some days later niaz went on an expedition again, "on the czar's service for the protection of the frontier," and took more than half his able-bodied tartars on the journey with him. olga had never felt so lonely before, surrounded now by doubt and mystery in that awful solitary stronghold. the broken watch weighed gloomily upon her frightened spirits.
niaz was gone for three days, as often happened, and on the fourth night, after she had retired to her lonely bedroom, she felt sure she heard his voice speaking low somewhere in the courtyard.
at the sound she sprang from her bed and went to the window. yes, there, down in the far corner of the yard, without lights or noise, and treading cautiously, she saw niaz and his men filing quietly in through the dim gloom, and bringing with them a number of boxes.
her heart beat fast. could it be some kind of smuggling? they lay so near the passes into turkestan and china, and she knew that the merchant track from yarkand to semi-palatinsk crossed the frontier not far from niaz's village.
huddling on her dress hastily, she issued out alone and[pg 177] terrified, into the dark courtyard, and sought over the whole place in the black night for sight of niaz. she could find him nowhere.
at last she mounted the staircase to the mouldering rampart. generally the tartar guards kept watch there constantly, but to-night the whole place seemed somehow utterly deserted. she groped her way along till she reached the far corner by a patch of ground which niaz had told her was the tartar burial-place.
there she came suddenly upon a great crowd of men below on the plain, running about and shouting wildly, with links and torches. niaz stood in the midst, erect and military, with his russian uniform gleaming fitfully in the flickering torchlight. in front of him six turcoman merchants, with their hands bound behind their backs, knelt upon the ground, and beside him two tartars held by either arm a man in european dress, whom olga recognized at once as the english traveller from india by way of the himalayas. her heart stood still within her with terror, and she hung there, mute and unseen, upon the rampart above, wondering what in heaven's name this extraordinary scene was going to end in. what could it mean? what could niaz be doing in it? great god, it was too horrible!
a tartar came forward quietly from the crowd with a curved sword. at a word from niaz he raised the sword aloft in the air. one second it glanced bright in the torchlight; the next second a turcoman's head lay rolling in the dust, and a little torrent of blood spurted suddenly from the still kneeling corpse. olga opened her mouth to scream at the horrid sight, but happily her voice at once forsook her as in a dream, and she stood fixed to the spot in a perfect fascination of awe and terror.
then the tartar moved on, obedient to a word and a nod from niaz, and raised his sword again above the second turcoman. in a moment, the second head too[pg 178] rolled down quietly beside the other. without a minute's delay, as though it formed part of his everyday business, the practised headsman went on quietly to the next in order, and did not stop till all six heads lay grim and ghastly scattered about unheeded in the dust together. olga shut her eyes, sickening, but still could not scream for very horror.
next, niaz turned to the english traveller, and said something to him in his politest manner. olga couldn't catch the words themselves because of the distance, but she saw from his gestures that he was apologizing to the englishman for his rough treatment. the englishman in reply drew out and handed to niaz a small canvas bag, a purse, and a watch. niaz took them, bowing politely. "hands off," he cried to the tartars in russian, and they loosed their prisoner. then he made a sign, and the englishman knelt. in a minute more his head lay rolling in the dust below, and niaz, with a placid smile upon his handsome face, turned to give orders to the surrounding tartars.
olga could stand it no more. she dared not scream or let herself be seen; but she turned round, sick at heart, and groped her way, half paralyzed by fear, along the mouldering rampart, and then turned in at last to her own bedroom, where she flung herself upon the bed in her clothes, and lay, tearless but terrified, the whole night through in blinding misery.
she did not need to have it all explained to her. niaz was nothing more, after all, than a savage buriat robber chieftain.
iv.
what a terribly long hypocrisy and suspense those six weeks of dreary waiting, before an answer to her letter could come from tobolsk, and the governor could send a detachment of the military to rescue her from this nest of murderous banditti![pg 179]
how olga hated herself for still pretending to keep on terms with niaz! how she loathed and detested the man with whom she must yet live as wife for that endless time till the day of her delivery!
and niaz couldn't help seeing that her manner was changed towards him, though he flattered himself that she had as yet only a bare suspicion, and no real knowledge of the horrible truth. what a sad thing that she should ever even have suspected it! what a pity if he could not keep her here to soothe and lighten his winter solitude!—for he loved her: yes, he really loved her, and he needed sympathy and companionship in all the best and highest instincts of his inner nature. these buriats, what were they? a miserable set of brutal savages: mere hard-working robbers and murderers, good enough for the practical rough work of everyday life (such as knocking turcoman merchants on the head), but utterly incapable of appreciating or sympathizing with the better tastes of civilized humanity. it was a hard calling, that of chieftain to these tartar wretches, especially for a man of musical culture brought up in paris; and he had hoped that olga might have helped him through with it by her friendly companionship. not, of course, that he ever expected to be able to tell her the whole truth: women will be women; and coming to a rough country, they can't understand the necessities laid upon one for rough dealing. no, he could never have expected her to relish the full details of a borderer's profession, but he was vexed that she should already begin to suspect its nature on so very short an acquaintance. he had told her he was like a highland chieftain of the old times: did she suppose that the rob roys and roderick dhus of real life used to treat their lowland captives with rose-water and chivalry? after all, women have really no idea of how things must be managed in the stern realities of actual existence.
so the six weeks passed slowly away, and olga[pg 180] waited and watched, with smiles on her lips, in mute terror.
at last, one day, in broad daylight, without a moment's warning, or a single premonitory symptom, olga saw the courtyard suddenly filled with men in russian uniforms, and a friend of hers, a major of infantry at tobolsk, rushing in at the head of his soldiers upon the tartar barrack.
in one second, as if by magic, the courtyard had changed into a roaring battlefield, the cossacks were firing at the tartars, and the tartars were firing at the cossacks. there was a din of guns and a smoke of gunpowder; and high above all, in the buriat language, she heard the voice of niaz, frantically encouraging his men to action, and shouting to them with wild energy in incomprehensible gutturals.
the surprise had been so complete that almost before olga realized the situation the firing began to die away. the fort was carried, and niaz and his men stood, disarmed and sullen, with bleeding faces, in the midst of a hastily formed square of stout cossacks, among the dead and dying strewn upon the ground.
handsome as ever, but how she hated him!
his arm was wounded; and the russian surgeon led him aside to bind it up. to olga's amazement, while the surgeon was actually engaged in binding it, niaz turned upon him like a savage dog, and bit his arm till the teeth met fiercely in the very middle. she shut her eyes, and half fainted with disgust and horror.
the surgeon shook him off, with an oath; and two cossacks, coming up hastily, bound his hands behind his back, and tied his legs, quite regardless of his wounded condition.
meanwhile, the russian major had sought out olga, "madame la baronne," he said respectfully, "i congratulate you upon your safety and your recovered freedom.[pg 181] your father is with us; he will soon be here. your letter reached him safely, in spite of its roundabout direction; and the governor of tobolsk despatched us at once upon this errand of release. baron niaz had long been suspected: your letter removed all doubts upon the subject."
a minute or two later, the cossacks marched their prisoners out of the courtyard, two and two, into the great hall of the stronghold.
"i wish to bid farewell to my wife," niaz cried to the major, in a loud voice. "i shall be sent to the mines, i suppose, and i shall never see her again in this world most probably."
the major allowed him to come near within speaking distance, under guard of two cossacks.
"madame la baronne," he hissed out between his clenched teeth, "this is your hand. it was your hand that you gave me in marriage; it was your hand that wrote to betray me. believe me, madame, come what may, your hand shall pay the penalty."
so much he said, passionately indeed, but with the offended dignity of a civilized being. then the tartar in him broke through the thin veneer of european culture, and he lolled his tongue out at her in savage derision, with a hideous menacing leer like an untamed barbarian. till that moment, in spite of the horrible massacre she had seen with her own eyes, olga had never suspected what profound depths of vulgar savagery lay unperceived beneath alexander niaz's handsome and aristocratic european features.
one more word he uttered coarsely: a word of foul reproach unfit to be repeated, which made olga's cheek turn crimson with wrath and indignation even in that supreme moment of conflicting passions. she buried her face between her two hands wildly, and burst into a sudden flood of uncontrollable tears.[pg 182]
"march him away," cried the major in a stern voice. and they marched him away, still mocking, with the other prisoners.
that was the last olga davidoff then saw of her buriat husband.
