The Playground of Satan Part 7

"Well, you've the pigeon-colored eyes of men who shoot straight. But you're too fat for a Cossack, and too old."

"You're fifty if you're a day," said Ian.

"Wrong for you. I'm only forty-five. But I've had a hard life, which I'm used to. You, my gentleman, have always had a soft bed to sleep on and rich food to feed on. That's why your stomach is too big for your years."

Ian suddenly felt very much ashamed of his spare flesh. Over and over again he had promised himself he would go to Marienbad and get rid of it. But that was out of the question now. So he said eagerly:

"I'll get thin soon enough campaigning. Look here, Colonel, you and I bear no love to one another. We've a good many old scores to pay off."

"You're right about that," admitted the other with a grin. "And the fault's not always been on the Cossack side, either."

"But just now we've got to beat the Prussians," argued Ian. "And you'll want all the men you can get to do it. I've been in their country and know it."

The Cossack gave a hoa.r.s.e guffaw.

"Russia has enough sons to beat the world," he cried. "We'll be in Berlin before the New Year and I'll promise you my men won't leave much of their fine shops and their light beer. And on my way I'll call in on your house and give you some loot to prove it. Meanwhile, do you go home and look after your lady mother and your peasants."

This, delivered in the various accents of the Holy Russian Empire, and in varying tones, according to the state of culture of the particular officer who gave it, was the answer which greeted Ian everywhere he went. He was too old and too heavy. Bitter thought, when he felt young, strong, enthusiastic and capable as any Cossack of holding his own with horse and gun. There were, he was told, plenty of younger, fitter men than he. The Prussians would be utterly destroyed without his help.

His grain, his horses and his peasants were worth more than his blood.

This was the result of two days' begging, waiting in ante-rooms, listening to more or less personal remarks, rubbing shoulders with men who were his enemies of centuries and who were, he thought, childishly optimistic about the war. As he told the Cossack of the Don, he knew Prussia. And he dreaded to think of how many towns would be captured, how many women and children butchered, before Berlin loot found its way to Ruvno....

There was nothing to be done but go home and follow the old colonel's advice. No need to add that everybody in Ruvno, and the women especially, welcomed him with fervor and relief. He made preparations for the war, laying in a large stock of grain, potatoes and other provisions which would keep. He feared a food shortage before long.

Ruvno had good cellars, vaulted and s.p.a.cious. They had been built in a time when people quarreled with their neighbors even more violently than they do nowadays, and laid siege to one another's houses. They were swept and aired under Zosia's and Martin's supervision. Then Ian had most of his stores bricked up in them, as his forbears did with their good wines, entering the list in their cellar-book and only opening the best vintage for weddings, christenings, funerals or the celebration of some great victory, according to the period of history. The Ruvno cellar-book went back to 1539, and he was very proud of it.

He worked hard during these days of preparation, seeking to relieve the smart of refusal. Too old and too fat; what a thing to have on his mind! He confided his feelings to n.o.body, not even to the Countess, who was busy housing refugees and improvising a hospital. Minnie he had forgotten; Vanda he avoided. Between them rose the figure of Joseph, in his Prussian helmet and gray service coat. _He_ was with their enemies.

Both felt the moment must come when they would open their pa.s.sionate thoughts to each other about him; and both tacitly postponed it.

Meanwhile, Vanda helped her aunt and Minnie to prepare wards and nurseries for the wounded and homeless.

He kept several people busy for the next few days, getting in his supplies from his various farms and entering them, not in the old cellar-book, but on a piece of strong paper, showing exactly how the household could reach various stores bricked up in different parts of the cellars, which covered as much ground as the big rambling house itself.

This done, he had to decide where to hide the list, so that, supposing Muscovites or Prussians made search for food, they would not find it.

For he had little confidence in Russian troops either. A hungry warrior has no scruples as to whom he robs. Experience had taught him that, of the two kinds of oppression against his race, the Prussian was worse than the Russian; it had more method, persistency and callousness, beating anything the Russian could do, because the Russian is not orderly, nor has he a long memory. Ian knew, too, what rumors were afloat; that petty Russian bureaucrats were saying that the Poles would side with the invaders and Polish recruits refuse to fight. Such talk, though a tissue of lies, might put Russian troops against Polish houses.

So he made up his mind to hide the food list and ... his family jewels.

He wanted to send the latter to Moscow with the plate and pictures; but his mother refused to let them go.

"We may want them," she argued. "I hope we sha'n't; but you never know.

They will enable us to live and to help others live for the rest of our lives if we have to bolt."

Ian had never thought of the possibility of leaving Ruvno. Privately, he meant to stop there even if the Germans came. Only thus would he be able to save his property. He had already heard enough tales of the neighborhood to know that an empty house is soon a smoking ruin and an abandoned farm appropriated by somebody else. He would send his mother and Vanda away and see things through alone. Minnie he would get rid of beforehand. But there was no reason why he should not humor his mother in this matter of the jewels. Time enough to tell the truth when real danger came. So he said nothing. Father Constantine suggested putting them in the chapel, under a stone which they would take out of the floor and replace so that n.o.body would be any the wiser.

"Prussians don't respect churches," said the Countess.

"And suppose the chapel should get burnt," remarked Vanda.

Father Constantine shuddered at the thought. He loved the little chapel better than any part of Poland, and this is saying a great deal.

"The only place is where everybody goes," said Vanda.

"The horse pond," suggested Ian jokingly.

"Yes," she rejoined seriously, "I vote for the horse pond."

"And ruin the jewels," protested her aunt.

"Vanda is right," said Ian. "All the soldiers who come use the horse pond. They won't think of looking for loot there. We should have to dig on the side furthest from the paddock wall, as that may be destroyed."

"Yes," said Vanda, "something like that."

"A brilliant idea," said Ian, "but it has a great drawback."

"Which is?"

"How are you going to dig it up if we want to bolt? All the soldiers in the place would see and there's an end to the jewels."

n.o.body said anything for a moment; they were floored. Father Constantine spoke first.

"There is the high-road," he said in a detached way he had.

"Well?" said Ian.

"The troops won't make trenches in that, because it forms one of the lines of communication between Warsaw and Prussia. If we make a hole, lined with cement and moss, put some sausages over the jewels, with hard earth between, they ought to be safe. For anybody who found the sausages wouldn't go further down. We mustn't choose a spot near trees, for they will get felled and the ground torn up around them."

"There are two versts without trees, after you pa.s.s the windmills," said Vanda.

"And no peasants about to pry on you," added Ian.

So the Ruvno jewels were taken out of their caskets and sewn into waterproof bags. The girls helped the Countess to make them, for none of the servants, not even Martin, the old butler, knew anything of the plan. He was to be trusted, but Ian and his mother agreed it was better not to let him know; he could then quite truthfully spread the report that the jewels had gone with the plate. For so he and the upper servants were told. In the washleather bags they put very fine sawdust, too.

Ian and the old priest dug the hole and lined it with cement, taking advantage of the bright moon to do it. Then the jewels were put in.

They had a discussion about putting pearls there, but could not ask an expert, being cut off from Warsaw again. Ian said the damp might spoil them; his mother that she would rather the damp had them than think they were round the fat neck of some German _frau_; so they made the bag as thick as possible and put the most valuable pearls into a small thermos flask which Ian found among his hunting tackle. You must remember that the nearest jeweler's shop was twenty versts from Ruvno and might have been a thousand for all the good it was, since the Germans were there and the Russian troops between it and them. So they had to manage with the primitive things they found at home. Besides, as Father Constantine said, their object was to have the stones packed in as small a compa.s.s as possible, because if they wanted them at all during the war it would be to escape with.

Whilst preparing one hole they decided it would be better to divide the treasure into two parts, so that if for some reason or other they could not safely get to one they would have some chance with the other. So Ian and Father Constantine set to work on another hole, on the road to the east of the house, whereas the first was on the west, for so goes the road from Warsaw to Plovk, and thence follows the river Vistula into Prussia. They had to work quickly, for the moon was on the wane, and they could not be seen digging by the wayside at night. Even as it was, they were often interrupted by troops and supplies pa.s.sing. One night, just as they were about to cement the second hole, a _sotnia_ of Cossacks took it into their heads to bivouac near the secret spot, so they hastily covered it up and slunk home again, carrying the little sack of cement on their backs. They looked back and saw two Cossacks searching on the very spot where they had been working. This showed how careful they must be. At last, however, the two holes were filled with straw and moss, then the bags with the jewels, with earth beaten down, potatoes, sausages and more loose rubbish. The jewels were well at the bottom and several layers away from the food. This done, the women were taken--after dark--to the spots until they knew exactly where to find the treasure; and each learned by heart how many paces one hole was from the ditch and the other from the bend in the road that came a few hundred yards after you pa.s.sed the windmill. _That_ has been shot down long ago; but they had all pa.s.sed the place and visited the spot so often that they could find the treasure blindfolded. The two men covered up the tops so well that none could tell the ground had been disturbed twenty-four hours after they had finished.

So much for the jewels. They now had to find a place for the little plan that would enable them to get food supplies. There was not so much secrecy about this, there could not be, for both the butler and housekeeper had to know where to get things. By this time they had heard quite enough about the soldiers to be sure that if they were hungry and thought there was food about they would try to get it. But the Grand Duke Nicolai Nicolawitch had his troops well in hand; only the Prussians ordered their men to loot as much as they pleased; and who could tell how soon they might come?

Ian had ordered a good stock of foodstuffs to be left in the huge storeroom, to satisfy any looters that that was all they had. If that went, they could fall back on bricked-up supplies; if it were let alone, so much the better. But the stores in the cellar had been bricked up in six different parts; the place underneath the house was a labyrinth of pa.s.sages and small cellars. Ian was for destroying the written list when they had learnt the geography of the food, and knew the Prussians were upon them. Till then, it might be kept in the chapel; for they knew that the Russians, even the most savage of the Cossacks, would respect holy ground. Vanda said nothing, but learnt the contents off by heart, going down into the cellars with Zosia and Martin, plan in hand, till they all three soon knew where everything was bricked up. This set Minnie to work, for Vanda, who seemed to her childish in far-off days of peace, had developed nowadays. Little by little she, too, learned the mystery of the cellars; so another detail, and a most important one, as things turned out, was mastered. In the storeroom were lists of the food put there, nailed inside the huge cupboards and headed: "Complete List of Foodstuffs in Hand." This little trick was an idea of Ian's.

Later on, when it seemed certain they could not escape a visit from William's troops, he had the old Tokay unbricked and put in one of the open cellars. Minnie asked him why he was going to give them such good wine.

"Because they know it is here," he answered. "I don't want them to set about looking for it. Some old German professor called once with introductions and asked if he might see the cellar-book. Like an a.s.s, I let him. His essay came out in some German review with extracts from my cellar-book."

Meanwhile, all the able-bodied men, except only sons and supporters of widows, had been called to the colors. Before going off, the men trooped into the hall, kissed the Countess' hand and had her blessing and her promise that neither wife nor child should want so long as Ruvno could help them. And Father Constantine, who had taught them all their catechism and their prayers, said a prayer. And then they marched away, singing hymns which have been heard on every battlefield in which Poles took part since Christianity came into Poland, and swinging their st.u.r.dy arms; for so the Russians teach their soldiers to march....

They went down the shady avenue and along the hot, dusty road to the depot, five miles off. And at their head rode Ian and Father Constantine, to give them a send-off. Long after they were out of sight the three women could hear their voices, the men singing in unison, and the wives or sweethearts, who could keep up with them by running alongside, chiming in with their shrill tones; and Minnie thanked G.o.d that Ian, if he was to die, would die with her in his beloved Ruvno....

And as she watched them disappear into the fields of death and glory a great sadness came over her; for she knew that between yesterday and all the days to come in her life lay a deep abyss; that life itself would never be the same again; that a scale of pleasant illusions had fallen from her eyes and she must now face hard, unwelcome facts and live a fuller, sterner life than she had ever dreamed of; and the thought that the old order had left them all, on this great battlefield, forever, made her feel that she had lost somebody very very dear to her; and so the tears came into her eyes, though she tried very hard to swallow them.

As the voices died in the distance, they heard a long, dull roar. She looked at the Countess, who was fighting her tears, too.