Zeneida knew whom she meant by "he."
"No. He dare not! I will not suffer him to take part in it."
"Oh, then permit me, too, to remain out of it. Had you told me he was in it, I must, too, have been."
"That"s right! You shall keep each other out of it. But, all the same, you must stand by me in one part of the hard duty."
"Tell me what I must do! I will obey implicitly."
"Our first thought must be to bring Sophie here, and to acquaint him whose heart is heavy on her account that he need be anxious no longer."
"Will you allow me to be the first to go in to Sophie?"
"You alone; she would not trust any one else."
And Bethsaba could not have desired greater happiness than to be the one privileged to step from the boat on to the balcony of the mysterious house in Petrovsky Garden. The flood had already risen to the balcony, and she it was who might hasten in to the neglected girl and say, "You are saved!"
The poor child was already without provisions or fuel of any description, for everything in the inundated cellar and dining-room was spoiled by water. Wrapped in her furs, she sat at the window, breathing upon it to make a clear s.p.a.ce, and gazing with dismay at the huge blocks of ice floating unimpeded over the wrecked fence. Some, with their sharp edges, cut through the great trees opposing them as with a saw; others were tossed lengthwise against their barks, those following hurled upon them, until suddenly a great silver birch would go down with a crash.
Once the resistance formed by the trees swept down, the house must follow. A pencil and paper lay prepared upon her writing-table, a carrier-dove in its cage beside it. They had been brought her by the Czar, that she might let him know when danger was imminent.
She was waiting to send off her message until the extreme moment, for she knew the grave difficulties which surrounded his coming to her rescue.
Thus her joy may be imagined on seeing Bethsaba appear on the balcony.
Seizing her pencil, Sophie wrote, with trembling fingers, "I am saved and in good hands; have no further anxiety for me!" Then tying her note on to the carrier-dove"s wing, she set it loose. It flew up high in the air, then disappeared in the direction of the Winter Palace.
She did not ask where they were taking her, but followed Bethsaba in good faith.
CHAPTER XXV
GOG AND MAGOG
The Czar had not undressed at all that night; but, tired out, had thrown himself upon his couch, which had no covering but a bear-skin.
Before sunrise he was up, and, without making a change of dress, went to the window. It was frosted over; he had to open it to see out. He quickly closed it again. The sight was terrible! In feverish excitement he threw on his cloak and hurried out. In the anteroom his physician, Sir James Wylie, was waiting, who at once accosted him with--
"Your Majesty may not go out to-day!"
"I may not? Who commands me?"
"I merely _prescribe_, sire--a right which physicians may exercise towards princes."
"But there is nothing the matter with me."
"But there may be. Your health is endangered."
"That rests in the hands of G.o.d." And he pa.s.sed on.
In the audience-chamber he found Araktseieff.
"Your Majesty _cannot_ go out to-day."
"So you, too, order me, as well as the physician."
"Your Majesty"s life is in danger."
"Not for the first time. He who protected me yesterday will not fail me to-day. Be a Christian, and do not treat me like a child who lets himself be frightened by old women"s tales. Remain at your post; I go to mine."
Araktseieff knew the Czar, and that opposition only made him more obstinate; so stood deferentially aside as the Czar strode past him.
The Czar pa.s.sed, alone, down the long corridor hung with pictures of the battles he had fought. At the end of it a little negro groom stood waiting with a note, which he handed in silence. It was the Czarina"s page, a birthday present to her of long ago. The Czar hurriedly broke open the note and ran it over, then looked down meditatively. Without a word he went back to his apartment and took off his cloak.
The note was from the Czarina: "I am afraid to be alone in the palace.
Please do not leave me now!"
The words were a command; one which even the Ruler of All the Russias had no choice but to obey. His wife was afraid!
Now he is condemned to remain within the palace, like any imprisoned criminal.
For the first time for fourteen years his wife had made a request to him. How could he refuse it? Not only his sense of duty as emperor impelled him to repair to scenes of distress and danger, but also he was urged by that mysterious impulse from within, which ever drove him from one end of his empire to the other, leaving him no rest by night, until he would rise, get into his carriage, and drive from street to street.
To stay in one place was torture to him. He had but returned this very week from a journey which led him as far as to the Kirghiz steppes. And now was he to sit idly at home? His wife had asked it. It is not much she asks. She does not beg him to come to her in her apartments, to stay with her, to cheer and comfort her; she only asks him to remain under the same roof.
Now he has leisure to pace from one end to the other of his room, to hearken to the pealing of bells, the roar of the wind, and the splash of the waves, whose surf dashes up to his windows. Suddenly he utters a cry--"Where are you, Sophie?" It is well that no one hears him, that he is alone. In spirit, he is in that solitary house, surrounded by the waves. His eyes search round the empty rooms where wind and weather sport unchecked, and, not finding her, he cries, "Sophie! where are you?" The vision he had called up was even more terrible than the awful reality of raging nature without. He could better bear to look upon that. Rushing to the balcony of the palace, he tore open the gla.s.s doors, and gazed down upon the ghastly devastation. The sight was awful indeed!
Wide as an ocean bay, the giant river was rolling back its waves upon Lake Ladoga. Ever and anon from out the misty distance loomed visions reflected in the surface of the madly rushing waters.
When Napoleon, watching the fire of Moscow from the Kremlin, saw how the storm was rolling the sea of flame upon the city, he cried in despair, "But what wind is this?" So now Alexander, as he watched the waves, lashed by the furious storm, dash up against his palace, asked, "But what wind is this?"
Houses roofless and in ruins; half-naked creatures clinging to their framework; here, a tiny hand raised in piteous appeal from its mother"s arms; there, a man rowing with a plank, who finds no place to land on.
Every gust of wind, every wave, brings some fresh sight to view. Now comes the remnant of a menagerie; its cages, chained together, are being whirled about in eddying circles. A Bengal tiger, who has burst his bonds, dashes wildly from one cage to another. Some men, clinging to the bars, dare not climb on to the top for fear of the infuriated animal. All must perish. Men and beasts shriek and roar in chorus. The waves dash them pitilessly on. Then comes the fragment of a wooden bridge wedged in between two icebergs. Upon it there still stands a carriage, shafts in air, from the interior of which projects a pink dress. Bridge and carriage float past, a flock of croaking ravens flying about them.
Who is sufficient for all these horrors?
The current swept on, swift as an arrow, the waves playing with their icy barriers; now building them into pyramids, now tearing them down, leaving a circling eddy to mark the spot.
Close by the Winter Palace stands the Admiralty, with its copper roof.
The furious storm, tearing off a portion of this, rolls it up, with thunderous din, like a sheet of paper, flattens it out again, tosses it into the air, showering down fragments of it like a pack of cards; then, finally, rips off the whole remainder of the roof, hurling it into the princ.i.p.al square. Then follows many thousand casks of flour, sugar, and spices from the flooded warehouses of the Exchange--the whole winter store of a great capital a prey to the waves!
Again another picture. Arrayed in order of battle like a flotilla come a series of black boats, not originally designed to carry their inmates over the water, but under the earth. Coffins! The flood had burst the walls of the military cemetery of Smolenskaja, washed up thousands of graves, and was now bringing back their occupants to the city, of which they had long ago taken farewell. The buried warriors were coming to march past the Czar once more--the hurricane their deafening trumpets, the waves their kettle-drums! They even bring their memorial chapel with them, and their marble crosses, which tower in ghostly fashion from out the icebergs!
Nor is the fearful cyclorama over yet. The horrors of it are ever increasing. In the distance looms a three-master, bearing down upon the city--or, rather, in the cold gray mist it looks the ghost of a man-of-war. It had broken its moorings at Cronstadt in the gale, and now, driven before the wind, was coming down upon the city at full speed!
At that moment the Czar, forgetful of his dignity, hid his face and wept, never thinking whether any eyes were upon him. And many eyes were on him.