His Hour Part 28

Tamara's heart gave a great bound, but his face expressed nothing, and her sudden fear calmed.

He was ceremoniously polite as he helped her in. Nor did he sit too near her or change his manner one atom as they went along. He hardly spoke; indeed they both had to crouch down in the furs to shelter from the blinding snow. And if Tamara had not been so preoccupied with keeping her woollen scarf tight over her head she would have noticed that when they left the park gate they turned to the right, in the full storm, not to the left, where it was clearer and which was the way they had come.

At last the Prince said something to the coachman in Russian, and the man shook his head--the going was terribly heavy. They seemed to be making tracks for themselves through untrodden snow.

"Stepan says we cannot possibly go much further, and we must shelter in the shooting hut," Gritzko announced, gravely; and again Tamara felt a twinge of fear.

"But what has become of the others?" she asked. "Why do we not see their tracks?"

"They are obliterated in five minutes. You do not understand the Russian storm," he said.

Tamara's heart now began to beat again rather wildly, but she reasoned with herself; she was no coward, and indeed why had she any cause for alarm? No one could be more aloof than her companion seemed. She was already numb with cold too, and her common sense told her shelter of any sort would be acceptable.

They had turned into the forest by now, and the road--if road it could be called--was rather more distinct.

It was a weird scene. The great giant pine trees, and the fine falling flakes penetrating through, the quickly vanis.h.i.+ng daylight, and the mist rising from the steaming horses as they galloped along; while Stepan stood there urging them on like some northern pirate at a s.h.i.+p's prow.

At last the view showed the white frozen lake, and by it a rough log hut. They came upon it suddenly, so that Tamara could only realize it was not large and rather low, when they drew up at the porch.

At the time she was too frozen and miserable to notice that the Prince unlocked the door, but afterward she remembered she should have been struck by the strangeness of his having a key.

He helped her out, and she almost fell she was so stiff with cold, and then she found herself, after pa.s.sing through a little pa.s.sage, in a warm, large room. It had a stove at one end, and the walls, distempered green, had antlers hung round. There was one plain oak table and a bench behind it, a couple of wooden armchairs, a corner cupboard, and an immense couch with leather cus.h.i.+ons, which evidently did for a bed, and on the floor were several wolf skins.

The Prince made no explanation as to why there was a fire, he just helped her off with her furs without a word; he hung them up on a peg and then divested himself of his own.

He wore the brown coat to-day, and was handsome as a G.o.d. Then, after he had examined the stove and looked from the window, he quietly left the room.

The contrast of the heat after the intense cold without made a tingling and singing in Tamara's ears. She was not sure, but thought she heard the key turn in the lock. She started to her feet from the chair where she sat and rushed to try the door, and this time her heart again gave a terrible bound, and she stood sick with apprehension.

The door was fastened from without.

For a few awful moments which seemed an eternity, she was conscious of nothing but an agonized terror. She could not reason or decide how to act. And then her fine courage came back, and she grew more calm.

She turned to the window, but that was double, and tightly shut and fastened up. There was no other exit, only this one door. Finding escape hopeless, she sat down and waited the turn of events. Perhaps he only meant to frighten her, perhaps there was some reason why the door must be barred; perhaps there were bears in this terribly lonely place.

She sat there reasoning with herself and controlling her nerves for moments which appeared like hours, and then she heard footsteps in the pa.s.sage, breaking the awful silence, and the door opened, and Gritzko strode into the room.

He locked it after him, and pocketed the key; then he faced her. What she saw in his pa.s.sionate eyes turned her lips gray with fear.

And now everything of that subtle thing in womankind which resists capture, came uppermost in Tamara's spirit. She loved him--but even so she would not be taken.

She stood holding on to the rough oak table like a deer at bay, her face deadly white, and her eyes wide and staring.

Then stealthily the Prince drew nearer, and with a spring seized her and clasped her in his arms.

"Now, now, you shall belong to me," he cried. "You are mine at last, and you shall pay for the hours of pain you have made me suffer!" and he rained mad kisses on her trembling lips.

A ghastly terror shook Tamara. This man whom she loved, to whom in happier circ.u.mstances she might have ceded all that he asked, now only filled her with frantic fear. But she would not give in, she would rather die than be conquered.

"Gritzko--oh, Gritzko! please--please don't!" she cried, almost suffocated.

But she knew as she looked at him that he was beyond all hearing.

His splendid eyes blazed with the pa.s.sion of a wild beast. She knew if she resisted him he would kill her. Well, better death than this hideous disgrace.

He held her from him for a second, and then lifted her in his arms.

But with the strength of terrified madness she grasped his wounded arm, and in the second in which he made a sudden wince, she gave an eel-like twist and slipped from his grasp, and as she did so she seized the pistol in his belt and stood erect while she placed the muzzle to her own white forehead.

"Touch me again, and I will shoot!" she gasped, and sank down on the bench almost exhausted behind the rough wooden table.

He made a step forward, but she lifted the pistol again to her head and leant her arm on the board to steady herself. And thus they glared at one another, the hunter and the hunted.

"This is very clever of you, Madame," he said; "but do you think it will avail you anything? You can sit like that all night, if you wish, but before dawn I will take you."

Tamara did not answer.

Then he flung himself on the couch and lit a cigarette, and all that was savage and cruel in him flamed from his eyes.

"My G.o.d! what do you think it has been like since the beginning?" he said. "Your silly prudish fears and airs. And still I loved you--madly loved you. And since the night when I kissed your sweet lips you have made me go through h.e.l.l--cold and provoking and disdainful, and last night when you defied me, then I determined you should belong to me by force; and now it is only a question of time. No power in heaven or earth can save you--Ah! if you had been different, how happy we might have been! But it is too late; the devil has won, and soon I will do what I please."

Tamara never stirred, and the strain of keeping the pistol to her head made her wrist ache.

For a long time there was silence, and the great heat caused a mist to swim before her eyes, and an overpowering drowsiness--Oh, heaven!--if unconsciousness should come upon her!

Then the daylight faded quite, and the Prince got up and lit a small oil lamp and set it on the shelf. He opened the stove and let the glow from the door flood through the room.

Then he sat down again.

A benumbing agony crept over Tamara; her brain grew confused in the hot, airless room. It seemed as if everything swam round her. All she saw clearly were Gritzko's eyes.

There was a deathly silence, but for an occasional moan of the wind in the pine trees. The drift of snow without showed white as it gradually blocked the window.

Were they buried here--under the snow? Ah! she must fight against this horrible lethargy.

It was a strange picture. The rough hut room with its skins and antlers; the fair, civilized woman, delicate and dainty in her soft silk blouse, sitting there with the grim Cossack pistol at her head--and opposite her, still as marble, the conquering savage man, handsome and splendid in his picturesque uniform; and just the dull glow of the stove and the one oil lamp, and outside the moaning wind and the snow.

Presently Tamara's elbow slipped and the pistol jerked forward. In a second the Prince had sprung into an alert position, but she straightened herself, and put it back in its place, and he relaxed the tension, and once more reclined on the couch.

And now there floated through Tamara's confused brain the thought that perhaps it would be better to shoot in any case--shoot and have done with it. But the instinct of her youth stopped her--suicide was a sin, and while she did not reason, the habit of this belief kept its hold upon her.

So an hour pa.s.sed in silence, then the agonizing certainty came upon her that there must be an end. Her arm had grown numb.

Strange lights seemed to flash before her eyes--Yes,--surely--that was Gritzko coming toward her--!

She gave a gasping cry and tried to pull the trigger, but it was stiff, her fingers had gone to sleep and refused to obey her. The pistol dropped from her nerveless grasp.

So this was the end! He would win.