The Shadow of the Czar.

by John R. Carling.

CHAPTER I

THE MEETING IN THE FOREST

Paul Cressingham, captain in Her Britannic Majesty's army, had seen some active service, and was therefore not unused to sleeping on the ground at night wrapt in his military cloak. Nevertheless he had a civilian weakness, if not for luxury, at least for comfort, and much preferred a four-poster, whenever the same was procurable.

At the time, however, when this story opens it seemed likely that if he slept at all, his slumbers would have to be _a la belle etoile_, for he found himself late at night wandering in a deep pine-forest of Dalmatia.

Paul's regiment--the Twenty-fourth Kentish--had its headquarters at Corfu; for his were the days when the United States of the Ionian Isles formed a dependency of the British Crown. His uncle, Colonel Graysteel, was commander-in-chief of the forces stationed there,--a fact which stood Paul in good, or possibly in bad, stead, for thereby he was enabled to obtain more relaxation than is consonant with the traditions of the War Office, his furloughs being extremely numerous, and spent chiefly in exploring odd corners of the Adriatic.

Colonel Graysteel growled occasionally at his nephew's negligences.

Having no children of his own, he had adopted Paul as his heir. On parade there was no finer figure than Paul's,--tall, athletic, soldierly. With hair of a golden shade and having a tendency to curl, with soft hazel eyes that could look stern, however, at times, and with graceful drooping moustache, he was first favorite with the ladies of the English colony at Corfu, especially as his elegance in waltzing was the despair of all his brother-officers. He was an excellent shot, a deadly swordsman, a dashing rider, a youth of spirit and bravery. To one of this character much must be forgiven, and the old colonel forgave accordingly.

Nevertheless when Paul one fine morning walked into his uncle's villa at breakfast-time and requested furlough for no other reason than a wish to explore the wilds of Dalmatia, there was a slight outbreak of wrath on the part of the commander-in-chief.

"Another leave of absence? I don't believe you've put in three months'

service this year."

"Four months, five days," corrected the other amiably.

"The Commissioner's beginning to notice your vagaries."

"Hang the Commissioner," replied the young man, irreverently. "Let him give me something worthy of doing, and I'll do it. Get up a war, say against Austria or Turkey, the latter preferred; show me the enemy and you'll find me to the fore. But this playing at soldiers; this marching and counter-marching; this inspection of kit, and attendance at parade,--I'm growing wearied of it. I'm rusting here,--I, whose motto is 'Action.' Am I to remain for ever in these cursed malarial isles, a mere drilling machine?"

"The drillings pay when comes the day," retorted the colonel, so surprised at this betrayal into rhyme that he repeated it. "And what's this new craze of yours for Dalmatia? Wild outlandish place! n.o.body ever goes there."

"Precisely my reason for visiting it," returned Paul, lunging with his sabre-point at a mosquito that had just settled on a panel of the wall. "Why go where everybody goes? My tastes run in the direction of the odd, the romantic, the wild, the--anything that's opposed to the common round of existence. I fancy I shall find it in Dalmatia."

"You'll find yourself in the hands of banditti. That's where you'll be. The mountains swarm with them. And I'm d.a.m.ned if I'll pay your ransom," cried the colonel with returning wrath, as he recalled the liberality and frequency with which Paul drew upon his purse.

"Remember the case of young Lennox, and the severed ear sent to his father in an envelope. Ten thousand florins! That's what the old chap had to pay to get his son out of the clutches of the infernal scoundrels, and never a thaler has he been able to recover from the Austrian Government. And now you would run yourself and me into a similar noose!"

"Banditti won't fix my ransom at so high a rate. Besides," added Paul, critically contemplating the Damascene inlaying of his sabre, "they've first got to take me."

"Well, if they'll fix it at what you're worth," said his uncle, grimly, "I shall not object to the payment."

Ultimately Paul obtained the desired furlough by resorting to his usual threat; he would sell his commission, buy a string of camels, and spend the rest of his life in trying to discover the sources of the Nile.

Thus it came to pa.s.s that a few days after this interview young Captain Cressingham embarked on board the Austrian Lloyd's steamer _Metternich_, bound for Zara, the clean, well-built capital of Dalmatia, directing his voyage to this city in order to renew old memories with some former college-chums, who were about to pa.s.s their summer holiday in its neighborhood.

Finding that he had antic.i.p.ated the arrival of his friends by a few days, Paul resolved to spend the interval in taking a pedestrian tour southward as far as Sebenico: and accordingly he set off, without either companion or servant, and wearing his uniform, partly because as a soldier he was proud of it, partly because experience had taught him that in these eastern regions a uniform inspires respect in the minds of innkeepers, if not in those of banditti.

He pa.s.sed the first night of this journey at a wayside hostelry.

At sunrise he resumed his course, walking amid picturesque scenery--on the right the sparkling sea, on the left glorious pine-clad mountains.

Late in the afternoon Paul, who had followed the post-road, reached a point where it entered a magnificent forest. As this wild-wood was just the sort of place where banditti might be expected to lurk, Paul's first impulse was to turn aside, and to take the more circuitous way along the sea-beach.

"You fear!" a secret voice seemed to whisper: and the reproach decided his route. Not even in his own eyes would he be a coward.

This choice of a road was but a small matter, one might think; yet it was to form the turning-point of his life.

He walked forward at a quick pace, and, with an eye to a challenge from some outlaw of the forest, he kept his hand constantly upon the b.u.t.t of his revolver.

He did not meet with a bandit, however, but with a bear--the first he had ever seen in a wild, free state.

The creature came shambling from the wood on one side of the road a few yards in front of him, and there it stood, with its eyes fixed upon the wayfarer, as if questioning the right of man to invade these solitudes.

"An adventure at last!" murmured Paul, tingling with excitement.

"_Ursus Styriacus_ from his size. Now to emulate Hereward the Wake."

As previously stated Paul was an excellent shot, and inasmuch as his revolver was six-chambered he had little fear as to the result of the encounter.

The killing of a bear is the easiest thing in the world, at least according to the theory set forth by a hunter whom Paul had met the previous evening at the hostelry.

"If you fire at Bruin while he is on all-fours, you waste powder and shot, for his tough s.h.a.ggy sides are almost impervious to bullets. You must face him at close quarters, and when he rises on his hind legs to welcome you with that hug which is his characteristic, then is the time to aim at the vital parts. If the shots fail to take effect, and you find yourself in his embrace, you simply draw your knife, give the necessary stab, and the thing is done."

The plan seems beautifully simple.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Paul did not have the opportunity of reducing the theory to practice; for, as he slowly advanced, revolver in hand, and with his eye alert to every movement of the bear, the latter ambled off again into the wood.

Resolving to give chase, Paul turned aside from the road. He would shoot that bear, bring back some fellows from the inn to flay the animal, and present the skin to his uncle.

But Colonel Graysteel was not destined to decorate his smoking-room with a trophy of his nephew's valor, for though Paul followed hard upon his quarry, its rate of progress surpa.s.sed his own. In a few moments it had pa.s.sed from view, and all the shouting and random firing on the part of Paul failed to provoke the return of the animal.

"Talk no more to me of the spirit of bears," he muttered, as he put up his weapon.

Paul turned to resume his journey in some vexation of spirit--a feeling which did not diminish as he began to realize that he had lost his bearings. All around him rose the lofty pines, obscuring his view of the road from which he had been diverted by the chase of the bear.

There was nothing to indicate the way. He carried an ordnance-map of the district, and the forest was marked large upon it, but he was unable to tell what particular point of the map corresponded with his own position at that moment. Moreover, he was without a compa.s.s; and, to add to his difficulty, the sun had set.

Seek as he would he could not find the road. Now and again he shouted at the top of his voice, even at the risk of attracting the notice of persons less friendly than charcoal-burners or wood-cutters, but his cries met with no response. The silence and solitude of the leafy vistas around were more suggestive of the primeval back-woods of the New World than of an European forest.

For several hours he walked, or rather stumbled along, in the darkness, wandering this way or that, as blind fancy directed, and haunted by the reflection that Bruin might return with one of his _confreres_, eager to dine off a too venturesome tourist.

He had given himself up as hopelessly lost, when he came to a spot where the foliage above his head suddenly lifted, revealing a sky of the darkest blue set with glittering stars. This sky extending in a broad band far to the left and far to the right proclaimed the welcome fact that he had hit upon the road again.

He looked at his watch, and found that it was close upon midnight.

That infernal Bruin had delayed his journey by six hours.

Even now he had no idea which way to turn for Sebenico, till his eyes, roaming over as much of the sky as was contained within his circle of vision, caught the sign of Ursa Major.

"Poetic justice!" he smiled. "Misled by the earthly bear, guided by the heavenly." Knowing that Sebenico lay to the south, he accordingly set his face in that direction with intent, on reaching the first milestone, to ascertain from his ordnance-map the position of the nearest village or inn.

He stepped forward briskly, and keeping a sharp lookout soon came upon a milestone glimmering white upon one side of the road. Kneeling down he struck a match--like the revolver, a recent invention in 1845--and by the faint glow learned that he was thirty miles from Zara.