The street lay in darkness. From a window in the top of the arch a single light was visible, pale and flickering as the ray from a candle; otherwise the grey bulk of the building seemed lost in the shadows, lifeless and silent.
Suddenly the light went out.
"Hist--st!" As if at a signal something moved on the staircase, creeping forward, and then from the shadow of the tenement, from under the archway, emerged other shadows, moving slowly like wraiths, hesitating, stopping, losing themselves in the general blackness, and then stirring again; shadows within shadows creeping.
Presently a door at the top of the steps opened and shut. Every time it opened, a shadow pa.s.sed through and another crept forward. No word was spoken, no sound; not a step creaked, not a board stirred. It was a procession of ghosts.
Behind the door was a long stone pa.s.sage, narrow and dark like a cave.
The shadows felt the walls with their hands softly, gropingly, but the hands were silent like the feet. Except for a hurried breathing in the darkness the pa.s.sage seemed empty.
Beyond were more steps leading down, and another pa.s.sage, and then a second door locked and barred. Before this door the shadows halted, huddled together. "Hist--st!" Instantly the floor under them began to quiver and drop, inch by inch, foot by foot, down a well of continued blackness. The minutes pa.s.sed. They still dropped lower and lower, so low that they were now below the level of the ca.n.a.l; down, down into the very foundations of the tenement, once a palace. All of a sudden the darkness ceased.
The room into which the elevator entered was large, low-raftered and lighted by a group of candles at the far end. In the centre was a black table, and about the table thirteen chairs also black. The one at the head was occupied by a figure garbed in a cloak and hood, with a black mask drawn down to the lips. The other chairs were empty.
By the light of the candles the shadows now took shape, the one from the other, and twelve black-cloaked and hooded figures stole forward, also masked to the lips. They pa.s.sed one by one before the seated mask, touching his hand lightly, fleetingly, as one dipping the fingers into holy water, and then around the table to their seats, each in turn, until all were placed.
Some of the figures were tall, broad-shouldered and heavy, others small and slight. From the height, the strength or delicacy of the chin, the shape and size of the hand, was it alone possible to distinguish the s.e.x; the rest was shrouded in a mystery absolute and unfathomable.
As the last and thirteenth chair was filled, the mask at the head leaned forward and pointed silently to a dark object at the far end of the room about which the candles flickered and sparkled. It was a huge Black Cross suspended as above an altar. Below it lay an open bier, roughly hewn out of the stone, and across it a name in scarlet lettering. The bier was empty.
The twelve other masks turned towards the Cross, reading the name, and they made a sign with the hands in unison, a rapid crisscross motion over the breast, the forehead, the eyes, ending in the low murmur of a word, unintelligible, like a pledge. Then the first mask to the left rose and bowed to the Head.
"Speak," he said, "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Of what is this man accused?"
There was a moment of silence, intense and charged with significance; then the mask spoke.
"In the province of Pskof there is a Commune. One night, last winter, the peasants rose without warning. They shot, they maimed, they hacked, they burned alive every Jew in the village, men, women and children; not one escaped. The police were behind them. The instigator of the police was--"
The Head raised his hand: "Do you know this for a fact, from personal information?"
"I know it for a fact, from personal information."
The first mask took his seat and the second rose, a gaunt figure, the shoulders bowed and crippled under the cloak. His voice was deep and full, with tones plaintive and penetrating.
"A month ago there were seven men arrested. They were taken to "Peter and Paul" and thrust into dungeons unspeakable. They received no trial; they were convicted of no crime; they never saw their families again. Three of these men are now in the mines. Two are still in the cells. Two are dead."
"Why were they arrested and by whose order?"
"They were workmen who had attended a meeting of the Social Democrats and had helped to circulate Liberal papers. It was done by the order of--"
The third mask sprang to his feet. His fists were clenched, and he was breathing hard like one who has been running.
"It is my turn," he cried, "Let me--speak! You know--you haven"t forgotten!--On the Tsar"s birthday, a band of students marched to the steps of the Winter Palace. They went peacefully, with trust in their hearts, no weapon in their hands. They were surrounded by Cossacks, who beat them with knouts, riding them down. They were boys, some of them hardly out of the Gymnasium, the flower of our youth, brave sons of Russia ready to fight for her and die." He hesitated and his voice broke. "At the foot of the Alexander Column, they were mown down like gra.s.s without warning, or mercy; their blood still sprinkles the stones. Many were killed, hundreds arrested, few escaped. At the head of the Cossacks rode--"
A sigh stirred the room deepening into a groan, and then came a hush.
Some buried their faces in their hands, weeping silently behind the masks. After a while the Head raised his hand and the fourth rose, slowly, reluctantly, speaking in a woman"s voice so faint and low it could scarcely make itself heard. The masks bent forward listening.
"Last week," it murmured, "the Countess Petrushka was suspected. She was torn from her home, imprisoned"--The voice grew lower and lower.
"She was beaten--tortured by the guards; she never returned,--yesterday she was--buried." The voice broke into sobs. "The man who signed the paper was--"
So the trial went on amid the stillness, more and more solemn, more and more impressive, as one accusation followed the other in swift succession; the candles dropping low in their sockets, the light growing dimmer, the room larger and lower and more ghostly, the night waning.
In every case the name was left a blank; but in that strange pause, as if for judgment, the eyes of the masks sought the bier, resting with slow fascination on the words across it, gleaming scarlet beneath the flickering candles, vivid and red like blood.
The final accusation had been made. The twelfth and last mask had sunk back in his chair and the leader rose. The silence was like a pall over the table. When his voice broke through, it was sharp and stern, as the voice of a judge admonishing a court.
"You have all heard," he said, "You are aware of what this man has done, is now doing, will continue to do. Does he merit to live?--Has he deserved to die? For the sake of our country, our people, ourselves, deliberate and determine.--His fate rests in the hands of the _Black Cross_."
He bowed his head on his breast and waited. No one moved or spoke. At the far end of the room, the candles dripped one by one on the bier, falling lower and lower. Occasionally the wax flared up, lighting the darkness; then all was dim.
Suddenly, as from some mysterious impulse, the thirteen sprang to their feet, and again their hands flashed out in that curious crisscross motion over the breast, the forehead, the eyes, and a murmur went from mouth to mouth like a hiss.
"_Cmeptb_--Death!" rising into a sound so intense, so terrifying, so m.u.f.fled and suppressed and menacing, it was as the cry of an animal wounded, dying, about to spring. Falling on their knees, they remained motionless for a moment; then, following the leader, each stepped forward in turn and took their places about the bier.
The ceremony that followed was strange and solemn; one that no outside eye has ever gazed on, no lips have ever dared to breathe. They stood in the shadow of death, their own and another"s. Their heads were bowed. Their bodies shook and trembled. With hands raised they took the oath, terrible, relentless, overpowering, gripping them from now on as in a vice; both s.e.xes alike, with voices spent and faint with emotion.
"_In the name of the Black Cross I do now pledge myself, an instrument in the service of Justice and Retribution. On whomsoever the choice of Fate shall fall, I vow the sentence of Death shall be fulfilled, by mine own hands if needs be, without weakness, or hesitation, or mercy.
And if by any untoward chance this hand should fail, I swear--I swear, before the third day shall have pa.s.sed, to die instead--to die--instead._"
The words ended in a whisper, low, intense, prescient of a woe not to be borne.
"_I swear--I pledge myself--by mine own hands if needs be._"
A sigh broke the stillness. The masks stirred, recovered themselves and bent over the bier, drawing out, one after the other, a slip of paper folded. There were thirteen slips. Twelve were blank; on one was a Black Cross graven.
They drew in silence; no start, no movement, no trembling of the muscles betrayed the one fated. Twelve drew blanks. Which of them had the Cross; which? They stared dumbly, questioningly, fearfully from one to the other. One was the a.s.sa.s.sin. Which? The answer was shrouded behind the masks.
Lower and lower the candles burned in their sockets, flickering fitfully. The room grew darker and the figures, cloaked and hooded, seemed to melt back into the shadows from whence they had emerged, less and less distinct, until finally the shadow was one, more and more vapoury, filling the darkness.
Suddenly, a scream cut the silence, like a knife rough and jagged. In a twinkling the lights went out. There was a scuffling, a struggling in the corridor, cries and shouting, the sound of wood splintering, the blows of an axe,--a rushing forward of heavy bodies and the trampling of feet. The doors burst open, and a cordon of police dashed over the wreckage, cursing, shouting--and then stopped on the threshold, staring in amazement and panting with mouths wide open.
"O!--O! Tsyacha chertei!"
The room was empty, dark, deserted save for an old woman, half-witted, who was crouching on the floor before the sacred Icon, rocking herself and mumbling. They questioned her, but she was deaf and answered at random:
"Eh, gracious sirs--my lords--eh? So old--so poor, so wretched! See, there is nothing!--A copeck, for the love of heaven--half a copeck--a quarter, only a little quarter! Ah! Rioumka vodki[1]--rioumka--vodki!"
The police brushed her aside and searched the room. In the corner was a low cot, hanging on a nail was an old cloak; on the table the remains of a black loaf and an empty cup. They searched and searched in vain; tapping the walls, tearing at the stone foundations, peering up at the rafters, tumbling over one another in their eagerness.
"Chort vozmi[2]--!" shouted the captain, "We are on the wrong track.
The scream came from the other side. Head them off! Run, men, run!
Here, this pa.s.sage, and then straight ahead! Devil take the old beggar! Shut up, you hag, or I"ll strangle you!--Head them off!"
Gradually the hurrying footsteps died away in the distance. The shouting ceased on the stairs. It was still as the grave, silent, deserted. The old woman glanced over her shoulder. She was still crouching before the Icon, rocking herself backwards and forwards; the beads of the rosary slipping through her fingers one by one; mumbling to herself.
Suddenly she stopped and listened. The rosary fell to the floor. Her eyes watched the wreckage of the doorway closely, suspiciously, like an animal before a trap. The shadows encircled her, they were here, there, everywhere; but none moved, none crept.
s.n.a.t.c.hing a slip of paper from her bosom, she bent over it, her eyes dilated, her mouth twisted with agony. In the centre of the paper, clearly graven against the white, was a Black Cross.