The Emperor, though as brave as a man could be, was for a moment in complete bewilderment. Caught weaponless and menaced by what seemed certain death, his nerves all unhinged by the explosion, his companions struck down before his face, he had rushed away in an effort to escape from what looked like a h.e.l.lish snare, and was seeking to fly by the other door, when the fifth of the murderous crew attacked him with drawn sword. Seeing the man in uniform, the Czar believed that the whole of the guard had mutinied and meant to murder him.
"Is there no one to help me?" he cried, looking round.
"Yes, to h.e.l.l," growled the man, with a grim quip, as he rushed upon him.
I had dropped my sword in entering the saloon, and my revolver had been dashed out of my hands, so that I could do nothing but fling myself before the Emperor, and give my body to save his.
I dashed in between them, uttering a loud and violent shout, in the hope of attracting the man"s attention to me. But he was too grim a devil to be turned from his work; and the only effect of my interference was to impel him to greater efforts.
But he was too late.
Taking a liberty with his Imperial Majesty, which at another time might have cost me my freedom and perhaps my life, I pushed the Emperor violently on one side, and threw myself upon his murderer.
The thrust that was meant for the Emperor, pa.s.sed through my neck, and I rejoiced as I felt the man"s steel run into my flesh. I had saved the Emperor"s life, even if I had lost my own. Then I called to Grostef as I felt the villain draw out the steel and saw the light of unsated murder l.u.s.t redden his eyes.
With a desperate effort I seized his blade, and though it cut and gashed my hands through and through as the man tugged and twisted it to wrest it from me, I held on till the villain put his foot against my chest and dragged the weapon away, despite my most desperate effort.
Then he drew it back to plunge it into the Czar"s heart. But at that moment I saw Grostef"s great blade swing in the air with tremendous force, and sever the miscreant"s head from his body.
But the Czar was safe: and as I rolled over near his feet, I rallied all my strength for a last effort and cried:----
"G.o.d save your Majesty."
After that I had a dim feeling that good old Grostef and the Emperor were both bending over me trying to staunch the blood that came flowing from my throat and mouth, choking me, from the wound which the villain had meant for the Emperor. But I had saved him and he had seen I had saved him.
"Who is it?" I heard the Czar ask.
"Lieutenant Petrovitch, your Majesty, of the Moscow Infantry Regiment,"
answered the old soldier.
"Your Majesty, I implore you, take care. You are in an ambush of Nihilist villains," cried some one stepping forward hastily. "I know that man"--pointing to me--"he is the most dare-devil rebel of them all, and has planned this business for your a.s.sa.s.sination. For G.o.d"s sake have a care. This is the most devilish snare that was ever vainly laid."
The Emperor moved away from me quickly and looked in the deepest perplexity from one to another of the group who had now crowded into the carriage.
"That is a strange thing to hear," said His Majesty. "The man has just saved my life at the infinite hazard of his own. You see him. But for him and for this good fellow"--waving a hand toward old Grostef--"the thrust you see there would have been in my heart."
"Yet I pledge myself to prove what I say. You know I do not speak at random. They are probably together in this."
Old Grostef growled out a stiff oath that was lost in his beard and then without releasing my head which was supported on his knee, he brought his hand to the salute and said gruffly:----
"Nihilist or no Nihilist, your Majesty, the lieutenant will soon be a dead man, choked by his own blood if his wounds are not dressed."
"There will be one traitor the less, then," said the man who had accused me, accompanying the words with a brutal sneer.
"Oh the contrary, Grand Duke," said the Emperor angrily, "his life is my special care. If he be a traitor it seems to me I should pray to G.o.d to grant me thousands of such traitors in my army."
"G.o.d save your Majesty, and Amen to that," cried old Grostef, unable to keep his tongue between his teeth at that, and positively trembling in his excitement.
"Silence," said the Emperor. "And now let all haste be made to get on to the city."
"As your Majesty pleases," said the man whom I guessed was the Grand Duke against whom Prince Bilba.s.soff had warned me. "I will make good my words, and we will save the life to take it."
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE TRUTH OUT AT LAST.
While an examination of the train was made to see how much of it could proceed, my wounds were roughly dressed, and as soon as it was ascertained that only one of the saloons could go on, the Emperor said that I should travel in it with himself and his immediate party, and instructions were wired to Moscow that a doctor should be sent out to the small station just outside the city, where it had been arranged already that the Emperor should change into the Imperial train that had pa.s.sed empty. The object of this was that the entry into the city should be made from the royal train, and thus no comment be raised.
As I was being moved into the other carriage an incident happened which I knew might have a very sinister effect upon my fortunes. My men cheered l.u.s.tily as soon as they caught sight of me; but when the cheers had died away a wild and vehement curse greeted me from the only one of the five Nihilists who had life enough left in him to grind his teeth and hiss out an imprecation.
"He was our leader, d.a.m.n him," cried the man, "and betrayed us. To h.e.l.l with such a traitor!" and he poured out his curses with tremendous volubility, till a soldier standing by, clapped his hand on his mouth and silenced him.
"Your Majesty hears that?" said the Grand Duke, and I saw the Emperor was greatly impressed and looked at me doubtingly.
I could not speak then, but I had sense enough left to understand my peril; and during the short journey I was thinking busily.
All the time the Emperor was in close consultation with the Grand Duke, and it was easy to see that poison was being poured into the Imperial ear to prejudice me. But I could do nothing until my wounds had been properly dressed and the power to speak freely restored. At present I could not utter a word without bringing the blood into my mouth: and I lay chafing and fretting and fevering myself, as I watched what I read to be the conviction of my treachery stealing over the face of the Czar.
I knew his character well enough to appreciate my danger fully. The one subject on which his mind was warped and morbid in its sensitiveness was the fear of a.s.sa.s.sination: and under its influence he would believe almost anything that was told to him. The personal influence of the Grand Duke was, moreover, enormous.
As we were nearing the little station where the change of trains was to be made, the Emperor crossed the saloon and spoke to me.
"Lieutenant Petrovitch, can you hear me?"
I looked at him and tried to raise my bandaged, mangled hand to the salute, but could not.
"Don"t move," he said, hastily, seeing the attempt. "The charges made against you are of the most terrible kind and there certainly seems to be much more ground than I at first thought. But my own eyes saw what you did, and you will have the fullest opportunity of explaining everything. For the time you are under arrest, necessarily; but it will be my personal charge to see that everything is done for you that surgical skill can do. A few hours and proper treatment will, I hope, render you able to give the necessary explanation, and in the mean time you will see no one but the doctors. I myself shall then see and question you."
He was turning to leave me then, when I made a sign that I wished to answer, and he bent forward to listen.
"Your Majesty will have a care," cried the Grand Duke, who had heard and watched everything closely.
"Do you think the man breathes poison that I should be afraid of him, maimed and bleeding and helpless as he is?" was the reply.
I made a great effort to speak, but it nearly killed me, and with all my struggle I could get only a word at a time, and that with tremendous difficulty.
"Your--Majesty--keep--my--men--watching--line--where--I--stood--by-- alder--trees."
"It shall be done," he said; and I saw him exchange looks with the Grand Duke and then shrug his shoulders and lift his eyebrows as he left the saloon.
Directly he had left, the doctors came round me, and I resigned myself cheerfully and completely into their hands. But the Czar had given me the tonic that had done more than all the doctor"s efforts to pull me round quickly. I was to have a private audience; and it would not be my fault, if I did not win my way to freedom and Olga.
Some three or four hours after the Czar had left me I was moved on to Moscow in the saloon where I lay; and my reception there was most mingled. Some garbled accounts of the attempt on the Emperor"s life had got about, and when I was carried from the saloon and placed in a State carriage and then driven away in the midst of a large military escort, the people were at a loss to know who I was, and whether I was a Nihilist to be hooted or a hero to be cheered. They were in a noisy mood that day, and did both therefore, until the party neared the Palace and it was clear I was being taken there. This decided that I must be a hero and the hooting ceased and the cheering shouts rang out with a deafening roar.
I was glad to be done with that part of the business. I knew well that the same throats that had been stretched in shouts of acclamation were quite as ready to be strained in yelling for my death. The populace wanted an excuse for a noise; and it was all one to them, so far as personal gratification went, whether they yelled in a man"s honour, or roared for his death.
The day"s round of festivities was a particularly full one for the Emperor, and it was many hours before he could possibly be at liberty; but every hour added to my strength. The doctors soon ascertained that the wound in the neck was not a very dangerous one, though it had been a ghastly one enough to look upon. The thrust had been within an ace of killing me; but the man"s weapon had missed the arteries and the vertebrae, though it had sliced an ugly wound in the windpipe, having let the blood into it, and thus nearly choked me. My hands were badly cut, very badly mangled indeed; and the doctors thought more seriously of them than of the wound in the neck, so far as after-consequences were concerned. But they soon patched me up sufficiently to enable me to speak if necessary.