CHAPTER XIV.

A RUSSIAN EPISODE.

"Is that the way you answer an appeal for help?" With that gentle protest still lingering in his ear, he was not inclined to be hard on this unfortunate wretch who was in the cab with him; and yet at the same time he was resolved to prevent any repet.i.tion of the scene he had just witnessed. At the last he discovered that the man had picked up in his wanderings a little German. His own German was not first-rate; it was fluent, forcible, and accurate enough, so far as hotels and railway-stations were concerned; elsewhere it had a tendency to halt, blunder, and double back on itself. But, at all events, he managed to convey to his companion the distinct intimation that any further troubling of that young lady would only procure for him broken head.

The dull, stupid, savage-looking face betrayed no sign of intelligence.

He repeated the warning again and again; and at last, at the phrase "that young lady," the dazed small eyes lit up somewhat, and the man clasped his hands.

"Ein Engel!" he said, apparently to himself. "Ein Engel--ein Engel! Ach Gott--wie schon--wie gemuthlich!"

"Yes, yes, yes," Brand said, "that is all very well; but one is not permitted to annoy angels--to trouble them in the street. Do you understand that that means punishment--one must be punished--if one returns to the house of that young lady? Do you understand?"

The man regarded him with the small, deep-set eyes again sunk into apathy.

"Ihr Diener, Herr," said he, submissively.

"You understand you are not to go back to the house of the young lady?"

"Ihr Diener, Herr."

There was nothing to be got out of him, or into him; so Brand waited until he should get help of Heinrich Reitzei, Lind's _loc.u.m tenens_.

Reitzei was in the chambers--at Lind's table, in fact. He was a man of about twenty-eight or thirty, slim and dark, with a perfectly pallid face, a small black mustache carefully waxed, and an affectedly courteous smile. He wore a _pince-nez_; was fond of slang, to show his familiarity with English; and aimed at an English manner, too. He seemed bored. He regarded this man whom Brand introduced to him without surprise, with indifference.

"Hear what this fellow has to say," Brand said, "will you? and give him distinctly to understand that if he tries again to see Miss Lind, I will break his head for him. What idiot could have given him Lind's private address?"

The man was standing near the door, stolid apparently, but with his small eyes keenly watching. Reitzei said a word or two to him. Instantly he went--he almost sprung--forward; and this movement was so unexpected that the equanimity of the pallid young man received a visible shock, and he hastily drew out a drawer a few inches. Brand caught sight of the handle of a revolver.

But the man was only eager to tell his story, and presently Reitzei had resumed his air of indifference. As he proceeded to translate for Brand's benefit, in interjectional phrases, what this man with the trembling hands and the burning eyes was saying, it was strange to mark the contrast between the two men.

"His name Kirski," the younger man was saying, as he eyed, with a cool and critical air, the wild look in the other's face. "A carver in wood, but cannot work now, for his hands tremble, through hunger and fatigue--through drink, I should say--native of a small village in Kiev--had his share of the Communal land--but got permission from the Commune to spend part of the year in Kiev itself--sent back all his taxes duly, and money too, because--oh, this is it?--daughter of village Elder--young, beautiful, of course--left an orphan, with three brothers--and their share of the land too much for them. Ah, this is the story, then, my friend? Married, too--young, beautiful, good--yes, yes, we know all that--"

There were tears running down the face of the other man. But these he shook away; and a wilder light than ever came into his eyes.

"He goes to Kiev as usual, foolish fellow; now I see what all the row is about. When he returns, three months after, he goes to his house. Empty.

The neighbors will not speak. At last one says something about Pavel Michaieloff, the great proprietor, whose house and farm are some versts away--my good fellow, you have got the palsy, or is it drink?--he goes and seeks out the house of Pavel--yes, yes, the story is not new--Pavel is at the open window, smoking--he goes up to the window--there is a woman inside--when she sees him she utters a loud scream, and rushes for protection to the man Michaieloff--then all the fat is in the fire naturally--"

The Russian choked and gasped; drops of perspiration stood on his forehead; he looked wildly around.

"Water?" said Reitzei. "Poor devil, you need some water to cool down your excitement. You are making as much fuss as if that kind of thing had never happened in the world before."

But he rose and got him some water, which the man drained eagerly; then he continued his story with the same fierce and angry vehemence.

"Well, yes, he had something to complain of, certainly," Reitzei said, translating all that incoherent pa.s.sion into cool little phrases. "Not a fair fight. Pavel summons his men from the court-yard--men with whips--dogs, too--he is lashed and driven along the roads, and the dogs tear at him! Oh yes, my good friend, you have been badly used; but you have come a long way to tell your story. I must ask him how the mischief he got here at all."

But here Reitzei paused and stared. Something the man said--in an eager, low voice, with his sunken small eyes all afire--startled him out of his critical air.

"Oh, that is it, is it?" he said, eyeing him. "He will do any thing for us--he will commit a murder--ten murders--if only we give him money, a knife, and help to kill the man Michaieloff. Well, he is a lively sort of person to let loose on society."

"The man is clearly mad," Brand said.

"The man was madder who sent him to us," Reitzei answered. "I should not like to be in his shoes if Lind hears that this maniac was allowed to see his daughter."

The wretched creature standing there glanced eagerly from one to the other, with the eyes of a wild animal, seeking to gather something from their looks; then he went forward to the table, and stooped down and spoke to Reitzei still further, in the same low, fierce voice, his whole frame meanwhile shaking with his excitement. Reitzei said something to him in reply, and motioned him back. He retired a step or two, and then kept watching the faces of the two men.

"What are you going to do with him?" Brand said.

Reitzei shrugged his shoulders.

"I know what I should like to do with him if I dared," he said, with a graceful smile. "There is a friend of mine not a hundred miles away from that very Kiev who wants a little admonition. Her name is Petrovna, she is the jail-matron of a female penitentiary; she is just a little too fierce at times. Murderers, thieves, prost.i.tutes: oh yes, she can be civil enough to them; but let a political prisoner come near her--one of her own s.e.x, mind--and she becomes a devil, a tigress, a vampire. Ah, Madame Petrovna and I may have a little reckoning some day. I have asked Lind again and again to pet.i.tion for a decree against her; but no, he will not move; he is becoming Anglicized, effeminate."

"A decree?" Brand said.

The other smiled, with an affectation of calm superiority.

"You will learn by-and-by. Meanwhile, if I dared, what I should like to do would be to give our friend here plenty of money, and not one but two knives, saying to him. 'My good friend, here is one knife for Michaieloff, if you like; but first of all here is this knife for that angel in disguise, Madame Petrovna, of the Female Penitentiary in Novolevsk. Strike sure and hard!'"

For one instant his affectation forsook him, and there was a gleam in his eyes. This was but a momentary relapse from his professed indifference.

"Well, Mr. Brand, I suppose I must take over this madman from you. You may tell Miss Lind she need not be frightened."

"I should not think Miss Lind was in the habit of being frightened,"

said Brand, coldly.

"Ah, no; doubtless not. Well, I shall see that this fellow does not trouble her again. What fine tidings we had of your work in the North!

You have been a power; you have moved mountains."

"I have moved John Molyneux," said Brand, with a laugh, "and in these days that is a more difficult business."

"Fine news from Spain, too," said Reitzei, glancing at some letters.

"From Valladolid, Barcelona, Ferrol, Saragossa--all the same story: coalition, coalition. Salmero will be in London next week."

"But you have not told me what you are going to do with this man yet; you must stow the combustible piece of goods somewhere. Poor devil, his sufferings have made a pitiable object of him."

"My dear friend," said Reitzei, "You don't suppose that a Russian peasant would feel so deeply a beating with whips, or the worrying of dogs, or even the loss of his wife? Of course, all together, it was something of a hard grind. He must have been const.i.tutionally insane, and that woke the whole thing up."

"Then he should be confined. He is a lunatic at large."

"I don't think he would harm anybody," Reitzei said, regarding the man as if he were a strange animal. "I would not shut up a dog in a lunatic asylum; I would rather put a bullet through his head. And this fellow--if we could humbug him a little, and get him to his work again--I know a man in Wardour Street who would do that for me--and see what effect the ama.s.sing of a little English money might have on him.

Better a miser than a wild beast. And he seems a submissive sort of creature. Leave him to me, Mr. Brand."

Brand began to think a little better of Reitzei, whom hitherto he had rather disliked. He handed him five pounds, to get some clothes and tools for the man, who, when he was told of this generosity, turned to Brand and said something to him in Russian which set Reitzei laughing.

"What is it he says?"