The Shadow of the Czar Part 30

"No matter, drunk or sober, it _was_ granted. And to-day we have that Charter, signed and sealed, locked in an iron chest, secured in a stone chamber, and guarded by soldiers night and day."

"And to think," said Katina, still on the subject of the portrait, and turning to the two Englishmen as she spoke, "to think that your sweet, youthful queen Victoria should allow herself to be embraced and kissed by this Muscovite bear when he parted from her at Windsor!"

"It wouldn't do to attempt the same with our princess,--eh, Katina?"

"No. Mild and gracious as she naturally is, I warrant she would flash a dagger before his eyes."

"Since you hate the original so," asked Paul, "why display his portrait?"

"To draw Russian customers, who like to have the face of their little father looking down upon them at the drink. Why should I not levy tribute from the enemy? Their kopeks all go to the good cause. The last visitors to this room were Muscovites; hence that side of the canvas. When Polish patriots come I have a fairer face to show.

Behold!"

She turned the picture, and lo! on the back of the canvas was a well-executed portrait of the regnant Princess of Czernova.

"My pretty Ja.n.u.s!" laughed Zabern. "You should have been born a man.

What a statesman you would have made! Come, I know your love for the princess. I'll reveal a truth that will make you love her still more.

You have always believed her to be of the Greek Church; learn, now, that she is a Catholic."

"Are you not betraying a state secret?" smiled Trevisa.

"No; for the truth is known to all Czernova, or will be in a few hours. That d.a.m.nable Russophile journal, the 'Kolokol,' came out this afternoon with a long article headed, 'Natalie the Apostate'--an article roundly accusing the princess of Catholicism. Of course the charge is true, and we can't deny it."

"Pity that the truth should first be proclaimed in the columns of a slanderous journal rather than by the princess's ministers from their places in the Diet! How did editor Lipski discover the secret?" asked Trevisa.

"How? Ask the duke," replied Zabern.

"There will be deep murmurings to-night in the Muscovite faubourg."

"Which can soon be quelled by a few rounds of grape-shot," commented Zabern, who, like the first Napoleon, was a great believer in the pacificatory virtues of artillery.

"'The princess and Catholicism!'" cried Katina. "Let that be our motto. What matters the defection of the Muscovites, since the Poles will now be doubly loyal."

"Well said, Katina. Pa.s.s me the vodka. To the resurrection of Poland!"

continued Zabern, raising his gla.s.s. "Ah! Katina, when your father Boris and myself first drew breath, we had a motherland. Stanislaus was reigning, and Poland was free. To-day what is she?"

"A lioness in chains of whom the keeper is afraid. One day the lioness will break from her chains, and then woe betide the keeper!"

"You wonder, perhaps, at Katina's patriotism?" whispered Zabern to Paul. "You shall see that she hath good cause for it." And then aloud he added: "What said Czar Nicholas after suppressing the rising of 1830? 'Russia hath a mission to fulfil.' Katina, let the two Englishmen see how holy Russia fulfils her mission. Give them visible proof. You know what I mean."

Paul, entirely ignorant of Zabern's object, wondered why Katina should start, and why she should cast a glance of anguish at the speaker.

"Do you seek to humiliate me, marshal?"

"No, I seek to gain another sword for Poland," said Zabern gravely, with a significant glance at Paul.

The ordinary woman might very well have hesitated to comply with the marshal's request; but Katina was no ordinary woman. She walked a few paces off, placed the lamp upon the table in a suitable position, and then turning her back upon her visitors she began to unlace her jacket, and to loosen and cast back the white linen beneath. A startling act, truly, and yet performed with a modest air.

Holding the last vesture in position by its neckband, she said in a bitter tone: "The ignorant have sometimes complimented me upon my beautiful figure. See with what justice!"

The vesture dropped from her hand, and hung downward from her belt, leaving her form bared to the waist.

The fall of that linen was a revelation!

A sculptor would have been charmed with the fair rounded throat and white neck. But the torso below! It was no wonder that Katina made haste to hide it from view again.

"Her bosom is the same," whispered Zabern, "or rather it is destroyed.

The long lash of the knout coils completely round its victim, you know."

"The knout!" cried Paul, thrilling with horror at the thought that such a dreadful instrument should have been applied to the delicate skin of a youthful maiden.

If it had been Zabern's object to win Paul over to the Polish cause he had succeeded. The most eloquent oration against Russian despotism could not have wrought such effect upon him as the bared back of this silent maiden.

"As there is a G.o.d in heaven, the nation that does such things must perish. What had she done to be treated thus?"

While Katina was silently replacing her garments the marshal proceeded to whisper her story.

"Katina's parents, who lived at Warsaw, gave shelter to a Polish patriot, and for this offence the whole Ludovski family were banished to the Uralian mines.

"Here Katina's beauty attracted the desires of the governor, Feodor Orloff; and, sending for her he offered to restore her family to liberty, upon what conditions you can guess, when I tell you that Katina's reply was a fierce blow from her open palm.

"The morrow happened to be the emperor's birthday, and Orloff with fiendish malice aforethought had the Polish exiles paraded before him, told them that they would be free from work that day, and in return for this boon required that they should cry 'G.o.d save the Czar,' Some refused, and among them the spirited Katina. Here was Orloff's opportunity. For disloyalty to the emperor, Katina was condemned to receive fifteen strokes of the knout.

"Have you ever seen a knouting? No? Well, I trust you never will, for it is not a pleasant sight, even though your nerves be of iron. I have been compelled to witness many such scourgings in Siberia, and I tell you that though Dante in his 'Inferno' has imagined many and various tortures for the d.a.m.ned, none of them are equal to the agony that an expert executioner can elicit with a few strokes of the knout.

"You must know that the victim, his wrist and ankles clasped by iron rings, is fixed to a sort of framework set erect in the ground--fixed in such a manner that he can make no movement, literally stretched as an eel's skin is stretched to dry.

"About twenty paces off stands the executioner, with sleeves tucked up, for nothing must embarra.s.s the freedom of his movements. He holds in both hands the instrument of punishment--the knout. This is a thong of thick leather, cut triangularly, an inch in breadth, from nine to twelve feet long, and tapering to a point; this tapering end is fixed to a little wooden shaft about two feet in length.

"At the given signal the executioner advances, his body bent, and dragging the long lash between his legs. When he has arrived within three or four paces of his victim, he suddenly raises the knout above his head: the thong flies into the air, whistles, descends and clasps the naked torso of the sufferer as with a circle of iron.

Notwithstanding his state of tension the victim bounds as if under a powerful shock of galvanism, at the same time uttering a shriek that, once heard, can never be forgotten. My G.o.d! Even now I often start from sleep with such a cry ringing in my ears.

"In drawing back the lash again the executioner has a way of pulling it along the edges of the opened flesh in such a manner as to widen and deepen the wound it has made.

"He retraces his steps and begins again the same manoeuvre as many times as the victim is condemned to suffer blows. When the thong envelops the body with its folds the flesh and the muscles are literally cut into segments, as with a razor. The victim, crimson with blood, foams at the mouth and writhes in fearful agonies.

"And so our pretty Katina, nude to the waist--but enough; you have imagination, you can picture the scene."

Katina herself with saddened air had now drawn near again, in her dark eyes a fire that spoke of a desire for vengeance.

"Katina," said Paul, impulsively, "if this Feodor Orloff be still living tell me where he may be found; I will seek him out, challenge, and slay him."

"No, brave Englishman, no. That vengeance belongs to me. No one must rob me of my due. And," she added with clenched hand and stern look, "the day is coming. Fate is drawing Count Orloff near to Czernova."

"True!" replied Zabern. "He has lately been appointed governor-general of Warsaw, a province bordering on our own."

"And his appointment bodes no good to Czernova," remarked Katina.

"Marshal, I have a strange tale for your ears,--a tale I have been waiting the opportunity to relate. What will you say when I tell you that I have this very day seen the executioner who knouted me,--the minion of Orloff?"

"You are dreaming, Katina."