The Price of Power Part 35

But she only shook her head again very mournfully. n.o.body is released from Siberia.

As we stood together, my heavy coat wrapped about her in order to protect her a little from the piercing blast, she told me how, under the fatigue and exposure of the journey, her mother had fallen so ill that she one day dropped exhausted by the roadside. One Cossack officer, finding her unconscious, suggested that she should be left there to die, as fully half a dozen other delicate women had been left. But another officer of the convoy, a trifle more humane, had her placed in a taranta.s.s, and by that means she had travelled as far as Tulunovsk. But the officer in charge there had compelled her to again walk, and over that last thousand miles of snow she had dragged wearily until, ill and worn out, she had arrived in Yakutsk.

From the moment of her arrival she had scarcely spoken. So weak was she, that she could only lie upon the bare wooden bench, and was ever begging to be allowed to die. And only that morning had she peacefully pa.s.sed away. I had arrived twelve hours too late!

She had carried her secret to her grave!

I heard the terrible story from the girl's lips in silence. My long weary journey had been all in vain.

From the beginning to the end of poor Madame's illness no medical man had seen her. From what she had suffered no one knew, and certainly n.o.body cared a jot. She was, in the eyes of the law, a "dangerous political" who had died on the journey to the distant settlement to which she had been banished. And how many others, alas! had succ.u.mbed to the rigours of that awful journey!

I walked with Luba back to the Governor's bureau, and in obedience to my demand he gave me a room--a bare place with a brick stove, before which the poor sad-eyed girl sat with me.

I saw that the death of her mother had utterly crushed her spirit.

Transferred from the gaiety and luxury of Petersburg, her pretty home and her merry circle of friends, away to that wilderness of snow, with brutal Cossacks as guards--men who beat exhausted women with whips as one lashes a dog--her brain was at last becoming affected. At certain moments she seemed very curious in her manner. Her deep blue eyes had an unusual intense expression in them--a look which I certainly did not like. That keen glittering glance was, I knew, precursory to madness.

Though unkempt and ragged, wearing an old pair of men's high boots and a dirty red handkerchief tied about her head, her beauty was still remarkable. Her pretty mouth was perhaps harder, and it tightened at the corners as she related the tragic story of their arrest and their subsequent journey. Yet her eyes were splendid, and her cheeks were still dimpled they had been when I had so often sat at tea with her in her mother's great salon in Petersburg, a room decorated in white, with rose-du-Barri furniture.

In tenderness I hold her hand as she told me of the brutal treatment both she and her fellow-prisoners had received at the hands of the Cossacks.

"Never mind, Luba," I said with a smile, endeavouring to cheer her, "every cloud has its silver lining. Your poor mother is dead, and n.o.body regrets it more than myself. I travelled in haste from England in order to see her--in order to advise her to reveal to me a certain secret which she possessed."

"A secret!" said the girl, looking straight into my face. "A secret of what?"

"Well," I said slowly, "first, Luba, let me explain that as you well know, I am an old friend of your dear mother."

"I know that, of course," she said. "Poor mother has frequently spoken of you during her journey. She often used to wonder what you would think when you heard of our arrest."

"I knew you were both the innocent victims of General Markoff," I said quickly.

"Ah! then you knew that!" she cried. "How did you know?"

"Because I was well aware that Markoff was your mother's bitterest enemy," I answered.

"He was. But why? Do you know that, Mr Trewinnard? Can you give me any explanation? It has always been a most complete mystery to me.

Mother always refused to tell me anything."

I paused. I had hoped that she would know something, or at least that she might give me some hint which would serve as a clue by which to elucidate the mystery of those incriminating letters, now, alas!

destroyed.

"Has your mother told you nothing?" I asked, looking earnestly straight in her face.

"Nothing."

"Immediately before her arrest she gave to Her Imperial Highness the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Natalia certain letters, asking her to keep them in safety. Are you aware of that?"

"Mother told me so," the girl replied. "She also believed that the letters in question must have fallen into General Markoff's hands."

"Why?"

"I do not know. She often said so."

"She believed that the arrest and exile of you both was due to the knowledge of what those letters contained--eh?" I asked.

"I think so."

"But tell me, Luba," I asked very earnestly, "did your mother ever reveal to you the nature of those letters? I am here to discover this-- because--well, to tell the truth, because your friend the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Natasha is in deadly peril."

"In peril, why? Where is she?"

In a few brief words I told her of Natalia's _incognita_ at Brighton, and of the attempt that had been made to a.s.sa.s.sinate us both, in order to suppress any knowledge of the letters that either of us might have gained.

"Our own sad case is on a par with yours," she declared thoughtfully at last. "Poor mother was, I think, aware of some secret of General Markoff's. Perhaps it was believed that she had told me. At any rate, we were both arrested and sent here, where we should never have any opportunity of using our information."

"You have no idea of its nature, Luba," I asked in a low voice, still deeply in earnest. "I mean you have no suspicion of the actual nature of the contents of those letters which your mother gave into Natalia's care?"

The girl was silent for some time, her eyes downcast in thought.

At last she replied:

"It would be untrue to say that I entertain no suspicion. But, alas! I have no corroboration. My belief is only based upon what my dear mother so often used to repeat to me."

"And what was that?" I asked.

"That she had held the life of Russia's oppressor, General Markoff, in her hand. That she could have crushed and ruined him as he so justly deserved; but that for motives of humanity she had warned him of repeating his dastardly actions, and had long hesitated to bring him to ruin and to death."

"Ah! the brute. He knew that," I cried. "He craftily awaited his opportunity, then he dealt her a cowardly blow, by arresting her and sending her here, where even in life or in death her lips would be closed for ever."

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

NOT IN THE NEWSPAPERS.

Twelve weeks had elapsed--cold, weary weeks of constant sledging over those bleak, snow-bound plains, westward, back to civilisation.

On the twenty-seventh of April--I have, alas! cause to remember the date--at six o'clock in the evening, I alighted from the train at Brighton, and Hartwig came eagerly forward to greet me.

I had journeyed incessantly, avoiding Petersburg and coming by Warsaw and Berlin to the Hook of Holland, and that morning had apprised him of my arrival in England; but, I fear, as I emerged from the train my appearance must have been somewhat travel-worn. True, I had bought some ready-made clothes in Berlin--a new overcoat and a new hat. But I was horribly conscious that they were ill-fitting, as is every man who wears a "ready-to-wear garment"--as the tailors call it.

Yes, I was utterly f.a.gged out after that long and fruitless errand, and a I glanced at Hartwig I detected in an instant that something unusual had occurred.

"What's the matter?" I asked quickly. "What has happened?"

"Ah! that I unfortunately do not exactly know, Mr Trewinnard," was his reply in a tone quite unusual to him.

"But what has occurred?"

"Disaster," he answered in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice. "Her Highness has mysteriously disappeared!"

"Disappeared!" I gasped, halting and staring at him. "How? With whom?"