When he had gone she turned in alarm and whispered with her lady-in-waiting. Both women rose, and, following the monk, stood gazing at his receding figure as he went down the long white road.
"A strange man surely, Zeneide!" I heard the Empress exclaim. "How curious that, unconscious of my presence, he should be here, praying for me--a holy man without a doubt! We must discover who he is. What eyes!
Did you notice them?"
"Yes. His gaze really frightened me," her companion admitted.
"Ah! His is the face of a true saint--a wonder-worker! Of that I am certain. We must make inquiries concerning him," remarked Her Majesty. "I must see him again and speak with him!"
Then the pair, entering the carriage, drove rapidly away.
While standing upon the church steps they had discussed the Starets while I had lounged close by unnoticed, believing that we were alone.
As the carriage moved off, however, I was startled to feel strong hands laid heavily upon me, as a rough voice exclaimed:
"Halt! You are under arrest!"
Next second I became aware that I was in the hands of two rather well dressed men, no doubt agents of the Okhrana.
"You have been loitering here with evil intent!" exclaimed the elder of the pair. "We have been watching you ever since you entered behind that good Father. We saw you secrete yourself. Have you any firearms?"
I unfortunately had a revolver, and at once produced it.
"Ah!" exclaimed the brown-bearded agent of Secret Police as he took possession of it. "I thought so! You had discovered the ident.i.ty of the lady with the long veil, and have been here awaiting an opportunity to fire at her!"
"What?" I gasped, aghast at the serious charge levelled against me. "I am no revolutionist! I carry that weapon merely for my self-protection."
The bearded man gave a low whistle, and next moment three grey-coated policemen in uniform sprang up from nowhere, and I was unceremoniously marched through the streets to the head police bureau in the Gostiny Dvor, well knowing the seriousness of the allegation against me.
Two hours later I was taken to the dark-panelled room of the Chief of Police, a bald-headed, flabby-faced functionary in a dark blue uniform glittering with decorations. Before his big table, standing between two policemen, I answered question after question he put to me, my replies being carefully noted by a clerk who sat at a side table. In the room were also the two officers of the Okhrana who had travelled, unknown to the Empress, in order to keep Her Majesty beneath their surveillance.
"Why did you arrive at the Frantsiya and await the coming of the two ladies?" snapped the Chief of Police in his peculiarly offensive manner.
I was at loss what to say. I was unable to tell the truth lest I should betray the plot of Boris Sturmer and General Kouropatkine. I recollected my friendship with the hotel clerk, and my eagerness for the arrival of the travellers.
"Ah! You hesitate!" said the all-powerful functionary with a sinister grin, and knowing what I did of the political police and their arbitrary measures towards those suspected, I realised that I was in very grave danger.
"You had secret knowledge of Her Majesty"s journey incognita, or you would not have been watching in the church with a loaded revolver in your pocket," he went on. "Your Brothers of Freedom, as you term them, never lack knowledge of Their Majesties" movements," my inquisitor said.
"I deny, your Excellency, that I was there with any evil intent," I protested. "Such a thing as you suggest never for a second entered my mind."
The man in the brilliant uniform laughed, saying:
"I have heard that same declaration before. It is a clever plot, no doubt, but fortunately you were watched, and the knowledge that you were being watched prevented you from putting your plans into execution.
Come--confess!"
"I had no idea that I was being watched until I was arrested," I declared.
"But you cannot explain the reason why you travelled from Petrograd to Kazan. Let us hear your excuse," he said with increased sarcasm.
"I have no excuse," was my very lame reply. I was wondering what had become of the Starets. It was quite evident that they knew nothing of my double journey up to the monastery, and further, there was no suspicion against Rasputin. That being so I hesitated to explain the truth, in the faint hope that Kouropatkine, as Minister of War, would hear of my arrest, and contrive to obtain my release. I saw that, at least, I ought to remain loyal to those who employed me, and further, even if I told the truth it would not be believed.
"It will be best to make some inquiries in Petrograd regarding this individual," suggested the police agent who had arrested me.
"I really don"t think that is necessary," replied the Chief of Police of Kazan, tapping his desk impatiently with his pen, as he turned to me and said:
"Now, tell me quickly, young man. Why are you here?"
What could I reply?
"Ah!" he said, smiling. "I see that there are others whom you refuse to implicate. It is useless to send such people as you for trial."
"But I demand a fair trial!" I cried in desperation, a cold sweat breaking out on my brow, because I knew that he had power to pa.s.s sentence upon me as a political suspect who refused information--and that his order would certainly be confirmed by the Minister of the Interior.
Too well did I know the drastic powers of the Chiefs of Police of the princ.i.p.al cities.
At my demand the bald-headed man simply smiled, and replied:
"My order is that you be conveyed to Schlusselburg. You will there have plenty of leisure in which to repent not having replied to my questions."
To Schlusselburg! My heart fell within me. Once within that dreaded fortress, the terrible oubliettes of which are below the surface of the Lake Ladoga, my ident.i.ty would be lost and I should be quickly forgotten.
From Schlusselburg no prisoner ever returned!
Would any of the conspiring trio, whose tool I had been, raise a finger to save me? Or would they consider that having served their purpose it would be to their advantage if my lips were closed?
"Schlusselburg!" I gasped. "No--no, not that!" I cried. "I am innocent--quite innocent!"
"You give no proof of it," coldly replied the Chief of Police, rising as a sign that the inquiry was at an end. "My orders are that you be sent to Schlusselburg without delay." Then, turning to the two agents of the Okhrana, he added: "You will report this to your director at Tsarskoe-Selo. I will send my order to the Ministry for confirmation to-night. Take the prisoner away!"
And next moment I was bundled down to a dirty cell in the bas.e.m.e.nt, there to await conveyance to that most dreaded of all the prisons in the Empire.
By a single stroke of the pen I had been condemned to imprisonment for life!
CHAPTER II
RASPUTIN ENTERS TSARSKOE-SELO
I CONFESS that I felt my position to be absolutely hopeless.
I was a political suspect, and therefore I knew full well that to attempt to communicate with anyone outside was quite impossible. The Chief of Police of Kazan, honestly believing that he was doing his duty and unearthing a subtle plot against the life of the Empress, on account of the revolver in my possession, had condemned me to imprisonment in the Fortress of Schlusselburg. Its very name, dreaded by every Russian, recurred to me as I recollected Kouropatkine"s significant words. Had he not threatened that, if I revealed one single word of the secret doings of the holy Starets, my tongue would be cut out within those grim dark walls of that prison of mystery?
We Russians had from our childhood heard of that sinister fortress, the walls of which rise sheer from the black waters of Lake Ladoga--that place where the cells of the political prisoners, victims of the thousand and one intrigues of the Russian bureaucracy, consequent upon the autocracy of the Tsar, are deep beneath the lake"s surface, so that they can--when it is willed by the Governor or those higher Ministers who express their devilish desire--be flooded at will.
Hundreds of terrified, yet innocent and nameless victims of Russia"s mediaeval barbarism, persons of both s.e.xes--alas! that I should speak so of my own country--have, during the past ten years of enlightenment, stood in their narrow dimly-lit oubliette and watched in horror the black tide trickle through the rat holes in the stone floor, slowly, ever slowly, until water has filled the cell to the arched stone roof and drowned them as rats in a trap.
And all that has been done by the accursed German wirepullers in the name of the puny puppet who was Tsar, and from whom the truth was, they said, ever carefully hidden.