* “What does it matter!”
“Listen. Someone is coming up the stairs,” whispered Matrena, with her keen ear, and she slipped from the restraint of her husband.
Breathless, they all hurried to the door opening on the landing, but with steps as light “as though they walked on eggs.” All four of them were leaning over there close by the door, hardly daring to breathe. They heard two men on the stairs. Were they Koupriane and Rouletabille, or were they the others? They had revolvers in their hands and drew back a little when the footsteps sounded near the door. Behind them Trebassof was quietly seated in his chair. The door was opened and Koupriane and Rouletabille perceived these death-like figures, motionless and mute. No one dared to speak or make a movement until the door had been closed. But then:
“Well? Well? Save us! Where are they? Ah, my dear little domovoi-doukh, save the general, for the love of the Virgin!”
“Tsst! tsst! Silence.”
Rouletabille, very pale, but calm, spoke:
“The plan is simple. They are between the two staircases, watching the one and the other. I will go and find them and make them mount the one while you descend by the other.”
“Caracho! That is simple enough. Why didn’t we think of it sooner? Because everybody lost his head except the dear little domovoi-doukh!”
But here something happened Rouletabille had not counted on. The general rose and said, “You have forgotten one thing, my young friend; that is that General Trebassof will not descend by the servants’ stairway.”
His friends looked at him in stupefaction, and asked if he had gone mad.
“What is this you say, Feodor?” implored Matrena.
“I say,” insisted the general, “that I have had enough of this comedy, and that since Monsieur Koupriane has not been able to arrest these men, and since, on their side, they don’t seem to decide to do their duty, I shall go myself and put them out of my house.”
He started a few steps, but had not his cane and suddenly he tottered. Matrena Petrovna jumped to him and lifted him in her arms as though he were a feather.
“Not by the servants’ stairway, not by the servants’ stairway,” growled the obstinate general.
“You will go,” Matrena replied to him, “by the way I take you.”
And she carried him back into the apartment while she said quickly to Rouletabille:
“Go, little domovoi! And God protect us!”
Rouletabille disappeared at once through the door to the main staircase, and the group attended by Koupriane, passed through the dressing-room and the general’s chamber, Matrena Petrovna in the lead with her precious burden. Ivan Petrovitch had his hand already on the famous bolt which locked the door to the servants’ staircase when they all turned at the sound of a quick step behind them. Rouletabille had returned.
“They are no longer in the drawing-room.”
“Not in the drawing-room! Where are they, then?”
Rouletabille pointed to the door they were about to open.
“Perhaps behind that door. Take care!”
All drew back.
“But Ermolai ought to know where they are,” exclaimed Koupriane. “Perhaps they have gone, finding out they were discovered.”
“They have assassinated Ermolai.”
“Assassinated Ermolai!”
“I have seen his body lying in the middle of the drawing-room as I leaned over the top of the banister. But they were not in the room, and I was afraid you would run into them, for they may well be hidden in the servants’ stairway.”
“Then open the window, Koupriane, and call your men to deliver us.”
“I am quite willing,” replied Koupriane coldly, “but it is the signal for our deaths.”
“Well, why do they wait so to make us die?” muttered Feodor Feodorovitch. “I find them very tedious about it, for myself. What are you doing, Ivan Petrovitch?”
The spectral figure of Ivan Petrovitch, bent beside the door of the stairway, seemed to be hearing things the others could not catch, but which frightened them so that they fled from the general’s chamber in disorder. Ivan Petrovitch was close on them, his eyes almost sticking from his head, his mouth babbling:
“They are there! They are there!”
Athanase Georgevitch open a window wildly and said:
“I am going to jump.”
But Thaddeus Tchitchnikofl’ stopped him with a word. “For me, I shall not leave Feodor Feodorovitch.”
Athanase and Ivan both felt ashamed, and trembling, but brave, they gathered round the general and said, “We will die together, we will die together. We have lived with Feodor Feodorovitch, and we will die with him.”
“What are they waiting for? What are they waiting for?” grumbled the general.
Matrena Petrovna’s teeth chattered. “They are waiting for us to go down,” said Koupraine.
“Very well, let us do it. This thing must end,” said Feodor.
“Yes, yes,” they all said, for the situation was becoming intolerable; “enough of this. Go on down. Go on down. God, the Virgin and Saints Peter and Paul protect us. Let us go.”
The whole group, therefore, went to the main staircase, with the movements of drunken men, fantastic waving of the arms, mouths speaking all together, saying things no one but themselves understood. Rouletabille had already hurriedly preceded them, was down the staircase, had time to throw a glance into the drawing-room, stepped over Ermolai’s huge corpse, entered Natacha’s sitting-room and her chamber, found all these places deserted and bounded back into the veranda at the moment the others commenced to descend the steps around Feodor Feodorovitch. The reporter’s eyes searched all the dark corners and had perceived nothing suspicious when, in the veranda, he moved a chair. A shadow detached itself from it and glided under the staircase. Rouletabille cried to the group on the stairs.
“They are under the staircase!”
Then Rouletabille confronted a sight that he could never forget all his life.
At this cry, they all stopped, after an instinctive move to go back. Feodor Feodorovitch, who was still in Matrena Petrovna’s arms, cried:
“Vive le Tsar!”
And then, those whom the reporter half expected to see flee, distracted, one way and another, or to throw themselves madly from the height of the steps, abandoning Feodor and Matrena, gathered themselves instead by a spontaneous movement around the general, like a guard of honor, in battle, around the flag. Koupriane marched ahead. And they insisted also upon descending the terrible steps slowly, and sang the Bodje tsara Krani, the national anthem!
With an overwhelming roar, which shocked earth and sky and the ears of Rouletabille, the entire house seemed lifted in the air; the staircase rose amid flame and smoke, and the group which sang the Bodje tsara Krani disappeared in a horrible apotheosis.
XIV. THE MARSHES
THEY ASCERTAINED THE next day that there had been two explosions, almost simultaneous, one under each staircase. The two Nihilists, when they felt themselves discovered, and watched by Ermolai, had thrown themselves silently on him as he turned his back in passing them, and strangled him with a piece of twine. Then they separated each to watch one of the staircases, reasoning that Koupriane and General Trebassof would have to decide to descend.
The datcha des Iles was nothing now but a smoking ruin. But from the fact that the living bombs had exploded separately the destructive effect was diffused, and although there were numerous wounded, as in the case of the attack on the Stolypine datcha, at least no one was killed outright; that is, excepting the two Nihilists, of whom no trace could be found save a few rags.
Rouletabille had been hurled into the garden and he was glad enough to escape so, a little shaken, but without a scratch. The group composed of Feodor and his friends were strangely protected by the lightness of the datcha’s construction. The iron staircase, which, so to speak, almost hung to the two floors, being barely attached at top and bottom, raised under them and then threw t
hem off as it broke into a thousand pieces, but only after, by its very yielding, it had protected them from the first force of the bomb. They had risen from the ruins without mortal wounds. Koupriane had a hand badly burned, Athanase Georgevitch had his nose and cheeks seriously hurt, Ivan Petrovitch lost an ear; the most seriously injured was Thaddeus Tchitchnikoff, both of whose legs were broken. Extraordinarily enough, the first person who appeared, rising from the midst of the wreckage, was Matrena Petrovna, still holding Feodor in her arms. She had escaped with a few burns and the general, saved again by the luck of the soldier whom Death does not want, was absolutely uninjured. Feodor gave shouts of joy. They strove to quiet him, because, after all, around him some poor wretches had been badly hurt, as well as poor Ermolai, who lay there dead. The domestics in the basement had been more seriously wounded and burned because the main force of the explosion had gone downwards; which had probably saved the personages above.
Rouletabille had been taken with the other victims to a neighboring datcha; but as soon as he had shaken himself free of that terrible nightmare he escaped from the place. He really regretted that he was not dead. These successive waves of events had swamped him; and he accused himself alone of all this disaster. With acutest anxiety he had inquired about the condition of each of “his victims.” Feodor had not been wounded, but now he was almost delirious, asking every other minute as the hours crept on for Natacha, who had not reappeared. That unhappy girl Rouletabille had steadily believed innocent. Was she a culprit? “Ah, if she had only chosen to! If she had had confidence,” he cried, raising anguished hands towards heaven, “none of all this need have happened. No one would have attacked and no one would ever again attack the life of Trebassof. For I was not wrong in claiming before Koupriane that the general’s life was in my hand, and I had the right to say to him, ‘Life for life! Give me Matiew’s and I will give you the general’s.’ And now there has been one more fruitless attempt to kill Feodor Feodorovitch and it is Natacha’s fault — that I swear, because she would not listen to me. And is Natacha implicated in it? O my God” Rouletabille asked this vain question of the Divinity, for he expected no more help in answering it on earth.
Natacha! Innocent or guilty, where was she? What was she doing? to know that! To know if one were right or wrong — and if one were wrong, to disappear, to die!
Thus the unhappy Rouletabille muttered as he walked along the bank of the Neva, not far from the ruins of the poor datcha, where the joyous friends of Feodor Feodorovitch would have no more good dinners, never; so he soliloquized, his head on fire.
And, all at once, he recovered trace of the young girl, that trace lost earlier, a trace left at her moment of flight, after the poisoning and before the explosion. And had he not in that a terrible coincidence? Because the poison might well have been only in preparation for the final attack, the pretext for the tragic arrival of the two false doctors. Natacha, Natacha, the living mystery surrounded already by so many dead!
Not far from the ruins of the datcha Rouletabille soon made sure that a group of people had been there the night before, coming from the woods near-by, and returning to them. He was able to be sure of this because the boundaries of the datcha had been guarded by troops and police as soon as the explosion took place, under orders to keep back the crowd that hurried to Eliaguine. He looked attentively at the grass, the ferns, the broken and trampled twigs. Certainly a struggle had occurred there. He could distinguish clearly in the soft earth of a narrow glade the prints of Natacha’s two little boots among all the large footprints.
He continued his search with his heart heavier and heavier, he had a presentiment that he was on the point of discovering a new misfortune. The footprints passed steadily under the branches along the side of the Neva. From a bush he picked a shred of white cloth, and it seemed to him a veritable battle had taken place there. Torn branches strewed the grass. He went on. Very close to the bank he saw by examination of the soil, where there was no more trace of tiny heels and little soles, that the woman who had been found there was carried, and carried, into a boat, of which the place of fastening to the bank was still visible.
“They have carried off Natacha,” he cried in a surge of anguish. “bungler that I am, that is my fault too — all my fault — all my fault! They wished to avenge Michael Nikolaievitch’s death, for which they hold Natacha responsible, and they have kidnapped her.”
His eyes searched the great arm of the river for a boat. The river was deserted. Not a sail, nothing visible on the dead waters! “What shall I do? What shall I do? I must save her.”
He resumed his course along the river. Who could give him any useful information? He drew near a little shelter occupied by a guard. The guard was speaking to an officer. Perhaps he had noticed something during his watch that evening along the river. That branch of the river was almost always deserted after the day was over. A boat plying between these shores in the twilight would certainly attract attention. Rouletabille showed the guard the paper Koupriane had given him in the beginning, and with the officer (who turned out to be a police officer) as interpreter, he asked his questions. As a matter of fact the guard had been sufficiently puzzled by the doings and comings of a light boat which, after disappearing for an instant, around the bend of the river, had suddenly rowed swiftly out again and accosted a sailing-yacht which appeared at the opening of the gulf. It was one of those small but rapid and elegant sailing craft such as are seen in the Lachtka regattas.
Lachtka! “The Bay of Lachtka!”
The word was a ray of light for the reporter, who recalled now the counsel Gounsovski had given him. “Watch the Bay of Lachtka, and tell me then if you still believe Natacha is innocent!” Gounsovski must have known when he said this that Natacha had embarked in company with the Nihilists, but evidently he was ignorant that she had gone with them under compulsion, as their prisoner.
Was it too late to save Natacha? In any case, before he died, he would try in every way possible, so as at least to have kept her as much as he could from the disaster for which he held himself responsible. He ran to the Barque, near the Point.
His voice was firm as he hailed the canoe of the floating restaurant where, thanks to him, Koupriane had been thwarted in impotent anger. He had himself taken to just below Staria-Derevnia and jumped out at the spot where he saw little Katharina disappear a few days before. He landed in the mud and climbed on hands and knees up the slope of a roadway which followed the bank. This bank led to the Bay of Lachtka, not far from the frontier of Finland.
On Rouletabille’s left lay the sea, the immense gulf with slight waves; to his right was the decaying stretch of the marsh. Stagnant water stretching to the horizon, coarse grass and reeds, an extraordinary tangle of water-plants, small ponds whose greenish scum did not stir under the stiff breeze, water that was heavy and dirty. Along this narrow strip of land thrust thus between the marsh, the sky and the sea, he hurried, with many stumblings, his eyes fixed on the deserted gulf. Suddenly he turned his head at a singular noise. At first he didn’t see anything, but heard in the distance a vague clamoring while a sort of vapor commenced to rise from the marsh. And then he noticed, nearer him, the high marsh grasses undulating. Finally he saw a countless flock rising from the bed of the marshes. Beasts, groups of beasts, whose horns one saw like bayonets, jostled each other trying to keep to the firm land. Many of them swam and on the backs of some were naked men, stark naked, with hair falling to their shoulders and streaming behind them like manes. They shouted war-cries and waved their clubs. Rouletabille stopped short before this prehistoric invasion. He would never have imagined that a few miles from the Nevsky Prospect he could have found himself in the midst of such a spectacle. These savages had not even a loin-cloth. Where did they come from with their herd? From what remote place in the world or in old and gone history had they emerged? What was this new invasion? What prodigious slaughter-house awaited these unruly herds? They made a noise like thunder in the marsh. Here were a thous
and unkempt haunches undulating in the marsh like the ocean as a storm approaches. The stark-naked men jumped along the route, waving their clubs, crying gutturally in a way the beasts seemed to understand. They worked their way out from the marsh and turned toward the city, leaving behind, to swathe the view of them a while and then fade away, a pestilential haze that hung like an aura about the naked, long-haired men. It was terrible and magnificent. In order not to be shoved into the water, Rouletabille had climbed a small rock that stood beside the route, and had waited there as though petrified himself. When the barbarians had finally passed by he climbed down again, but the route had become a bog of trampled filth.
Happily, he heard the noise of a primitive conveyance behind him. It was a telega. Curiously primitive, the telega is four-wheeled, with two planks thrown crudely across the axle-trees. Rouletabille gave the man who was seated in it three roubles, and jumped into the planks beside him, and the two little Finnish horses, whose manes hung clear to the mud, went like the wind. Such crude conveyances are necessary on such crude roads, but it requires a strong constitution to make a journey on them. Still, the reporter felt none of the jolting, he was so intent on the sea and the coast of Lachtka Bay. The vehicle finally reached a wooden bridge, across a murky creek. As the day commenced to fade colorlessly, Rouletabille jumped off onto the shore and his rustic equipage crossed to the Sestroriesk side. It was a corner of land black and somber as his thoughts that he surveyed now. “Watch the Bay of Lachtka!” The reporter knew that this desolate plain, this impenetrable marsh, this sea which offered the fugitive refuge in innumerable fords, had always been a useful retreat for Nihilistic adventurers. A hundred legends circulated in St. Petersburg about the mysteries of Lachtka marshes. And that gave him his last hope. Maybe he would be able to run across some revolutionaries to whom he could explain about Natacha, as prudently as possible; he might even see Natacha herself. Gounsovski could not have spoken vain words to him.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 78
