The Red Symbol Part 43

As we turned away, I saw a face at one of the windows and knew Anne had watched us at our task. Her self-control, her powers of endurance, were marvellous. I do not believe she had slept all that day, and yet when the carriage was ready she came out with a steady step; and I heard her speak soothingly to the weeping Natalya.

That was the last I saw or heard of her for several days, for it had been arranged that she should drive to Pruschan, escorted only by Loris and her cousin and a couple of our men, and travel thence by train to Warsaw, while Mishka and I with the others would ride the whole way. It meant a couple of days' delay in reaching Warsaw, but it seemed the safest plan; and it worked without a hitch. By twos and threes we rode into Warsaw in the early morning of the day that saw the beginning of the great strike,--and of the revolution which will end only when the Russian Empire becomes a Free Republic; and G.o.d only knows when that will come to pa.s.s!

I have been through three regular campaigns in different parts of the world during the last ten years, and had a good many thrilling experiences, one way and another; but the weeks I spent in Warsaw in the late fall of the year 1905 were the strangest and most eventful I've ever gone through.

As I look back now, the whole thing seems like a long and vivid nightmare, of which some few incidents stand out with dreadful distinctness, and the rest is a mere blur, a confusion of shifting figures and scenes; of noise and dust and bloodshed. Strenuous days of street rioting and fighting, in which one and all of us did our share; and when the row was over for the time being, turned our hands to ambulance work. Nights that were even more strenuous than the days, for in the night the next day's plan had to be decided on, funds and food given out, the circulars (reporting progress and urging the people to stand fast) to be drawn up, printed, and issued. Such publications were prohibited, of course; but Warsaw, like most of the other cities, was strewn with them. People read them, flaunting them openly before the eyes of the authorities; and though the police and the soldiers tried the plan of bayoneting or shooting at sight every one whom they saw with a revolutionary print, they soon had to reserve it for any defenceless woman or even child whom they might encounter. For the great majority of the strikers were armed, and they showed themselves even quicker with their revolvers and "killers" than the soldiers were with their rifles; while every soldier killed represented one more rifle seized.

We reported ourselves on arrival, as arranged, at a s.p.a.cious old house in a narrow street near the University, which thenceforth became our headquarters; and, within a few hours, a kind of hospital, also, for there were soon many wounded to be cared for.

Anne organized a band of women as amateur nurses, with Natalya at the head of them, in our house, while others were on duty elsewhere.

This quarter, as I found, was a stronghold of the League; and many houses were, like ours, turned into temporary hospitals. But I gathered that comparatively few of Anne's most influential colleagues were in sympathy with her efforts to mitigate the horrors that surrounded us.

In that way, we, her own chosen band, worked almost alone. Most of the revolutionists were as callous, as brutal, as the Cossacks themselves,--women as well as men. They would march in procession, waving banners and singing patriotic songs, and, when the inevitable collision with the soldiers came, they would fight like furies, and die with a laugh of defiance on their lips. But those who came through, unscathed, had neither care nor sympathy to bestow on the fallen.

"I join your band of nurses?" a handsome vivacious little woman--evidently one of her own rank--said to Anne one day, with a scornful laugh. "I am no good at such work. Give me real work to do, a bomb to throw, a revolver to fire; I have that at least"--she touched her fur blouse significantly. "I want to fight--to kill--and if I am killed instead, well, it is but the fortune of war! But nursing--bah--I have not the patience! You are far too tender-hearted, Anna Petrovna; you ought to have been a nun; but what would our handsome Loris have done then? Oh, it is all right, _ma chere_; I am quite discreet. But do you suppose I have not recognized him?"

Anne looked troubled.

"And others,--do they recognize him?" she asked quietly.

"Who knows? We are too busy these days to think or care who any one is or is not. Besides, he is supposed to be dead; it was cleverly planned, that bomb affair! Was it your doing, Anna? He is too stupidly honest to have thought of it himself. There! Do not look so vexed, and have no fear that I shall denounce him. He is far too good-looking! You have a _penchant_ for good-looking men," she added, with an audacious glance in my direction.

It happened for once that Anne and I were alone together, until Madame Levinska turned up, in the room that was used as an office, and where between-whiles I did a good bit of secretarial work. That small untidy room represented the bureau from which the whole of this section of the League was controlled, practically by that slender, pale-faced girl in the black gown, who sat gravely regarding her frivolous acquaintance.

Her grasp of affairs was as marvellous as her personal courage in time of need; she was at once the head and the heart of the whole organization.

I felt angry with the Levinska woman for her taunt. She, and such as she, who were like so many undisciplined children, and whose ideas of revolution were practically limited to acts of violence committed in defiance or reprisal, could not even begin to understand the ideals not merely held, but maintained, by Anne and Loris, and the few others who, with them, knew that permanent good could never be accomplished by evil means. Those two were dreamers, dreaming greatly; theirs was the vision splendid, though they saw it only from far off, and strove courageously but unavailingly to draw near to it. That vision will some day become a reality; and then,--I wonder if any remembrance of those who saw it first and paved the way to its realization, will linger, save in the minds of the few who knew, and loved, and worked beside them, but who were not permitted to share their fate? I doubt it, for the world at large has a short memory!

Anne made no comment on Madame Levinska's last remark, while I kept on with my work. I wished the woman would go, for we had much to get through this afternoon, and at any moment some serious interruption might occur; or the news we were awaiting might come.

The streets were unusually quiet to-day, hereabouts at any rate, and a few timid folk who had kept within doors of late had again ventured out.

On the previous day several big meetings had been held, almost without opposition, for, although martial law was proclaimed, and thousands of soldiers had entered the city, "to repress disturbances" many of the troops, including a whole regiment of hussars from Grodno, had refused to fire on the people. Since then there was a decided abatement of hostilities; though one dared not hope that it meant more than a mere lull in the storm.

The railway and telegraph strikes were maintained, but plenty of news got through,--news that the revolution was general; that Kronstadt and Riga were in flames; Petersburg and Moscow in a state of anarchy; that many of the troops had mutinied and were fighting on the side of the revolutionists, while the rest were disheartened and tired out. During the last few hours persistent rumors had reached us that the Tzar was on the point of issuing a manifesto granting civil and political liberty to the people; a capitulation on all important points in fact. If the news were true it was magnificent. Such of us as were optimists believed it would be the beginning of a new and glorious era. Already we had disseminated such information as had reached us, by issuing broadcast small news-sheets damp from the secret printing-press in the cellar of the old house. A week or two ago that press would have had to be shifted to a fresh hiding-place every night; but in these days the police had no time for making systematic inquisitions; it was all they could do to hold their own openly against the mob.

And now we were waiting for fresh and more definite tidings, and I know Anne's heart beat high with hope, though we had not exchanged a dozen words before Madame Levinska made her unwelcome appearance; and Anne, who had but just returned to the room after going the round of our amateur hospital, tackled her about the nursing.

She stayed for a few minutes longer, continuing her irresponsible chatter and then, to my relief, anyhow, took herself off, announcing airily that she was going to see if there was any fun stirring.

"Do not be reckless, Marie," Anne called after her. "You do no good by that, and may do much harm."

"Have no fear for me, little nun," she retorted gaily, over her shoulder. "I can take care of myself."

"She sees only,--cares only for the excitement, the poor Marie!" I heard Anne murmur with a sigh, as she crossed to the window and watched her friend's retreating figure; a jaunty audacious little figure it was!

There was a clatter and jingle below, and three or four Cossacks cantered along. One of them called out something to Madame Levinska, and she turned and shrilled back an answer, her black eyes flashing.

He reined up and slashed at her with his _nagaika_.

Even before the jagged lead caught her face, ripping it from brow to chin, she drew her revolver and fired pointblank at him, missed him, and fell, as he spurred his horse on to her and struck again and again with his terrible whip.

In an instant the street was in an uproar.

CHAPTER XLVI

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

The whole thing happened far more quickly than it can be told. I dragged Anne back from the window, slammed the shutters to,--for one of the Cossacks' favorite tricks was to fire at any one seen at a window in the course of a street row,--and, curtly bidding Anne stay where she was for the moment, rushed downstairs and out into the street, revolver in hand.

Mishka and half a dozen of our men were before me; there were very few of us in the house just now; most of the others were with Loris and Va.s.silitzi, attending a big procession and meeting in Marchalkowskaia, with their usual object,--to maintain order as far as possible, and endeavor to prevent conflicts between the troops and the people. It was astonishing how much Loris had achieved in this way, even during these last terrible days of riot and bloodshed. He was ever on the alert; he seemed to know by instinct how to seize the right moment to turn the temper of the crowd or the soldiers, and avert disaster; and his splendid personality never failed in its almost magnetic effect on every one who came in contact with it. He was a born leader of men!

And, although he was always to the fore in every affair, as utterly reckless of his own safety as he was anxious to secure the safety of others, he had hitherto come unscathed through everything, though a couple of our men had been killed outright, several others badly wounded, and the rest of us had got a few hard knocks one way or other.

I'd had a bullet through my left arm, the arm that was broken in the scrimmage outside Petersburg in June, a flesh wound only, luckily, though it hurt a bit when I had time to think of it,--which wasn't often.

By the time we got into the street, the affair was over. The Cossacks, urging their ponies at the usual wild gallop, and firing wantonly up at the houses, since the people who had been in the street had rushed for cover, were almost out of sight; and on the road and sidewalk near at hand were several killed and wounded,--mostly women,--besides Madame Levinska, who had been the cause of it all, and had paid with her life.

She was a hideous sight, she who five minutes before had been so gay, so audacious, so full of vivacity. The brutes had riddled her prostrate body with bullets, slashed at it with their whips, trampled it under their horses' hoofs; and it lay huddled, shapeless, with scarce a semblance to humanity left in it.

I head a low, heartfelt cry, and saw Anne beside me, her fair face ashen white, her eyes dilated with horror and compa.s.sion, as she stared at her friend's corpse.

"Go back!" I said roughly. "You can do nothing for her. And we will see to the rest; go back, I say. There may be more trouble."

"My duty is here," she said quietly, and pa.s.sed on to bend over a woman who was kneeling and screaming beside a small body,--that of a lad about eight or nine years old,--which lay very still.

It was, as I well knew, useless to argue with Anne; so I went on with my ambulance work in grim silence, keeping near her, and letting the others go to and fro, helping the wounded into shelter and carrying away the dead. Natalya had run out also and joined her mistress. Yossof was not at hand; it was he whom we expected to bring the news we were awaiting so eagerly. He had come with us to Warsaw, and though he lived in the Ghetto among his Jewish kindred, was constantly back and forth.

He was invaluable as a messenger,--a spy some might call him,--although he knew no language but Yiddish and Polack, and the queer Russian lingo that was a mingling of all three. But of course he learned a great deal from his fellow Jews. Hunted, persecuted, wretched as they are, the Polish and Russian Jews always have, or can command, money, and the way they get hold of news is nothing short of marvellous,--in the Warsaw Ghetto, anyhow!

There was quite a crowd around us soon, as the people who had fled before the Cossacks came back again,--weeping, gesticulating, shouting imprecations on the Tzar, the Government, the soldiers,--as they always did when they were excited; but, as usual, doing very little to help.

All at once there was a bigger tumult near at hand, and a mob came pouring along the street, a disorderly procession of men and women and little children, flaunting banners, waving red handkerchiefs, laughing, crying, shouting, and singing, as if they were more than half delirious with joy and excitement. And what was more remarkable, there were neither police nor soldiers in sight, nor any sign of Loris or his men.

Many such processions occurred in Warsaw that day, when the great news came,--news that was soon to be so horribly discounted and annulled; and that, for me, was rendered insignificant, even in that first hour, by the great tragedy that followed hard upon its coming,--the tragedy that will overshadow all my life. Even after the lapse of years I can scarcely bring myself to write of it, though every incident is stamped indelibly on my brain. Clear before my eyes now rises Anne's face, as, with her arm about the poor mother--who was half fainting--she turned and looked at the joyous rabble.

"What is it?" she cried, and at the same instant Yossof hurried up, and spoke breathlessly to her.

She listened to his message with parted lips, her eyes starry with the light of ecstatic joy.

"What is it?" I asked in my turn, for I couldn't catch what Yossof said.

"It's true,--it's true; oh, thank G.o.d for all His mercies! The end is in sight, Maurice; the new era is beginning--has begun. The Tzar has yielded; he has issued the manifesto, granting all demands--"

I stood staring at her, stricken dumb, not by the news she told, but by her unearthly beauty. The face that was so worn with all the toil and conflict and anxiety of these strenuous days and weeks was transfigured; and above it her red-gold hair shone like a crown of glory.

I know what was in her mind at that moment,--the thought that all had not been in vain, that the long struggle was almost ended, victory in sight; with freedom for the oppressed, cessation of bloodshed, a gradual return to law and order, the patient building up of a new civilization.

Had I not heard her and Loris speak in that strain many times, the last only a few hours back, when the rea.s.suring rumors began to strengthen?