The Playground of Satan Part 44

"Too late!" he cried.

She gave him a look of sympathy.

"He died a few minutes ago."

Unable to utter a word, he signed to her. Gently, she turned back the sheet. He stepped forward; all hatred, all bitterness, slipped from him like a cloak. Joseph was no more. He could marry Vanda.

This was his uppermost thought; his next, as he gazed at that familiar, yet transformed face, a deep relief that Roman had not suffered that death. Then came remorse for the speed of his thoughts towards marrying her this man had loved, and sharp pain that Destiny had taken him in such a way. He wanted Joseph to die fighting, as young men should in war-time, in the open, falling to G.o.d's good earth, whence they come, mingling their life's blood with the fountain of all life. That livid, emaciated face, with evil stains on the once healthy cheeks was a reproach to modernity, a seal upon the Cossack's cry of "murdered!"

For a long time he gazed and many an emotion rose and swelled in his heart; scenes of boyhood sprang up again; memories of the chase, of the life they once trod together, as dead for him now as was Joseph himself.

And whilst he breathed a prayer for the dead which Father Constantine had taught them all, he thanked G.o.d that he had resisted the call of pa.s.sion a few nights ago, when he sat and watched the summer moon, so sure it lighted Joseph's body on the battlefield. Now, at least, he could look on his remains without remorse for evil action.

The nurse had gone; but two orderlies came up.

"We must bury him," one of them said in the Russian of Moscow.

As Ian looked up they noticed his eyes were dimmed with tears unshed.

"Is there a Catholic priest about?"

The men looked at one another.

"In the town perhaps--not here."

"I'll bring one."

"We cannot wait till you go so far. We have strict orders to bury each poor victim at once. What will you? The infection is deadly and we are working day and night."

"I'll be back before you close the coffin."

"Coffin! There are none left."

Ian pa.s.sed the one nearest him a fifty-rouble note.

"I know the town. Wait for me." And he hurried out.

He was desperately anxious to give Joseph Christian burial. He felt he must; it might atone for his fault of feeling that great load off his heart now he knew Vanda would be his. Then he remembered the Cossack colonel's card. He had promised to fight, had insisted on being drafted into a hard-fighting regiment. But that was an hour ago. That was when thoughts of Vanda were pain, and he did not so much mind if he got killed. Now, he hated the idea of it. If he got killed soon he would be no more married to her than Joseph had been. He rebelled. Why should he go and get killed? Russia had plenty of men. He had lost enough in the war already without losing the last chance of happiness. Russia had turned him away once and he was not in duty bound to apply again.

Besides, he could do war-work without putting on a Cossack coat; could volunteer for a mission abroad; for instance say to the Pope, who only knew what the Germans and their friends told him...

As he stumbled over the road, choked with the debris of a retreating army, he felt particularly fitted to tell the Pope what Poland was enduring. He had an uncle in Rome, a younger brother of his father, created a cardinal during the pontificate of Pius the Tenth. So he could gain the Pope's ear far more easily than many other people. Rome, he argued, had no more faithful children than the Poles, who have suffered much persecution for their faith. And it was high time the Holy Father knew the truth about the Germans. He, Ian, would tell him.

Yes; he could serve his country's cause, and the Allies' just as well in Rome as in Colonel Platov's regiment. Rome would be a good place for his mother to live in. If he joined the army she would have to stop in Russia, to be near him. In Rome, they could all live quietly and comfortable together--he, Vanda, his mother. After all, it was fair to them to look after them; and his mother had only him now. And the Allies had millions of men. Russia wanted guns, which he could not make, and organization, which he could not give her.

He reached the house of a priest he knew and very few words sufficed to tell him what had happened; then they hastened back together.

They buried Joseph in a field set apart as a cemetery in connection with the cholera tent. Ian gave the priest money and instructions for a Cross to be put over the grave. Then he sought the nurse. On hearing who he was she took him to a clerk, who gave him the things they had found in Joseph's pockets: a photograph of Vanda, a packet of her letters, and some money. When it was all over and he had parted from the priest he made his way back to the station. It was nearly ten o'clock. He found that the horse-dealer was right after all. A train, the last one, stood ready to start for Warsaw. The inside was packed with wounded men, the roof with refugees, some of whom were wounded, too. He heard Ostap's voice calling for him and shouted back that he was coming.

"Be quick!" he shouted. "We're on the roof. Third coach from the engine. It's all we can do to keep sitting room for you. Climb up, for these Jews are great pushers."

"Where are my peasants?"

"Here, thank G.o.d!" said a voice.

"All?"

"All. Safe and sound. Get up, my Lord Count, for the train is starting already."

Ian clambered up and squeezed himself in between the blacksmith and Ostap, who indignantly asked where he had been hiding.

"We searched high and low. If not for this blacksmith, who sat as broad as he could, we'd never have been able to keep your place." He did not tell them where he had been. Heart and head were filled with new emotions, and a new struggle. The idea of going to Rome fascinated him.

He found so much in its favor, so little to say against it. Only that Cossack colonel would ever know he had drawn back. None shared his plans. And the soldier would forget him.

He was no longer the man who urged Platov to take him at the beginning of the war; then, he could not realize the love that had grown with each month of strife and anxiety, till it now overwhelmed every other feeling. Destiny led him to the tent wherein he found a promise of happiness. And a loud voice within cried not to give it up.

It was an endless journey and very uncomfortable. They were perpetually stopping to make way for other trains, filled with troops, whole and wounded. From time to time some of the little party got down to stretch their legs, one keeping the place for another with that ready comradeship which war's vicissitudes breed between men of vastly different race and caste. Jew elbowed Gentile; patrician drank with outcast in their flight before the stupendous Hun. It seemed to Ian that all the trains in Russia pa.s.sed them; troops in open trucks, who made an infernal noise with their _balalaikas_ and their voices. He wondered sadly that they could abandon Poland to her fate with such light hearts ... and then remembered that they were Russians, brave as lions, but mentally children yet; so the direction in which they traveled was no affair of theirs.

He thought of his ruined home and the many other ruined homes they pa.s.sed and wondered where their late owners were, that cool, starry night. Some, he knew, lay quiet and still by the wayside, for he had seen such in his flight. Some, like Father Constantine, had found rest in a soldier's graveyard before friends left them, to seek a new life in exile. And, as his memory dwelt on the last year, as he pa.s.sed farm after farm alight with the fires of destruction, the weakness born of the sudden knowledge that Vanda was free left him. He knew he could not go to Rome; knew he would not have a quiet hour if he chose the easier road; that every devastated home, every orphan in his native land would ring a terrible chorus of reproach into his soul. Roman's words of that evening at the "_Oaza_," came back:

"There is no love without sacrifice."

How little he had known of love then; how much now! He wondered at the craven Ian who had planned a safe journey to Rome whilst his native land was bleeding. There was nothing for him but to fight. Oh, he would marry Vanda, and perhaps live through the war. Then they would return to a free Poland and a free Ruvno, to build and plant afresh for their children, freed from bondage and all persecution. In the trenches, on the battlefield, he would have that lodestar. Now, he knew not how he ever could have imagined the war without himself in it.

These thoughts ran through his mind, accompanied by visions of burning houses, huddled, hungry refugees, suffering, struggling humanity.

Through all was the joy of knowing Vanda would be his--and over all came Ostap's voice as he held forth to others on the roof.

"Yes; we spit upon life. So we shall win, in the end. And our children will be freed."

And the Cossack's words gave him comfort.

THE END