Scribner's Magazine/Volume 52/Number 6/The Winged Hussar

by Albert Kinross

 

 

THE WINGED HUSSAR

By Albert Kinross

Illustrations by W. T. Benda

IN the winter of 1905–6 a half-dozen men sat round a table in the Hotel Bristol at Warsaw and played a game of poker. As many agencies and newspapers had sent them out to report upon the Russian revolution. They had seen men die behind the Moscow barricades, and women and small children; they had listened to the shooting of the Lettish prisoners in the sand dunes behind Riga; while here, from the hotel windows, they had watched Cossack and dragoon sabre the cheering Poles who had gathered unarmed in the Cracow Faubourg. That afternoon, however, the snow was falling heavily, and it seemed at last as though the revolution had died a natural, or unnatural, death. So, instead of looking for "stories" or strolling in the dismal streets, the men had raided Carthew's room—he mixed their drinks and found them matches—and settled down steadily to a game of poker.

"The last round," said Gilbert Coke, of the London Tribune; "I'm dining with a Russian colonel and mustn't be too late; and so is Baldwin. The colonel's going to give us his version."

"All right," from two of the others, who, it appeared, had booked seats for the wrestling matches at the circus.

"I'm off to the opera," said Slavin, a young man from New York; and so it was carried. Nor did Carthew mind. "What a fug you've made—I'll have to sit here with the windows open and lay down disinfectants," he cried, standing behind Baldwin, who was shuffling and reshuffling as though wound up and become an automaton.

What foe could stand before the awful sibilance of their onrush, this apparition

of something inconceivably monstrous, yet inconceivably superb?—Page 683.

Nothing very strenuous happened till Slavin picked up four aces in the last deal of all. He had been losing steadily throughout the afternoon, in the pernicious, deadly way a man will lose when the luck is sheer against him, when misfortune seems to have settled on him, like a cloud over his head, immovably, malignantly, and as though it bore him a personal grudge. He looked at his cards again, and the four aces were there right enough. Now, at the finish and too late for any serious profit, Fate, it seemed, was showing him what she might have done had she so willed. It was a hand to "put one's shirt on"; if only some of the others had good hands as well, he might even yet recoup his losses and come out not too far from the right side.… He threw away the fifth card and took another from the dealer. So did Coke. Two of the other men had kept a pair, and Baldwin, who was always venturesome, had discarded all five and asked for a "book." Homerton did nothing and joined Carthew.

The betting began, and Slavin squared his jaw, prepared to back his four aces against anything that might come along. His one fear was that the others might have poor hands and crawl out. He resolved to back his four aces as far as anybody would go.

Baldwin retired at once—his "book," as usual, had been a failure. One of the pairs was bluffing or had advanced; the other fled when Coke produced a green three-ruble bill. At thirty rubles only Slavin and the Englishman remained. Would the Englishman run away? Slavin hoped to play him a little longer. He, too, had kept four and taken one. He might have a straight, or a flush, or a full-house. He might—it was all but impossible—have fours as well. In any case he couldn't beat four aces. So Slavin kept on; and so did the Englishman.

They betted, coolly, regularly, unhurriedly, in five-ruble raises, and occasionally in tens, which was the limit. When they wanted change they helped themselves from the money on the table. So sure they seemed of themselves, so far removed from doubts or hesitations, that a spectator, ignorant of their purpose, might have fancied them engaged in some austere and rigid occupation. The other men, grown feverish, looked on, impatiently awaiting the result.

Slavin's personal wealth at that moment amounted to just over the twelve hundred rubles, which were really the property of his newspaper, and had to be accounted for in the usual way. The bulk of the money had reached him a day or two ago, when he was running short. Incidentally, he had been informed that if he didn't get a good story quick he would be fired. His proprietors were like that, and there was no help for it.…

Coke, silent, letting his money "talk," had just put down another ten-ruble bill, and then another on top of it.

"I guess that makes twelve hundred," said Slavin. "I'm getting off here," he added, equalizing. "What is it?"

"Kept a busted straight flush and it came right—simply had to back it," said Coke, showing his five cards. There they were, large as life—the seven, eight, nine, ten, and jack of diamonds.

"It's yours," said Slavin.… This last ironic stroke had been far deeper, far subtler than he had imagined. Instead of tantalizing him, mocking him, with a tardy favor, now valueless, Fate had done the impossible; had presented him with what looked like a certainty, then done the impossible to finish his rout. Baldwin had pounced on Slavin's defeated hand and was displaying the four aces.

"If I had a pencil and paper I'd work it out," cried Homerton. "It was at least a hundred thousand to one on you—at least!"

"Poisonous game, poker," said the Englishman, pocketing his winnings; "but I suppose you Americans can stand it. Anyhow, it's your invention;" and he said good-night.

Carthew flung the windows open and began to air the room.

The excitement of the last half hour supported Slavin till he reached his own quarters; but, once the door had closed: "I'll be fired for sure—and there's this deficit to make good—I've got to 'make good,' anyway;" and he smiled feebly at his little joke. "And who's to pay the hotel bill and get me home again?" he ran on. "Strapped in Warsaw, broke, stranded—and not a word of the lingo—and no visible job I could turn to. That would make a stunning good story!"… Nevertheless, and in spite of these reflections, he changed his clothes and took his dinner in the big dining-room of the hotel, gay with what they called "Secessionist" decorations and resonant with the two big tables where the Russian officers messed, splendid in splendid uniforms, borrowed, stripped—almost literally stripped—from the backs of the conquered and subjected Pole. Here a waiter brought him the inevitable beet-root soup.

Slavin looked up to a man who seemed to have escaped from the ancient figures on the stage.—Page 682

.

"You're going to the opera?" asked Coke, coming through.

Slavin nodded.

"I've discovered a café concert—opera's rather too hard for such as me."

Slavin watched him go out, then felt in his waistcoat-pocket for the ticket. He had asked the hotel porter to get him one that morning. It would pass away the time; he was fond of music; and Warsaw, without the revolution, was dead slow.

On the way between the hotel and the Grand Theatre, it occurred to him that he might cable home some quite astounding lie about himself; say that he had been robbed, pillaged, hooliganized.… No, they weren't out for that. They might stand something tall about other people; but a story about himself.…

II

The hotel porter, consulted that morning about the opera, had expressed astonishment; also he had folded his hands behind his long tail-coat and wagged a dubious head. The opera? Did not Mr. Slavin know? A ticket would be a very difficult affair. For over a month the house had been sold out. Everybody was going; he himself was going. To-night, it appeared, was no ordinary night, but a première, a first performance. And such a performance! The porter was full of it. To-night was the first night of "Maria."

Slavin, musical, possessed, moreover, of all a journalist's curiosity, asked for particulars. From the porter he learned that some years ago a patriot, noble and wealthy, had written the libretto of "Maria"—the subject was one familiar to every Polish school-boy, to everybody acquainted with Poland's glorious past. This nobleman had offered a handsome prize to whomsoever should furnish the best music for his libretto. A young composer, hitherto unknown, had won the prize; yet, till the issue of the famous October Manifesto, and ever since the revolution of the eighteen-sixties, all theatrical performances of a national character had been forbidden. So that only recently had it been possible to rehearse and prepare for the production of "Maria." All Warsaw would be present; all Poland would be present; there were guests in the hotel from Wilna, from Lublin, from Sandomir, from Posen, from Cracow, from Danzig. … A ticket? For Slavin still persisted. The porter reflected. Perhaps, by calling in the assistance of the Hebrew and paying a price, a ticket might yet be secured. There were always Jews who speculated in such affairs. … In the end the porter had proved successful. Slavin had paid his money cheerfully; and it was this ticket that he now presented to an attendant.

He received a programme that was altogether incomprehensible; for Polish he had none, nor any other of the Slavonic tongues. He turned it over, straying from it, wondering how he would face the morrow—equally incomprehensible, it seemed, in that sad moment when his isolation came upon him. For here, in the packed theatre, filled with strange faces, strange speech, strange interests, a loneliness had invaded him, and, for the first time, he realized with shattering acuteness his position. In the solitude of his room it had had its humors. Now not even that ghostly light relieved it.… Beside him, equally aloof from all that seethed and effervesced in the crowded house, bringing with him an atmosphere passively hostile to this perfervid audience, sat an officer of Circassian horse. A Russian face, pale, intellectual, looked out from the Asiatic uniform, a full-length garment of dark blue, pointed with silver, edged with scarlet. Once or twice Slavin observed him, feeling that he too was an intruder, that they were intruders both, among the hundreds, the thousands, to whom this festival belonged. The Russian kept his position and gave no sign.

The composer himself, young, untried, appeared at the conductor's desk and was received with cheering. In all that multitude of applause, it seemed as though only Slavin and the Russian were silent. The curtain rose; the first act had begun.

The first act of "Maria" passes in the great hall of the Voyevoda, or governor, of a palatinate. Here an army of guests were feasting and merrymaking in approved operatic style. Slavin was aware of the Voyevoda and his companions, their heads shaven, mustachios full and drooping, in the ancient Polish fashion. He heard their recitatives and declamations, their gallantries and toastings; but of the actual happenings, what they plotted and discussed, he knew nothing, nor did he try to know. His own trouble lay heavy on him, had seized him, gripped him, overpowered him; till gradually it broke, gave way, yielded, as before long draughts of potent wine. It was hardly the music that thus aroused him and filled him with a gathering power, a gathering clairvoyance; that shook the load from his shoulders, dispersed the mists, and at last held his eyes to a stage that was to him a revelation, a joy, a carnival.

He had known the polonaise, he had known the mazurka, disembodied things—perhaps of Chopin—flowing easily from the piano. So, till then, he had known them—dances without dancing. Never as seen here, substantial, incarnate, thrilled with a life of which they were the essence, the supreme manifestation, and dressed and staged as in their greatest day. The Poles? Hitherto they had been a gray and subject people seen dimly in the wintry streets of Warsaw—gray and cowxd. To-night they had thrown off this disguise and come once more into their own. Gray? Their dress was crimson and gold and sable, ran through all scales of ruby, of blue, of emerald, sounded all chords, all basses and trebles of color mated with color. A torrent, a triumph, level with the composer's music, of velvets bordered with fur, of silks and tissues, of satins and dyed leathers, of damasks and brocades, jewelled, begemmed, aigretted, mixed here and mingled. The Venetians had known how to dress with splendor, but here in Poland it had been an art, ranking with music, with painting, and the chronicles of poet-historian. And thus attuned, attired, entered upon, their dancing had become a greater art, their greatest—national, impersonal, something different from a drilled performance in an opera-house. As well as with the dyed leathers that were a part of their magnificence, as well as with the disks of clinking metal that chimed with the music, their feet were shod with a fire that transcended passion, a white heat beyond the red, beyond the white a flame invisible. Light as leaves swaying in summer breezes their bodies moved, till, wilder and more wild, they went as leaves before an autumn gale. Dignity, pomp, ceremonial; and then, changing with the changed measure, from polonaise to the mazurka was but a step. And now the colors flowed and blended, the bodies swayed as though they were all one body, and turned, wind-driven, flame-compelled. Men and women were ravished by an abandonment, complete, perfect. The dancers had forgotten the theatre, forgotten the audience; the audience had forgotten the theatre, forgotten the dancers. This was the ancient Poland, jocund, joyous—fire and light and chivalry and pomp. It ended only with a summons to war, and a sudden entry of people fleeing from the invader.

The curtain lowered and the applause over, Slavin caught a glimpse of the Russian on his left. The pale face had grown paler, and in the eyes there glowed a dull antagonism, a stifled jealousy, as of some zealot belittling the rites, the doctrines of an alien and exultant church. So might in Rome an icy Calvinist, hating yet impotent, motionless yet resentful, sit out the service at St. Peter's; so might a Romanist endure the ardors of the Protestant north. Otherwise the Russian gave no sign, and a casual observer would have put him down as altogether cold.

From this sullen profile Slavin looked up to a man who seemed to have escaped from the ancient figures on the stage. This man was tall and towering; he had his back toward the footlights, his face turned to the audience, proprietorially, immensely. He stood immediately in front of Slavin and the Russian, and seemed to menace them, to challenge them, to challenge that whole theatre, not so much with an expression of disdain as with the statement that he who stood there was a Pole of Poles. His head was shaved as had been the heads of the great nobles on the stage, his long mustachios fell like theirs, and, instead of a white shirt-front, he wore a vest of black flowered silk, closed at the throat, that recalled in some indefinable way the caftans of the dancers. Over six feet high he stood, ignoring yet observing, unconscious yet compelling by the mere bulk of him, the vast, unstudied insolence wherewith he bore the mask and impinged on the costume of a Pan of old.

Slavin had time to absorb these things, to synthesize the meaning, the significance of what had gone before, when the curtain rose upon the second act.

Now all was changed to a wild and open country on whose horizon one saw the red glare of towns and villages going up in flame. The Tartar had fallen on Poland out of the Muslim south. Slavin gleaned that much from the affrighted peasantry who crossed the stage, from the martial declamations of the principals. The rest—the intrigue, the lovers' parting, the heroine's tears—was a blank, a convention; until at last he heard the tramp of armies and saw Poland going forth to war.

The dresses of the first act had been rich: they were the dresses of peace and relaxation; their richness was the richness of security. Now they were changed; but in their place was something even more apart, even more quick to stir the imagination and heat the blood. Silk and satin, fur and velvet had given way to shimmering metal, to plumed helmet, and the pelt of bear and wolf; instead of the warm glow of precious stones, flashed the cold glint of naked steel; in place of caftan, cloak, and loose trousers, one saw breast-plate, loin-guard, and pelisse. And here were faces curiously still under the curved earpieces; and here were bodies sheathed in plumage and the skins of wild beasts. Yet this was not enough. For to the roll of kettledrums, the swirl of fifes behind quartian, dragoon, and reiter came the hussar, mounted, and pennoned lance at rest. These men sat their heavy horses, their lances made a forest, and from their shoulders rose the famous "wings." Sufficiently splendid in themselves, they had added this last touch of splendor. From their shoulders, as in the reliefs of ancient Egypt, rose great wings—the rustling of them filled the theatre. Might and terror were incarnate in these warriors. What foe could stand before the awful sibilance of their onrush, this apparition of something inconceivably monstrous yet inconceivably superb? War had fired this people to new improvisations that ended on a grandeur reaching to the epic, the sublime. The other nations had but dreamt of wargods buoyed on the spread of carved and painted wings; the Pole had dared to attempt them in his line of battle, to embody them, to be them.…

Over this army floated Poland's eagle, white upon its blood-red ground. A bishop raised the sacred relics and the cross and gave his blessing. Plainly, without music, the front ranks kneeling, the mounted men behind, rose a solemn chant of male voices. It was the hymn made for Sobieski's legions when they marched out to Vienna.

The curtain fell, and, through its tears, a generation that had been forbidden the traditional uniforms saw Poland rearisen. The women threw their flowers onto the stage; the men, tinder, stood there, all but ignited to some desperate enterprise. This tableau roused them, was a resurrection of old glories, bardic, invincible, transfigured by the virtue of a great religion. Again and yet again they feasted on that spectacle.

"They were really like that—ils étaient vraiment comme ça?" Slavin, ablaze and finding his best French, was addressing the officer of Circassian horse. Already the wings were sprouting on his shoulders, and he was charging madly—for Poland, for the faith, for sheer devilment. "ils étaient vraiment comme ça?" he repeated.

"Nyet," said the Russian; and now, on a sudden, Slavin realized his mistake. A hatred, burning, unquenchable, lowered in the man's eyes. He had closed these overtures, this conversation, with a single abrupt negative; and Slavin then knew that where he saw valkyries and gods, this other saw Sathanas, something accursed, to be stamped out with blood and iron.

"The hussars were really like that. They were even more than that—we are but in a theatre." Slavin looked up. It was the Pole, returned to his old dominant station, more towering, more formidably representative than ever.

It was the Pole, occupant of the stall in front of theirs, who had intervened, and who in an excellent French continued:

"They cleared a path to the Black Sea and the Baltic; they rode with Lubomirski to Berlin, with Sobieski to Vienna, with Zolkiewski to Moscow. Swede, German, Turk, and Russ they drove before them. At Khotin they trampled out the Janissary Guards; at Kirkholm three thousand of them destroyed an army of sixteen thousand Swedes; at Smolensk the Russian laid one hundred and twenty banners at their feet."

Slavin, glowing, all interest, all excitement, heard the tale. He had had no idea. "You Poles did all this?" he asked.

"At Orsza the Russian went down like grass before us—at Bazya—at Lachowicz—at Chudnow—at Zeromsk."

Each well-remembered name was a blow aimed at their neighbor. Pale, impotent, he let the volley pass. His revenge, if any, must be deferred. Midway through the interval he rose from his seat and left the theatre.

Slavin smiled up at the Pole. "We've driven him away?" he suggested.

"That spy!" was the contemptuous answer.

"Do you really mean it?"

"He is one of the governor-general's aides come here to make a report."

"Then he really is a Russian? The uniform——"

"The Cossacks, the Circassians, are often officered by Russians."

"What will he say about it?"

The Pole shrugged his shoulders.

"It was my intention to make him speak here; but the governor-general has issued an order against duelling, which he obeyed—so not even that satisfaction is left to us."

"You tried to provoke him?" Slavin guessed it now.

"I did my best;" and it occurred to Slavin that this was not the first time his new-found friend had done his best, and that there might have been occasions when he had succeeded.

The third act of "Maria" combines and concentrates the color, the movement, the emotions of the two others. The troops return victorious; there follows a solemn thanksgiving; the opera ends amid new feastings and rejoicings. Now it was the composer's turn to receive a last ovation. And well enough he deserved it, for he had wrought a miracle. To all these people he had given back their past, roused them with a vision of what they had been, what they yet might be; conquered the slothful, the indifferent, heartened the active and the strong; dealt a momentous blow at that carefully fostered policy of forgetfulness and slow oblivion, decreed then by an alien government, which for more than a generation had been at work, stifling their ardors, numbing flesh and spirit. To-night, for a couple of hours, Poland, ancient, warlike, and jocund, had lived upon the boards, and a subject people had seen the splendid ghosts of its desires.

Even to Slavin—and perhaps the more so for his ignorance—this thing had come as a revelation; and as wildly as any there he found himself shouting, cheering, and gesticulating; until there succeeded a moment, when, standing clear away from his tumultuous participation, he saw himself once more as an American journalist sent out by a newspaper. And then, "What the deuce has all this got to do with me?" he asked himself; and yet again, nonplussed by a ferment stronger than reason or self-knowledge, "What the devil has all this got to do with me!"

III

Noon had struck next morning when he awoke. He was back at the hotel, and he lay for a long hour in bed, helping himself to rolls and coffee, smoking cigarettes, luxuriously going over, reviving scene by scene, the memories, the surprises of the previous night.

The opera ended, somehow he had gravitated toward the Pole; and, somehow, the Pole had taken a similar direction. It was as though a tie, an understanding had been forged by their enthusiasms; as though, tacitly, they had agreed that, of all who had been moved by to-night's spectacle, none had been so samely moved as they. He had found himself promenading under the starlight with this stranger, plying him with questions, eagerly accepting answer, explanation, comment. He remembered now that wheresoever his imagination led, the other met him; indeed, as one who had preceded and was waiting.

For a moment they had halted beside the monument to the national poet, Mickiewicz; they had reached the Vistula, and, in the moonlight, looked out on the vast spread of the river and what had once been the palace of the Polish kings. On the opposite bank was Praga, the suburb that had witnessed Poland's last stand as a nation, and a massacre of the innocents unequalled since the Russian waded in the blood of Novgorod the Great.… More and more, under this man's guidance, he had become aware of a people, a history; of a past, too near for death and such decay as is buried in the sands of Egypt or the dust of Rome. One magic touch might rekindle it; perhaps the Princess, as in the fairy-tale, was but asleep. To be the Prince whose coming should remove this enchantment seemed a destiny heroic beyond dreams.

At some small hour of the morning they had turned in at the other's club, a large house, sufficiently comfortable, where had followed the usual exchange of names, habitat, and occupation. The conversation, so far impersonal, became personal. The Pole uncorked champagne; their corner of the room was warm, intimate, secluded; and here, his tongue loosened, wagging as tongues will do after 2 a.m., he had talked about himself, his home, his profession, and about America. Now it was his turn.…

"Slavin—the name is English?" the Pole had asked, examining the card before stowing it away in his pocket-book. "No, Irish," he had replied; "or, at least, so I've been told. Over there we don't trouble much about such things till we've made our pile."

But for the one interruption the Pole had listened, was curious, was sympathetic; the natural insolence and panache of the man, conspicuous in the theatre, had disappeared; and it was without astonishment that he saw himself launching into confidences, and even telling about Gilbert Coke, the English journalist, and the four aces, and how he was up against it generally, and that if he didn't get a good story quick he would be fired.

"A true Pole—we are all gamblers," the other had laughed. And then, "Perhaps I may be of some service to you—you are at the Hotel Bristol?"

From here the conversation had swerved to insurrections; to Kosciuszko's rising after the second partition, to the revolts of the eighteen-thirties and the sixties; and so to the present attempt which had misfired, which seemed to have neither head nor tail nor purpose nor leading.

The other admitted it. "We are too weak," he said; "Russia, Prussia, and Austria are against us; but once there should be a European war, then will come our chance—we wait for that—perhaps we pray for it."

Free, sincere, unguarded, the hours had sped. At last they separated, bidding each other good-night, proposing future meeting-grounds. He had made his way back to the hotel, through the deserted streets with their patrols, who searched him twice for hidden weapons and then sheered off again. Now he lay snugly in his bed, reviving it all, browsing on it all. A tapping at the door made him cry, "Come in!" There entered Gilbert Coke, who had won his money.

"You're late," he began.

"I didn't get home till morning."

"Business?" The Englishman was on the alert at once.

"No, pleasure."

"I see;" and Coke ventured a grin. "By the way," he added, coming to his point, "that opera you went to last night is suppressed. What was it all about?"

Slavin tried to tell him.

"Er—tuppence colored, eh?" It was a certain point of view, and Slavin saw no reason to dispute it.

"I guess it was the fellow that sat next to me," he answered; "there was a Russian in a Circassian uniform."

The next interruption was a message brought up by one of the hotel servants. It was in French and written by the Pole.

"Perhaps I may help you to get right with your newspaper," it ran. "If you care for an adventure, take the 7.45 train this evening and descend at Wolomin station. I will meet you there. It is the second station on the line to Petersburg. Burn this as soon as you have made a note of the hour and place."

Though the envelope containing this message was addressed to "Harold Pascoe Slavin," evidently copied from his card, the message itself was headed, "My dear Slavinski."

IV

Was it a hint, a suggestion? Likeliest of all it was a joke. "A true Pole" the other had called him once last night, and had now continued in the same playful spirit. Really, it was the obvious thing to do—Slavin led inevitably to Slavinski—the name, indeed, seemed made for the extension—unlike Smith or Brown or Robinson or Jones.

So, at first, he dismissed both joke and jester; then, in his bath, he repeated "My dear Slavinski;" next it occurred to him that the Polish things of Poland had roused him as nothing else in his experience. The Russian things of Moscow, the German, the Lettish things of Riga, infinitely more tragical—homes fired over heads thenceforth homeless, faces holed with unrecorded death—all that butchery, all that futility, had never penetrated beyond the surface. It was their business, not his. Often he had wondered at himself, questioned himself, a little despised himself. "I'm looking on like a man in a theatre," he had said; "but if I believed in it, it would break my heart; and then I wouldn't be much use to a newspaper." So he had excused himself. To-day, literally, he had looked on in a theatre, and the fictive drama had stirred him as never the living drama seen out there. No, not even at home had any national movement found him thus responsive, thus impressionable. The war with Spain—tariffs or no tariffs—he had been apathetic by comparison.… "Slavinski"—yes, there might be something in it.

He had read stories—mainly Oriental, or told by writers saturated with the East—of men who remembered, whose past lives or whose ancestry had overpowered and made a nothing of the present. He realized suddenly then how very little he knew about himself and of himself, the actual Slavin. He did know that, like the people here, he was a Catholic, or that at least he had been born one, though why he had never previously considered, except that it was a reason he had taken it the more for granted that he and his name had originated in Ireland. He tried hard to go backward, and could see no further than his grandparents—even these none too clearly. Perhaps, in a family, poor, obscure, like his, it was natural. On the paternal side they had been Slavins—and there was a great-uncle as well. His second name, Pascoe, had been a fancy of his father's, and he had always let it go at that—he didn't care much what he was called. Perhaps, as he had indicated to the Pole, an American only troubled about such things after he had made money. … It was time he opened his Baedeker and found out something more of Wolomin station. For he was going. He jotted the name down on a slip of paper and the hour at which his train started. Then he set fire to the note, as the Pole had requested, and watched it burn.

The purchase of his railway ticket brought him up against fact—hard fact. It left him with but a single three-ruble bill and the loose silver in his pocket. He owed money at the hotel; he might be ordered home or elsewhere at any moment; there were at least five hundred dollars for which he must render honorable account. His whole career and reputation were at stake—had been staked on those four aces. If only he could have seen it that way at the time! "A true Pole—we are all gamblers," the other had laughed; but, by Gum, it wasn't a laughing matter! If it had been his own money he might have stood it and stuck it out—it wouldn't have been joyous exactly. A feeling, recognizable as actual funk, possessed him as the train drew up at Wolomin.

The station was a bare shed, dumped down in the darkness and the snow; beyond it, making a skyline, was the black edge of a forest. Slavin was the only passenger who descended; an official, carrying a lantern, saw the train proceed upon its way. There was no one else here. He went outside and peered into the empty night. He could find no trace of the Pole, no trace of anybody. The man with the lantern turned a key, coughed, and then, his light still burning, set off down an invisible road. Slavin had Wolomin station to himself.

He stood there a long half hour, huddled in his furs and wondering. The darkness grew less dark, the skyline more distinct—it was the moon rising above the blackness of the forest. A mile away, he knew from his Baedeker, was the town of Wolomin.

Doggedly he stuck to his post outside the station. The Pole had promised, the Pole had made this rendezvous. If the Pole failed him, he would be more utterly adrift, more utterly wrecked than ever. He might just manage to return to Warsaw—and then? The landscape won a new desolation; more truly than before he seemed alone in this bleak world of snow, of darkness, and of wintry stars. … The moon had cleared the forest when a two-horse sleigh, lamps burning, carrying with it a flying dust of snow, sprang out of the night and came to a halt within a yard of where he stood. It was superbly done.

"Pan Slavinski?" cried an unfamiliar voice.

Slavin was aware of a man, young as himself, slender, tall, fine-featured, and with a little fair mustache. Irresistibly the strength, the lightness, and the fineness of him recalled a greyhound. He had leaped out of the sleigh, and then, in easy French, introduced himself and made apologies for the Pole.

"You have heard that 'Maria' is suppressed—it has to do with that," he ended; "I can tell you little more at present, except that to me has fallen the honor of replacing our absent friend."

"You were at the opera last night?" asked Slavin. "It was magnificent."

"It was magnificent," echoed the young man. "We were all there—and now it has been suppressed—on the ground that its performance 'may lead to new disorders.'" He was obviously quoting from the official notification. "But I lose time," he added, and invited Slavin to take the seat beside him.

It was the second occasion on which Slavin had found himself answering to the name "Slavinski," and it occurred to him then that the name meant something, that this young man pronounced it as though he took a pleasure in its sound, its context, its associations. He would say nothing here. The Pole must explain it all; he had invented it, he was responsible.

The horses were fast and fresh, the snow firm and hard frozen. Straight into the forest they steered, losing the sky and the brightness of the moon. It was a mysterious place, whispering of the hidden, the secret, the unknown; and it seemed endless—endless.

"Do we go through Wolomin?" asked Slavin.

"No, we avoid it." And that, for the present, was all their conversation.

Now and again he caught a glimpse of his companion's face. It had the quality of steel; of something swift and flexible and bright, that only waited on the signal—the word, the command, the opportunity.

On and on they kept, turning once where the road was marked by a wayside shrine, a sudden image of the Crucified, life-size, and so lifelike in that dimness that Slavin looked back and crossed himself—involuntarily; for he had never done such things at home.

They took a second turning. The road ran narrower here, but always through the forest, thick and massive and interminable. The bare branches met overhead, the bare trunks stood like soldiers, massed in their hundreds and their thousands and in ranks past computation. Sometimes a star shone through the tangle, as a jewel is caught up in a woman's hair; sometimes the moonlight filtered through and made the scene more ghostly, more surprising. Now and again came clearings, and Slavin felt like a diver returned to air. The sky was over them once more, and the beauty of the forest made a magic ring, an amphitheatre, fit for the sports of fairies, of hobgoblins, of spirits joyful or sardonic. For well over an hour they must have driven when the road curved into a clearing larger than them all. It was here that they crossed the railway line.

Abruptly the sleigh had halted, and, still holding the reins, the young man was out upon the snow.

"Already! They have done it," he cried.

"Done what?" asked Slavin.

"Come here!" and Slavin sprang out and joined him.

There was no need for other explanation. As far as the eye carried, the line had been torn up, the rails scattered and flung in all directions.

"This will teach them to suppress a Polish opera!" cried the young man.

"But what's the good of destroying a railway train?" asked Slavin; "some of your own people may be on board."

"The train will not suffer—there is no embankment. It will only stop—stop rather unpleasantly. It is the Petersburg Express. To-night it brings the money with which to pay the Russian garrison—to pay the governor-general—to pay everybody."

"Then there will be a strong escort."

"Let us hope so. It comes through before midnight;" and looking out on the slope that commanded the line, the two or three hundred yards that separated them from the encircling forest, "This will be a fine place for our work," he ended; "we could not have a better. Now we must go on."

They started once more, and presently —perhaps a mile or two beyond the clearing—the forest ceased. Without warning, without preparation, it met the open. The great sky had its own way at last.

Slavin looked back. The long wall touched the two horizons; its head was in the stars, its feet were buried in the snow. It stood there, rigid and impenetrable, against the sudden brightness of the night. He turned, and, in the distance, found a gaunt silhouette, which, as they drew nearer, assumed the bulk, the contours of a ruined castle; of a stronghold that, in its day, must have been huge, immense. From the inside of it, from whatever spaces it enclosed, came a ruddy glow, and once a leaping spurt of flame.

"We are driving there?" he asked.

"Nowhere else."

"It is the ruin of a castle that once belonged to the dukes of Masovia?" Not in vain that afternoon, it appeared, had Slavin studied his Baedeker.

"They began it, and the Zamoyskis added to it. It was destroyed during the Swedish wars."

The two men pushed forward. The sleigh was racing now. The red glow increased and lit the sky as they came closer, as they dashed through the ruined entry to the keep, into a first court-yard, and, from here, gained the court-yard where this fire burned and blazed, illuminating a scene that made Slavin sit bolt upright, feasting his eyes, his heart, his spirit.

Round the fire, some standing to their horses, others already mounted, armored, splendid, terrible, was a company of the winged hussars. Yes, there could be no mistaking them. The great wings rose from their shoulders, throwing gigantic shadows across the place.… From this group a man had ridden out, one of the tallest and the most imposing. He came toward the sleigh, and, leaning forward in his saddle, "Welcome, Pan Slavinski!" he cried.

It was the Pole.

Slavin's face had formed a hundred questions.

"Yes," laughed back his friend, "they have suppressed 'Maria.' We are going to treat them to a second performance—here—to-night! You come with us—I have kept a uniform for you—you told me that you ride."

A dozen men pressed round and were listening; tall they were, and elegant, and lithe. They sat their horses like centaurs; standing, they seemed as though built for that impressive panoply. The Pole raised his lance and flung out a sentence, of which Slavin could only catch at his re-edited name. It must have been a presentation; for now his hands were gripped, the winged figures had taken possession of him; he knew that he was welcome, and, something more than welcome—honored.

In a sheltered corner of the ruins, roofed but doorless, Slavin found his uniform. The Pole was with him and ready to lend a hand. The change took but a few moments. When he joined the others round the fire, instead of a fur cap he wore plumed helmet and earpieces, instead of a fur overcoat a leather jerkin and a breastplate with a leopard-skin floating from its clasp. Above his shoulders rose the famous wings. His horse, a mettlesome bay, was waiting. Lightly he sprang into the saddle, sword on hip and gripping his lance with the forked pennon. Now, indeed, he was "Pan Slavinski" with a vengeance!

"You had better take this in case we should need it." The Pole was holding out a heavy calibred automatic pistol on a sling. "Hang it round your neck—it is loaded; and here are more cartridges—you must find somewhere to stow the clips away."

A horseman joined them; and Slavin recognized the young man who had replaced the Pole at Wolomin. Radiant he was, as though approaching some passionate consummation.

He asked a question and rode off again. A bugle sounded. It was the signal for departure.

Slavin sat beside the Pole and watched the troop file out. "God's own light horse!" he found himself repeating. He had made the phrase last night, looking round on the men who applauded in the theatre. Even there he had felt it in them. Perhaps Poland had ceased because cavalry had ceased. Yet, given that arm, who could stop them, who could stand against them!

Riding two abreast they passed before Slavin and the Pole, with what might be a baggage-wagon in the centre.

"Thirty-six of us," said the Pole; "one to each uniform."

"They came from the opera-house," answered Slavin; "how did you manage to get hold of them?"

"The opera was suppressed; so everything was sold to a gentleman—'a French gentleman who is going to produce it in Paris.' Needless to say, he is one of our collaborators. To-night he is lodging a complaint with the police, to the effect that, though he paid ready money and holds numerous receipts, part of his property has been diverted. A vanload of it has disappeared. "

Slavin understood.

"The carriers to whom he entrusted this removal have also disappeared—he gave his commission too easily. He had, it seems, not been long in Warsaw. Mon Dieu, I thought at first of selling it to you for a production in America. And then I thought it would be better if you came here—it may set you right with your newspaper."

Drawn by W. T. Benda.

Round the fire, some standing to their horses, others already mounted, armored, splendid, terrible, was a company of the winged hussars.—Page 688.

V

The Petersburg Express was in the forest. The long low murmur of it, gathering from afar in that nocturnal stillness, could mean one thing, and one thing only. The men, waiting for it, unlocked their pistols. They looked out, sitting their horses behind the giant boles, from which they would presently emerge into the open. Themselves invisible, they commanded the slope that ran down to the railway line, with its torn metals, its carefully planned disorder. The moonlight filled this space, the rising ground beyond; the rest was mystery and shadow. In silence Slavin watched beside the Pole; in silence the Pole watched beside Slavin. One heard no sound there but the murmur of the oncoming train.

Smoothly, unhurriedly it was moving toward its destination. With every moment it came closer. Its head had come out of the forest emitting a cloud of smoke before it began to swerve and plough a new course in the snow. There was something ludicrous in these contortions. But still it kept its wheels upon the ground, and, midway through the clearing, the brakes had brought it to a halt. From the inside of it swarmed a body of soldiers, who, led by an officer in gray, leaped out upon the snow. A stream of passengers followed; but these were driven back by the officer. Reluctant, protesting, they returned to their places and hung their heads out of the carriage windows. The officer shouted a command, which was followed by the rattle and the click of bayonets. Next he marched his men to a van in the rearward of the train, divided them into two parties, and ordered a party to each front. This must be the van that contained the money "to pay the Russian garrison—to pay the governor-general—to pay everybody."

There were two courses open to the Pole. He could either send a handful of his men, keeping their cover, round to the other side of the train, in the hope that their appearance on that quarter would engage, or even draw away, the half of the escort guarding that particular front, thereby leaving him free to let loose his main body on the other half; or else he could at once discover his presence from this side, thus giving the two parties time to unite, when they might be destroyed as a whole instead of singly. With characteristic daring he chose the latter plan. And now, to the note of a bugle, the whole company rode out into the open, showing itself, standing clear and splendid against the forest. As had so evidently been foreseen, the effect of this manœuvre was to make the Russian officer join up his forces. The Pole nodded his approval, and, turning to Slavin, "When the bugle sounds a second time, we charge," he said. "Heaven help us if they have the sense to make a fortress of the train!"

Of that wonderful moment Slavin knew little beyond that his lance was in position, and that, against reason, against prudence, against everything stable and ordered in his life, he was going madly, was hurling himself headlong—for Poland, for the faith, for sheer devilment, the dream he had dreamt come true. He caught the thunder of the horses; and then, above that sound, a gathering sibilance, as from a rising wind. It was the roaring of the wings. His heart exulted in that fateful music, a hissing, and at last a storm unbolted, that swept through space with them, that went with them, of which they were the core, the manifest and terrible incarnation. A hoarse shout broke from the two score voices. It was the ancient Polish battle-cry: "Kill, kill!"

Vainly the Russian officer shrieked his orders, fired his pistol, and gesticulated. His men, superstitious and fearful, simple peasants put into uniform, stood rooted to the spot. Wide-eyed and trembling, they gazed before them; for here, indeed, were demons, were spirits monstrous and invulnerable, the proud and pitiless legionaries of Antichrist himself; and well they knew that such places were haunted. Against human foes they would stand firm, even at night-time and in the darkness.… Before the Poles could close with them, they had dropped their rifles and fled all ways into the forest. When Slavin next saw the officer a lance had pierced his throat, half lifting him, half carrying him backward into death.

From several of the carriage windows now came shots. The Pole, a hand uplifted, rode to meet them. He asked a question, gave a warning, stern, peremptory. It was enough. Then he rode back again, unharmed.

The victory had been an easy one—so fate had willed it. Their next task was to empty the van and pile its contents into the baggage-wagon. The implements were there and willing hands. Slavin looked on at the splintering of wood, the forcing of locks and fastenings. It was the work of a few minutes. A bugle sounded. They were ready for the return.

A strange enough picture they left behind them in the moonlight—the derailed train with its excited passengers, the snow that carpeted the clearing, the black circle that was the forest, the dead man flung beside his trust. And there too gleamed the lance-points and the armor, and moved the ghostly figures of the winged hussars. With the loaded wagon once more in the centre began the march back to the castle.

Fast they rode and without much converse; yet in each man's breast the exaltation of a supreme adventure, of an hour lived, of an hour snatched from the buried and thrice buried past: from the past that was before the massacre of Praga, the past that had beheld the first great revolution, and then the second. To them it was an hour to have lived for, be the near future what it might. And Slavin shared it. It belonged to him as well. Forever he would carry the thrill of it, the romance and the wonder; of a chapter, passionate and lyrical, flushing the sober records of his insignificance.

VI

The fire in the castle-yard was burning low when they returned. They fed it with huge logs, with fagot-wood, with the thin and tenuous shearings of the outmost branches. It occurred to Slavin that, ordinarily, these ruins were used as a place of storage by the woodmen of the forest. There was fuel enough here to feed a score such fires. Soon it was blazing, was leaping once more to the sky; reddening the darkness, playing upon the men, their pride, and their magnificence.

The Pole rode out before them and made a speech. It was brief; it was vigorous. What the exact content of it was Slavin could not say; but he guessed from the fervor it aroused that it was national, and that its reasoned passages had the full approval of this audience.

The Pole had finished. Then came the strangest scene of all. Silently, reverently, the men unbraced their wings and gave them to the flames.

"You too," said the Pole, addressing Slavin—he had himself set the example. And Slavin obeyed.

After the wings came arms and armor; came lance and sword and leopard-skin and plume.

Slavin found his fur cap, his coat, his vest, his overcoat, and when he had donned them, there was no man here that did not wear the dress of every day. Two of them, indeed, were priests, he discovered with some amazement. All their pomp, all their splendor, all their chivalry had perished, were cast into those hungry flames. From that pyre who knew what phœnix might arise! If the Pole had used that image, as probably he had, it was at least a just one.

The men were ready to disperse. Some led out the horses they had ridden and harnessed them to sleighs; others simply sprang into the saddle once more and went off through the night. But, before they went, there was not one of them who had not taken Slavin's hand and pressed it, uttering some quick word of farewell stressed with emotion. "Slavinski," they all ended. Why "Slavinski"? Who was "Slavinski," and what had he to do with it?

"Come, we must all be safe in Warsaw before they discover that anything unusual has happened." The Pole was at his elbow, accompanied by the young man who had first appeared at Wolomin station.

"You will go home by road," the Pole continued; "our friend here will drive you. I have still work to do—there is no rest for the wicked. Look out for me at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon."

Slavin hesitated. The young man was waiting.

"Very well, then," he replied. "I will expect you at the hotel—at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon."

VII

Slavin had got his "good story quick," and by the afternoon it was at least all ready on paper. He had sat down to it promptly, with every detail fresh and hot before him. There was no doubt whatsoever about it—that kind of story only came up once in a blue moon. Somehow he would cable it across, if he had to beg or borrow or steal for it. And no one else had it, or stood a chance of having it till he had squeezed it dry. If that went over the wires he knew there was small risk of his being "fired."

It was on the crest of this mood, with the ink still wet on the paper, that the Pole discovered him, and forthwith asked for a translation.

Slavin needed no second bidding.

"Very good—very good," nodded the Pole, as the tale proceeded; "this lives—this is really full of life." And when it was over: "Permit me," he observed, "you might have added that among the party was a young American, the great-grandson of the hero and patriot Slavinski."

Slavin thrust his papers to one side and faced round eagerly.

"I was coming to that," he said. "Now what in thunder does all this mean—all this Slavinski-ing and talk about Slavinski?"

The Pole laughed at him.

"Have you no suspicions?" he asked.

"Any amount. But what's the good of suspicions? I want to know what you know, what all those men seemed to know last night!"

"Well, in the first place," the other answered, "they knew that Sapieha of the Russian embassy in Washington—all of us, by the way, are not conspirators; some are even in the diplomatic service—they knew that Sapieha had written home, saying that the family of Slavinski was not extinct, and that, curious as it might seem, one of its members, calling himself Slavin, was actually in Russia, where he was engaged as the correspondent of American newspapers. Sapieha had been attracted by the particular excellence of this correspondence; he made inquiries; one thing led to another; he had established the facts of the case beyond a doubt. It had cost him time, money, and several journeys; but the subject has his passionate interest, and he was very proud of his discovery. That," concluded the Pole, "is what those men knew; though of course it was I who made the personal application of Sapieha's facts. I think, however, that even without them I would have arrived at the same conclusion; for I felt the Pole in you from the moment of our first meeting at the theatre——"

"And I," broke out Slavin, "I've felt it too—but it's been something more than that—something beyond me."

"Your blood answered to ours," the other pursued; "our emotions were your emotions. You knew no word of our language; and yet the language of our hearts—that you understood! It was your own."

The two men sat silently for a long moment; till, in a voice firmer and less personal, the Pole continued:

"It was only yesterday morning that I learned what Sapieha had written; and then I had made his discovery for myself. Once started, it was not too difficult. I was thinking of our meeting, of our conversations—after the theatre, you will remember?"

Slavin did remember.

"Your name, of course, suggests Slavinski—you may recollect that I asked you a question about it? Your American nationality should have made me certain the moment I could put the two together. In addition, there was your second name, Pascoe. I had overlooked it. Yesterday morning, examining your card, I remembered that Pascoe was the name of the American lady whom Slavinski married—Miss Helen Pascoe, a good Catholic, of the city of Baltimore. The marriage was against the wishes of her parents. I have read the whole story over again in Zajonczek's 'Lives of Kosciuszko's Generals'—and so doubtless had Sapieha. In it you will find transcribed the letters that reached Poland after your ancestor's escape, as well as those written under happier circumstances. Here is the work itself—my own copy—I wish you to accept it;" and the Pole produced a sealed package which he placed upon the writing-table. The weight, the shape, the size of it were hardly suggestive of a book; but, maybe, they would come to that as the story unfolded.

[Illustration: Drawn by W. T. Benda.

Vainly the Russian officer shrieked his orders, fired his pistol, and gesticulated.—Page 690.]

"You will not be able to read it now—later on, perhaps, in your own country," the Pole resumed. "Meanwhile I will try and replace Zajonczek.… Briefly, in 1794, when Kosciuszko was taken, when Warsaw had fallen, when all hope was dead, Slavinski, the hero of Polonna, of Raclawice, one of the many heroes of the siege, escaped to Danzig. From there he embarked on a ship bound for America. Its captain befriended him and offered him the passage. There was a price upon his head; he was in the enemy's country; he was without money or the means of procuring money. A man in his position does not hesitate.

"He crossed the Atlantic safely; and then—he himself has written it—his troubles began in earnest. Over there little was known of Poland; all eyes were turned on France and the Revolution. If he had been a Frenchman, they might have received him handsomely; a Pole, he discovered, hardly ranked as a European—is it not much the same to-day? Who knows of us, our history, and what we have endured? But I stray from my subject.… Slavinski was proud. He accepted the position and was silent. A soldier, second only to his chief, admittedly the finest cavalry leader of both campaigns, he was forced to play the violin at street corners, in a theatre, to do a thousand menial tasks that gave him bread. … When next we hear of him—that is some years later—General Jan Henrik Slavinski has become Mr. John Slavin, teacher of the violin and foreign languages. Miss Pascoe was one of his pupils. Referring to the alteration in his name, he writes in one of his letters: 'They tell me it is an Irish name, which is the next best thing to Polish.' And on another occasion: 'Should Poland have need of me,' he says, 'my life is at her service; yet, while I am in America, why should I wear a name that so proclaims my nationality and our misfortunes; a name that I have carried hopefully, proudly, and even gallantly under such different circumstances?' After his marriage he returns for the last time to this subject. It had been his pride which first dictated this change, and now the paternal heart confirms it. 'I wish my children, should God grant me children, to be free, to escape the shadow that has fallen on my nation,' he says. 'I wish them to know no other nationality than the one to which they have been given. Let them serve this new country, their mother's country, with undivided hearts.' … Such, as well as I can remember them, are his words, his intention. He died suddenly, in the city of Baltimore, where he had made his home. It was on the same day that Napoleon entered Warsaw."

The Pole had finished. Slavin was busy thinking.

"My father and my grandfather had a hard struggle," he said at last; "and I knew that we lived in the South before the Civil War. That wiped out a good many things—people like us don't seem to remember much beyond it." And then, looking across at his companion, "I think I understand what those men said to me last night," he added; "and I think I understand myself as well."

"For one night you had returned to us," said the Pole, rising; "now it is over."

"It will never be over," responded Slavin.

"Now," the other pursued, "you are going to cross the frontier with that telegram. You may take my word for it that there will be nothing else for you to do in Poland; and, besides, it is better that it should go from Germany than from here. You will find all the money you need within this parcel," and he indicated the package that he had placed upon the writing-table. "It is not a gift," he resumed, waving aside Slavin's hesitations; "it is a simple act of restitution. The Russian confiscated your home, the little property that should have come to you. Bien, we have made him disgorge. It is our wish. You will accept it from us? We have done precisely the same thing with the people at the theatre."

"I can't afford to refuse it; but some day——"

"We are living in the present; "and the Pole moved to the door. "In all probability we will never see each other again," he said, with extended hand; "I am sorry for that. You will not forget us?"

"How can I?" asked Slavin; and "How can I?" he repeated when the door had closed again and he had turned the key in it.

 

He was alone, packing his kit-bags and preparing for to-morrow's journey, when he heard Gilbert Coke's perfunctory tap and the Englishman's voice making inquiry.

"What is it?" he cried.

"Can I come in?"

Before opening, Slavin put his gold away in one bag and stuffed the notes inside another.

Coke entered; and to-day his stolid countenance reflected something that might be described as doubt.

He took a chair. He cleared his throat. He hesitated.

"You're off?" he began.

"It looks like it."

"Er—nothing much doing here, is there?"

Slavin went on with his packing.

The Englishman lit a cigarette and watched him.

"Er—you know that money," he began, starting afresh; "that money I won from you at poker—seems a bit stiff, don't it?"

Slavin looked up, wondering.

"Well—er—I've been thinking it might be—er—rather more than you could afford. You can have it back if you want it."