"I have a troika," said Katina, "and since I have promised to fetch my sister Juliska home from Slavowitz to-night, why should you not accompany me thither?"
Paul and Trevisa saw no reason, whatever, why they should not accept the services of so fair a charioteer. Katina accordingly gave an order to one of the inn-servants, and then disappeared within the hostelry.
She returned almost immediately, looking charming in a handsome mantle trimmed with fur. At the same moment there was brought round from the rear of the premises a second troika, which was certainly a much finer vehicle than the first. It was lined with red leather, and drawn by three spirited ponies.
"Here are steeds worthy of Mazeppa himself," said Katina, offering each a sweetmeat. "The Ukraine hath not their like."
She laid her cheek against the manes of all three in turn. The ponies tossed their heads and pawed the ground, evidently as proud of their young mistress as she was of them.
"This is Natalie, and that Stephanie," she continued indicating the two harnessed within the duga or wooden arch. "They are named after the princess and her mother."
"And the third?" inquired Paul.
"Oh! she is for show, and not for use; she prances merely without drawing, and so, being useless, my sister has, of course, called her Katina. Now if your excellencies are ready."
Paul and Trevisa seated themselves in the vehicle and since each declared that he must have Katina beside him, that maiden was laughingly compelled to take her place between them.
"Do not travel to-night, my little masters," said the istvostchik as he watched these preparations. "Ill-fortune will attend you."
Katina gave the reins a scornful shake.
Trevisa laughed pleasantly.
Paul looked grave; to his mind there was something strangely impressive in the quiet dignity of this old man as he stood on the steps of the inn-door, his cap doffed and his eyes raised to the star-lit sky.
CHAPTER VII
WHAT HAPPENED IN RUSSOGRAD
Though Katina was an avowed foe of all Muscovites, she nevertheless possessed a characteristic in common with them,--a pa.s.sion for furious driving.
With a stamp of her pretty red shoes, and with cries that sounded somewhat wild on the night air, she urged the horses to their full speed. She carried a short-handed whip with a long leathern thong, but she used it only to lash the air.
Amid the tintinnabulation of a peal of silvery bells hung from the duga, the spirited coursers plunged forward, as if each were holding a race with the other, Katina handling the team with a dexterity that evoked Paul"s admiration.
Now where the road was broad she would spread the galloping horses outwards like a fan; and now where its narrowness seemed to preclude all possibility of pa.s.sage, she would draw them together till they appeared to occupy the s.p.a.ce of one, without delaying for a moment her onward rush.
Occasionally she would rise from her seat and bend gracefully forward over the horses in an att.i.tude suggestive of a Grecian charioteer, bidding the two friends with a merry laugh to "Hold fast," and the next moment they would be racing down a steep descent; a sudden splash, a drenching shower of spray, and ere the two friends had time to realize that they were crossing a stream, the ponies would be tugging the troika up the opposite bank.
The marvels performed by this daughter of Mazeppa in guiding her vehicle along the edge of a declivity, or in avoiding some obstacle that suddenly appeared in her path, are past all belief; and though Paul expected every moment to see the troika fall to pieces, the rapid see-saw motion which in some persons causes all the sensations of _mal de mer_, was both novel and pleasant, the rush of air producing an exhilaration of spirits that quickly effaced from his mind the uneasy presentiment caused by the words of the old istvostchik.
"At this pace we ought soon to overtake Marshal Zabern," remarked Paul.
"We are not following the same road," replied Katina. "In journeying to Slavowitz I myself always take this route, though it is more circuitous. I renew my patriotism when in sight of that building."
She had brought the troika to a standstill, and was now pointing to a large monastery that rose in solemn mediaeval grandeur at the distance of about a hundred yards from the roadside.
"The Convent of the Transfiguration," said Katina. "On some Czernovese monasteries you will see a crescent beside the cross; it is a sign that the place was once in the hands of the Turks. But the crescent gleams not here," she continued proudly. "The pavement of the Convent of the Transfiguration has never been trodden by the foot of pagan or heretical foe. A strong fortress as well as a monastery, it has often checked the march of Muscovite and Turkish conquest."
A liturgical service was taking place in the convent. The chant of the monks was plainly audible, intermingled with the notes of the organ.
"They are supplicating for Poland," said Katina. "They pray for nothing else. Day and night their one cry is, "How long, O Lord, how long?""
The voices of the chanting friars produced a singular, nay, a weird impression upon Paul. Paganini himself could not have devised anything more awe-inspiring and unearthly than the refrain that now rose upon the night air.
"Some of the holy brethren," continued Katina, "are men who were once in Siberian mines. And such men! If you thought my back a pitiable sight, Captain Woodville, what would you think if you could see some of the dreadful forms hidden behind those walls?"
Her words, her looks, and above all the wild plaint proceeding from the convent, increased Paul"s eerie sensations.
"Come here what hour you will of the twenty-four, you shall never miss the chant of those monks; their prayer never ends."
"A perpetual service? I have heard of such."
"When our fatherland was conquered in "95," continued Katina, "the then abbot of yon convent ordained that from that time forth the brethren should pray for no other thing than the restoration of Poland.
"To this end he drew up a liturgy and divided the whole body of the monks into three parts, directing that each in turn should recite this liturgy, band to succeed band without a moment"s break. The convent has never wanted for devout men to consecrate themselves to this service.
"Day and night unceasingly for over fifty years their supplication has been going up to the saints above," said Katina. "Is it not time their prayer was answered?"
She clasped her hands and turned her face to the starlit heaven,--a face made beautifully touching by its earnestness.
"Oh! Queen of heaven," she murmured, "look down upon our country. Give us the thing we long for."
For a moment she stood in silent prayer, and then, taking up the reins again, she began to urge the horses forward, as if finding in that act a relief to her overwrought feelings. Once more the troika skimmed along, scarcely seeming to touch the earth, and the majestic convent with mysterious voices faded away in the gloom.
"Abbot Faustus still maintains his att.i.tude of defiance towards the new archbishop," said Trevisa addressing Katina.
"And he will ever maintain it," she replied. "Be sure that Ravenna, anathematize as he may, will never be permitted to enter that convent."
"Your mysterious smile, fair Katina, disposes me to believe that you know the reason of the abbot"s defiance."
"I _do_ know it," a.s.severated Katina, "but I must not reveal it. Ask the marshal to make you one of the "Transfigured," and you will understand the mystery. Faster, faster, my little doves," she added, shaking the whip over the heads of her team.
Onward flew the horses _ventre a terre_, and within an hour of the time of setting out, there glimmered into view the battled walls of Slavowitz, with its towers, spires, and domes standing out in gray relief against a background of blue sky dimly set with stars.
"Shall I take the Troitzka Gate?" asked Katina.
Trevisa nodded a.s.sent.
""T will save a circuit," he said, "and will serve to show my friend the two sides of Slavowitz. You have seen Cracovia, the fashionable suburb," he added, addressing Paul; "now take a view of Russograd, the Muscovite quarter."
Katina accordingly drove through an arched gateway, where, armed with a long halbert, stood a Polish sentinel, who, at sight of Paul, saluted, mistaking him for an officer of the Blue Legion.
As the troika, leaving the city gate behind, rolled forward over the smooth wooden pavement of the main thoroughfare known as the Troitzkoi Prospekt, it became quickly evident that the dwellers in this quarter had become aware both of the princess"s Romanist faith and likewise of the duke"s arrest,--matters that naturally tended to produce a state of great excitement. Indeed, it looked as if there would be little sleep that night in Russograd; for though the hour was late, all the denizens of the faubourg, men and women alike, were abroad, discussing in shrill tones and with fierce gesticulations this latest phase of Czernovese politics. Russians, Tartars, Cossacks, and representatives of other nationalities, who at ordinary times were ready to cut each other"s throats, were now united by the bond of a common religion against "Natalie the Apostate."