The Shadow of the Czar Part 29

"Eh? well, yes, it was rather awkward, for it was the right hand, you see, and never having accustomed myself to employ the left I was rendered completely useless for the rest of the campaign. However, I have repaired the deficiency, and here is a hand as good as the lost one," continued Zabern, holding up his left hand. "So ended my first experience with the Russians."

"You fought them again?" inquired Paul.

"At many times and in many places. I have aided Georgians in the Caucasus, and Turks on the Danube. And when secret tidings came to me that Poland was preparing to vindicate its freedom against the tyranny of the viceroy Constantine, brother of the present Czar, I hastened to take part in the enterprise. Her Highness's father, Prince Thaddeus, would not permit Czernova to be drawn into the movement; selfishly, as we then thought; wisely, as we now perceive.

"The rising began at Warsaw in a conspiracy to seize the person of the Grand Duke Constantine. I was one of the eighteen appointed for the purpose. At nightfall we set off for the palace, slew the guards, and penetrated to the vice-regal bedchamber. But we were just a few seconds too late. Roused from sleep by the clash of arms, and the shouting, Constantine had sprung from the bed, thrown a cloak over himself, and fled by a secret staircase communicating with the palace gardens."

"The insurrection failed?"

"For a year we offered a gallant resistance to all the might of Russia. But what can valor effect against numbers? We gained victories, and those great ones; but if we slew ten thousand of the enemy on one day, there was a second ten thousand to replace them on the morrow. We had no such reserves to fall back upon. And then, too, the d.a.m.ned Russians brought the cholera with them, an ally that proved far more fatal than their arms; though, the saints be praised! it carried off the tyrant Constantine. On the taking of Warsaw I became one of a band of prisoners condemned to march in chains four thousand miles over the winter snow to Siberia."

"And you escaped?"

"After five years, and have found asylum in Czernova. And here I am to-day, fifty-three years of age, and good for a deal more mischief yet," continued Zabern with a grim twinkle in his eye. "To see me holding the post of minister is gall and wormwood to the Russians; they have required my extradition, but the princess has resolutely refused to grant it."

Such in brief was the history of Zabern, and though his attempts to win freedom for his country were deserving of sympathy, Paul could not avoid a feeling of regret that Barbara should have admitted to her ministry such a firebrand as this patriot, whose undoubted aim was to utilize the resources of Czernova against Russia, should a favorable opportunity occur.

"By the way, Trevisa," said the marshal, turning to the ex-secretary, "you must not let the princess's frown diminish your interest in the cipher letter found upon the spy Russakoff. Read me that riddle, and I will undertake to restore you to favor."

"I fear my restoration will not come upon those terms," said Trevisa, lugubriously. "The cipher is a most baffling one. I should have a clue if you could name the writer."

"How so?"

"The first step in a problem of this sort is to know in what language the doc.u.ment is written; and of this I am ignorant. How, then, can I proceed? The principles of decipherment which an expert applies to one language fail when applied to another. But if I learn who the author is, and I discover that he knows, say, Russian only, the inference is that the doc.u.ment is written in that language; I apply certain principles deduced from a study of Russian, and the result is decipherment. The knowledge that the writer is versed in several languages would, of course, enhance the difficulty; but still, with time and patience success is certain. Have you no clue as to the writer?"

Zabern was silent. He glanced at Paul as if wishing him away.

"I will step aside for a moment," said Paul.

"Not so," replied Trevisa. "Marshal, you can trust my friend Captain Woodville as surely as myself."

"Then on my honor as a soldier I believe that the Duke of Bora was either the author or the recipient of that letter."

"The duke!" cried Trevisa in amazement. "You accuse the duke of holding a treasonable correspondence with Russia? Impossible!"

"Why impossible?"

"Is it reasonable that he should seek to subvert the throne of a princess to whom he is affianced?"

Zabern smiled cynically.

"The duke has come to count it no great prize to have but a moiety of the throne, and to be mated withal to a little lady who will take no bidding from him, and therein small blame to her. The princess hath ever been cold to the match, and therefore the duke, doubtful of her affection, has begun to play a double part, or in other words, to intrigue with Russia. 'Dispense with the princess, and reign alone under the suzerainty of the Czar'--that is his secret ambition. What other conclusion can I come to, when I see him tampering with the Czernovese army? On frivolous pretexts he has removed Polish officers from their command, replacing them by such Muscovites as have at heart the interests of the Czar rather than those of the princess. Moreover, we have certain proof that our cabinet contains a member who reveals to Russia our secret counsels. You know the cabinet well, Trevisa; tell me whom to suspect. Radzivil?--absurd! Ravenna? What hath a Roman cardinal to gain by inviting the head of the Greek Church to take possession of Czernova? Dorislas? Then let me fall on my sword's point, so certain am I of never again finding faith among men, if he be traitor. Mosco, the Greek Arch-pastor? Hum! his zeal on behalf of the princess has perhaps diminished somewhat since her conversion to Catholicism, but he is more dullard than villain. Polonaski the Justiciary? I'll mention no more. When we would discover the author of a crime, we naturally fix our suspicions upon the man who has most to gain by the deed. Judged by this test the duke, and the duke alone, is the traitor. _Delendus est Bora!_ Czernova will never be sound till he be gone."

There was no reply from Trevisa, who seemed to be lost in deep thought. Then suddenly his eyes lightened as with some new and surprising idea.

"Marshal," said he emphatically, "you shall have a translation of that letter in the morning."

It took a good deal to surprise the marshal; nevertheless on the present occasion he was quite confounded.

"How? What?" he cried. "You claim to have discovered the key to the cipher, when but a minute ago you professed ignorance of the very language in which the letter is written?"

"The language is Greek," murmured Trevisa, almost breathless at his discovery, and talking more to himself than to his companions. "Yes, yes; I comprehend it all now. The most ingenious cipher ever devised.

Nothing but an accident could have revealed the key. You are quite correct, marshal, in your estimate of the duke's character. He is a traitor, and that letter will prove it. I will work at it to-night, and to-morrow morning you shall have the result."

"Good!" replied Zabern, mystified, as was Paul likewise, by the suddenness with which Trevisa had arrived at the solution of a problem that during the past month had baffled his wit.

The shades of twilight were falling as the trio drew near to "Sobieski's Rest," an inn so called because the greatest of the Polish kings had once pa.s.sed a night there. It was a s.p.a.cious and picturesque hostelry, composed of a mixture of stone and timber, and shaded by overhanging birch-trees.

Outside the building, and holding two horses by the bridle, stood the trooper Nikita, Zabern's orderly, who had been sent on ahead to await the arrival of the marshal.

Bidding him remain at the entrance, Zabern pa.s.sed within, and led the two Englishmen to a private apartment wainscotted with oak and decorated with elk-antlers.

"Poland has never been lacking in female beauty," remarked the marshal to Paul, "and I am about to present you to her fairest daughter after the princess. This inn is kept by a friend of mine,--an old companion-in-arms,--Boris Ludovski by name, once a wealthy n.o.ble of Warsaw. His zeal in the cause of Polish liberty has reduced him to the position of inn-keeper. Freedom often treats her children hardly. As this is a frontier-inn, and on the main road to Warsaw, it often happens that suspicious characters call here for a drink, and Boris's pretty daughter, Katina, being a maiden who keeps her eyes open, is sometimes enabled to supply the police of Slavowitz with valuable information. Hence my reason for coming here at this present moment, for it is just possible that she can tell me something of the spy Russakoff who escaped from the Citadel to-day. Ah! here is Katina herself."

The person who had entered was a typical Polish belle with fine dark hair and flashing eyes. Trevisa whispered to Paul that she was a descendant of Mazeppa, the famous hetman of the Ukraine; and certainly there was that in her elastic step, her fearless glance, her whole air that marked Katina Ludovska as a true daughter of the steppes, wild and untamable.

She was handsomely attired. Over a snow-white chemisette she wore a close-fitting dark red jacket, laced in front from neckband to waist; a polished black leather belt gleaming with silver bosses; and a dark blue skirt, prettily braided with silver,--a skirt which, swelling out below the waist, imparted a charming outline to her figure. A pair of red leather shoes completed her outward costume.

The marshal saluted her in Polish fashion by kissing her hand, while she in turn pressed her lips to his forehead. She gave the like greeting to Trevisa, who appeared to be well known to her, and this done she cast a glance of inquiry at the third comer.

"Paul?" she said with a pretty pout, after the marshal had introduced him, "why do you bear the same name as a Czar?"

"There is little of the Czar in him, however," remarked Zabern. "Why, Katina, Captain Woodville has fought against Russians in Asia."

"May he live to fight against them in Europe," said Katina; and Paul could see that she was a maiden quivering with patriotism to her finger-tips.

"Amen to that!" replied Zabern; and in an exultant tone he continued, "but I have tidings for you, Katina, tidings. The princess and the duke are riven asunder. She has plucked him from the cabinet, from the command of the army, and better still from her heart. Never shall Bora put wedding-crown upon the brow of the princess. He is of less account now in her eyes than the driven leaf in the wind-swept wood."

Katina expressed her delight by dancing the first steps of a graceful mazurka.

"Joy!" she cried. "I never liked that our fair princess should bide on bolster with a Russ, and a Russ who hath sworn at the drink to harness the Polish n.o.bles to the yoke and with them plough his fields. And so John the Strong has fallen! How came it to pa.s.s?"

The marshal explained; and when Katina learned that Paul had been the direct cause of the duke's downfall she no longer withheld the kiss of friendship.

"You have wrought a good deed for Czernova, and I love you for it,"

she cried impulsively, pressing her lips to his forehead, not once, but twice. And though Katina was not the princess, Paul was fain to confess that she made a charming subst.i.tute.

"Shades of Kosciusko! what have we here?" cried Zabern, walking towards a smoke-begrimed oil-painting that hung upon one of the walls.

"Fie, Katina! you, a daughter of Poland, to keep a portrait of the Czar--that Czar too who crushed us at Warsaw sixteen years ago, the haughty, frowning Nicholas!"

"Ah! you Muscovite wolf!" cried Katina, shaking her fist at the picture. "Lying Czar, that broke his coronation-oath to Poland. Where is the const.i.tution you promised us? Grandson of an empress who was a--a--"

Katina suppressed the word that rose to her lips, for it was not a pretty epithet, though justly applicable to the moral character of Catherine II.

"Hold! let the grandmother be!" interposed Zabern. "Remember that Catherine gave to Czernova its Charter of liberty."

"I warrant the old beldam was drunk when she granted it."