The Red Symbol Part 14

I was not surprised to hear this, knowing of old the leisurely way in which Russians set about such work.

"My master has left me to look after your excellency," he continued, in the same curious manner, respectful almost to servility but sullen withal. "What are your orders?"

I guessed now that he belonged to my tall friend.

"I want nothing at present. Who is your master?"

He looked at me suspiciously out of the corners of his eyes.

"Your excellency knows very well; but if not it isn't my business to say."

I did not choose to press the point. I could doubtless get the information I wanted elsewhere.

"You are a discreet fellow," I said with a knowing smile, intended to impress him with the idea that I had been merely testing him by the question. "Well, at least you can tell me if he is hurt?"

"No, praise to G.o.d, and to your excellency!" he exclaimed, with more animation than he had yet shown. "It would have gone hard with him if he had been alone! I was searching for him among the wreckage, fool that I was, till I heard your excellency shout; and then I ran--we all ran--and those miscreants fled, all who could. We got five and--" he grinned ferociously--"well, they will do no more harm in this world! But it is not well for the _barin_ to talk much yet; also it is not wise."

He glanced round cautiously and then leaned over me, and said with his lips close to my ear:

"Your excellency is to remember that you were hurt in the explosion; nothing happened after that. My master bade me warn you! And now I will summon the doctor," he announced aloud.

A minute later a good-looking, well-dressed man bustled along to my side and addressed me in French.

"Ah, this is better. Simple concussion, that is all; and you will be all right in a day or two, if you will keep quiet. I wish I could say that of all my patients! The good Mishka has been keeping the bandages wet?

Yes; he is a faithful fellow, that Mishka; but you will find him surly, _hein_? That is because Count Solovieff left him behind in attendance on you."

So that was the name,--Count Solovieff. Where had I heard it before? I remembered instantly.

"You mean the Grand Duke Loris?" I asked deliberately.

His dark eyes twinkled through their gla.s.ses.

"_Eh bien_, it is the same thing. He is travelling incognito, you understand, though he can scarcely expect to pa.s.s unrecognized, _hein_?

He is a very headstrong young man, Count Solovieff, and he has some miraculous escapes! But he is brave as a lion; he will never acknowledge that there is danger. Now you will sleep again till we reach Dunaburg.

Mishka will be near you if you need him."

I closed my eyes, though not to sleep. So this superb young soldier, who had interested and attracted me so strangely, was the man whom Anne loved! Well, he was a man to win any woman's heart; I had to acknowledge that. I could not even feel jealous of him now. Von Eckhardt was right.

I must still love her, as one infinitely beyond my reach; as the page loved the queen.

"Is she wronged? To the rescue of her honour My heart!

Is she poor? What costs it to be styled a donor Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.

But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!"

Yes, I must for the future "choose the page's part," and, if she should ever have need of me, I would serve her, and take that for my reward!

I fell asleep on that thought, and only woke--feeling fairly fit, despite the dull ache in my head and the throbbing of the flesh wound in my shoulder--when we reached Dunaburg, and the cars were shunted to a siding.

Mishka turned up again, and insisted on valeting me after a fashion, though I told him I could manage perfectly well by myself. I had come out of the affair better than most of the pa.s.sengers, for my baggage had been in the rear part of the train, and by the time I got to the hotel, close to the station, was already deposited in the rooms that, I found, had been secured for me in advance.

I had just finished the light meal which was all Dr. Nabokof would allow me, when Mishka announced "Count Solovieff," and the Grand Duke Loris entered.

"Please don't rise, Mr. Wynn," he said in English. "I have come to thank you for your timely aid. You are better? That is good. You got a nasty knock on the head just at the end of the fun, which was much too bad! It was a jolly good fight, wasn't it?"

He laughed like a schoolboy at the recollection; his blue eyes shining with sheer glee, devoid of any trace of the ferocity that usually marks a Russian's mirth.

"That's so," I conceded. "And fairly long odds; two unarmed men against a crowd with knives and bludgeons. Why don't you carry a revolver, sir?"

"I do, as a rule. Why don't you?"

"Because I guess it would have been confiscated at the frontier. I'm a civilian, and--I've been in Russia before! But if you'd had a six-shooter--"

"There would have been no fight; they would have run the sooner,--all the better for some of them," he answered, and as he spoke the mirth pa.s.sed from his face, leaving it stern and sad. "I ought to have had a revolver, of course, but I was pitched out of bed without any warning, as I presume you were. By the way, Mr. Wynn, in the official report no mention is made of our--how do you call it?"

"Scrimmage?" I suggested.

"Ah, that is the word. Our scrimmage. Your name is in the list of those wounded by the explosion of the bomb. It was a bomb, as perhaps you have learned. Believe me, as you are going to Petersburg, and expect to remain there for some time, you will be the safer if no one--beyond myself and the few others on the spot, most of whom can be trusted--knows that you saved my life. Ah, yes, indeed you did that!" he added quickly, as I made a dissentient gesture. "I could not have kept them off another minute. Besides, you saw them first, and warned me; otherwise we should both have been done for at once."

"Do you know who they were?" I asked.

He shrugged his broad shoulders.

"I have my suspicions, and I do not wish others to be involved in my affairs, to suffer through me. Yet it is the others who suffer," he continued, speaking, as it seemed, more to himself than to me. "For I come through unscathed every time, while they--"

He broke off and sat for a minute or more frowning, and biting his mustache.

A sudden thought struck me. I rose and crossed to the French window which stood open. Outside was a small balcony, gay with red and white flowers. I nipped off a single blossom, closed the window, and returned to where he sat, watching my movements intently.

"I, too, have my suspicions, sir," I said significantly. "I wonder if they coincide with yours."

I laid the flower on the table beside him, flattening out the five scarlet petals, and resumed my seat.

I saw instantly that he recognized the symbol, and knew what it meant, doubtless better than I did.

He glanced from it to me, then round the room, crossed to the door, opened it quickly, saw Mishka was standing outside, on guard, and closed it again.

"Now, who are you and what do you know?" he asked quietly. "Speak low; the very walls have ears."

"I know very little, but I surmise--"

"It is safer to surmise nothing, Mr. Wynn. I only ask what you know!"

"Well, I know that some member of the League, the organization, that this represents," I pointed to the flower, "murdered an Englishman."

"Mr. Carson, a journalist. You knew him?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, and I am going to Petersburg as his successor."

"Then you have great need to act with more caution than--pardon me--you have manifested so far," he rejoined. "Well, what more?"