The Baron had halted, and was looking through one of the great windows down upon the courtyard below where the sentries were pacing. The palace was for him a gilded prison, for he dared not go out for a drive in one or other of the parks or for a blow on the water across to Hogholmen or Dagero, being compelled to remain there for months without showing himself publicly. People in Abo had told me that when he did go out into the streets of Helsingfors it was at night, and he usually disguised himself in the uniform of a private soldier of the guard, thus escaping recognition by those who, driven to desperation by injustice, sought his life.
A long silence had fallen between us, and it now occurred to me to take advantage of his hesitation. Therefore I said in a firm voice, in French--
"I think, Baron, our interview is at an end, is it not? Therefore I wish you good-day."
He turned upon me suddenly with an evil flash in his dark eyes, and a snarling imprecation in Russian upon his lips. His hand still held the order committing me to the fortress.
"But before I leave you will destroy that doc.u.ment. It may fall into other hands, you know," and I walked towards him with quick determination.
"I shall do nothing of the kind!" he snapped.
Without further word I s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper from his thin white fingers and tore it up before his face. His countenance went livid. I do not think I have ever seen a man"s face a.s.sume such an expression of fiendish vindictiveness. It was as though at that instant h.e.l.l had been let loose within his heart.
But I turned upon my heel and went out, pa.s.sing the sentries in the ante-room, along the flower-filled corridors and across the courtyard to the main entrance where the gorgeous concierge saluted me as I stepped forth into the square.
I had escaped by means of my own diplomacy and firmness. The Czar"s representative--the man who ruled that country--feared me, and for that reason did not hold me prisoner. Yet when I recalled that evil look of revenge on my departure, I could not help certain feelings of grave apprehension arising within me.
Returning to my hotel, I smoked a cigar in my room and pondered. Where was Elma? was the chief question which arose within my mind. By remaining in Helsingfors I could achieve nothing further, now that I had made the acquaintance of the oppressor, whereas if I returned to Abo I might perchance be able to obtain some clue to my love"s whereabouts. I call her my love because I both pitied and loved the poor afflicted girl who was so helpless and defenseless.
Therefore I took the midnight train back to Abo, arriving at the hotel next morning. After an hour"s rest I set out anxiously in search of Felix, the drosky-driver. I found him in his log-built house in the Ludno quarter, and when he asked me in I saw, from his face, that he had news to impart.
"Well?" I inquired. "And what of the lady? Has she been found?"
"Ah! your Excellency. It is a pity you were not here yesterday," he said with a sigh.
"Why? Tell me quickly. What has happened?"
"I have been a.s.sisting the police as spy, Excellency, as I often do, and I have seen her."
"Seen her! Where?" I cried in quick anxiety.
"Here, in Abo. She arrived yesterday morning from Tammerfors accompanied by an Englishman. She had changed her dress, and was all in black. They lunched together at the Restaurant du Nord opposite the landing stage, and an hour later left by steamer for Petersburg."
"An Englishman!" I cried. "Did you not inform the Chief of Police, Boranski?"
"Yes, your Excellency. But he said that their pa.s.sports being in order it was better to allow the lady to proceed. To delay her might mean her rearrest in Finland," he added.
"Then their pa.s.sports were vised here on embarking?" I exclaimed. "What was the name upon that of the Englishman?"
"I have it here written down, Excellency. I cannot p.r.o.nounce your difficult English names." And he produced a sc.r.a.p of dirty paper whereon was written in a Russian hand the name--
"Martin Woodroffe."
CHAPTER XIII
A DOUBLE GAME AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
I went to the railway station, and from the time-table gathered that if I left Abo by rail at noon I could be in Petersburg an hour before noon on the morrow, or about four hours before the arrival of the steamer by which the silent girl and her companion were pa.s.sengers. This I decided upon doing, but before leaving I paid a visit to my friend, Boranski, who, to my surprise and delight, handed me my wallet with the Czar"s letter intact, saying that it had been found upon a German thief who had been arrested at the harbor on the previous night. The fellow had, no doubt, stolen it from my pocket believing I carried my paper money in the flap.
"The affair of the English lady is a most extraordinary one," remarked the Chief of Police, toying with his pen as he sat at his big table.
"She seems to have met this Englishman up at Tammerfors, or at some place further north, yet it is curious that her pa.s.sport should be in order even though she fled so precipitately from Kajana. There is a mystery connected with her disappearance from the wood-cutter"s hut that I confess I cannot fathom."
"Neither can I," I said. "I know the man who is with her, and cannot help fearing that he is her bitterest enemy--that he is acting in concert with the Baron."
"Then why is he taking her to the capital--beyond the jurisdiction of the Governor-General?"
"I am going straight to Petersburg to ascertain," I said. "I have only come to thank you for your kindness in this matter. Truth to tell, I have been somewhat surprised that you should have interested yourself on my behalf," I added, looking straight at the uniformed official.
"It was not on yours, but on hers," he answered, somewhat enigmatically.
"I know something of the affair, but it was my duty as a man to help the poor girl to escape from that terrible place. She has, I know, been unjustly condemned for the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination of the wife of a General--condemned with a purpose, of course. Such a thing is not unusual in Finland."
"Abominable!" I cried. "Oberg is a veritable fiend."
But the man only shrugged his shoulders, saying--
"The orders of his Excellency the Governor-General have to be obeyed, whatever they are. We often regret, but we dare not refuse to carry them out."
"Russian rule is a disgrace to our modern civilization," I declared hotly. "I have every sympathy with those who are fighting for freedom."
"Ah, you are not alone in that," he sighed, speaking in a low whisper, and glancing around. "His Majesty would order reforms and ameliorate the condition of his people, if only it were possible. But he, like his officials, are powerless. Here we speak of the great uprising with bated breath, but we, alas! know that it must come one day--very soon--and Finland will be the first to endeavor to break her bonds--and the Baron Oberg the first to fall."
For nearly an hour I sat with him, surprised to find how, although his exterior was so harsh and uncouth, yet his heart really bled for the poor starving people he was so constantly forced to oppress.
"I have ruined this town of Abo," he declared, quite frankly. "To my own knowledge five hundred innocent persons have gone to prison, and another two hundred have been exiled to Siberia. Yet what I have done is only at direct orders from Helsingfors--orders that are stern, pitiless and unjust. Men have been torn from their families and sent to the mines, women have been arrested for no offense and shipped off to Saghalien, and mere children have been cast into prison on charges of political conspiracy with their elders--in order to Russify the province! Only," he added anxiously, "I trust you will never repeat what I tell you. You have asked me why I a.s.sisted the English Mademoiselle to escape from Kajana, and I have explained the reason."
We ate a hearty meal in company at the _Sampalinna_, a restaurant built like a Swiss chalet, and at noon I entered the train on the first stage of my slow, tedious journey through the great silent forests and along the sh.o.r.es of the lakes of Southern Finland, by way of Tavestehus and Viborg, to Petersburg.
I was alone in the compartment, and sat moodily watching the panorama of wood and river as we slowly wound up the tortuous ascents and descended the steep gradients. I had not even a newspaper with which to while away the time, only my own apprehensive thoughts of whither my helpless love was being conducted.
Surely to no man was there ever presented such a complicated problem as that which I was now trying so vigorously to solve. I loved Elma Heath.
The more I reflected, the deeper did her sweet countenance and tender grace impress themselves upon my heart. I loved her, therefore I was striving to overtake her.
The steamer, I learned, would call at Hango and Helsingfors. Would they, I wonder, disembark at either of those places? Was the man whom I had known as Hornby, the owner of the _Lola_, taking her to place her again in the fiendish hands of Xavier Oberg? The very thought of it caused me to hold my breath.
Daylight came at last, cold and gray, over those dreary interminable marshes where game, especially snipe, seemed abundant, and at a small station at the head of a lake called Davidstadt I took my morning gla.s.s of tea; then we resumed our journey down to Viborg, where a short, thick-set Russian of the commercial cla.s.s, but something of a dandy, entered my compartment, and we left express for Petersburg.
We had pa.s.sed by a small station called Galitsina, near which were many villas occupied in summer by families from Petersburg, and were traveling through the dense gloomy pine-woods, when my fellow-traveler, having asked permission to smoke, commenced to chat affably. He seemed a pleasant fellow, and told me that he was a wool merchant, and that he had been having a pleasant vacation trout fishing in the Vuoski above the falls of the Imatra, where the pools between the rapids abound with fish.
He had told me that on account of the sh.o.r.e being so full of weeds and the clearness of the water, fishing from the banks was almost an impossibility, and how they had to accustom themselves to troll from a boat so small as to only accommodate the rower and the fisherman.
Then he remarked suddenly--
"You are English, I presume--possibly from Helsingfors?"