The Black Cross Part 29

"If I hadn't come," he said grimly, "You would be lying in that pool yonder, by now, broken to pieces against the wheel; and I should have sought for my bird in vain." He saw how the pillow rose and fell with her breath, and how she listened.

"I wanted a bird for my Siegfried on Sat.u.r.day," he went on, "Some one to sit far aloft in the flies and sing, as you sang this morning, high and pure, in the middle of the tone. Helmanoff has trained you well, child, you take the notes as if nature herself had been your teacher.

Neumann is gone; she screeches like an owl! Elle a son conge!" He continued to look at the pillow and the gold curls spread across it.

"Will you come and be my bird, child? I suppose you can't act as yet; but up in the flies you will be hidden, and only your prototype will flutter across the stage on its wires. When I heard you this morning, I said to myself: 'Ha--my bird at last! Siegfried's bird!'"

He laughed softly, and bent over and stroked the curls: "I came to-night because the Neumann went off in a huff. She made a scene at rehearsal, or rather I did. I told her to go and darn stockings for a living, and she seemed to resent it!" He paused for a moment.

"Sat.u.r.day is only day after to-morrow--and we have no bird!"

The girl lay motionless, and the Kapellmeister went on stroking her curls. "If you sing, you will be paid, you know!" he said, "and then you need not try to kill the poor bird for lack of a crumb. Why didn't you tell me this morning, little one?"

Kaya raised her head feebly and gazed at him: "My voice is gone!" she said, "My voice is--gone!"

"Bah!" said the Kapellmeister, "With a throat like that! It is only beginning to come. The Lehmann's voice was as yours in her youth, light at first and colorature; and it grew! Mein Gott, how it grew and deepened, and swelled, and soared!--Get strong, child, and your voice will ripen like fruit in the sun."

He stooped over the pillow and looked into her eyes: "Come, child," he said, "Will you be my bird? Promise me! You won't think of that again--I can trust you? If I leave you now--"

Kaya put out her hands and clung to him suddenly, clasping his arm with her fingers. "I won't," she said, "I will live, and study, and do my best--and some day you think I shall be a singer? Oh, tell me truly!

That is just what Helmanoff said, but when I asked them to hear me--I went to so many, so many!--they were always engaged, or--" She caught her breath a little, stumbling over the words: "You think so--truly?"

"I think so truly," said the Kapellmeister, "You must come to see me at the Opera-House to-morrow and rehea.r.s.e your part, and I will teach you.

You shall have your honorarium to-night in advance; and you must eat and grow strong."

"I will," said Kaya.

There was a new resolve in her tone, fresh hope, and she put her hand to her throat instinctively, as if to imprison the voice inside and keep it from escaping.

"Has the miller gone?" she asked.

"Yes," said Ritter, "He is gone and the door is closed; we are alone."

"Then put your head lower," whispered the girl, "and I will tell you.

Perhaps, when you--know!"

"Go on," said the Kapellmeister, "I am here, child, close to you, and no one shall hurt you. Don't tremble."

"Do you see my hands?" said the girl, "Look at them. They are stained with blood--stained with-- Ah, you draw away!"

"Go on," said Ritter, "You drew away yourself, child. What do you mean? What could you do with a hand like that, a rose leaf? Ha!" He laughed and clasped it with his own to give her courage: "Go on."

"You are not Russian," said the girl, "so you can't understand. When one is not Russian--to be an anarchist, to kill--that is terrible, unpardonable! But with us--My father is Mezkarpin," she whispered, "You have heard of him--yes? The great General, the friend of the Tsar! And I am the Countess Kaya, his--his daughter!"

Her voice broke, and she was silent for a moment, leaning against the pillow. Then she went on:

"There is a society," she whispered, "in St. Petersburg. It is called 'The Black Cross'; and whosoever is a member of that order must obey the will of the order; and when they pa.s.s judgment, the sentence must be fulfilled. They are just and fair. When a man, an official, has sinned only once, they pa.s.s him by; but when he has committed crime after crime, they take up his case and deliberate together, and he is judged and condemned. Sometimes it is the sentence of death, and then--" she hesitated, "and then we draw lots. The lot fell to--me."

She shut her eyes, and as the Kapellmeister watched her face, he saw that it was convulsed in agony, and the boyish look was gone.

"He was warned," she whispered, "three times he was warned, according to rule, and I--I killed him." The lines deepened in her face, and she half rose, leaning on her elbow, staring straight ahead of her as though at a vision, her lips moving:

"_In the name of the Black Cross I do now pledge myself an instrument in the service of Justice and Retribution. On whomsoever the choice of Fate shall fall, I vow the sentence of death shall be fulfilled, by mine own hands if needs be, without weakness, or hesitation, or mercy; and if by any untoward chance this hand should fall, I swear--I swear, before the third night shall have pa.s.sed, to die instead--to die--instead._"

She struggled up on the bed, kneeling.

"I killed him!" she cried in a whisper, "I killed him! I see him lying on the floor there--on his face! There--there! Look! With his arms outstretched--and the blood in a pool!"

She was leaning forward over the edge of the bed, staring with her eyes dilated, pointing into the shadows and shuddering:

"Don't you see him--there?"

The Kapellmeister was white and his hands shook. He took her strongly by the shoulders. "Lie down," he said, "You are dreaming. There is nothing there. Look me in the eyes! I tell you there is nothing there, and your hands are not stained. Lie down."

Kaya gazed at him for a moment in bewilderment: "Where am I?" she said, pa.s.sing her hand over her eyes. "Who are you? I thought you were-- Why no, I must have been dreaming as you say."

"The hunger has made you delirious," said the Kapellmeister: "Look me in the eyes as I tell you, and I will smooth away those lines from your forehead. Sleep now--sleep!"

The girl sank reluctantly back on the pillows and the Kapellmeister sat beside her, his gaze fixed on hers with a strained attention, unblinking. He was pa.s.sing his hand over her forehead slowly and lightly, scarcely touching her: "Sleep--" he said, "Sleep."

Her lids wavered and drooped slowly, and she sighed and stirred against the pillows, turning on her side.

"Sleep--" he said.

The garret was still, and only the moonbeams danced on the floor. The doves in the eaves slept with their heads tucked under their wings, and the spiders were motionless in the midst of the webs; only the water was splas.h.i.+ng below.

The Kapellmeister watched the girl on the pallet. He sat leaning back with his arms folded, his head in the shadow, and his face was grim.

"She will sleep now," he said to himself, "sleep until I wake her. She is young and strong, and there is no harm done; but she has had some fearful shock, and it has shaken her like a slender birch struck by a storm. I will send my old Marta, and she will look after her--poor little bird!"

Kaya lay on her side with her face half turned to the pillow; her cheek was flushed and her breath came gently through the arch of her lips.

Her curls were like a halo about her, and her right hand lay on the blanket limp, small and white with the fingers relaxed.

"I am getting to be an old man," said the Kapellmeister to himself, "and my heart is seared; but if I had a daughter, and she looked like that--I would throw over the Tsar and all his kingdom. The great Juggernaut of Autocracy has gone over her, and her wings are bruised.

It is only her voice that can save her now."

He rose to his feet slowly, and in the dim light of the moon his hair was silvered, and he seemed weary and worn. He stood by the pallet, looking down at the slim, still figure for a moment; and his hand stole out and touched a strand of her hair. Then he covered her gently.

"Sleep," he said, "Sleep!" And he turned and went out, closing the door.

CHAPTER XVII

"Is it only a week that I have been ill, Marta? It seems like a month."

"A week and a day, Fraulein; but you are better now, and to-morrow, the Doctor says you shall go out on the promenade and smell of the rose buds."

Kaya was half lying, half seated on the pallet, with her hands clasped behind her head; she was dressed in a blue gown, worn and shabby but spotlessly neat, and her throat and her arms were bare. "But how soon can I sing, Marta? Did he say when? Did you hear him?"

The old nurse sat by the bed-side, knitting and counting her st.i.tches aloud to herself from time to time.