"There"s a Browning there--be careful," said Cherry, ducking his head and pulling off his hat in one motion. "Here"s the other under my arm,"
he put his hand beneath his coat and pulled out a Colt.
"Here are the sh.e.l.ls for the automatic. I"ll take the long fellow. Now listen, you boys," said Cherry. "Through that gateway at the end of the yard, you come to another yard and another gate, which has a guard on it. Whether we get away or whether we don"t, depends on whether our luck is in or out."
"Look!" he whispered, "here comes Percy!"
The door swung open and the officer beckoned Cherry forward with a lift of his chin. Cherry walked toward him and the officer half turned in the att.i.tude of one who was showing another out. Cherry"s hand shot out, caught the man by the loose of his tunic and swung him into the room.
"Laugh and the world laughs with you," said Cherry, who had an a.s.sortment of literary quotations culled from heaven knows where. "Shout and you sleep alone!"
The muzzle of a long-barrelled "45 was stuck in the man"s stomach. He did not see it, but he guessed it, and his hands went up.
"Tie him up--he wears braces," said Cherry. "I"ll take that belt of deadly weapons." He pulled one revolver from the man"s holster and examined it with an expert"s eye. "Not been cleaned for a month," he growled; "you don"t deserve to be trusted with a gun."
He strapped the belt about his waist and sighed happily.
They gagged the man with a handkerchief, and threw him ungently upon the bench before they pa.s.sed through the open door to comparative freedom. Cherry locked and bolted the door behind them, and pulled down the outer shutter, with which, on occasions, the gaoler made life in the cells a little more unendurable by excluding the light. The cells were below the level of the courtyard, and they moved along the trench from which they opened.
Pacing his beat by the gateway was a solitary sentry.
"Stay here," whispered Cherry; "he has seen me going backward and forward, and maybe he thinks I"m one of the official cla.s.ses."
He mounted the step leading up from the trench, and walked boldly toward the gateway. Nearing the man, he turned to wave a greeting to an imaginary companion. In reality he was looking to see whether there were any observers of the act which was to follow.
Watching him, they did not see exactly what had happened. Suddenly the soldier doubled up like a jack-knife and fell.
Cherry bent over him, lifted the rifle and stood it against the wall, then, exhibiting remarkable strength for so small a man, he picked up the man in his arms and dropped him into the trench which terminated at the gateway. They heard the thud of his body, and, breaking cover, they raced across the yard, joining Cherry, who led the way through the deep arch.
Now they saw the outer barrier. It consisted of a formidable iron grille. To their right was a gloomy building, which Malcolm judged was the bureau of the prison, to the left a high wall. On either side of the gateway was a squat lodge, and before these were half a dozen soldiers, some leaning against the gate, some sitting in the doorway of the lodges, but all carrying rifles.
"This way," said Cherry under his breath, and turned into the office.
The door of the room on his left was open, and into this they walked. It was empty, but scarcely had they closed the door than there were footsteps outside. Cherry, with a gun in each hand, a hard and ugly grin on his fat face, covered the door, but the footsteps pa.s.sed.
There was a babble of voices outside and a rattle and creak of gates.
Malcolm crept to the one window which the office held (he guessed it was here that Cherry had written his "statement"), and peeped cautiously forth.
A big closed auto was entering the gate, and he pulled his head back.
Cherry was at his side.
"Somebody visiting--a fellow high up," whispered the latter hoa.r.s.ely; "they"ll come in here, the guy we left in the cell told me he"d want this room. Try that door!"
He pointed to a tall press and Malinkoff was there in a second. The press was evidently used for the storage of stationery. There was one shelf, half way up, laden with packages of paper, and Malinkoff lifted one end. The other slipped and the packets dropped with a crash. But the purring of the auto in the yard was noisy enough to drown the sound unless somebody was outside the door.
"Three can squeeze in--you go first, Mr. Hay."
It was more than a squeeze, it was a torture, but the door closed on them.
Malcolm had an insane desire to laugh, but he checked it at the sound of a voice--for it was the voice of Boolba.
"I cannot stay very long, comrade," he was saying as he entered the room, "but...."
The rest was a mumble.
"I will see that she is kept by herself," said a strange voice, evidently of someone in authority at the prison.
Malcolm bit his lips to check the cry that rose.
"Irene!"
"..." Boolba"s deep voice was again a rumble.
"Yes, comrade, I will bring her in ... let me lead you to a chair."
He evidently went to the door and called, and immediately there was a tramp of feet.
"What does this mean, Boolba?"
Malcolm knew the voice--he had heard it before--and his relief was such that all sense of his own danger pa.s.sed.
"Sophia Kensky," Boolba was speaking now, "you are under arrest by order of the Soviet."
"Arrest!" the word was screamed, "me----?"
"You are plotting against the Revolution, and your wickedness has been discovered," said Boolba. "_Matinshka!_ Little mama, it is ordered!"
"You lie! You lie!" she screeched. "You blind devil--I spit on you! You arrest me because you want the aristocrat Irene Yaroslav! Blind pig!"
"_Prekanzeno, dushinka!_ It is ordered, dear little soul," murmured Boolba. "I go back alone--listen! My auto is turning. I go back alone, _drushka_, and who shall be my eyes now that my little mama is gone?"
They heard the chair pushed back as he rose and the scream and flurry as she leapt at him.
"Keep her away, little comrade," roared Boolba. "Keep her away--I am blind; her father blinded me; keep her away!"
It was Cherry Bim who slipped first from the cupboard.
Under the menace of his guns the soldiers fell back.
"Auto Russki--hold up the guard, Hay," he muttered, and Malinkoff jumped through the doorway to the step of the big car in one bound.
Cherry held the room. He spoke no Russian, but his guns were multi-lingual. There was a shot outside before he fired three times into the room. Then he fell back, slamming the door, and jumped into the car as it moved through the open gateway.
Malcolm was on one footboard, Malinkoff by the side of the chauffeur on the other.
So they rocked through the ill-paved streets of Moscow, and rushed the suburban barricade without mishap.