The Czar's Spy: The Mystery of a Silent Love
She placed her clasped hands to her mouth and made signs by shaking her
head that she could neither understand nor respond. I therefore took my
wallet from my pocket and wrote upon a piece of paper in a large hand
the words: "_I come from Lydia Moreton. My name is Gordon Gregg_."
When her eager gaze fell upon the words she became instantly filled with
excitement, and nodded quickly. Then holding her steel-clasped wrists
towards me she looked wistfully at me, as though imploring me to release
her from the awful bondage in that silent tomb.
Though the woman who had led me there endeavored to prevent it, I
handed her the pencil, and placed the paper on the table for her to
write.
The nun tried to snatch it up, but I held her arm gently and forcibly,
saying in French:
"No. I wish to see if she is really insane. You will at least allow me
this satisfaction."
And while we were in altercation, Elma, with the pencil in her fingers,
tried to write, but by reason of her hands being bound so closely was
unable. At length, however, after several attempts, she succeeded in
printing in uneven capitals the response:
"I know you. You were on the yacht. I thought they killed you."
The thin-faced old woman saw her response--a reply that was surely
rational enough--and her brows contracted with displeasure.
"Why are you here?" I wrote, not allowing the sister to get sight of my
question.
In response, she wrote painfully and laboriously:
"I am condemned for a crime I did not commit. Take me from here, or I
shall kill myself."
"Ah!" exclaimed the old woman. "You see, poor girl, she believes herself
innocent! They all do."
"But why is she here?" I demanded fiercely.
"I do not know, m'sieur. It is not my duty to inquire the history of
their crimes. When they are ill I nurse them; that is all."
"And who is the commandant of this fortress?"
"Colonel Smirnoff. If he knew that I had admitted you, you would never
leave this place alive. This is the Schusselburg of Finland--the place
of imprisonment for those who have conspired against the State."
"The prison of political conspirators, eh?"
"Alas, m'sieur, yes! The place in which some of the poor creatures are
tortured in order to obtain confessions and information with as much
cruelty as in the black days of the Inquisition. These walls are thick,
and their cries are not heard from the oubliettes below the lake."
I had long ago heard of the horrors of Schusselburg. Indeed who has not
heard of them who has traveled in Russia? The very mention of the modern
Bastille on Lake Ladoga, where no prisoner has ever been known to come
forth alive, is sufficient to cause any Russian to turn pale. And I was
in the Schusselburg of Finland!
I turned over the sheet of paper and wrote the question--
"Did Baron Oberg send you here?"
In response, she printed the words--
"I believe so. I was arrested in Helsingfors. Tell Lydia where I am."
"Do you know Muriel Leithcourt?" I inquired by the same means, whereupon
she replied that they were at school together.
"Did you see me on board the _Lola_?" I wrote.
"Yes. But I could not warn you, although I had overheard their
intentions. They took me ashore when you had gone, to Siena. After three
days I found myself deaf and dumb--I was made so."
Her allegation startled me. She had been purposely afflicted!
"Who did it?"
"A doctor, I suppose. They put me under chloroform."
"Who?"
"People who said they were my friends."
I turned to the woman in the religious habit, and cried--
"Do you see what she has written? She has been maimed by some friends
who intended that the secret she holds should be kept. They feared to
kill her, so they bribed a doctor to deliberately operate upon her so
that she could neither speak nor hear. And now they are driving her to
suicide!"
"M'sieur, I am astounded!" declared the nun. "I have always believed
that she was not in her right mind, yet assuredly she seems to be as
sane as I am, only willfully mutilated by some pretended friend who
determined that no further word should pass her lips."
"A shameful mutilation has been committed upon this poor defenseless
girl!" I cried in anger. "And I will make it my duty to discover and
punish the perpetrators of it."
"Ah, m'sieur. Do not act rashly, I pray of you," the woman said
seriously, placing her hand upon my arm. "Recollect you are in
Finland--where the Baron Oberg is all-powerful."
"I do not fear the Baron Oberg," I exclaimed. "If necessary, I will
appeal to the Czar himself. Mademoiselle is kept here for the reason
that she is in possession of some secret. She must be released--I will
take the responsibility."
"But you must not try to release her from here. It would mean death to
you both. The Castle of Kajana tells no secrets of those who die within
its walls, or of those cast headlong into its waters and forgotten."
Again I turned to Elma, who stood in anxious wonder of the subject of
our conversation, and had suddenly taken the old nun's hand and kissed
it affectionately, perhaps in order to show me that she trusted her.
Then upon the paper I wrote--
"Is the Baron Oberg your uncle?"
She shook her head in the negative, showing that the dreaded
Governor-General of Finland had only acted a part towards her in which
she had been compelled to concur.
"Who is Philip Hornby?" I inquired, writing rapidly.
"My friend--at least, I believe so."
Friend! And I had all along believed him to be an adventurer and an
enemy!
"Why did he go to Leghorn?" I asked.
"For a secret purpose. There was a plot to kill you, only I managed to
thwart them," were the words she printed with much labor.
"Then I owe my life to you," I wrote. "And in return I will do my utmost
to rescue you from here, if you do not fear to place yourself in my
hands."
And to this she replied--
"I shall be thankful, for I cannot bear this awful place longer. I
believe they must torture the women here. They will torture me some day.
Do your best to get me out of here and I will tell you everything. But,"
she wrote, "I fear you can never secure my release. I am confined here
on a life sentence."
"But you are English, and if you have had no trial I can complain to our
Ambassador."
"No, I am a Russian subject. I was born in Russia, and went to England
when I was a girl."
That altered the case entirely. As a subject of the Czar in her own
country she was amenable to that disgraceful blot upon civilization that
allows a person to be consigned to prison at the will of a high
official, without trial or without being afforded any opportunity of
appeal. I therefore at once saw a difficulty.
Yet she promised to tell me the truth if I could but secure her release!
A flood of recollections of the amazing mystery swept through my mind. A
thousand questions arose within me, all of which I desired to ask her,
but there, in that noisome prison-house, it was impossible. As I stood
there a woman's shrill scream of excruciating pain reached me,
notwithstanding those cyclopean walls. Some unfortunate prisoner was,
perhaps, being tortured and confession wrung from her lips. I shuddered
at the unspeakable horrors of that grim fortress.
Could I allow this refined defenseless girl to remain an inmate of that
Bastille, the terrors of which I had heard men in Russia hint at with
bated breath? They had willfully maimed her and deprived her of both
hearing and the power of speech, and now they intended that she should
be driven mad by that silence and loneliness that must always end in
insanity.
"I have decided," I said suddenly, turning to the woman who had
conducted me there, and having now removed the steel bonds of the
prisoner with a key she secretly carried, stood with folded hands in the
calm attitude of the religious.
"You will not act with rashness?" she implored in quick apprehension.
"Remember, your life is at stake, as well as my own."
"Her enemies intended that I, too, should die!" I answered, looking
straight into those deep mysterious brown eyes which held me as beneath
a spell. "They have drawn her into their power because she had no means
of defense. But I will assume the position of her friend and protector."
"How?"
"The man is awaiting me in the boat outside. I intend to take her with
me."
"But, m'sieur, why that is impossible!" cried the old woman in a hoarse
voice. "If you were discovered by the guards who patrol the lake both
night and day they would shoot you both."
"I will risk it," I said, and without another word dashed into the tiny
bed chamber and tore an old brown blanket from off the narrow truckle
bed.
Then, linking my arm in that of the woman whose lovely countenance had
verily become the sun of my existence, I made a sign, inviting her to
accompany me.
The sister barred the door, urging me to reconsider my decision.
"Leave her alone in secret, and act as you will, appeal to the Baron, to
the Czar, but do not attempt, m'sieur, to rescue a prisoner from here,
for it is an impossibility. The man who brought you here from Abo will
not dare to accept such responsibility."
"Come," I said to Elma, although, alas! she could not hear my voice.
"Let us at least make a dash for freedom."
She recognized my intentions in a moment, and allowed herself to be
conducted down the long intricate corridor, walking stealthily, and
making no noise.
I had seized the old horn lantern, and as the nun held back, not daring
to accompany us, we stole on alone, turning back along the stone
corridor until I recognized the door of the room to which I had been
first conducted. All was silent, and as we crept along on tiptoe I felt
the girl's grip upon my arm, a grip that told me that she placed her
faith in me as her deliverer.
I own that it was a rash and headstrong act, for even beyond the lake
how could we ever hope to penetrate those interminable inhospitable
forests, so far from any hiding-place. Yet I felt it my duty to attempt
the rescue. And besides, had not her marvelous beauty enmeshed me; had I
not felt by some unaccountable intuition at the first moment we had met
that our lives were linked in the future? She clung to me as though
fearful of discovery, as we went forward in silence along that dark, low
corridor where I knew the strong door in the tower opened upon the
lake. Once in the boat, and we could row back to where the horses
awaited us, and then away. The woman had not arrested our progress or
raised an alarm, after all. Once I had mistrusted her, but I now saw
that her heart was really filled with pity for the poor girl now at my
side.
Without a sound we crept forward until within a few yards from that
unlocked door where the boat awaited us below, when, of a sudden, the
uncertain light of the lantern fell upon something that shone and a deep
voice cried out of the darkness in Russian--
"Halt! or I fire!"
And, startled, we found ourselves looking down the muzzle of a loaded
carbine.
A huge sentry stood with his back to the secret exit, his dark eyes
shining beneath his peaked cap, as he held his weapon to his shoulder
within six feet of us.
The big, bearded fellow demanded fiercely who I was.
My heart sank within me. I had acted recklessly, and had fallen into the
hands of his Excellency, the Baron Xavier Oberg, the unscrupulous
Governor-General--fallen into a trap which, it seemed, had been very
cleverly prepared for me.
I was a prisoner in the terrible fortress whence no single person save
the guards had ever been known to emerge--the Bastille of "The Strangler
of Finland!"
I saw I was lost.
The muzzle of the sentry's carbine was within two feet of my chest.
"Speak!" cried the fellow. "Who are you?"