Princess Zara Part 12

All the hardness I had felt before returned to me then.

"If I had been late you would have known the reason, princess," I said.

"No; but I should have feared it."

"I would have been dead."

"Dead!"

"Yes; but, unfortunately, the attempt upon my life did not succeed, thanks to Fate and poor marksmanship."

"The attempt on your life! I do not understand."

I turned my head so that she could see where the plaster hid the wound made by the bullet of the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin.

"A better marksman would have compelled me to break my engagement, princess," I said.

She extended one hand and rested a finger lightly upon the wound, as though she intended the mere touch to heal it. With the other hand she gently turned my face towards hers; yet she did it in a way that was devoid of intimacy. Somehow she changed what might have been suggestive of familiarity, into a gesture of womanly tenderness; and there was undoubtedly horror in her eyes, and a flash of angry resentment, too.

"You think that I am responsible for this?" she asked, releasing me and stepping backward.

I bowed, but made no reply.

Impulsively, she crossed the room, and from the floor, where she had doubtless thrown it after reading, secured a crumpled wad of paper, and after straightening and smoothing it, gave it into my hand.

"Read," she said.

"'Our interview in the garden was overheard by two persons beside ourselves,'" I read, aloud. "'One of them, fortunately, was a friend; the other may not keep the engagement made with you.'"

"It is from Ivan," she said. "It is because I received that note that I would have been anxious if you had been detained. It did not occur to me to doubt that you would be prompt until I read that. I did not doubt you, Mr. Dubravnik. I might have killed myself, but I would not have--ah! To think that you could deem me capable of such an act as that!"

"I did not princess, until--well, there was no other theory. At all events, I have changed my mind. Who is Ivan?"

"My brother."

"I did not know you had a brother."

"Naturally, since his existence is forgotten. He was sentenced to Siberia when he was sixteen. Now he is thought to be dead, but he escaped, and is here. He must have brought some one with him last night--somebody who listened to everything. Do you know what that note means, my friend? It means that you have been sentenced to death. It means that the nihilists will surely take your life; and oh, my G.o.d, there is no escape!"

CHAPTER XI

FOR THE SAKE OF THE CZAR

When one is sentenced to death by the nihilists in Russia it sends a cold shiver down the back, no matter how brave and self-reliant one may be, for those fanatics have an uncomfortable way of carrying out such decrees to the bitter end. However, I smiled and a.s.sured the princess that I thought I could find a way to avoid the consequences of my eavesdropping, and then awaited the moment when she would say more. For a long time she was silent, and during it I studied her carefully, for she was the most complex puzzle that I had ever encountered in the shape of a woman. I had heard enough to know that she was not only a conspirator against the life of the emperor, but that she was ostensibly if not really, the leader among her fellow conspirators; or if not _the_ leader, then a leader. I had heard her talk glibly of a.s.sa.s.sination and death, and I had heard her deplore in mental anguish the part she was forced to play in the game of Russian politics. In one moment I had believed her to be a heartless schemer, a murderess, and one who was devoid of compa.s.sion; and in the next I was forced to the conjecture that she was a victim of circ.u.mstances, and that she had no love for or sympathy with the cause she advocated. Now, as I watched her, the same emotions succeeded each other in my judgment of her character, and finally I summed them all up in the decision that she was a being who was swayed by impulses. There are seeming paradoxes which will explain just what my conclusions were concerning Zara de Echeveria. She was deliberately impulsive; calculatingly reckless; systematically chaotic. The warm, Southern blood in her veins impelled her to deeds which were rendered thrice effective by reason of the fact that she applied to them the calculating coolness and method of her Russian ancestors. Hence the paradox.

Presently she raised her eyes to mine.

"Dubravnik," she said slowly, "there is one way of escape for you; and there is only one."

"What is that?" I asked.

"You must become a nihilist."

"I had thought of that," I returned coolly. For, indeed, I had thought of it, although not at all from the motive she understood me to mean.

"You had thought of it?" she cried. "Do you say that earnestly, or only to lead me on?"

"Was it not this very point that you were discussing with your brother when you entered the garden last night, princess?" I asked, recalling the mention of my name between them at that time.

"Yes; I had said to him that you were the kind of a man who should be added to our ranks. I think you must have heard his reply."

"Yes."

"Do you know what nihilism is, Mr. Dubravnik?"

"No. I have always regarded it as a dangerous organization; morally dangerous, I mean. You must not think that I have considered joining it for any other reason than to place myself in a position where I will feel that it is my duty to respect the confidence that I stole from you, rather than to betray it."

"Then you never had such a thought until you knew I was a nihilist?"

"Never."

"And you would join us for my sake?"

"No."

"For whose, then?"

"For the sake of the czar."

"Ah! You would join only to betray them all into the hands of the police! That is what you mean."

Zara leaped to her feet. Her whole manner underwent a change and for the instant she was completely dominated by a furious scorn which found its expression in every single pose of the att.i.tude she a.s.sumed. Her eyes blazed with the sudden anger she felt at me, brought about more by the thought which came to her that I, whom she had stooped to admire, was nothing but a spy. A torrent of words rushed to her lips, at least her appearance was that she was on the point of denouncing me most bitterly; but I raised a hand and interrupted her, bending slightly forward, and speaking with sharp decision, although coolly, and with studied conciseness of expression.

"No," I said. "If I should become a nihilist, it would be to protect the emperor, not to betray your friends."

Again her entire manner underwent a change. As if she thoroughly believed me, the fury of scorn left her eyes, the angry glitter of them ceased, the rigidity of her att.i.tude relaxed, and I saw that she was regarding me with an expression of wondering amazement, in which pity, and longing, not unmixed with admiration, were dominant. She was silent for the moment, but she kept her eyes fixed upon mine, and gradually they began to glow with that fire of enthusiasm which no argument can ever hope to overcome. Looking upon her I realized that if she were not a nihilist at heart, she had become one by reason of some great mental cataclysm through which she had pa.s.sed. I believed then, and I was to know later, that I was correct, and that nothing at present apparent could swerve her from her set purpose, or could influence her against the cause she had undertaken, and was now upholding, so valiantly. The spasms of remorse that rushed upon her at times, and such feelings of repugnance as I had heard her express in the garden, were only _oases_ in the desert of her perverted judgment, engendered in her very soul by some terrible calamity through which she had personally pa.s.sed, or regarding which she had been a close observer. When she spoke again, it was with low-toned softness, and she glided a step or two nearer to me, raising her beautiful eyes, now softened to an appealing quality, and clasping her hands in front of her with a gesture of suppliant helplessness that was almost overwhelming.

"Do you think that we have no wrongs to right?" she demanded.

"I think you have many, princess, judging from your standpoint; but you cannot right them by committing greater ones. Nothing can dignify or enn.o.ble deliberate a.s.sa.s.sination, or wanton, cruel, secret murder. The nihilists are a.s.sa.s.sins, murderers, cutthroats."

"You do not know! You do not know!"

"Perhaps not."