cold hit his head and he knew no more.

When he recovered his senses he was lying in a cold, dark place.  His
head ached greatly.  Somebody was bathing it with water.

"The Countess?  The Countess?"  He tried to rise, but could not.

"She is safe.  Please lie still, Father Constantine."  This in English.
It was Minnie.

"Are you sure?"

"Quite."

"And Ian?"

"A flesh wound.  He’ll be well in a week; but you----"

"And that Prussian?"

"Dead."

"She killed him?"

"No.  The Russians came up just in time.  Cavalry. Caught them with
their booty at the top of the cellar steps.  Ian killed two.  They
fought like devils, but were entrapped.  Two others got killed, then the
officer.  When the rest saw him down, they surrendered.  We’ve one
wounded prisoner here.  He says Szmul offered to bring them here if they
would spare him and some money he had buried."

"And Szmul?"

She laughed bitterly.

"Got clean off.  Trust him.  Now, you must rest. I’m going to be very
strict."

"But one thing more ... the signals saved us?"

"Yes."

"How many Prussians crossed the river that Szmul----"

"You must not talk."

"Please, just that."

"The Russians say only a few.  The rest were cut off as they landed on
this side.  But the prisoner, when I went to him just now--he is wounded
in the leg--says several hundred got over and his lot believed they were
in touch with the rest.  Then they met Szmul who told them what booty
there was to be had in Ruvno--emeralds, and grain and wine.  He says the
Germans will think Szmul got them here to entrap them, and will hang him
to the nearest tree."

"Serve him right!" cried the priest.  "That skunk! Why, when he came up
to me last night----"

"Be quiet, Father Constantine," she said severely, "or I sha’n’t let you
see anybody for a week."

And he obeyed.




                                   X


Ian became vaguely aware of Minnie’s feelings towards him on the night
of that fight with the Prussians in the kitchen.  She saw the end of
that adventure despite his precautions.  From the "secret room," which
was the name the household gave to a small paneled chamber that had only
a bull’s-eye window and access from a bedroom by means of a small door
cut in the paneled wall, she espied his signaling on the church tower.
He had used this way of communicating before.  She ran down there to
help.  On the tower she found Martin, whose ancient arms were pretty
well exhausted.  Ian, busy on the other side, did not know she was there
till she shouted that she saw a red light.  It was thrown up by some
Russian cavalry and not far off.  They arrived just in time.  The
Countess showed them the way to the cellars through the library, so that
most of the Prussians were caught like rats in a trap.  Some broke
through the other way into the kitchen and fought hard, but were
defeated and surrendered to the Cossacks, who marched off with all the
survivors except one, who was wounded in the leg.

He was not ungrateful for her help on the tower, though he agreed with
Martin that it had not been necessary.  He told her that she had no
business to leave the secret room whilst Germans were about; then seeing
her disappointment at this cool recognition of her services, he told the
Grand Duke, in her presence, that she deserved a decoration.  But he
determined to send her home at the first opportunity. The events of the
preceding evening proved how women hampered him when the enemy came.  He
would have sent his mother, too, to join Vanda in Warsaw, but she was so
firm in her refusal to leave Ruvno that he gave up trying to persuade
her.

For several days after the kitchen fight nothing happened.  Ian was busy
bricking up his rescued stores, which the Prussians had almost got away
with. Father Constantine was still in bed, his head wrapped in bandages;
the wounded Prussian had been moved to a hospital at Kosczielna, because
his leg was getting better so fast that they feared he would run away.

Then Major Healy arrived.  He was a great big good-natured American,
doing his best to relieve the suffering in Poland with the means at his
disposal. He was, too, intensely interested in learning all he could
about the country, its customs and people. Ruvno was a revelation to
him.  So far, the work had taken him and his interpreter amongst the
peasants, burrowing like rats below ground, and the Jews, for whom he
felt more pity than admiration.  He was delighted to find that Ian spoke
English.  They got on very well together.  It was a long time since Ian
had talked to a man of his own age who was not a soldier.  The Russians
he saw were infinitely more interested in turning his ground into
trenches and battlefields than in suggesting the best means of keeping
those dependent on him from starvation till the next harvest.  Major
Healy had worked in Belgium and France and was able to give him a good
many hints for economy.  Poland had always enjoyed such liberal food
supplies that Ian had overestimated his war rations and was astounded to
hear how people lived in Belgium.  He cut down his ration system
slightly, and results proved that the change did no immediate harm,
whilst making a good deal of difference in the output of supplies.

Father Constantine, too, was interested in the visitor, though not on
account of rations.  Minnie, suspecting nothing and anxious to give him
some news, told him about Healy’s arrival with an interpreter and three
other men who helped to distribute relief.

"American!" he cried.  "I must see him at once. I wouldn’t miss him for
worlds."

Minnie explained that Major Healy would probably stop a few days, then
come back on his way home.

"Home?  Do you say he is going home?"  His eyes shone like a bird’s
under the white bandages. "If so, the sooner I see him the better."

"Can’t I give him your message?"

"Certainly not."  Father Constantine could be very peremptory when he
liked.  "The idea!  I am quite fit to see visitors ... and anxious to
meet this American boy."

"He’s forty if he’s an hour."

"Well--forty or fourteen.  See him I will."

Minnie put on the professional nurse’s manner.

"Father," she said, "you’re getting excited and you know how bad it is
for you.  I won’t bring up anybody till your temperature goes down."

He said no more; next time she took his temperature it had gone up two
points.  He actually winked at her.

"There, my child," he said in triumph.  "I told you that the sooner I
see this relief man the better. I shall not sleep a wink to-night unless
I do ... and to-morrow morning you’ll find me in a raging fever."

"He is busy ... Ian is with him.  I heard them say they would not finish
till supper time."

"What are they doing?"

"Checking stores for some village.  The Americans have got a wonderful
system.  Ian is learning it."

"You and Ian can do that whilst he is up here.  I feel my temperature
has gone up another point.  Give me the thermometer."

She refused that, but went for Major Healy.  After all, she reflected,
he was an obstinate old man and capable of getting a high temperature
just to prove himself in the right.

The introduction over, he turned to her with one of his benignant
smiles.

"My child ... you have spent so much time with a poor old man to-day, I
am sure Major Healy will excuse you ... you might help Ian check those
potatoes."

She took the hint and went out; but not to the potatoes.  I am afraid
she did a very mean thing. She burned with curiosity to hear what Father
Constantine wanted with the American major, and that instinct which
often enables a woman to steal a march on man whispered that she was
concerned in the priest’s mysterious anxiety.  It may be true that an
eavesdropper hears no good of herself; it is equally true that she
sometimes hears things good for herself. Therefore, argued Minnie, it
was quite a normal occupation under the circumstances.

The Father’s room opened to his dressing-room, approachable from the
corridor as well.  Thither she tiptoed, to find the door ajar.  Slipping
in, she stood behind a curtain which hung in the doorway between
dressing and bedrooms.  There was no door, so she heard very clearly.
Father Constantine was talking; she caught the sound of her own name.

"It is not safe for Miss Burton to remain here," he said in his slow,
correct English, for the Major had no other tongue.  "I have told her so
more than once.  So has the Countess; and also the Count.  But she
refuses to listen.  She knows how much we value her excellent work with
wounded and refugees.  But perhaps you can persuade her.  Neither the
Countess nor her son can insist; it would look as though they wanted to
get rid of her."

Major Healy was loath to interfere.  He sat, like a giant in repose, by
the little chaplain’s bed, listening politely, but secretly wishing
himself downstairs with the Count, whom he found more interesting every
time they talked together.  Father Constantine’s message had interrupted
a long argument not entirely disconnected with big-game shooting.  Healy
was a keen sportsman himself, and found it very interesting to swap
stories with Ian, who did not know the Rockies, but did know the
Caucasus and even Cashmere, where he had spent a long-remembered holiday
with young Ralph Burton two years ago.

"Well," he said, in slow sonorous tones, his blue eyes watching the
snowstorm that raged outside the sealed double window.  "Miss Burton
looks as if she could take care of herself.  I hear that the Grand Duke
promised to give warning if the place gets unsafe."

This was not at all what Father Constantine wanted.

"Do you see my bandages?" he asked.

Major Healy said he did.

"I received the wounds they cover in a fight which took place in the
kitchen between the Grand Duke’s soldiers and Prussian Hussars.  Neither
the Duke nor the Kaiser sent to warn me that a fight would be in the
kitchen, which I entered by chance without any idea the Russians had
come to the rescue.  It was a very good thing they did come because, as
you know, grain and potatoes are worth a dozen old men’s skulls
nowadays."

"Oh--don’t say that," protested the major politely.

The priest went on:

"Let us put it in this way.  What would have happened if Miss Burton and
not myself had gone into the kitchen?"

"I suppose her head would have been smashed, too," murmured the
American.

"Exactly," agreed the priest.  "Her pretty young head would have been
broken.  And as a woman’s head is softer than a priest’s, it would
probably have been broken past repairing."

Major Healy waited for more.  It came.

"And what would the American government say if an American woman had her
skull broken in a Polish kitchen?" he pursued.

"It would have written one of its darned notes."

"Oh!" said Father Constantine, disappointed at this unexpected reply.
"It would have written one of those notes?  They must be very
interesting to compose, but will not mend broken heads.  And England
won’t even write a note.  But her brothers would probably blame us for
letting her stop here.  And Ruvno is one of the most dangerous houses in
Poland. You can see for yourself what the Prussians have done to the
tower and the west wing."

"That I have," agreed the major, more interested in the west wing than
the prospect of Minnie’s broken skull.  "I’d like to wring the Kaiser’s
neck for bringing down that old bit."  He was an admirer of antiquities,
you see, and Minnie was still far from being one. "No, Father, Poland
isn’t safe for young girls and I’ll speak to her about it."

He rose from the depths of the armchair.

"Thank you so much.  It will be a great weight off our minds when we
know that this charming young lady is out of danger.  When did you say
you were returning to France?"

"Not yet.  I’ll have to go to Moscow, and can take her to Petrograd and
find an escort for her to England."

The Countess came in then and Healy went off. Minnie was half-way across
the room on her way out when a laugh from the patient stopped her.
There was something wicked about it, out of keeping with a broken skull
and high temperature.

"What is it?" asked the Countess.

He laughed again.  The visit had cheered him immensely.

"I think I’ve managed it."

"Managed what?"

"To persuade the American that Miss can’t stop here any longer."  And he
laughed again.

"But you know what the Grand Duke said."

"How about my broken head?"

"Oh--that was my fault, Father----"

"No--no."  His voice was deprecating now. "This American man will
persuade her.  He is the picture of American determination.  Look at his
chin."

"I haven’t noticed his chin.  But I have noticed your lack of gratitude.
I’m ashamed of you after the way Minnie nurses you."

"I’m not ungrateful; but I’ve been watching her and Ian rather closely
the last few days."

"You’ve been in bed!"

Father Constantine coughed.

"That is why.  You have no idea, Countess, how supremely indifferent a
young woman is towards a dozing patient.  And I doze a good deal
nowadays. Ian, dear boy, comes to see me.  And so does the Miss."

Minnie had to restrain an impulse to go in and shake her patient.  She
heard footsteps outside, then Ian’s voice at the old man’s door.

"Is Major Healy here?" he asked.

"He is checking those American potatoes with the Miss," the priest
answered.

"Oh!  I’ll come for a chat later on."  And off he went.

Minnie could hear the Countess and the priest giggle. They were still
enjoying their joke when came another rap.  The surgeon this time.
Minnie went up to the ward, bursting with indignation at the priest’s
duplicity.  The idea of his "foxing" when she supposed him sound asleep!
She thought it very deceitful of him.

Healy was a conscientious man.  Though very busy that evening, he found
time to redeem his promise to Father Constantine, and talk to Minnie.
She cut him short with:

"Yes.  The old tower has spoilt one of the best specimens of
architecture left in Poland, and the old priest’s head has been smashed
without either the Kaiser or the Grand Duke warning him.  And I shall
get my head broken unless I go home at once."

He fairly gasped.

"How on earth----" he began.

"I’ve heard it before.  I expect that Father Constantine has asked you
to help him.  I shouldn’t wonder if he asked you what the American
government would say if my head gets broken.  Looking at you and knowing
your personal sympathies with the Allies, I suppose you think I am able
to take care of myself."

"Well, as you mention it----"

He gave her an appreciative glance.  She was good-looking and he admired
her "spunk," to say nothing about her bright eyes and rosy cheeks.

Taking courage, she went on gaily:

"And the priest probably used his old joke about his head being harder
than a woman’s."

"He did say----"

"Major Healy, I appreciate your kindness, but I’m not going home for any
of these arguments, which I’ve heard before.  You may have some of your
own up your sleeve, if so----"

"I hadn’t thought of any, but----"

"No, you’ve been so busy that you trusted to the old ones.  It would
take something better to send me back to London."

"There’s Moscow," he mentioned.  "It’s nearer and quite safe."  He
rather liked the idea of having her as traveling companion.  She would
be entertaining and was good to look upon.

"Nor Moscow either."

"Warsaw?"

"Not even Warsaw.  I’m going to stop here, where I’m wanted."

He laughed.  "I don’t know but what you’re right. You can always get
away when things look bad."

He returned to his blankets and potatoes, so Minnie heard no more of the
matter from him.  But Father Constantine was quite nasty about it.  Next
afternoon, at the hour of his siesta, he summoned his old servant and
made him read the newspaper.  Then he insisted on learning how to knit.
In future, when he wanted a nap, he saw that the door was locked, saying
that visitors at that time disturbed him.  He gave a pretty shrewd guess
that his room was about the only place where Minnie could talk quietly
to Ian these busy days, and meant to put a stop to the meetings.  He was
by no means so simple as he looked.

Major Healy sought her to say good-bye, on the afternoon of his
departure.  He waited till she had gone up to one of the large bedrooms
she called her ward.  He thought he could talk more freely there than
before his host or hostess.  His ideas about Minnie had changed in these
few days, since he sat, bored and eager to get away, by the old
chaplain’s bed, and listened to his talk of broken heads.

"You’re doing splendid work here," he said, when she had shown him a
couple of her convalescent patients.  "But I think you’re too near the
firing line."

"So is the Countess," she returned gaily.  He did not speak for a
moment.  He had a habit of pondering beforehand that suited his big
stature and heavy build.  He was interested in her.  She happened to be
the first young woman he had met for weeks who spoke his own language.
Relief work in a devastated country did not allow for social intercourse
and he realized what a pleasant little break Ruvno had made for him.

"The Countess?" he echoed, looking at his cigar. "I guess the Countess
is hanging on to a piece of herself.  The Count tells me her family has
been here for eight centuries.  I hadn’t realized what that meant till I
talked to them.  It means that the family was looking at this landscape,
tilling this land and fighting for it when the Indians camped where my
home is and the Norman king reigned over _yours_.  So I expect she’d as
soon die as leave it any other way."

"Yes--that’s true," agreed Minnie.

"But you’ve only been here a few months," he went on.  "It’s not part of
your bones."

"I’ve these," she said, looking round the room, which was peopled with
peasant women and children, injured by Prussian shells or gases, whilst
working in their fields.  "I can’t leave them."

He lowered his voice and bent over her, though not one of those
suffering, frightened souls could understand what he said.  "I’ve talked
things over with the Count.  It’s plain enough that they’re not going to
leave this old house of theirs even if the Germans come for good.
That’s their look-out.  If I were in their shoes I’d probably do the
same thing. The Germans will have to burn them out.  But you’re not a
Pole--Miss Burton.  If they catch you here, they’ll give you a pretty
bad time of it."

Her eyes flashed.

"I’m going to stay all the same," she said firmly. "The Russians aren’t
beaten yet."

He gave a slow gesture of despair.

"It’s going to be a long party and the Germans ’ll make another push for
Warsaw soon.  You’re right in their road here."

He looked at her, a little pleadingly.  He hated the thought of leaving
her in the midst of this desolation, possibly a prey to German "Kultur."
He had not noticed anything to make him suspect that Ian, rather than
wounded refugees, was in her mind when she refused to leave.  He had not
seen the two together. Ian was busy all day long outside the house, she
in the wards.  His admiration for her grew.

"Haven’t you any family?" he asked.

"One brother with the Fleet and another in Flanders."

"That’s a family to be proud of," he said warmly. "D’you hear from
them?"

"Not since the Dardanelles were closed.  Will you take a couple of
letters for me?"

"That I will.  And I’ll see you get the answers. I’m going to Petrograd
next week--then to France. I’ll be back here next spring.  Meanwhile,
there are other men doing the work.  Tell your brothers to send through
our office in Moscow.  Here’s the address."  He produced a card, then a
pencil.  "On the back I’ll write mine, in Paris, where you’ll always get
me."  He scribbled a couple of lines and handed her the card.  "Now you
keep that and don’t forget to let me know, either there, or through our
Moscow office, when you want anything."

"Thanks awfully.  I’ll take great care of the card and will fetch the
letters for my brothers.  They are ready."

He followed her and waited in the corridor.  When she came back he said,
hesitatingly:

"Excuse a personal question; but have you got any cash?"

"A certain amount."

"How much?"

"Oh, about five hundred roubles--and my cheque-book."

"The cheque-book won’t do you much good."  His comely, rather heavy face
flushed.  "Look here I’m a banker at home----"

"Why, you’re a major," she retorted.

"So I am.  But peace soldiering didn’t suit me and I went into my
father’s business.  I’m going to join up again when America fights--and
she must."

"I’m glad to hear that," she said.

"Thanks.  It’ll take time--but it’s coming.  Why, if I thought we
weren’t going to help put an end to this desolation over here...."

He grew suddenly shy, and broke off.  Then:

"Let me be your banker now."  He put a roll of notes into her hand.
"You’ll be glad of it before you’re through with Poland, believe me."

She thanked him, prettily, so he thought.  Her first impulse was to
refuse the money.  Then she reflected that they all might be glad of it
one day.  The American’s kindness touched her, and she showed it; this
flattered him.  He had a susceptible heart and innate chivalry,
inherited from Irish forebears.

"Oh--how am I to thank you?" she murmured, blushing redder than he had
been a moment before.

"By using it to get out of this desert as soon as you can," he returned
quickly.  "I hate to leave you here--in danger."

"But there is none--yet.  Look here, Major Healy, do let me give you a
cheque on my London bank for it."

He laughed.

"I told you cheques are no good in this country. We’ll settle later on.
Remember to let me know if I can help.  Good-bye and good luck."

He strode down the long gallery, turned at the end, regretfully, waved
his hand and was gone. Minnie went back to her patients, whom she tended
with the help of two village women, and Zosia, the housekeeper.

The Countess had wounded soldiers in another part of the house.




                                   XI


One spring morning the Countess came into the office where Ian was
working, an open letter in her hand.  He saw by her eyes that she had
unpleasant news.

"A letter from Joseph," she announced, sitting down by his desk, where
he was busy with accounts.  He looked up, his clear eyes hardened.

"What does he want?"

"He has a week’s leave.  He says that the six months are over, and
wants----"

"Wants his wedding," said Ian.  "Then he must have it."

She laid her slim hand on his.  He raised it to his lips; but did not
meet her fond gaze.

"He says he has written to Vanda, to come here, to meet him."

Ian gave a grunt.  He thought it just like Joe’s impudence to order
people in and out of his house. But he said nothing.  His mother went
on:

"Vanda, it appears, wants the wedding to take place in Warsaw."

"She’s right," he returned promptly.  "A wedding in this muddle!"  He
looked out of the window, to the garden cut in trenches, and the barbed
wire, rusty with spring rains, blotting what was once a peaceful vista
of sedate comfort.  "I’d write to the Europe about rooms, and to the
Archbishop."

"But, Ianek, think of the expense, nowadays," she protested gently.

"It wouldn’t be much.  You need only invite the family.  No lunch or
anything, just a glass of champagne when you get back from church.  A
war wedding."

"Then you won’t come, dear?"

"No.  The work here ... you know how pressed I am for men."  He lowered
his voice: "It’s easier that way."

She gave him one of her long, adoring looks, her hand on his shoulder.

"Courage," she whispered, "these things pass."

He nodded.  "There have been so many other things, and yet, when you
came in with your news, I wished him dead."

"Ianek!" she cried, shocked by the pain in his voice as much as his
words.  "I’d been hoping you had forgotten.  You were more cheerful
these last few weeks, and so busy."

He gave a little laugh.  "So did I.  Then this letter brought it ...
showed it’s still there."  He got up and paced the long room.  "Oh, I
don’t want it here.  Manage that for me; find out from somebody where
Joe is, send a messenger that we can’t have it in this ruin, that I
insist, as head of the family, on its being in Warsaw.  Telegraph to
Vanda--I can’t spare a messenger or I’d send a note to her by hand. But
telegraph her that she’s to stop where she is, that you’re coming for
the wedding.  Tell her to let him know; he may be in Warsaw."

She glanced at the letter.

"No address, of course, just the military censor’s stamp."

"But she may know where he is," he rejoined eagerly.  "Take Minnie with
you.  The change’ll do her good.  Women love a wedding.  Stop a few days
yourself.  I’ll write the telegrams myself, they must be in Russian, I’d
forgotten that."  Then, seeing the alarm in her face, he added: "Don’t
worry, Mother, it’s only ... it’ll pass.  But start for Warsaw the
minute you can, before either of them gets here."

"At once," she said, rising.

He wrote a telegram to Joseph, another to Vanda and a third to the
Archbishop of Warsaw.  He wanted that man of high courage and well-tried
patriotism to bless her union.  These he sent to the station, the
nearest telegraph office; at some inconvenience, because there was a
great deal of work to be done in the fields and he was short of labor.
So he took the place of the boy he sent plowing for him till all hands
struck work at midday.  Things had changed since last spring; when the
squire rode over his well-cultivated property and merely gave orders to
his manager.  Now he was his own manager and his own bailiff, and
sometimes his own hind as well.  Plowing, he congratulated himself that
he had at least saved the situation, as far as witnessing Joseph’s
happiness went; and the hard exercise relieved his feelings.

Here Destiny stepped in.  He was crossing the hall to wash his hands for
their frugal lunch when he heard the clatter of a quick-stepping horse
through the open door.  A tall figure, slim and smart in its brown
Cossack uniform, swung from the saddle and stood in the sunlit entry.
It was Joseph.  They stood looking at one another in silence for a
moment.

"Hullo!" cried the new-comer, "It is you ... couldn’t see after having
the sun in my eyes."  And he strode over, spurs clanking, to hug the
squire in an old-fashioned Polish embrace with a warmth that belonged,
in the old days, to Roman, never to his brother.

Ian was forced to admit that war had changed his cousin.  He was
handsome as ever; but less a prig, more a man.  Rubbing shoulders with
the primitive aspects of life and death had done him good, widened his
sympathies, rubbed off the crust of self-complacency which Ian has
always hated in him, even before love came between them.

"I just wired to you," he said, releasing himself. "No idea you were so
near."

"Near!  The general’s headquarters are in a railway truck at Kosczielna.
I’ve got a week’s leave. Has Vanda come?"

"No.  Mother is packing to go to Warsaw."

"Anything wrong?" he asked in alarm.  "Out with it, tell me the worst."

"Nothing wrong.  Only...."  He pointed towards the devastated garden,
the gap where the tower had once been, and the rusty entanglements.  "We
can’t have a wedding here."

Joseph laughed, not from lack of sympathy, but for relief that Vanda was
not ill?

"My God!  There are weddings on rubbish heaps nowadays.  I call Ruvno a
quiet spot for a honeymoon. I’ve no time to go to Warsaw.  Vanda wanted
it there, too, but it’ll take too long.  We’re going to make an advance
soon, and goodness knows when I’ll get another chance like this.  A
week’s leave!  Not to be despised, I can tell you.  I’ve got all the
papers and things.  We can get married the moment Vanda comes.  Hard
work getting them, but they’ve made things easier in war-time.  I saw
that old Canon of yours.  Dragged him out of bed at six o’clock this
morning.  I say, anything to drink?  I’ve the thirst of the devil on
me!"

"Of course."  He led the way to the dining-room, noted Joseph’s long
pull at the beer set before him--he was in too much of a hurry to wait
for a bottle of wine to be fetched and opened--watched, listened and
wondered.  And this was Joseph, the fastidious, pomaded, manicured,
supercilious fop of six months ago.  His face reddened by snow, sun and
wind; his chin unshaven, his right hand disfigured by the scar of the
wound he got in the Carpathians, his nails broken and begrimed with dirt
that no washing would remove, his fair hair, once so sleek and trim,
tousled from his high fur cap, which he pulled off and flung on to a
chair.  He looked the picture of robust health, happiness and sincerity,
but never like Joseph Skarbek. Soldiering with men whose education and
upbringing was ruder than his had rubbed the artificiality off him,
leaving the old type of virile, keen, sincere Skarbeks who had fought
their way through the country’s history.  Ian began almost to like him.

But he was not a second Roman, had none of his brother’s fatalism,
devil-may-care philosophy, odd glimpses into the truth of life’s
foundations.  His was more the ingenuity of a big schoolboy, but such a
schoolboy as he had never been when in his ’teens. One of his first
questions was for Roman.  He grew grave when they told him there was no
news.

"I counted on your hearing from him.  He wouldn’t be likely to write to
me, because of Vanda.  But he must have got over that.  It wasn’t his
first love-affair --nor his second.  He can’t be a prisoner.  He’d never
let the Prussians take him.  He told me that. Besides, I know it
myself."  He gave a short laugh. "Crucifixion would be too good for us
both if they catch us.  And he’s not on the list of dead or wounded
either, for I got a man at Petersburg--I mean Petrograd--to bring me
them."

"Up to date?" asked Ian anxiously.

"Yes.  The latest.  They came this morning, just before I started.  Of
course, it’s just like Roman never to send a line, and then hell turn up
all of a sudden and be surprised that we were anxious."

As he sat and listened to the story of the Carpathian campaign, told
with simple directness, with that ignorance of main facts which
characterises all such stories, where a man knows only what goes on
around him, yet with that charm of the intelligent eye-witness, Ian felt
suddenly very middle-aged and out of things.  Here he was, doing daily
drudgery on a ruined estate, always in the same place, always seeing the
same people, in the dull monotony of a long winter, without any
shooting, without visits to Warsaw and the opera, whilst this cousin of
his, whom he had always despised for a coxcomb and an armchair
agriculturist, had been running half over Europe, chasing the Austrians
over snow-bound mountains, learning the sensation of fighting hand to
hand, of being wounded, of getting a decoration, of thinking himself
dead once, of being near death many times; not the death of
rats-in-a-hole that Ruvno knew, but death with glory; when he heard
tales of these things, told by a now unfamiliar Joseph, and compared his
own humdrum life, he reflected bitterly that if Vanda had loved this man
before she would worship him now.  He opened the demijohn that his mind
had reserved for Roman’s coming, and they drank the health of everybody
they liked who was alive and to the other Skarbek’s speedy return.
During the evening they discussed business.

"Aunt Natalie," began the bridegroom, "I expect you think I’m mad to get
married just now, with nothing to live upon and not even knowing if I’ll
be alive this time next week."

"Vanda will never want while we are able to give her a crust," she said
warmly.  This new Joseph pleased her, too; if not for her boy she would
have taken him to her heart as she had taken Roman long ago.

"Thank you, Aunt.  I used to think, there on the Carpathians, what a
selfish beast I was to keep her to our engagement after I’d joined the
right side and lost my property.  But when I was in Kieff old Uncle
Stephen came to see me."

"Old Uncle Stephen," was of the branch of Skarbeks who had estates in
Russian territory and were Russian subjects.

"They say he’s made a lot of money over the war," remarked Ian.

"At any rate he’s not lost any.  He was so pleased to hear that I’d
joined against the Prussians that he made over a hundred thousand
roubles to me.  He’s a wise old bird; had it invested in several things,
I’ll tell you the details afterwards.  I’ve got the figures on paper.
Anyway, Vanda will have enough to live upon.  And on the strength of it
I thought we’d better get married.  Everybody doesn’t get killed in the
war. I don’t see why I should be worse off than other men."

Later on he reverted again to his marriage; this time to Ian.

"Vanda has been working too hard in Warsaw," he said.  "I can see that
from her letters.  She’s not her old self.  I want you to let her stop
here till I can take care of her myself."

Ian did not answer for a moment; when he spoke it was with an effort.

"This is her home as long as she likes," he said.  "But you mustn’t
forget that the Russians have been here twice and may come again.  You
wouldn’t want her here then."

"I’ve thought of that.  But they won’t come so fast.  And I’ll let you
know in time to get her out before they do.  She wants a rest from that
nursing business.  It’s wearing her out."

Ian’s quick ears had detected the sound of wheels coming up the drive.
He went to the window and looked out.  A hired trap was making its way
up to the house with that gallop for the avenue characteristic of
hackney drivers in Eastern Europe.  The garden was flooded with
moonlight, which lighted up those on the trap.  As it swung round by the
front door, he saw two women sitting behind the driver.  One was
evidently a peasant, and beside her sat a slim, upright figure dressed
in dark clothes.  He shut the window and turned to his cousin:

"She has come," he said.




                                  XII


Next morning, Ian was up at daybreak, hurrying to his morning tasks, to
get them over a little earlier than usual and have time for a chat with
Vanda before breakfast. The Canon was coming at twelve, and would marry
them immediately. Between breakfast and midday he had a great deal to do
and could not expect to get five minutes alone with her.

Crossing to the farm, he met Joseph.

"You’re up early," he remarked.

"Can’t sleep.  I’m so excited!"  He laughed gaily.

"I hope Vanda is asleep.  She looked awfully tired last night."

"Oh, she’ll be all right in a little while.  She’s had too much hard
work.  The Princess ought not to have allowed it.  She promised to get
up in good time, too; I want every minute with her."

Ian glanced at him.  So the old Joseph had not gone altogether.  Ian
would not have disturbed her so early if they were to part that day.
She needed rest more than anything.

"Don’t you think she has changed?" he asked.  "It seemed to me last
night she was different."

"Oh, nonsense!  You know how devoted she is to me.  And I to her, of
course.  Why, I love her a thousand times more than I did before I went
to the Carpathians.  You’re getting a crusty old bachelor, full of odd
ideas.  _Au revoir_, I’m off to get a shave."

And he turned towards the house.  Ian went into one of the fields which
were being plowed.  How sure Joseph was of his luck!  Even if he heard
from Vanda’s own lips that she did not care for him he would refuse to
believe it, put it down to fatigue, insist on their marriage all the
same.

Ian was late for breakfast.  The Countess alone lingered at the table,
so that he should not have a solitary meal.  They did not mention
Vanda’s name, but he asked if she had ordered the best luncheon
possible, considered the menu, suggested one or two alterations.  The
best champagne in the cellars must be brought up--and some of the old
Hungarian wine for dessert, as is the Polish custom.  She fondly thought
that it was just like her boy to remember such details for other
people’s pleasure in the midst of his own pain.  He spoke about a dowry,
too, but here she was firm in her disapproval.

"It’s absurd," she said.  "Stephen is looking after Joseph.  He is far
better off now than we are or ever shall be again.  And you know he
always meant to leave everything to Joe and Roman.  Keep your money.  We
shall want it badly enough before the war is over."

He said no more about it, but returned to the lunch.

"It would have been a better one if I’d known sooner," he remarked as
they left the table. "However, the wine is all right.  And they’ll be
too happy to notice what they are eating."

"Oh, Ianek, I do wish you hadn’t promised him to keep her here," she
exclaimed.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her white hair, laughing a
little at her concern.

"Never mind, Mother.  You’ve no idea how good plowing is for the
sentiments."

This was another grievance.  She exclaimed indignantly:

"To think you have to work like a peasant!"

"I want my crops.  And when I’ve no manager, overseer or bailiff, and
very few laborers, what can I do?  It’s good for me, I’m fit as a
fiddle."  And he made her feel the muscles on his arms, which were like
iron.

"We seem to have become yeoman farmers," she said.  "Oh, I’m not
complaining for myself."

"Then don’t worry about me," he rejoined cheerfully. "After all, we’re a
lot better off than most of our neighbors."

The wedding was over very quickly.  Ian gave Vanda away because there
was nobody else to do it. She wore a white frock which, oddly enough, he
remembered quite well.  Less than a year ago he had taken her and the
Countess up to Warsaw for some racing, before she went to stay in the
Grand Duchy. They had their usual rooms at the Europe, on the quiet
side, away from the main street.  There was a large sitting-room, with a
balcony.  The dress had come home at the last moment, whilst the car
waited downstairs to take them to the course at Mokotov. She had put it
on hastily and called him in from the balcony to look at it.  He
supposed that was why he remembered it so well.  He would have given her
a new one for the wedding, had he known she was coming so quickly.  She
looked very sweet in the old one, though.  But his thoughts flew back to
the sumptuous outfit he had planned for her, sables he had priced in
Warsaw, whither he never returned, except to volunteer for the army; the
guests he was to invite, entertaining them as Ruvno could
entertain--once. And it had all turned out so differently.  There were
no guests, no presents, no sables; not even an entire house.  Nothing
but ruined acres and dead hopes, and a pain in his heart such as he had
never felt before.

He could not see her face as the ring was slipped on to her finger.  He
did not want to.  He longed for the whole thing to be over and done
with, the blessing bestowed, the healths drunk, the meal at an end, that
he could go out into the sun and fresh air, working until bodily fatigue
had numbed every other feeling.

Almost immediately after the marriage they sat down to table.  He played
his part decorously, without betraying himself, with a secret anger at
the pain in his soul and determination to kill it.  Even Minnie, who
watched him closely, could find no fault.  He was the lively host of
peace days, but the champagne helped him there.

The Canon was in great form.  He told all sorts of stories about the
time when Rennankampf was lodged in his house and did his duty by food
and drink as well.  Then he rose to propose a toast.  It was in verse.
He had used it at every marriage feast he went to for the past twenty
years.  Even Vanda, youngest of the party, knew it off by heart; for all
the author ever did was to change the names of bride and bridegroom; the
body of the verses remained the same.  No sooner was he on his feet,
however, than they applauded him.  Even Father Constantine, rather
sleepy after his early rising and the old Tokay, woke up and said:
"Bravo!"

"Ladies and gentlemen!" began the Canon, folding his hands over his
well-filled soutane and beaming on them all: "Let us now drink to the
health of the beautiful bride and gallant bridegroom, who----"

He never got any further.  At that moment, Martin approached Joseph and
whispered in his ear.  The Canon stopped, for he saw a new expression on
the bridegroom’s face.

"Anything wrong, Count?" he asked anxiously.

Joseph turned to Martin.

"Are you sure?"

"Quite.  He is waiting at the door."

"I’m sorry..."  He rose.  "I’ll be back in a moment."

But they all followed him to the door.  A Cossack orderly stood there,
his horse covered with sweat and he with dust.  He saluted Joseph and
said in Russian:

"I was to give you this personally----"

And he produced a sealed envelope from one of his high boots.

Joseph tore it open, read the few words typed on a slip of paper inside,
and turned white.

"To Hell with the war!" he cried savagely.

"What is it?" they all cried.

"I must go--at once."

"Oh--not a German advance?" asked Vanda apprehensively.

He crushed the paper in his hand and returned huskily, despair on his
face:

"God knows.  The orders are to report at Headquarters immediately.  Oh,
Vanda, it’s Destiny.  First the Germans, now the Russians take me from
you."

"But you had a week’s leave," said the Countess, whilst Vanda and her
lover stood side by side, looking at each other in sorrow.  "He can’t go
back on his word."

"It’s imperative," said Joseph.  Then to the soldier: "What’s the news
at Headquarters?"

"We’re off at once.  Galicia, they say."  He swung into his saddle.
"I’ll get your horse, sir.  Time presses."  And with a salute which took
in them all he went off to the stables.

In less than ten minutes Joseph was off, trotting down the avenue on his
fleet horse, the soldier behind him.  Farewells, admonitions, promises
and good wishes were crowded into that short space of time. Ian could
not forgive himself for his silence in the morning.  They were not
married an hour before Joseph left.  He could have put it off for
months, forever perhaps, had he only followed his better sense, instead
of letting things slide, with true Slavonic fatalism, he told himself
angrily.

But there was no use repining.  He left the three women with the priests
and returned to his work. He did not attempt to console Vanda, who stood
on the steps where her husband had left her, watching him hurry away,
waving her hands as he swung out into the road and was lost in the dust
and the distance. He noticed that she was very pale, bewildered by the
morning’s rapid events and emotions, with tears in her eyes.  He tried
to read her thoughts, but could not.

So life once more returned to its old monotony. Vanda wore her wedding
ring.  But that was the only outward sign that she was no longer under
Ian’s guardianship.  Letters came to her from Joseph, who wrote of
getting leave in the summer.  She helped Minnie with the few wounded
civilians still left in the house and slipped into her old place again.
Ian seldom spoke to her, avoided her eyes at table where he kept up a
general conversation in English, for Minnie’s benefit.  As spring
advanced he found more work to keep mind and body occupied.  By dint of
getting the most out of himself and the labor still left at his disposal
he managed to put enough land under crops to feed Ruvno and its
population for two years, and perhaps sell some grain as well.  And this
gave him as much satisfaction as it would have given any small farmer.
And it made him feel young again to see the land regain some measure of
its old prosperous aspect, though many a broad acre was cut up into
trenches.  Peasants who had escaped to Warsaw during the December
campaign now returned, vowing that nothing would induce them to leave
home again. True, most of them were obliged to live in trenches or in
the open, for their villages existed only in name; but as the warm
weather came on this was no great hardship and they felt so glad to get
back to the soil that they forgot past troubles and set out to cultivate
their fields with the indomitable courage of their race.




                                  XIII


The inmates of Ruvno thought they had witnessed all the wrack and
vicissitudes of war; of advancing armies, entrenched armies, foraging
armies, looting armies; of wounds, pollution and death.  They had yet to
see a retreating army.

By July the Russians were in full retreat.

Day and night they went by.  Cursing, sweating, bleeding, limping;
hungry, thirsty, weary, their eyes aglow with the smouldering fires of
rage, disappointment and all the bitterness of recession; without haste,
without hope they tramped past, to fall back upon the Nieman, the Pripet
and the Dnieper, leaving Poland to the Prussian Antichrist.

At times, some of them stood to give fight, covering the retreat of the
armies’ bulk.  Then, though these battles of despair were far from
Ruvno, the ground shook under them, a very earthquake; the few trees
left were stript of their leaves till it looked as though winter and not
August, were upon them.  The Russians had no ammunition; the rumbling
and shaking came from their enemies.  And this is why there were
smouldering fires in the tired soldiers’ eyes; it was a nightmare to try
and beat off a modern army with lances, rifle-butts and sticks.  One
morning a lot of soldiers halted in the village.  Having exhausted what
water there was, for a drought had been added to the peasants’ troubles,
some sought the house.  Ian went out to them.  One, a giant with blue
eyes, fever-bright and dry, was holding forth to the servants in a
frenzy of impotent rage.  His uniform was in tatters, his boots a mass
of torn leather, held together God knows how.  His dirty blouse was open
to the chest, where the blood had clotted on a stale wound.  In his hand
was a stout oaken club, which he waved about as he shouted and swore.

"What could I do with this?  Tell me, what could I do?  A stick to beat
off the German swine.  Son of a dog, what could I do?  Never a rifle
since we left the Lakes.  My knife gone, too."  He meant his bayonet.
"Mother of God, to think of it!  Not a hundred rounds to the whole
regiment!  But I killed three dog’s sons with it!"  He wildly struck the
air; all fell back in terror of their lives.  "See! like this. One!
Two!  Three!  Smashing in their skulls like I hammer the horseshoes on
the anvil at home.  Look at their dog’s blood on it--look ye, and
tremble!"

Father Constantine, who had come out, insisted on dressing his wound,
and found two others, only half healed.  But he was built like Hercules,
this blacksmith from a village of Tula; they could tell he was in a high
fever; some men march a couple of days and more in such a state, the kit
on their backs, and none the worse for it in the end.  For these sons of
Rus are hardened from their birth and as strong as the beasts they tend
at home.  He was indignant with the old priest for bringing out some
simple remedies.

"What are you doing, _Pop_?" he shouted.  "The surgeon dressed it last
night, or last week, I forget when.  I tore it off me.  How can I bear
the feel of rags in this nightmare?  I’ll go naked to the day of
Judgment, by God I will."

And he proceeded to strip, flinging his ragged garments to right and
left, as the wild Cossacks do when they have had too much _vodka_ and
dancing.  The maids rushed off in horror; but another giant, his
comrade, managed to calm him and cover his huge, brawny body, where the
muscles stood out as hard as iron under skin white as a woman’s; for the
Russians of his part are fair.  Father Constantine gave him a cooling
draught and did what he could for his wounds, which must have smarted
terribly under the iodine; but he never groaned.  He was lying on his
back now, breathing heavily, eyes closed, hands clasping the club with
all the strength of fever.

"He’ll kill us if he keeps it," observed his comrade, whose head was
encased in dirty bandages.  "He has been mad with fever since last
sunset ... but we can’t find room in an ambulance for him and he lays
out whenever we try to take it away."

"I’ll lay out at all the ministers when I get to Petrograd!" bawled the
patient, springing up and upsetting the Father.  Worse than that, he
sent over the bottle of iodine, too, and they were very short of it.
"Son of a dog, I’ll have them all, crush their skulls like walnuts.  The
war minister first, for sending us sticks instead of guns ... and then
the intendant, for these boots."  Here he flung one across the yard,
where it stuck on to the well-handle.  "I’ll murder every dog’s son of
them--by God, I will, till we clean Russia of thieves and swine."

And so he went on, raving at everybody and everything, till he had
shouted himself tired.  Then he lay down in the shade of the stables and
slept uneasily. Ian wanted to send him to bed, which was the only fit
place for him.  The officer in charge demurred, said he did not think
the man was ill enough to risk being found here by the enemy, who could
not be kept off more than a few days.  He had orders to retreat with as
few losses as possible.  When Ian finally gained his point, promising to
send him on by the first ambulance that passed, the man himself refused
to stop behind.  He wasn’t going to leave his comrades; he didn’t trust
priests ... this one had burned him with poison and tried to take away
his only weapon, so that he would not even be able to crack German
skulls when they came up.

They watched them march off; the giant, quieter now, staggered between
two limping comrades who helped him along, though they had all their
work cut out to put one sore foot before the other.  When they reached
the bend in the road they began to sing, in unison, as Russians do.  And
Father Constantine’s heart went out to those brave, simple souls, and he
prayed that they might reach the Nieman in safety.

At first this was the only army Ruvno saw--a host of men, way-worn but
strong.  But soon came the vanguard of another legion, a ghastly,
straggling horde of old men, women and children, fleeing before the
invaders.  Some of them carried a kettle--all that remained of their
worldly goods; others had harnessed skinny, starving nags to their long,
narrow carts, piled with bedding, a quilt or two, a table or a stool.
Here and there could be seen a sack of potatoes or buckwheat between the
wooden bars; but this was rare indeed, because these unhappy people had
nothing left in barn or cellar.  And the women.  They trailed on with
their little ones; with children who could walk or toddle, with infants
in arms, with babes at the breast, with babes yet unborn, destined to
see the first light of a tempestuous world from the roadside, whilst
jostling humanity passed indifferently by, benumbed with a surfeit of
ordeal and pain.  The household could do little for these poor wretches.

In one group of misery they saw a priest--a young man he was.  Father
Constantine chided him.

"Why did you let them leave their homes?" he asked.  "Can’t you see half
of them are doomed to die in the ditch?"

He shrugged his shoulders and looked at his questioner with the dull
eyes of a man steeped in despair.

"What could I do?" was his wail.  "The Russians drove us out of house
and home."

"The Prussians, you mean," corrected Ian.

"I mean what I say.  The Cossacks burnt the grain in the fields.  Then
they set fire to the village."  He cursed them with unpriestly words,
but even Father Constantine had not the will to stop him.

"If there had been one cottage left, one sack of buckwheat, I could have
persuaded them to stop," he concluded.  "But the sight of the burning
fields and the charred walls of their homes filled them with panic.  All
our younger men are in the army, and we had only the scorched earth
left.  If we ever reach Warsaw we shall get somewhere to lay our heads
and a sup to put in our mouths."

Ian gave them some food for their journey, for that other retreating
army paid these unfortunates no attention.  They had two young mothers
in the house. One Vanda found in the ditch outside the paddock. Ian cut
down the household rations for these fugitives, because his stock had
run low, and the horde came on unceasingly.  He had ordered fresh
supplies from Warsaw nearly a month back; but there was no hope of
getting them now.  His new grain was ready to cut, and he set about it
in haste, lest bad luck befall it.

Two days later, the stream of humanity still passed by.  Many halted to
beg for food, water.  Ian gave both, though he could only afford the
water, for his generosity of the last few days diminished the stores in
an alarming way.  So he had to harden his heart and give far less.  The
country for versts round was being laid waste.  Every group of refugees
told the same tale of destruction and ruin.  On this particular morning
passed some peasants of Stara Viesz.  They told a ghastly story.  They
were cutting the crops when the Cossacks came up and began firing the
grain as it stood in the fields.  The reapers turned upon them with
their scythes; a fierce fight followed.  The Cossacks, having spent all
their ammunition on the Germans, had but their spears left--and the
peasants got the best of it, beating off the destroying _sotnia_, who
left dead and wounded amongst the corn.  But much of the grain was burnt
and some of the cottages caught fire, for a strong east wind was
blowing.  The villagers who now passed had nothing left.  Those lucky
enough to save field or hut remained behind.

"If we can only reach Warsaw we shall be saved," said their spokesman.
They had one cart left, for four families.  Three had been abandoned
because the horses dropped dead upon the road.

They all looked to Warsaw as a haven of rest and plenty.  And an officer
told Ian the Grand Duke had decided not to defend that city, but to
evacuate it and leave it to the Prussians.  This news was so bad that he
had not the courage to tell it them.  After all, they would not go back
to their ruined homes.  Ian and the priest used all their eloquence in
trying to persuade them to it.  But they refused.  Terror was upon them.
Perhaps they were right; why go back to starvation?

"Why don’t the Russians give us food?  They made us leave our homes,"
was the cry on everybody’s lips. Ian could not answer them.  So helpless
did he feel that the temptation came to shut himself up in the top story
rather than see suffering which he could not relieve.  And he, too,
asked himself why the Russians drove these peasants from their homes.
What was the good of it?  Those who did not die on the road would only
swell the beggar population of Moscow and Petrograd; for they were
destitute, though war found them prosperous men, with land and savings,
too.  These sad, ragged, homeless crowds would only stir up discontent
in Russia.  And the farms and holdings they had been forced to leave
would give the Prussians room to put their own colonists.  He was
relieved to see that very few priests were among the refugees.  When he
or Father Constantine asked a panic-stricken group where their priest
was the answer always came:

"He would not leave those who stopped behind."

Again anxiety haunted the House.  There was Joseph.  He had given no
sign for a month.  He had been so emphatic in his last letters about
sending word when Vanda ought to leave that they almost gave him up as
dead.  But though there was no longer any doubt that the Germans would
be in Ruvno before long she refused to leave.  Neither Ian nor the
Countess insisted.  The retreat had come so unexpectedly that they found
themselves cut off from Warsaw, the only road to Russia left open,
without a day’s notice. There were no trains but for the army, and few
enough for that.  Ian had not a pair of horses left capable of taking
her twelve versts, let alone to Warsaw; and he doubted if she could get
away from there.  Minnie was kept by the same reasons, that is, devotion
to Ruvno and fear of sharing the fate of those fugitives they saw pass
night and day.  Then there was Roman.  So many Cossacks went by but Ian
vainly sought his face amongst them.  Some remembered Roman well; but
they had not seen him for months, they said.  One thought he had been
taken prisoner in Masuria; another, who seemed to have known him better
than the rest, said he was reported missing as far back as last October.
Ian questioned Father Constantine when he heard this, asking exactly
what happened that night when Joseph escaped to the chapel.  The old man
repeated his story and said:

"Ian, I can tell you no more.  Our little family is broken up.  God
knows when it will be reunited. Perhaps not till death binds us
together."

Then, perhaps more pressing than all, was anxiety about the crops.  It
was quite possible the Cossacks would fire them before they left.  Some
were cut; but most of them still stood, not ready for harvest. And Ian,
watching the Cossacks’ lack of fodder for their horses, trembled for the
fate of his haystacks and barns, where there was hay.  The retreating
army grew fiercer, more and more antagonistic towards the civil
population of the country it had to abandon. The officers could keep in
their men when they liked; but the officers themselves were often at
little pains to hide their hostility, though the majority treated Ian
and his property with consideration.  But a retreating army is rougher
and more turbulent than an advancing, or entrenched army.  God forgive
them!  They knew all the wretchedness of failure.  Rage and
disappointment had hold of them.  Some Cossacks stopped in Ruvno; they
were those who remembered Roman Skarbek.  They kept mostly to the
village, but Ian wished they would go.  One night their commander told
him that the Prussians would be there very soon, and it was time to make
up his mind as to what he was going to do.  Ian told him he had long ago
made up his mind to stay.  But he called up the chief men from the
village, a deputation chosen by the rest.  The message he sent was for
service in the chapel; though he did have the service, the real purpose
was to discuss the situation; but the Cossacks looked askance at him
when they heard he had decided to stay in Ruvno, so he had to be
careful.  They kept watch day and night from the church tower in the
village, either to direct the Russian fire on the Prussians or else to
watch for their coming.  Several times they warned the villagers to
leave before their homes were razed to the ground.  Some peasants were
for taking their advice and going to Warsaw.  Hence the meeting.

"The time has come for you to make up your minds," he said when he had
them all in the little sacristy.  "Are you going to leave your land and
follow the retreating army, or to stop here and stick to your fields?"

"What is the House going to do?" asked the _soltys_, or head of the
village community.

"We stop here so long as there is a roof over us."

A murmur of approval greeted this.  Ian went on:

"But I don’t want you to be guided by what I and the Lady Countess are
doing.  You know what is going on as well as I do."

"Ay.  All the devils have taken the Muscovites," said a voice.

"Thousands of peasants, once rich, like yourselves, pass on their way to
Warsaw," said Ian.

"Please, my lord Count," put in the _soltys_, "it’s Siberia and not
Warsaw they are going to.  The Cossacks down in the village are talking
a lot about it.  The Russian government is offering the fugitives land
in Siberia and work in the mines.  It’s not fair. This has been our land
for centuries, long before the Russians came here at all.  And I, for
one, and my three young sons, are for stopping here.  They can but burn
our crops and cottages.  Haven’t the Cossacks done that?"

A low growl of anger filled the room.  The old man went on:

"But when they’ve burnt the crops and our huts and stacks they’ve done
their worst.  They can’t take away the land, even if they bring all the
carts they’ve got.  The land remains.  And I remain.  For I’d rather
starve through another winter on my own soil than have the biggest farm
they can give me in Siberia."

They talked a lot, arguing and disputing, as peasants do.  But you
cannot hurry them, so Ian and the priest waited for them in the chapel.
After an hour, when each had had his say, Baranski came out.

"Well, what have you decided?" Ian asked with secret anxiety.  It is no
joke to be left in a big place like Ruvno without any peasants.

"Sir," answered the _soltys_, who had followed Baranski, "we have
decided that each man may take his choice, and that the man who takes
his family from Ruvno, to join that poor starving mob on the road
outside, is stupid and a fool.  If God wills that we shall die, we can
die here.  We have two months yet of warm weather, and the crops, thank
God, are not so bad, considering the trenches we’ve had put upon us.  We
can mend up our cottages and prepare for the winter.  The Muscovites are
retreating as hard as they can.  So I don’t see that there’ll be any
more battles in this part for some time.  We can plow and sow in the
autumn as usual.  That’s how most of us think.  The others can go, if
they like."

Next day Ian heard that the majority had decided to stop.  The sight of
those refugees haunted them.




                                  XIV


On the day when the peasants decided to stop in Ruvno Ian had a visitor.
It was none other than the narrow-eyed Colonel who was in the same house
at the beginning of the war, when Rennenkampf came and Roman with him;
when Father Constantine had vainly interceded that Roman might not be
obliged to shoot his own brother.

The family, even to the Countess, was busy in field and barn.  For the
first time in her life she had taken to manual labor.  But the peasant
proprietors were hurrying to get in their own crops; Ian’s men had been
sadly thinned and he was therefore short-handed. One idea possessed them
all: to gather in what they could before some enraged soldiers passed
and took next year’s food from them.

Well, the Colonel drove up to the house, made a great noise with his
motor and was finally answered by Father Constantine, who appeared on
the scene, rake in hand.

"I want to see the Count," said the Russian, saluting.

"He is with the others, at the home-farm.  If you will go there."  He
recognized the man, but saw that his memory was better than the
visitor’s.

"I must see him alone.  Please tell him so."

In due course Ian arrived.  He was in his shirtsleeves and had on an old
pair of white flannel trousers, formerly worn for tennis.  He had been
stacking hay.  Father Constantine very much afraid that Roman’s name
would come up, had followed. The Colonel came to the point without
delay.

"The sooner you and your peasants leave this the better," he said
gruffly.  "We can’t hold it any longer. The enemy may be here at any
moment."

"The peasants have made up their minds to stay," said Ian.

"And you?"

"I never thought of leaving."

The soldier’s narrow eyes hardened.  He was of those who thought it
every civilian’s duty to follow in his retreat.  He drew himself up and
spoke rather sharply.  But he was still civil, knowing well that the
master of Ruvno was no squireen, to be treated with contempt.  Ian, for
his part, was slightly hostile.  He knew the man for his anti-Polish
feelings, kept in check when things were going well, but ready to leap
out into action now that misfortune was upon them all.  Besides, Ian had
seen those fugitives, and no man could look upon them without thinking
that the army, even in retreat, might have done something to alleviate
their sufferings, even if it were but to leave them their corn.

"Count, you don’t understand.  I repeat: the Prussians are coming.
Surely you are not going to wait to welcome the Czar’s enemies."

"Nobody hates the Prussians more than I," he rejoined.  "If I leave
Ruvno I shall be a beggar. Besides, it’s my home."

"Russia is wide."

"And the road long.  No, Colonel.  We have lived here, peasant and
master, father and son, through many wars, many invasions.  For me and
my mother there can be no choice, so long as a roof remains for us here.
As to my peasants, I left them free to choose, said not a word for or
against.  But they have seen those crowds--" he pointed towards the
road, where the weary stream of homeless humanity struggled on towards
the unknown.  "The old and sick left to die alone, children hungry,
mothers exhausted.  They made up their minds that it is better to die
here than in ditches between this and Moscow."

"You accuse us of neglecting the refugees," cried the Colonel, red to
his hair-roots.

"No.  This is war.  The weak and poor and aged suffer most.  But I claim
the right to choose between two kinds of suffering."

"Do as you please.  But you’ll all starve.  I’m giving orders to burn
the crops."

Ian turned white at this.  For months he had been fighting against
starvation.  Every waking thought had been connected with the problem of
how to feed those dependent on him for the ensuing year.  Even his
dreams had been of crops and storms and war agriculture.  He had risen
with the dawn to plow and till and sow.  No landless peasant, hiring
himself by the day, had worked harder than the lord of Ruvno. And now,
when the fruit of his labors was ripening in these fields so thinned by
rapine, trenches and mines; when, by dint of untold effort and
determination he had overcome difficulties none dreamed of a year ago,
this soldier threatened to fire the little that remained to fill his
garners.  Controlling himself with an effort, he said:

"And how will you feed us all?"

"In Warsaw."

"You’re leaving Warsaw to its fate," retorted Ian. "And you know it."

The man looked perfectly furious at this, and would have burst out, but
Ian went on, that tone of authority that Father Constantine knew well in
his voice.  He said:

"Listen.  I had the Grand Duke’s promise, last week, that Ruvno will be
left intact so long as it or its village is inhabited.  You know as well
as I do that, where Nicolai Nicolaievitch has been, no villages or crops
are ruined wantonly by his retreating army, and no peasants driven to
the road against their will. If you tamper with my house or my people,
who are half-starved even now, I swear to you that not only the Grand
Duke, but the Czar himself shall hear of it."

The Colonel bit his lip and stalked off, fuming with suppressed passion.
He knew that the Grand Duke was friendly here.  He must have known, too,
that Poland’s old foes, the Russian bureaucrats, were responsible for
driving people off their land by sheer force and doing nothing to help
them on their exile into the most distant parts of the Russian Empire.
In silence Ian and his chaplain watched him motor up to the nearest
fields and inspect them.  They were meager enough, God knows, cut as
they were by trenches.  As to the potatoes, they would not be ready for
a couple of months, and last year’s had gone long ago.  They watched him
anxiously.  Was he going to fire the corn or not?  He wanted to, it was
plain, if only to show a ruined Polish nobleman that his word was law.
He prowled round and then went back to the high-road, stopping some of
the refugees and talking to them.  Even after they heard his hooter from
the village their eyes still clung to the yellow fields, fearing to see
smoke.  He went off at sundown without so much as a salute.  But he
evidently thought it risky to quarrel with Ian, and did not fire the
crops. With a sigh of relief Ian glanced across at Father Constantine.
They had finished the stack and were going in to supper.

"Thank God!" he muttered.  "But don’t say anything to the others."

"Of course not.  But look, what is that?"

On the horizon they saw columns of smoke and a dull red glare; others
had not been so fortunate.

The old priest had been trembling with fear all the time lest the
Colonel should remember Joseph, and make him an excuse for burning the
place.  But he had evidently forgotten all about the incident last
autumn.  So much the better.

Next morning Ian, Vanda and Minnie, with a couple of maids, started out
with the reaping machine. Ian, of course, was in charge, and the girls,
willing but inexperienced, were to work under him.  Since the Colonel’s
visit he had been in a perfect fever of haste to cut whatever corn was
ripe.  He left his mother and Father Constantine at the home farm, with
admonitions that neither of them must overwork. These two old friends
were in the farmyard when some of the Cossacks who had been so busy
about the village and amidst the remains of the home forest, came
clattering up on their little horses.  A young officer was with them.
He saluted the Countess, and said civily, in broken Polish:

"Lady--I must ask you for that reaping machine I saw here yesterday."

"Oh--are you going to reap our fields for us?" she returned gaily.
"That would be very nice of you."

The youth looked sheepishly at her, but said nothing.

"Well--what do you want it for?" she insisted.

"Lady--I’m sorry.  But your reaping machine contains steel and other
metals; and we have orders to take every ounce of steel and iron and
copper away."

The Countess looked at her chaplain in silent consternation.  The old
man, ever ready to help her, sharply told the officer to be off.  The
Cossack was not so civil to him.

"No nonsense," he said.  "Where is it?"

"But I protest against having my place looted," cried the Countess.

"Lady, I’m sorry.  I would not take a nail from Ruvno.  But orders are
orders.  See here," and he pulled a slip of paper from his boot,
dismounted and took it to her.

She waved it aside.

"It’s Greek to me--I don’t understand this taking everything."

"No.  I--Lady Countess, I say again, I’m very sorry.  But I’m only a
poor Cossack, to obey orders. Where is the machine?  We have to be
off--or the Germans will take us--and the metals."

"My son has gone out with it," she said shortly. "You’d take the shoes
from our feet if you’d the time."

"No--I would take nothing.  Whereabouts is your son with his machine?"

She pointed angrily southwards.  The direction was vague.  The man
looked at the sun, which was getting high.

"He’ll be back at midday?"

"I doubt it.  He has much to do."

He turned to his men.

"Children!  Hasten.  Do you go and fetch the bells."

"What bells?" cried the priest in alarm.  But nobody answered.  The
Cossacks left the yard and trotted towards the chapel.  Father
Constantine hastened after them, the Countess after him.  But as the way
was rather long and their feet older than they thought, they arrived
before the chapel just in time to see the Cossack’s take down the three
bells and put them on as many horses.  One had been cast four hundred
years before by an Italian who did much work in the neighborhood.  The
other two were modern, but of good workmanship.

"And they’ve taken the bell that used to hang up in the home farmyard,"
said the Countess ruefully, as a Cossack they had not noticed before
came up with it.

Father Constantine had not recovered from the shock of seeing his
beloved bells slung across the Cossack saddles, when she gave another
cry of anger. Several more Cossacks had come up.  Their horses were
laden with the copper pots and pans from the kitchen.

"It’s as bad as if the Prussians were here," she exclaimed.  "What do
they imagine we’re to cook with?"

The young officer, who had been to the kitchen, now went up to her.  His
face was crimson.

"Lady Countess, I regret this as much as you do--" he began.

"I doubt it," she retorted.

"... And church bells," put in Father Constantine.

"I wanted," said the youth earnestly, "God knows I wanted to leave
Ruvno, where we have had so much kindness, as we found it.  But the
orders are explicit.  We are not to leave any metal at all--which may
serve the Prussians."

"It seems to me that between our friends and foes we shall have nothing
left but the bare ground," she said.

But she protested no more.  What was the good? She and the Father
watched them pack up all the rest of the pots and pans in rueful
silence.  Before starting the young officer approached her again, his
cap in hand, his long, shaggy locks all loose and dangling in his eyes.

"My Lady Countess," he said earnestly, "won’t you please come with us?
I have a spare horse or two and will see you don’t put foot to soil till
we reach Sohaczer.  The Germans will not treat you well.  We can pick up
your son and the young ladies on our way."

"It seems to me that you have left nothing for the Germans to take," she
remarked, but not angrily this time.  There comes a point where
civilians, in the war zone, cease to protest.  It is not so much dumb
despair, as a knowledge that their words are vain when the "military"
come along.  They are but spectators of their own ruin.

"Russia is wide," he said simply.  "I am a wealthy Cossack at home.  If
you will come with us I’ll see that you reach my farm in safety.  My old
mother will look after you, and you’ll lack nothing, till the war is
over."

This touched her.  She answered warmly:

"Ah--that is good of you--but I cannot leave my land.  Thank you all the
same."

He waited a moment after this, saw she meant what she said, and pressed
her no more, but wished them both good-bye and good luck, kissing her
hand and saluting the priest.

"I am sorry you won’t come," he said, mounting his horse.  "The Germans
won’t be good to you."

And he left them reluctantly, followed by his men. The Countess laughed
at the odd figures they cut, with her bells and saucepans tied to their
saddles; but there were tears in her eyes all the same.  When they were
out of sight she and the Father returned to their work in the farmyard.
They were still there, two hours later, when Martin came running into
the barn.

"My lady," he panted, more from emotion than fatigue; "the Prussian
brutes are here.  One of their officers, who gives his name as Graf von
Senborn, wants to speak to my Lord the Count."

"The Count is in the fields.  Tell this officer I will see him.  Bring
him here," said the Countess.

She had on a cotton apron and a kerchief such as peasant women wear.
She and the priest looked at one another with uneasiness; they had hoped
against hope that the Prussians would keep off till their crops were in
a safe place; they had hoped that the invaders would not care to put up
at Ruvno, almost denuded of wine and as desolate as could be after
nearly a year’s war, comforting themselves with the thought that there
were places, nearer Warsaw, likely to attract them better.  The clank of
spurs sounded on the stones; a moment later an officer, whose face was
vaguely familiar to the priest, swaggered into the huge barn.  Some
girls were working at the far end, and stopped to look at him.  He
saluted and said:

"Where are the Cossacks?"

"They left an hour ago," said Father Constantine, racking his brains to
remember where they had met before.

"Is that so?" he asked the Countess.

"Yes.  They took the chapel bells and the copper things out of my
kitchen.  For the rest, you can search the place."

He eyed her with a certain interest.  I suppose he had never seen a
grand lady stacking before, except, perhaps, for the fun of it.  And she
was not very quick at the work, for even stacking is hard to learn when
you are no longer young.  He looked lean, hard, well-bred; a very
different type from the man who so nearly carried off their stores last
winter. He spoke French fluently, though with true German gutturalness.
The others went on with their work.

"That is hard work, _Madame_," he said after a bit.

"These are hard times, _Monsieur_," she returned gravely.  "The war has
left us little but our health and our determination to make the best of
things."

"I always heard that Polish ladies have high courage," he went on, with
a stiff Teutonic bow.  "And now I see it for myself."

"Courage is one of the few things war does not destroy," put in the
priest.

The Prussian gave him a glance, as if he were trying to think where they
had met before.  His face was a worry to the Father.  Where, oh where
had he seen the man?

"_Madame_," he resumed, when he had stared at Father Constantine a
second time.  "Allow me to put some of my men to this stacking.  They
are rough peasants and will get it done in no time."

She hesitated, then accepted his offer, which the priest was glad of.
She had been working hard since the early morning, and looked very
tired.  He called some troopers and set them to work with short, dry
words of command, which they obeyed with alacrity. Then he went with the
Countess and her chaplain into the house, asking all sorts of questions
about it.  Of course he had heard of Ruvno and its now ruined glories.
And when the Countess left them to rest, he questioned Father
Constantine about the plate, jewels, and especially the emeralds.  The
priest answered him as best he could, and they gradually lapsed into
silence.  He sat in one of Ian’s easy chairs smoking a cigar.  Suddenly
he got up and said:

"Take me to the Countess’ wardrobe."

Father Constantine stared at him in amazement. Hitherto his manners had
been such an improvement on those of preceding Prussians that he could
scarce believe his ears.

"Do you hear?  To her wardrobe," he repeated, with a shade of sternness.

"What for?"

He laughed.

"She has no need for old laces and sables, now she works on the farm,"
he answered.

"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Father Constantine angrily.

The Graf’s face flushed; he broke into German.

"I’m master here.  And I command you to take me up to the Countess’
wardrobe.  You’ll find, if you persist in your refusal, that my men can
do other things besides stacking."

And now that he was in a rage and had fallen back to his native tongue,
the priest recognized him.  And his own wrath grew.

"So, Graf von Senborn," he cried, "you’re a true follower of the Crown
Prince, your master.  He loots in Belgium; you in Poland.  How many
Polish children have you tormented since I met you at Zoppot?"

"Ah--you’re the little priest who refused to salute His Imperial
Highness," he retorted, forgetting furs and laces for the moment.  "It’s
a pity I didn’t chuck you into the Baltic, I should have saved myself
the trouble of having your miserable body hanged up on a tree now."

He made towards the old man, who stood firm, because he did not care if
he were hanged.  But he did want to speak his mind first.

"I wish your evil-faced Crown Prince were here, too," he said, as fast
as he could, lest the Prussian strike him down before he spoke his mind.
"I’ll tell that son of the Anti-Christ what none of his sycophants dare
speak of----"

"Some of your Polish plots again?"

"No plots, but the vengeance of the Almighty. Hell-fires await him and
his friends for all the deviltries you----"

Strong hands were round the thin throat; Father Constantine felt his
last moment had come.  But there arose a great noise and shouting
outside.  Von Senborn threw down his victim, as you would cast off a cat
whose claws have been cut, and rushed into the garden.  He suspected
treachery.  Father Constantine picked himself up and followed.  There
were things he wanted to tell him yet, things which had lain heavy on
his soul for many a long day.

He was in the garden, surrounded by bawling troopers, who were very
excited.  Four of them held two Cossacks.  Two of them held Ian.  Vanda
was there, too; she rushed up to the priest; she was in tears.

"Oh, Father, they’ve arrested him ... and he knows nothing about it."

"About what?"

"These Cossacks.  They were hiding in one of the lofts.  They had
matches.  He says"--she indicated von Senborn--"they were going to burn
the troopers as they slept."

"Found any more?" von Senborn asked some men who came up now.

"Not one."

The officer turned to Ian.

"You’re to blame for this."

"I know nothing about it."

"Do you know what we do to people who hide the enemy?" von Senborn
pursued.  "We shoot them."

"He knows nothing about it," put in one of the Cossacks, and got a kick
for his pains.

"Nothing," said Ian.  Was this the last moment of his life?  He spoke
up; but his words were of no avail.

"Oh, please listen to me," cried Vanda, in agony. "He knows nothing
about it.  We have been harvesting since six in the morning ... away
over there."  She pointed towards the south.  "Everybody says the
Cossacks left at eleven."

"Nobody knew of our hiding but our ataman," said another Cossack.
"Shoot us you can.  But the Count is innocent."

They did not even trouble to kick this one, who protested and defended
Ian in vain.  Ian defended himself, too, but he felt all along how
useless his words were.  What was about to happen to him had happened
thousands of times since last July.  He remembered Zosia’s sister in
Kalisz.  Father Constantine felt his poor old head swimming with the
agony of the thought.  Nothing more terrible than this could have
occurred.  He, too, saw that von Senborn had made up his mind.

"You were found near the Cossacks," the latter argued.  "You’re guilty."
Then he turned to Vanda: "Go into the house.  Keep the Countess there
and away from the windows.  When I’ve shot him I’ll tell her myself."

"I hid them!  Shoot me!" cried Vanda, throwing herself at his feet "For
the love of God, spare him. He went out at six.  The Cossacks left at
eleven.  How could he know?  Take me instead!  He is wanted more than
I!"

"Vanda!  Vanda!" cried Ian, struggling to get away from those who held
him.  "Don’t believe her!" he cried to von Senborn.  "She’s as innocent
as I am. If you must shoot somebody, shoot me."

Von Senborn looked from one to the other; but his face did not soften.

"You’re wasting time," he said to her.  "Go into the house."

She went up to Ian.  They gazed at each other, reading the secret each
had guarded too long.  Her eyes were full of love as well as misery; his
face, under its sunburn, was white as hers.

"Can nothing be done?" she wailed.

"Go to Mother.  Don’t let her see."

As her eyes lingered on his face his heart ached; many bitter thoughts
and feelings rose within his soul. He wrenched an arm from one of his
captors.

"Leave me!" he ordered.  "I’ll not run away."

At a sign from their officer the two troopers loosened their hold and
stepped back a couple of paces, leaving the cousins together.  They said
little; for at such moments human lips have not much to say. Hearts are
too full of words; words too poor to be heart’s mouthpiece.  He knew
now, when it was too late, that she loved him, that she had always loved
him, that Joseph was but an incident, mostly of his making; that he
loved her, that the happiest hours of their joint lives had been spent
together in his old home, in his large, cool forests, by the frozen
river, under the broad grayness of a northern sky; over the crisp snow
and flower-decked meadows; on his sleek, fleet horses, in his
swift-running sleighs, whose bells made jangled music in the frosted
air; in every season of God’s good year, in every phase of his pleasant,
long-dead life, he and she had been all in all, she the key to his
happiness, the gate to that earthly paradise which he had shunned till
Joseph closed it to him. And he, in his blindness and procrastination,
learnt about it too late.

"Oh--what we have lost!" he murmured, locking her in a long embrace.

"Ian--Ian--my darling!" she sobbed.

This was all; and in broken words, choked with sobs.

The faithful old priest gently separated them at last, for he saw von
Senborn was going to do it. He took her to the long window which led
into the Countess’ favorite room.  She was crying bitterly, but without
sobs, forcing them down lest she make it yet harder for Ian.

They bandaged his eyes.  He refused at first; but the sight of that
landscape, familiar in its desolation, dear to him yet, was more than he
could bear.  Oh, to leave life thus, when others were dying like men!
And how dear was life, despite ruin and war and uncertainty!  How many
things he had meant to do; how much more happiness he might have had
before this cataclysm fell upon them!  Then thought turned to his
mother.

"I must speak to my chaplain," he said in the firm voice of a man
accustomed to obedience.

"You dare not murder him without shrift," he heard the priest say.  He
had left Vanda in the house and was returning hurriedly.  A moment later
his thin, shaking hand was on Ian’s arm.

"Three minutes," said von Senborn’s voice, impatient now.  "Make the
most of your time."

Hastily, the priest gave his quondam pupil what comfort he could.  Then
Ian whispered:

"Take the women away at once.  You may yet reach Warsaw.  Then with
Mother to Rome.  The Cardinal is all she’ll have left but Vanda.  Don’t
forget the jewels."

"Yes, yes.  Courage, my boy.  Don’t worry for us."

"I have that, thank God.  Good-bye, Father.  Get away at once.  All of
you."

Von Senborn came up, saying:

"You must leave him now, Father."

Catching a shade of regret in his voice, Father Constantine pleaded for
his dear patron’s life, using all the eloquence and arguments he had.
Not unkindly, the Prussian pushed him aside.

"Can’t you see you’re making it harder for him?" he cried.  Then he
called up his men, who ranged in front of their victim.  Father
Constantine said prayers for the passing of that beloved soul across the
gulf that leads into eternity.  Ian listened for his death-order, his
back to the wall, determined to show these Prussians he could meet a
dog’s death like a man.

"Ready!" von Senborn’s voice rang out.

"Oh, Mother!" shouted Ian.  And this is not strange, because when life
is going, a man’s thoughts and heart turn to her who gave it him.

The men pointed their muskets.  Von Senborn’s mouth was open to give the
word of command that was to send Ian to the unseen world when his name
was called loudly, a few yards away.

"Von Senborn!  Quick!  Quick!"

With a gesture of annoyance he turned round.  The men still pointed
their arms; but they did not shoot. Ian, expecting that every
leaden-footed second would bring the fatal word, whose nerves were
strained almost beyond endurance, thanked God for Prussian discipline.
He heard footsteps, and hope arose in his heart.  Perhaps the Russians
were back again. Father Constantine, through his tears, saw another
Prussian officer hurrying towards them.

"I’ve captured a _sotnia_ of Cossacks ... and a ton of copper," he
cried, his voice full of life and triumph. Then he saw Ian.

"What are you doing?"

Von Senborn told him.

"I know your voice," cried Ian.  "You talked to me in the fields this
morning ... for God’s sake tell him I’m innocent."

The two Prussians looked at one another.  Ian felt sick with emotion.
Those minutes were the longest he ever lived, whilst the new-comer had
his eyes uncovered and looked at him earnestly.

"Yes," he said at last.  "I talked to you in the field.  You told me
your name.  It was seven o’clock. The Cossacks did not leave this till
eleven.  They own it themselves.  Let’s have their captain up."

They did.  The officer who had offered the shelter of his Cossack farm
to the Countess came up.  He said, in an undertone, to the priest:

"I told you to leave.  I knew the men were here, hiding."  Then to the
Prussians, in very bad German:

"I’m your prisoner.  I’ve nothing to lose or gain by seeing this Polish
Count shot.  He knew naught about my men hiding.  He was in the fields
with a reaping machine I happened to want.  He left here hours before I
hid the men."

"That’s it," said the other Prussian officer.  "Don’t be an ass, von
Senborn."

Von Senborn turned to Ian.

"You can go."

Ian burst into a shout of joy.  Father Constantine fell upon his knees
and thanked God for this miraculous escape.




                                   XV


Towards dawn a shell fell near the house.  It was followed by another,
and yet another, but these were nearer the village.  Ian went out, to
try and see if he ought to send his household into the cellars.  At the
front door he found von Senborn, struggling with complicated locks and
bolts.  He said he was going out to reconnoiter.  Ian let him go alone,
having no wish for his company.  He knew that the Russians were in
telephone communication with Lipniki at any rate, if not with the more
distant centers they had occupied during the last few days.

As the sun rose and the household began to stir, Martin, the faithful
old butler, being first on the scene, a couple of maids following, von
Senborn came back. He took no notice of Ian except to ask where the
baron’s window was.  It happened to be over the spot where they stood.
Von Senborn aroused his friend with a shout.  In the fullness of time a
shock-head appeared at the window.

"Come down," von Senborn cried in his native tongue.  "The Russians have
made a stand."

"Where?" asked the baron sleepily.

"God knows.  They are shelling Lipniki like the devil.  Our losses are
already heavy.  I’m going back to the telephone."

He strode off.  The shock-head disappeared.  Ian went to his bath; and
the whole village soon knew that the Germans in Lipniki were having a
very bad time of it, whilst their friends in Ruvno were breaking their
heads to know what to make out of the Russian awakening.  Where had
those fools found ammunition? Where were they firing from?  Who was
spying for them?  There were no Russian aeroplanes about, yet the news
from Lipniki grew worse and worse.

This development made the Prussians very sullen, but the household could
barely hide their joy.  Later on, news came in that the Russians,
retreating beyond Kosczielna, had found more ammunition and were using
it with good effect.  Firing seemed pretty near all that day.  Ian and
the others hoped it would send these men off to help their friends; but
not a bit of it.  More Prussians came up and settled themselves just
outside the village.  The house was full of officers, and it was worth
something to see their disappointment when they found out that all the
wine had been drunk, all the lace looted and all the plate sent to
Moscow.

As a matter of fact, this new phase was Ruvno’s undoing.  If the
Russians had not been firing on Lipniki it would probably have escaped
the worst of its troubles.  As it was, von Senborn worked his vengeance
upon the innocent household.

On the second day von Senborn sent for Ian just as he was going out to
the fields.  The squire found him and a couple more standing on that
hillock where the pine copse used to be and where Ian had spent many
nights at the beginning of the war, watching the shells hit his
property.  The trees went months ago, opening up a very good view of the
neighborhood country, denuded of timber.  Indeed, the war had now taken
every good tree Ruvno ever possessed. They were using their
field-glasses as he joined them; he could see they were upset.

"Count," von Senborn began, "there must be a Russian observatory in the
neighborhood, between this and Kosczielna, or even here, within reach of
the Russian retreating army.  It is either a tower or other elevated
building, or else an underground one.  It might be hidden in such a
place as this."  He stamped his foot on the ground.  "Where is it?"

"There are no towers left in the neighborhood, except that belonging to
the village church.  As to an underground observatory, I never heard of
one in the neighborhood, which is fiat as a pancake," he returned.

Von Senborn gave him one of his arrogant looks, which Ian returned with
interest.

"Your escape from shooting is so recent that I need hardly remind you it
would be better to tell the truth at once," said the Prussian.

"Life, bad as it is, is too dear to me for me to run needless risks,"
retorted the other.  "If you don’t believe me, I can’t help it."

He only seemed half convinced, but walked off.  Ian did not go to the
fields, but hung about to watch them.  They evidently suspected that he,
or somebody on his land was signaling to the Russians.  They searched
every inch of the hillock for a possible inlet to a hidden observatory
and then inspected the house and outbuildings from top to bottom,
turning over hay and straw till Ian heartily wished them all at the
devil.  After that they tried the village.  He saw some of them on the
church tower from, where he had signaled for help last winter with
Minnie and Martin to help, on the night his stores were looted....

A feeling of intense anxiety came over him, as if instinct was
foretelling fresh disaster more terrible than anything which had yet
fallen.  The firing from the Russians went on and he could see von
Senborn and his fellow officers were not only disturbed but very
suspicious.  By the way Kosczielna lay it was clear that the Russians,
retreating on Warsaw, could easily shell it if their fire was directed
by anybody on a high spot in Ruvno, since on the level it was above all
the other villages by a hundred feet.  They questioned every man, woman
and child in the village, trying to find out if there was some vantage
ground from which the Russians could have their attack directed. Ian
kept as far away from von Senborn and his friends as he could, not
wanting him to think he spied on their movements.  The experience of the
day before had taught him a lesson.  All the same, he was determined to
follow their movements as far as possible, if only to be on his guard;
and he managed it fairly well, for some of them were always coming and
going between the house and the village, where they had put up a
telephone with their friends at Kosczielna.  These were having a bad
time of it and had lost heavily. Before long he heard one trooper say to
another who was watering horses:

"We’ll have work again soon.  All ours in that place near by have been
put out of action."

"Liar," said the man’s comrade, with that courtesy so characteristic of
the race.

"True as gospel.  I was by the major when the news came.  He’s mad,
too."

"What’s going to happen?" said the man at the trough.

"We’re falling back from that place."

"What place, idiot?"

"That begins with a kay and ends in a curse."

The man was evidently right, for a lull came now as though the
retreating force had completed its tasks in Kosczielna.  The day wore
on.  The women, though obsessed with the same sense of coming disaster,
bore up splendidly.  But at about four in the afternoon, when the firing
began again and two shells burst, one on the site of the windmill, the
other at the end of the village, where Szmul used to live, Ian sent them
and the women and children from the village into the cellars.

The Russians stopped firing at six o’clock and the women came up from
the cellars.  The little family had supper in the dining-room as quietly
as in times of peace.  None of the Prussians came to table.  They had
just received a supply of fresh provisions by motor-lorry and sent the
Countess some, with a message that there was beer too, if she liked.
They refused the beer, but ate the food.  They could not afford to be
proud, for supplies, except for cereals, had quite given out.  Being cut
off from Russia, the land of plenty, and the refugees they had fed, put
them in this unenviable position.  There was no chance of buying things
in the neighborhood, as bare of supplies as if it had seen ten years’
war.  Vanda, noticing that her aunt had no appetite, laughingly remarked
that she had better eat a good meal, for who knew where the next would
come from.  Little did they think how true her jest would prove to be.

They had finished and were sitting out in the ruins of the rose garden
when the firing suddenly began again and so violently that Ian insisted
upon the women taking to the cellar.  Then he ran to the sacristy,
calling to Father Constantine to keep under the broad archway leading
from the chapel.  He heard an answering voice, no more.  He wanted to
see what was happening with the Germans, so ran to the hillock, which
seemed safe so far.  Indeed, all the firing was on the other side,
towards the village.

This new attack made fearful havoc amongst the Prussians who had taken
up their quarters beyond the church.  They had been making merry over
the beer when it began, and though not a shell dropped within five
hundred yards of the house the human target was hit so well that even to
Ian’s civilian eyes it was clear that the Russians knew exactly where to
aim. The earth didn’t shake; it rocked; beasts and men were belched up
in an eruption of earth and smoke, to come down again in pieces.  Those
who could got away and began running towards the house; but they must
have left three-fourths of their force behind, literally blown to bits.

Von Senborn, who happened to be near the house when the attack began,
was saved.  But Ian could not help admiring the way the surviving
officers rallied their handful of men and brought them up from the
village.  Even as they made for the cover of trenches in the garden the
shells had them.  Then, either because their ammunition had run out or
else because their mysterious signaler could not work in the dusk--for
night was falling--there was sudden calm.  Ian sighed to think what
destruction the Russians could work if only they had enough guns and
gun-fodder. Oh, the pity of it.

When things had quieted down, von Senborn turned to his men.

"We are going to blow up that church tower," he said, wiping the sweat
from his face.

A haggard subaltern explained that they had already searched every nook
and corner of tower and church several times.

"We’ll blow it up," he repeated.  Then he turned to Ian, every muscle of
his face drawn with nervous tension, his voice hoarse as a crow’s.

"Hark ye, Count.  If I find that signaler I’ll hold you responsible."

"As for those two Cossacks," he retorted.  The Prussian muttered
something inaudible and turned on his heel.

Ian followed them down to the church.  It stood a little aloof from the
village, nearest the house, yet almost half-way between the two.  It had
not suffered from the day’s bombardment any more than the house. The
scene of horror where the Russian shells had done their work was beyond
description.  Though by now fairly hardened to the abominations of war,
the things Ian saw and heard through the twilight of that summer evening
made him very sick.  The surviving Germans were too busy looking for the
signaler to worry about the wounded who howled, groaned and shouted with
pain.  It was a pandemonium of anguish.  One man, mutilated beyond all
semblance of God’s image, implored him to end his misery ... as Ian
stood there hesitating a trooper shot him.

"He was my good friend," he explained, and burst into tears.  But he
soon controlled himself and a few minutes later Ian saw him carrying out
von Senborn’s orders, apparently unmoved by his ordeal.  Indeed, again
he could not help admiring these brutes when it came to the pure
fighting part of their work.  It was in the intervals and with the
unarmed that they were so cowardly, such bullies.  Once it was a
question of fight they bungled nothing and left nothing to chance.
Perhaps their passion for perfection in detail made them doubly furious
at the trick a handful of Russians who had found some ammunition played
on them that evening.  Von Senborn was determined to solve the mystery.

"We must not blow the tower to bits," Ian heard him say to the haggard
subaltern.  "We must do the work in such a way that we make a rift in
the tower and can explore it ourselves."  Then, aloud to his men: "Now,
you are going to avenge your dead comrades."

They were willing enough, but found they must go to fetch some
explosives which they had stored near the house.  It took them some few
minutes to get there.  The time seemed very long to Ian, listening to
and watching that human charnel house near by. He wanted to get home,
away from it all.  Yet some mysterious force kept him there.  Later, he
thanked God for it....

Once more, Russian wit was to forestall Teutonic thoroughness.  Before
the men told off to the stores got back a shell whizzed past, struck the
tower at a tangent.  Ian was thrown to the ground and half buried.  It
took him some time to get clear.  Sore, dazed, yet alive and with,
apparently, no bones broken, he managed to regain his feet.  Then he sat
down, for his legs were like cotton wool.

The moon was rising now and lit up a hundred details of the desolation
around.  He could see von Senborn, sitting down, holding his head and
swearing. Several dead bodies were near that had not been there before.
Other men were perched on what seemed a hillock, born out of nothing
since that shell burst. They were very excited, and he languidly
wondered what they found to be excited about, when he felt so
indifferent.  He heard them quite plainly, without wanting to.

"It’s a captain," said one.

"And an engineer," put in another.

"No--a sapper.  Look at his collar."

"Look at this," cried somebody else, and the tone of his voice made Ian
look, too.  He was holding up a Russian drinking bottle.

"And food--look--a loaf of black bread.  _Gott in Himmel_, he was a
tough one."

Von Senborn stopped swearing and asked Ian if he was alive.

"Yes," he answered.

"Then go and see what they’ve got there.  I can’t move till I’ve had
something," he groaned loudly.

"Can’t I help you?"

"Only that."  And he lay back, yelling for the surgeon.

Ian went up to what he had supposed was a hillock and found it to be a
heap of stones and debris--the remains of the church tower.  Only the
top part had fallen; the rest loomed up, jagged and broken.

Several of the Germans squatted round a body, so limp that every bone of
it must have been smashed.

"A Russian, sir," said the man who held the water-bottle.  "He fell with
the tower."

They rifled the dead man’s pockets, turning over his broken body with as
scant care as if it had been a lump of beef.  They contained little; an
old man’s photograph; one of a girl with a broad face and small eyes,
and a slip of paper.  Nothing more.

Von Senborn joined them, staggering but alert.  He took the slip of
paper and glanced at it by the light of an electric torch.  Then he
handed it to the haggard subaltern.

"Russian.  Read it."

The boy took the slip and pored over it for some minutes, either because
the torch burnt dull or because he had not much knowledge of the
language. They had left the body, which lay in shadow.  Ian looked at
that young, tired face without recognizing in it any of the sappers who
were in Ruvno during the Russian retreat.  Later on, he heard from a
peasant that the Russians, when last in Ruvno, kept everybody away from
the church and that at night they made noises, as with picks and spades.

"Go on," urged von Senborn impatiently.  "I thought you spoke Russian
like a native."

"It is hastily written," explained the other.  "And therefore
indistinct.  But I think I have the meaning now."

"Well, for Hell’s sake let me have it, too."

"You cannot take me alive," he read in his hard North German.  "I have
chosen how I shall die. When I have written this I mean to signal to my
friends to shell the tower, before your men come back to mine it.  And
we, too, shall return, driving you to the very streets of Berlin.  And
Europe’s wrongs shall be avenged.  We Russians are slow; but neither
stupid nor discouraged, as you pretend."  He stopped and looked up.

"That all?" asked von Senborn.

"All."  He returned the paper to his superior.

"_Ja, ja,_" said a voice.  "I see it now.  He had himself bricked up in
that tower, to signal and cover the retreat.  He was no coward."

Nobody spoke.  The incident had impressed them all.  The man who gets
himself bricked up with enough food to last till he is found out, is a
hero.  Von Senborn, having his head seen to by a surgeon, talked it
over.  Ian kept in the shadow, not wanting to be seen.  Dazed though he
felt from the last shell, he knew that this discovery would spring back
upon him and his dear ones.

"How did he signal?" the surgeon asked.

"God knows."

"That Polish Count knew of this," murmured the haggard lieutenant,
little thinking Ian was within earshot.

"Yes," said von Senborn savagely.  "I’ll swear to that.  But I’ll be
even with him.  Be quick, Surgeon, there’s work to do yet."

"Serve him right to shoot him after all," put in the surgeon.  Von
Senborn laughed angrily.

"Shooting’s too good."  He lowered his voice.  Strain his ears as he
might, Ian only caught two words.  But they were enough.  He waited to
hear no more.

He ran as fast as sore legs would carry him up to the house.  Outside,
not a soul.  All the women and children, besides several men, were in
the cellars.

"Get out at once," he shouted.  "Run as hard as you can, along the
Warsaw road."

"What is the matter?" asked the Countess.

"A Russian bricked up in the church tower.  They are coming to blow us
up, shutting you in first.  Run as far from the house as possible."

When he saw them on their way he left them, then ran for an ax and made
for the sacristy.  There was no guard now, all the Germans being down by
the church and village.  He soon had the door in, to find Father
Constantine walking up and down, saying his prayers.  Ian hastily said
what had happened and urged him to join the others on the Warsaw road.
But the old man was in no hurry.

"They may not do it," he said.  "I expect they’ll go to sleep and wake
up in a better mood."

"If you don’t go I’ll carry you," cried the squire angrily.  "And that
will prevent me warning the people hanging about."

Then he dragged his chaplain from the room.  But the priest insisted on
taking a little malachite crucifix which hung over the cupboard.  It was
the only thing they saved out of all Ruvno’s beautiful things.

Then Ian warned as many of the peasants as he could find, though the
shelling had already frightened most of them out of the village and on
to the road. Baranski, whom he met, helped him.

Terrible was the confusion and alarm that followed, the calling of
mothers to children, the cries of frightened babies, the curses of old
men.  Every second of that awful night was burnt in Ian’s brain; he did
not forget it whilst he lived.  In quite a short time the Warsaw road
was filled with panic-stricken peasants. Some of them had snatched up a
table, a chair, a kettle or a pillow.  Those who had any left panted
along with a sack of potatoes or buckwheat.  A few were fortunate enough
to possess a horse.  He tried to get a couple of his--farm horses were
all he had left--but the Germans were around the yard before he could
get back.  So quick were they that he had not time to take a thing for
the women.  The peasants, being nearer the road, were more fortunate in
this way.  Even as Ian left the village he could see soldiers hovering
round the house, evidently shutting the doors, lest their victims
escape!  A wounded Prussian cursed him and Baranski as they hustled some
children on to the highway.

"You’ll starve and die on the way," he shouted. "Decent Germans, not
Polish swine, will have this place."

His words ended in a yell.  Ian did not look round, but Baranski
silenced him with a stick.

"He won’t people Ruvno, thank God," he cried.

They took the road, destitute as any of those hordes they had pitied and
tried to succor during the terrible days of the Russian retreat.

Near where the windmill used to be Ian found his mother, Vanda, Minnie,
the Father and all those who had been in the cellar.  Here he rallied
his people, giving the backward ones time to get up.  But many laggards
were yet to come when the earth rocked under them; there was a dull
rumbling in its bowels.

"Mother of God!" shrieked somebody.  They all looked towards the
house....

Ruvno, their home for centuries, where every stone was a friend, rose
towards the moonlit sky in a volcano of smoke, flame and rubbish.

Courage failed Ian.  He fell down in the road and sobbed like a child.




                                  XVI


When Ian broke down--there by the road--the Countess was thankful to God
for it.  Only the need of helping him recover courage took her through
that night and the days which followed.  For next to him she loved
Ruvno.

The peasants were rushing past wildly; the sight of the old House, so
stable for centuries and the pivot round which their lives had always
worked, dismayed them more than the memory of those helpless fugitives
they had seen pass lately.  So they made a stampede up the road, towards
distant Warsaw.

"Father Constantine!" cried the Countess.  "He’s being carried with
them."

Ian was up in an instant, and off with the crowd. He knew enough of war
by now to fear that if once the old man got away from them they would
never see him again, dead or alive.  When fugitives block the road, and
especially at night, progress is slow, confusion great; thousands of
children had been separated from their parents during that hasty retreat
at the beginning of the war, in December and, presumably, now.  Ian did
his best to rally his peasants, shouting that they were safe in the road
and would probably be able to return to the village in the morning. But
they, poor things, were heedless of him as of the wind.  Panic filled
their hearts and made them deaf, blind, fiercely obstinate.  Their one
thought was to put as many versts as possible between themselves and
Ruvno’s downfall.  But he found the priest, very tired with the
hustling; indeed, only his indomitable spirit kept him from sinking to
the ground.  Together they returned to where he had left the women.

"We must talk things over," he said.  He was master of himself again,
but harder, more bitter than he ever felt before; and some of the
acrimony that sank into his soul that night remained with him always.

"We can’t go back," said the Countess.  "Not even to find shelter
amongst the wreckage.  Von Senborn would kill you.  Where shall we go?"
She looked around at the desolation lighted by the moon and choked a
sob.  She must bear up for her boy’s sake.

"We must find the jewels," said Vanda.

"We’re destitute without them," returned Ian.

"Think of it!" cried his mother.  "And a year ago people envied us."

Ian hated to leave what had been his home.  Only his fears for the
others prevented him from proposing to them to creep back and live in
the open rather than desert it.  He knew they would need no persuasion;
but dared not risk it for them.

For the moment, he vainly tried to calm the peasants.  At least, when he
had shouted himself hoarse without avail, the stream passed onwards.
Even old Martin disappeared, and they were left alone, whilst the cries
and shouts of the fugitives died away in the darkness.  They were near
the bend of the road, where stood the old windmill before a shell set it
on fire.  Just beyond it they could, in happier days, catch a glimpse of
the House.  He always looked forward to seeing it when he came home
after being in Warsaw or abroad.  He and Vanda, as children, shouted for
joy when they came to it.  And now, when there was no home to go back
to, they turned their steps towards that bend....

I can’t tell you what it looked like.  The moon was still high enough to
light up its devastation.  A dark mass showed where home had been.  The
House was absolutely leveled to the ground; here and there, higher
mounds of wreckage stood above the general ruin. The Countess lost her
self-control when she realized that all had gone; for loud as was the
noise when von Senborn’s men blew it up, she still harbored a faint hope
that a wing or story might be saved.  But there was nothing, nothing,
nothing.  Ian bit his lips and the tears ran down his cheeks; but he was
silent.  They still wept for this ruin when they heard another
explosion, or rather series of explosions, not so terrific as the first
but powerful enough to be appalling.  This time the Germans had
destroyed the home-farm and outbuildings, then the stud.  The little
group stood rooted to the spot, though Ian, at least, would fain have
hidden his eyes from this horrid sight.  The thought that those
barbarians, in less than an hour, wrecked all which it took his race
centuries to build and improve maddened him.  He thought of all the care
and time and money he and his mother alone had spent on the place, to
say nothing of those who went before and loved Ruvno even as he loved
it.  It was his life, the care of that which lay in wreckage.  How would
he shake down into a new existence, amongst strangers, an exile, a
ruined man at thirty-five through no fault of his own?  In a modest way
he knew what a good administrator he was; how he had improved the
estate, and how he took its welfare to heart he realized fully but now.
And his mother?  What could she do with the rest of her days?  Oh, it is
hard to be uprooted in after years; the old tree cannot bear
transplanting, even if you put care to it; the trunk is too stiff, the
branches wither, the tree dies in new soil. And she had been torn up
roughly, by the strongest and deepest root, cast into a ditch, to die of
a broken heart, in a foreign land.  He had yet to learn that the thought
of him would give her courage to live; but she knew he still wanted her
and she could help him to endure.

And so they watched and wept and shook impotent fists at those
barbarians, whose dark figures still moved amongst the ruins of home,
their teeth chattering with the chill, huddled together like the waifs
they were for a little warmth and comfort, with not a blanket nor a
crust between them.  Fires had broken out in the ruins and Ian thought
of the library, of those old books and parchments which could not be
replaced. They never knew how long they sat thus; but the Prussians
ceased to move about.  Ian felt as if nothing could make him close his
eyes again.  When the flames had given place to columns of smoke Father
Constantine struggled to his feet.  They had ceased to weep, even to
curse their foes; the silence of despair was upon them.

"Children," he said quietly, "let us say a prayer together."

He held up the old malachite Crucifix he had taken from the sacristy.

Afterwards the Countess was wont to say that the prayers saved her
reason, though they did bring back the tears, and in floods.  But
supplication drew the poison of despair from all their hearts; they let
God, Whom they had reproached aloud just before, back into their souls;
and he gave them strength to endure. Ian, too, was all the better for
it; his first outburst over, he had had another and another, not of
grief but of rage, whenever he heard a fresh explosion and saw flames
consume yet one more building of Ruvno. Vanda and Minnie, too, were the
quieter afterwards. The Father reminded them, in his simple intimate
way, in the tones they had heard over the supper-table, as well as in
the little chapel, that this was not the first time that their dear
Poland had been laid waste by fierce enemies; that the Lord Jesus
watches over the weak and heavily stricken; that the Prussians, though
they destroy homes and even bodies, cannot kill souls!  He used such
simple words of consolation, of faith and Christian courage, that they
all felt new strength in them to drink the bitter cup--to the dregs, if
need be.

They were still on their knees by the roadside and Father Constantine
was giving the Benediction when they heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs
coming down from the direction of Kutno.  The Countess’ first thought
was to crouch in the ditch, for she had grown suspicious of all
travelers; but the horseman, riding low and fast on his horse’s neck,
had a drawn revolver and with it covered Ian, who appeared to be
nearest.

"A step and I shoot you!"

He spoke the German of the Russians who learn a few words on the
battlefield and in the trenches.

Probably they would have heard and seen nothing more of him, but his
horse, with a neigh of pain and yet of affection, dropped.

"Dead," he muttered, this time in Russian.  Slipping off the poor
beast’s back, he began to caress it, using those endearing words even
the wildest Cossacks have for their horses, whom they love, calling him
his beloved Sietch, his little dove, his only friend, his brother. And
there were tears in his voice which moved the spectators, now so well
acquainted with grief.

He took no notice of them; said they two must part, but he would not
leave his good friend by the road, like a dog, but would put him into a
ditch or trench, and cover him with earth, lest the vultures picked his
tired, faithful body.  He looked about, evidently for a grave, and saw
the desolate little group.

"Russian?" he asked.

"Polish," answered Ian.

"Running away, too?"

Ian told him, shortly, what they had run away from.

"Am I near Kosczielna?"

"Ten versts."

"Ah--do we hold it?"

"You do not.  But you’ve killed nearly all the Prussians who held it
last night."

"Warsaw is still ours?"

"So far.  But Prussians hold this road as far as the river--perhaps
farther."

He was thoughtful for a moment.  He looked the wildest figure, capless,
bootless, his long dark hair blowing in the night breeze.

"To get to Warsaw is useless," he muttered at last.

"Then how can we escape ... where can we go?" put in the Countess.

He pulled his long Cossack forelock and gave an awkward bow.

"Madam, we must strike the Vistula and make for Grodno, or Vilno."

"What?  Tramp four hundred versts?"  She was horrified.  "We haven’t as
much as a horse, let alone a cart."

"Four hundred versts," he repeated.  "I did not know.  I don’t see how
we are to reach Warsaw before it is German."  He turned to Ian.  "Do
you, sir, help me lay my little horse in its grave.  Then we can
decide."

Hastily they put it into a trench, and the Cossack kicked earth over it,
telling his story, meanwhile, in odd, broken Polish, of which he was
very proud.  He had been captured by the Prussians not far from Ruvno,
and taken to the Vistula, he was not clear where, to be sent by water
into Germany.  But their boat was shelled by the Russians and wrecked.
Like all Cossacks he was an expert swimmer and he swam up against the
tide, got ashore near a wood and struck the high road from Thorn to
Warsaw.  He had been riding since early morning and Sietch was already
much tried when they were captured.

But for all his advocating the Grodno route, he seemed loathe to leave
his new friends and strike out done when he saw that they were bent upon
trying to get to Sohaczev.  I think the knowledge, gathered from their
talk amongst themselves, that Ian knew every by-way and short-cut to
that town--for much of the way lay on his own land--impressed him.

"I am strange to this country," he explained.  "I might not find the
river, to strike across country into Lithuania, and four hundred versts
is a long way."

"You will come up with your friends once you cross the river," said Ian.
"The Russians still held the right bank of the Vistula, this evening."

"Have you no horses?" he asked.

Vanda told him that Ruvno and its contents lay under a wreckage of brick
and stone.  Ian turned to his mother.

"I am for pushing on to Warsaw," he said.  "Neither of us can tramp four
hundred versts within three weeks.  We must trust to our luck to find
the Grand Duke in Sohaczev.  Von Senborn said this morning that he was
there, waiting for the rest of his army to come up."

"Very well," she said, putting her arm in his.  "If only I could see the
Grand Duke, he’d send us to Warsaw by hook or by crook.  War changes
many things, but it doesn’t kill the convenience of having powerful
friends."

"Will he go with us?" asked Vanda, meaning the Cossack.

"I hope not," whispered her aunt.

"They are wild people at the best," said the Father, speaking English.
"If he joins us he’ll see your jewels taken from the earth."

"Besides," said Ian, "if the Prussians catch us alone they may give us a
pass to Warsaw--God knows, we’re harmless beggars, even to them.  But to
have an escaped prisoner--only--how to tell him?"

"Well--are we going to start?" asked the Cossack. Nobody answered.

He was no fool, for he guessed the reasons why they greeted his proposal
in stony silence.  I suppose he thought a woman would be soft-hearted,
so addressed himself to the Countess, giving one of his awkward bows.

"Madam," he said, "I know you think me a savage Cossack, given to
pilfering and all sorts of wildness. But I am a good Cossack, of the Don
Troop, coming of many atamans.  My name is Ostap Hovodsky; my mother is
an Efremov.  We serve the Tsar with our own horses, uniforms and arms;
we are warriors and farmers, but neither Huns nor Prussians.  You need
not fear for any treasure you may have about you for your journey.  As
to this"--he threw down his pistol--"it has been in the water and I have
had no ammunition for a week.  And this," he tore off his ragged coat
and threw it into the ditch.  "I spit upon it.  I always meant to change
it the moment I could find a dead man to pilfer.  This is no place for
Cossack uniforms.  I’ll walk in my shirt, or without it, rather than
make you anxious.  If you want my company you will not regret it.  From
your looks I see you are not used to make your way through deserted
battlefields. You will find me useful, and I shall be glad to know the
nearest way to report myself to Nicolai Nicolaievitch."

"I will take you with pleasure," said Ian, who felt confidence in him
after this little speech.  "But there are others."

"I, too," agreed Minnie, who naturally did not share the Polish aversion
to Cossacks.

"I believe you’ll be our friend," said Vanda.

"I have known good Cossacks," said Father Constantine, "and I think you
are one of them."

The Countess said no more, so it was settled that Ostap, as he insisted
on their calling him, should go with them.  He thanked them, and then,
of a sudden, took the initiative, and became their leader.

"You have no pick?" he asked.

They looked at each other in consternation.  It was true.  In his haste
to leave the house Ian had forgotten to bring a spade, to dig up the
jewels.

"Where do the Prussians lie now?" he asked again. Ian took him up the
bank by the windmill site and showed him, so far as he knew, where they
had occupied Ruvno soil.

"Very well.  I’ll go for a pick, or a shovel."

"You’ll be captured if you do," said Father Constantine.  "They have
sentries."

"Never mind.  We must have a few things.  Do you all wait here and I’ll
be back very soon.  If you hear a very long whistle you’ll know I am
taken and then you must fend for yourselves.  Otherwise, wait."

"I’ll come, too--" said Ian.

"Can you walk on your belly?"

"I can try."

"That’s no good.  You learn it early or not at all. And you cannot take
a pannikin or water-bottle from a sleeping man’s side without waking
him.  Even the Prussians can’t do that.  I’m safer alone."

And he disappeared, after taking up the bridle which had been on
Sietch--the only harness he had.

The moon had waned and darkness was upon them. To save time they moved
to the spot where Ian and the Father had buried half of the jewels last
summer.  They put the rest in the lane which ran to the east of the
house.  During the momentary lulls when safe from prying eyes, Ian had
been in the habit of going to see if they were safe and none the worse
for lying underground.  When the windmill was destroyed they were
anxious about them.  But on clearing away the debris he found them safe
and sound in kind Mother Earth, who never deserts men, if only they know
how to tend and love her as she requires.  He and his mother thought
more and more about them as their forests were ruined and fields ceased
to bear; for with them they could not only live, had they to bolt, till
the war would be over; but later on they hoped to come back and repair
some at least of the damage done to Ruvno.

But in all their talks of the dim future they had never dreamed of such
utter ruin as now faced them. For the Russians appeared to do well after
driving foes from the very gates of Warsaw, and everybody was full of
hope till a couple of weeks back.

They had all learnt by heart how many paces north and west of the
windmill was the hole, so did not foresee much trouble in finding it.
It seemed hours before Ostap came back, and they began to fear he had
been captured and could not even whistle to warn them.  At last,
however, a faint whistle came from the road below.  Ian went to meet
him.

He always knew the Cossacks for pilferers, but never thought the night
would come when he and his family would be glad to share a Cossack’s
booty. Ostap had lived up to the traditions of his people, which
includes a genius for finding the thing they want and making the most of
an awkward situation. He struggled under the weight of many things,
slung on his back by means of Sietch’s bridle.  He had a pick, which he
handed to Ian.

"Do you dig," he said.  "And I will divide these things among us."

He had found what remained of the Prussians’ feast, so rudely
interrupted by shells from Kosczielna. He had three huge loaves of rye
bread, brandy, which the Countess insisted on Father Constantine’s
having some of, three tins of preserved food (it was too dark to read
the labels) and cheese.  He had boots for himself, taken, he said, from
a dead trooper, and a jersey from the same source.  The women shuddered
at the thought of wearing clothes stripped from a corpse, but he was
quite pleased with them.  Then he had a water-bottle, three nose-bags
and two horse-cloths.  These were a good deal torn, but Vanda and
Minnie, in light frocks, were very glad of them.

"Only three loaves," he said regretfully.  "But I ate the other on the
spot.  I heard you say you had had supper and I had touched no food for
twenty-four hours.  These nose-bags will do to carry the food in, one
for the priest and one each for us men."

Quickly he distributed his booty in the three nosebags.

"There," he said when it was done.  "We shall not have a feast, but at
least something to put in our stomachs.  Mine was empty before I went
over to them.  They are all sleeping like the dead they lie by, except
the wounded, who groan and yell."  He turned to the Countess.  "And
where can I fill this water-bottle without getting poisoned, my Lady?"

"We shall pass a spring soon after we start for Sohaczev."

"My God, but I’ve a thirst.  Is there nothing nearer?"

"Only the House supply," she answered sadly.  "And that must be under
the ruins."

Meanwhile, Ian and the two girls were working their hardest, Ian
loosening the earth with the pick and helping to shovel it up.  This
they did with their hands, having nothing else.  The Countess helped,
too, but they all insisted on the Father resting before his long tramp.
His seventy-odd years could ill withstand the experiences of the past
twelve months.  His rheumatism had grown worse, and the wound he took in
the winter, during the kitchen fight, never properly healed.  A surgeon
Ian had called in said it would take years before the skin hardened over
the bone. They did manage to get a kind of cap, of aluminum, to protect
the skull.  But whereas a quiet life and comfort would have done him
good, all they could give him that year was worry and hardship.

Ostap looked on but did not offer to help dig up the "treasure" as he
called it.  He did say how sorry he was not to have found a spade as
well as a pick; but that was all.  He did not want them to suspect of a
desire to pilfer their jewels.

The three worked hard for some time, then Vanda got up to stretch her
legs, cramped by the posture.

"We haven’t hit the right spot," she said.

"I believe you’re right," agreed Ian.  "We’ve not struck cement even."

"If only we had another pick," sighed Minnie. "We’d get on quicker."

"What are they saying?" Ostap asked the priest.

"They are short of a pick."

Despite protests he disappeared; whilst Ian was still measuring the
paces, he came back, not with a pick but a spade.  Ian, seeing the girls
were exhausted with work and anxiety, asked him to use it.

"Ah--you trust me," said the Cossack.  "I’ll help with pleasure."

They set to work again; silence holding the little group.  Even the
talkative Ostap did not speak.

"Cement!" Ian said suddenly.

He had said it so many times only to find stones that the others took no
notice.  However, he and Ostap plodded on--and at last Ian held up a
small object.

"The thermos bottle," he said, giving it to his mother.

In the dark she and the girls opened it, counting the black pearls.
They were intact.

"Work carefully now," Ian warned Ostap.  "The rest are in waterproof
packets--we shall miss them."

"It’s so dark," complained the priest.  "Can’t we use my electric
torch?"

"Not if you want to be alive to-morrow," said Ostap bluntly.  "Their
sentries are watching."

And they fumbled on.  The moon had set long ago, so they worked very
slowly.  But at last, after feeling every clod of earth near where they
found the thermos bottle, they came upon a waterproof packet.  It
contained Minnie’s pearls.

"Only one more, Ostap," said Ian.  "It was put near this.  We sha’n’t be
long."

In a few moments he found it; it held half of the famous Ruvno emeralds,
worth many thousand roubles.  Ostap did not ask what was in the packet,
but remarked:

"Oh, God, it’s wonderful how little room treasure takes up.  Now do you
all, ladies, secure them well about your persons; and we must be off."

"Thank God, we have them at last," said the Countess.  "We shall be able
to keep the wolf from the door."  She spoke thus, afraid that he would
have an idea of the treasure’s real value.  For she did not trust him
yet.  Hastily they put the pearls about their persons, while Ostap
strolled a few paces away.

"And now for the lane," said Ian.  "We’ll find that easier."

They had to make a big detour to reach it, for it was madness to go near
the Prussians, as the Countess pointed out.  Even as it was they heard
the groans as some wounded men very near at hand.  Once, Ian stumbled
over a softish stiff body, in the darkness. He examined it as well as he
could, fearing it might be one of his own household.  But the dead man’s
helmet told its tale.  They left it lying there, walking as silently as
they could, Ian leading the way, because he knew every inch of the
ground.  Every now and again some noise from the Prussian camp made them
stand still, in terror that they were discovered.  But they were all
false alarms.  Many of von Senborn’s men were in their last long sleep,
and the rest so tired that it would have taken more noise than these
poor waifs made on the grass to awake them.  Their horror was great when
they finally arrived at the top of the lane where Ian had buried the
remainder of the emeralds and his mother’s rings.  It was blocked with
the wreckage of his once prosperous stud farm.

"We’re ruined," whispered the Countess.  "None of us can get through
that."

"I’ll get over," said Ostap, when the situation was explained to him.
"But you must tell me where the treasure lies."

"I’ll come with you," said Vanda.

"Nonsense!"  This from Ian.  "I’ll go."

She put her hand on his arm.

"You’re too heavy.  You’ll bring down a lot of the ruins, wake the
sentries and we shall be done."

"It’s not safe," he said, squeezing her hand.

"It is," she whispered.  "I can climb like a cat.  Do let me."

He made no further objection.  In silence he watched her climb the
ruins.  Ostap was wonderful. He made not the faintest noise, reached the
top of the ruins, which were like those made by an earthquake, then took
Vanda in his arms and stepped as noiselessly down the other side with
her.  It seemed a long time elapsed after their dark figures
disappeared. Then they arrived unexpectedly over the far end of the
ruins.

"Well?" asked Ian anxiously.

"Hopeless," she answered.

"The spot where your treasure lies is under twenty feet of brick and
rubbish," said Ostap.

"Can’t we clear it?"

"Not without waking some Prussians.  We heard their snores."

"Oh, Ostap," said the poor Countess, forgetting her suspicion in her
anxiety, "you are so clever--surely you can help us.  I’ll come--and
we’ll all lift the debris away brick by brick, with our hands,
silently."

"I cannot, my lady.  Look!"  He pointed eastward. "Daylight would
overtake us.  Besides, the ruins are very heavy.  It can’t be done
without risking your jewels and your lives."

"Yes, he is right, Aunt," said Vanda sadly.

They were all disappointed and loath to give up the search.  The
Countess wept a little at the thought of leaving so much wealth behind.
Ostap, who had been silent about the other jewels, did his best to
comfort them now.

"Your treasure is safer here than in a Moscow bank," he said.  "The
Prussians will not touch it, for who would think to scrape under this
horse farm? And when we have come back and cleared the earth of the
enemy, you can dig for them in peace, and you will have money with which
to build up your home. In Russia, neither bread nor meat is lacking and
you can very well live on what you dug up near the high road.  Let us
go.  The night passes, and darkness is now our best friend."

He was right.  What good to linger weeping over their misfortunes?  With
heavy hearts they turned away and set out across the trench-furrowed
fields to Sohaczev.




                                  XVII


Although it was easy to see that the Countess and the chaplain were
tired, Ian listened to his mother’s entreaties to set out without any
rest; for who could sleep within sight of their ruined home?  Besides,
time was precious, unless they were prepared to remain under the
Prussian rule; and they decided that exile, beggary, anything would be
better than living in some town to see them every day and every hour of
the day....  Their way lay through what had been the home forest, by
paths and fields that run south of Kosczielna, thence south-west to
Sohaczev.  It was already the last day of July and the Prussians at
Ruvno had been boasting that they would be in Warsaw for the third of
August; and the Kaiser’s second son crowned King of Poland, in the old
palace, within a month.  They were a couple of days late in getting into
Warsaw, and Poland’s crown is not yet on a Hohenzollern’s head.

The fear that the Grand Duke might no longer be in Sohaczev haunted them
all.  Even as the crow flies, Ruvno was twenty versts from there.  By
the road, which ran fairly straight, it was thirty.  By cutting across
country, by the ways which Ian and Vanda knew well, he thought they
could save five versts, thus leaving twenty-five to cover.  He and
Ostap, walking a little ahead, to warn the others of barbed wire and
trenches, soon saw what the short cut meant.

"I’m for getting back to the road," said the Cossack.

"But it is much further."  Ian explained the distances.

"Eh, God, but we can’t do more than a verst an hour if this kind of
ground goes on, and I know this part.  It’s cut up like Hell.  We shall
be clambering in and out of trenches and dodging wire and dead bodies
all the way.  We might do three versts an hour by the road.  None of you
are walkers.  Nor I.  We Cossacks are more at home on horses’ backs than
our feet.  You walk as if every step hurt you."

"There’s something inside me that grates about as I move," admitted Ian.

"Broken ribs.  I had them several times.  If you tie them up it’s all
right, but a bit nasty if you let them jog into your flesh."

They stumbled on a bit and avoided some more wire, making a long detour
to do it.  Ian noticed that, whereas his mother and the two girls kept
up better than he thought they could, the Father showed signs of
exhaustion, though he did his bravest to hide it.

"The priest," whispered Ostap.  "We shall be carrying him soon.  Another
reason for going to the road."

Ian said nothing, knowing he was right.  In fact, he soon doubted if any
of them could keep up this kind of exercise very long.  The ground was
intersected with trenches, and full of pitfalls in the way of
tree-stumps.  They had all been working since daybreak, even the Father,
who was fit only for bed.  Ostap was a worse walker than Ian himself,
bruised and shaken by the shell which buried him near the church and led
to their worst troubles.  Ostap said he had no sleep for two nights,
being afraid to doze on Sietch’s back for fear of getting entrapped.
Father Constantine almost fought to keep his knapsack; but they managed
to get that from him.

"Even if we do three versts an hour, it will take ten hours to
Sohaczev," remarked Ostap, when they had struggled thus for some time
without much progress.  "... Walking all the time.  That’s an
impossibility.  What hour is it now?"

Ian took out his watch.  It had stopped.  The glass was smashed, too.
Ostap studied the summer sky with some attention.

"It is one o’clock," he said after a moment.  "In two hours or so it
will be the dawn.  We can perhaps cover six versts by then, by the road.
Then we must rest for an hour, or we shall be dead."

"This will be hard on the Father," Ian whispered.

"Yes.  And listen.  By three we may cover six versts on the road.  That
leaves twenty-four.  We start again at four, a good hour to walk, for it
is fresh.  We go on till six.  That leaves us twenty-two versts, for we
shall be going slower than three an hour, say two ... where was I?

"Twenty-two versts from Sohaczev."

"We rest an hour, walk three versts more.  That makes eight o’clock ...
we are yet nineteen versts from our goal."

"There’s a village nineteen versts from Sohaczev," Ian put in.  "Vulki,
it’s called."

"We rest a bit.  Then we make a great effort, and if we are lucky, by
noon we are ten versts from Sohaczev."

"We’ll never catch the Grand Duke," said Vanda, who was with the two
men.

"Who knows?  But at ten versts from Sohaczev there is a large camp.  Or
there was.  If we are lucky we shall find some of the men there, or a
place in a train, for there is the railway, unless we have already
destroyed it.  But we shouldn’t do that till the last minute, for we are
retreating with as little loss to ourselves as can be.  Then we are safe
for either headquarters at Sohaczev, or Warsaw.  And Warsaw leads to
anywhere in Russia.  I shall join my troop, and you can rest till the
war is over.  It must be over sometime, even the Prussians can’t help
that.  And then your mother, who is a brave woman, and a really great
lady, can come back and rebuild your house.  And you can marry your
sisters in the meantime."

"They are not my sisters."

"Then the young lady is your bespoken wife."

"My husband is a volunteer in the Cossack army," said Vanda.

Ostap gave a little shout of pleasure.  "Oh--good! Which troop?"

"The Kuban troop."

"And the other young lady by your mother?"

"Is English.  She has been very good and kind in helping us through our
troubles.  She has lost one brother in the war."

"And I three.  I spit upon my life.  And upon money.  I want to fight
the Prussians and burn down a few of their towns before I am killed by
them, or the cholera.  For that is almost as sure as their shells."

"Have you no family to keep?" asked the Countess.

"I have.  But they have the farm and the wife can look after that when
the time comes for my old father to die.  Then my two boys will do their
service, too, but I want them to go to good schools first."

"But you said you spat upon money."

"I mean for its own sake.  There is enough on the farm to keep them at
school.  We Cossacks are beginning to wake up and have our boys and
girls taught things besides fighting and horses.  But Tsars have taken
away all our autonomy, little by little, and have never given us the
free use of all our land, like they promised.  Many men in the troop
find it a great burden to supply their own horses, guns and uniforms."

He was silent after that and then began again with:

"You, on the other hand, must be a powerful man, for the peasants I used
to talk to when we were at Kosczielna spoke about Ruvno and its lord."

Ian told him they were mined, and had nothing but their jewels, half of
which they had left behind.

"But they must be worth many farms and horses," he argued.  "People like
you don’t bury treasure for a few roubles.  As to what you left under
your horse-farm, it is quite safe.  The earth is your best friend in
war; better than banks."

Ian said nothing.  The others, too, listened in silence.  There was
something attractive about his frank speech and simple outlook of life.
But Ian had always noticed that about the Russians.  The Poles, with
their old civilization, had become as complex as the French.

"I am sorry those rascals have burned you down," he resumed.  "The
castle was a fine thing.  I often saw it from the distance.  But I
should have liked most of all to see the horses you bred...."

Ian and he talked horses then, and got a little in front of the others,
till a muffled cry from the back recalled them.  Father Constantine was
on the ground.

"He fell," said Vanda.  "I am afraid he has fainted."

"No, I haven’t," he retorted with a shadow of his old spirit.  "I’ll
be--well--in a moment."

The Countess was for giving him brandy, but Ostap intervened.

"Soak some into this," and he tore off a piece of his rye loaf, which
they gave him.  It finished their stock of brandy, but revived the
priest, who was on his feet in another moment.

"I can walk now," he said bravely.

"No.  I’m going to carry you," said Ian.  Father Constantine made a step
forward, then fainted in earnest.

"Let me look," said Vanda.  "I believe his wound has opened."

She bent over him and said:

"Yes.  It ought to be bandaged.  But how?

"Your handkerchiefs," said Ostap.  But they remembered that they were
filthy after the digging operations and feared to use one till they
could rinse it out.  Ian made up his mind that they must go back to the
road.

"Yes," said his mother, willing enough now. "We’ll never get along on
these ghastly battle-fields."

So they started for the road, Ian carrying Father Constantine on his
shoulders, regaining the highway by a little shrine, with an image of
the Madonna. Many years before the Countess had put it there as a
thanksgiving offering, when Ian recovered from an attack of scarlet
fever.  The peasants of the neighborhood used to say that it had
miraculous powers to heal all sick children.  So it was very popular
with mothers of families.

"Who’s there?" cried a familiar voice from the darkness.

"Your own people," answered they.

It was poor old Martin, who had been carried on in the general stampede;
but he had grown very tired, and seeing the others were not amongst the
mob, had the good sense to await them there, knowing they must pass the
shrine on their way to safety.  He had fallen asleep to find, on waking,
that the moon was set and the night at its darkest.

"The others?" asked Ian.  "Where are they?"

"Mother of God, they rushed on.  They are mad with fear," he answered
sadly.  "Some fell and did not get up again.  Old Vatsek, and somebody’s
child. The road is hard, being strewn with rubbish, what the other
fugitives and soldiers have left for lack of strength."

"Seen any horses, or carts?" asked Ostap.

"Dead ones, under the moon ... they lie as they dropped, in the shafts."

"Far?"

"A quarter of a verst."

Ostap and Ian, leaving Martin with the others, went off to look for a
cart.  They wanted to get the side of one for Father Constantine.  It
would be better for him than carrying him on their backs.  They had to
grope about for some time, because it was the moment before dawn when
night is darkest, when neither moon nor the streaks of coming day help
you, when the air strikes chill to the very marrow and the heart has
least courage.  They finally found what they wanted by the smell of
decomposing horseflesh, which guided them to a peasant’s cart.  They
broke off one side of it, and took, too, some straw they found at the
bottom.  When they went back to the others the Father was talking.

"Go on," he argued.  "Leave me....  I have God....  I shall not be
alone."

And he said this more than once before he reached the end of his
journey.

Ian managed to find a warm cover, too, and they made him as comfortable
as they could.  Then they ate some bread and cheese, saving the tinned
meat for the morning.  There was a spring near this spot, so they drank
water and bathed their faces.  As well as they could in the dark they
washed out Ian’s handkerchief--the largest--and bound up the sick man’s
head.  The cold, damp linen revived him.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"Going to Warsaw."

"Where is my diary?"

They knew he used to keep one and did not like to tell him it was under
Ruvno’s ruins.  So they said nothing.

"Please give it me.  I want it," he urged feebly.

"What does he want?" asked Ostap.

Ian told him.

"I remember," said the Cossack, "he did take two books out of his skirt
pocket, there under the moon when you were digging up the treasure.  He
put them in his nose-bag."  He slung it off his back, drew out the two
books and handed them to the sick man, who eagerly clutched at them.

"Ian," he said, "come here."  When his patron obeyed he gave him the two
little books, bound in black oilcloth, such as children write their
copies in.

"Keep them," he said with an effort.  "Have them published.  People must
know what Poland endures."

"I will," said Ian, putting them in his knapsack.

"Have you them safe?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Now, give me the little Crucifix.  It is in the nose-bag that Cossack
brought us."

They did so.  He clasped it tight and pressed it to his lips.  It seemed
to give him strength.  "I’ll keep it to the end--of my journey," he
said.  "Countess, forgive me, all forgive me, for adding to your burden
with my infirmities."

All tried to reassure him, and he spoke no more for a long time.  They
knew he suffered much.  His head and hands burned with the fever that
was consuming him.

They started off again.

Ostap was right about the road being easier.  But it was even more
horrible than the fields.  In spite of debris, bits of soldiers’
accoutrements and stiff, silent noisome forms scattered in their path,
there was no comparison between it and barbed wire or trenches, so far
as walking went.  They walked for another hour, Martin taking short
turns with one end of the stretcher whilst either Ostap or Ian rested
their arms. They trudged steadily on, knowing that every step took them
nearer Warsaw, further from the Prussians. Ostap and Ian, with the
litter, took the side of the road, for the middle, cut with a year’s war
traffic, was no better than a plowed field.  The three women walked
near, to do the little that was possible for the patient.  Martin walked
by Ian, to tell him what he saw and heard with the fleeing villagers.
Ian told him how Ruvno ended.  They spoke low because of the Father;
instinctively--but heavy guns would not have aroused him from his
delirious torpor.

As dawn came on, painting the sky with gray and purple and the breeze
grew less chill, Ian could see more and more plainly the desolation that
lay around. Not a living creature did they meet.  But the dead were
many.  The few surviving trees were bare as in a January frost; the
roadside and neighboring fields, strewn, not only with every kind of
garment, every simple article of a peasant’s cottage, but with costly
things which must have been a soldier’s loot, with the soldier’s mortal
remains; and with their knapsacks, caps, ragged boots and bits of kit.
Dead horses were many, too; and dead peasants, of both sexes and every
age, were not a few.  And he passed near by these things, flotsam and
jetsam of war, passed dead hamlets, where only ruins remained, and one
dead mother he saw, her new-born child near by, and dead, too.  He hoped
the others had not noticed, for it was the most terrible sight of all.
And as the dawn spread he could see the distant fields with the burnt
corn, the trenches full of horrid sights and an army’s rubbish, burnt
trees, wire twisted as by gigantic hands; ruined crops, ruined homes,
broken lives and perished hopes....  And this was all they had left of
Poland.

And when his weary eyes turned from the misery around and fell upon his
dear ones, he saw how fitted they were to travel the road of death and
despair.

The three women, dainty all their lives, were ragged, dirty, disheveled,
their thin frocks covered with horse-blankets which were stained with
blood. What did the future hold for those brave souls?  He preferred not
to think of that, and turned to look at Ostap, black with dirt and tan,
coatless, his arms far too long for the Prussian’s jersey, his feet bare
and bleeding, for the boots proved too tight and he had cast them aside,
his long hair wild and dusty, his nose swollen, a scar across his face;
he looked as ferocious a member of an army as you could ever fear to
meet. Martin had aged twenty years since he served supper the night
before; he limped along painfully, his house-boots worn through with the
rough tramp.  Happily, the women were sensibly shod, having put on their
strongest boots for yesterday’s field work.

Looking on Father Constantine’s ashen face, Ian knew his hours were
numbered.  The seal of death was on it.  The thin hands which had
clasped the crucifix so eagerly a little while back were clutching at
the rags with which they had covered him....

The forlorn party took stock of each other furtively for some time.
Then their eyes met; and they smiled.

"It is war," said Ostap.  And, noting their low spirits, he did the best
to cheer them with the humorous side of his year’s campaign.  It made
them forget how dirty they looked, helped them to grow accustomed to
their new selves, perhaps.  Now that the light was good, Ian noticed
that the Cossack’s dark eyes were intelligent and merry.  He had that
contempt for death which enabled the retreating Russians to make
ramparts of their bodies when ammunition failed.  He gave them
unwittingly a grim story of crippled men, muddled orders, peculation and
pilfering; with that childlike literalness which is wholly Russian and
the dash of fatality which stiffens courage, and makes men patient under
pain....

They made a wide detour before reaching Kosczielna, fearing to run into
the Prussians again, and none wished for that.  No sounds came from its
ruins; but many gray forms showed how well that Russian sapper, in Ruvno
church did his signaling. The fugitives had planned to rest awhile near
the little town; but the place was so horrible that they hurried on,
quickening their pace, to leave the orgy of death behind, though death
went with them step by step.

At Vulki they made a halt.  Here there were signs of life, the first
since they left home, though the village had been destroyed.  But they
found that a dozen or so of Ruvno peasants had halted there, and were
cooking a few potatoes they dragged from its wreckage.  Baranski, whom
they had chosen as leader, saw the little procession and hurried to meet
it.

"Oh--my Lady Countess," he cried, kissing her hand, "to think you have
come to this plight, and the young ladies, too, and you, my lord Count,
and the Father--oh, if I could only help you.  But there is nothing
here.  Some of ours have started back to Ruvno over the fields.  They
hope to creep back into the village unseen by the Prussians and pretend
they never left.  The sight of all this misery is too much for them.
They fear they will die like dogs if they go any further."

"And those people?" asked Ian, indicating the group round the fire.

"Most of them meant to stop here.  The native peasants have fled.  Those
are too tired, they say, to go back or go on."

"Have you a watch?"

"Yes."  Baranski pulled out a silver timepiece.  "It is ten past five."

Ian looked at his little group.

"We can’t reach that camp before one.  It’s only ten versts from
Sohaczev."

"We had better rest," said his mother, and he saw she could not walk
much further without sleep.

"Baranski, do you wake us in two hours."

"Yes.  And I’ll look to the poor Father here," he said.  He was a loyal
old peasant and heartbroken to think of the tribulation that had come
upon them all. He found a mattress in a ruined cottage for Father
Constantine, and searched vainly for some refreshment for them.  They
all slept heavily, except the invalid, till he woke them, at seven
o’clock.

"And what are you going to do?" asked the Countess, when they told him
and the other peasants their own plans.

"Some of us go back.  We have buried our grain where the Prussians won’t
think to look for it," he explained to Ian in a confidential whisper, as
though von Senborn himself were within earshot.  "I have no liking for
the road, or a tramp through Russia. They can’t take my good earth away
and where shall I find soil to bear like Ruvno fields?"

Six went with Ian.  They had sons fighting with the Russians and did not
want to be cut off from all communication with them.  Ostap did not like
this addition to the party till one of them returned from the far end of
the village with a lean-looking but sound horse and found a cart for it.
He had grown very tired of carrying the litter.  They placed Father
Constantine in the cart and started off, taking a sad farewell of those
who remained behind....

Sore-footed, sore-hearted, faint for the lack of food, they went slowly
on, through the same scenes of desolation and death, halting every
half-hour for a few minutes, scarcely daring to do so, but sure of
breaking down before reaching their goal unless they did.  The road was
very bad now; Ian and the other men often had to clear the way of the
human and other wreckage which stopped the cart’s passage. They spoke
little.  Each wrapped in his own thoughts, listened to Father
Constantine’s delirium.  He, who had helped so many souls through the
Valley of Death, must pass it unshriven.

At midday they halted again; they had not reached the camp of which
Ostap spoke.  The Father’s frail body was making a desperate effort to
retain his fleeting soul.  Vanda, who had watched so many die of late,
said the end was near.  The peasants came up to the cart and joined in
their prayers.  They wept, for all loved the kind, simple old man who
had taught them what they knew of God and letters.

He opened his eyes, making a feeble sign that he wanted to speak.  Ian
bent over to catch his words.

"Go on--" he faltered.  "I’m not alone...."

And thus he died.  With tears they folded his hands over the little
malachite crucifix, the one relic of home.  The Countess covered his
thin, withered face, so peaceful in its long sleep, with a peasant
woman’s kerchief.  Then they urged on the tired horse and their own
weary limbs, the women praying for his soul as they staggered on,
because retreating armies wait not and their one hope now lay in
escaping the Prussians.  They had no food left; every scrap of the
bread, stained with the blood of those who held it in the Ruvno canteen,
had gone.  And strength was fast failing them.




                                 XVIII


At last, however, they saw signs of life.  A train whistle told them
they were near a railroad and they passed a group of soldiers who were
firing two large hay stacks.

"The camp, thank God!" cried Ostap, and they all quickened their steps.

The place had been made by the war and for the war.  There were no
peasants’ cottages, no farm buildings.  There were rows and rows of
wooden huts where troops in repose had passed their time; there was a
wooden church with the onion-shaped dome which pertains to Russian
temples; there were gardens in which the men had grown cabbages for
their soup and a few flowers, especially sunflowers, for they liked to
eat the seeds.  There were tents and hospitals, magazines, guns and
aeroplanes.  Above all, there was great confusion.  Most of the troops
had left and ambulances, carts, trains, motor-lorries, anything upon
wheels the Russians could find, were being packed with the sick and
wounded.

Leaving the others at the upper end of the camp, Ostap and Ian set forth
to seek the commanding officer.  It took them some time because nobody
knew anything about him, and nobody cared whether they were refugees in
distress or what they were.  The whole mental force of the place was
concentrated upon getting away as many sick and wounded as possible
before the Prussians came in and seized them.  After half an hour’s
search, however, Ian found his man. He was standing by a large hospital
tent, ticking off entries from a notebook.  Judging from his looks, he
had neither slept nor washed for some days.  At any other time Ian would
have refrained from interrupting a man with that stamp of haggard
determination on his face.  But his own plight was desperate. He told
his story as briefly as possible and asked for help to get his women to
Warsaw before the Russians left there.

When the man heard the word "help" he looked up in irate surprise.

"Do you know how many wounded I’ve got on my hands here?" he asked.

"I can’t say----"

"Three thousand of ours--a thousand Germans. I’ve had four thousand to
get off since the night before last.  The Grand Duke with his staff
leaves Warsaw this evening.  You know what that means?"

Two men brought a stretcher from a tent.  Its occupant’s face was black;
he fought desperately for breath.  The officer asked the bearers curt
questions, made notes, signed to them to pass on.  Then he turned to
Ian.

"Gas.  That man’s regiment has lost three thousand by it, to my
knowledge.  That gives you an idea of our work here.  Help!  How can I
help?"

"I’m sorry," said Ian quietly, but with that air of authority he had
learned in ruling Ruvno.  "But I’ve a right to your help.  My home has
been blown to bits because you left a signaler bricked up in my
church-tower.  I know the Grand Duke will approve of anything you can do
for me.  If you’ve German wounded you can surely let some of them wait
here for their friends and send my womenfolk to Warsaw in their places."

"I’ve no orders to help refugees," he returned sullenly.

"I’m a personal friend of the Grand Duke’s."

"He has so many friends."

He was ticking off names from his list and asking the bearers questions
during this conversation, which took some time.

"My time is precious, too," argued Ian.  "I’ll bury my chaplain and come
back to you then.  In the meantime you can perhaps think of some way to
help me."

The officer pointed to a motor-lorry which was passing them on its way
out of the camp.  It was packed full of ghastly-looking men.

"There’s your answer.  How can I help with this Hell going on day and
night?" he exclaimed irritably.

"Give me two horses and a peasant’s cart."

"There are none."

"Then a pass for a train ... room on the roof will do."

His face softened now.  He thought he was to get rid of this importunate
civilian.

"A capital idea.  But I can’t give you the pass. It’s not my job.  The
officer who can is over there."

He pointed towards the station.  "Go to him.  Say I sent you.  Nicolai
Petrovich Ketov is my name. Good luck!" and he hurried into the tent.

On his way to the station Ian met Ostap.

"The devil take this hole!" he cried by way of greeting.  "Not a horse
to be found.  Nor a cart. Nothing but bad temper and confusion."  Then,
when he heard the other’s experience:

"Ketov.  Don’t know the name ... a Little Russian, I expect.  But you
can see all these officers are too busy to bother with us.  I’ll try
humbler folk. Never mind.  Do you go bury your priest.  Meanwhile, give
me your card, if you have one about you and write down the number of
your followers and your quest upon it.  Have you any money?  That is
always useful."

"Yes."  Lately, he had been in the habit of carrying about all the ready
money he possessed in case of an emergency like this.  But he did not
tell the Cossack he had enough to keep his little family for a few
weeks, till he could sell the family jewels.  In silence he pulled out a
couple of hundred roubles, produced a card, and a note which he had had
from the Grand Duke a week before.

"I’ll not take the money, because we don’t pay for any conveyance we may
get till we’re all in it.  But I’ll take that note.  It may help us to
get the conveyance," said Ostap.

He went off, whistling, and Ian sought the others. He found they had
been more fortunate, for they had made friends with old Princess Orsov,
better known in Petrograd and Moscow as Vera Petrovna.  And she had
heard of the Countess, first from hearsay; then, more fully, from the
Grand Duke, for she was a personal friend of the imperial family.

She listened in silence to the Countess’ story, her bright, Tatar eyes
taking in every detail of that tired, well-bred face and the torn
clothes, never made for tramping over battlefields.  She took a fancy to
the Polish woman at once, admired her courage and her determination.
When the tale was told she made the three women go into a little
pinewood hut which stood by the roadside, and managed to get them some
hot coffee in a remarkably short time, considering the confusion.

"You shall have a dinner when it is ready," she said, speaking the
purest French.  "I’ll help you to get off by hook or crook.  But we are
hard pressed here to find room for your wounded.  Wait a moment I’ll go
and talk to my head nurse."  And she hurried out, leaning on her stick.

"How clean this is!" sighed Vanda, looking round the cell-like place.
"I wonder if she’ll give us some soap and water, as well as a dinner.  I
seem to want it more than food."

"She’ll give us everything," said Minnie cheerfully. "She is the good
fairy who always turns up, even in real life, when things look blackest.
No, Countess?"

The Countess did not hear.  She was thinking of the life they had left
behind and wondered what the future held in store.  And she thought of
her faithful old friend, the chaplain, now lying in peace after his long
journey and envied him, till she remembered that her boy wanted her and
this thought gave comfort.

In a few minutes the Princess came back.

"We’re so packed that you couldn’t put a bayonet between the men," she
said in her brisk way.  "But I can take you three ladies on my hospital
train if you don’t mind wearing white aprons and veils."

"I am most grateful to you," said the Countess.  "If you will take these
two girls for me, it will be a great load off my mind."

"But you?"

"I’ll do what my son does.  I’ve known so many cases of families being
separated and not finding each other for months together.  And I don’t
think I could bear the anxiety of that."

Vera Petrovna laughed.

"That is when people have to tramp the roads by night," she argued.
"Your son can get on a troop train, by hook or by crook.  On the roof,
or with the stoker.  It’s nothing for a man."

"But the train he gets on might not go to Warsaw," objected the
Countess.  "And where should I find him with all the telegraphic
communication stopped?"

"I sha’n’t leave you," said Vanda.

"Nor I," added Minnie.

The old Russian was rather puzzled at this.  But Ian came to the rescue.
He looked on the matter in a far more practical light.

"It’s the greatest piece of luck you could have," he said.  "I can’t
tell you, Princess, how grateful I am. I’ve not been able ever to get
anybody to listen to my request for a seat on the roof of a train, even.
But I can tramp it.  And I’ll do it all the better when I know you’re
all safe."

"You can’t help going to Warsaw," said the Princess. "You can arrange
that whoever gets there first waits for the rest of the party.

"I wonder what the chances of getting from Warsaw to Petrograd or even
Kiev are?" Ian asked her. This had been worrying him a good deal.  He
did not want to be left in Warsaw, unable to realize his valuables.

The Princess blinked her narrow eyes at him and tapped her stick on the
floor.  It was the same ebony stick whose knob was an enormous emerald
set in pearls which she used in peace days.  It was her one vanity.  But
in order to preserve the stones from scratches and dirt she had a lot of
little washleather caps made for the knob which were changed and washed
as soon as they showed the need for it.  For many months now this
wonderful old woman, remnant of a type which the revolution has probably
swept away forever, whose friends of youth had passed away, who stood
alone in her memories, had been living between her hospital-train and
her Petrograd palace, turned into a hospital, too.  With that
independence characteristic of her House she refused to have anything to
do with the Russian Red Cross, supplied her own train, nurses, surgeons
and requisities, her own engine-drivers, her own locomotives, and wood
from her own forests to heat the train and make it go.  The food came
from her own estates, the civilian aid from her own circle of friends
and acquaintances.  In fact, she supplied everything but the patients
and they never lacked, for Vera Petrovna’s train and hospital soon won
for themselves renown for comfort and good nursing that the wounded
clamored to be taken there.  Ian watched her as she stood, near his
mother’s chair, evidently revolving some plan in her shrewd old head.
He, too, had heard of her, of her wealth and imperiousness, her kind
heart and open hand.  He reflected, little bitterly, that her fortune
was safe, because her immense forests in Central Asia and her hunting
grounds in Siberia, wherein you could have put Ruvno and lost it, where
trappers caught sables and marten for the world’s women, lay well beyond
the invaders’ grasp.  He could not foresee her terrible end, which she
met with fortitude; little guessed that her palace in Petrograd would be
broken into by Lenine’s mob, looted and burnt; that her old body would
be thrown into the nearest canal after the life had been strangled out
of it.  All he saw now was a very energetic and prosperous member of the
Russian aristocracy, a woman who could afford to laugh at the German
advance because her native land was intact.

"Count," she said, addressing him because she had all her life preferred
to deal with men....  "I have a proposal."

"Yes?"

"Will you allow me to take these ladies in my train to Petrograd?  We go
straight through."

"Straight through?  But the difference in the gauge of the rails?"

She gave him a wink.

"That’s a Russian bureaucratic legend," she returned.  "I have a
contrivance they put on the wheels, and all gauges are alike.  The
Germans have it, too, you may be sure, all ready to run their trains
right up to Vilna.  But to business.  It’s far better for you, Countess,
and you, young ladies, to come straight up to safety with me than to
risk being left in Warsaw. Who knows if you will get seats in a train or
motor-car now?"

"It’s very kind of you," said Ian, glancing at his mother, "But----"

"No buts," retorted Vera Petrovna.  "You’re going to say we were
complete strangers a few minutes ago. That’s true.  But in times like
these one makes friends or enemies very fast.  Oh, I’ve heard of all
you’ve done for wounded Russians at Ruvno," she went on, giving the
Countess one of her shrewd looks.  "And it would be a great honor for me
to show you that we Russians are not like our government, that we wish
to be Poland’s friend and help her brave sons and daughters, who have
borne the brunt of this awful war."

"Oh, how nice to hear you say that," exclaimed Vanda.

"I mean it.  But let us arrange this.  You, Count, can join your little
family at my house in Petrograd. If you’ve never been there, all you
have to do is to ask for the Orsov Palace.  Every street-urchin knows
it.  Now, I must leave you for a moment.  So much to do!  Do you wait
here till a bath and dinner are ready."

Then the others held a family council and persuaded the Countess to
accept Vera Petrovna’s offer.  Later on, if they decided to stop in
Petrograd they might find a furnished apartment, but it would be a great
thing, Ian argued, for him to know they were in safe hands till he
joined them.  He gave his mother half his store of money and many
promises to use every means to join her as soon as he could.  He meant
to stop in Warsaw and see what had become of the hardware factory which
had been making field-kitchens for the army.  But he kept this to
himself, knowing his womenfolk would only worry about him the more, lest
he fell into the Germans’ hands.  They all had lively recollections of
that Prussian cavalryman who was so interested in the family emeralds,
and whom he told a lie to.  The Countess still had scruples about
letting him go off alone.

"I shouldn’t mind if I felt sure you wouldn’t have to tramp all the way
to Russia," she said, as she reluctantly took the money.

"But I sha’n’t tramp, even to Sohaczev," he said confidently.  "I’m sure
to get on some kind of a train. And it will be like getting rid of a
millstone round my neck to know you’re all going in safety and
comparative comfort."  He lowered his voice.  "Vera Petrovna’s
friendship will be a most valuable thing for us in Petrograd.  And she’s
just as charming an old woman as everybody said she was."

There came a loud rap at the door.

"Bath!" exclaimed Vanda.  "Come in!"

To their surprise, it was Major Healy, as large as ever and now very
sunburnt into the bargain.  He looked at them for a moment, took in the
situation in his rather slow, very sympathetic way and said:

"Well, I’m glad to see you safe.  I’ve been horribly worried about you
these days.  I was going off to Ruvno."  He glanced at Minnie, who
flushed, partly with pleasure at seeing him, partly with annoyance at
her unkempt appearance.

They told him their story.  He listened gravely, putting in a nod or a
slow, heavy gesture now and again.

"I feared it," he remarked, when they had done. "When the Princess told
me Lipniki had been bombarded I knew what that must mean for Ruvno.  I
was going to push on there this afternoon and get your news.  As you’re
here, I’m back to Warsaw.  I’ve distributed all my relief.  There’s room
in my side-car for one.  Which of you is coming?"

"Oh!" said the Countess, and looked at her boy.

"I’ve some peasant women," said he.

Healy laughed and shook his head.

"I can only take one, and a light one.  I’m a heavy-weight and the road
is awful."

"They can draw lots," said Ian.  "The others will have to shift with us
men."

He saw Healy was not over eager to take peasants, and determined he
should.  They were still discussing it when Vera Petrovna sent word by a
nurse that the bathroom in the train was ready for them and that there
would be a hasty dinner in half an hour.

The women hurried out.  Healy offered Ian a cigarette and lighted one
for himself.  Then, in his pondering way, he began.

"Count, we’ve not seen each other as much as I’d like, but I believe
we’re friends."

"We are," agreed Ian heartily.  "And you’ve been a good friend to my
country, too."

"Well, I’ve only done my duty and not half as much as I’d like," said
the American giant, sitting on the camp bed, which creaked plaintively
under his weight. "But for the moment I want to talk to you about my
private affairs."  He looked round the log hut and through the little
window to the hospital beyond.  "It seems an unsuitable time and place
for me to worry you, when you’ve been torn up, root and stock.  I
appreciate your troubles, but I’ve no choice but to worry you a moment
with my own affairs."

"By all means.  We part soon, and you never know how long it’ll be
before----"

"Exactly.  You’ve hit the spot, Count, I may as well say, without any
more beating about the bush, that I’m interested in Miss Minnie Burton."

"Ah!"

"Deeply interested.  I suppose she told you that we saw quite a little
of each other when she was in Warsaw during that December advance."

"Oh, yes," said Ian, putting politeness before veracity.

"My interest has grown, deepened, since then.  She’s a real fine girl,
is Miss Minnie Burton, and comes of a fine old stock.  I want to marry
her."  Here his honest eyes met his friend’s and his honest, broad face
became redder than ever.  "And I want to shoot her out of this danger in
my trailer."

"As to marrying her, I’m not her guardian," said Ian.  "Her brother----"

"On the high seas.  And can’t give opinions, one way or the other right
here."

"I doubt if you’d find a parson to marry you just now," said Ian, who
had exaggerated ideas of American impatience.

"Good God!  I wasn’t thinking of marrying her this minute.  Nor in this
Hell of a place.  I guess there’ll be time enough for the ceremony in
Petrograd. I’d like the wedding to be from Princess Orsov’s palace."

"Oh, does she know of your--your----"

"No.  But she will.  And she’s just as cordial to yours truly as she can
be.  What I want is your countenance to my taking Miss Burton on my
side-car.  There are a few points I want to fix up with her.  I guess
we’ll have plenty of time to talk on the way to Warsaw."

"But Warsaw isn’t Petrograd," objected Ian.  "I think she’ll be far
safer in Vera Petrovna’s train.  I’m responsible for her, you know, till
you--till you get the family’s consent to the match."

Healy laughed.  The idea of family consent appeared to Ian to amuse him
greatly.

"She’s of age.  And family consent be darned if she’s willing, which I’m
nearly sure she is.  As to responsibility, I’d not like to have her get
into any unpleasantness with that brother of hers.  But she needn’t
worry.  I’ll get her safe to Petrograd as soon as the Princess could.
And sooner, maybe.  I know how they shunt those trains into sidings.
We’ve got a fine touring car waiting in Warsaw and enough petrol to take
us to Vladivostock.  In fact, I’d be glad to give you a seat in it if
you can get there in time for us to start fair of the Germans."

"Thanks very much."

"And then you’d do the chaperon, and that brother couldn’t say anything.
Now, then, can I take her on my trailer?"

"Yes.  If she likes to go.  But you’d better arrange with the Princess
about taking a peasant woman in her place.  I’m getting so many favors
from her as it is, I can’t ask for any more."

"That I will."

Ian got up.

"I’ll leave you to do it.  I’ve some things to see about."  And he
sought Ostap, to arrange with him about Father Constantine’s funeral
immediately after a hasty meal.

He was glad that Healy and Minnie were going to marry.  It relieved him
of any further responsibility and would certainly put an end to maternal
hints about the advisability of settling down with her as wife.  He did
not want to settle down.  He meant to go and fight as soon as he had put
his mother in some secure corner and provided her with enough money to
live upon.

They buried Father Constantine just as he died, in his dusty alpaca
soutane, his hands folded over die malachite Crucifix.  They laid him in
the cemetery behind a group of tents which formed the camp hospital,
amongst Russian soldiers, digging his grave with a spade Ostap managed
to pick up somewhere.  Several other hasty funerals were going on and
nobody paid the least attention to him.  They could find no wood to make
a rough cross; but there was some ivy near and Vanda twisted that into
one, putting it over the newly-turned sods.  They could not even write
his name--so left him, unrecorded, and in peace.  They had not gone far
towards the station when a messenger met them to say that the
hospital-train was ready to start.  Ostap ran up, too.  He had good
news.

"It’s nearly settled for you and your peasants," he said to Ian.  "The
transport officer asks for you."

Ian hurried off, leaving the Countess and Vanda to go to the train under
Ostap’s guidance and found the officer in question checking figures on a
bit of paper. He was as weary and worried as the first one had been.
But he seemed to want men.

"Five hundred unwounded Germans leave at once," he said hurriedly.  "You
and your peasants take charge of some trucks.  The first train to leave.
We are short."

"I accept with pleasure."

"Good.  Go with your peasants; for you’ll be wanted in a moment."

"My peasants are here.  I’ll just go and say good-bye to my womenfolk."

He ran up to the Orsov train which stood at one end of the primitive
station, ready to start.  Ropes had been tied over the roof and down the
sides of the coaches; to these clung men with bandaged heads and feet.
The Princess met him.

"They are down here," she said.  Then, seeing him look at the crowded
roof.  "You are wondering how all these men are going to hold on till we
reach Petrograd.  But you know what happens.  We shall be shunted into
sidings for hours and then they can rest. Some will be back in their
regiments before a month. The bad cases are all inside."

She led the way through a crowd of soldiers, prisoners and
stretcher-bearers towards the head of her train. His mother and Vanda
stood there, with Minnie and the American.  Ian noticed two of his
peasant women on the steps of a coach as they passed.

"Why, have you taken them, too?" he asked. "You’re simply wonderful."

"A nurse is ill--typhoid, I fear.  So a peasant goes to do her work.
Your mother tells me she has had some experience.  The other goes in the
English girl’s place."  Her narrow eyes twinkled.  "She’s off with
Healy.  These Americans make me laugh.  They do things nobody in Russia
would do and with impunity, too."

"Yes.  But he’s a good fellow."

"Excellent.  But you’ll see he’ll make me have the wedding in my house,
busy as I am."

"I shouldn’t wonder," returned Ian.

He said his good-byes, with many injunctions to his dear ones not to
leave the Orsov palace till he fetched them.  Vanda’s soft eyes rested
on his and their look was an embrace.

"God bless you," he said, kissing her hand.

"And you," she returned in low tones.  "Listen. There is a man here who
is in Joseph’s regiment."

"Have you spoken to him?"

"No.  But the Princess says he told her the name of his captain.  He has
gone on to Warsaw.  The regiment, he says, must be there by now.  Will
you?----"

"Yes, I’ll find out.  And tell him you are safe."

Then he thanked the Princess who returned his hand-kiss in true Russian
fashion, with a salute on his forehead.

"God with you," she said in her native tongue. "It’s more hearty in
Russian than in French."  She knew the Polish dislike for the language
of the bureaucrats and government who had oppressed them for
generations.  "Your little family is safe with me." Then in French: "I’m
your friend, Count, and sha’n’t forget you."

A moment later he had helped her into the train, which left.  He had to
hurry back to his own.  Healy and Minnie had disappeared.

The Germans were packed into cattle-trucks without roofs or benches.
Over each truck were two sentry boxes, at either end, facing one
another.  Each of the guards had a rifle, taken from the Germans.  But
there was no ammunition.  A weary-looking subaltern came up as they were
getting settled and told them to use bayonet and butt if their charges
gave any trouble.

Ian’s peasants were distributed amongst the Russian sentries.  He was
with Ostap opposite him, Germans packed like cattle in between.  Martin
formed the subject of heated talk with the subaltern.

"He has no more strength than a cat," grumbled the Russian.  "You can’t
take him on this train."

"Very well," retorted Ian, furious.  "If you send him off the train we
all go.  I’ll tramp to Warsaw, but I won’t leave him."

"He’s neither so old nor weak as he looks," put in Ostap.  "I’ll answer
for him to do his work here."

"You won’t answer for prisoners getting loose," retorted the subaltern.
However, Martin was finally put with the engine-driver.  He sat on the
floor by the wood-chest and slept for ten hours, without feeling or
hearing anything, though people came and went and he found somebody’s
dog fast asleep on his chest when he awoke.

It seemed as though they would never start. Several times the word was
given, only to be rescinded. Many human odds and ends of a military camp
arrived, apparently from nowhere, and demanded to be allowed
standing-room amongst the prisoners.  The weary subaltern protested and
swore but all applicants seemed to find places.  Before they left two
empty trains came up from Warsaw to take wounded.  Ian noticed they were
roped like the Orsov train.  In a remarkably short time they were
packed, inside and out, with sick and wounded whom Nicolai Petrovitch
Ketov was striving to get off before the Germans came. He was an amiable
lawyer in private life, with a passion for music and a speculative mind.
Ian had the satisfaction of hearing later on that he left neither man,
woman nor child behind at the camp, that he saw everything was burnt
that the troops could not carry away and that he even made the grain
uneatable by pouring petrol over it.

The delay fretted Ian, for he was in a good deal of pain from his broken
ribs and feverish as well, suffering agonies of thirst.  He had a hasty
visit from Minnie and Healy, who came up as near as they could to shout
him good-bye.

"We’re off," said she.  "I wish you were looking more comfortable."

"Oh, I’m all right.  I forgot to get some water, that’s all."

Healy went off and brought a bottle full.  And he insisted on Ian’s
taking a packet of cigarettes.

"I’ll reach Warsaw before you," he urged.  "So do take them all.  I’ll
keep the car there as long as I dare.  Look me up at the American
Consulate.  You know where it is?"

"No.  But I can find out."

"Good.  Mind, your seat will be kept till we start."

"When is that?"

"When the Grand Duke leaves.  They say here he leaves to-night.  But I
don’t believe it.  And I’m not going to forget Poland.  When I’ve got
more stores I’m coming back again."

He watched them go off in a cloud of dust.  They had luck with love, he
reflected.  They would get on very well together.  He knew Healy was
well off, and Minnie had a little fortune of her own.  And they would
spend it wisely, helping those poorer than themselves.  He had no hope
of marrying Vanda.  Joseph was well and safe.  He ought to have been
glad of it, he knew.  But he hated his cousin bitterly, all the more
bitterly as ruin closed around him and years of exile filled his tired
vision.  Very likely he would get killed before his rival.

Ostap was very cheerful.  After telling the prisoners what they were to
expect if they tried any nonsense he shared his last cigarette with one
of them. Ian seemed to hear his voice all the time.  It broke into his
sorrowful meditations and sometimes got mixed up with them, for the
fever made him rather muddle-headed.

"We haven’t ammunition," Ostap said.  "But we use the knife instead.
There were hundreds of you in that camp wounded with our bayonets.  All
ours are wounded with shells and shrapnel because you are afraid to come
too close."

"We have enough ammunition to beat the world," put in a thick German
voice; it belonged to one who had been a clerk in Moscow.

"Perhaps," agreed Ostap.  "But we have more men and don’t care if we die
or not.  That will beat the people who beat the world, in the end."

Thus the talk went on.  Ian dozed on his perch, wondering at last who
was beating the world and where the ammunition came from.  And just
before sunset they arrived at Sohaczev.




                                  XIX


Here, a rough surprise awaited them.  They were bundled off the train
without ceremony by a transport officer, whose temper was so bad that
the memory of Nicolai Petrovitch Ketov was pleasant in comparison.

"Off with you!" he shouted.  "We’re not going to a party.  This is war."

"But we were put in charge of this train by the transport officer at the
last camp," protested Ostap.

"The devil take the train.  I’ve got wounded to send off."

"Then what are we to do?" asked Ian.

"Hang yourselves," was the polite reply and the officer turned on his
heel.

The fugitives, standing in an indignant little group on the platform,
hustled by the many passers-by, turned to Ostap.  He was a soldier and
ought to help them out of their new predicament.

"What next?" asked Ian, voicing the thought of his followers.

"God knows."  He looked round at the multitude of races who jostled and
cursed and shouted and implored.  "If only I could see a Cossack I might
get some information.  But all the tribes of the Empire seem to be here
except ours."

"Look!  They’re marching off our German prisoners," cried Dulski, the
Ruvno village blacksmith, a huge, good-natured man, whose three sons
were fighting, and whose wife had gone on Vera Petrovna’s train.  "They
must be going to Warsaw.  If we follow them we can’t go astray."

"On foot!" exclaimed Ostap.  "Not if I know it. And you, Count!"

"I’d rather tramp than be left here, but I think we ought to try and get
a lift first.  I know this town and may find a Jew who will sell us
something to go in."  He turned to the peasants: "Don’t any of you move
from the station till I tell you.  Here’s money to buy food."  He handed
Dulski a twenty-rouble note and was off in search of a horse and cart.

First, however, they tried to get some information from the
station-master about possible trains to Warsaw.  But they might as well
have talked to the moon, for all the answer they could get.

"Let us go outside," said Ian after wasting precious time in their vain
quest for information.  "If there are any Jews with a horse and cart to
sell we shall find them there."

The precincts of the station were as crowded as the camp had been.  But
they found, on talking to the loiterers, that most of the citizens had
decided to stay where they were.  Ian noticed a prosperous horse-dealer
of the race of Israel, in a new alpaca _halat_ and a pair of very shiny
top-boots.

"There’s our man," he said in relief.  "If there’s a bit of horseflesh
left in the place Hermann has got it to sell."

Hermann met their request with florid expressions of sympathy and
devotion.  With tears in his eyes he swore he could not provide a lift.

"There’s not a beast on four legs left within twenty versts or more," he
said regretfully.  "What with the army and the refugees we’re as bare as
that."  And thrusting out the palm of one fat hand he pointed to it with
the other.

Ian turned to his companion.

"There’s nothing for us but to tramp it," he said sadly.

The horse-dealer shot out his arms in unaffected horror.  In eastern
Europe only the poor go on foot. Bad roads and good horses have
something to do with people’s dislike for walking.

"Tramp to Warsaw!" he cried.  "The Lord of Ruvno tramp those horrible
roads!  Such a thing was never heard of.  Peasants and the poorest Jews
do that ... but no gentleman!"

"The times have changed," remarked Ostap.  "But if you are so shocked at
the thought of it do you help us to ride."

"Wait I will ask some of ours what is to be done."

He disappeared into a dirty-looking general shop which stood close at
hand.  In a very short time he emerged, beaming all over his broad,
greasy face.

"My Lord Count," he cried, bursting with importance, "I have arranged
everything.  There will be a train."

"The last is just leaving," said Ostap.  "We were turned off it to make
room for the wounded."

"One is to arrive from Warsaw," persisted the Jew. "It will take the
rest of the wounded and such of the citizens as want to go."

"Who said so?"

"Our Rabbi."

"What does he know about it?"

"He had it from the transport officer."

Ostap, listening, looked at the Jew with mingled scorn, wonder and
admiration.

"You Jews are strange people," was his verdict. "Here have we been
trying to get information from the authorities for half an hour, one a
great gentleman in these parts, the other a Cossack officer anxious to
rejoin his troop, and nobody will give us a good word. Yet this Jew
horse-dealer here knows everything."

"He may be wrong," said Ian.  "They often are."

"But I am right," said Hermann.  "You’ll see for yourself I am right if
you wait in the station. Meanwhile, I must go, for a messenger calls me
home."  And off he went.

Ostap looked down the forlorn road which led from the station to the
town and pointed to a Red Cross flag flying from a distant building.

"There are wounded left.  Our people will try to get them away.  We may
not have to tramp after all. I’ll go to that transport officer again."

"Don’t.  He’ll only swear at you.  Let us get on the train, if it comes,
without asking anybody’s leave."

Ostap gave him a quick look of alarm; he had spoken in a listless tone
the Cossack heard from him for the first time since they met.

"You’re ill?"

"Nothing.  A pain in my side and the devil’s own thirst."

"It’s the broken ribs.  Go to one of the hospital tents and get a
bandage put around you.  It helps a lot."

"They’ve something else to do than see to a trifle like that.  I’ll go
and get a drink."  And he rose from a trunk, abandoned by some hasty
traveler, which stood near the station steps.

"Good.  Do you go get your drink at the station pump and await me.
There must be food in this town and I mean to have it."

Ian produced a banknote, but the other waved it aside.

"No.  Let this be my meal.  Besides, I don’t count to spend money."  And
he hurried down the forlorn road.

Ian went to the pump, slaked his thirst with its cool water, soused his
head and began to feel better.  The long summer twilight still lingered
and, as he sat down on the bank, he saw a vaguely familiar figure come
towards him.  It was a Cossack, grizzled, thin as a rake, hard as nails.
As the newcomer began to work the pump he recognized the bluff colonel
who had refused to have him as a volunteer at the beginning of the war.

He waited till the man had drunk and washed, baring himself to the
waist, showing strong muscles that stood out from his fair skin and a
large scar on his right arm.  Then he said:

"Are you still refusing volunteers?"

The Cossack turned sharply.

"Who the devil are you?" was his greeting.

"Do you remember a Polish squire who asked for a commission at the
beginning of the war?"

"No," he grunted, drying himself as best he might with a bandana
handkerchief he pulled out of his wide trouser-leg.  But it was a
hopeless business so he gave it up, walking about and waving his arms.

"You said I was too fat."

"You don’t look it."

"And too old."

"Older, better men than you are strewing the fields to-night."

"Do you want volunteers now?"

At this the Cossack turned upon him, rage, mortification and sorrow
choking his voice, so that it came harsh and thick.

"Want!" he cried.  "I want guns, gun-fodder, batteries, honesty.  I want
to sweep out all those German-spawned traitors at Petrograd.  I want to
clean out the ministries, put honest soldiers there instead of the breed
of thieves and liars.  Want, indeed!  Russia wants everything.
Everything!  Where are my men? Where to God are the three thousand
Cossacks I led from the Don?  There!  There!"  He thrust his bare,
muscular arms towards the west.  "Carrion," he cried, with a
half-stifled sob.  "Not killed in fair fight. Never a one of them.  But
murdered; yes, murdered by a horde of thieves in Petrograd, who sent me
promises for guns, empty words for muskets, champagne for shrapnel!  Oh,
think of it!  The flower of the Don Troop, crying for the wherewithal to
fight, beating off the Germans with sticks we tore from the trees, with
never a musket, never a gas-mask, nothing but corruption and treachery,
bought with German gold. Oh, my heart bursts with the burden of it!  All
my good Cossacks flung into the cannon’s mouth, belching forth fire,
whilst we had nothing, nothing!"

He broke off, tore up and down, muttering like a wounded lion.

"And they died like dogs!  For this!" His arms swept the desolate
landscape.  "For rapine and retreat! For burning corn and ruined
farmsteads!  To leave the Lakes of Masuria; to leave the Vistula, the
Dneiper, the Niemen and God knows what besides!"

He stopped, overcome with his emotion, strode back to the pump, let a
stream of water flow over his grizzled head, gave a gigantic sigh and
relapsed into silence.  And thus they stayed together for some time. Ian
did not even try to comfort him; what solace could he offer when he knew
that those bitter words were all too true?  The Cossack spoke first.

"A cigarette," he demanded.

Ian handed him the packet which Healy had brought up to the train.  He
took a couple, threw back the rest, and asked for matches.  It was now
almost dark and in the light of the little flame he scanned Ian’s face.

"I remember you," he said when his cigarette was half smoked through.
"You talked of shooting quail on the wing and wanted to shoot me."

"Not quite.  But I was sore because you wouldn’t have me."

"It was all so different then.  Eh, God!  What a fool I was to believe
in that lying, thieving horde at Petrograd!  Petrograd forsooth!  They
might as well have kept it Petersburg, for all the Germans that are in
it still.  Phew!  I spit on these politicians!"  And he did so.

"Russia is wide," said Ian.

"Wide and bungling!  With a little order, a little honesty we should
have been in Berlin long ago.  God! How they ran from the Lakes of
Masuria!  How they scuttled like geese before our Cossack spears!  And
then our supplies gave out, and none were forthcoming, Oh, the Empire is
a prey to a horde of thieves.  Many defeats await us yet.  By the way,
you spoke of your country house and your lady mother and your forests,
when in Warsaw.  What of them?"

Briefly Ian told him.

"Ay.  The same story everywhere.  And I thought I’d be coming to you
with German booty," he remarked sadly.  "It made my heart bleed to see
the fugitives.  But you may be glad your womenfolk got safely away.  And
what will you do now?"

"Fight.  Won’t you take me in your regiment?"

"Regiment!" the other echoed bitterly, beating his chest "I am the
regiment."

"Not all gone?"

"Killed, wounded, gassed, a few prisoners, and you have the lot."

"But you’ll reconstruct?"

"Ay.  That I will.  If there’s a Cossack left I’m game."

"Then let me be one of your new officers," pleaded Ian.

He was beginning to like this gruff, grizzled soldier. He did not want
to volunteer in France, for that would mean going a long way from Vanda,
and separating his mother from her.  In his shy way he tried to convey
his eagerness to join the Russian army, and the Colonel’s manner
softened.

"Eh, God.  I think you’d make a good soldier.  I can’t say ay or nay.
The matter lies with my superiors."

"But you can recommend me," he urged.

"I can and will.  I haven’t a card.  Have you a scrap of paper?"

Ian searched and produced a card and pencil, also his electric torch.
The Cossack wrote some lines and handed the card back.

"Now, headquarters will be in Rostov.  It is a long journey.  But do you
go there and say I sent you. It’s written on the card.  We shall meet
there within a fortnight, but I must go to that German cesspool first."

"So must I."

"Ah!  Where will you lodge?"

"I don’t know yet.  But they’ll tell you at the Orsov Palace."

"So you know Vera Petrovna?  She is a powerful friend to have.  You can
get a softer bed to lie on than campaigning with me if you ask her."

"I don’t want to sit in some office.  I want to fight. I hope to meet a
man named von Senborn face to face and give him back a little of what
he’s done to me and my property."

"You’re the right stuff.  But how war’s changed you!  You were as plump
as one of your own quails a year aback.  And sleek as a maid.  If we
don’t meet in Petrograd do you seek me out in Rostov.  I have to get a
seat on this cattle-train.  Many of my children are there."

He hurried into his clothes, rammed the cap well on to his head and went
off.  They parted the best of friends.  Scarcely had his tall, lithe
figure disappeared into the summer night when Ostap hurried on to the
platform.  He had looted a deserted house and they ate heartily of ham,
bread, butter and cold veal.  He brought a bottle of light Polish beer,
too; but Ian would not touch it, saying his head ached. Ostap was much
interested in hearing about his talk with the Cossack colonel and asked
to see the card. He read it eagerly and looked up, saying with respect
in his voice:

"But it is my Colonel, Irmal Platov, of the family that produced the
famous Cossack general.  They say he will be head of the Pan-Cossack
League one day. Where did he go?  It will cheer him to know that one
officer at least is alive and sound."

Ian pointed to the train, which was now getting up steam, and he was off
like a shot.  Ian put back his card, reflected that it was a lucky
chance to have met this man, whom the Cossacks evidently respected
highly.  He went back to the station building.  It was high time to find
out definitely whether or no there would be another train before the
Russians left the place.  Martin, he ascertained, was still fast asleep
on the floor of the engine which had brought them from the camp and
nobody disturbed him.

In the ticket-office he met the horse-dealer who was running hither and
thither in a great state of excitement, calling Ian’s name at the top of
his voice.

"What are you yelling about?" he asked.  "Has the train come?"

"Oh, thank God, you’re here!  I feared you had started."

"What is it?"

"One of your friends wants you.  He is sick to death.  Not a moment have
we to lose."

"Who?"

"I know not.  But hurry!"

They made their way out of the disorderly, miserable town, which knew
all the vicissitudes of warfare, and into squalid suburbs, where only
Jews, and the poorest at that, could live.  With many puzzling thoughts
Ian asked his guide whither they were going and who of his friends lived
in this unsavory quarter.

"I know nothing," answered he.  "It is a friend. He wanted to send one
of our people to Ruvno.  But the messenger knew you had left Ruvno.  But
at the hospital none had the heart to tell him the truth.  Just now I
happened to see this messenger and tell him my Lord Count was here.  So
I sought you for a long while."

"Haven’t you any idea who is this friend?"

"A gentleman.  He sent out a hundred roubles to the messenger, I know."

He did not add that he was the messenger and the hundred roubles now lay
in his pocket-book.  After a quarter of an hour’s brisk walking he led
the way to a field.  Ian could see the dim outline of a tent.

"A military hospital?" he asked.

"Yes."  Hermann stopped.  "Here I leave you.  I fear the cholera."  And
he was gone.

Cholera.  Ian hesitated.  Which of his friends was dying of that
loathsome pest?  Roman?  The thought tore his heart.  Joseph?  Oh, he
hoped not.  He hastily prayed it might not be a man at all dear to him.
Yet he could think of nobody, friend or foe, whom he wished to watch
dying of cholera.

Troubled thus, he made his way up to the tent.  No sentry guarded the
entry.  That was unnecessary; all shunned the place.  It was very quiet
after the bustle and babel of the station.  He heard no voices.  The
only sign of living man was a faint streak of light that came between
the canvas and the ground.

He held up the flap and went in.

It was a large tent and there were many beds in it Some stood vacant,
others held shrouded, still masses of contorted humanity.  Others again,
most ghastly of all, were occupied by men of all ages and many races.
Two bearers were carrying out a burden through another entrance, at the
far end.  He looked around in an agony of disgust and suspense.  A nurse
and doctor were bending over one couch.  He learned afterwards that the
medical staff had drawn lots to decide which of them should go with the
retreating army and which remain behind with those too ill to be moved
and enter captivity with them.  It seemed to him that these two lingered
a long time.  Then he heard the doctor say:

"He’ll live.  The worst is over."

Instantly Ian lost his shyness and hastened to them,

"Who is it?" he asked in French, true to the habit of a lifetime which
bade him address a Russian in the international language.

The nurse turned and made room for him at the bedside.

"Do you know him?"

A glance at the patient was enough.

"No," he answered.

The doctor hurried away.  The woman, attending to the sick man, asked
Ian whom he sought.

"I don’t know.  A Jew brought me.  Said a man here wanted somebody from
Ruvno.  I am from Ruvno."

"Ah!  I remember now.  One moment."  Swiftly she completed her task and
turned towards the north end of the tent.  He followed her to a far
corner, till she stopped before a bed which held one of the shrouded
forms.

"Too late!" he cried.

She gave him a look of sympathy.

"He died a few minutes ago."

Unable to utter a word, he signed to her.  Gently, she turned back the
sheet.  He stepped forward; all hatred, all bitterness, slipped from him
like a cloak. Joseph was no more.  He could marry Vanda.

This was his uppermost thought; his next, as he gazed at that familiar,
yet transformed face, a deep relief that Roman had not suffered that
death.  Then came remorse for the speed of his thoughts towards marrying
her this man had loved, and sharp pain that Destiny had taken him in
such a way.  He wanted Joseph to die fighting, as young men should in
war-time, in the open, falling to God’s good earth, whence they come,
mingling their life’s blood with the fountain of all life.  That livid,
emaciated face, with evil stains on the once healthy cheeks was a
reproach to modernity, a seal upon the Cossack’s cry of "murdered!"

For a long time he gazed and many an emotion rose and swelled in his
heart; scenes of boyhood sprang up again; memories of the chase, of the
life they once trod together, as dead for him now as was Joseph himself.
And whilst he breathed a prayer for the dead which Father Constantine
had taught them all, he thanked God that he had resisted the call of
passion a few nights ago, when he sat and watched the summer moon, so
sure it lighted Joseph’s body on the battlefield.  Now, at least, he
could look on his remains without remorse for evil action.

The nurse had gone; but two orderlies came up.

"We must bury him," one of them said in the Russian of Moscow.

As Ian looked up they noticed his eyes were dimmed with tears unshed.

"Is there a Catholic priest about?"

The men looked at one another.

"In the town perhaps--not here."

"I’ll bring one."

"We cannot wait till you go so far.  We have strict orders to bury each
poor victim at once.  What will you?  The infection is deadly and we are
working day and night."

"I’ll be back before you close the coffin."

"Coffin!  There are none left."

Ian passed the one nearest him a fifty-rouble note.

"I know the town.  Wait for me."  And he hurried out.

He was desperately anxious to give Joseph Christian burial.  He felt he
must; it might atone for his fault of feeling that great load off his
heart now he knew Vanda would be his.  Then he remembered the Cossack
colonel’s card.  He had promised to fight, had insisted on being drafted
into a hard-fighting regiment.  But that was an hour ago.  That was when
thoughts of Vanda were pain, and he did not so much mind if he got
killed.  Now, he hated the idea of it. If he got killed soon he would be
no more married to her than Joseph had been.  He rebelled.  Why should
he go and get killed?  Russia had plenty of men.  He had lost enough in
the war already without losing the last chance of happiness.  Russia had
turned him away once and he was not in duty bound to apply again.
Besides, he could do war-work without putting on a Cossack coat; could
volunteer for a mission abroad; for instance say to the Pope, who only
knew what the Germans and their friends told him...

As he stumbled over the road, choked with the debris of a retreating
army, he felt particularly fitted to tell the Pope what Poland was
enduring.  He had an uncle in Rome, a younger brother of his father,
created a cardinal during the pontificate of Pius the Tenth.  So he
could gain the Pope’s ear far more easily than many other people.  Rome,
he argued, had no more faithful children than the Poles, who have
suffered much persecution for their faith.  And it was high time the
Holy Father knew the truth about the Germans.  He, Ian, would tell him.
Yes; he could serve his country’s cause, and the Allies’ just as well in
Rome as in Colonel Platov’s regiment.  Rome would be a good place for
his mother to live in.  If he joined the army she would have to stop in
Russia, to be near him.  In Rome, they could all live quietly and
comfortable together--he, Vanda, his mother. After all, it was fair to
them to look after them; and his mother had only him now.  And the
Allies had millions of men.  Russia wanted guns, which he could not
make, and organization, which he could not give her.

He reached the house of a priest he knew and very few words sufficed to
tell him what had happened; then they hastened back together.

They buried Joseph in a field set apart as a cemetery in connection with
the cholera tent.  Ian gave the priest money and instructions for a
Cross to be put over the grave.  Then he sought the nurse.  On hearing
who he was she took him to a clerk, who gave him the things they had
found in Joseph’s pockets: a photograph of Vanda, a packet of her
letters, and some money.  When it was all over and he had parted from
the priest he made his way back to the station. It was nearly ten
o’clock.  He found that the horse-dealer was right after all.  A train,
the last one, stood ready to start for Warsaw.  The inside was packed
with wounded men, the roof with refugees, some of whom were wounded,
too.  He heard Ostap’s voice calling for him and shouted back that he
was coming.

"Be quick!" he shouted.  "We’re on the roof. Third coach from the
engine.  It’s all we can do to keep sitting room for you.  Climb up, for
these Jews are great pushers."

"Where are my peasants?"

"Here, thank God!" said a voice.

"All?"

"All.  Safe and sound.  Get up, my Lord Count, for the train is starting
already."

Ian clambered up and squeezed himself in between the blacksmith and
Ostap, who indignantly asked where he had been hiding.

"We searched high and low.  If not for this blacksmith, who sat as broad
as he could, we’d never have been able to keep your place."  He did not
tell them where he had been.  Heart and head were filled with new
emotions, and a new struggle.  The idea of going to Rome fascinated him.
He found so much in its favor, so little to say against it.  Only that
Cossack colonel would ever know he had drawn back.  None shared his
plans.  And the soldier would forget him.

He was no longer the man who urged Platov to take him at the beginning
of the war; then, he could not realize the love that had grown with each
month of strife and anxiety, till it now overwhelmed every other
feeling.  Destiny led him to the tent wherein he found a promise of
happiness.  And a loud voice within cried not to give it up.

It was an endless journey and very uncomfortable. They were perpetually
stopping to make way for other trains, filled with troops, whole and
wounded.  From time to time some of the little party got down to stretch
their legs, one keeping the place for another with that ready
comradeship which war’s vicissitudes breed between men of vastly
different race and caste. Jew elbowed Gentile; patrician drank with
outcast in their flight before the stupendous Hun.  It seemed to Ian
that all the trains in Russia passed them; troops in open trucks, who
made an infernal noise with their _balalaikas_ and their voices.  He
wondered sadly that they could abandon Poland to her fate with such
light hearts ... and then remembered that they were Russians, brave as
lions, but mentally children yet; so the direction in which they
traveled was no affair of theirs.

He thought of his ruined home and the many other ruined homes they
passed and wondered where their late owners were, that cool, starry
night.  Some, he knew, lay quiet and still by the wayside, for he had
seen such in his flight.  Some, like Father Constantine, had found rest
in a soldier’s graveyard before friends left them, to seek a new life in
exile.  And, as his memory dwelt on the last year, as he passed farm
after farm alight with the fires of destruction, the weakness born of
the sudden knowledge that Vanda was free left him.  He knew he could not
go to Rome; knew he would not have a quiet hour if he chose the easier
road; that every devastated home, every orphan in his native land would
ring a terrible chorus of reproach into his soul.  Roman’s words of that
evening at the "_Oaza_," came back:

"There is no love without sacrifice."

How little he had known of love then; how much now!  He wondered at the
craven Ian who had planned a safe journey to Rome whilst his native land
was bleeding.  There was nothing for him but to fight. Oh, he would
marry Vanda, and perhaps live through the war.  Then they would return
to a free Poland and a free Ruvno, to build and plant afresh for their
children, freed from bondage and all persecution.  In the trenches, on
the battlefield, he would have that lodestar.  Now, he knew not how he
ever could have imagined the war without himself in it.

These thoughts ran through his mind, accompanied by visions of burning
houses, huddled, hungry refugees, suffering, struggling humanity.
Through all was the joy of knowing Vanda would be his--and over all came
Ostap’s voice as he held forth to others on the roof.

"Yes; we spit upon life.  So we shall win, in the end.  And our children
will be freed."

And the Cossack’s words gave him comfort.




                                THE END






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