Forward

Front matter

FORWARD

A Complete Novelette

by

II

When the net is invisible the fish thinks the water is clear. That is how the fish is caught.

FOR a time that day I watched John Paul, to see how he would bear himself. Ekh, he was at home in the saddle, that chap, and he forced the pace faster than the Englishman, Edwards, wanted to press on. Because it was the season of the rasputitsa, the flood during the spring thaw, the roads were no better than fords across the treacherous swamps. The carriage would slip from the crown of the road and sink into the mire up to the hubs.

After John Paul had dismounted once and put logs under the wheels, to force the carriage back to the road, I made the postilions change places with the Tatars. I was angry because we had to drag along the tarantass, but if I had known what evil was stored up for us within it, I would have unhitched the horses and left it like a stranded ship in the great pools of the flooded country.

If it had not been for John Paul we should not have reached the first of the zamoras—the post stations along the highroad to Moscow—that night. The sun had gone down behind a cloud bank when we drew up at the inn and a score of slouching rogues came out to stare at us. They showed their teeth but nothing more when I elbowed them aside and shouted to the pig of a tavern keeper to make ready a leg of mutton and brandy spirits and bread for their excellencies, the officers, who had chosen to quarter themselves in the carriage after looking once at the inn.

They sat on the shaft and ate the dinner when it was brought, but I went to the stables before eating to make certain that the Tatars had watered the horses and given them oats. I found all as it should be, the beasts bedded down and the Tatars not yet drunk on chirkhir, and I was turning away to seek out my dinner when one of them touched my knee.

“Horses!” he said, and after a moment, “Nine riders on the road, Ivak Khan.”

Now Tatars have ears like weasels, and it was quite a while before I heard the hoof beats coming nearer. The Tatar who had spoken peered up at me and pulled his forefinger across his throat, then touched the hilt of my saber. He meant that men were around who would cut my throat and warned me to be on guard.

Just as he did so a screaming began in front of the inn, a shrill screaming that was horrible to hear. I took off my kalpack and crossed myself, for it sounded like a woman vampire calling from the forest, but the cries were coming from the wagon.

“Aid—aid! Who will hear the prayer of a Christian maid?”

John Paul and the Englishman were on their feet, staring at the tarantass in astonishment, because all the day that wagon had given out no cries and now there was either a woman or a vampire inside it.

A body of horsemen came clattering up to the fire, and the leader dismounted and strode over to the wagon. He was an ensign of the Guards with a long mustache and a long saber and a red face. The six troopers with him kept lo their saddles and worked their horses around so as to hem us in.

“Let us see what is boiling in this pot!” growled the ensign, jerking open the doors.

He began to haul at something and presently pulled out—for he was a strong man—a girl who was bound with belts at the wrists and ankles. She was slender, with tangled dark hair, and she wore a silk cloak lined with hare’s fur.

All the time the ensign was unbuckling the straps she leaned on his shoulder and wept, chattering like a squirrel. Servants of the American, she said, had overtaken her in the street of Petersburg and had gagged her. Then she had been carried to John Paul’s house and placed in the wagon. She said—and this was quite true—that she had had nothing to eat all day, and had been shaken up and down like wheat at threshing.

The ensign, whose name was Borol, asked her if she was not Anna Mikhalovna, and she assented eagerly. Then he frowned and turned to Edwards, explaining how complaint had been made that morning at the quarters of the Guard by this girl’s mother. An order had been issued that he should follow the American, find the girl and request John Paul to return to Petersburg.

When Borol pointed at the American, John Paul spoke one word to Edwards who turned to the ensign—

“Salute the rear-admiral.”

Borol chewed his mustache and clicked his lips; then drew his heels together and saluted sullenly. It was plainly to be seen that John Paul was not in such high favor now. He took Edwards arm and the two paced up and down while the aide-de-camp explained about the accusation and the order to return.

Meanwhile Borol made a great show of warming Anna Mikhalovna at the fire and ordering brandy for her to drink, and I went closer to stare at her. She was the girl who had called at John Paul’s door the evening before with the old crone.

Ekh, the whole thing was clear in my mind, all at once. The girl had not been in the tarantass when it was first driven up from the palace. Some time before dawn she had been placed in it, bound, most likely. Then his enemies in Petersburg had spread a story that the American had carried off the girl, and now he would be recalled to explain the matter to a court of men who hated him. It meant that he would be kept waiting at the Muscovite palace in stead of joining his command, even if nothing worse happened.

In my mind was the picture of the foreign prince with the Hessian boots, and I wondered how much the English had to do with the plot. They had no love for John Paul, and made no secret of it.

The story of Anna Mikhalovna could not be true. Why had she kept quiet in the wagon all day, only to cry out like a bugle when the troopers came up? And as for John Paul’s servants carrying her off—he had no servants. Besides, she had tried to enter his house last evening, and when she had been turned away this new plot had been made against him.

Probably his enemies had counted on a scene in his courtyard when we started off; but he had chosen a horse instead of the carriage and the girl had not been seen, because no one had looked inside when the packs were thrust through the door.

It was a plot that men who spend their lives at court would hatch—a small and skilful plot, the kind that ties up a man as with silk cords. What could John Paul do but go back? He belonged to the world of the court, and according, to his code it would be necessary to clear his name before he could accept his new mission.

Edwards looked like a man who has come to a fork in the road, puzzled, yet a little pleased. But John Paul had grown pale and his eyes were dark as coals.

Just a few words he said to the ensign, Borol—Edwards interpreting—but they were like sword pricks. The American had seen through the plot, and the wish of his enemies to disgrace him.

“I came to Russia in an open shallop, through ice on the sea, because the Empress summoned me, and when I offered my sword to her, Count Besborodko, the minister of state, was instructed to do everything possible to make the situation of the Chevalier Paul Jones pleasant and to furnish him with all possible occasions on which he might display his skill and valor. Besborodko—”the American handed back the order which was signed by the minister—“has misunderstood his instructions. He has taken pains to afford me the chance of displaying the talents of a lawyer, not a soldier.”

Edwards smiled as he translated, and I thought that John Paul was a man who would not be led by others. But his pride was hurt and his muscular face was drawn. He had a hard path to follow in Russia, because he did not know the ways of the great Russian lords who looked on all soldiers as slaves.

Borol shrugged and said it was none of his affair—such a disgraceful matter it was, carrying off a young girl. He was a graf of Hessia—whatever that might be—and the mission touched upon his honor—whatever that was. And he pushed up the ends of his mustache, clanking his scabbard as he did so.

NOW I had been seeking for some word to say, because I would rather have lost my scalp lock than return to Petersburg. Something about the graf reminded me of the prince in the silver coat: They were like as two caps, and if neither was an Englishman, then the English at the palace might not have hatched the plot. I smacked my thigh and whispered in Edward’s ear.

“Your Honor’s pardon, but that girl is the one who tried to get into John Paul’s lodging last evening. An old crone was with her, and the American gave them money to go away. Somebody must have given them more money—the pretty sparrows!”

This surprized the Englishman, and he looked as if he did not know which fork of the road to take.

“The deuce!” He took snuff and added carelessly to Borol. “This Anna Mikhalovna—I think I’ve seen her. A friend of Besborodko’s perhaps?”

“Not at all, Lieutenant. She’s a farmer’s daughter—lodged with a priest near the cathedral last night.”

“Ah.” Edwards glanced at the silk cloak. “Then she couldn’t have come begging at the rear-admiral’s quarters late in the evening.”

“Impossible.”

I stepped forward.

“She was there, only dressed differently.”

Borol shook his head impatiently and ordered some of his men to escort Anna to the inn. Edwards needed no more words to show whether I had told the truth.

“Ensign,” he remarked, “this is not a flash in the pan—it is 2 serious. The American entered the Russian service on the Empress’ pledge that he would have a free hand and sole command of the Black Sea Fleet. He is a Chevalier of France and a friend of Lafayette. Who stirred up this hornets’ nest at his heels?”

Now those who had sent Borol had picked a man with a good sword arm but a sluggish brain. He chewed his mustache and barked out:

“2 take it! You English have cooked up the whole thing.”

Edwards started as if he had been touched with a whip.

“What a knowing fellow, egad!” he drawled. “Upon my word, Count Borol, you must know us better than we know ourselves. Deuced quaint, I swear, to fancy that because we do not count Admiral Jones among our friends we would think up a foul plot and bait it with a farmer’s daughter. Unfortunate, very—that it should be necessary to prove to you by example that the English strike in the open.”

And his eyes glittered, just like the time when he had caught me smiling at him. Quite happy, he was, because the ensign had given him offense. A strange folk!

“I thought—” Borol was beginning to be sorry he had talked so much, but he was in for it now.

“Indeed! It may be necessary for you to think twice. A man of your high intuition, Count Borol, must realize that by accusing the English officers of Petersburg of a blackguardly intrigue, you cast some slight aspersion upon me.” He bowed, very elegant. “Of course you will give satisfaction at once, and as the challenged party, the choice of weapons is yours. Do you prefer swords or shall we say pistols? Necessity compels us to dispense with seconds.”

It was clear to me that the Englishman’s temper would brew trouble for us. If there was a duel, and some one was sliced, the enemies of Paul Jones would have good reason for calling him to account, since dueling was forbidden. To make matters worse, the American, when he learned what Edwards was about, insisted on meeting Borol himself. And, knowing of the plot against John Paul, I could see that Borol was well content; if he wounded the admiral, high influences in Petersburg would free him from blame; if John Paul cut him up the American would be made to suffer for it. A plan came into my head and I stepped forward.

“Borol,” I said, “God has given you a long arm but a short wit. A while ago you would not believe my word that the girl had come begging of the admiral. Now I say that you lie.”

And I added other plain words for the soldiers to hear, so that their leader’s ears began to burn.

“Dog of a Cossack!” Borol was beside himself with rage. “I’ll have you strung up by the thumbs and your hide cut up for whips.”

“Oho,” I thought, “when the cock crows loud he is in his own barnyard.”

Carefully this time I counted over the troopers and found there were seven with the ensign included. But my Tatars had heard nine horses, and if two others had come with the company they must be in hiding in the trees beyond the firelight—spies, without a doubt, or perhaps Strelsky, or even the prince of the silver coat.

“First,” I told Borol, “I will teach you a lesson if you are not afraid to challenge a man whose arm is as long as yours.”

“Draw your steel, you hedgehog!”

“Ivak!” Edwards turned on me angrily. “My affair with the ensign does not require the aid of a clown. Back to your place!”

“Pardon,” I pointed out, “but my quarrel with Borol takes precedence of your Honor’s affair. He made light of my word in the first place.”

The American and Edwards stood about as high as my chin, but they were bent on crossing steel with the ensign who was a giant. Edwards began to explain impatiently that, although Borol’s military rank was equal with mine, the man was a count, or some such thing.

“You do not know, Excellency,” I assured him, “that in my country the Cossacks hold me to a prince. Aye, my grandsire was hetman, having to his order ten thousand sabers. Is not that rank enough?”

Borol, who was foaming at the mouth, tossed his cloak to a trooper and began to roll up his right sleeve, crying that I might be emperor of a million pigs, but he would have satisfaction all the same.

“One moment,” I said. “You have challenged me and so I have choice of weapons. Is it not so, Lieutenant Edwards?”

He nodded, staring at me curiously. Borol grinned, knowing that a Cossack would chose sabers, which suited him very well.

“We will fight with pitchforks,” I said.

So amazed were they that the crackling of the fire could be heard in the silence, when I walked to the manure heap by the inn door and picked up two forks with iron prongs. My ears were pricked and I heard the stamp of a horse close by in the darkness, where some one watched, unseen. Eh, the trap was set and ready to be sprung if the American or those with him showed fight. I yearned to take on Borol with sabers and teach him a thing or two, for among the Don Cossacks few were a match for me with the blades.

But it was not to be. I cleaned the iron prongs in the earth and held out the two forks to Borol, offering him choice of weapons. How his eyes stuck out!

“With those things!” he sneered. “A gentlemen is not a dog of a farmer.”

“True, my little Count,” I nodded. “A Cossack would think it disgraceful to draw steel on such a man as you. Choose!”

He glared at the prongs, at me and at Edwards, who was beginning to be amused. Then he stepped back with an oath, and felt in his saddle holster for a firearm.

“Take them!” he shouted to his men. “Draw pistols!”

For the second time Borol had made a mistake. His men obeyed, it is true, but when they had their weapons resting on their hips, with muzzles in the air, Edwards had caught up a double-barreled horse pistol from his saddle bags and the American had in hand the two light, silver mounted French pistols that he carried in his belt.

It was clear even to Borol that we would not be taken alive, by force; but before he could give an order to the troopers to fire, a voice came out of the darkness behind the fire—

“Withdraw!”

And they did so, taking with them the woman, lest we question her, but leaving the tarantass—which I regretted. The trap had been sprung, but the panthers were not caught. Aye, from that hour we were hunted like beasts, we who were men.

Then the American showed that he had had men to his command before now. I had seen that he could ride and face an adversary; now it was clear he thought of those under him. Through Edwards he reminded me that I had had no dinner and bade me to the inn to seek what I could find and to return to talk with them.

WHEN I wiped my hands on the tavern dog and came forth again, the two officers were casting dice on a saddle cloth, laughing like boys, though there was gray in the hair of John Paul. After I saluted, Edwards asked me to sit with them and light my pipe, and they put away the dice.

“Old raven,” said he, “there is more in your noodle than comes out your mouth. The rear-admiral would like to ride back to Tsarkoe-seloe and clear his name before the Empress. Knowing a little of the Russian court, I advise him to ride as far from it as his horse will carry him; a victory or two will do more for his cause than a dozen petitions, which might get no farther than the servants of the minister of state. What is your word?”

They were quick of wit, those two, and they saw how old Ivak had uncovered a fine snare, all the more deadly because it was sprung by a silken cord.

“If your Honor pleases,” I responded after thought, “what is in your heart toward the American? Good or ill?”

“The deuce!” Edwards frowned. “Would I have come as his aide if not honestly? Pirate he may have been, but that chapter is written. Take care what you say, Cossack!”

“Lieutenant,” I made answer, “we be three men, and the road before us is fifteen hundred versts. Wolves track us, and they be two-legged wolves. If we do not speak openly together now, how shall we make a plan? Without a plan, how shall we arrive at the end of the road?”

He glanced at me, and the flush left his keen young face.

“As bad as that? I wondered why an escort was denied us, on one pretext or another.” He stooped to draw a coal from the fire, for his long clay pipe. “Hhm. Would these two-legged wolves shed the blood of our officer?”

“Aye.”

“Ha! The stakes are high, then. But I do not think the Empress would stoop to plotting.”

“Nay.”

“Who then?”

That was a knotty question, and I shook my head. Later I had reason to curse my stupidity, that I did not tell them about the prince of the silver coat. Yet it did not come into my mind that Edwards might know him. Besides, I was not sure of John Paul’s loyalty. My orders were only to guide him to Kherson, our headquarters on the Black Sea.

Edwards explained to the American what I had said and when he had finished I made bold to offer advice.

“By your Honor’s leave, what authorization has the admiral to take command when he arrives at Kherson?”

They told me there was a letter signed by Catherine herself, that he should take over the fleet at Kherson. That was good though it might have been better.

“Then,” I said slowly, “if I were John Paul I should ride to the utmost, not sparing the horses, until he sets foot on his flagship.”

It surprized them that a Cossack should know what a flagship was, but we fellows of the borderland have taken oars in hand and gone out in skiffs against the fleet of the Turks and we have smelled powder mixed with salt water.

“But this plot with the wretched girl has failed,” Edwards pointed out. “His enemies are behind him, and the road is clear ahead.”

“His enemies, Lieutenant, are powerful, and Muscovite spies are whelped even in the forests of Muscovy. Avoid the cities, and use spur and whip. If you will trust me I can lead you safe to Kherson.”

Edwards laughed.

“Even odds, for a hundred rubles, I beat you into Kherson.”

“Done!” I nodded.

They gave me leave to depart and I went to the stables where the straw was cleaner than the inn beds. I was not asleep when one of the Tatars touched me, and I began to listen, for he did nothing more than to hiss warningly. The hoof beats of a horse sounded faintly from the highway, and soon disappeared to the south without pausing at the inn.

The only Russian who would pass a tavern after dark would be carrying an urgent dispatch. Moreover, he had not halted for a change of mounts at this post station, and surely there was a reason for that. I swore at my oversight in not placing sentries on the high road, and then I remembered that we had no men to post as sentries.

III

A raft upon the river is made of many logs fastened together; so long as the logs hold together the raft is safe. If they drift apart there is no longer a raft. HAVE you, my brothers, ever slain a bear with a dirk? If you know how to go about it, the task is easy. In winter, go to a berlog—a winter sleeping place of a bear, down under the snow, where a round air hole shows, rimmed with yellow. Thrust a long stick into the hollow under the breathing hole until the bear springs up, whuff—throwing the snow all about him. Then step in and stab with the knife before his eyes grow fully accustomed to the light.

If you are a little slow, the bear will go back to sleep again with a full belly.

So it was with us. Before we had grown suspicious our enemies had their way with us; but now that we had our eyes open it was otherwise. Before long we left the swamps and the mud, and passed by the last of the Muscovite water-towns, Novgorod, on the bank of a small river in flood.

Like a flash the oaks and the pine forest closed around us as we pounded south toward Moscow. Probably when Strelsky made out our permit for post horses he never thought we would go far enough to claim the yamshiks, the picked horses that his paper allowed us.

But at each zamora I combed over the nags for the best ones, keeping only the Kabarda of mine that ran loose beside us for three days until I gave it into the keeping of an honest Armenian who would bring the horse to Kherson by slow stages. For we were covering then nearly a hundred versts, which Edwards said was eighty English miles, a day.

The postilions of the carriage complained, and finally became useless. So we were not sorry to leave them at one of the huts. The two Tatars did their work more to my liking and the postilions may have been in the plot against us. Even the tarantass proved itself a friend now, because John Paul and Edwards took turn about sleeping in it, as well as they could for the jolts. Hai, they could not sleep as well as I in the saddle, but they made no protest and we made no stop.

Several times we heard the wolf packs howling and once the wolves were at our heels for ten verst posts. We had to burn much powder and my horse was slashed by their teeth when we pulled up at the next post station. Still, we saw nothing of the two-legged wolf that had passed us in the first night. I scanned each rider we turned out of the narrow way between the trees, without coming upon one who might have been a Muscovite spy.

The officers cared little for the rider that was ahead of us, and looked on our ride as a new game.

“Stuppai, Ivak!” Paul Jones would shout.

And forward we went, Edwards jesting with me that I would taste his dust into Kherson and lose a half-year’s pay thereby. Only when we sighted the domes and spires of Moscow in its great plain did we halt, for six hours, so that the American might dine with the governor of the city.

On the sixth day out we had to halt for three hours to repair a wheel of the carriage. In the stables of the post station I asked for news of a rider from Petersburg, who was bearing dispatches a few hours ahead of us, knowing that any man who wished to make the utmost speed along the highway would claim that he carried dispatches. The men of the zamora told me that an officer had passed south at sunrise, which was twelve hours before. Dried mud was still on his boots and his permit had read from Peters burg to Kherson. Thinking of Borol, I asked if he spoke with a German accent and looked to be about my size.

They said it was not so. The officer had cursed them in good Russian for delaying him. So, after all, we had no real reason to suspect that a spy had gone ahead.

But when a man hunts wolves he does not lie down under a tree to doze because no wolves are in sight. I pushed the horses that night, keeping awake to do so, and promising the Tatars half a flask of corn brandy to stir them up a bit. We put a hundred and twenty versts behind us, from sunset to sunset, and changed horses six times, and it was my two officers who were stirred up finally.

Edwards, who was suffering from saddle sores, cursed my beard and my soul and my father’s grave and other things, yet I took no offense, knowing that weariness had gripped him and there was no meaning in the curses.

“2 take you, Ivak,” he promised, “I will give orders to slow down to a hand pace. You are rubbing the bones out of my buttocks.”

“I hope your Honor is well,” I replied, knowing how to handle him. “Because if not, I will have to wait for you in Kherson, to spend the hundred rubles.”

“Blast you, Ivak—sink you for a lying rogue!”

And he leaped from the tarantass and ran to a horse, jumping into saddle and plying whip and spur until I was tasting his dust—as his beast was fresher.

“I’ll lead you into Kherson even if your Tatars have to carry me on a door.”

And his words were near to the truth, as will be seen presently. Meanwhile, however much we pressed the horses we did not gain sight of the officer who was ahead of us. If we rode like the wind, he went like a witch on a broomstick on All-Hallow’s Eve—or like a man with his neck in a noose.

We came out on the vast level that lies south of Moscow, where the sun was warm on the dense foliage of the trees. In the black soil the wheat stood high and rippled under the breath of the wind like a great pool of water. Dust hung behind us like a giant’s plume, and the moujiks we met stood aside and doffed their wool caps, bowing as low as their sashes, astonished at the pace of our horses. Eh, it was good to be under a clear sky again!

Before long we knew that the rider ahead of us had sighted us, although we had not set eye on him.

At a zamora we were told that all the horses were out. Never before this had such a thing happened! Not a nag in the stables!

Edwards was for waiting until fresh beasts could be rounded up, but John Paul said we would press forward on the best animals to the next station. We did so, but here also the keepers of the station bowed and prayed forgiveness because all the horses were out.

I said nothing, riding instead in a circle about the hut and stables, while the two officers made use of the delay in eating dinner. Aye, there were few tracks leading away from the zamora along the highway, but a round dozen traces went from the stable yard into the fields, and they were fresh tracks.

Calling my Tatars, I sent them off to follow the tracks for a few versts and bring back what they found. Then I spurred my tired nag into the group of Moskyas who were watching with covert interest. I pulled out a pistol and cocked it, then primed the pan.