The Vultures Part 48

Soon after midnight he made his way down the steep Bednarska. He had found out that the Bukaty Palace was surrounded; had seen the light filtering through the dripping panes of the conservatory. His father was probably sitting in the great drawing-room alone, before the wood-fire, meditating over the failure which he must have realized by now from a note hurriedly sent by one of the few servants whom they could trust.

Martin knew that Wanda had gone. He also knew the address that would find her. This was one of the hundred details to which the prince himself had attended. He had been a skilled organizer in the days when he had poured arms and ammunition into Poland across the Austrian frontier, and his hand had not lost its cunning. All Poland was seamed by channels through which information could be poured at any moment day or night, just as water is distributed over the land of an irrigated farm.

Martin had procured money. He carried some large round loaves of gray bread under his arm. The neck of a bottle protruded from the pocket of his coat. Among the lower streets near the river these burdens were more likely to allay than to arouse suspicion.

Between the Bednarska and the bridge which towers above the low-roofed houses fifty yards farther down the river are the landing-stages for the steamers that ply in summer. There is a public bath, and at one end of this floating erection a landing-stage for smaller boats, where as often as not Kosmaroff found work. It was to this landing-stage that Martin directed his steps. In summer there were usually workers and watchers here night and day; for the traffic of a great river never ceases, and those whose daily bread is wrested from wind, water, and tide must get their sleep when they can.

To-night there were a few men standing at the foot of the street where the steps are--river-workers who had property afloat and imprisoned by the ice, dwellers, perhaps, in those cheap houses beneath the bridge which are now gradually falling under the builder's hammer, who took a sleepless interest in the prospects of a flood.

Martin went out onto the landing-stage, and looked about him as if he also had a stake in this, one of nature's great lotteries. There he had a fit of coughing, such as any man might have on such a night, and at the most deadly time of the year. He waited ten minutes, perhaps, coughing at intervals, and at length Kosmaroff came to him, not from the land, but across the moving floes from the direction of the bridge.

"The water is running freely," he said, "through the middle arch. I have a boat out there on the ice. Come!"

And he took the bread from Martin's arms, and led the way on to the river that he knew so well in all its varying moods. The boat was lying on the ice a few yards above the ma.s.sive pier of the bridge, almost at the edge of the water, which could be heard gurgling and lapping as it flowed towards the sea with its burden of snow and ice. It was so dark that Martin, stumbling over the chaos of ice, fell against the boat before he saw it. It was one of the rough punts of a primeval simplicity of build used by the sand-workers of the Vistula.

Kosmaroff gave his orders shortly and sharply. He was at home on the unstable surface, which was half water, half ice. He was commander now, and spoke without haste or hesitation.

"Help me," he said, "to carry her to the edge, but do not stand upright.

We can easily get away unseen, and you may be sure that no one will come out on the ice to look for us. We must be twenty miles away before dawn."

The boat was a heavy one, and they stumbled and fell several times; for there was no foothold, and both were lightly made men. At last they reached the running water and cautiously launched into it.

"We must lie down in the bottom of the boat," said Kosmaroff, "and take our chances of being crushed until we are past the citadel."

As he spoke they shot under the bridge. Above them, to the left, towered the terrace of the castle, and the square face of that great building which has seen so many vicissitudes. Every window was alight. For the castle is used as a barracks now, and the soldiers, having been partially withdrawn from the streets, were going to bed. Soon these lights were left behind, and the outline of the citadel, half buried in trees, could be dimly seen. Then suddenly they left the city behind, and were borne on the breast of the river into the outer darkness beyond.

Kosmaroff sat up.

"Give me a piece of bread," he said. "I am famished."

But he received no answer. Prince Martin was asleep.

The sky was beginning to clear. The storm was over, but the flood had yet to come. The rain must have fallen in the Carpathians, and the Vistula came from those mountains. In twenty-four hours there would be not only ice to fear, but uprooted trees and sawn timber from the mills; here and there a mill-wheel torn from its bearings, now and then a dead horse; a door, perhaps, of a cottage, or part of a roof; a few boats; a hundred trophies of the triumph of nature over man, borne to the distant sea on muddy waters.

Kosmaroff found the bread and tore a piece off. Then he made himself as comfortable as he could in the stern of the boat, using one oar as a rudder. But he could not see much. He could only keep the boat heading down stream and avoid the larger floes. Then--wet, tired out, conscious of failure, sick at heart--he fell asleep, too, in the hands of G.o.d.

When he awoke he found Martin crouching beside him, wide awake. The prince had taken the oar and was steering. The clouds had all cleared away, and a full moon was high above them. The dawn was in the sky above the level land. They were pa.s.sing through a plain now, broken here and there by pollarded trees, great s.p.a.ces of marsh-land, with big, low-roofed farms standing back on the slightly rising ground. It was almost morning.

Kosmaroff sat up, and immediately began to s.h.i.+ver. Martin was s.h.i.+vering too, and handed him the vodka-bottle with a laugh. His spirits were proof even against failure and a hopeless dawn and bitter cold.

"Where are we?" he asked.

Kosmaroff stood up and looked round. They were travelling at a great pace in the company of countless ice-floes, some white with snow, others gray and muddy.

"I know where we are," he answered, after a pause. "We have pa.s.sed Wyszogrod. We are nearing Plock. We have come a great distance. I wish my teeth wouldn't chatter."

"I have secured mine with a piece of bread," mumbled Martin.

Kosmaroff was looking uneasily at the sky.

"We cannot travel during the day," he said, after a long examination of the little clouds hanging like lines across the eastern sky. "We shall not be able to cross the frontier at Thorn with this full moon, and I am afraid we are going to have fine weather. We shall soon come to some large islands on this side of Plock. I know a farmer there. We must wait with him until we have promise of a suitable night to pa.s.s through Thorn."

Before daylight they reached the islands. There was no pack now; the ice was afloat and moving onward. All Kosmaroff's skill, all the little strength of both was required to work the boat through the floes towards the land. The farmer took them in willingly enough, and boasted that they could not have found a safer hiding-place in all Poland, which, indeed, seemed true enough. For none but expert and reckless boatmen would attempt to cross the river now.

Nevertheless, Kosmaroff made the pa.s.sage to the mainland before mid-day, and set off on foot to Plock. He was going to communicate with the prince at Warsaw, and ask him to provide money or means of escape to await them at Dantzic. In two days a reply came, telling them that their escape was being arranged, but they must await further instructions before quitting their hiding-place. After the lapse of four days these further orders came by the same sure channel, which was independent of the Russian post-offices.

The fugitives were to proceed cautiously to Dantzic, to pa.s.s through that town at night to the anchorage below Neufahrwa.s.ser. Here they would find Captain Cable, in the _Minnie_, anch.o.r.ed in the stream ready for sea. The instructions were necessarily short. There were no explanations whatever. There was no news.

At Plock, Kosmaroff could learn nothing, for nothing was known there.

The story of the great plot had been hushed up by the authorities. There are persons living in Warsaw who do not know of it to this day. There are others who know of it and deny that it ever existed. The arms are in use in Central Asia at the present time, though their pattern is already considered antiquated. Any one who may choose to walk along the Czerniakowska will find to-day on the left-hand side of it a large building, once an iron-foundry, now deserted and falling into disrepair.

If it be evening-time, he will, as likely as not, meet the patrol from the neighboring hussar barracks, which nightly guards this road and the river-side.

After receiving their final instructions, Kosmaroff and Martin had to wait two days until the weather changed--until the moon, now well on the wane, did not rise before midnight.

At last they set out, in full daylight, on a high river still enc.u.mbered by ice. It was much warmer during the day now; but the evenings were cold, and a thick mist usually arose from the marsh-lands. This soon enveloped them, and they swept on unseen. None could have followed them into the mist, for none had Kosmaroff's knowledge of the river.

The frontier-line is some miles above the ancient city of Thorn. It is strictly guarded by day and night. The patrol-boats are afloat at every hour. Kosmaroff had arranged to arrive at this spot early in the night, before the mists had been dispelled by the coming of the moon.

Even he could only guess at their position. Once they dared to approach the sh.o.r.e in order to discover some landmark. But they navigated chiefly by sound. The whistle of a distant train, the sound of church clocks, the street cries of a town--these were Kosmaroff's degrees of lat.i.tude.

"We are getting near," he said, in little more than a whisper. "What is the time?"

It was nearly eleven o'clock. If they got past the frontier they would sweep through Thorn before mid-night. The river narrows here, and goes at a great pace. It is still of a vast width--one of the largest rivers in Europe.

The mist was very thick here.

"Listen!" whispered Kosmaroff, suddenly. And they heard the low, regular thud of oars. It was the patrol-boat.

Almost immediately a voice, startlingly near, called upon them to halt.

They crouched low in the boat. In a mist it is very difficult to locate sound. They looked round in all directions. The voice seemed to have come from above. It was raised again, and seemed to be behind them this time.

"Stop, or we fire!" it said, in Russian. Then followed a sharp whistle, which was answered by two or three others. There were at least three boats close at hand, seeking to locate each other before they fired.

Immediately afterwards the firing began, and was taken up by the more distant boats. A bullet splashed in the water close behind Kosmaroff's oar, with a sharp spit like that of an angry cat. Martin gave a suppressed laugh. Kosmaroff only smiled.

Then two bullets struck the boat simultaneously, one on the stern-post, fired from behind, the other full on the side amids.h.i.+ps, where Martin lay concealed.

Neither of the two men moved or made a sound. Kosmaroff leaned forward and peered into the fog. The patrol-boats were behind now, and the officers were calling to each other.

"What was it--a boat or a floating tree?" they heard them ask each other.

Kosmaroff was staring ahead, but he saw Martin make a quick movement in the bottom of the boat.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"A bullet," answered Martin. "It came through the side of the boat, low down. It struck me in the back--the spine. I cannot move my legs. But I have stopped the water from coming in. I have my finger in the hole the bullet made below the water-line. I can hold on till we have pa.s.sed through Thorn."

He spoke in his natural voice, quite cheerfully. They were not out of danger yet. Kosmaroff could not quit the steering-oar. He glanced at Martin, and then looked ahead again uneasily.

Martin was the first to speak. He raised himself on his elbow, and with a jerk of the wrist threw something towards Kosmaroff. It was an envelope, closed and doubled over.