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{\LARGE\strut{THE PLAYGROUND OF SATAN}}
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This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the \hyperlink{project-gutenberg-license}{Project Gutenberg License} included with
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Title: The Playground of Satan
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Author: Beatrice Baskerville
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Release Date: December 04, 2012 {[}eBook \#41560{]}
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Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLAYGROUND OF SATAN ***
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Produced by Al Haines.
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{\LARGE\strut{THE
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Playground }}{\itshape{{\LARGE\strut{of}}}}{\LARGE\strut{ Satan}}
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{\normalsize{ BY
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BEATRICE BASKERVILLE}}
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{\centering
{\footnotesize{AUTHOR OF
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"Baldwin's Kingdom," "When Summer Comes Again,"
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"Their Yesterday," "The Polish Jew,"
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English Translation Of Gogol's "Taras Bulba," Etc.}}
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{\normalsize{ NEW YORK
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W. J. WATT \& COMPANY
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PUBLISHERS}}
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{\normalsize{ TO
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Janina Korsakova
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WITH LOVE}}
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{\itshape{{\footnotesize{Rome}}}}{\footnotesize{, 1917}}
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{\noindent}
Ian went into his mother's sitting-room, carrying
an open telegram.\par

"Roman Skarbek has wired for horses to meet
the express from Posen," he remarked.  "He says it's
important business."\par

As Countess Natalie looked up from her letter--she
wrote hundreds a year--her hazel eyes twinkled
with a mischievous thought.\par

"Roman and business, indeed!  He's after Vanda."\par

Ian's brows contracted over his clear gray eyes; they
were of the kind you find in outdoor men, used to
gazing over long distances and watching for wild fowl
to come out of the rushes at the dawn of day.  Vanda
was his cousin, and an orphan; she had lived at Ruvno
since her babyhood.\par

"Give me a cigarette," said his mother, leaving her
letter.\par

He obeyed, offered one to Minnie, who refused, and
lit another for himself.  The two smoked on in silence
for awhile.  Roman Skarbek was his cousin, too,
though not Vanda's.\par

"I don't think so," he said.\par

"Why?" asked his mother.\par

"He's been to Monte Carlo.  If he's had any luck
he'll want some horses."\par

"He never had any luck.  No.  It's Vanda.  {\itshape{She's}}
in love."\par

"Vanda in love?"  He laughed.  "Nonsense!"\par

"Why not?" put in Minnie, the English girl, from
her seat in the window.\par

He did not answer.  His mother went on:\par

"Something has happened to Vanda lately.  I don't
know what, yet.  When she was stopping with Aunt
Eugenie she must have seen Roman every day.  They
rode together, too."\par

He walked over to the long window which opened
into the rose garden.  On the sward beneath it, thirty
years ago, his father was shot in a famous duel with
the rakish Prince Mniszek, neighbor and quondam
friend.\par

"What will you say to him, if it is?" he asked.\par

The Countess considered.  In her little world
marriages were "arranged," thought out with the help of
the Almanach de Gotha and a profound knowledge
of the young couple's incomes, debts, acres and
ancestors.\par

"Roman," she said, "is generous and chivalrous.  I
shouldn't mind helping him with his debts, if he'd only
stop gambling."\par

"Does a man ever stop?"\par

"Not when it's got into his blood," said Minnie.\par

"It's in his right enough," rejoined Ian.  He
gambled, too, but with circumspection, unhampered by
passion.\par

"I wonder what he sees in Vanda," the Countess mused.\par

"She's a charming girl," remarked Minnie.\par

Ian went out, his setters following him.  An hour
later he sought the two women with another telegram,
finding them in the rose garden.  The Countess walked
with a stick, though she was only sixty.  Her hair was
perfectly white and her face much lined.  Perhaps her
youth, so full of interests and emotions, had faded
too soon.  But she looked the great lady she was,
queen of herself and fit to rule Ruvno, with its
traditions, its wealth and dignity.\par

"Here's Joseph now," he announced.  "Wants to be
met at the afternoon train from Warsaw."\par

"Which Joseph?" asked Minnie.  "You know a dozen."\par

"Roman's brother."\par

"What does he want?" asked the Countess.\par

"Vanda," he returned, a twinkle in his eye.\par

They walked down the garden together, Ian and
Minnie sparring gently, as often happened.  But his
mother was thinking of Vanda again, for she said at last:\par

"If I were her, I'd choose Roman.  Joe is cold."\par

"I'm sure they're coming to see us, that's all," said
Ian.  "They're coming from opposite directions.  I'll
send a motor for Roman.  He's always in such a
hurry.  Joe can have horses."\par

And again he left them.\par

Until August, in the year of strife nineteen hundred
and fourteen, you could find no pleasanter country
house than Ruvno, Poland.  It stood a little way back
from the high road between Warsaw and Kutno,
slightly on a hill, surrounded by pines and hardy
hornbeams which guarded it, like sentinels, from the gaze
of passers by.  It had stood thus for centuries, ever
since another Ian, Lord of Ruvno, built him a great
house with the spoils of war against the Turk, laying
the foundation of a hard-fighting, hard-living race,
good for anything on earth but trade, always ready
for a row, out of sheer love for adventure and broken
heads.  And of adventures they had full share, both
in love and war.  All the hordes of Europe passed over
their land during the centuries; for Poland is Europe's
eastern battlefield, as Belgium is her western.  And
the plows were forever turning up human bones,
which lay where they fell; and human treasure, which
lay where it was buried, either because the owners
failed to find it when peace came again or because they
happened to go where neither Turk nor Swede,
Russian nor Prussian, could trouble them more.\par

And so the domestic history of Ruvno, half fortress,
half palace, filled many parchment volumes.  I am not
going to bore you with it; but quite recently, as Ruvno
counts time, Napoleon slept there when on his luckless
march to Moscow.  And he supped at the large oaken
table which was carved out of Ruvno oak long before
the discovery of America brought mahogany to Poland.
And in his clumsy, violent way, he made love to the
reigning Countess of Ruvno, toasting her in that
Hungarian wine which looks like liquid sunshine and
makes your feet like lead.  Some of the same vintage
still lingered in the cellars when one smaller than
Napoleon crossed the Polish borders a hundred years later.\par

Napoleon, remembering the good cheer, paused here
again to take breath on his homeward flight.  But this
time there was neither toasting nor courting.  The
Countess, in solitude, wept for her gallant husband,
whose body lay at Beresina, his gay tongue frozen
forever, his blue eyes staring up at the stars in the fixed
gaze of death.  So the great man sat at the dead one's
board, silent and sullen, surrounded by the weary,
ragged remnants of his staff.  Those who were in
Ruvno that night said that he paced his room, restless
and sleepless, till daybreak.  Then he went his way,
no longer a conquerer, but a fugitive.\par

A century later, Ruvno belonged to another widow
and her son Ian, ruddy of face and broad in the
shoulder.  They were both up to date.  They spoke
English and French, and followed the fashions of
western Europe.  But their hearts and souls were with
Poland, not only because they loved her, but because,
too, race is stronger than love and hatred and death
itself.\par

Ian spent most of his time on the Ruvno estate, and
his mother's patrimony in Lithuania; but Ruvno was
his heart's beloved.  The Lithuanian estate was let on
a long lease.  He had a lively sense of his responsibilities,
knowing that two watchful neighbors, Russia and
Prussia, were ever working to denationalize the country
and stamp out his race.  His many acres were well
cultivated, the peasants who worked on them well
cared for.  Though the Russian government forbade
Polish schools, he and his mother saw to it that the
children on their land learned to read and write their
mother tongue.  The Agricultural Society that had
spread its branches all over Poland, despite opposition
from Russian bureaucracy, had no more energetic
member than he.  Modern machinery and methods
were rapidly replacing the old throughout the country,
which was prosperous and enterprising.  Ian did his
share of this good work with intelligence and cheerfulness.\par

He thoroughly enjoyed his life; was a keen hunter;
had no hankering after urban pleasures; knew no debt,
confined his distractions to racing, in which he was
moderate, and to a very occasional supper party after
the opera, in Warsaw, Paris or Vienna.\par

To his mother he felt bound by a degree of affection
and sympathy which rarely survive a son's early
childhood.  Other women bored him.  His name had not
been linked with one, of good repute or bad.  Indeed,
his circumspection with the opposite sex had become a
joke among his friends, who teased him about it and
searched for some well-hidden passion.  But they did
not find one, and contented themselves with dubbing
him a woman-hater; which he was not.  He knew he
must marry some day; for what would become of
Ruvno without an heir?  But as the pleasant years
slipped by, he told himself there was still time.  And
far down in his heart he had always relied upon Vanda.\par

Did he love her?  The question rapped him as he
left the rose garden for the paddock.  He thought not.
He liked to have her in the house, driving with his
mother, keeping her company, helping her to entertain
visitors during the shooting season, or going with her
to Warsaw for shopping and the play.  He knew she
was fond of him; accepted her affection as he accepted
so many other things which were daily facts in his
existence.  In the rare moments when he thought about
marriage at all he comforted himself with the reflection
that she was there, ready for the asking when the
inevitable day came.  It never crossed his mind that
she might refuse.  It would be so comfortable, one
day, to wed her.  Life would be the same as before.
His mother would go on living with them; Vanda
would wear the family jewels; the rooms that had
been his own nurseries would be reopened and
refurnished.  And in due time little people would play
and sleep in them as he and Vanda had done.\par

He was shy of other girls; they bored him; he
never knew what to talk about.  And he would have
had to woo anybody but Vanda; no girl with any
self-respect would marry him without preliminaries
in which compliments and attention played a large
part.  Vanda did not ask to be wooed.  They had
met daily for years.  And she was so suitable; so
comely and well-bred, so thoroughly sound in her
ideas of life, marriage and society.  She would not
want to drag him off to Monte Carlo and Paris every
year.  She loved the country, and Ruvno; knew his
life and would not expect him to change it.  Another
bride might have all kinds of ideas in her head, might
not like the place, or his mother, from whom he
refused to be parted, whatever happened.  Therefore
her remarks about the Skarbeks worried him; if she
noticed a difference in Vanda, then a difference there
must be.  He had not noticed it; but then he was
particularly interested in some alterations that he was
making in the Home Farm and had not paid much
attention to her and to Minnie Burton, the English
girl who was staying with them.  He and Minnie
"got on" very well; she was a good horsewoman and
a good comrade; rode about with him and Vanda,
quite content to talk of whatever work happened to
be going on at Ruvno, or not to talk at all.  He had
been to England a good deal, spent a couple of years
at Oxford after leaving Theresarium and made
friends with Minnie's two brothers, who were coming
to Ruvno for shooting in a month's time.  She was
to return home with them.\par

Thus the summer had been passing very pleasantly.
Crops were promising, the weather kept fine.  Life
had never seemed fairer, he and the two girls had
agreed that very morning, on their way back to
breakfast after an early canter.\par

And now, the aspect was subtly changed.  He looked
up at the sky; it was still clear.  There would be no
rain; his hay was safe.  What meant this feeling of
vague unrest?  Vanda?  The idea was absurd.  Both
brothers could not be coming after her.  Roman and
Joseph were as different as any two men of one class
and race can be.  No; they were after horses, or
Roman wanted to buy an estate in the neighborhood.
He had often spoken of it; all he needed was the
cash.  Perhaps he had won plenty at Monte Carlo and
was coming to spend it.  Joseph, with his business
head, was meeting him to see he did not spend
foolishly.  That was the whole thing in a nutshell.
Anyway, they would be here before long.\par

Near the paddock he met Vanda.  He was glad;
he wanted to watch her face.\par

"Not so fast," he called out as she was running
past with a nod.  "Where are you going?"\par

"Aunt Natalie.  I promised to give her an address
and forgot all about it.  My filly is better.  I've just
been there."\par

"You're very smart to-day," he remarked.\par

She looked down at her skirts.\par

"It's a hundred years old.  You've seen it dozens
of times."\par

"And very bonny," he added.  And so she was.
She had pretty brown hair and soft brown eyes,
carried herself well and bore the marks of the healthy
outdoor life they all led at Ruvno.  A sweet wholesome
girl, he thought, not for the first time, but with
more interest than ever before.  He did not guess
that under her quiet manner lay a capacity for a
deep passion; and pride to quell it.\par

She blushed at his compliment; he rarely gave her one.\par

"The Skarbeks are coming," he said, watching her
closely.  She was frankly pleased, but he noticed she
did not blush again.\par

"Oh, how nice.  It's years since they were here
together.  We can have some long rides."  And she
left him.\par

He watched her closely at lunch; but failed to see
signs of the change which his mother professed to
find in her.  And he felt relieved.  Nevertheless, he
thought about her a good deal during the afternoon;
the vague uneasiness of the morning returned.  After
all, she might find a lover elsewhere, marry him and
leave Ruvno forever.  He would have to do
something to avoid that; and without further delay.  He
had waited too long.  He never doubted that she
would marry him.  True, he had not made love to
her; but they were such good friends, and he had
always been fond of her in a quiet, unquestioning
way, without passionate discomforts.  Yes, he must
secure her before another man stole her affections.
He went to speak to his mother about it.\par

He came to this decision whilst riding back from
some meadows; but the Countess he found sitting
under the chestnuts behind the garden with Minnie
and Father Constantine, the chaplain who had lived
with them for years and taught Ian his catechism and
the Latin declensions.  A moment later Vanda joined
them.  So he put off again.  He would wait till the
evening, when he always had a quiet chat with his
mother, in her dressing-room.\par

The Skarbeks met in the Countess' sitting-room.\par

"You here?" was Roman's curt greeting.  Ian noted
the tone and wondered what they had quarreled about.\par

Joseph kissed his aunt's hand before replying.  They
were both fine men, alike in figure, unlike in feature
and temperament; both on the right side of thirty,
straight, lissome and as thoroughbred as you please.
Roman was dark, generous, lithe; Joseph fair,
blue-eyed and cold.  Matchmaking mothers were very civil
to him; but their daughters liked Roman better.\par

"I've come from Warsaw," remarked Joseph at
his leisure.  He looked round the room, presumably
for Vanda; but he did not ask for her.  Ian knew
she was sitting in the garden with Minnie.  It was
unnatural for her to hold aloof thus; his uneasiness
grew.\par

"I'd no idea you were coming," said Roman hotly.
"I ought to have been here sooner."  He turned to
his aunt.  "It's no use mincing words; I've come to
ask for Vanda."\par

"For Vanda!" echoed Ian blankly.  Then he turned
from them, to compose his face.\par

"Joe has cone for her, too," pursued Roman.  "It's
in his face.  It's just as well to have it out at once.
She must choose for herself."\par

"Yes," said Ian quietly.  "Vanda must make her
own choice.  She is quite free."  Privately, he
determined to speak to her himself, as soon as he could
escape from the room with decency.\par

"You followed me," said Roman to his brother.\par

"No.  I thought you were still gambling."  Joseph
spoke with a sneer.  How well Ian remembered it;
it used to drive him to fury in their boyish days, and
many a fight had it caused between him and the
superior Joseph, who could use his fists all the same.\par

"If I win her I'll never touch a card again," cried
Roman.\par

"You forget your debts," his brother retorted.\par

"Debts!" fairly shouted the other.  "Look here, all
of you!"\par

Out of inner pockets, he drew bulky pocket-books,
took banknote after banknote and put them side by
side on a table.  And when there was no room for
them to lie singly he set them three and four deep,
till a fortune lay there, in the evening sunlight.\par

"Look at them!  Count them!" he cried in triumph.
"Where are my debts now?"\par

They gazed at the money in silent wonder.  Never
had they seen so big a harvest from turf or green
table.  The Countess smiled across at Ian; he said
something in a careless undertone.  He would not
let even her see what was on his mind.\par

"It's a haul," admitted Joseph.  "You must have
broken the bank."\par

"Luck.  Six weeks of it.  And now I've done with
gambling forever."\par

He crammed the notes away carelessly, as men treat
money lightly won.  He paced the room, talking.\par

"I was afraid of it," he admitted.  "I wanted to
win.  But it grew so huge that it became a menace.
Luck at play, no luck in love.  And now..."
he swung round to his brother: "I meet you here."\par

"It's unfortunate," remarked Joseph.\par

"Unfortunate?  It's Destiny!  Oh, you'll have the
family on your side; I don't blame 'em.  You're a
deuced-good match, well off, sober, economical.  I'm
not.  I don't pretend to be."  He measured the room
with his long stride, and hurled at Joseph: "But I've
something you haven't!"\par

"You?"  This with a sneer.  Ian felt inclined to
punch his head, as in years gone by.\par

"Me.  It's love.  You don't know what it means.
Men like you--" he jerked his head at Ian--"and
Ian there, can't love.  You want to keep up the race,
that's all.  What could you do to prove your love?"\par

Ian said nothing, though the challenge was for him
as well.  Was Roman's reproach true?  Was this
new uneasiness, that fast became pain, love, or but
wounded pride?\par

"I'll ask her to marry me," Joseph was saying.
"Offer my name, home, protection and ... and
affection."\par

"Ah ... affection!" and Roman laughed.\par

"What more can any man offer?" put in Ian.\par

Roman was at the door now.  He threw them a
stream of hot words over his shoulder, and left the
room.  He was going to her.\par

There was silence after he left.  Ian tried to say
something, but failed.  The brothers were poaching
on his preserves; yet he could not find the words to
tell them so.  And now Roman had gone to her, and
again he must wait.  What a fool he had been!  He
was angry with them and furious with himself for
being angry.  The whole business was a nuisance.
But, after all, why should he mind?  Sitting on one
of the broad window-sills, he lighted a cigarette and
tried to calm his thoughts.  Some time passed.  He
heard Joseph and his mother talking in low tones
at the far end of the room, and was glad they did
not expect him to talk.  What was Roman telling
Vanda now?  He was the sort of man girls always
liked.  Words would never fail in his wooing.  A
spendthrift, a gambler, yes; but handsome, full of
life, eloquent.  There was the rub.  He, Ian, had
always to search for words when he wanted to speak
of things near his heart.  Roman, as a lover,
surpassed him by untold lengths.  He realized that now.
And yet Roman, as a husband, could hardly give happiness;
but girls don't think of those things till it is too
late.  And he could not go and tell Vanda so, either.
He had had years in which to tell her many things;
and he had wasted them.  Now, when seconds were
of importance, he could not even get her alone.\par

He shook the ash off his cigarette, watching it fall
on to the bed outside; glanced at the other two, and
determined to go to the stables.  He had only to
slide his legs over the window-sill and be off.  They
would not notice his departure, and he would be alone,
unwatched, free to shake off this sudden malaise and
regain his old composure.  He wanted solitude; had
new thoughts to worry out, vague awakenings which
he must stifle.  He wanted to be quite honest with
himself, to examine his heart, free it of this new
burden and go back to the old, quiet life of yesterday,
of this morning even.\par

But he did not move.  He knew he would not till
Roman came back.  Would he come hand-in-hand with
Vanda, or alone?  He would not come alone.  Vanda
would take him and there would be a wedding.  That
meant a lot of fuss.  He had put off his own wedding
year by year to avoid a pother, and here it came, all
the same.  And with the same bride, too: only the
bridegroom and best man had changed places.  Roman
was right.  Destiny played odd tricks.  He would
see Vanda go off with another man; give her away
to an unconscious rival.  Was it going to hurt?\par

Suddenly the door opened.  Roman burst in.  He
was alone; he addressed Ian.\par

"Can I have a car, at once?" he asked.  His
sunburnt face was drawn, his eyes haggard.  No need to
ask for Vanda's answer.  It was written all over him.
They rose; the Countess took his hand and said
something to him, Ian knew not what.  A load had fallen
from his heart.  Vanda still cared for him.  Sweet,
loyal little Vanda!  He might have known it, and
saved himself all that worry.\par

"But you're not going yet?" he said.\par

"I am.  I'll be in Warsaw to-night; and, by God,
I'll never go home again.  Will you order the car,
old man?"\par

"If you must go."  Ian walked towards the bell
that lay on his mother's writing-table.  Roman turned
to Joseph.\par

"I put it to her, squarely," he said in hoarse tones.
"You've won.  She's in the library."  And he strode
from the room before any of them could speak.\par

Ian rang the bell and stood by the table, his back
to the others.  He had heard every word that Roman
said and it burnt his brain, if not his heart.  So
Joseph had won!  It was preposterous.  Roman as
a rival he could bear.  But that cold, selfish prig!  He
could never give a woman happiness.  Vanda must
be saved from herself.  And he would do it.\par

Mastering his face, he turned round, ready with
passionate words to save Vanda from Joseph, to use
his authority as head of the family.  But the room
was empty.\par

\label{ii}%
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\vs{4}
{\noindent}
{\centering
{\Large\strut{II}}
\endgraf}
\par


\vs{2}
{\noindent}
Roman tumbled into the car the moment it was
ready and insisted on taking the wheel.  Ian
gave in, though he knew his cousin for a wild
driver at the best of times.\par

They went off at breakneck speed.  The road was
clear, for it happened to be Friday night, when Jews
are at rest, so that factors, omnibuses and other
vehicles which belong to the children of Israel east
of the Vistula did not get in the way.  On they rushed
through the cool, dark night, past fields of whispering
corn, ready for cutting; skirting forests of tall trees,
racing through little villages where savage dogs, let
loose for the night, chased them, barking like the
wolves with whom they shared parentage, till lack of
breath held them in; past flat country, rich in soil well
tilled, past rare towns where no lights shone except
for here and there a candle-decked table where Jews
hailed the Sabbath in squalid tenements; past a rare
wagon of non-Jewish ownership, with the driver fast
asleep, his team in the middle of the highway, deaf
to hooting and shouting; past, in short, the various
sights and sounds of the Polish country-side, where
life is simpler than in England and men stick closer
to mother earth.  Ian loved it all; even the Jews he
accepted as part of the picture, though his race was
divided from theirs by a deep gulf; he loved the chilly
breeze, the stately pine forests, the night birds' cry,
the smell of rich earth, all the promise of revolving
seasons; the very monotony of the life was dear to him.\par

Near Sohaczev they dashed into a drove of cattle,
on its way to the capital.  There was much shouting;
the drovers swore by all they could think of that half
their fortune was gone.  However, after being able
to check these statements by the help of lanterns, Ian
decided that ten roubles more than covered the damage.
Roman's flow of language left the others speechless;
he had not opened his mouth since leaving Ruvno, and
certainly made up for it when he did.  They started
off again.  The swift, uneven motion over the ill-kept
road soothed Ian.  He had come partly out of
sympathy for Roman, partly to avoid searching eyes at
home.  He must get accustomed to the new state of
things, let the smart of Vanda's engagement wear
off, prepare himself to meet Joseph without picking
a quarrel with him.  Neither could he have faced the
usual evening confab with his mother without betraying
himself; and he hated the idea of confession, even
to her.  He pondered about many things, business,
politics, crops and the chase; but he always came back to
Vanda.  His memory rediscovered charms he had long
ceased to note--her soft eyes, the dimples that came
into her cheeks when she laughed, her cheerfulness, her
nice ways with his mother, her good heart for the poor,
her adaptability to {\itshape{his}} house and {\itshape{his}} ways.  What a
good wife Joseph had won!  Then he remembered
she was portionless.  Her parents had been ruined by
a combination of adverse circumstances, so that she
had come to Ruvno with little more than the baby
clothes she wore and a box full of toys.\par

He burnt with the thought of Joseph's feelings of
self-righteousness at marrying a portionless maid.  But
he should not get the chance to crow.  She should
have an outfit to make her new neighbors open their
eyes; jewels, sables and linen fit for Ruvno.  He meant
to insist on this, foresaw mild objections from his
mother, who knew all about Joseph's investments.  But
thank God he could afford to set the girl up in such
a way that her groom could not boast.  And the
wedding should be in keeping; the Archbishop of Warsaw,
Metropolitan of Poland, must marry them; Ruvno
must entertain the guests royally.  More: Joseph
should never be able to say he had married a penniless
girl.  Vanda should have a generous dowry.  Here
he foresaw more opposition from his mother.  But he
was not going to let Joe puff himself out over every
check he wrote for his bride.  For such was Joe's
nature; he would do it with a certain refinement; but
would drive the truth home all the same.  Vanda did
not know this, or had forgotten it, being in love.  But
she would suffer from it later on; and he was
determined she should bear as little pain as possible.\par

Ian's landed property represented a rough sum of
twenty million roubles; he had another million invested
in sugar refineries, and in a hardware factory, recently
started in Warsaw, which was already paying well.
His father's debts had been legion.  But he had a
minority of twenty years and good guardians, and
found Ruvno almost clear when he took it over.  Now,
there was not a rouble's worth of debt on the place.
He never spent his entire income.  Whenever the
chance came, he used to buy up land around Ruvno,
adding to its acres and its efficiency.  Neighbors
wondered that the son was so different from the sire,
and declared he would be one of the wealthiest men
in those parts before he reached middle age.  Not that
he cared especially for money.  His one aim was to
add to Ruvno and keep up its name for good farming
and good horses, to entertain generously without
ostentation, to have prize cattle and modern machinery.
His tastes were simple; a certain fastidiousness saved
him from such "affaires" as were constantly getting
Roman into trouble, and from pleasures which had
ruined his father.  Yes: he could afford to give Vanda
a handsome dowry, and the thought was like balsam.\par

Arriving in the capital, Roman drew up before the
"{\itshape{Oaza}}" a place where people drank champagne at
exorbitant prices and listened to dubious songs and
patter, not bereft of wit, but suited for neither the
young nor the squeamish.  It stood at the corner of
the Theatre Square, where the Opera House is, and
the Vierzbova, that narrow street which runs thence
from the Saxon Square.  Ian seldom went to the
haunt; but Roman knew every woman in it.  One,
with little on but a feather boa and a gigantic hat, was
screaming a new song at the top of her voice.  The
audience was meager enough, for the races were over,
the heat had set in, and people of pleasure had gone
to their country homes, or abroad to drink the waters
at Carlsbad and other places where those who live too
well hope to patch up battered constitutions for future
pleasures.  There were a few Russian officers, who
made a great deal of noise, a couple of Polish squires,
sunburnt and opulent, some of the inevitable Children
of Israel, of those who no longer keep the Sabbath nor
believe in anybody's God; and many sirens in
marvelous hats and plentiful paint.\par

Roman ordered the supper and drank freely of
champagne.  He took not the least notice of the
entertainment, which went on just above their table, on a
small raised platform.  Ian wondered why he insisted
on being so near it; but to-night he was prepared to
give in about everything, as to a spoilt child who has
broken its favorite toy.  Roman drank, ate and talked,
smoking cigarettes all the time.\par

"What does she see in him?  Tell me what she sees
in him?" he asked, elbows on the table, cigarette
between his lips, glaring with his dark bright eyes at
his cousin.  "Now--if it had been you..."\par

Ian became ruddier than ever and bent over his plate.
He said nothing.\par

"I thought of {\itshape{you}} as my rival," pursued the
disappointed lover.  "A dangerous one, too."\par

"You needn't have," mumbled Ian, his mouth full
of lobster mayonnaise.\par

"I see that now.  But I feared it.  You've always
been together.  It seemed the obvious thing for you
to make a match of it.  Why, there were bets on you
at the club here."\par

"The devil there were!" cried Ian indignantly.\par

"Well, we all do that sort of thing.  Their gossip
worried me.  I can't think how you managed not to
fall in love with her.  I'd have been in love with any
woman under the circumstances, let alone her
... why, she's an angel, an..."\par

He broke off and fumed in silence for some time.
Ian finished his lobster and attacked some cold meat.
Roman looked as if he expected some remark, so he
gave it, huskily:\par

"The obvious never happens."\par

"But Joe never came into my head.  You could
have knocked me down with a feather when she
owned it."\par

"Me, too," admitted Ian, with more sincerity than
he had yet commanded.\par

"I don't wonder.  Of course, I'm a rip.  Not worse
than most of my fellows.  I don't count you....
Can't make you out.  You must be a fish."  He cast a
glance round the room, nodded to a couple of women,
signed that he did not want them at his table, ordered
a bottle of champagne to be taken over to them, shifted
his chair so that his back was towards them, and
went on:\par

"Who isn't?  I've had my fling.  I was quite ready
to settle down.  This sort of game disgusts me.  I've
had enough of it."\par

"I don't wonder."\par

"I suppose you people at Ruvno think Joe's a steady
old horse," retorted Roman vehemently.  "He enjoys
life, too.  Only he's more careful of appearance than
I am."\par

"Prig!" said Ian savagely.\par

Roman laughed at the tone.  His dark eyes were
very bright.  These, with his fine head, broad shoulders
and open hand, suggested other, less prosaic days,
when men gave fuller play to their emotions, and
were not ashamed of their feelings.  He produced a
hundred-rouble note from one of his fat pocket-books
and sent it across to the little orchestra.\par

"Tell them to play my favorites," he told the waiter.\par

"Don't be a fool," admonished his more careful
cousin.  "You'll be glad enough of your money before
you've done with the Jews."  He knew Roman's
reckless ways; and disapproved of them.  A man nearing
thirty had no right to lead the sort of life that
concentrated at the {\itshape{Oaza}} between midnight and sunrise.
The place was stuffy and gaudy and depressing.  He
began to feel sorry he had come.\par

"The devil take my debts," said Roman.  "The
Jews can wait now."  Then he went back to Vanda.\par

"Do you imagine that Joe's in love with her?" he
exclaimed.  "Not a bit.  He wants to settle down,
doesn't need money and thinks her {\itshape{suitable}}.  I loathe
that word.  It sums up all the hypocrisy of our lives."  He
gulped champagne, wiped his mustache, threw
the napkin on the table, and pursued:\par

"He thinks she'll look well at the head of his table.
And it saves trouble to marry her because he's known
her all his life.  He hasn't got to waste time paying
her attention and risk the publicity of a refusal.  You
can't go near a girl at the races or a dance but
everybody knows it.  That's not old Joe's plan.  He's too
safe."\par

Ian bent over his plate again.  Roman had too much
insight; he was attributing to Joe the very thoughts
that had passed through his own mind that morning.
But the words gave him comfort.  If Joe was not in
love with Vanda, neither was he.  Their symptoms
were alike.  Men in love talked like Roman, acted like
him.  So he was saved.  His precious armor of male
vanity was intact.  Thank God, he could face himself
and his little world again.\par

"If I thought she'd be really happy, I'd not care so
much," remarked Roman after a short silence.\par

His cousin looked up in alarm.\par

"If I doubted it I'd never let him marry her," he
muttered.\par

"What can you do?  She's set her heart on him.  I
don't mean he's going to ill-treat her.  He'll be so
proud of her that he'll hang on to her till she'll long
to be left alone a bit.  But she'll find him a bore after
a time.  She's not used to bores.  God!  If I had to
live with old Joe I'd blow my brains out."\par

And he talked on; he had the philosophy of life at
his tongue's tip; and yet what a muddle he made of his
own!  He reminded Ian of agricultural experts he
knew, drawn from the ranks of ruined landed
proprietors, yet ready to give advice to those who prosper
on their acres.  Gradually, he ceased to pay heed to the
flow of words.  He was an early riser and his bedtime
hour had long passed.  And he followed his own train
of thought, nodding occasionally at his cousin's
eloquence, and trying to get him out of the place.\par

"The essence of real love," remarked the oracle, as
they left for the Hotel Europe at last, "is sacrifice.  A
man who's not ready for that is no lover."\par

And again Ian felt comforted.\par

He stopped two days in town, saw his lawyer anent
Vanda's dowry, looked at sables, bought her a diamond
pendant, and prepared to leave his cousin.  This last
much against his will.  With his old impetuosity, he
was playing heavily at his club, where a few gamblers
lingered, detained for lack of funds to take them
abroad.  They hailed Skarbek's coming with joy,
knew all about his fantastic winnings, and set about
fleecing him.\par

"You'd be far happier if you settled down," said
Ian as they finished lunch on the day of his departure.
He could not understand any full-grown man caring
to live from day to day.  For him, happiness lay in the
even road, a steady income, regular employment and
an entire absence of excitement.\par

"Settle down?" echoed the other.  "On what?"\par

"You've that money you won at Monte Carlo.  Bank
it and let me tackle your Jews."\par

Roman laughed bitterly.\par

"Ten thousand roubles of that money is in other
men's pockets," and he named two who lived upon
their earnings at the green table.  "They're off to
Ostend this evening."\par

"You're a damned fool," was his cousin's verdict.\par

"I know it.  But who would gain by my being wise?"\par

Ian looked him straight in the eyes.  Roman noticed
how clear and honest they were, with their tale of
outdoor life, their gaze of the man who has found
himself and keeps his house in order.  Yet there was
nothing priggish about him.  He enjoyed life
thoroughly.  It was not the life of champagne suppers and
high stakes; but he took his pint of Veuve Clicquot
and played his game, conformed to the customs of
his class.  The difference was that such pleasures were
incidents for him; for Roman they had become necessities.\par

"You know perfectly well that your Prussian
government and my Russian one like to see us Poles
squander our lives and money," retorted the squire.\par

"They do," agreed the gambler.\par

Ian saw his chance and followed it up, speaking
earnestly, his habitual shyness undermost for the
moment.\par

"They like to get us off the land because that is the
rock bottom of national existence," he said.  "Lots of
people forget it.  England is forgetting it.  Every time
I go there I see it clearer.  But Prussia hasn't
forgotten it for a moment these last hundred years.  And
she's taught the Russians something about it, too."\par

"I never had any land," protested Roman.  "Joe got
it, and has kept it.  I'll say that for him."\par

"You can buy land."\par

"Not under Prussian law."\par

"Become a Russian subject."\par

"Easier said than done."\par

"I'll help you," Ian said eagerly.  "Do you remember Kuklin?"\par

"That little place near Ruvno?"\par

"Yes.  It's for sale."  He did not add that the
owner had ruined himself in places like the {\itshape{Oaza}}.
"The land's first class.  The house is a hovel.  But it's
only five versts from us and you can stop at Ruvno
till you've built something fit to live in.  I'll give you
the materials and help you with the labor.  The chief
outbuildings are brick and in good condition.  The
squire is a good farmer when he remembers to stop
at home.  It's a bargain."\par

Roman was interested.\par

"I suppose the Jews will buy it."\par

"Not if I know it.  I was going to buy it myself.
But you take it.  I'll let you have the money.  Come,
Roman, here's your chance."\par

"You mean you'd advance me the cash?  Without
security?"\par

"I'll make you a present of Kuklin."\par

Roman's handsome face filled with astonishment.
Though not a mean man, Ian had the reputation of
being exceedingly careful.  He gave freely to causes
which he thought furthered the prosperity of his
country; but was wary of giving for the sake of
giving, or for the popularity that comes to the
open-handed.  Roman knew him well; he realized that this
offer meant more than cousinship; it meant affection
and a firm belief that he would settle down and "make
good."  He was touched, and said so in his ardent way.\par

"So you're willing?  That's right.  I'll go to Kuklin
tomorrow and wire when you can see it."  The other's
face clouded, so he added hastily: "You needn't come
to Ruvno.  I'll meet you at the station, the owner
will give us something to eat and I'll motor you back
here.  We'll have to settle with the Jews before you
actually buy, or you'll get no terms from them.  I'll
go to Posen with you."\par

"Old man, you're the best friend I ever had," cried
Roman, wringing his hand.  "I can't tell you how I
feel about it.  But..."\par

"What 'but'?"\par

"I don't believe I could bury myself in the country--now.
With Vanda it would have been different.  Can't
you understand?"\par

"No, I can't."  He was disappointed.  He had never
felt lonely in his life, never knew the yearning after
hot, brightly lighted restaurants filled with men and
women on excitement bent.\par

"You won't want to come to Warsaw," he argued.
"You don't know how land draws you.  You'll have
to drag yourself here when you've some special
business and hurry back as quick as can be."\par

Roman doubted it, but gave up the argument.  They
parted on the understanding that he should telegraph
when he had made up his mind.\par

Though he found Joseph still at Ruvno Ian showed
a cheerful face and calm exterior.  He felt completely
master of himself again and talked freely of the
coming marriage.  The Countess was full of it.\par

"I can't understand what Vanda sees in him," she
remarked during their evening chat "He's more
selfish than ever.  He never does a thing she wants
unless he happens to want it, too.  I suppose that's why
she is so devoted."\par

Ian observed, and found that his mother was right.
Not that he saw much of the happy pair.  He only
met them at meals, and delegated his mother to sound
Joseph about the marriage settlement.  He won his
argument with her about that, too.  But the thing
had yet to be discussed and he put it off, not wanting
to see Joseph alone if he could help it.  There was
time for that.  Meanwhile, the estate kept him busy.
But the marriage date was settled for three months
hence.  That was his work.  He would have had it
earlier, but the Countess thought it looked too hasty.\par

Joseph was quite satisfied to wait.  He wanted to do
up his country house, and furnishing took time.  He
did not consult Vanda about the furniture.  He had
ideas of his own and meant to carry them out.  Yet
he seemed proud of the girl and pleased to have won
her; the rest of the family admitted that.  What
annoyed them was his boundless self-satisfaction.  She
would be his in the same way as his beautiful estate
in Eastern Prussia, as his horses, or his sound investments.\par

"She is his chattel," was Ian's verdict one evening
when alone with his mother.  She gave him a sidelong
look, but said nothing for the moment.  Later on she
mooted matrimony to him.\par

"It is high time you settled down," she said.  "It
is a great mistake for people to put off marriage too
long.  They lose courage as they grow older."\par

"Give me another year of liberty," he pleaded, laughing.
"I'm not thirty-five yet.  By next year I'll have
the new farm buildings finished and the new forest
planted.  Then you shall find me a wife."\par

"I've one for you already," she said, caressing his
face with her fine hazel eyes.\par

"What a matchmaker!  Tell me the worst.  Who is it."\par

She hesitated before saying: "Minnie Burton," and
watched him closely.\par

"Minnie?"  This in surprise.  He had never thought
of her.  Then: "But she is a foreigner."\par

"But she is fond of Poland and of us.  She's well
bred, well connected, good-looking."\par

"A heretic."\par

"That might be changed."\par

He took alarm at this.  There was nothing more
hateful to his thoughts, just then, than marriage with
anybody--but Vanda.  And she had deserted him.\par

"I hope you've not been 'sounding' her, as you call
it," he cried in alarm.\par

"No.  Don't be afraid.  But bear her in mind.  She's
a dear girl.  She'll come back to us next year.  I'd
like to chaperon her to Nice in the winter."\par

"I'm not going to lose my shooting," he said firmly.\par

"You could run over there for a week or so.  However,
there's no hurry.  Let's get Vanda safely settled
first."  And wisely, she dropped the subject.  She
knew all about his disappointment, and meant to tell
him so one day.  Meanwhile she would throw him
and Minnie together as much as possible.  But there
was plenty of time.\par

The following evening they were finishing dinner
when a servant handed Joseph a telegram.  Thinking
it one of many that had arrived since his engagement,
he opened it carelessly.\par

"Who is it this time?" asked Vanda.\par

He did not answer, but read the missive twice, his
face changing.  She took alarm.\par

"It's bad news?"\par

He took no notice.  She peered over his shoulder.
Everybody was waiting for him to speak.\par

"It's in German," she announced to the expectant
table.  "Do tell us, Joe."\par

She put out her hand for the telegram, but he gave
it to Ian instead.  She sat down again, looking snubbed.\par

"Read that," he said.  Ian obeyed, aloud, for
Vanda's sake, and in English, for Minnie's.\par

"'The Head of this Military District orders your
immediate return, that you may report at
headquarters.'"  He looked up, puzzled.  "It's signed by
your manager.  What does it mean?"\par

"Mobilization," answered the Countess promptly.
They looked at her in surprise.  She was the only
member of the household who had read the last batch
of papers from Warsaw.\par

Frowning, Ian reread the telegram.  There was
silence round the table.  Joseph, like Roman, was a
German subject.  Eastern Prussia, where he lived,
belonged to Poland till Frederick the Great snatched it
from the Polish Republic, weakened by internal strife.
And ever since that sad day the Prussians have done
all they know to hound the Poles off their land.  But
the owners stood firm from the first, helping one
another to keep every acre they possessed from the
German colonists, who have their government's backing
in money and legislation.  It is considered a disgrace
for a Pole to sell his land in Prussia or the Grand
Duchy of Poland, because Prussian law forbids a Pole
to buy it.  But a Polish squire or peasant in financial
difficulties can always get a more fortunate compatriot
to help him, so that he need not sell.\par

"I've got to go," remarked Joseph gloomily.\par

Ian's thoughts ran ahead.  Joseph would be away
for some time; perhaps for months.  The wedding
would have to be postponed.  Meanwhile, he and
Vanda would be meeting hourly as in the old days,
yet with the difference that she was no longer free.  At
this moment he did not imagine that Prussia's mobilization
could affect his life.  The thought that tempted
him was that he could undo Joseph's wooing, win her
in his absence.  Then honor's voice intervened and he
put temptation from him.  Another thought came to
his aid.  He would get his mother to send her to
England with Minnie Burton.  When Joseph was
ready to wed, she could come back.  Not till then.\par

He looked at her.  Her face was no longer bright,
she gave her lover a long, sad gaze.  Then he glanced
at Joe over the broad table, handsome with plate and
flowers, covered with the remains of a well-served,
well-cooked meal.  There was nothing supercilious
about him now.  He was frankly downcast.\par

"It's for Roman, too," he observed.\par

"I'll tell him," said Ian.  The idea of Roman's
going back to Prussia annoyed him.  He would not be
able to finish the Kuklin business.  And he had set his
heart on having his wayward, impulsive cousin near
by.  They had always been great friends; but since
the affair with Vanda he found something very
comforting in his company.\par

Everybody began to talk about the telegram and its
probable import.  Newspapers were opened and
consulted, only to be thrown aside in disgust.  They said
so little.  Father Constantine and the Countess argued
things out according to their ideas of the political
situation, whilst Joseph and Vanda had a final talk
together.  Ian saw his duty was to amuse Minnie Burton,
and he did it with thoughts elsewhere.  Joseph left
the house at two in the morning to catch the night
express from Warsaw to Posen.  They all waited up
with him; their farewells were cheerful.  He would
soon be back.  Meanwhile, he could set the workmen
at his house.  Ian watched Vanda as they parted.  She
was sad, but held herself bravely.  He liked that.  He
noticed, too, that Joseph was unusually demonstrative.
He knew he ought to be glad of it, for her sake.  But
it angered him all the same.  In a group at the open
door they watched the car go down the straight avenue
and turn into the road.  On the way Joseph would
have to knock up a local petty official and get his
passport viséd.  But he saw no difficulties; nobody dreamed
of war just then, not outside the German Empire.
When he had gone they went to bed, sleepy and
unconcerned.\par

Ian motored to Warsaw for lunch.  The streets
were as deserted as usual at that time of year, except
for a sprinkling of troops.  But everybody was
discussing the possibility of Russia's fighting to help
Serbia.  How could the big Slav brother leave the
weak one to be strangled?  He found Roman at the
Europe, eating iced soup, and delivered his message.\par

"What did old Joe do?" he asked.  The other told him.\par

"Went off like a lamb?  I thought as much," and he
laughed scornfully.\par

"And you?"\par

"I'm no friend of the Kaiser's."\par

"But he may win," and Ian lowered his voice, for
a party of Russian officers sat at the next table.  "He'll
make it pretty awkward for Polish deserters if he does."\par

At this stage Ian had no more dislike for the Kaiser's
army than for the Tsar's.  They were both the
hereditary enemies of his race.  He was glad to think that
he, at any rate, could keep aloof from the quarrel.
Russia has enough men without taking only sons and
had never called him to serve.  He was no more obtuse
that bright July day than thousands of men in the
British Empire, in France, or in Belgium.  Perhaps he
had a greater respect for Prussia's efficiency and
fighting spirit; but this vaguely, as of a fact that could not
touch him.\par

Not so Roman Skarbek.  With that odd insight you
sometimes find in men who never get the practical hang
of life he peered into the future as few, alas, peered
then.  Ian remembered his words long afterwards, in
the warm, humming room, his eyes dim and dreamy
with thought.\par

"He won't win," he said.  "At least, not in the end.
But he will at first, and let Hell loose on Europe.
He'll apply all the Prussian methods of persecution
on other nations that he and his cursed breed have
tried on us Poles for the past century.  That will send
the world against him.  {\itshape{We}} know what Prussianism
means; the world doesn't.  But it will before he's
beaten.  What he'll do to me for deserting won't
matter.  The only deuced thing that matters is to stop
Prussianism from spreading all over the world."\par

"You'll find it awkward here with a German
passport, if Russia does go to war."\par

"I've not haunted the {\itshape{Oaza}} and the club for nothing.
I expect I know more influential Russians than you do."\par

"I wish you would become a Russian subject," said
the other, thinking of Kuklin.  "I'd help you."\par

"Thanks awfully.  I'll ask you to, if I can't manage
it myself."\par

"Oh, the whole thing will blow over.  Why, there's
always a scare about this time.  The papers made it
to have something to write about."  And they talked
of other things, and of Vanda.  Roman asked a dozen
questions about her; and he perforce must answer.\par

He took home the gossip of the town; they talked
politics all the evening.  Minnie, who had been in
St. Petersburg with her elder brother when he was
Military Attaché to the British Embassy, told them with
confidence born of little knowledge that {\itshape{if}} the Germans
were mad enough to fight, the Russians would be in
Berlin by Christmas.  Her host, knowing Russian ways
better than she, doubted her.  Hence came animated
talk.  Yet none of them seriously thought the storm
was near.  Least of all Ian, who tried to cheer Vanda
for the temporary loss of her lover by planning a new
paddock which must be ready before the wedding.
Never did he feel more secure in his quiet life and
snug possession than when, bound for bed, he crossed
the large hall, with its vaulted roof painted in Gothic
blue with faded gilt stars, and its antler-covered walls.
True, there was still a vestige of that uneasy feeling
which he unwillingly put down to Vanda.  But he had
plenty to occupy him till Joe came back; then for a
speedy marriage--and oblivion.\par

\label{iii}%
\hypertarget{iii}{}%
{}

\vs{4}
{\noindent}
{\centering
{\Large\strut{III}}
\endgraf}
\par


\vs{2}
{\noindent}
After much discussion, Father Constantine
decided to seek relief for his rheumatism at
Ciechocinek, a place which lies nearer the
Prussian frontier than Ruvno, on the main line between
Warsaw and Berlin.  He felt too old to take a long
journey abroad, and hated the idea of some fashionable
place in Austria or Germany.  Ciechocinek was quiet,
if primitive, and near at hand.  He started off in
state a couple of days after Ian's flying visit to
Warsaw, in one of Ian's motors, the family at the front
door to wish him a pleasant journey.  There was as
much bustle when the old chaplain went away--which
rarely happened--as though the whole household were
leaving.  Everybody carried something to the car for
him; everybody heard over and over again what the
two canvas-covered portmanteaux held and knew their
owner had packed and unpacked them half-a-dozen
times within the week, in the agony of indecision and
the search for some necessary garment that had been
put at the bottom.  Nothing would induce him to let
a servant pack them.  Besides the portmanteaux he
carried several loose packages; to wit, three long loaves
of home-made bread, because any other kind gave him
indigestion; a small collection of home-smoked ham,
sausage and tongue to take in the evening with his
glass of weak tea (Ciechocinek sausages were all very
well, but Father Constantine would sooner have gone
without than have eaten them).  And, for his morning
tea, the housekeeper had packed up a large {\itshape{baba}} or
cake, whose very name makes one's mouth water in
days of dark flour and scarce eggs.  There was a little
basket containing his lunch, for he eschewed restaurant
cars and preferred cold chicken and fresh bread and
butter to the best meal to be had at railway stations.
I had almost forgotten the parcel of butter which he
carried to his cure, too; it was firm and fresh and
creamy, food fit for the gods, for he would not eat
the watery, saltish rubbish which, so he declared, the
hotel-keeper in Ciechocinek provided.  At the last
moment, when he was in the midst of his good-byes,
a maid came hurrying along with a heavy square
parcel.  It contained linen sheets.  The baths at the
cure place, so Father Constantine declared, were
frequented by many people whom he thought none too
clean.  And he had no faith in the attendant's
scrubbing.  So he had a sheet spread in the bath before it
was filled with the muddy substance that drew out his
pains.  Then there were wraps and pillows and books
for the journey, till you would have thought the good
old man was to travel for days, instead of hours.  Only
a generously proportioned Russian railway carriage
would have taken so many bundles on the racks.  For
Father Constantine never trusted his precious
portmanteaux to the luggage van.  He was firmly
convinced that highway robbers would have learned of his
coming, laid wait and robbed him of his baggage whilst
he dozed.  He invariably counted the sum total of his
packets each time the train stopped, when he awoke
and glared suspiciously at new-comers.  But everybody
at Ruvno took his little ways with good humor; he
had been there so long that he was an institution.  They
loved his bright eyes and sharp tongue; they knew
his heart was in the right place, and knew all his
anecdotes so well that they could think of other things
whilst he told them, and yet, by force of habit, make
the right remark when he had finished.  Ian was
devoted to him; would never have thought of going off,
on his mid-morning round until he had departed.  He
asked to be allowed to go with him as far as the
station; in fact, the priest expected this offer from the
sturdy squire whom he had spanked and taught in
by-gone years.  But he would never accept it.  He
disliked being seen off.  It looked as though he was no
longer capable of buying his own ticket or finding a
porter.  But the little comedy had to be enacted all
the same.\par

"Father, I'm going to the station," Ian would say
on these occasions, when the last package was stowed
away and the housekeeper had counted them at least twice.\par

The priest held up his hands in mock horror.  He
was small and rather shrunken.  His nose was hooked
and his scant hair white.  He had seen a good deal of
trouble in his day; was in Siberia for five years in
his youth for defending his church against a sotnia
of Cossacks in 1864, and owed his misshapen ears to
frostbite which he got on the terrible journey, made
on foot in those days.  But these things were a memory,
and life was peaceful enough now.\par

"No, my child," he said.  "Think of the packages.
By the way, where's the {\itshape{baba}}?  Zosia! where did you
put the {\itshape{baba}}?"\par

"It's under the seat," said the Countess from the
steps.  "I saw her put it there.  You'd better let Ianek
go with you.  He'll enjoy it."\par

"No, no, Countess.  Thank you all the same.  He'd
crush the bread or sit on the butter when we begin to
bump about on the bad part of the road.  I'll get on
by myself.  The old horse isn't done yet.  Not by a
long way.  God bless you all.  Farewell!"\par

Making the sign of the cross, he wrapped the yellow
dust-cloak round him.  Ian gave the word to start and
off he went.\par

The three women strolled over to the chestnuts, glad
of the shade that warm morning, and Ian went to
where men were busy laying out his new paddock.
He gave some directions there, had gone over the
stables and was waiting for his horse to be saddled
for a visit to some wheat fields, reported damaged by
a shower of early-morning hail, when the familiar
hoot of his motor made him look up in surprise.  He
had given the driver orders to wait for the papers
from Warsaw, and knew he could not have done it in
so short a time.  But surprise grew when, as the car
drew nearer, he saw Father Constantine's dust-cloak.
He waved to them to drive to the stables instead of
round by the avenue and the house.\par

"What has happened?" he asked as they pulled up.
"You can't have lost the train.  It's not due for an
hour yet."\par

"There is no train," announced the priest.  "The
Muscovites are mobilizing troops.  We're cut off from
everywhere.  I might have saved myself the trouble
of packing."\par

"But there's worse than that, my lord Count," put
in Bartek, the young chauffeur, who had been born
on the land and had served first as stove-tender, then
as gun-cleaner before being trained as a mechanic.
"The tales they're telling at the station made my hair
stand on end."\par

"What tales?" asked Ian.\par

"Jewish lies," snapped the priest.\par

Ian turned to the driver, who said:\par

"The Prussians have crossed the frontier and are
in Kalisz."\par

"Don't you believe it, Ian," put in Father Constantine.
"The Jews will say anything to scare honest
Christians."\par

"And please, my lord Count," pursued Bartek the
driver, "they are murdering men and women and
children there.  First they took a lot of money, gold,
too, from the town, as a bribe to let the people alone.
Then when they'd got the money they went up on that
hill that stands over the town.  And when the people
thought they were safe on account of the gold they
had given to the Prussian Colonel, that very officer
came down into the town again, shut the people in
their houses and shot at them through the windows,
like rats in a trap."\par

"The Prussians so near us?" murmured Ian, looking
from one to the other.  "It's incredible.  What are the
Russians doing?  There were several regiments in
Kalisz."\par

"They retired before the Prussians came," answered
Bartek, who had kept his ears open at the station.\par

"Incredible!" echoed the priest.  "It's impossible.
They wouldn't dare to do it."\par

The boy produced a crumpled newspaper from one
of his pockets and handed it to Ian.\par

"The ticket man gave it to me," he explained.  "One
of the recruits brought it in a train from Warsaw.
He says it tells what the Prussians are doing in some
foreign part, I forget what it's called, but it's smaller
than our country, and they've ravished the maids and
murdered the children and done such things that
haven't been done in Poland since the Turks were
here.  And they say they'll do the same thing to us
if they get any further."\par

"You never told me you'd a paper," cried the priest.
"What does it say, Ianek."\par

And Ian read the first story of Belgium's martyrdom.\par

"It's some trick to sell the paper," was Father
Constantine's remark, when he had done.\par

"I hope so."  Ian glanced at the head of the paper.
It was the {\itshape{Kurjer Warszawski}}, which would hardly
have printed such news without reason.  He reread
the account, to himself this time, whilst the old priest
sat back in the car and piously called upon God to
know if it were true.  Some minutes passed.  Ian
read and reread the news, unbelievingly at first, then
with growing conviction.  In the late-news column
was a telegram from London, saying that England
would probably declare war on Germany.\par

"There must be something in it," he said.  "If
England is going to war, Belgium has been invaded."  He
jumped into the car and they drove up to the house.\par

His mother and the two girls he found in the
Countess' sitting-room.  Zosia, the housekeeper, was
standing there, sobbing bitterly and cursing the
Prussians through her tears.  In the large French window,
which stood open, was a ragged, dusty, fear-stricken
Jew, of the poorest description, one of the dark
masses who live by running errands for their wealthier
brethren; the hewers of wood and drawers of water
of their own race; happy to lend a stray rouble in
usury to some agricultural laborer who has fallen on
evil days.\par

From this miserable man's trembling lips he heard
much the same story as Bartek had learned at the
station.  But in addition the Jew brought news that
Zosia's sister, who lived in Kalisz, married to a
prosperous cartwright, had been murdered by the Prussians.\par

Ian never forgot the impression this made upon
him.  Later on, he grew more callous, saw and heard
so many horrors, proved the Kaiser's army capable
of anything.  But the thought that Zosia's sister, a
girl who had grown up at Ruvno and served his mother
as maid before her marriage, had been assassinated
in cold blood made his own boil.  He was not a man
to use many words.  He made no effort to express
the thoughts and feelings that rose in him.  He did
not speak for some time.  Then he turned to his
mother.\par

"You women must go to Moscow at once," he said.
"God knows, they may soon be here at the rate they
are coming on."\par

He spoke in a tone of authority he rarely used with
her.  She went to the window and looked into her
beloved rose garden, soon to be cut into trenches and
trampled by soldiers' feet.  But on that morning it
was a beautiful spot, fair with the work and art of
many generations of skilled gardeners and gentle
mistresses.  A peacock spread his tail in the sun; Ian's
two favorite dogs whined to him to go out to them;
the air was very sweet with the odor of roses and pine
needles.  A big red butterfly floated past her into the
room.  She could scarcely believe that only a few miles
away war raged; and yet, here was Zosia sobbing her
heart out, here stood the Jewish messenger, who had
come to say that the dead woman's husband and
children were on their way to Ruvno as refugees, leaving
all they possessed behind them, traveling on foot, with
unspeakable bitterness and grief in their hearts.\par

She turned to her son, smiling a little.  They lived
very near to one another and she loved him better
than anything in the world, better than she had loved
his father, for whom she suffered such pain.\par

"And you?" she asked.\par

"I shall volunteer," he answered simply.\par

He had not consciously thought about it before.  The
words came without his knowing exactly why.  He
knew that Russia had plenty of men without him; he
bore that country no love, having had to suffer many
humiliations from her since his babyhood.  Every day
he had to fight Russian malevolence in some shape or
form.  But he knew that the troops now speeding to
stop the Prussian advance were on the right side.  He
remembered Roman's words: "The only deuced thing
that matters is to stop Prussianism from spreading."\par

His mother gave him a frightened look, bit her lip,
and said nothing.\par

"You're right, my child," said Father Constantine,
who, dust-cloak and all, was sitting in a chair several
times too big for him.  In his hand he held one of
the many packets Zosia had prepared for his journey.
He had forgotten about them.  His old heart was filled
with a terrible, helpless anger against the human beasts
who had brought such death into the country.\par

The Countess put her hands on Ian's shoulder and
kissed him, standing on tip-toe to reach his honest,
sunburnt face.\par

"And I," she said, "will stop here with our people."\par

He tried to dissuade her, reminding her of what was
happening a few miles away.  But she was firm.  I
don't believe he thought she would give in.  He did his
duty in trying to make her move; but his own instinct
was to stick to Ruvno till it was burned over their
heads.\par

"If we leave the place goodness knows what would
happen," she went on.  "If we are shelled we can live
in the cellars.  That's what they were built for.  If
Ruvno goes, I may as well go with it."\par

"It is the simplest way, and the simplest is generally
the best way," said Vanda.  She had not spoken since
Zosia burst into the room with her terrible story.  Ian
looked at her face, which had grown pale.  He had
forgotten her for the moment.  Now he remembered
that the man she was to marry had gone home and
must fight on the other side, or be shot for a deserter.
Their eyes met: they understood each other; both had
the same thought.  And it flew round the room to the
others, for they all looked at her, wondering what she
felt about it.  She covered her face with her hands.
Anxious to draw attention away from her, he turned
to Minnie Burton.\par

"And you," he said, "must come with me to Warsaw,
at once.  I will see your Consul and send you
home the quickest way."\par

Minnie gave a little laugh.  She was a fair,
fresh-colored girl, with steady brown eyes and a frank
manner.  She expected them to talk of sending her home
and had already made up her mind not to leave Ruvno
whilst they remained.  Three years ago, her soldier
brother brought Ian home for a week-end.  They were
renting a little place in Leicestershire for the winter,
and he hunted with them.  She liked him at once.  He
was the first foreigner she had met who did not
overwhelm her with silly compliments.  He was more
interesting than most of her brother's friends, who
developed their muscles, but neglected their minds.  And
he liked the things she liked, the country, violent
exercise, horses; appeared much pleased with English
country life and arranged for her to meet his mother and
Vanda.  So the two families became very friendly.
Then old General Burton died, the home was broken
up and Minnie left more or less alone in the world,
for both brothers were abroad, one, a sailor, and the
other with his regiment in India.  She had been
foolishly happy at Ruvno, she reflected, and allowed
friendship with Ian to ripen into one-sided love.  She was
not one of those women who will renounce a husband
rather than marry a foreigner, and prefer to bear no
children rather than see them grow up to citizens of
another state than England.  She longed to "settle
down," though she never admitted it and gave
acquaintances to understand that she thoroughly enjoyed
her present way of living.  Ian was free; he liked
her.  She saw no reason why he should not one day
love her as she loved him.  Though the Countess had
not dropped a word about her own thoughts in the
matter, Minnie felt sure she would not object to her
son's marrying a comely young Englishwoman with a
tidy fortune and good connections.  There was one
great barrier--the difference in their faith; but Minnie
had not thought about that seriously.  Her mind dwelt
more on Ian the possible spouse than on Ian the Roman
Catholic.  In his company she had enjoyed many a
canter across country, many a chat and not a few
friendly discussions.  And her heart had succumbed.
True, there were times when she suspected him of
being a little cold by nature; a little prosaic, even for
her, who would have been annoyed with a lover of
Roman Skarbek's type.  She did not guess he felt so
comfortable as a bachelor that he thought of
matrimony as an unpleasant plunge, to be taken as late as
could be.  All this seems calculating and unmaidenlike
put on paper; but it was not nearly so clear in her
brain; till this fateful morning of bad news from
Kalisz her plans had been vague; her heart alone busy.
She would have been well content to live in Ruvno
forever.  And here was sudden danger of her leaving.
Ian might marry another girl before they could meet
again.  Though no husband-angler and too proud to
set her cap at any man she felt that she must stop under
his roof, or her romance would be ruined.  Rapidly,
she reviewed heart and conscience.  The first spoke all
too plainly; as to the second, she had no near family
beyond her two brothers, one on the high seas, the
other, presumably, to fight in Belgium.  Her only
duties, if she went home all the way through Russia
or Roumania or Greece, would be to help refugees
and do her unskilled best with wounded.  But here
were both to succor.  She was nearer that kind of
suffering than she could be at home.  And even though
Ian joined the army--she glanced at his sturdy figure
and reflected on his thirty-four summers with the
comforting doubt as to whether Russia wanted him--she
would be in touch with him at Ruvno, and of use to
his mother, whom she liked sincerely.\par

She did not answer him, but turned to the Countess.\par

"I'll stop here with you," she said with flaming
cheeks.\par

"But, my dear child, think of the risks," said her
hostess, by no means unwilling, but anxious to give
her a fair chance of escaping from such a dangerous
place.\par

Here Father Constantine chimed in.  His bird-like
eyes saw a great deal and he shuddered at the thought
of Ian's marrying a heretic.  He had often wondered
of late when those two brothers of hers were coming
to take her away.  And here was a good opportunity
to get rid of her at once.\par

"You cannot stay here, Mademoiselle."  He spoke
French, not trusting his halting English in so
important a matter.  "The Germans will be exceedingly cruel
to the English.  I know how they hate you.  I have
been in Germany many times, for my rheumatism.  If
they find you here in Ruvno they will be capable of
doing unspeakable things to you and bad things to us,
for having you here."  He turned to the Countess,
nursing his bundle of sausages, a shriveled, eager
figure in his linen dust-cloak and his air of the family
confidant and confessor.  "Madame, think of the
responsibility.  Imagine your terrible remorse if
anything happened to Mademoiselle."\par

"The same things might just as well happen to me
if I left this minute," protested Minnie, determined to
fight for her cause.  "The steamer might be captured
by the Germans, England might be invaded.  Of
course, I hope it won't, but my brothers say the
government have never bothered to prepare for this.  I may
not even be able to reach home.  Father Constantine
could not get to his cure at that place with the
unpronounceable name.  And it's lots nearer than England."\par

"That's true," agreed the Countess, who knew all
about her chaplain's dread of heretics.  Besides, she
was loth to lose Minnie.  Apart from her affection for
the girl and her reluctance to send her off on a long
journey, dark with unknown perils, she thought of
Ian.  Supposing they were burned out of house and
home, as seemed more than likely, it would be a
comfort to her to know that he could settle in England
with Minnie to look after him till, one vague day, the
Germans were beaten.  She told herself that she would
never survive the ruin of her home.  It was almost
as great a part of her existence as Ian himself.  No:
she did not want to part with Minnie; Minnie would
look after him when she was no more.  She smiled
across at Father Constantine.\par

"You see," she said, "we can always send her away
when danger is really near.  In the meantime, let us
wait till the trains are running again."\par

Here Ian intervened.  He had been questioning the
Jew about Kalisz, without getting any clear statements
from his poor, muddled brain.\par

"We can't let Minnie run such risks.  It's bad
enough for us Poles, who live in a country which is
always a charnel house when war comes.  But why
should she get mixed up in it?"\par

Minnie's heart sank.  He was so very matter of fact.
But she would not give in.\par

"Why?  For lots of reasons.  I'd be all alone if I
did reach home.  You know the boys will be fighting."\par

"England hasn't declared war yet," said Father
Constantine, handing his sausages over to Zosia.  He
had just remembered they were in his lap.  "She may
remain neutral."\par

"She won't!" cried Minnie hotly.  "If that were
possible I'd change my nationality!"\par

Father Constantine made a hopeless little gesture
and let Zosia help him off with his execrable dust-cloak,
watching the Countess furtively the while.  He
felt very much ashamed of having neglected to remove
it in the hall.  It was not only a breach of good
manners, but a sign of his extreme agitation.\par

"Take it away at once!" he whispered to poor Zosia.
She went off with it and the sausages, to weep on the
ample bosom of old Barysia, Ian's long-since-pensioned
nurse.\par

Thinking she had settled the priest, Minnie turned
to her host.\par

"If you go away to fight with the Russians I mean
to look after the Countess--and don't imagine I'm
going to leave Poland and my Polish friends just
because you're all in trouble!"\par

This touched them all, even the priest.  The
Countess was won over before, but Ian still meant to get
her away that evening.  Vanda would stop with his
mother.  The only feeling he had for Minnie just then
was fear her brothers would blame him for keeping her.\par

The matter was partially settled by a couple of
young Russians, whom a servant announced as waiting
for Ian in the library.  He hurried out to see them
and did not return for some time.  The others eagerly
asked his news.\par

"It's true about Kalisz," he said.  "But the Russians
are sending troops up there as fast as they can.
Incidentally, they are requisitioning all the cars and most
of my horses."\par

"Cars!  Then no Warsaw for me to-night," said Minnie.\par

Ian gave her an odd look.  She rather annoyed him
that morning, he knew not why.\par

"No," he retorted.  "And you don't seem to wonder
how I'm going to get in the crops if all my men are
called to the colors and my cattle are taken off."\par

"Oh, I didn't think of that," she said, repentant.\par

"Well, I must get back.  Mother, we'll have to have
these two young Russians to lunch.  They're not very
presentable ... but it's war-time."\par

He hurried put, leaving Minnie in contrition.  She
had ruffled him when she wanted to please him above
all things.  Father Constantine could not believe his
ears.  Social intercourse between Russians and Poles
was exceedingly restricted.  A few tufthunters and the
descendants of those men who had winked at Russia's
share in Poland's three partitions kept up a certain
amount of relationship with the Russian Government;
went to the official receptions given by the Governor
General of Warsaw, who was also Commander of the
troops stationed in Poland.  Whilst in office he was
lodged at the Royal Palace in Warsaw, once the winter
home of Poland's kings.  But these were the very few,
as few were the members of old Polish families who
had charges at the Imperial Court of Russia.  The
vast majority of Poles, rich and poor, aristocratic and
humble, lived their lives apart from the Russian
Bureaucrats in their midst, who fattened on the country,
reaping a harvest in peculation, drawing extra pay
whilst there, on the lying legend that they carried their
lives in their hands and slept with revolvers under
their pillows for fear Polish insurgents should murder
them in the night.  They knew perfectly well that the
Poles had long since ceased to dream of independence
won by rebellion; that they had learned the lessons
of eighteen sixty-three and four.  But they made
alarming reports to St. Petersburg to enhance the value
of their own services.  The Poles knew that, at least
for the time being, their one way of resisting
Russification was to develop the agricultural and commercial
resources of their country as much as possible, despite
their conqueror's efforts; to preserve their native
customs in spite of persecution; to teach their native
language despite restriction and to cling to their national
faith despite persecution from the Holy Synod and the
indifference of Rome, who looked with dread upon
Russia and dared not protest.  But since the Russians
in their midst were there to suppress all signs of their
national life, the Poles shunned intercourse with them
as much as possible; those who did not were marked
men.  Ruvno had never shown the least inclination
to mix with Russians.  Both Ian and his father before
him declined a charge at the Imperial Court; it was
an unwritten law in the family, as in so many others,
that whilst the men had to learn a little Russian in
order to transact necessary business, the women must
not know a word.  This rule has done more to preserve
the Polish language in humble homes and in great than
anything else.\par

So you can understand Father Constantine's surprise
when he heard Ian say that two Muscovites, as they
are generally called in Poland, were to sit at his
patron's table.  Nobody had fought harder, in his
modest way, against the Russification of his country
than the old priest.  He was apt to see but Russian
faults, just as the Russians had eyes only for Polish
shortcomings.  Had such a thing happened a week ago
he would have expressed his displeasure at the sudden
crumbling up of Ruvno traditions and excused himself
from the meal.  But he thought things over for a
minute and remarked to the silent room:\par

"Well, the Russians are fighting on the right side
{\itshape{this}} time."\par

In his tone and the gesture of his thin hands were
much eloquence, and a hint that he had wiped his
account against Russia off the slate; that the sufferings
of Siberian exile were to rankle no more.  From that
day forth they never heard him say a hard word
against Russians, never caught him speaking of them
as Muscovites, a term of hatred and contempt, but as
Russians, children of the big land of Rus, fighting in a
big struggle for the good cause of humanity.\par

The Countess said nothing for a moment.  She had
always avoided Russians, knew nothing of their
language, treated those whom evil chance threw in her
way with dignified civility, which was meant to make
them feel that they were barbarians and she of an old
civilization.  But she was ready to call Russia an
acquaintance, a possible friend in the near future, if they
only kept their word to fight the Prussians who were
killing defenseless women and children in Kalisz and
Belgium.  Ian had described the two visitors as "not
very presentable."  She knew what he meant.  She had
seen dozens of Russian officers who were not presentable,
in the streets of Warsaw and Plock; at the races,
at restaurants, in trains.  They were noisy and none
too clean; they spoke nothing but Russian and probably
put their knives in their mouths.  They would smell
of pitch.  She never quite understood why Russians
of this type smelt of pitch, but the fact remained.  Ian
said it was something to do with the tanning of their
shoe-leather.  Perhaps it was.  Anyway, it was not
quite the kind of smell she cared to have at her table
or in her sitting-room.  And yes, they would expect
some of the strong, raw vodka which peasants drink.
However, she had always been ready to take a sporting
chance on the sudden events of life, and said cheerfully:\par

"I expect we shall have more of them before the war
is over.  So the sooner you and I pick up a few Russian
words, Vanda, the better for us."\par

Vanda did not answer.  She was thinking of Joseph,
who had gone to fight with the race that had violated
Belgium and slaughtered the children of Kalisz.\par

Minnie only nodded.  Her thoughts were for Ian.
She felt she had said too much that morning and was
regretting it.\par

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\vs{2}
{\noindent}
No need to dwell upon Ian's efforts to enlist as a
volunteer in the Tsar's army.  Thousands and
thousands of loyal Britons were being snubbed
by their own government in the same way just then.
Briton's rulers had even less excuse for their behavior
than Russia, who at least had a large standing army to
draw upon.\par

Russia needed no men, he was told.  Perhaps, after
many years, she would call on men over thirty to help
her.  But then, the war would be over in a few months.
After being refused by the officer in charge of the
military dépôt at Kutno, he went to Warsaw, hoping to
find Roman, who knew a few Russians and might help
him.  But he learned at the Hotel Europe that the
impetuous young man had left for St. Petersburg
several days ago and omitted to say when he was coming
back.  Ian soon found out that his only chance of
fighting would be with the Cossacks, to whom they
were sending volunteers for the cavalry.  To those
whom he begged for admission he pointed out that he
could ride straight and shoot straight, was sound as
a nut and willing to do anything.  One grizzled old
Cossack colonel, reared on mare's milk, bred in the
saddle, with not a spare ounce of flesh on his bones,
gave his ample figure a keen and contemptuous glance.\par

"To the devil with riding gentlemen squires!" were
his words, spoken in that strange Russian of the Don;
but his tone said: "To the devil with all Poles!"  He
repeated his glance and asked:\par

"Can you ride without your saddle now?"\par

"I can."\par

"And without your bridle?"\par

"Yes."\par

The gruff warrior sought his eyes, which firmly met
the gaze and with hostility, too; none have hated one
another more bitterly for centuries than Pole and
Cossack.\par

"And spring on the mare's back when she's galloping?"\par

"I've not done that lately," admitted the squire.\par

"H'm.  I thought not from your belly.  You can
shoot, you say.  Bears, perhaps?"\par

"Bears, yes.  And quail on the wing.  And wild
fowl at dawn.  And men, too, when they insult me,"
retorted Ian, his temper fast slipping out of control.\par

The Cossack grinned.  This sort of talk he liked.
He had wondered whether the Pole would give as good
as he got.  His manner thawed slightly, as he said:\par

"Well, you've the pigeon-colored eyes of men who
shoot straight.  But you're too fat for a Cossack, and
too old."\par

"You're fifty if you're a day," said Ian.\par

"Wrong for you.  I'm only forty-five.  But I've had
a hard life, which I'm used to.  You, my gentleman,
have always had a soft bed to sleep on and rich food
to feed on.  That's why your stomach is too big for
your years."\par

Ian suddenly felt very much ashamed of his spare
flesh.  Over and over again he had promised himself
he would go to Marienbad and get rid of it.  But that
was out of the question now.  So he said eagerly:\par

"I'll get thin soon enough campaigning.  Look here,
Colonel, you and I bear no love to one another.  We've
a good many old scores to pay off."\par

"You're right about that," admitted the other with
a grin.  "And the fault's not always been on the
Cossack side, either."\par

"But just now we've got to beat the Prussians,"
argued Ian.  "And you'll want all the men you can get
to do it.  I've been in their country and know it."\par

The Cossack gave a hoarse guffaw.\par

"Russia has enough sons to beat the world," he cried.
"We'll be in Berlin before the New Year and I'll
promise you my men won't leave much of their fine
shops and their light beer.  And on my way I'll call in
on your house and give you some loot to prove it.
Meanwhile, do you go home and look after your lady
mother and your peasants."\par

This, delivered in the various accents of the Holy
Russian Empire, and in varying tones, according to the
state of culture of the particular officer who gave it,
was the answer which greeted Ian everywhere he went.
He was too old and too heavy.  Bitter thought, when
he felt young, strong, enthusiastic and capable as any
Cossack of holding his own with horse and gun.  There
were, he was told, plenty of younger, fitter men than
he.  The Prussians would be utterly destroyed without
his help.  His grain, his horses and his peasants were
worth more than his blood.\par

This was the result of two days' begging, waiting
in ante-rooms, listening to more or less personal
remarks, rubbing shoulders with men who were his
enemies of centuries and who were, he thought, childishly
optimistic about the war.  As he told the Cossack
of the Don, he knew Prussia.  And he dreaded to think
of how many towns would be captured, how many
women and children butchered, before Berlin loot
found its way to Ruvno....\par

There was nothing to be done but go home and
follow the old colonel's advice.  No need to add that
everybody in Ruvno, and the women especially,
welcomed him with fervor and relief.  He made preparations
for the war, laying in a large stock of grain,
potatoes and other provisions which would keep.  He
feared a food shortage before long.  Ruvno had good
cellars, vaulted and spacious.  They had been built in a
time when people quarreled with their neighbors even
more violently than they do nowadays, and laid siege
to one another's houses.  They were swept and aired
under Zosia's and Martin's supervision.  Then Ian had
most of his stores bricked up in them, as his forbears
did with their good wines, entering the list in their
cellar-book and only opening the best vintage for
weddings, christenings, funerals or the celebration of some
great victory, according to the period of history.  The
Ruvno cellar-book went back to 1539, and he was very
proud of it.\par

He worked hard during these days of preparation,
seeking to relieve the smart of refusal.  Too old and
too fat; what a thing to have on his mind!  He
confided his feelings to nobody, not even to the Countess,
who was busy housing refugees and improvising a
hospital.  Minnie he had forgotten; Vanda he avoided.
Between them rose the figure of Joseph, in his
Prussian helmet and gray service coat.  {\itshape{He}} was with their
enemies.  Both felt the moment must come when they
would open their passionate thoughts to each other
about him; and both tacitly postponed it.  Meanwhile,
Vanda helped her aunt and Minnie to prepare wards
and nurseries for the wounded and homeless.\par

He kept several people busy for the next few days,
getting in his supplies from his various farms and
entering them, not in the old cellar-book, but on a
piece of strong paper, showing exactly how the household
could reach various stores bricked up in different
parts of the cellars, which covered as much ground
as the big rambling house itself.\par

This done, he had to decide where to hide the list,
so that, supposing Muscovites or Prussians made
search for food, they would not find it.  For he had
little confidence in Russian troops either.  A hungry
warrior has no scruples as to whom he robs.
Experience had taught him that, of the two kinds of
oppression against his race, the Prussian was worse
than the Russian; it had more method, persistency and
callousness, beating anything the Russian could do,
because the Russian is not orderly, nor has he a long
memory.  Ian knew, too, what rumors were afloat;
that petty Russian bureaucrats were saying that the
Poles would side with the invaders and Polish recruits
refuse to fight.  Such talk, though a tissue of lies,
might put Russian troops against Polish houses.  So
he made up his mind to hide the food list and
... his family jewels.  He wanted to send the latter to
Moscow with the plate and pictures; but his mother
refused to let them go.\par

"We may want them," she argued.  "I hope we
sha'n't; but you never know.  They will enable us to
live and to help others live for the rest of our lives
if we have to bolt."\par

Ian had never thought of the possibility of leaving
Ruvno.  Privately, he meant to stop there even if the
Germans came.  Only thus would he be able to save
his property.  He had already heard enough tales of
the neighborhood to know that an empty house is soon
a smoking ruin and an abandoned farm appropriated
by somebody else.  He would send his mother and
Vanda away and see things through alone.  Minnie
he would get rid of beforehand.  But there was no
reason why he should not humor his mother in this
matter of the jewels.  Time enough to tell the truth
when real danger came.  So he said nothing.  Father
Constantine suggested putting them in the chapel,
under a stone which they would take out of the floor
and replace so that nobody would be any the wiser.\par

"Prussians don't respect churches," said the Countess.\par

"And suppose the chapel should get burnt," remarked Vanda.\par

Father Constantine shuddered at the thought.  He
loved the little chapel better than any part of Poland,
and this is saying a great deal.\par

"The only place is where everybody goes," said Vanda.\par

"The horse pond," suggested Ian jokingly.\par

"Yes," she rejoined seriously, "I vote for the horse pond."\par

"And ruin the jewels," protested her aunt.\par

"Vanda is right," said Ian.  "All the soldiers who
come use the horse pond.  They won't think of looking
for loot there.  We should have to dig on the side
furthest from the paddock wall, as that may be destroyed."\par

"Yes," said Vanda, "something like that."\par

"A brilliant idea," said Ian, "but it has a great
drawback."\par

"Which is?"\par

"How are you going to dig it up if we want to
bolt?  All the soldiers in the place would see and
there's an end to the jewels."\par

Nobody said anything for a moment; they were
floored.  Father Constantine spoke first.\par

"There is the high-road," he said in a detached way
he had.\par

"Well?" said Ian.\par

"The troops won't make trenches in that, because
it forms one of the lines of communication between
Warsaw and Prussia.  If we make a hole, lined with
cement and moss, put some sausages over the jewels,
with hard earth between, they ought to be safe.  For
anybody who found the sausages wouldn't go further
down.  We mustn't choose a spot near trees, for they
will get felled and the ground torn up around them."\par

"There are two versts without trees, after you pass
the windmills," said Vanda.\par

"And no peasants about to pry on you," added Ian.\par

So the Ruvno jewels were taken out of their caskets
and sewn into waterproof bags.  The girls helped the
Countess to make them, for none of the servants, not
even Martin, the old butler, knew anything of the plan.
He was to be trusted, but Ian and his mother agreed
it was better not to let him know; he could then quite
truthfully spread the report that the jewels had gone
with the plate.  For so he and the upper servants were
told.  In the washleather bags they put very fine
sawdust, too.\par

Ian and the old priest dug the hole and lined it with
cement, taking advantage of the bright moon to do
it.  Then the jewels were put in.  They had a
discussion about putting pearls there, but could not ask
an expert, being cut off from Warsaw again.  Ian
said the damp might spoil them; his mother that she
would rather the damp had them than think they were
round the fat neck of some German {\itshape{frau}}; so they
made the bag as thick as possible and put the most
valuable pearls into a small thermos flask which Ian
found among his hunting tackle.  You must remember
that the nearest jeweler's shop was twenty versts from
Ruvno and might have been a thousand for all the
good it was, since the Germans were there and the
Russian troops between it and them.  So they had to
manage with the primitive things they found at home.
Besides, as Father Constantine said, their object was
to have the stones packed in as small a compass as
possible, because if they wanted them at all during
the war it would be to escape with.\par

Whilst preparing one hole they decided it would be
better to divide the treasure into two parts, so that
if for some reason or other they could not safely
get to one they would have some chance with the
other.  So Ian and Father Constantine set to work
on another hole, on the road to the east of the house,
whereas the first was on the west, for so goes the
road from Warsaw to Plovk, and thence follows the
river Vistula into Prussia.  They had to work quickly,
for the moon was on the wane, and they could not
be seen digging by the wayside at night.  Even as
it was, they were often interrupted by troops and
supplies passing.  One night, just as they were about
to cement the second hole, a {\itshape{sotnia}} of Cossacks took
it into their heads to bivouac near the secret spot, so
they hastily covered it up and slunk home again,
carrying the little sack of cement on their backs.
They looked back and saw two Cossacks searching on
the very spot where they had been working.  This
showed how careful they must be.  At last, however,
the two holes were filled with straw and moss, then
the bags with the jewels, with earth beaten down,
potatoes, sausages and more loose rubbish.  The
jewels were well at the bottom and several layers
away from the food.  This done, the women were
taken--after dark--to the spots until they knew
exactly where to find the treasure; and each learned by
heart how many paces one hole was from the ditch
and the other from the bend in the road that came a
few hundred yards after you passed the windmill.
{\itshape{That}} has been shot down long ago; but they had all
passed the place and visited the spot so often that
they could find the treasure blindfolded.  The two
men covered up the tops so well that none could tell
the ground had been disturbed twenty-four hours
after they had finished.\par

So much for the jewels.  They now had to find a
place for the little plan that would enable them to
get food supplies.  There was not so much secrecy
about this, there could not be, for both the butler
and housekeeper had to know where to get things.
By this time they had heard quite enough about the
soldiers to be sure that if they were hungry and
thought there was food about they would try to get
it.  But the Grand Duke Nicolai Nicolawitch had his
troops well in hand; only the Prussians ordered their
men to loot as much as they pleased; and who could
tell how soon they might come?\par

Ian had ordered a good stock of foodstuffs to be
left in the huge storeroom, to satisfy any looters that
that was all they had.  If that went, they could fall
back on bricked-up supplies; if it were let alone, so
much the better.  But the stores in the cellar had been
bricked up in six different parts; the place underneath
the house was a labyrinth of passages and small
cellars.  Ian was for destroying the written list when
they had learnt the geography of the food, and knew
the Prussians were upon them.  Till then, it might
be kept in the chapel; for they knew that the Russians,
even the most savage of the Cossacks, would respect
holy ground.  Vanda said nothing, but learnt the
contents off by heart, going down into the cellars with
Zosia and Martin, plan in hand, till they all three soon
knew where everything was bricked up.  This set
Minnie to work, for Vanda, who seemed to her
childish in far-off days of peace, had developed
nowadays.  Little by little she, too, learned the mystery
of the cellars; so another detail, and a most important
one, as things turned out, was mastered.  In the
storeroom were lists of the food put there, nailed inside
the huge cupboards and headed: "Complete List of
Foodstuffs in Hand."  This little trick was an idea
of Ian's.  Later on, when it seemed certain they could
not escape a visit from William's troops, he had the
old Tokay unbricked and put in one of the open
cellars.  Minnie asked him why he was going to give
them such good wine.\par

"Because they know it is here," he answered.  "I
don't want them to set about looking for it.  Some
old German professor called once with introductions
and asked if he might see the cellar-book.  Like an
ass, I let him.  His essay came out in some German
review with extracts from my cellar-book."\par

Meanwhile, all the able-bodied men, except only
sons and supporters of widows, had been called to
the colors.  Before going off, the men trooped into
the hall, kissed the Countess' hand and had her
blessing and her promise that neither wife nor child should
want so long as Ruvno could help them.  And Father
Constantine, who had taught them all their catechism
and their prayers, said a prayer.  And then they
marched away, singing hymns which have been heard
on every battlefield in which Poles took part since
Christianity came into Poland, and swinging their
sturdy arms; for so the Russians teach their soldiers
to march....\par

They went down the shady avenue and along the
hot, dusty road to the dépôt, five miles off.  And
at their head rode Ian and Father Constantine, to
give them a send-off.  Long after they were out of
sight the three women could hear their voices, the
men singing in unison, and the wives or sweethearts,
who could keep up with them by running alongside,
chiming in with their shrill tones; and Minnie thanked
God that Ian, if he was to die, would die with her
in his beloved Ruvno....\par

And as she watched them disappear into the fields
of death and glory a great sadness came over her;
for she knew that between yesterday and all the days
to come in her life lay a deep abyss; that life itself
would never be the same again; that a scale of
pleasant illusions had fallen from her eyes and she
must now face hard, unwelcome facts and live a fuller,
sterner life than she had ever dreamed of; and the
thought that the old order had left them all, on this
great battlefield, forever, made her feel that she had
lost somebody very very dear to her; and so the tears
came into her eyes, though she tried very hard to
swallow them.\par

As the voices died in the distance, they heard a
long, dull roar.  She looked at the Countess, who was
fighting her tears, too.\par

"Heavy guns," she remarked.  "In the Kalisz
direction."\par

Their new life had begun.\par

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\vs{2}
{\noindent}
Father Constantine had never much
of an opinion about the Kaiser and his
eldest son.  A couple of years before the
war he was obliged to take a cure for his old
bones in a little town on the Baltic, where the
humble folk are still Poles and Catholics.  He looked
upon the Crown Prince's face many times, for the
Kaiser had banished him to the little town, where he
swaggered in his blue and silver uniform, leering at the
pretty women and sneering at the old ones.  And he
noted that those eyes were full of evil, though he little
dreamed it was God's will to give his wicked passions
play in Belgium and France.  All the Prussians in
that town used to cringe to him; but Father Constantine
took no notice, so that at last a Prussian subaltern,
in a gorgeous uniform like his master's stopped him
in the street and said he would be punished if he
continued to ignore the Crown Prince when he passed
him.  But the old man never did salute the Crown
Prince, because he knew how he and his father
persecuted little Polish children, having them flogged for
not saying their prayers in German, and dragging them
from the steps of the altar at their first communion, to
prison.  He told this to the gaudy officer, whose
Teutonic blue eyes blazed with rage.  He quite expected
to be arrested or at least taken back to the Russian
frontier by a couple of German policemen.  But
nothing happened: they left him alone.  But Father
Constantine thought they might meet again, for war brings
people together in a curious way; and if the Crown
Prince should come to Ruvno he was ready to tell
him what he thought of his evil actions, even if he
were hanged for it.  Once in his life, at least, said
Father Constantine, he should hear the truth about
himself, for he was always surrounded by parasites
and sycophants, who praised everything he did.\par

Father Constantine not only talked about these
things but set them in his diary; his old head could
not keep its thoughts on one thing, even on paper, and
he found how hard it was to pick out the most
important things he had seen in two months' war, having
learned the habit of wandering on in his diary about
all kinds of matters.  But he felt lonely without it;
and hoped, too, that one day he might be the humble
means of telling the world what happened in a country
house in Poland during the Great War.  Besides, he
argued, when some foreigner realizes what Poland
bears, he, whether he were French, English or
American, would understand that Poland, having endured so
much, must be saved, because it is against the laws of
God and man to tear a country into three parts and
put each under foreign domination, making father
fight against son, brother against brother.\par

Ever since Ian and he had left the Ruvno men at
the Kutno dépôt, he had heard the ceaseless roar of
heavy guns day and night.  By night he saw them
flash around when walking out by the windmill for a
little fresh air after leaving the wards.  He saw the
come and go of large armies and small detachments,
of baggage trains, artillery, field hospitals, of war
accessories whose very names he ignored but which he
declared Beelzebub alone could have conceived.  The
Countess had given rest, shelter and food to Cossacks
of the Urals, who think horse flesh better than capon,
and to wild Siberians, who look as shaggy as their
little horses and who are infidels, but whom no
hardships can dishearten.  They slept outside, or in the
farm stables.  And a pretty mess they made.  Poor
Ian used strong words when he saw what the first
batch had done; but he grew used to it.  In the house
they had fops of the Imperial Bodyguard, who threw
away the soft life of Petrograd, a very wicked city, so
the priest said, to sleep in ditches and eat tinned meat.
And they were quite cheerful about it, for some came
back wounded, and the old priest talked to them.  It
shocked him to rub shoulders with all these Russians
at first.  But they were friendly and would vow with
strange oaths that Poland must regain her liberty after
the war.  Sometimes he wondered if he would be there
to see that glorious day, or if Ruvno would be standing
by then.  Even now, poor Ian was half ruined, after
only two months of war.  His forests, once the pride
of Ruvno, had either been cut down for military
purposes or burned by shell fire.  So far, those near the
house were spared; but they were not of great value;
it broke his heart to see the stumps and scorched
trunks for versts around, and the priest's, too.  He
had watched some of these forests being planted, years
before Ian was born or thought of.  They had been
tended with great care and grew into the best timber
in that part of Poland.  Even the Tsar's forests, which
began near Ruvno's boundary, were no better.  One
morning, an old Jewish factor who used to do errands
for the house when there was a town they could send
to, came up--God knows how these Jews got about--and
told them that the Prussians had cut down two
hundred square versts of the Tsar's forest land north
of Plock and sent the lumber down the Vistula into
Prussia.  Ian expected they would do the same with
his property when they had the chance.\par

The autumn crops, especially potatoes, suffered
terribly from the movements of so many troops, though
Ian had to own that the Grand Duke saw that they
were spared as much as possible.  But even he could
not be everywhere at once, nor think of an acre of
sugar beet when he wanted to drive back the Prussians.
Father Constantine dreaded the Cossacks.  He
saw them at work in 1863, though he had no record
of it in his diary, because they burned down his home
and all it contained in the spring of 1864.
However, these were old doings, and many Russians who
passed through Ruvno told him they regretted what
happened then as deeply as he did.  Ian managed to
gather in a good deal of the Ruvno grain, but the
peasants in most of the villages round had not enough
potatoes to keep body and soul together during the
winter.\par

One afternoon late in September, the priest was in
the home-forest burying a Polish sapper who had died
of wounds the night before.  He had just planted the
wooden Cross in the sapper's grave when he saw a big,
dirty Cossack coming towards him.  This man had
a reddish beard, his shaggy cap and high boots smelt
of earth, pitch and a rough life.  He had seen many
like him and knew the look of a man who has been
fighting from that of one who is only going to fight.
He could not define the difference, but it was there,
stamped in their faces.  Mud stuck to him, though it
was not the mud which said this Cossack had come
from the battle line.  What with dirt and sunburn he
was as black as the pieces of oak Ian had pulled from
the river, where it lay for centuries, to make house
wainscot of.\par

"Good-day, priest," he began.  Father Constantine
noted that he had the good manners to speak Polish.\par

"Good-day, my son."  His merry eyes belied his
savage-looking red beard.  There was something
familiar about him, too.  "I've seen you before; but
where?"\par

"Ah--where?" he guffawed, and sat on the grave,
thereby smoothing the parts that lazy Vitold had left
all knobbed.  Father Constantine felt for his glasses,
remembered that he had left them on the window-sill
in the sacristy, and peered at the new-comer helplessly.
If any man had told him three months earlier, that he
would be quietly watching a Cossack seated on a Catholic's
grave and splitting his sides, Father Constantine
would have called that man a liar.  But war, as he
admitted, changes even an old man's point of view,
especially if he happen to be in the thick of it.\par

"If you have something to laugh at, tell it me," he
said, tired of seeing the stranger enjoy a joke he knew
nothing of.\par

"Laugh!" he cried.  "Why, I could laugh for a
week, just to see Ruvno again.  And you not knowing
me, after all the wallopings you've given me, too."\par

This made Father Constantine think.  He did thrash
a Cossack once, but it was in 1863, and this man was
young.\par

"Not in 1863?" he asked doubtfully.\par

"No--more like '93," and the Cossack laughed again.\par

"I've only walloped village boys lately.  And we'd
no Cossacks in these parts before the war."\par

"How about Ian?" he asked.\par

"Count Ian, you mean," said the Father with
dignity.  He hated these democratic ways the Russian
soldiers had of saying "thee" and "thou" to everybody.\par

"And Roman Skarbek," he went on, unabashed.\par

"Skarbek?"\par

"Don't you remember how you walloped us when
we ate up all the cherries Aunt Natalie's housekeeper
had thrown out of the vodka bottle?  Lord, how drunk
we were!" and he grinned, being tired of laughing, I
suppose.\par

Then the priest remembered the story and recognized
him.  It was Roman Skarbek himself, the young
man who won a fortune at Monte Carlo but could not
win Vanda.\par

"What do you mean, coming here dressed like a
savage?" he asked angrily, for it annoyed him that
the trick had succeeded, all through his having left
his glasses in the sacristy.  "Don't you know what's
due to a Pole and a Christian?"\par

"Aren't Cossacks Christians?" retorted Roman in
that pleasant way which always made the Father forgive
his boyish deviltries sooner that he ought.  "Come,
Father, be just."\par

"Well," he admitted, "some of them are.  But why
be a Cossack when you can help it?"\par

"Can't help it.  Being a volunteer, they made me a Cossack."\par

"Before this war I detested the very sight of their
tall caps and with good reason," said the Father.  "But
such is the power of Prussian brutality that Poles now
fight side by side with wild children of the steppes to
drive the soldier of the anti-Christ out of our country.
Where have you been?"\par

"In Masuria," and Roman told him some of his
experiences, adding that he had come to Ruvno with
Rennenkampf, for a few hours.\par

"Well, I'm glad you've killed a few Germans.  But
you had better cut off that red beard before you go to
the Countess."\par

As he got on his feet the priest was glad to see he
had finished Vitold's work with the sods.  He liked
the graves to look neat.\par

"Aunt won't mind the beard.  Let's go to her."\par

He whistled to his horse, which was browsing near
by, and walked towards the house.  He asked about
Vanda, whether she was anxious for Joseph, how she
looked, what she was doing.  The priest answered
truthfully, though it made him sorry to see the shadow
come into Roman's face when he realized that she
thought still of Joseph with great love.\par

"And yet, she hates the Prussians, and he is fighting
with them, I suppose," he remarked, hotly.\par

The Father, almost as hotly, explained that, as he
knew, several thousands more Poles were with the
Prussian armies, through no fault of their own but
because they had the bad fortune to be German and
Austrian subjects.  Roman agreed that many could
not cut away from Germany, but Joseph had gone
back when ordered.\par

"Like one of the herd all Germans are," he added.\par

As they passed the windmill, that stood just before
you turn into the high road on the way to Ruvno from
the forest, Szmul, a Jewish factor, stopped them.  His
cunning eyes shone with excitement.\par

"Oh, have you heard that great things are happening
in Ruvno?" he cried, spreading out his hands in
the way Jews have and twisting his mouth about.\par

"What things?" asked the priest.  "Have they
driven the Prussians out of Kalisz?"\par

"No, the Prussians are still at Kalisz.  But the great
General Rennenkampf has deigned to come to Ruvno."\par

"We know that."\par

He looked disappointed, because he took pride in
carrying gossip from one village to another.  And the
Jews always knew the latest news and spread it like
wildfire.\par

"Anything more?" asked Roman.\par

Szmul made him a deep reverence.  You would have
thought this dirty-looking man in Cossack uniform
was the Grand Duke at least; but that was Szmul's way.\par

"Oh--yes, General," Szmul knew he was only a
lieutenant.  "And I'm sure neither of you know it."  He
threw his arms about, so Father Constantine told him
they were in a hurry.\par

"Well, look over there."  He pointed westwards,
where the blackened stumps of a forest bordered one
of Ian's fish-ponds.\par

"Well, there's nothing new there.  Be quick and tell
your news if you have any, for we're off to the house."\par

"Out there, by the fish-pond, they've caught a spy,"
he said importantly.  "He refuses to say who he is.
He was caught cutting wires, and burning the toes
of Jewish children."\par

"He may have been cutting wires but he wasn't
burning Jewish children's toes," said Father Constantine
sternly.  "The Prussians have sins enough on their
heads without you inventing more.  You know as
well as I do that there are no children, Jew or Catholic,
within two versts of those fish-ponds."\par

"But," he protested, "they have caught a spy, and
if he wasn't roasting the toes of Jewish children it's
only because he hadn't the chance.  I saw him being
taken into the big house, and they say His Excellency
General Rennenkampf is going to shoot him with his
own hands to-morrow morning.  He'd be shot now,
only they hope to find out more about the enemy if they
keep him a bit."\par

"Rennenkampf won't shoot him, but I hope to,"
said Roman as they passed on.\par

He and the priest parted outside the gates, one to
vespers, the other to seek the Countess and Ian.  Father
Constantine excused himself from the Countess' table
that evening; he preferred to eat in his room when
Great Russians were in the house.  Besides, he had
much to do and knew the General liked to sit over
his meals.  On his way to the Countess' boudoir, which
was used as an office in connection with the little
hospital, he met Roman again.\par

"That Jew was right, Father," he threw over his
shoulder.  "The spy is here, and my men are to have
the shooting of him to-morrow at daybreak."\par

Father Constantine had a busy hour with Ian's
agent, a surgeon and some refugees who came in from
a village ten versts off.  All these people now walked
in and out of the Countess' boudoir, once a sacred spot,
as if it were a mill.  He and the agent had disposed
of the last fugitive and he was going up to the wards
when a Russian corporal blundered in.\par

"What do you want in here?" he asked sharply.  It
annoyed him to see these louts use his patroness' room
as a passage.\par

He said something in Russian; Father Constantine
had made a point, all his life, not to speak that
language, but he understood that an officer upstairs had
asked for a priest.\par

"Tell him I'll see him to-morrow."\par

The man saluted, grinned and said:\par

"He will be dead to-morrow."\par

Then the priest remembered the spy they had caught:
it was he.  The wards would have to wait.  He sent
a message up to Vanda and told the soldier to take him
to the condemned man.\par

They made their way through the broad passages
and landings which were blocked with wounded
waiting for treatment, and up a winding stair which led
to the turret.  It was silent as the tomb till they
disturbed an owl and some rats, and almost as dark.
Father Constantine had not been up there since Ian
was a boy and kept pets which could not stop outside
in the winter.  He remembered one winter when
Roman and Joseph kept a young dog fox up there in
the hopes of taming it.  But it was never even friendly
and when the first signs of spring came through the
chinks of its prison, it gnawed the staple from its chain
and made off into the fields.  He felt glad that this
Prussian prisoner would not get away so easily.\par

Two sentries stood at the top.  They unlocked the
door at a sign from the corporal and let him into the
turret chamber.\par

It was small and dirty.  A straw mattress lay upon
the unswept floor; and some broken food.  An old
packing-case served as table.  A candle, thrust into
the neck of an empty champagne bottle, gave a feeble
light and aft air of sordid debauchery, out of keeping
with the place and circumstances.  The prisoner sat
on one end of the packing-case, his back to the door.
He was writing the last letter of his life, and so intent
that he took no notice of their entrance.\par

The priest dismissed his guide with a nod.  He
saluted, went out, and shut the door noisily after him:
and still the man did not turn round.  This was all
very well, but Father Constantine was wanted below,
in the wards, where others were under sentence of
death, though not at the hands of Rennenkampf.\par

"You asked for a priest," he began in his mother
tongue, though he knew German, too.\par

The prisoner rose and faced him.  As the old man
looked upon him his heart stood still in fear and his
knees shook.\par

"Mother of God!  Joseph Skarbek!" he gasped.\par

And he must die as a spy!\par

And his own brother was to shoot him!\par

These thoughts rushed across his brain.  They stood
looking at each other, both speechless.  Joseph
Skarbek, whom he had taught and scolded and loved with
Ian and Roman, who was to marry Vanda, had come
to Ruvno, not to claim his bride, but to spy.  When
he found tongue it was for reproach.\par

"How dare you come here like this?" he cried
angrily, because great fear always made him furious,
and he was aghast at the tragedy which had thus fallen
upon his dear ones.  His next thought was that none
of them, neither Roman, the Countess, Ian nor Vanda
must know this hideous secret, up in the turret
chamber.  He must find Rennenkampf, tell him the tale,
plead with him that this prisoner be shot, if die he
must, by another man's orders, and not Roman's.
There was no time to be lost.\par

"Wait," he said.  "I'll be back soon."\par

Joseph grasped his arm as he made for the door,
and he saw how haggard his face was and how wild
his eyes.  Calm, self-contained Joseph had vanished;
he was the incarnation of tragedy.\par

"For the love of God don't tell them," he muttered
huskily.\par

"I'm not mad."\par

"Then where are you going?"\par

"To the chapel--for the Sacred Vessels."\par

He hastily prayed God to forgive him for using
His Vessels to hide the truth; but could not tell the
boy the real reason for his sudden departure.  Outside,
he had to explain to the sentries, who said they
supposed it would be all right, only he must bring a
permit if he wanted to go into the room again.\par

It took him some time to find an officer, who said
that Rennenkampf had left Ruvno half an hour ago.\par

"But somebody must be in charge," he said, for the
place swarmed with troops.\par

"I am," he snapped.  He was a hard-faced, battered-looking
man, hated the Poles and believed every Catholic
priest a Jesuit, bent on his neighbor's destruction
for the benefit of his Order.  Father Constantine stated
his case, after he had promised to respect the
confidence.  He yawned through most of the story; but
when he heard that Roman Skarbek had been ordered
to shoot his own brother, his narrow eyes flashed with rage.\par

"A Pole has no business to fight against us!" he
cried.\par

"Colonel, there are several million Poles in Germany
and Austria not through any fault of..."\par

He stamped his feet.\par

"Don't argue, priest!  I won't have it.  This Polish
Count could have blown his brains out when they told
him to fight us--and spy on us.  I'll make an example
of him.  Eh, God, I will!"\par

"You gave me your word of honor to respect my
secret," said the other, looking into the depths of his
narrow eyes till he had to drop them.  He thought
for a moment.\par

"True," he growled.  "I did give you my honorable
word.  But I will not cancel General Rennenkampf's
order.  This young volunteer will take his men out to
shoot his traitor brother.  It will be a lesson to him,
and to all Poles."\par

And all eloquence was without avail, though Father
Constantine pleaded earnestly with him.  But war had
turned this already hard man into adamant.\par

"No and no, and yet once more no!" he said with
a calm that was worse than his rage.  He even
grumbled at a request for a pass to show the two guards;
but gave it at last.\par

As the priest left he met the Countess and she kept
him some time.  Then he had to go to the chapel.  As
he felt his way up the turret stairs, determined to stop
with Joseph till the end, he heard steps behind.
Somebody was coming up with an electric torch; he waited,
rather than bruise his shins in the dark.\par

"Who's there?"  His heart sank; it was Roman's voice.\par

"Go back!" he ordered.  "I forbid you to come up here."\par

But he came up, put his arm around the old man
and helped him up the stairs.  "I know all," he said.\par

"All about what?"--this hoping against hope that
Roman meant something else.\par

"About Joe, up in there."\par

"That narrow-eyed Muscovite told you.  I suppose
he scrupled not to break word to a priest."\par

The only thing left was to try and comfort these
poor brothers.  Whilst in the chapel, he had nursed
hopes of saving Roman from the agony of seeing
Joseph die.  Now, all was lost; his brain was in a
whirl and he felt, for the hundredth time since August,
that old age is a terrible thing when you want to help
the young and strong.\par

Roman went into the turret chamber first.  He did
not rush to his brother and weep; what he said was:\par

"You're writing to Her."\par

Joseph looked up at the familiar voice.\par

"Roman!" was all he said; but his haggard face
flushed from ear to ear.\par

"Yes."  He touched his Cossack's clothes.  "I am
on the other side."  And it seemed to the priest that
this impulsive and turbulent young man had put
Poland's greatest sorrow into those few simple
words--brother fighting against brother, flesh against flesh,
not of free will, but because a wicked old cynic called
Frederick and an ambitious German wanton who
usurped the Russian throne divided Poland between
them more than a century ago.\par

"On the other side," repeated Joseph bitterly.  He,
too, was suffering.\par

"Do you know what this is?" he asked, showing
them a square of dirty white doth sewn on to the
front of his tunic.\par

"No."\par

"The Prussian way of branding Polish conscripts.
Easier to shoot us if we try to desert."\par

"Such is the way of Prussians," said Father
Constantine.  They stood there looking at one another
as though they were three strangers at a loss for
something to say.  Father Constantine put the Sacred
Vessels on the floor and waited.  Joseph, he reflected, had
all night in which to make his peace with God, Who
understands these tribulations, and why they are laid
upon us.  As for himself, he felt very old and of small
account by the side of these stalwart boys, each worth
ten of a worn-out priest too infirm to fight, and fit
only to watch the young and the stalwart die before
their time.  Joseph spoke first; his thoughts still ran
upon Vanda.\par

"You'll be able to marry her now," he remarked
hoarsely.  "Make her happy."\par

"I'll do my best," said Roman.\par

At the time Father Constantine knew not what he
meant, for years dull the mind as well as the eye.  He
looked so peaceful despite the overhanging sorrow, that
he began to wonder if the boy thought the prize of
winning Vanda was worth all this.\par

Joseph took up his sheet of paper and tried to dry
the ink at the candle flame.  The priest noticed there
was a fresh wound on his wrist.\par

"Let me see your hand," he said.\par

"It doesn't matter--now."  He smiled nervously.
Then: "Do {\itshape{they}} know I'm here?"\par

"No," answered Roman.  "They must never know."\par

"Never."  Another pause: the candle scorched his
raw wound, and he muttered something.\par

"How did you know?" he asked Roman.\par

"Never mind how."  He went near his brother,
much reproach in his voice.  "Oh, why did you do it,
Joe?  What in the world induced you to put on this?"  He
tugged angrily at the Prussian uniform.\par

"Because there, in Germany, we were a herd ... and
I little thought what this war was going to be."  Then
he turned to the priest, lowering his voice.  "And
I know, too, in the bottom of my heart, that I went
with the herd because it seemed better to die fighting
than to be shot for not going on.  Oh, the misery of
it all!"\par

"My child, God is merciful."\par

"I have explained what I could, as clearly as I can,
here," he went on, more quietly.  "To Vanda."\par

"But explain it now, to me," his brother insisted.\par

Joseph sighed.  "It is too long and too late.  See
that she gets this without knowing I have been here."  He
swallowed a lump in his throat and went on: "I
did what I thought best."  He looked round the little
room, and his voice broke.  "To spend my last night
here, a prisoner, in Ian's house, so near her and yet
so..."  His voice refused to come.\par

Roman was pacing the floor in that impatient way
he had.  Suddenly he stopped, and said with decision:\par

"There's not a moment to lose!"\par

"I have the night before me," remarked Joseph,
looking first at the Sacred Vessels, then at the priest
"We must wait till midnight, in any case."\par

"I don't mean that," said Roman.  "You must
escape."  He had lowered his voice: they talked in
whispers now.  Joseph's eyes were alight with sudden hope.\par

"Yes, but how?" asked Father Constantine.\par

"We change clothes," answered Roman, and he
began to undress.  "You and the Father leave the room
together, Joe dressed in my things.  In the dark the
men won't know it isn't me.  Go down to the chapel
together."  He handed his high Russian boots to
Joseph, who was taking off his own, somewhat reluctantly.\par

"Well, but how about you?" he objected.\par

"Never mind me.  Father Constantine will hide you
in the chapel."\par

"I know of a place where nobody will think to look
for him," said the priest.\par

"But what are you going to do?" asked Joseph, still
at his first boot.\par

"Wait till the men outside have fallen asleep.  Then
I take off that Prussian uniform you've got on and
sneak past them.  I know every corner of this place,
which they don't."\par

Joseph was not satisfied.  "You'll be locked in,"
he objected.  Roman pulled out some nippers.\par

"I've got these.  The lock is old.  So hurry up, or
we'll have the men in, wondering why Father Constantine
is still here.  I wouldn't plan this if it wasn't safe."\par

Joseph obeyed.\par

"How long am I to keep him in the chapel?" asked
the priest.\par

"Till the rest of the Russians leave.  We're off at
dawn to-morrow.  Ian can keep him quiet in one of
the cellars for a day or two till the spy affair blows
over, then you must go and fight for us.  Promise?"\par

"I promise," answered Joseph.  Roman did not seem
satisfied.\par

"Swear it," he insisted, holding up his fingers.\par

Joseph swore; then they embraced, in the Polish way.\par

"That's right," said Roman, smiling and happy
again.  "I thought we'd find some way out of this
muddle."  He glanced at Father Constantine.  It took
some time to persuade Joseph that Roman would get
out all right.  Indeed, the priest, too, had fears about
it; guards, he said, sleep with their eyes open.  But
Roman was so enthusiastic and hopeful, so thoroughly
master of the situation that he inspired the others with
his optimism.  Besides, the priest knew he was
thinking of to-morrow morning; and the power of the
secret they shared overcame his objections.\par

They changed clothes at last, Joseph putting the
Cossack's cap well over his eyes.  Then they embraced
again.  Joseph began to talk of gratitude; but Roman
cut him short.\par

"I'll see you soon, I hope.  Meanwhile, marry Vanda
and fight for us."\par

"I will.  Oh, Roman, you're heaping coals of fire
on my head."\par

"Fiddlesticks!  Now, be off, and show a brazen face."\par

Roman had put on the Prussian clothes far quicker
than Joseph had taken them off, and before the others
left, threw himself on the straw mattress, his back to
the door.  The brothers were much the same height
and build, and Roman had shaved his red beard
before sitting down to supper with the Countess and
Rennenkampf that night.  His face was darker than
Joseph's, though he had washed; but the light was so
bad and the guards so indifferent and unsuspecting
that Father Constantine felt almost easy in his mind
when a sentry looked in as he let them out.\par

"He's got his passport," he remarked, nodding
towards the mattress.  "German swine."\par

He saluted Joseph, who strode downstairs, clanking
his spurs and carrying himself as straight as you please.
In one of the corridors they passed a cornet, who
called out to him; but he strode on, muttering
something between his teeth.  Father Constantine noticed
that the subaltern was going up to the turret.  After
his visit the sentries would probably doze.  Roman
knew what he was doing, anyway.\par

It was nearly three when, at last, the priest threw
himself into a chair in the sacristy.  He could not leave
the chapel precincts while Joseph lay hiding there.  Not
that he hoped to be any good, supposing that the
Russians took it into their heads to look there for their
quarry; but he felt he would be in a fever of
apprehension if he went to his rooms.  With some trouble
and many precautions he had managed to hide Joseph
under the altar of a side chapel, dedicated to the
Mother of God of Czenstochova.  The altar was there
temporarily, the Countess having ordered a marble one
last time she was in Rome; the war had stopped its
arrival, and only the other day she had said how sorry
she was not to get it sooner.  And now, it looked
as if the wooden altar was to save Joseph's life.  Its
back was hollow, and there he hid.\par

The priest could not sleep, tired though he felt.
His mind was full of trouble.  Suddenly, he
remembered that the narrow-eyed Muscovite knew the story
of Joseph's arrest and would suspect him when he
heard of the escape, would search the chapel.  But
then he comforted himself with the thought that even
{\itshape{he}} would not order his men to pull out an altar.  He
was not a Prussian.  After that, he began to worry
about Roman.  How could he get past those guards?
The more he thought about it the clearer it seemed
that he had run his head into certain danger.  Not
only would he be caught, but all his dear ones would
be dragged into the trouble; that Muscovite would
punish every inmate of Ruvno in his rage.  Such were
his thoughts as night gradually left the sacristy.\par

At last he fell into a troubled doze.  He was
awakened by the sound of musket shots coming through the
open window.  With vague fears he hurried into the
garden.  A young subaltern was enjoying the last of
the Countess' roses; all was quiet.\par

"Reminds me of Monte Carlo," he remarked.\par

"What were those shots?"\par

He turned his head towards a tall pine, where
smoke, blue in the air, still lingered.\par

"Only a German."  He plucked a large red rose,
heavy with dew, saluted and walked off, whistling.\par

With shaking knees the old man staggered to the
stretch of sward upon which Prince Mniszek killed
Ian's father, years ago.  Under the pine lay a huddled
form.  Somebody had thrown a blanket over it.  He
drew it aside and knelt before the body.  The film of
death had covered his eyes.  His wounds were
horrible.  But it was Roman, dressed in the Prussian
uniform, the one white patch of cloth stained with
blood....\par

Had he been caught?  Did he, when he sent Joseph
down, know that this was the only way to save him?
Or did the thought of Vanda's happiness urge his
sacrifice?  The priest remembered his anxiety that Joseph
should promise to fight against Prussia, his insistence
for a solemn oath.  Did he think that, since one of
them must die, better he, rather than the man Vanda
loved?  Who shall look into his heart, one of the
bravest and truest that ever beat?  Father Constantine
puzzled his brains many times, but found no answer.
And he could not ask anybody to help, because he
alone knew that Roman Skarbek, and no Prussian
spy, lay under the pine tree in the rose garden.\par

He never even found that subaltern, who must have
gone off while he was weeping over Roman's remains.
A couple of soldiers came up to take them away.  He
could not bear the thought of their burying him in a
ditch, wanted him to lie amongst the trees and the
other soldiers, where he had been the day before,
laughing and joyous because he found Ruvno safe
in the midst of the storm.\par

"Leave him to me.  He was a Catholic," he pleaded.
They looked at each other.\par

"We've orders to bury him."\par

"Then take him over there," he pointed to the home
forest.\par

"Too far," said one.  "We're off this minute."\par

As they dug a hasty grave for him he went for Holy
Water, and gave him Christian burial.  And much
later, when he could control his face, he told the
Countess that the German who had been shot in the
Garden was a Catholic; so they put up one of the
wooden Crosses such as you can see by the thousand
in Poland to-day.  And when there was nobody about
he used to pray for his soul.  And sometimes, in the
very early morning, he would take the portable altar
out there, and say a Mass for Roman Skarbek.\par

And because the burden of his secret was worse than
his heart could bear, he sat up all night when the
household thought him asleep and set it down in his diary.\par

\label{vi}%
\hypertarget{vi}{}%
{}

\vs{4}
{\noindent}
{\centering
{\Large\strut{VI}}
\endgraf}
\par


\vs{2}
{\noindent}
Ian, on waking that morning, found that all the
Cossacks had left.  He went in to breakfast,
feeling a little hurt with his cousin, Roman.  He
might at least have shouted a farewell through the
window.\par

"Has anybody seen Roman this morning?" he asked
the rest of the family as they met for the morning
meal.\par

"He came in last night for a moment, after supper,"
said the Countess.  "But I was going to the wards
and we did not talk.  He said some officer had sent
for him."\par

"He was going to shoot a spy at daybreak," said
Minnie.  Vanda was silent.  She had not seen him
at all, had kept away from the supper-table, on
purpose to avoid him.\par

At that moment Father Constantine came in.  His
face was ashen gray and distorted with emotion.\par

"What's the matter?" they all asked.\par

"Nothing.  That is..."  He could not speak.  Ian
made him sit down and went to a sideboard for
brandy, which he waved aside.\par

"Joseph Skarbek is here," he stammered.\par

"Roman, you mean?" suggested Ian.\par

He shook his head and said with sudden vigor:\par

"No--not Roman.  He..."  Then, with another
effort, painful to see, he added: "Roman went away
this morning."\par

They thought he was going to faint.  Ian loosened
his neckband, the Countess dipped her napkin in water
and dabbed his wrinkled face; Vanda made him drink
something.  Minnie stood near, watching and
listening.  He had enough people taking care of him;
besides, it took all her time to follow what was said.
They talked Polish; a habit of theirs whenever they
got excited or related thrilling experiences, so that
she had to concentrate all her energies upon listening
to them.  They were pained and puzzled over Father
Constantine, speculating as to what had happened to
upset him like this.\par

"He is overworked," was Vanda's verdict, "I'm
sure he's not been to bed last night.  Look how
rumpled he is."\par

He lay back in the chair, his eyes closed, his thin
hands, puckered with age and none too clean, closing
and unclosing on the chair arms.\par

"Worn out," said Ian, whilst his mother watched
her faithful chaplain with deep concern.  "I'll take
him into my room.  It's quiet there."  He proceeded
to do this; but the patient suddenly sat upright and
said peremptorily:\par

"Leave me alone!"\par

"But you must rest," explained the Countess, soothingly.\par

"Nonsense....  I was never better in my life."  They
exchanged glances; the poor old man was out of
his mind; never, in all the years he had been at Ruvno,
had he spoken to her like that.  Before they had
recovered from their astonishment he got up and
walked across the room, tottering a little, but more
sure of his step every minute.  They watched him in
silence and Ian, at least, stood spellbound.  This little
old man, with his creased alpaca soutane, muddy shoes
and unshaven chin, dominated the room.\par

He reached the door, which was a long way off,
just as one of the servants came in with coffee.\par

"Give me that!  And go away!" he ordered, taking
the tray from its astounded bearer.\par

"Do as the Father says," said Ian, hurrying to take
the heavy tray.\par

"Be off with you, quick!" repeated Father Constantine.
The man obeyed, filled with curiosity.  He
locked the door, and turned to Vanda, whispering
angrily:\par

"I tell you, Joseph Skarbek is in the chapel."\par

"Yes, yes," she agreed soothingly.  Her tone only
irritated him the more.  He stamped his foot.\par

"Not yes, yes--but give me something to eat for
him.  He's starving."\par

"But where is he?"\par

"In the chapel.  Behind the altar of the Mother of
God of Czestochova."\par

"Hiding?"  She was white as a sheet\par

"Of course."  He drew them in a circle, and went
on, very low: "Listen.  Yesterday, the Russians took
him prisoner."\par

"And he escaped?" asked Vanda.\par

"Rennenkampf said he must be shot...."\par

"What for?" she faltered.\par

"Mother of God, how should I know?  Don't keep
on interrupting."  He looked apprehensively at the
door, motioned to them to move further away from
it and the windows, and went on: now, he spoke
French, not for Minnie's benefit, but for secrecy.\par

"They were to shoot him this morning----"\par

Minnie, still watchful, saw Ian put his arm round
Vanda, who looked ready to faint; she felt a pang
of resentment.  How dare he, seeing Vanda was
betrothed to Joseph!  He said something encouraging
to her, but Minnie could not make out what it was.\par

"Last night," continued the priest, "a soldier came
for me to see a prisoner.  He takes me up to the
turret.  Imagine my horror, Countess, when I saw
it was Joseph."\par

"Oh--but he's safe?" sobbed Vanda.\par

"Yes.  He's safe."\par

"But how?" asked Minnie.\par

"Whilst I was talking to him in the turret, in comes
Roman."\par

"Roman?" they echoed.\par

"Yes."  He eyed Vanda.  "Roman is the best man
who ever lived.  He--he helped Joseph escape."  He
stopped, brushed away some tears with the back of
his hand, and sighed.\par

"But where is Roman now?" asked the Countess
anxiously.\par

"With his Master."\par

"With the General?" Ian asked.\par

Father Constantine nodded, blew his nose with
vigor, put his handkerchief away and went on more
calmly:\par

"Roman planned it all.  He changed clothes with
Joseph, who passed the door with me.  We reached
the chapel without seeing anybody but a young
subaltern who ... who saluted him.  I put him behind
the altar in the chapel of the Mother of God of
Czestochova.  Roman said he must stop there till the
General and all his soldiers leave Ruvno.  Then,
Joseph must volunteer for our side.  That is what
Roman said."\par

"They've all left!" said Vanda, breaking from Ian
and going over to the sideboard, where she hastily
piled food upon a plate, smiling and crying in turns
and taking no further interest in what the priest said.
The others were more interested in Roman.\par

"But how did Roman get out of the turret?" Ian
asked.  "Where is he?"\par

"I told you.  With the General."\par

"You're sure?" insisted the Countess, anxiously.\par

"Quite.  He picked the lock when the guards went
to sleep."  He turned to Ian.  "You remember that
lock, how weak it was?"\par

"But how did he get past the guards?" asked Ian,
to whom Roman's non-arrival of the evening before
was explained.\par

"I don't know.  But he managed it.  He is not a
child."  Father Constantine spoke peevishly.\par

"You've seen him since?" asked the Countess.\par

"Yes, Countess, I've seen him since."\par

"After he was free?"\par

"As free as air."  He leaned against the paneled
wall and put his hand to his head.  "I am very tired
... had no sleep ... and no food....  I am
getting old."\par

"You must come and rest now."  Ian put his arm
round the stooping shoulders.  The old man made no
further resistance.  He was dead-beat.\par

"But you must help me give him this," said Vanda,
holding up her plate of food.  Her face was radiant.
Joseph was safe, above all he would never fight with
Prussia again.\par

"Let Father take a mouthful first," said her aunt
reprovingly.  "Can't you see his condition?"\par

Vanda's heart smote her; she blushed and took
some food to the priest, who, however, could eat but
little.  All he needed was rest.\par

"The shock," he explained, seeing their anxious
faces.  "Joseph Skarbek ... up there..."\par

They would not let him go back to the chapel, but
Ian and Vanda, with infinite precaution, took the food
to Joseph.  Meanwhile, Minnie went to see the turret
chamber, which she knew only from the outside.  The
dark stairway was littered with rubbish left by the
soldiers.  The chamber door stood open, as if the
guards had rushed out of it in vain pursuit of their
prisoner.  She went in.\par

There were some dirty plates, and a straw pallet.
Her eyes searched the door and the blood rushed to
her face.  The lock was intact!  She examined it.
Far from being old and weak, it was quite strong;
indeed, it had been put on when Rennenkampf sent
Joseph up to await his death.  Roman had not escaped
that way: she was certain of it, the old priest had
hidden the truth.  She turned to the window, which
was only a slit in the wall, protected by a grating
of iron bars.  They, too, were firm and strong in the
stone work.  She looked out and saw a sheer drop of
eighty feet, into the moat below.  There was nothing
Roman could have held, even supposing he had
accomplished the impossible and squeezed himself
between those bars.\par

She thought it out rapidly.  The others, including
Ian, would be curious to see Joseph Skarbek's prison;
he would probably come up here himself.  As she
failed to see how Roman had escaped, since there
was no other exit, not even a chimney, she supposed
that they, too, would be as puzzled.  The priest, she
felt sure, knew exactly what had happened; but he
was not going to tell.  Why should she betray his
secret?\par

She went down to Martin, the old butler, and
borrowed some tools he kept in his pantry, then sneaked
up again and took off the lock and bolt.  The bolt
was rusty enough and looked as old as the room itself;
but it gave some trouble and she chipped her hands.
No prisoner could have taken them off the door
without waking the guards, because the bolt was on the
outside.  She only realized this when she had half
finished, for her nerves were upset.  Then she put the
bolt on again and threw the lock on to the pallet.\par

On her way back she saw the Countess, Vanda and
Ian on the large staircase.  They said they were off
to see how Roman had escaped, and would she go,
too.  The tools were under her white nursing apron,
and she was in no mood to discuss Joseph's adventure,
so she muttered an excuse and went to her room.\par

Why had she connived at keeping Father Constantine's
secret? she asked herself.  Did she want to
spare all the family the pain of knowing that the
door had been opened from the outside, or only Ian?
What had Vanda to do with her impulsive action?
During that morning, whilst working in the wards,
she searched her heart and found the answer.  She
had been jealous of Vanda for some time past.  She
felt, without knowing why, that Ian's coldness to
herself was connected in some way with Vanda's
presence in the house.  He had never been the same
since that day when the Jew brought news of the
Kalisz atrocities and she had refused to go home.
Where was Vanda to blame?  Ian apparently had no
more to say to his cousin than to his visitor; and yet,
she did blame the girl.  The sooner she married her
precious Joseph and went away, the better.  Perhaps
she would stop on at Ruvno, since Joseph, it appeared,
was to fight; but she would be married, and that
would make a difference.\par

Thus she explained to herself the lock-picking of
the morning; told herself {\itshape{she}} would have refused to
have anything more to do with Joseph under the
circumstances.  First, he fights for Prussia: then he
risks his brother's life, gives his brother's life, to save
his own skin.  And now as Vanda did not know that
Roman had given his life in exchange, offered it for
her happiness, she would marry Joseph.  And that is
what Minnie wanted her to do, with as little delay
as possible.\par

Ian, too, examined the door, and the lock that
Roman, so he thought, had picked and put on the
dirty pallet.  His mother asked what he made of the
business.\par

"Roman is worth a thousand Josephs," he answered
hotly.  "Think of the risk!  If the soldiers had shot
the bolt, he would have been lost."\par

"But he saved Joseph so that he might fight for the
right side," put in Vanda.\par

Their eyes met.  He had his own thoughts on the
matter, and his face was stern.  Instead of speaking,
he went out of the room.\par

He felt irritable.  Though work waited him below
he made for the old priest's room; he wanted to hear
how Roman had persuaded his brother to accept the
exchange.  His contempt for Joseph grew at every
step.  How was he to know the trick would succeed?
Yes: Joseph had left his brother in a trap, from which
he escaped by the skin of his teeth, because the guards
were too lazy to shoot the bolt.  And Roman had
done it for Vanda's sake.  He believed love meant
sacrifice and lived up to his belief.  How {\itshape{could}} Vanda
care for Joseph?  Ian was disappointed in her, thought
she had a juster sense of values.  How blind love
made women!\par

Father Constantine was asleep, and he had no
opportunity that day of talking about the adventure with
him.  And later on, even, Father Constantine was
very reticent about the scene in the turret chamber.
When questioned about it, he would shut his bright,
bird-like eyes, fold his thin hands together and say,
in a voice shaking with emotion:\par

"It was the most terrible evening of my life.  Let
us not talk of it."\par

"Roman will tell me," said Ian, loth to disturb the
old chaplain any more.  "He may be here any day."\par

But it was some time before any Cossacks stopped
at Ruvno, and when the first contingent rested there
for a few hours, they told Ian they knew nothing
of Roman's regiment, but thought it was fighting in
Galicia.\par

But Joseph's escape caused changes in the family,
all the same.\par

\label{vii}%
\hypertarget{vii}{}%
{}

\vs{4}
{\noindent}
{\centering
{\Large\strut{VII}}
\endgraf}
\par


\vs{2}
{\noindent}
The Ruvno family had finished supper.  There
were no servants in the room.  Father
Constantine was in bed, worn out with the excitement
of the night before; and Joseph was still lying
low.  Martin, the old butler, waited on him; none of
the other servants knew he was in the house.  All
they heard was that a Cossack officer who wished to
be quiet had been given the blue guest-room.  He had
a nasty wound in his hand; but Father Constantine,
who was something of a surgeon, said he could treat
it without calling in the Russian Red Cross doctor
who looked after the wounded.  So the four, the
Countess, Ian, Vanda and Minnie, were all alone in the
room.\par

Ian had been unusually taciturn during the simple
evening meal which replaced the elaborate dinners of
peaceful days, and after several attempts to make him
talk the others let him alone.  Somebody had brought
a batch of papers from Warsaw and he seemed to be
absorbed in them.  Minnie, whose intentions were
good, though unfortunate, began the trouble by saying
she supposed there would be a wedding soon.\par

Ian looked up at once.  He had been listening all
the time.  Minnie scented trouble, because of a gleam
in his eyes, and was sorry she had spoken.  But it
was too late now.\par

"Whose wedding?" he asked.\par

"Why, mine, of course," put in Vanda.\par

He thrust aside the paper and took a cigarette from
a large box at his mother's elbow, set it alight and
began to walk up and down the large room.  He
remained in shadow for several seconds; there was no
electric light in Ruvno and they were obliged to
economize in oil in these difficult times.  He passed
and repassed under the one lamp and they noticed
that each time he emerged out of the shadows he
looked graver, more determined to perform some
unpleasant task.  Vanda had grown as pale as when
the priest told her Joseph was sentenced to death.
Minnie, ever watchful, thought she had changed
greatly of late; she used to think her commonplace
and dull; but not now.  She, too, followed Ian with
her eyes.\par

At last he spoke.  And there was all the authority
of the head of the house in look, tone and manner.\par

"Vanda, you cannot marry him, now."\par

"Why?"\par

He stopped before her, the table between them, the
light shining on his large, well-shaped head.  He was
calm, his voice low; yet great emotion lay beneath.\par

"Why did Rennenkampf sentence him to death?"\par

You could have heard a pin drop in that vast room.
All knew the answer, but none had the courage to
give it, least of all Vanda, white to the lips, shaking
with nervous excitement.\par

"Think of it," said Ian, almost in a whisper.  "And
on Ruvno soil."\par

Quivering in every nerve, she sprang to her feet,
her face transformed by passion, indignation, a desire
to defend her absent lover.\par

"It is false!" she whispered hoarsely.  "I swear it
is false!  He never came to spy!  He came because
they were near; he wanted to see me.  His regiment
was ordered to France.  He could not bear to leave
without seeing me, without explaining.  He meant to
wait by the lake till nightfall, then creep nearer.  But
some Jews saw him and told a company of sappers,
who caught him.  How could he tell why he was
there, how could he get us in ill report with
Rennenkampf?  Oh! it is so plain I wonder you haven't all
guessed it long ago.  And if you don't believe me
go and ask him."\par

"I believe you believe that," he admitted.  "But
others won't."\par

She turned to her aunt, asking for championship.
The Countess caressed her, but her hazel eyes were
firm as Ian's.\par

"Joseph must clear himself," she said.\par

"But he has!"\par

"To you ... but not to those who know he went
back to fight for Germany."\par

Vanda urged no more, but sat down again, her
elbows on the white cloth, the picture of dejection.  In
England, grown-up sons and daughters do much as
they please.  But here, things were different.  Even
Minnie knew that Vanda would not marry against
Ian's will, because he was the head of her family and
the family has an overwhelming moral power in
Poland.  Each family, whether that of a prince or
a peasant, is a little community in itself, with laws
and traditions which no member can break without
incurring the opposition and anger of the whole.  This
spirit of family discipline, which has largely disappeared
in politically free countries, is, if anything,
stronger amongst the Poles since they lost their
political freedom, more than a century ago.  The
reason is simple.  Each family is a little unit of social
and political resistance, which for generations has been
fighting for religion, language and national customs
... and in unity is strength.\par

Minnie sat quiet as a mouse.  They had forgotten
her.  A servant came to clear the table, handed tea,
and disappeared.\par

Ian sat down again, between Vanda and his mother.
Minnie had moved to a shadowy end of the long
table.  None of them gave her a thought from the
moment she mooted Vanda's marriage till the end
of their discussion.  She had started it; but there her
part ended.  They were all three under the big lamp,
and every line, every change of expression showed
clearly.  She kept eyes and ears open.\par

Ian lighted another cigarette.  He was nervous;
drank some tea and began playing with his spoon,
squeezing the slice of lemon left at the bottom of the cup.\par

As he glanced up at the clock there was a pained
look in his face.  Honor told Minnie she ought to
leave the room.  But curiosity held her.  This love
affair of another woman was partly hers as well.\par

"I want to see him before he goes to sleep," Vanda
said.  "Have you anything to say?"\par

He pulled himself together and began:\par

"When Joseph obeyed that call to go home I
approved.  I even warned Roman against the possible
consequences of disobedience."\par

"Well?"\par

"That was before I knew what this war meant,
before Kalisz, Liège, Louvain."\par

"Joseph loathes all those atrocities as much as any
of us..." she broke in.\par

"Yes.  That is a double reason why he ought never
to have gone on wearing a Prussian uniform."\par

"The German soldiers don't know what really
happens----" she began, then stopped, knowing the
argument would not hold.  Joseph was no ignorant
peasant.\par

"I understand his confusion of mind in the beginning,"
pursued Ian.  "We all had it.  But afterwards----"\par

"He would have been shot," she cried.  "It's all
very well to talk like that when we're in Ruvno.  But
when your superior officer gives an order, and you
disobey, what happens?  We're not all heroes, ready
to die for an idea in cold blood.  Battle is different."\par

"But we must all try to be honest--with ourselves,"
he said, and with sincerity; for he found honesty hard
that night.\par

Her bright eyes challenged him and she opened her
lips to speak; but he silenced her with a gesture.\par

"He disapproved the Prussians.  Yet he stopped
with them."\par

"He has left them," she retorted.\par

"Yes.  But before he can be honest with himself,
or with the family, he must work out the promise he
made when Roman helped him to escape."\par

"The Russians have not been any too good to us
in the past," she objected.\par

"You know it is not a question of Russian, but of
right.  He can go to France.  But I'll have nobody
in my family who ends his fighting record in a
Prussian uniform."\par

Vanda sprang up and faced him.\par

"You talk a lot about honesty to-night," she cried
scornfully.  "And now I'll begin.  I would not say
one word against this decision if I thought you were
honest, too.  I hated to think of Joseph with the
Prussians as much as anybody.  But that is not the
honest reason why you won't let Father Constantine
marry us to-morrow, here in Ruvno.  {\itshape{That}} is only a
pretext."\par

"Vanda!" protested the Countess.\par

"A pretext," she repeated firmly.  "Look at him!
Look how nervous and insincere he has been all the
evening!  Do you know why, Aunt Natalie?  I will
tell you.  Because he is the dog in the manger."\par

"Vanda!" repeated her horrified aunt.\par

None of them had thought the girl capable of such
words.  For a moment she looked the incarnation of
passion.\par

"Let him deny it!" she retorted.\par

He looked up, his face flushed; but he was less
nervous than a few minutes earlier.\par

She turned to her aunt.\par

"You see," she said.  "He says nothing.  He can't
deny it."\par

"I don't wish to," he said quietly.\par

Minnie knew she ought to have tiptoed from the
room.  But the scene held her.  It was not the novelty
of seeing Vanda in a rage, nor the novelty of hearing
Ian's avowal of love.  It was because she felt her
own sentence lay in their hot words.\par

"I don't understand," said the Countess, much
troubled.  "Surely you can deny your lack of
honesty?"\par

"Yes, I can deny that."\par

There was a pause.  Then he went on: "Just now
I asked myself if I was being entirely honest"--he
looked at Vanda--"with you.  All day I have been
asking myself, I was afraid I could not be.  But after
searching myself I think that, whatever my feelings
about you--you personally----"\par

He stopped.  There was no mistaking the nature of
his feelings towards her.  They were written on his
face, shone from his eyes.\par

"I--I have been honest in this," he concluded.\par

"We are seldom honest with ourselves," she put in.\par

"I have tried to be.  I believe I have succeeded.
And Vanda, on my honor, I believe that, even if
I--even had I never given you more than a cousinly
thought since--since it was too late, I'd be against
your marrying Joseph till he has redeemed his promise
to fight on the right side."\par

She leaned towards him, forgetful even of her aunt
now, full of thoughts for Joseph, of him alone.\par

"Do you know," she said in low, passionate tones,
"that there were years, yes, long years, when I loved
you, would have died for you; would have followed
you barefooted to Siberia rather than be parted from
you?  And you took no more account of me than of
this table.  What was I?  The little orphan cousin.
A bit of furniture in your house.  Nothing more."\par

"Vanda!  How unjust!" cried his mother.\par

She took no notice; I don't think she heard.\par

"You talk about honesty," she went on.  "Take it;
bare, ugly truth that few people can tell one another
with impunity.  Whilst I was giving you every
thought, you guessed my devotion, accepted it, put
it on a mental shelf to leave or to take down and
use, according to how life worked out for you...."\par

"Oh--what injustice!" said his mother again.  This
time she heard the reproach; all she said was:\par

"Let me speak, Auntie."  Then, to him: "Yes, as
things suited you ... you looked on my devotion,
my foolish, dumb devotion, as something to fall back
upon, if, when the time came for you to marry, you
found nobody you liked better.  Oh--I knew you so
well....  And through you, I know men.  I have
not watched your face all these years, day by day, meal
by meal across this table, in vain.  Here, in Ruvno,
buried in the country, I have studied life, in your
face, through your words, through the change which
has come over you when you knew that both Joseph
and Roman wanted me."\par

"But why bring----" began his mother.  Vanda
silenced her.\par

"Because we are out for honesty."  Then to him:
"Why do you come to me now, when I have learned
to forget you, to look at you with indifference, killed
the love I had for you after many silent struggles?
Why do you try to make Joseph so honest to himself
when I want him more than anything else in the
world?  Why do you step in now?"\par

Her voice broke; she stopped.  As for Ian, the scales
had at length fallen from his eyes; he saw his past
folly clearly enough; and it was too late.  In her
"now" lay much meaning.\par

"You're unjust.  I'm not so mean as you think
... or so selfish," he said gently.\par

She wiped her eyes, damp with unshed tears, but
said no more.  It seemed that her passion had worn
itself out in those burning words she flung at him a
moment before.  Once again she was the quiet,
unobtrusive Vanda, who did many things for other people's
comfort and did not always get appreciation.\par

He took up an illustrated paper, turned over its
pages without seeing them, furtively glanced at his
mother, who gave him a look of deep sympathy, then
left the room.\par

He did not blame her for this outburst; bore her no
bitterness.  The indictment belonged to him and he
admitted it.  But in a way it soothed him to think
that she had cared for him once.  And it had taken
him all this time, all the events of the past few weeks,
to teach him what love meant, that passion he had
almost dreaded, never cultivated, because he liked a
quiet even life, free from emotion.  When her hot
words fell on his ears they opened up visions to which
he had been blind so long.  Yes; he cared no longer
to deceive himself.  He did love her; not as Roman
loved women, but in his own way, shyly, hesitatingly,
with affection of slow growth that had taken deep
root.  At last he was honest with himself, admitted
the fullness of his folly.  It maddened him to think
that all the time, whilst he let things drift because
he was too comfortable to plunge into the depths of
emotion yet untasted; whilst he, in his blindness, let
chances drift by, enjoying to the full that pleasant,
uneventful life which had been swept away in war's
hurricane forever, whilst he could have given her all
the comforts and joys of his wealth; whilst he,
ignorant of his own heart, not heartless as she said,
but selfish, procrastinating, basked in the sunshine of
peace and security--all that time her proud bruised
heart had fought against the love he held of no account
but longed for now with an intensity which left him
sore, wondering, almost indignant at his new capacity
for passion.\par

Pacing his office, he remembered that he could not
even give her the generous dowry he had planned a
few weeks ago.  For the moment he had forgotten
his financial troubles.  Hastily he opened the big safe
which stood in the room, took out account books and
deed boxes, made rough calculations.  He could give
her the paltry sum of twenty thousand roubles, unless
the Prussians advanced more rapidly than he expected
and seized the remainder of his invested wealth.  It
was a fifth of what he had planned for her when he
took that rapid ride to Warsaw, with Roman at the wheel.\par

He put back his papers, locked the safe and sought
the blue guest-room.\par

He found Joseph sitting by a round table on which
a lamp burned.  Martin had put away the Cossack
uniform and given him one of Ian's dressing-gowns.
His hand was bandaged; but except for that he bore
no trace of having passed through the experience of
war since he last used that room.  Yet Ian's feelings
towards him had greatly changed.  Before, he deemed
him rather a prig, but a successful man, a distant
relative who would never give him any trouble but
in whom he felt no particular interest; not one he
would have chosen for friend; but a man he tolerated
as a cousin, with whom he had played, quarreled,
learnt, and taken punishment in the long years of
childhood.\par

But now, he hated him; hated him for Vanda's sake,
for Roman's, for his coming to Ruvno in Prussian
uniform, for his letting Roman risk life to save him
from a death which, after all, was the consequence of
his own conduct.  But he determined to master his
feelings and get over the meeting without an open
quarrel.\par

Joseph welcomed him with unusual warmth, and
this, too, he resented, as he resented his handsome
nose and white, even teeth.\par

"I was hoping you would come," he said.  "Tell
me all that's happened since this awful war started."\par

"I won't sit.  I've work downstairs."\par

Joseph gave him a keen look; the tone was ominous.\par

"You want to know what I was doing on Ruvno
soil yesterday."\par

"Vanda told me your explanation."\par

"Explanation!  It was the truth."\par

Ian's gray eyes were bright with hostility as he
said:\par

"She has just told me you want to get married at
once.  I don't approve."\par

"Indeed!" this sarcastically.  "Why?"\par

Ian paused for a moment.  It was getting harder
and harder for him to say what he wanted without
saying too much, without betraying himself.  He took
up the open book that lay on the table, glanced at its
title, laid it down again.  Joseph made no attempt to
help him out.  The air was full of tension.  The least
unguarded word would start a quarrel.  And neither
of them wanted that.\par

"For one reason," he began at length, "I don't like
her to leave home without a rag to her back."  He
remembered the sables and fine linen he had seen at
Warsaw for her, and Joseph wondered why he frowned.\par

"The date was fixed for the end of this month,"
the bridegroom reminded him.\par

"I know.  If not for the war, mother would have
had the things ready for her.  But you know what
sort of life we've been leading since you were here
last."\par

Joseph nodded.  He noticed for the first time that
his cousin had aged in those few weeks; there were
lines on his face and gray hairs round the temples that
ought not to have been there.\par

"And then there's her dowry," he went on.  "Mother
talked it over with you, before."\par

"She said something about it.  I said I wanted
nothing.  She gave me to understand that you insisted."\par

"I did.  I had planned for sixty thousand roubles
... {\itshape{then}}.  I haven't got it, now."\par

He took up a paper-knife, inspected it, balanced it
on the palm of his hand, put it down again, and sought
his words.  It had been so easy and so comforting
to talk to Roman last night, to tell details of his losses,
discuss possibilities, hopes and fears for the future.
And to Roman's brother he could scarcely open his
lips for bare business.  Not only did his animosity
grow with every thought; but all the while he was
cursing his folly, and Vanda's words of an hour ago,
her: "Why do you step in {\itshape{now}}?" rang in his ears.
He was burning to mar this marriage, had one pretext,
at least, on his side.  Yet, he must be fair, honest
with himself and with them.  Joseph noticed his
embarrassment and misinterpreted it.  He thought: "He
was always a bit close-fisted, now he's mad with the
grief of losing his forest and crops."  Joseph, too,
had his troubles.  Last night, when death had been
near, he promised to fight against Prussia with a light
heart.  He did not regret it.  He was prepared to do
his duty, to atone for blind obedience to the Kaiser's
call of two months back.  He had been miserable ever
since the scales fell from his eyes, showing him the
real issues of the war.  But this step meant beggary.
Everything he possessed was invested within the
limits of the German Empire.  Prussia would very
soon hear of him, would set a price upon his head,
seize his estates and his money.  After the war, he
would perhaps get them back.  That depended on how
things went, on which side won.  During the evening,
thinking over his position, he remembered his aunt's
talk of Vanda's dowry with relief.  At the time, he
had pooh-poohed the idea of taking anything from
Ruvno.  It had pleased his vanity to marry a
portionless maid and give her all.  But things were
different now.  He had counted on Vanda having enough
to live upon until the war ended.  He knew broadly
what Ruvno was worth in peace time, and Ian's news
shocked him.\par

"My dear Ian, I'd no idea you'd suffered so heavily.
From the little I saw of Ruvno yesterday things
looked pretty bad, especially the forests.  But I
comforted myself that you could fall back on your
investments," he said warmly.\par

"The Vulcan Sugar Refinery, where I was heavily
involved, went the first week of the war," Ian
explained stiffly.  He wanted none of this man's
sympathy.  "It was in the Kalisz Province, and you know
what happened there.  I've a certain amount in a
hardware factory in Warsaw, now making field
kitchens for the Russian Government.  It's paying
fifteen per cent.  I can't sell out or make over all that
stock, much as I'd like to for Vanda's sake.  There's
Mother to think of, if we have to bolt, and food to
buy if we don't.  I've a lot of starving peasants on
my hands."\par

"Of course, of course," Joseph rejoined, "I shouldn't
think of letting you do any such thing."\par

"I can manage fifteen thousand roubles.  It would
have seemed nothing, for Vanda, two months back.  It
means two thousand, seven hundred and fifty roubles
a year.  But it would keep the wolf from the door
if--if anything happened to either of us.  But if the
Prussians get to Warsaw, that goes, too."\par

"Sell out in time."\par

"I'd lose half the capital--and where to invest the
remainder?  The rouble is dropping, foreign
investments are out of the question."\par

Joseph was silent.  Ian went on:\par

"But nowadays we've got to take chances.  And
Vanda will never want for what I--I mean Mother
and I can share with her.  But there's the other reason
against your marriage, now."\par

"What's that?"  His handsome face grew cold
again.  Ian did not answer at once; the old struggle
between honesty and hatred was going on within his
heart.  He decided to let his foe decide.\par

"Put yourself in my place," he began huskily.  "You
come here, a prisoner, in a German uniform.  You're
all but shot as a spy.  Let's not go into the whys and
wherefores.  But would you, in my place, let Vanda
marry Roman, if the things happened that have
happened to you, till he had redeemed his promise to fight
on the right side?"\par

Joseph got up and faced his cousin.\par

"You're the head of the family, I'll not go against
your decision," he said quietly.\par

"I don't want to decide."\par

"But why?"\par

"I'd rather not say."\par

Joseph gave a little laugh.  "We may as well be
frank with each other and have it out."\par

Ian made a gesture of dissent.\par

"Frankness is brutal," he said hastily.  "It leaves
rancor ... and I want to be fair."\par

"I suppose you despise me for letting Roman take
my place, last night," said Joseph bitterly.\par

Ian was silent.  The other watched his face, but
could read little there; his own had flushed.\par

"It's easy to talk here."  He glanced round the
comfortable room.  "But it was infernally hard to
die, like that, and so easy for Roman to get past.  He
had brought tools with him."\par

"Yes," said Ian.  "He unpicked the lock....  But
there was..."\par

"There was what?"\par

"Oh, nothing."  A sudden wave of passion was
coming over him.  He could trust himself no longer.  He
felt that, unless he escaped from the room he would
hurl all the bitterness of his soul against Joseph,
expose his deep wound to that cold gaze.  He made for
the door.\par

"Stop!" said the other peremptorily.  He looked
back, his hand on the door.\par

"Sleep on it," he muttered and would have passed
out, but Joseph was beside him, his sound hand
grasping his shoulder.\par

"I have made up my mind."\par

"Ah--and what----?"\par

"You're right.  After the war--if I'm alive."\par

"No need for that.  In six months."\par

"Then in six months we'll get married.  I'll tell
Vanda."  He put out his hand.  Ian wrung it and
left the room without another word.\par

\label{viii}%
\hypertarget{viii}{}%
{}

\vs{4}
{\noindent}
{\centering
{\Large\strut{VIII}}
\endgraf}
\par


\vs{2}
{\noindent}
Ian had no morbid intention of brooding over his
troubles, sentimental or material.  He was going
to fight the one as he was already fighting the
other, as he struggled against the starvation and
disease which threatened the neighborhood, or against
the difficulties of plowing and sowing within range
of German guns.\par

He went into his mother's dressing-room that night
with the firm intention of forgetting the evening's
events as soon as possible, and her greeting helped him.\par

"What do you think?" she said.  "Vanda wants to
go to Warsaw and nurse, instead of stopping with us."\par

He looked at her with tired eyes.\par

"If she wants to, let her.  I expect she's right."\par

Then he told her the gist of his talk with Joseph.
She listened with disapproval.  She would never
forgive Joseph's successful wooing.\par

"I think he ought to wait till after the war," was
her verdict.  "What is the use of their marrying when
he has nowhere to live and nothing to live on?  Let
us hope they will both think better of it once they
settle down again."\par

And there the matter ended, so far as talk went.
She had great hopes that her boy would "take to"
Minnie.  England would be a very good port in the
ever growing storm for him.  Of herself she did not
think at all.  What was left for her if Ruvno went?
She busied herself about getting Vanda off, wrote to
friends in Warsaw who found a vacancy for her in
one of the hospitals which Polish women had started
for the Russian wounded.  She would be at least as
safe there as in Ruvno and Ian would be all the better
when she was away.  Her own dreams had once been
bent on a match between them.  But things had
changed since then and she wanted Ian to forget that
which he could not win.\par

So she hastened on the day when the girl was to
leave the house for work in Warsaw.  Ian must drive
her to the station because he had nobody left whom
he could trust with one of the young, half-broken-in
horses that alone remained of his famous stables.  One
afternoon in November the {\itshape{bryczka}} stood ready before
the front door.  It was one he used to use for going
round the estate, simple and light, the body of
basket-work plaited close and flat, and varnished over.  The
shafts were longer than one sees in western Europe
where roads are better than east of the Vistula; but it
went safely over ruts and holes which a closer-harnessed
cart would not have taken at all.  It was the
only vehicle he had left except a heavy closed
carriage which needed at least four horses to pull; stables
and coach-house had been emptied of their best by
several relays of requisitioning commissions.\par

Vanda, a little pale, slim even in her fur coat, said
good-bye to the rest of the family at the front door.
The Countess hugged her in silence, not trusting her
voice.  Who knew what might happen before they
met again!  Father Constantine gave her his blessing,
after much advice about the evils and pitfalls of
Warsaw, though his patroness reminded him that she was
going to live with an old friend and would be quite
safe.  Minnie kissed her and wished her good luck,
half sorry, half relieved to see her rival leave the
field.  Joseph was upstairs.  They all agreed he had
better not be seen by the servants.  When his hand
was well enough to hold a rein he would ride to
Sohaczev at night and take steps to join the Russian
army.\par

Ian helped her to the high seat in front.  Martin
put her baggage into the space at the back.  Off they
went, down the avenue and out into the road,
hardened with a sharp frost which had broken up the
warm autumn weather.\par

It would have been hard for them to talk had they
felt in the mood for it.  The young horse shied a
good deal and demanded all Ian's attention.  He was
glad of it.  He Had no wish for commonplaces and
could not say what was in his heart; so they went on
in silence, bumping a good deal over the road, never
too good, now cut up with war traffic, Vanda clinging
to her seat to save herself from being pitched out
when the horse grew more restive than usual, or
rattled over a particularly bad stretch of road.\par

Their way lay through the country which war had so
far spared.  The heaviest losses lay to the north-west,
where the Prussians were trying to break through on
their way to Warsaw.  A good many trenches had
been made here, too, ready for the Russian troops to
fall back upon; but there was not that stamp of utter
desolation which already lay on the land nearer Plock.
They passed very few troops or supplies; the day
had been fine and transport correspondingly risky.
Business on the road began at night.  He had an odd
fancy that they were going for one of those jaunts
he and she had taken many a time before in the same
little cart, when he wanted to try a young horse; that
the space behind their seat carried no baggage but a
sporting gun and game bag, and she wore no nurse's
apron under her coat.  It seemed, as she sat by him,
sometimes to touch him as the cart jolted her, that
recent barriers had never been, that there was neither
Joseph, nor war nor ruin, that only the old free
comradeship was there, mellowed into love.  And he felt
that they were boy and girl again, he home from
school, she proud and glad to be with him, that they
were driving on forever, into eternity, into the
steel-blue horizon which stretched ahead of him on the
straight, open road, without care or strife, always to
be together, forgetful of the world, sufficient to each
other, wanting nothing, asking nothing, blended into
one mind and one heart, clear and limpid as the
afternoon air of the northern autumn.\par

Never had those versts to the bare wooden station
seemed so short.  As they passed the slatternly town,
then the long, poplar-lined avenue, he wondered of
what she was thinking, if she regretted the past, would
be content to put back the years and live without
Joseph, only with him.  But he was far to shy to share
his fancy.  What was the good?  He did not even
trust himself to search her face, lest he find there
tears for his hated rival, whom she might never see
again.\par

As he pulled up and helped her out, giving the reins
to a ragged Jew who replaced the sturdy ostler of
other days, he was relieved to see the Canon, who
lived in the town.  The good man was full of
complaints, and looked to the two young people for
sympathy, if not redress.  Rennenkampf's men had looted
his poultry yard, he said, stealing half a dozen very
fine capons as well.\par

"They stole them for {\itshape{him}}, Count," he whispered, as
they made their way through a crowd of soldiers to
the waiting-room, two Jews following with the
luggage.  "They denied it till I threatened to
excommunicate them all, including my housekeeper, who
ought to have looked after the fowls better but is no
good when she sees a soldier around.  I excommunicated
the General, too."\par

"What did he say?" asked Vanda.\par

"Well, Countess, I'm ashamed to say he roared with
laughter," returned the indignant ecclesiastic.  "But
my housekeeper was so frightened that she spoilt the
dinner, which was one good thing, for Rennenkampf
had to eat it.  I'm going up to Warsaw and I'll
complain about it.  I sha'n't have a thing left if the men
go on like this.  But you, Count, can help me up there.
You know your way about."\par

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going," he said.  "My
cousin is.  I've come to see her off."\par

The Canon then asked Vanda a dozen questions
about her plans and kept them both busy answering
him till the tickets were bought and Ian had found
places in the crowded train for them, glad to give
her into the priest's care, for he noticed many admiring
glances shot at her by a varied collection of Russian
officers in the waiting-room.\par

For one moment they were alone.  The Canon
found a friend and began to tell him about the capons;
the little platform, shadowy even in peace time, with
its scanty lamps, was quite dark now except for feeble
spots of light that came from the railway carriages,
from those candles stuck into lanterns which the
railway people thought good enough to travel by.  Ian
took courage, and said as he kissed her hand:\par

"Ruvno is your home.  If you don't like Warsaw
come back at once."\par

"Oh, Ianek," she faltered.  "Forgive me, for the
other night.  I was mad....  I didn't know what I
was saying."\par

"There's nothing to forgive," he stammered.  Then,
impulse flung restraint to the winds; he caught her in
his arms, kissed her face, hair, lips, clasped her to him
with all his strength, in a delirium of love, longing and
remorse.  He knew not what words poured forth from
the bottom of his soul, nor how long he held her thus:
never remembered how she got into the train, how
he said good-bye to the Canon and got back to his
{\itshape{bryczka}}.  He only knew that it was dark as his horse
sped homewards, without a glance at things that had
made him restive on the way out; that he found calm
and strength in the familiar ebon sky, glimmering with
silver stars, put this new-born madness from him,
checked each recurrent thought of her, fixed his mind
savagely on refugees, potatoes, corn and fuel, till the
white heat of his passion had cooled.\par

Joseph went away a few days later; thus the last
link was snapped, he thought.  And they heard no
more of him for a long time, except that he finally
managed to get a commission in a Cossack regiment,
which went to the Carpathians.  Vanda wrote to the
Countess and the priest, content with messages for
Ian; and he did the same in return.  She was nursing
in the Cadets' College, turned into a military hospital,
and said she liked the work.  But her aunt detected
homesickness in her letters.\par

When he let a thought dwell on her at all, Ian felt
thankful she was not in Ruvno.  For in the middle
of November they began to live in the cellars.  They
were in the danger zone for a fortnight.  The
Prussians took Kosczielna, a few versts off, so that their
shells as well as the Russians' sometimes burst near
the house.  Ruvno became an inferno of din and the
inmates often wondered that it did not crumble about
their heads.  In their underground retreat they had a
certain amount of coal and coke, so that their quarters
though dampish, were not so bad as they might have
been.  A neighboring village fared worse than they
did; not a cottage remained.  The villagers dug
themselves into the earth and lived like rabbits, elected an
elder, whom they obeyed, and who ruled the little
community as some of his ancestors must have ruled
over as primitive a settlement many hundreds of years
before.  No sooner had petty officials, in the pay of
the Russian government, fled before the roar of
German guns than they organized their village life
underground in a thoroughly sensible way.  Having eaten
up the little food which was left after the Prussians
looted them in passing, they subsisted chiefly on roots
and the scanty game yet to be had, and the sparrows
and crows.  Ian sent them rations every week, but
could not be too liberal because he had his own villages
to think of.  Their worst plight was that they could
hope for neither summer wheat nor potatoes of their
own; they had no sooner finished the winter sowings
than the Russian soldiers came and dug trenches
through their land.  They had no seed left, and when
Ian gave them some, the rain washed most of it away.
So those at Ruvno felt they were not so desperately
unlucky after all.\par

Yet they had their troubles.  One night the two
armies who have made Poland their battlefield, seemed
to have gone mad.  For twelve hours there was a
ceaseless uproar of heavy artillery, and the earth
beneath them shook as if troubled by an endless
earthquake.  They gathered in one end of the cellars, where
Father Constantine had fitted up a rough chapel, and
prayed together for their own salvation and the
Russians' victory.  Towards morning, when they were
chanting a hymn, such a thunderous noise broke over
their heads that what had gone before seemed like
some childish pastime.  The earth rocked as if to
swallow them in her entrails.  They stopped singing,
and waited for death.  A woman shrieked, but none
could hear her; only the lines of her open mouth and
the horror on her face told them what she was doing.
Szmul, the Jewish factor, his lank hair disheveled,
his arms spread out with distended hands and fingers,
rushed in and threw himself on to the ground, rolling
in terror and shrieking continually.  They had but
one lamp for economy's sake, so that their little chapel,
like those the early Christians used in Rome, was full
of shadows.  The Countess and Ian, after one horrified,
questioning gaze at the Cross on the little altar,
returned to their prayers, like the stout hearts and good
Christians they were.  She told her beads.  Minnie,
who had been standing at the back, ran towards Father
Constantine with moving lips, but who could hear
words when pandemonium was let loose?  The peasants
hugged their weeping children the closer and
prayed for mercy.  The priest, for one, felt sure his
last hour was come, that God had summoned them as
He had summoned so many thousands during the past
few months.  And so he said the prayers for the passing
of souls, holding up the Cross, that all might see
this symbol of eternal life.\par

They did not know how long they stood thus
because people lose count of time when on the brink of
eternity.  But gradually the earth ceased to quiver,
the tempest of bursting shells died down to an
occasional boom.  And they knew that the Almighty
had seen fit to spare them through another night.  Ian
was the first to speak.\par

"They have brought down the house," he said to
his mother.  She nodded, but said nothing.\par

"Oh, woe unto Israel!  Woe is me," wailed Szmul,
squatting on his hams and moaning as the hired
mourners at a Jewish funeral.  Father Constantine
told him to control himself or leave the chapel; and
the calmer ones managed to comfort the others.  Many
peasants who had not cellars large enough for shelter
were living down there with them.  Szmul, whose
hovel had no cellar at all, brought his numerous family.
On the whole, they behaved splendidly during this
night of anxiety and fear, when it seemed as if every
stone in Ruvno had been brought about their ears.\par

The bombardment went on for hours; there was
nothing to do but wait till it died down; only then
could they go up and see what had happened.  In
days of ordinary activity the shells fell heaviest
between seven at night and eight in the morning; then
came a quiet hour when they managed to get some
air, clean the cellars and examine damage done to
house and village during the night.  Between nine and
ten, the "orchestra," as they called it, began again
and went on till noon, when both Prussians and
Russians paused for a meal.  If the household was careful
to dodge chance shells they had another two hours
of liberty; if the Russians meant to begin before their
regular time they let them know by a signal, to which
Ian held the secret.  The Russians' dinner-hour was
Ruvno's busy time.  Those peasants who had nothing
left to eat came for rations; Ian had every detail of
the daily round in clock-work order.  The management
of a large property like Ruvno, with its twenty
farms and sixty square versts of forest land, was good
training for him.  Each man and woman living in
the cellars had an appointed task, and Ian, the
Countess, Minnie and Father Constantine saw that it was
done.  Their great trouble was to keep the cellar refuge
in a moderately sanitary condition, because the
peasants, none too clean in their houses, had no idea of
the danger they ran from infectious diseases.  Here,
Minnie was invaluable.  They escaped fevers; one
child died of bronchitis, which was very bad when they
took her to the cellar, her parents' cottage and shop
having been razed to the ground by a shell.  Things
were in a worse state down in the village, where
Father Constantine and the two ladies had daily fights
with filth and ignorance whilst the heavy guns were
resting.  They could not make the peasants see that
they were packed so much closer together, and subject
to greater privations, they had to be far more careful
than in better days.  By one o'clock the rooms and
park became dangerous, though they could dodge the
shells between the house and the village till dusk, if
they remembered the dead angles.  But night fell
early, and the rule was for all to answer roll-call in
the passage between the two main cellars at half-past
two.  Ian called the names unless busy outside, or
in the house; and then the old priest replaced him.\par

After that the weariness began.  Though the family
did what they could to keep the fifty refugees--peasants,
children and Jews--amused, time hung heavy on
their hands.  They took down all the furniture they
could, and kept their feet warm with carpets.  But
they used straw for the peasants and Jews because
they could burn it when dirty.  Father Constantine
always said Szmul and his family were the filthiest
people he ever saw; it was a trial to have them; but
they put up with it, and had to own that the Jew,
with his wretched Polish and his funny stories, kept
the others amused.\par

Ian could not give them work that needed a good
light, because he had to be careful with oil and sit in
semi-darkness most of the evening.  But he and the
Countess read to them and told them stories; they
also sang hymns and Polish patriotic songs, of which
they never tired.  One or two, who escaped from the
massacres at Kalisz, told their experiences, and the
villagers never tired of listening to that, either.  Like
children, they loved to hear a story repeated over and
over again.\par

Father Constantine managed to write up his diary,
though candles were so precious.  As they always kept
one small lamp in the chapel he wrote there.  It was
colder than near the stove, but he had both his fur
coats on, besides a pair of felt boots in which he used
to hunt when younger.  When his fingers got numbed
he blew on them and rubbed them till the blood
circulated.  Many of the people went there to say their
prayers and he would do what he could for them
before they left again.\par

When the Russians and Prussians stopped for
breakfast after that dreadful night they all spent in
the chapel, Ian called up as many men as there were
picks and shovels, took a pick himself and led the way
up to the house.  He demurred about Father Constantine's
going; but he soon settled that.  During the
night they had decided that they must dig a way into
the air through the ruins of the house.\par

They left the Countess in great anxiety about
Ruvno, which had grown gray and mellow in sheltering
brave men and beautiful women; and Father
Constantine, who was not born there, loved it so dearly
that to lose it meant to lose heart and courage.  He
felt that, going up the steps.  And the peasants who
followed Ian up were heavy-hearted, too; he and his
forebears had always been good masters, generous in
the days of serfdom, fair and square with the soccage,
and living on their land ten months a year, unless they
went to fight for their country.\par

They reached the stone entry which led from pantry
to cellar and looked round.  A wintry sun came
through a hole in one wall, but the others were
unhurt.  With a shout of joy Ian threw down his pick
and bolted over the debris, through the hole, which
had swallowed up the door as well.  Father Constantine
followed as fast as his joints allowed, helped by
Baranski, the village carpenter.  They were both
beyond the climbing age; so, by the time they reached
the courtyard, the others had disappeared.  So far,
Ruvno looked as though it stood; but they noticed
several new holes.\par

"Where's the tower gone?" cried Ian, pointing
westwards.  True enough, the tower had vanished;
from where they stood it looked clean cut off, but on
going nearer they saw that the front floor and part
of the stairway remained, a dejected ruin.  The
falling masonry had struck the west wing.  The cellar
chapel was right underneath, which accounted for the
fearful noise they heard in the night.\par

"The tower can be rebuilt--but the west wing is
done for," he said ruefully.\par

When Father Constantine saw the tears gather in
those clear eyes his own grew dim.  The bombardment
had destroyed the oldest part of the house, built
when the first lord of Ruvno came home from the
Crusades; it, and the moat, were all that the centuries
had left of the original building.  The rest was added
on at various times.  But the west wing was Ruvno's
pride.  Weakened by age, it could not stand the weight
of the falling tower, and now lay in hopeless ruins.
It housed many relics, too heavy to remove to
Warsaw; and they had perished with it.\par

Everybody had come up from below, some vainly
trying to rescue a few of the relics from the ruins,
when Szmul rushed up in great excitement.  He had
quite recovered from last night's experience, and
boasted to all who would listen that he had not turned
a hair, but slept all night.\par

"The Grand Duke is coming--make way for the
Grand Duke," and he took off his cap, so as to be
all ready for the important visitor.\par

The others looked up.  A motor car was coming
up the drive.  It was easy to recognize the tall, spare
figure, which towered over the other officers.  The
Countess dried her eyes and walked towards the entry.
Ian left the pile of rubbish; Minnie followed him.
Father Constantine stood a little apart; it did not
amuse him to talk to important people; he preferred
to watch, and listen.\par

"Bon jour, Comtesse," the Grand Duke said, and
kissed her hand.  Then he shook hands with Ian,
saluted Minnie, and smiled at the priest.  "I have good
news for you at last.  We have retaken Kosczielna
after a heavy bombardment and a bayonet attack.  The
Germans have fallen back on Kutno."\par

Kosczielna practically belonged to the Countess, the
little town being part of her dowry and, though her
husband did his best to give it away to the Jews, she
managed to save it.  She looked at her ruined west
wing and sighed.\par

"I would rather have lost the town," she remarked.\par

"I can believe you," he agreed.  "The town is full
of Jews--and that was the most beautiful part of
your house.  Never mind, Countess, we will drive
them over the frontier one of these days and you can
build up again."\par

"Is the fight over?" asked Minnie.\par

"Yes.  In any case it has gone over there."  He
pointed westwards.  "Ruvno is safe now."\par

"There," she said triumphantly, looking at the
Countess.  "What did I tell you?"\par

"I must be off," said the Grand Duke.  "I thought
you would like to know you can come above ground
once more."  He turned to the little group of peasants
who had come up.  "And you, my children, can go
back to the village again."  Then, to Ian, in French:
"I will let you know when there is fresh danger."  And
he went off as suddenly as he came.\par

The news cheered them all greatly.  For Father
Constantine, there was a little cloud on the horizon;
he meant to talk it over with the Countess and hear
what she could advise.  So, when they had settled in
the rooms that were still without holes, he sought
her out.  He knew they would be able to talk
undisturbed.  Ian was looking after some men he had
told off to fill up the gaps in an outer wall; and Minnie
was looking after Ian.\par

"Countess," he began, "don't you think it would be
safer if that English Miss went away?"\par

Though this was his first reference to the pursuit
of Ian, she knew what he meant.\par

"Yes; but she won't go."\par

"There is an American Relief man about," he said.
"He is sure to hear about the distress in the Vola, and
he can't reach that without passing here.  Naturally,
seeing the damage done to the house, he would call."\par

Her hazel eyes, still beautiful in shade and
expression, twinkled merrily.\par

"But we don't want relief yet," she said.\par

"True, but when he sees the damage done and hears
that there is an English girl living here he will be
willing to take her to Warsaw ... or to England.  I
think I would not mention Warsaw to him.  He probably
has never heard of it.  So he can take her further off."\par

"Minnie won't listen ... she is brave."\par

"Brave!  She stops here for Ian."\par

She was silent for a moment.  Father Constantine
knew she had fallen under the girl's charm.  He
admitted the charm; but did not want a foreigner to
rule in Ruvno.\par

"She is a good girl ... and her people are of an
old family.  Her mother..."\par

"She is a heretic," he said firmly.  "Ruvno has
never had such a thing."\par

"She might consent to enter the True Church."  The
Countess was an incurable optimist.\par

"And a foreigner."\par

She laughed.  "Why, Father, Minnie would love
the sort of life we live in times of peace ... she
would not always be wanting to gad about to Paris
and Monte Carlo, like so many young women."\par

"Do you mean to say that you will encourage her?"
he asked in horror.  "How about the little Princess
whose father would be only too----"\par

"I don't mean to say anything, or encourage
anybody," she replied.  "But I can't turn Minnie out of
doors now that the Grand Duke says Ruvno is safe."\par

"The ruined tower looked such a good pretext," he
said ruefully.\par

"And it failed."\par

"I would not consent to Ian's marrying a heretic,"
she went on.  "Besides, he would not want to."\par

"He would not.  I know him better than that..."  The
Poles have suffered so much for their faith that
they put it side by side with their country.  With
them to say a man is Catholic means that he is neither
Russian nor Jew, but a Pole.\par

"I don't see that Ian is very keen about her
anyway," she said after a pause.\par

"In the cellar----"\par

"We have done with the cellar for the moment.  It
is no good meeting trouble half way.  Cellar or no
cellar, I should only be drawing his attention to her
if I warned him.  Men are blind till you open their
eyes.  And then they are mules."\par

Father Constantine knew her tone; it was final.  So
he took his leave, and ordered all the Jews in the
village to keep their ears open for news of the
American Relief man and report when he came to the
neighborhood.\par

\label{ix}%
\hypertarget{ix}{}%
{}

\vs{4}
{\noindent}
{\centering
{\Large\strut{IX}}
\endgraf}
\par


\vs{2}
{\noindent}
It was early in December.  For several days Ruvno
had seen neither soldiers nor officers and received
news of no kind.  This had happened before.
Szmul and other Jews in the village circulated the
little gossip there was.  After the Russians retook
Kosczielna Szmul went back to his hovel, whence he
had fled when the shells were whistling around, to
find food and shelter for himself and his brood under
Ian's roof.  Then, being frightened to death, he was
loud in expression of gratitude, vowing by all the
vows Jews make, swearing by his progeny to the fifth
and sixth generation that he would never forget how
the Count had given hospitality to a poor Jewish
factor.  If you know much about Hebraic flowers of
speech you can imagine what he said; if not, you miss
nothing.  Having settled himself in the village again,
he picked up the gossip of both armies encamped in
the neighborhood, for a Jew will get anywhere and
talk to everybody, whether Teuton or Slav, man or
maid.  He knew that the Prussians were within a
few versts of Ruvno before Ian or the Countess
suspected they had crossed the river in one place,
thereby cutting Ruvno off from the Russian lines and
putting it at the mercy of the barbarians.\par

On this particular afternoon, after the {\itshape{Ave Maria}},
Father Constantine was locking up the chapel when
Szmul hurried up.  The priest knew he had tidings
by the way he flapped his skinny arms.  As usual he
smelt horribly of herrings and garlic, and poked his
dark thin face against the old man's.\par

"What is it?" asked Father Constantine, backing away.\par

"The Prussians," he answered, grinning from ear to
ear, showing four yellow teeth which were all that
the village barber had saved, for he suffered much
from toothache.\par

"Coming here?"\par

"Yes--on this side of the river.  They have crossed
and fought their way through.  Oh, such fine horses
and such wonderful shining helmets!  Each of their
chargers cost a thousand roubles at least, some
even..."\par

"Nonsense.  The army pays----"\par

"The Russian army pays miserably," retorted
Szmul with scorn.  "The Kaiser's with their wonderful----"\par

"Hold your tongue!  Now you think they are
coming you pander to them and lick the dust off their
boots," cried the priest, angry, not only because he
knew that the Russian cavalry had then the best
horses in the world, but because this news of the
Prussians being over the river made him fear for the
immediate future.  Szmul giggled.\par

"Think!  I {\itshape{know}} they're coming.  Listen!"\par

Father Constantine heard the tramp of horses and
a squadron of cavalry swept round the bend in the
avenue.  They were Prussians right enough.  Night
was coming on apace, but the day had been fine and
frosty; he could see the spikes of their helmets and
the hard, red faces of the foremost men.\par

His heart sank; there were more than twenty of
them.  For weeks Ruvno had heard false alarms.
Once they were so near that Ian could see their helmets
through his field-glasses.  But the Grand Duke beat
them back every time and the household had grown
to trust that tall, gray-haired Romanov to spare them
a visit from their enemies.\par

"Who's the owner of this place?" shouted their
young officer, pulling up in front of the priest.  His
face was arrogant and coarse, with choleric eyes.\par

"I don't know."\par

He turned to Szmul, who was sweeping the ground
with his greasy fur cap, anxious to make a good
impression.\par

"Jew!  Find the owner and bring him here!"\par

"At once, {\itshape{Herr General}}!  At once!"  He ran off
to the house as fast as his spindle legs would carry
him.  Whilst he was gone the subaltern hurled
questions at the priest, in German.  How big was Ruvno?
How many inmates?  Their sex?  Ages?  He was
answered laconically and in Polish.  Once or twice
the Prussian looked ready to lay his whip about the
bent shoulders, but refrained.  Szmul was a long time
gone.  When he came back, he had invented a new
title for the German cub.\par

"Excellency.  The Count is in the palace.  He begs
your Excellency to do him the honor and step inside."\par

It took him a long time to say this for he was out
of breath with haste and excitement.  Afterwards,
Father Constantine asked Ian what message he had
sent; and it was: "If a {\itshape{boche}} wants me he can come
and find me."  As you see, there was a difference;
but Szmul did not stick at exaggerations when he
wanted to please a powerful man.\par

The Prussian grumbled something about wasting
time and all Poles being servants created to wait upon
Teuton pleasure.  But he gave a curt order to his
troopers and made for the house, Szmul running by
his stirrup.  Judging by the way he cringed, Father
Constantine sadly assessed the Prussian force around
Ruvno at thirty thousand men.\par

The old man followed them, not that he could help
Ian, but because he had a fond notion that when his
dear ones were in danger they would suffer less if
he kept near them.  He tried to check this idea, but
in vain.\par

Arrived at the large entry, the subaltern dismounted,
clanked into the hall and looked round with
the air of expecting to see Ruvno's master.  But there
was only Martin, the faithful butler who had nursed
Ian on his knee.  He led the way to his master's
office.  Half way there, he noticed Szmul.\par

"You're not wanted," he said.\par

"I--your old friend----"\par

The Teuton understood Polish right enough, for he
wheeled round with:\par

"This man comes with me."\par

Szmul giggled in triumph, and Father Constantine
grew suspicious.  These two had met before.\par

They trooped into the office which stood at the end
of a passage, connecting it with the back of the house
in such a way that people could go in and out without
passing the hall or the living-rooms.  Never in his life
had Szmul entered from the large hall; but his elation
was not due to that.  Four troopers escorted their
officer and mounted guard behind him, stiff and
pompous as at a review.\par

Ian stood in the middle of the room, a large place,
lined with shelves and cupboards where accounts and
reports were kept.  He looked very like his mother,
the priest thought, well bred, dignified, king of
himself.  The four troopers clinked their heels and went
through the contortions common to saluting
Prussians; even the surly subaltern put hand to helmet.
Szmul hugged the shadow of the door.  Father
Constantine went beside his old pupil, that fond notion of
his uppermost.\par

Ian returned the visitor's greeting with a bow; then
he saw Szmul.  "I'll send for you if I want you,"
he said in the dry tones he used when giving orders.\par

"That Jew is with me," blurted the Prussian.\par

Ian's gray eyes met his with such cool determination
that the other shifted uneasily.\par

"He is my servant."  This in frozen tones; then,
to Szmul: "You heard me?"\par

Szmul looked appealingly at the officer, won no
support by word or glance and slunk out.  Ian's gaze
returned to the Prussian.\par

"Your business?"\par

"You have food supplies stored here."  This angrily,
in accusation.\par

"I have.  To feed my household and the starving
peasants."\par

"I hear you have enough to gorge them till the
end of the war.  Is that so?"\par

"I don't know how long the war will last."\par

The Prussian, angry before, became infuriated at
this.  He stamped his foot and bellowed as if he were
drilling recruits.\par

"You're bandying words, {\itshape{Herr Graf}}," he shouted.
"I know you're concealing supplies.  I'll have them
of you, {\itshape{mein Gott}}, I will!"\par

"Your authority?"\par

Ian's eyes were ablaze with suppressed passion; but
he controlled himself.  His outward calm maddened
the subaltern, who danced in his rage.  Indeed, if not
for the circumstances behind his visit, he would have
been quite funny.\par

"Authority!" he bawled.  "I {\itshape{am}} Authority.  I am
the representative of victorious Prussia!  My word
is law in this house!  Surrender your supplies or I'll
burn it down!"\par

Ian went over to the safe, unlocked it with the
key which hung by a leather strap he kept in his
pocket, and swung back the heavy door.\par

The subaltern whipped out his revolver, strode after
him and peered in.  The safe was almost empty except
for keys.\par

"Your plate?" he asked, putting his revolver close
to Ian's head.  And anxious though he was, Father
Constantine could not help thinking the man must be
a fool to imagine the safe big enough to hold Ruvno
plate.\par

"In Warsaw."  Ian lied; it was in Moscow.  But
Father Constantine would gladly have absolved him
from murder, were his victim this subaltern.\par

"Whereabouts in Warsaw?"\par

"The Commercial Bank."\par

The looter turned to one of his men:\par

"Make a note of that," he commanded.  The man
obeyed, producing paper and pencil from a pocket.\par

"Where are your family jewels?" proceeded the
subaltern.\par

"At the Commercial Bank."  Their eyes met again.
Ian's mirrored a soul too proud to lie.  And yet they
say that eyes cannot hide the truth.\par

"What are they worth?"\par

Ian did not answer and murder shone from the
Prussian's evil face.  The old priest's heart stood still.
What, oh, what could he do to help?  The sergeant
scribbled hard, finished, licked his pencil and awaited
further orders.  The subaltern put his revolver a shade
nearer Ian's head.  Father Constantine knew he was
playing to put the looters off the scent.  For if he lost
the jewels there would be nothing left to live upon.
Ian thought of the moonlight labor on the Plock road,
of Szmul's prying eyes, and feared greatly.\par

"What are they worth?" repeated the Prussian.\par

"I don't know.  They have not been valued for
fifty years."\par

"But those emeralds ... you must know what
they are worth."\par

"They are priceless," said Father Constantine.\par

The man turned to him.\par

"Hold your tongue," he said rudely.  "You weren't
so ready to talk outside."  Then to Ian:\par

"Give me the banker's receipt for the jewels and
plate."\par

"My lawyers have them."\par

"Who are they?  But no matter..."  He laughed
roughly.  "Next week we shall be in Warsaw, and
if I find you've been lying, you'll be shot."  He
withdrew his revolver.  Ian gave a slight breath of relief.
"Now for the food," said the Teuton.\par

Ian took a bunch of keys from the safe, locked
it and rang the bell.  Martin appeared, white as a
sheet.  He had heard what was going on.\par

"Take this officer to the store-room; open the
cupboards," said his master.\par

"You must come," put in the looter.  Ian gave him
a cold look.\par

"My servant will show you where to find the things."\par

The Prussians stalked out and Martin with them.
Szmul was still in the passage.\par

Ian did not speak till the sound of their footsteps
died away.  Then he made sure there were no
eaves-droppers, and shut the door, his soul filled with rage,
worry and mortification.  For a few minutes he gave
way and called the looters by names it did the old
priest good to hear, for the soutane put a limit on
his own language.\par

"If not for the women I'd have strangled him at
the safe," Ian cried.  "But the day may come when
I'll have to shoot them, to save them from dishonor."\par

"Mother of God!" Father Constantine gasped.
"Are they going to make Poland another Belgium?"\par

The thought of what his Countess and the other
women in the house would have to suffer filled him
with horror.  To shoot her!  He could not bear it.
Ian tried to comfort him.\par

"Cheer up, Father.  It hasn't come to that yet."
Then angry again: "That swine Szmul has betrayed us."\par

"What are you going to say about the cellars?"\par

"Swear I've nothing more.  We've no list."\par

"But they'll tear down the walls?"\par

"It'll take time.  Oh, if only I could get in touch
with some Russians!  We should have these devils
entrapped."\par

"There must be thousands of Germans about.  Szmul
knows it, or he would not have risked telling about
the emeralds and stores," said the priest.\par

"I'll punish him when this is over," cried Ian.
"After I've sheltered him, too."\par

Here the Countess came in.  She had heard all.\par

"Give them everything, rather than they should
shoot you," she pleaded.\par

"They won't shoot me, Mother, not till they've tried
the Commercial Bank.  Where is Minnie?"\par

"Up in the secret room."\par

"Thank God!"  He looked relieved.  "And now,
you go there, too."\par

Martin came in.  He was shaking with rage and fear.\par

"That Jewish pig has betrayed us," he cried.
"They're in the cellar now."\par

They looked at each other in consternation.  Martin
turned to his mistress.\par

"My Lady Countess, it will be well for you to go
upstairs ... they are very coarse."\par

"Yes, Mother, I insist."\par

"But perhaps I can do something----"\par

The question was settled by the subaltern, who
stalked into the room, followed by two of his
henchmen.  He was afraid to go about alone.  He had
already found some of Ian's wine, his face was flushed,
and both troopers smelt of it.  He did not even salute
the Countess, who glared at him in silent rage.\par

"Nobody to leave this room!" he bellowed.  Then
to Ian: "Where are your supplies?"\par

"It appears you have them," was the cool answer.
"I hear you have already emptied my stores."\par

"But the cellar, dolt!" roared the Prussian.  "The
Jew says you have bricked up corn and potatoes to
feed an army."\par

"My cellar holds wine," put in the Countess.  "Judging
from your behavior, you have found it without our
help."\par

She devoured him with her scornful, angry eyes, and
he had the grace to look a little confused.  He saluted
and lowered his tone.\par

"I give you three minutes"--he looked at his watch--"to
come down and show me where to find your
supplies.  If you refuse, I'll not leave one stone upon
another in your cellar, but destroy it as soon as my
men have removed the stores and wine.  You'll be
without food, for, if you persist in your obstinate refusal,
I will not leave you a week's rations; and you will
no longer have a refuge in case of bombardment.  You
will have no choice then but to leave this place."\par

"Never!"  This from the Countess.\par

"As you please.  We will begin the three minutes."\par

There was silence.  He eyed his watch, the Countess
looked straight before her; Ian's face was like granite,
the priest's eye on the clock in the corner.  He almost
wished Ian would come to terms with the looter,
because perhaps then they would leave enough till Ian
could buy more.  Then he remembered they were
probably cut off from Warsaw, and therefore from grain,
and changed his mind.\par

"Time is up."  He looked at Ian.\par

"I repeat," he said very distinctly, though the sweat
stood on his upper lip, "I repeat, once and for all,
that I have no stores in my cellars."\par

"Then you choose to have your cellars destroyed?"
growled his tormentor.\par

"You will find nothing but wine.  If the loan of my
cellar-book can shorten your visit..."\par

The Prussian swung out of the room without waiting
for more.  Ian rushed to the door, shut it,
hurriedly took two acetylene carriage lamps from a
cupboard and demanded matches.\par

Knowing what he used those lamps for, Father
Constantine tried to dissuade him from signaling to
the Russians, for, should the Prussians catch him, his
life would not be worth a handful of corn, and there
were surely more foes than friends abroad that night.
But he only gave a short laugh.  He did not believe
there were many Prussians about or they would not
have sent a subaltern to seize emeralds.  Such a prize
as Szmul must have promised would have attracted a
field-marshal at least.  This, he thought, was a chance
visit.  Any way, better to die of a bullet than see his
people die of starvation.\par

"If there were guns to arm a dozen men from the
village, I could entrap them and hold them down in
the cellar," he explained, preparing the lamps.  "I
thought it out when he gave me his precious three
minutes.  I could never manage.  It's ten minutes to the
village, ten to muster them, ten to bring them back.
I've only six sporting rifles.  They are thirty strong."\par

"But the tower is down," objected the priest\par

"There's the village church.  Mother, do you go and
tell Martin to follow me.  Father Constantine, get me
a sheepskin."\par

He was off in a trice.  The priest told his mother
it was a wild-goose chase.\par

"But six armed men against thirty, and only Ian a
good shot," she objected.  "They would be butchered.
After all, they may not find the stores.  I hope they
will all get drunk first."\par

They tried to get into the cellar, to see how things
went.  Two Prussians guarded the head of the stairs,
two stood lower down, and two at the bottom of the
first flight.  Ian was right.  It would be madness to
send six men with sporting rifles against those
hardened warriors.  They would not let the Countess pass.
She took whispered counsel with her chaplain in the
kitchen, where some frightened maids were huddled
together.\par

"Try the other way," he suggested.  "I don't
suppose they know about it."\par

They made for the library.  It was deserted.  Szmul
had forgotten to tell them of its small door, leading to
a passage, at the bottom of which steps led down to
the cellars.  For generations this entrance was unused,
being narrow, steep and dark as the grave.  But
during their sojourn underground it served as a private
access for the family, whilst the refugees and
household used the larger staircase.\par

There were two main cellars, connected by a
labyrinth of narrow, vaulted passages with smaller ones.
Many of these passages, however, were blind alleys,
terminating in stout brick walls.  Some were solid
and five feet thick; others hollow, with a good brick
crust on either side.  In these recesses, old Hungarian
wine was bricked up till some great family event
justified its being drunk.  In the recesses which were
empty at the beginning of the war, Ian bricked up his
food, taking out the wine from others and storing it
in the large cellars.\par

Once at the bottom of the narrow steps the two
had but a few yards to the part Father Constantine
had fitted up as an underground chapel.  To screen
it off he had put a curtain across the narrow passage.
The wall of a recess still supported the little altar.
They hid behind the curtain.  They could hear voices.\par

"They are in the big cellar," whispered the Countess.\par

"Now Jew, where is this grain?  Be quick."  It
was the subaltern's voice.\par

"Oh, Excellency," began Szmul, and his voice was
of honey.  The Prussian cut him short.\par

"No nonsense--speak out."\par

"I was down here one day, when they all thought
I had gone out for air, and I heard the Count talking
to the silly old priest who----"\par

"Go {\itshape{on}}!"\par

"And they were in the chapel, which they have fitted
up because they stood in deadly fear of the Prussian
shells.  And they wondered between themselves if it
would not be better to break into the cellar stores in
the lower part on account of the damp and use that
store as rations for the peasants in the other village,
not the village belonging to the Count but the peasants'
village, for there are----"\par

There was a thud, as of hard matter against soft,
and then a shrill Hebrew squeal.\par

"Go on!" roared the subaltern.  "If you waste time
I'll have you flogged."\par

"It's near the second big cellar," he said promptly.
"I heard that."\par

The Countess clutched her chaplain's arm.  "They'll
find it," she whispered.  "Oh, that traitor.  And to
think we put up with him and his dirty family."\par

"Show the way."\par

It did not take them long to find out which of the
two blind alleys off the big cellar was hollow.  The
listeners heard the officer order his men to begin.  Ian's
bricklayers were good workmen, though, and gave
them plenty to do.  The subaltern swore at the
thickness of the wall.  At last they gave a whoop of
delight.\par

"Potatoes," cried a voice in German.  "Trust them
to know a good potato when they see it.\par

"Take them all out, every sack.  Let the Polish
swine starve.  I'll make that lying Count smart for
this."\par

"Will you?" said the Countess, and so loud that the
priest feared they would hear her.\par

There was much running to and fro as they took
up their booty.\par

"Oh, for ten armed men," whispered the Countess.
"I'd teach them to loot us."\par

Father Constantine begged her to keep quiet, but she
went on muttering against them.  After some minutes
a soldier's voice reported all the potatoes upstairs, on
a cart.  They had taken one of Ian's.\par

"And the wine?"\par

"Three dozen bottles."  Father Constantine
squirmed to think of that good wine going down
German throats.\par

"Get up the rest," ordered the subaltern.  "And send
me that Jew."\par

Szmul had been wall-tapping on his own account.
He appeared breathless.\par

"Oh, Excellency ... there is a hollow wall just
over there.  And it's wider than the others."\par

"Lead the way."  Their steps died in the distance.\par

"Did you hear what he said about Ian?" she asked.\par

"Yes.  I'll run over and warn him not to come till
they go."\par

"We have plenty of time," she said bitterly.  "They
have a dozen places yet.  Oh, if I were a man!"\par

"What would you do?"\par

"I'd shoot him," and her voice was deadly calm.\par

Suddenly they heard picks behind the little altar,
and sprang up in consternation.  Szmul had found
Ian's largest grain store.\par

"Let us go," she said.  There was something in her
voice the priest had never heard before.\par

They returned to the library.  She shut and locked
the door and without another word went to Ian's
bedroom.  Father Constantine followed, afraid of the look
on her face.  She took her boy's revolver from a
table by the bed.\par

"What are you going to do?"\par

She looked him full in the face, white to the lips
but her eyes blazing with the passion of protecting
motherhood.\par

"Shoot him--before he gets Ian."\par

"But you're mad," cried the priest, vainly trying to
wrest the weapon from her.  "The troopers will avenge
themselves on you and on Miss."\par

But she was in no mood to listen.  She made sure
the revolver was loaded and went to the door.  Her
chaplain managed to reach it first.\par

"You'll shoot me before you leave this room," he cried.\par

They stood glaring at one another and saying many
bitter things--they who had been friends for half a
century.  Then they felt ashamed and were silent,
though each was bent on victory.  This lull in the
quarrel was broken by the sound of horses' hoofs upon
the frozen ground.\par

"They're off," she cried, and running to the window
had opened and cleared it before the priest could get
there.  And in peace time she walked with a stick!\par

He followed her as best he could, but alas! when
he reached the ground she had disappeared.  The place
was deserted, the night dark.  He ran hither and
thither looking for her, his one thought to snatch away
the revolver.  He remembered all the terrible things
they had done to women in France and Belgium for
less than killing a Prussian officer.  And she was a good
shot.  He had seen her hit the bull'seye over and over
again, in the little shooting-range behind the shrubbery.\par

A shot rang through the air--it came from the
kitchen side.  He was too late!  He could no longer
save her from herself!  Ah, they were already on her,
for he could hear hoarse German oaths and a woman's
screams.  Yes, that was her voice.  Oh, my God, that
he should come to this!  They were torturing her,
subjecting her to unspeakable martyrdom, wreaking
vengeance for the death of their chief.\par

In the kitchen entry he stumbled over a Prussian
helmet.  Its owner lay near by, on his face ... he
hurried on...\par

The huge room resounded with the clash of steel,
women's screams, men's oaths.  There was a
struggling mass of humanity in the gloom.  Ian, his face
bleeding, was fighting for his life with a trooper.
Father Constantine butted at them, to catch the
German in his big paunch.  But something sharp and cold
hit his head and he knew no more.\par

When he recovered his senses he was lying in a cold,
dark place.  His head ached greatly.  Somebody was
bathing it with water.\par

"The Countess?  The Countess?"  He tried to rise,
but could not.\par

"She is safe.  Please lie still, Father Constantine."  This
in English.  It was Minnie.\par

"Are you sure?"\par

"Quite."\par

"And Ian?"\par

"A flesh wound.  He'll be well in a week; but you----"\par

"And that Prussian?"\par

"Dead."\par

"She killed him?"\par

"No.  The Russians came up just in time.  Cavalry.
Caught them with their booty at the top of the cellar
steps.  Ian killed two.  They fought like devils, but
were entrapped.  Two others got killed, then the
officer.  When the rest saw him down, they
surrendered.  We've one wounded prisoner here.  He
says Szmul offered to bring them here if they would
spare him and some money he had buried."\par

"And Szmul?"\par

She laughed bitterly.\par

"Got clean off.  Trust him.  Now, you must rest.
I'm going to be very strict."\par

"But one thing more ... the signals saved us?"\par

"Yes."\par

"How many Prussians crossed the river that Szmul----"\par

"You must not talk."\par

"Please, just that."\par

"The Russians say only a few.  The rest were cut
off as they landed on this side.  But the prisoner, when
I went to him just now--he is wounded in the leg--says
several hundred got over and his lot believed they
were in touch with the rest.  Then they met Szmul
who told them what booty there was to be had in
Ruvno--emeralds, and grain and wine.  He says the
Germans will think Szmul got them here to entrap
them, and will hang him to the nearest tree."\par

"Serve him right!" cried the priest.  "That skunk!
Why, when he came up to me last night----"\par

"Be quiet, Father Constantine," she said severely,
"or I sha'n't let you see anybody for a week."\par

And he obeyed.\par

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\vs{2}
{\noindent}
Ian became vaguely aware of Minnie's feelings
towards him on the night of that fight with the
Prussians in the kitchen.  She saw the end of
that adventure despite his precautions.  From the
"secret room," which was the name the household
gave to a small paneled chamber that had only a
bull's-eye window and access from a bedroom by means of
a small door cut in the paneled wall, she espied his
signaling on the church tower.  He had used this way
of communicating before.  She ran down there to
help.  On the tower she found Martin, whose ancient
arms were pretty well exhausted.  Ian, busy on the
other side, did not know she was there till she shouted
that she saw a red light.  It was thrown up by some
Russian cavalry and not far off.  They arrived just
in time.  The Countess showed them the way to the
cellars through the library, so that most of the
Prussians were caught like rats in a trap.  Some broke
through the other way into the kitchen and fought
hard, but were defeated and surrendered to the
Cossacks, who marched off with all the survivors except
one, who was wounded in the leg.\par

He was not ungrateful for her help on the tower,
though he agreed with Martin that it had not been
necessary.  He told her that she had no business to
leave the secret room whilst Germans were about;
then seeing her disappointment at this cool recognition
of her services, he told the Grand Duke, in her
presence, that she deserved a decoration.  But he
determined to send her home at the first opportunity.
The events of the preceding evening proved how
women hampered him when the enemy came.  He
would have sent his mother, too, to join Vanda in
Warsaw, but she was so firm in her refusal to leave
Ruvno that he gave up trying to persuade her.\par

For several days after the kitchen fight nothing
happened.  Ian was busy bricking up his rescued
stores, which the Prussians had almost got away with.
Father Constantine was still in bed, his head wrapped
in bandages; the wounded Prussian had been moved
to a hospital at Kosczielna, because his leg was getting
better so fast that they feared he would run away.\par

Then Major Healy arrived.  He was a great big
good-natured American, doing his best to relieve the
suffering in Poland with the means at his disposal.
He was, too, intensely interested in learning all he
could about the country, its customs and people.
Ruvno was a revelation to him.  So far, the work had
taken him and his interpreter amongst the peasants,
burrowing like rats below ground, and the Jews, for
whom he felt more pity than admiration.  He was
delighted to find that Ian spoke English.  They got
on very well together.  It was a long time since Ian
had talked to a man of his own age who was not a
soldier.  The Russians he saw were infinitely more
interested in turning his ground into trenches and
battlefields than in suggesting the best means of
keeping those dependent on him from starvation till the
next harvest.  Major Healy had worked in Belgium
and France and was able to give him a good many
hints for economy.  Poland had always enjoyed such
liberal food supplies that Ian had overestimated his
war rations and was astounded to hear how people
lived in Belgium.  He cut down his ration system
slightly, and results proved that the change did no
immediate harm, whilst making a good deal of
difference in the output of supplies.\par

Father Constantine, too, was interested in the
visitor, though not on account of rations.  Minnie,
suspecting nothing and anxious to give him some news,
told him about Healy's arrival with an interpreter and
three other men who helped to distribute relief.\par

"American!" he cried.  "I must see him at once.
I wouldn't miss him for worlds."\par

Minnie explained that Major Healy would probably
stop a few days, then come back on his way home.\par

"Home?  Do you say he is going home?"  His
eyes shone like a bird's under the white bandages.
"If so, the sooner I see him the better."\par

"Can't I give him your message?"\par

"Certainly not."  Father Constantine could be very
peremptory when he liked.  "The idea!  I am quite
fit to see visitors ... and anxious to meet this
American boy."\par

"He's forty if he's an hour."\par

"Well--forty or fourteen.  See him I will."\par

Minnie put on the professional nurse's manner.\par

"Father," she said, "you're getting excited and you
know how bad it is for you.  I won't bring up
anybody till your temperature goes down."\par

He said no more; next time she took his temperature
it had gone up two points.  He actually winked at her.\par

"There, my child," he said in triumph.  "I told
you that the sooner I see this relief man the better.
I shall not sleep a wink to-night unless I do ... and
to-morrow morning you'll find me in a raging fever."\par

"He is busy ... Ian is with him.  I heard
them say they would not finish till supper time."\par

"What are they doing?"\par

"Checking stores for some village.  The Americans
have got a wonderful system.  Ian is learning it."\par

"You and Ian can do that whilst he is up here.  I
feel my temperature has gone up another point.  Give
me the thermometer."\par

She refused that, but went for Major Healy.  After
all, she reflected, he was an obstinate old man and
capable of getting a high temperature just to prove
himself in the right.\par

The introduction over, he turned to her with one
of his benignant smiles.\par

"My child ... you have spent so much time
with a poor old man to-day, I am sure Major Healy
will excuse you ... you might help Ian check
those potatoes."\par

She took the hint and went out; but not to the
potatoes.  I am afraid she did a very mean thing.
She burned with curiosity to hear what Father
Constantine wanted with the American major, and that
instinct which often enables a woman to steal a march
on man whispered that she was concerned in the
priest's mysterious anxiety.  It may be true that an
eavesdropper hears no good of herself; it is equally
true that she sometimes hears things good for herself.
Therefore, argued Minnie, it was quite a normal
occupation under the circumstances.\par

The Father's room opened to his dressing-room,
approachable from the corridor as well.  Thither she
tiptoed, to find the door ajar.  Slipping in, she stood
behind a curtain which hung in the doorway between
dressing and bedrooms.  There was no door, so she
heard very clearly.  Father Constantine was talking;
she caught the sound of her own name.\par

"It is not safe for Miss Burton to remain here,"
he said in his slow, correct English, for the Major
had no other tongue.  "I have told her so more than
once.  So has the Countess; and also the Count.  But
she refuses to listen.  She knows how much we value
her excellent work with wounded and refugees.  But
perhaps you can persuade her.  Neither the Countess
nor her son can insist; it would look as though they
wanted to get rid of her."\par

Major Healy was loath to interfere.  He sat, like
a giant in repose, by the little chaplain's bed, listening
politely, but secretly wishing himself downstairs with
the Count, whom he found more interesting every
time they talked together.  Father Constantine's
message had interrupted a long argument not entirely
disconnected with big-game shooting.  Healy was a
keen sportsman himself, and found it very interesting
to swap stories with Ian, who did not know the
Rockies, but did know the Caucasus and even
Cashmere, where he had spent a long-remembered holiday
with young Ralph Burton two years ago.\par

"Well," he said, in slow sonorous tones, his blue
eyes watching the snowstorm that raged outside the
sealed double window.  "Miss Burton looks as if she
could take care of herself.  I hear that the Grand
Duke promised to give warning if the place gets
unsafe."\par

This was not at all what Father Constantine wanted.\par

"Do you see my bandages?" he asked.\par

Major Healy said he did.\par

"I received the wounds they cover in a fight which
took place in the kitchen between the Grand Duke's
soldiers and Prussian Hussars.  Neither the Duke nor
the Kaiser sent to warn me that a fight would be in
the kitchen, which I entered by chance without any
idea the Russians had come to the rescue.  It was a
very good thing they did come because, as you know,
grain and potatoes are worth a dozen old men's skulls
nowadays."\par

"Oh--don't say that," protested the major politely.\par

The priest went on:\par

"Let us put it in this way.  What would have
happened if Miss Burton and not myself had gone into
the kitchen?"\par

"I suppose her head would have been smashed, too,"
murmured the American.\par

"Exactly," agreed the priest.  "Her pretty young
head would have been broken.  And as a woman's
head is softer than a priest's, it would probably have
been broken past repairing."\par

Major Healy waited for more.  It came.\par

"And what would the American government say
if an American woman had her skull broken in a
Polish kitchen?" he pursued.\par

"It would have written one of its darned notes."\par

"Oh!" said Father Constantine, disappointed at this
unexpected reply.  "It would have written one of
those notes?  They must be very interesting to
compose, but will not mend broken heads.  And England
won't even write a note.  But her brothers would
probably blame us for letting her stop here.  And
Ruvno is one of the most dangerous houses in Poland.
You can see for yourself what the Prussians have
done to the tower and the west wing."\par

"That I have," agreed the major, more interested
in the west wing than the prospect of Minnie's broken
skull.  "I'd like to wring the Kaiser's neck for bringing
down that old bit."  He was an admirer of antiquities,
you see, and Minnie was still far from being one.
"No, Father, Poland isn't safe for young girls and
I'll speak to her about it."\par

He rose from the depths of the armchair.\par

"Thank you so much.  It will be a great weight
off our minds when we know that this charming young
lady is out of danger.  When did you say you were
returning to France?"\par

"Not yet.  I'll have to go to Moscow, and can take
her to Petrograd and find an escort for her to England."\par

The Countess came in then and Healy went off.
Minnie was half-way across the room on her way
out when a laugh from the patient stopped her.  There
was something wicked about it, out of keeping with
a broken skull and high temperature.\par

"What is it?" asked the Countess.\par

He laughed again.  The visit had cheered him
immensely.\par

"I think I've managed it."\par

"Managed what?"\par

"To persuade the American that Miss can't
stop here any longer."  And he laughed again.\par

"But you know what the Grand Duke said."\par

"How about my broken head?"\par

"Oh--that was my fault, Father----"\par

"No--no."  His voice was deprecating now.
"This American man will persuade her.  He is the
picture of American determination.  Look at his chin."\par

"I haven't noticed his chin.  But I have noticed
your lack of gratitude.  I'm ashamed of you after
the way Minnie nurses you."\par

"I'm not ungrateful; but I've been watching her
and Ian rather closely the last few days."\par

"You've been in bed!"\par

Father Constantine coughed.\par

"That is why.  You have no idea, Countess, how
supremely indifferent a young woman is towards a
dozing patient.  And I doze a good deal nowadays.
Ian, dear boy, comes to see me.  And so does the Miss."\par

Minnie had to restrain an impulse to go in and
shake her patient.  She heard footsteps outside, then
Ian's voice at the old man's door.\par

"Is Major Healy here?" he asked.\par

"He is checking those American potatoes with the
Miss," the priest answered.\par

"Oh!  I'll come for a chat later on."  And off he went.\par

Minnie could hear the Countess and the priest giggle.
They were still enjoying their joke when came
another rap.  The surgeon this time.  Minnie went up
to the ward, bursting with indignation at the priest's
duplicity.  The idea of his "foxing" when she
supposed him sound asleep!  She thought it very deceitful
of him.\par

Healy was a conscientious man.  Though very busy
that evening, he found time to redeem his promise
to Father Constantine, and talk to Minnie.  She cut
him short with:\par

"Yes.  The old tower has spoilt one of the best
specimens of architecture left in Poland, and the old
priest's head has been smashed without either the
Kaiser or the Grand Duke warning him.  And I shall
get my head broken unless I go home at once."\par

He fairly gasped.\par

"How on earth----" he began.\par

"I've heard it before.  I expect that Father
Constantine has asked you to help him.  I shouldn't
wonder if he asked you what the American government
would say if my head gets broken.  Looking at
you and knowing your personal sympathies with the
Allies, I suppose you think I am able to take care of
myself."\par

"Well, as you mention it----"\par

He gave her an appreciative glance.  She was
good-looking and he admired her "spunk," to say nothing
about her bright eyes and rosy cheeks.\par

Taking courage, she went on gaily:\par

"And the priest probably used his old joke about
his head being harder than a woman's."\par

"He did say----"\par

"Major Healy, I appreciate your kindness, but I'm
not going home for any of these arguments, which
I've heard before.  You may have some of your own
up your sleeve, if so----"\par

"I hadn't thought of any, but----"\par

"No, you've been so busy that you trusted to the
old ones.  It would take something better to send me
back to London."\par

"There's Moscow," he mentioned.  "It's nearer and
quite safe."  He rather liked the idea of having her
as traveling companion.  She would be entertaining
and was good to look upon.\par

"Nor Moscow either."\par

"Warsaw?"\par

"Not even Warsaw.  I'm going to stop here, where
I'm wanted."\par

He laughed.  "I don't know but what you're right.
You can always get away when things look bad."\par

He returned to his blankets and potatoes, so Minnie
heard no more of the matter from him.  But Father
Constantine was quite nasty about it.  Next afternoon,
at the hour of his siesta, he summoned his old servant
and made him read the newspaper.  Then he insisted
on learning how to knit.  In future, when he wanted
a nap, he saw that the door was locked, saying that
visitors at that time disturbed him.  He gave a pretty
shrewd guess that his room was about the only place
where Minnie could talk quietly to Ian these busy days,
and meant to put a stop to the meetings.  He was
by no means so simple as he looked.\par

Major Healy sought her to say good-bye, on the
afternoon of his departure.  He waited till she had
gone up to one of the large bedrooms she called her
ward.  He thought he could talk more freely there
than before his host or hostess.  His ideas about
Minnie had changed in these few days, since he sat,
bored and eager to get away, by the old chaplain's
bed, and listened to his talk of broken heads.\par

"You're doing splendid work here," he said, when
she had shown him a couple of her convalescent
patients.  "But I think you're too near the firing line."\par

"So is the Countess," she returned gaily.  He did
not speak for a moment.  He had a habit of pondering
beforehand that suited his big stature and heavy
build.  He was interested in her.  She happened to
be the first young woman he had met for weeks who
spoke his own language.  Relief work in a devastated
country did not allow for social intercourse and he
realized what a pleasant little break Ruvno had made
for him.\par

"The Countess?" he echoed, looking at his cigar.
"I guess the Countess is hanging on to a piece of
herself.  The Count tells me her family has been here
for eight centuries.  I hadn't realized what that meant
till I talked to them.  It means that the family was
looking at this landscape, tilling this land and fighting
for it when the Indians camped where my home is
and the Norman king reigned over {\itshape{yours}}.  So I expect
she'd as soon die as leave it any other way."\par

"Yes--that's true," agreed Minnie.\par

"But you've only been here a few months," he went
on.  "It's not part of your bones."\par

"I've these," she said, looking round the room,
which was peopled with peasant women and children,
injured by Prussian shells or gases, whilst working in
their fields.  "I can't leave them."\par

He lowered his voice and bent over her, though
not one of those suffering, frightened souls could
understand what he said.  "I've talked things over
with the Count.  It's plain enough that they're not
going to leave this old house of theirs even if the
Germans come for good.  That's their look-out.  If
I were in their shoes I'd probably do the same thing.
The Germans will have to burn them out.  But you're
not a Pole--Miss Burton.  If they catch you here,
they'll give you a pretty bad time of it."\par

Her eyes flashed.\par

"I'm going to stay all the same," she said firmly.
"The Russians aren't beaten yet."\par

He gave a slow gesture of despair.\par

"It's going to be a long party and the Germans 'll
make another push for Warsaw soon.  You're right in
their road here."\par

He looked at her, a little pleadingly.  He hated the
thought of leaving her in the midst of this desolation,
possibly a prey to German "Kultur."  He had not
noticed anything to make him suspect that Ian, rather
than wounded refugees, was in her mind when she
refused to leave.  He had not seen the two together.
Ian was busy all day long outside the house, she in
the wards.  His admiration for her grew.\par

"Haven't you any family?" he asked.\par

"One brother with the Fleet and another in
Flanders."\par

"That's a family to be proud of," he said warmly.
"D'you hear from them?"\par

"Not since the Dardanelles were closed.  Will you
take a couple of letters for me?"\par

"That I will.  And I'll see you get the answers.
I'm going to Petrograd next week--then to France.
I'll be back here next spring.  Meanwhile, there are
other men doing the work.  Tell your brothers to send
through our office in Moscow.  Here's the address."  He
produced a card, then a pencil.  "On the back
I'll write mine, in Paris, where you'll always get
me."  He scribbled a couple of lines and handed her
the card.  "Now you keep that and don't forget to
let me know, either there, or through our Moscow
office, when you want anything."\par

"Thanks awfully.  I'll take great care of the card
and will fetch the letters for my brothers.  They are
ready."\par

He followed her and waited in the corridor.  When
she came back he said, hesitatingly:\par

"Excuse a personal question; but have you got any cash?"\par

"A certain amount."\par

"How much?"\par

"Oh, about five hundred roubles--and my cheque-book."\par

"The cheque-book won't do you much good."  His
comely, rather heavy face flushed.  "Look here I'm
a banker at home----"\par

"Why, you're a major," she retorted.\par

"So I am.  But peace soldiering didn't suit me and
I went into my father's business.  I'm going to join
up again when America fights--and she must."\par

"I'm glad to hear that," she said.\par

"Thanks.  It'll take time--but it's coming.  Why,
if I thought we weren't going to help put an end to
this desolation over here...."\par

He grew suddenly shy, and broke off.  Then:\par

"Let me be your banker now."  He put a roll of
notes into her hand.  "You'll be glad of it before
you're through with Poland, believe me."\par

She thanked him, prettily, so he thought.  Her first
impulse was to refuse the money.  Then she reflected
that they all might be glad of it one day.  The
American's kindness touched her, and she showed it;
this flattered him.  He had a susceptible heart and
innate chivalry, inherited from Irish forebears.\par

"Oh--how am I to thank you?" she murmured,
blushing redder than he had been a moment before.\par

"By using it to get out of this desert as soon as
you can," he returned quickly.  "I hate to leave you
here--in danger."\par

"But there is none--yet.  Look here, Major Healy,
do let me give you a cheque on my London bank
for it."\par

He laughed.\par

"I told you cheques are no good in this country.
We'll settle later on.  Remember to let me know if
I can help.  Good-bye and good luck."\par

He strode down the long gallery, turned at the
end, regretfully, waved his hand and was gone.
Minnie went back to her patients, whom she tended with
the help of two village women, and Zosia, the
housekeeper.\par

The Countess had wounded soldiers in another part
of the house.\par

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\vs{2}
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One spring morning the Countess came into the
office where Ian was working, an open letter
in her hand.  He saw by her eyes that she had
unpleasant news.\par

"A letter from Joseph," she announced, sitting down
by his desk, where he was busy with accounts.  He
looked up, his clear eyes hardened.\par

"What does he want?"\par

"He has a week's leave.  He says that the six
months are over, and wants----"\par

"Wants his wedding," said Ian.  "Then he must
have it."\par

She laid her slim hand on his.  He raised it to
his lips; but did not meet her fond gaze.\par

"He says he has written to Vanda, to come here,
to meet him."\par

Ian gave a grunt.  He thought it just like Joe's
impudence to order people in and out of his house.
But he said nothing.  His mother went on:\par

"Vanda, it appears, wants the wedding to take place
in Warsaw."\par

"She's right," he returned promptly.  "A wedding
in this muddle!"  He looked out of the window, to
the garden cut in trenches, and the barbed wire, rusty
with spring rains, blotting what was once a peaceful
vista of sedate comfort.  "I'd write to the Europe
about rooms, and to the Archbishop."\par

"But, Ianek, think of the expense, nowadays," she
protested gently.\par

"It wouldn't be much.  You need only invite the
family.  No lunch or anything, just a glass of
champagne when you get back from church.  A war
wedding."\par

"Then you won't come, dear?"\par

"No.  The work here ... you know how
pressed I am for men."  He lowered his voice: "It's
easier that way."\par

She gave him one of her long, adoring looks, her
hand on his shoulder.\par

"Courage," she whispered, "these things pass."\par

He nodded.  "There have been so many other
things, and yet, when you came in with your news,
I wished him dead."\par

"Ianek!" she cried, shocked by the pain in his voice
as much as his words.  "I'd been hoping you had
forgotten.  You were more cheerful these last few weeks,
and so busy."\par

He gave a little laugh.  "So did I.  Then this letter
brought it ... showed it's still there."  He got
up and paced the long room.  "Oh, I don't want it
here.  Manage that for me; find out from somebody
where Joe is, send a messenger that we can't have it
in this ruin, that I insist, as head of the family, on
its being in Warsaw.  Telegraph to Vanda--I can't
spare a messenger or I'd send a note to her by hand.
But telegraph her that she's to stop where she is,
that you're coming for the wedding.  Tell her to
let him know; he may be in Warsaw."\par

She glanced at the letter.\par

"No address, of course, just the military censor's
stamp."\par

"But she may know where he is," he rejoined
eagerly.  "Take Minnie with you.  The change'll do
her good.  Women love a wedding.  Stop a few days
yourself.  I'll write the telegrams myself, they must
be in Russian, I'd forgotten that."  Then, seeing the
alarm in her face, he added: "Don't worry, Mother,
it's only ... it'll pass.  But start for Warsaw
the minute you can, before either of them gets here."\par

"At once," she said, rising.\par

He wrote a telegram to Joseph, another to Vanda
and a third to the Archbishop of Warsaw.  He wanted
that man of high courage and well-tried patriotism to
bless her union.  These he sent to the station, the
nearest telegraph office; at some inconvenience,
because there was a great deal of work to be done in
the fields and he was short of labor.  So he took the
place of the boy he sent plowing for him till all
hands struck work at midday.  Things had changed
since last spring; when the squire rode over his
well-cultivated property and merely gave orders to his
manager.  Now he was his own manager and his own
bailiff, and sometimes his own hind as well.  Plowing,
he congratulated himself that he had at least saved
the situation, as far as witnessing Joseph's happiness
went; and the hard exercise relieved his feelings.\par

Here Destiny stepped in.  He was crossing the hall
to wash his hands for their frugal lunch when he
heard the clatter of a quick-stepping horse through
the open door.  A tall figure, slim and smart in its
brown Cossack uniform, swung from the saddle and
stood in the sunlit entry.  It was Joseph.  They stood
looking at one another in silence for a moment.\par

"Hullo!" cried the new-comer, "It is you
... couldn't see after having the sun in my eyes."  And
he strode over, spurs clanking, to hug the squire in
an old-fashioned Polish embrace with a warmth that
belonged, in the old days, to Roman, never to his
brother.\par

Ian was forced to admit that war had changed his
cousin.  He was handsome as ever; but less a prig,
more a man.  Rubbing shoulders with the primitive
aspects of life and death had done him good, widened
his sympathies, rubbed off the crust of self-complacency
which Ian has always hated in him, even
before love came between them.\par

"I just wired to you," he said, releasing himself.
"No idea you were so near."\par

"Near!  The general's headquarters are in a
railway truck at Kosczielna.  I've got a week's leave.
Has Vanda come?"\par

"No.  Mother is packing to go to Warsaw."\par

"Anything wrong?" he asked in alarm.  "Out with
it, tell me the worst."\par

"Nothing wrong.  Only...."  He pointed towards
the devastated garden, the gap where the tower
had once been, and the rusty entanglements.  "We
can't have a wedding here."\par

Joseph laughed, not from lack of sympathy, but
for relief that Vanda was not ill?\par

"My God!  There are weddings on rubbish heaps
nowadays.  I call Ruvno a quiet spot for a honeymoon.
I've no time to go to Warsaw.  Vanda wanted it
there, too, but it'll take too long.  We're going to
make an advance soon, and goodness knows when
I'll get another chance like this.  A week's leave!  Not
to be despised, I can tell you.  I've got all the papers
and things.  We can get married the moment Vanda
comes.  Hard work getting them, but they've made
things easier in war-time.  I saw that old Canon of
yours.  Dragged him out of bed at six o'clock this
morning.  I say, anything to drink?  I've the thirst
of the devil on me!"\par

"Of course."  He led the way to the dining-room,
noted Joseph's long pull at the beer set before him--he
was in too much of a hurry to wait for a bottle of
wine to be fetched and opened--watched, listened and
wondered.  And this was Joseph, the fastidious,
pomaded, manicured, supercilious fop of six months
ago.  His face reddened by snow, sun and wind; his
chin unshaven, his right hand disfigured by the scar
of the wound he got in the Carpathians, his nails
broken and begrimed with dirt that no washing would
remove, his fair hair, once so sleek and trim, tousled
from his high fur cap, which he pulled off and flung
on to a chair.  He looked the picture of robust health,
happiness and sincerity, but never like Joseph Skarbek.
Soldiering with men whose education and upbringing
was ruder than his had rubbed the artificiality off him,
leaving the old type of virile, keen, sincere Skarbeks
who had fought their way through the country's
history.  Ian began almost to like him.\par

But he was not a second Roman, had none of his
brother's fatalism, devil-may-care philosophy, odd
glimpses into the truth of life's foundations.  His was
more the ingenuity of a big schoolboy, but such a
schoolboy as he had never been when in his 'teens.
One of his first questions was for Roman.  He grew
grave when they told him there was no news.\par

"I counted on your hearing from him.  He wouldn't
be likely to write to me, because of Vanda.  But he
must have got over that.  It wasn't his first love-affair
--nor his second.  He can't be a prisoner.  He'd
never let the Prussians take him.  He told me that.
Besides, I know it myself."  He gave a short laugh.
"Crucifixion would be too good for us both if they
catch us.  And he's not on the list of dead or wounded
either, for I got a man at Petersburg--I mean
Petrograd--to bring me them."\par

"Up to date?" asked Ian anxiously.\par

"Yes.  The latest.  They came this morning, just
before I started.  Of course, it's just like Roman
never to send a line, and then hell turn up all of a
sudden and be surprised that we were anxious."\par

As he sat and listened to the story of the
Carpathian campaign, told with simple directness, with
that ignorance of main facts which characterises all
such stories, where a man knows only what goes on
around him, yet with that charm of the intelligent
eye-witness, Ian felt suddenly very middle-aged and out
of things.  Here he was, doing daily drudgery on a
ruined estate, always in the same place, always seeing
the same people, in the dull monotony of a long
winter, without any shooting, without visits to
Warsaw and the opera, whilst this cousin of his, whom
he had always despised for a coxcomb and an armchair
agriculturist, had been running half over Europe,
chasing the Austrians over snow-bound mountains,
learning the sensation of fighting hand to hand, of
being wounded, of getting a decoration, of thinking
himself dead once, of being near death many times;
not the death of rats-in-a-hole that Ruvno knew, but
death with glory; when he heard tales of these things,
told by a now unfamiliar Joseph, and compared his
own humdrum life, he reflected bitterly that if Vanda
had loved this man before she would worship him
now.  He opened the demijohn that his mind had
reserved for Roman's coming, and they drank the
health of everybody they liked who was alive and to
the other Skarbek's speedy return.  During the evening
they discussed business.\par

"Aunt Natalie," began the bridegroom, "I expect
you think I'm mad to get married just now, with
nothing to live upon and not even knowing if I'll be
alive this time next week."\par

"Vanda will never want while we are able to give
her a crust," she said warmly.  This new Joseph
pleased her, too; if not for her boy she would have
taken him to her heart as she had taken Roman long ago.\par

"Thank you, Aunt.  I used to think, there on the
Carpathians, what a selfish beast I was to keep her
to our engagement after I'd joined the right side and
lost my property.  But when I was in Kieff old Uncle
Stephen came to see me."\par

"Old Uncle Stephen," was of the branch of Skarbeks
who had estates in Russian territory and were
Russian subjects.\par

"They say he's made a lot of money over the war,"
remarked Ian.\par

"At any rate he's not lost any.  He was so pleased
to hear that I'd joined against the Prussians that he
made over a hundred thousand roubles to me.  He's
a wise old bird; had it invested in several things, I'll
tell you the details afterwards.  I've got the figures
on paper.  Anyway, Vanda will have enough to live
upon.  And on the strength of it I thought we'd better
get married.  Everybody doesn't get killed in the war.
I don't see why I should be worse off than other men."\par

Later on he reverted again to his marriage; this
time to Ian.\par

"Vanda has been working too hard in Warsaw,"
he said.  "I can see that from her letters.  She's not
her old self.  I want you to let her stop here till I
can take care of her myself."\par

Ian did not answer for a moment; when he spoke
it was with an effort.\par

"This is her home as long as she likes," he said.  "But
you mustn't forget that the Russians have been here
twice and may come again.  You wouldn't want her
here then."\par

"I've thought of that.  But they won't come so
fast.  And I'll let you know in time to get her out
before they do.  She wants a rest from that nursing
business.  It's wearing her out."\par

Ian's quick ears had detected the sound of wheels
coming up the drive.  He went to the window and
looked out.  A hired trap was making its way up to
the house with that gallop for the avenue characteristic
of hackney drivers in Eastern Europe.  The garden
was flooded with moonlight, which lighted up those
on the trap.  As it swung round by the front door,
he saw two women sitting behind the driver.  One
was evidently a peasant, and beside her sat a slim,
upright figure dressed in dark clothes.  He shut the
window and turned to his cousin:\par

"She has come," he said.\par

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\vs{2}
{\noindent}
Next morning, Ian was up at daybreak, hurrying
to his morning tasks, to get them over a
little earlier than usual and have time for a
chat with Vanda before breakfast. The Canon was
coming at twelve, and would marry them immediately.
Between breakfast and midday he had a great deal
to do and could not expect to get five minutes alone
with her.\par

Crossing to the farm, he met Joseph.\par

"You're up early," he remarked.\par

"Can't sleep.  I'm so excited!"  He laughed gaily.\par

"I hope Vanda is asleep.  She looked awfully tired
last night."\par

"Oh, she'll be all right in a little while.  She's had
too much hard work.  The Princess ought not to
have allowed it.  She promised to get up in good time,
too; I want every minute with her."\par

Ian glanced at him.  So the old Joseph had not
gone altogether.  Ian would not have disturbed her
so early if they were to part that day.  She needed
rest more than anything.\par

"Don't you think she has changed?" he asked.  "It
seemed to me last night she was different."\par

"Oh, nonsense!  You know how devoted she is to
me.  And I to her, of course.  Why, I love her a
thousand times more than I did before I went to the
Carpathians.  You're getting a crusty old bachelor,
full of odd ideas.  {\itshape{Au revoir}}, I'm off to get a shave."\par

And he turned towards the house.  Ian went into
one of the fields which were being plowed.  How
sure Joseph was of his luck!  Even if he heard from
Vanda's own lips that she did not care for him he
would refuse to believe it, put it down to fatigue,
insist on their marriage all the same.\par

Ian was late for breakfast.  The Countess alone
lingered at the table, so that he should not have a
solitary meal.  They did not mention Vanda's name,
but he asked if she had ordered the best luncheon
possible, considered the menu, suggested one or two
alterations.  The best champagne in the cellars must
be brought up--and some of the old Hungarian wine
for dessert, as is the Polish custom.  She fondly
thought that it was just like her boy to remember
such details for other people's pleasure in the midst
of his own pain.  He spoke about a dowry, too, but
here she was firm in her disapproval.\par

"It's absurd," she said.  "Stephen is looking after
Joseph.  He is far better off now than we are or
ever shall be again.  And you know he always meant
to leave everything to Joe and Roman.  Keep your
money.  We shall want it badly enough before the
war is over."\par

He said no more about it, but returned to the lunch.\par

"It would have been a better one if I'd known
sooner," he remarked as they left the table.
"However, the wine is all right.  And they'll be too happy
to notice what they are eating."\par

"Oh, Ianek, I do wish you hadn't promised him
to keep her here," she exclaimed.\par

He took her face in his hands and kissed her white
hair, laughing a little at her concern.\par

"Never mind, Mother.  You've no idea how good
plowing is for the sentiments."\par

This was another grievance.  She exclaimed indignantly:\par

"To think you have to work like a peasant!"\par

"I want my crops.  And when I've no manager,
overseer or bailiff, and very few laborers, what can
I do?  It's good for me, I'm fit as a fiddle."  And
he made her feel the muscles on his arms, which were
like iron.\par

"We seem to have become yeoman farmers," she
said.  "Oh, I'm not complaining for myself."\par

"Then don't worry about me," he rejoined cheerfully.
"After all, we're a lot better off than most of
our neighbors."\par

The wedding was over very quickly.  Ian gave
Vanda away because there was nobody else to do it.
She wore a white frock which, oddly enough, he
remembered quite well.  Less than a year ago he had
taken her and the Countess up to Warsaw for some
racing, before she went to stay in the Grand Duchy.
They had their usual rooms at the Europe, on the
quiet side, away from the main street.  There was a
large sitting-room, with a balcony.  The dress had
come home at the last moment, whilst the car waited
downstairs to take them to the course at Mokotov.
She had put it on hastily and called him in from
the balcony to look at it.  He supposed that was why
he remembered it so well.  He would have given her
a new one for the wedding, had he known she was
coming so quickly.  She looked very sweet in the
old one, though.  But his thoughts flew back to the
sumptuous outfit he had planned for her, sables he
had priced in Warsaw, whither he never returned,
except to volunteer for the army; the guests he was to
invite, entertaining them as Ruvno could entertain--once.
And it had all turned out so differently.  There
were no guests, no presents, no sables; not even an
entire house.  Nothing but ruined acres and dead
hopes, and a pain in his heart such as he had never
felt before.\par

He could not see her face as the ring was slipped
on to her finger.  He did not want to.  He longed for
the whole thing to be over and done with, the blessing
bestowed, the healths drunk, the meal at an end, that
he could go out into the sun and fresh air, working
until bodily fatigue had numbed every other feeling.\par

Almost immediately after the marriage they sat down
to table.  He played his part decorously, without
betraying himself, with a secret anger at the pain in his
soul and determination to kill it.  Even Minnie, who
watched him closely, could find no fault.  He was the
lively host of peace days, but the champagne helped
him there.\par

The Canon was in great form.  He told all sorts
of stories about the time when Rennankampf was
lodged in his house and did his duty by food and drink
as well.  Then he rose to propose a toast.  It was in
verse.  He had used it at every marriage feast he
went to for the past twenty years.  Even Vanda,
youngest of the party, knew it off by heart; for all
the author ever did was to change the names of bride
and bridegroom; the body of the verses remained the
same.  No sooner was he on his feet, however, than
they applauded him.  Even Father Constantine, rather
sleepy after his early rising and the old Tokay, woke
up and said: "Bravo!"\par

"Ladies and gentlemen!" began the Canon, folding
his hands over his well-filled soutane and beaming on
them all: "Let us now drink to the health of the
beautiful bride and gallant bridegroom, who----"\par

He never got any further.  At that moment, Martin
approached Joseph and whispered in his ear.  The
Canon stopped, for he saw a new expression on the
bridegroom's face.\par

"Anything wrong, Count?" he asked anxiously.\par

Joseph turned to Martin.\par

"Are you sure?"\par

"Quite.  He is waiting at the door."\par

"I'm sorry..."  He rose.  "I'll be back in a moment."\par

But they all followed him to the door.  A Cossack
orderly stood there, his horse covered with sweat and
he with dust.  He saluted Joseph and said in Russian:\par

"I was to give you this personally----"\par

And he produced a sealed envelope from one of his
high boots.\par

Joseph tore it open, read the few words typed on
a slip of paper inside, and turned white.\par

"To Hell with the war!" he cried savagely.\par

"What is it?" they all cried.\par

"I must go--at once."\par

"Oh--not a German advance?" asked Vanda apprehensively.\par

He crushed the paper in his hand and returned
huskily, despair on his face:\par

"God knows.  The orders are to report at Headquarters
immediately.  Oh, Vanda, it's Destiny.  First
the Germans, now the Russians take me from you."\par

"But you had a week's leave," said the Countess,
whilst Vanda and her lover stood side by side, looking
at each other in sorrow.  "He can't go back on his word."\par

"It's imperative," said Joseph.  Then to the soldier:
"What's the news at Headquarters?"\par

"We're off at once.  Galicia, they say."  He swung
into his saddle.  "I'll get your horse, sir.  Time
presses."  And with a salute which took in them all
he went off to the stables.\par

In less than ten minutes Joseph was off, trotting
down the avenue on his fleet horse, the soldier behind
him.  Farewells, admonitions, promises and good
wishes were crowded into that short space of time.
Ian could not forgive himself for his silence in the
morning.  They were not married an hour before
Joseph left.  He could have put it off for months,
forever perhaps, had he only followed his better sense,
instead of letting things slide, with true Slavonic
fatalism, he told himself angrily.\par

But there was no use repining.  He left the three
women with the priests and returned to his work.
He did not attempt to console Vanda, who stood on
the steps where her husband had left her, watching
him hurry away, waving her hands as he swung out
into the road and was lost in the dust and the distance.
He noticed that she was very pale, bewildered by the
morning's rapid events and emotions, with tears in
her eyes.  He tried to read her thoughts, but could not.\par

So life once more returned to its old monotony.
Vanda wore her wedding ring.  But that was the only
outward sign that she was no longer under Ian's
guardianship.  Letters came to her from Joseph, who
wrote of getting leave in the summer.  She helped
Minnie with the few wounded civilians still left in
the house and slipped into her old place again.  Ian
seldom spoke to her, avoided her eyes at table where
he kept up a general conversation in English, for
Minnie's benefit.  As spring advanced he found more
work to keep mind and body occupied.  By dint of
getting the most out of himself and the labor still
left at his disposal he managed to put enough land
under crops to feed Ruvno and its population for two
years, and perhaps sell some grain as well.  And this
gave him as much satisfaction as it would have given
any small farmer.  And it made him feel young again
to see the land regain some measure of its old
prosperous aspect, though many a broad acre was cut up
into trenches.  Peasants who had escaped to Warsaw
during the December campaign now returned, vowing
that nothing would induce them to leave home again.
True, most of them were obliged to live in trenches
or in the open, for their villages existed only in name;
but as the warm weather came on this was no great
hardship and they felt so glad to get back to the soil
that they forgot past troubles and set out to cultivate
their fields with the indomitable courage of their race.\par

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\vs{2}
{\noindent}
The inmates of Ruvno thought they had
witnessed all the wrack and vicissitudes of war;
of advancing armies, entrenched armies, foraging
armies, looting armies; of wounds, pollution and
death.  They had yet to see a retreating army.\par

By July the Russians were in full retreat.\par

Day and night they went by.  Cursing, sweating,
bleeding, limping; hungry, thirsty, weary, their eyes
aglow with the smouldering fires of rage, disappointment
and all the bitterness of recession; without haste,
without hope they tramped past, to fall back upon
the Nieman, the Pripet and the Dnieper, leaving
Poland to the Prussian Antichrist.\par

At times, some of them stood to give fight, covering
the retreat of the armies' bulk.  Then, though these
battles of despair were far from Ruvno, the ground
shook under them, a very earthquake; the few trees
left were stript of their leaves till it looked as though
winter and not August, were upon them.  The
Russians had no ammunition; the rumbling and shaking
came from their enemies.  And this is why there were
smouldering fires in the tired soldiers' eyes; it was a
nightmare to try and beat off a modern army with
lances, rifle-butts and sticks.  One morning a lot of
soldiers halted in the village.  Having exhausted what
water there was, for a drought had been added to the
peasants' troubles, some sought the house.  Ian went
out to them.  One, a giant with blue eyes,
fever-bright and dry, was holding forth to the servants in
a frenzy of impotent rage.  His uniform was in tatters,
his boots a mass of torn leather, held together God
knows how.  His dirty blouse was open to the chest,
where the blood had clotted on a stale wound.  In
his hand was a stout oaken club, which he waved about
as he shouted and swore.\par

"What could I do with this?  Tell me, what could
I do?  A stick to beat off the German swine.  Son
of a dog, what could I do?  Never a rifle since we
left the Lakes.  My knife gone, too."  He meant his
bayonet.  "Mother of God, to think of it!  Not a
hundred rounds to the whole regiment!  But I killed
three dog's sons with it!"  He wildly struck the air;
all fell back in terror of their lives.  "See! like this.
One!  Two!  Three!  Smashing in their skulls like
I hammer the horseshoes on the anvil at home.  Look
at their dog's blood on it--look ye, and tremble!"\par

Father Constantine, who had come out, insisted on
dressing his wound, and found two others, only half
healed.  But he was built like Hercules, this
blacksmith from a village of Tula; they could tell he was
in a high fever; some men march a couple of days
and more in such a state, the kit on their backs, and
none the worse for it in the end.  For these sons of
Rus are hardened from their birth and as strong as
the beasts they tend at home.  He was indignant with
the old priest for bringing out some simple remedies.\par

"What are you doing, {\itshape{Pop}}?" he shouted.  "The
surgeon dressed it last night, or last week, I forget
when.  I tore it off me.  How can I bear the feel of
rags in this nightmare?  I'll go naked to the day of
Judgment, by God I will."\par

And he proceeded to strip, flinging his ragged
garments to right and left, as the wild Cossacks do when
they have had too much {\itshape{vodka}} and dancing.  The
maids rushed off in horror; but another giant, his
comrade, managed to calm him and cover his huge,
brawny body, where the muscles stood out as hard
as iron under skin white as a woman's; for the
Russians of his part are fair.  Father Constantine gave
him a cooling draught and did what he could for his
wounds, which must have smarted terribly under the
iodine; but he never groaned.  He was lying on his
back now, breathing heavily, eyes closed, hands
clasping the club with all the strength of fever.\par

"He'll kill us if he keeps it," observed his comrade,
whose head was encased in dirty bandages.  "He has
been mad with fever since last sunset ... but
we can't find room in an ambulance for him and he
lays out whenever we try to take it away."\par

"I'll lay out at all the ministers when I get to
Petrograd!" bawled the patient, springing up and
upsetting the Father.  Worse than that, he sent over
the bottle of iodine, too, and they were very short
of it.  "Son of a dog, I'll have them all, crush their
skulls like walnuts.  The war minister first, for
sending us sticks instead of guns ... and then the
intendant, for these boots."  Here he flung one across
the yard, where it stuck on to the well-handle.  "I'll
murder every dog's son of them--by God, I will, till
we clean Russia of thieves and swine."\par

And so he went on, raving at everybody and everything,
till he had shouted himself tired.  Then he lay
down in the shade of the stables and slept uneasily.
Ian wanted to send him to bed, which was the only
fit place for him.  The officer in charge demurred,
said he did not think the man was ill enough to risk
being found here by the enemy, who could not be
kept off more than a few days.  He had orders to
retreat with as few losses as possible.  When Ian
finally gained his point, promising to send him on by
the first ambulance that passed, the man himself
refused to stop behind.  He wasn't going to leave his
comrades; he didn't trust priests ... this one
had burned him with poison and tried to take away
his only weapon, so that he would not even be able
to crack German skulls when they came up.\par

They watched them march off; the giant, quieter
now, staggered between two limping comrades who
helped him along, though they had all their work cut
out to put one sore foot before the other.  When they
reached the bend in the road they began to sing, in
unison, as Russians do.  And Father Constantine's
heart went out to those brave, simple souls, and he
prayed that they might reach the Nieman in safety.\par

At first this was the only army Ruvno saw--a host
of men, way-worn but strong.  But soon came the
vanguard of another legion, a ghastly, straggling
horde of old men, women and children, fleeing before
the invaders.  Some of them carried a kettle--all that
remained of their worldly goods; others had harnessed
skinny, starving nags to their long, narrow carts, piled
with bedding, a quilt or two, a table or a stool.  Here
and there could be seen a sack of potatoes or
buckwheat between the wooden bars; but this was rare
indeed, because these unhappy people had nothing left
in barn or cellar.  And the women.  They trailed on
with their little ones; with children who could walk
or toddle, with infants in arms, with babes at the
breast, with babes yet unborn, destined to see the first
light of a tempestuous world from the roadside, whilst
jostling humanity passed indifferently by, benumbed
with a surfeit of ordeal and pain.  The household
could do little for these poor wretches.\par

In one group of misery they saw a priest--a young
man he was.  Father Constantine chided him.\par

"Why did you let them leave their homes?" he
asked.  "Can't you see half of them are doomed to
die in the ditch?"\par

He shrugged his shoulders and looked at his
questioner with the dull eyes of a man steeped in despair.\par

"What could I do?" was his wail.  "The Russians
drove us out of house and home."\par

"The Prussians, you mean," corrected Ian.\par

"I mean what I say.  The Cossacks burnt the grain
in the fields.  Then they set fire to the village."  He
cursed them with unpriestly words, but even Father
Constantine had not the will to stop him.\par

"If there had been one cottage left, one sack of
buckwheat, I could have persuaded them to stop," he
concluded.  "But the sight of the burning fields and
the charred walls of their homes filled them with
panic.  All our younger men are in the army, and
we had only the scorched earth left.  If we ever reach
Warsaw we shall get somewhere to lay our heads and
a sup to put in our mouths."\par

Ian gave them some food for their journey, for
that other retreating army paid these unfortunates no
attention.  They had two young mothers in the house.
One Vanda found in the ditch outside the paddock.
Ian cut down the household rations for these fugitives,
because his stock had run low, and the horde came
on unceasingly.  He had ordered fresh supplies from
Warsaw nearly a month back; but there was no hope
of getting them now.  His new grain was ready to
cut, and he set about it in haste, lest bad luck befall it.\par

Two days later, the stream of humanity still passed
by.  Many halted to beg for food, water.  Ian gave
both, though he could only afford the water, for his
generosity of the last few days diminished the stores
in an alarming way.  So he had to harden his heart
and give far less.  The country for versts round was
being laid waste.  Every group of refugees told the
same tale of destruction and ruin.  On this particular
morning passed some peasants of Stara Viesz.  They
told a ghastly story.  They were cutting the crops
when the Cossacks came up and began firing the grain
as it stood in the fields.  The reapers turned upon
them with their scythes; a fierce fight followed.  The
Cossacks, having spent all their ammunition on the
Germans, had but their spears left--and the peasants
got the best of it, beating off the destroying {\itshape{sotnia}},
who left dead and wounded amongst the corn.  But
much of the grain was burnt and some of the cottages
caught fire, for a strong east wind was blowing.  The
villagers who now passed had nothing left.  Those
lucky enough to save field or hut remained behind.\par

"If we can only reach Warsaw we shall be saved,"
said their spokesman.  They had one cart left, for
four families.  Three had been abandoned because the
horses dropped dead upon the road.\par

They all looked to Warsaw as a haven of rest and
plenty.  And an officer told Ian the Grand Duke had
decided not to defend that city, but to evacuate it
and leave it to the Prussians.  This news was so bad
that he had not the courage to tell it them.  After all,
they would not go back to their ruined homes.  Ian
and the priest used all their eloquence in trying to
persuade them to it.  But they refused.  Terror was
upon them.  Perhaps they were right; why go back
to starvation?\par

"Why don't the Russians give us food?  They made
us leave our homes," was the cry on everybody's lips.
Ian could not answer them.  So helpless did he feel
that the temptation came to shut himself up in the
top story rather than see suffering which he could not
relieve.  And he, too, asked himself why the Russians
drove these peasants from their homes.  What was
the good of it?  Those who did not die on the road
would only swell the beggar population of Moscow
and Petrograd; for they were destitute, though war
found them prosperous men, with land and savings,
too.  These sad, ragged, homeless crowds would only
stir up discontent in Russia.  And the farms and
holdings they had been forced to leave would give the
Prussians room to put their own colonists.  He was
relieved to see that very few priests were among the
refugees.  When he or Father Constantine asked a
panic-stricken group where their priest was the answer
always came:\par

"He would not leave those who stopped behind."\par

Again anxiety haunted the House.  There was
Joseph.  He had given no sign for a month.  He had
been so emphatic in his last letters about sending
word when Vanda ought to leave that they almost
gave him up as dead.  But though there was no longer
any doubt that the Germans would be in Ruvno before
long she refused to leave.  Neither Ian nor the
Countess insisted.  The retreat had come so unexpectedly
that they found themselves cut off from Warsaw, the
only road to Russia left open, without a day's notice.
There were no trains but for the army, and few
enough for that.  Ian had not a pair of horses left
capable of taking her twelve versts, let alone to
Warsaw; and he doubted if she could get away from
there.  Minnie was kept by the same reasons, that is,
devotion to Ruvno and fear of sharing the fate of
those fugitives they saw pass night and day.  Then
there was Roman.  So many Cossacks went by but
Ian vainly sought his face amongst them.  Some
remembered Roman well; but they had not seen him
for months, they said.  One thought he had been taken
prisoner in Masuria; another, who seemed to have
known him better than the rest, said he was reported
missing as far back as last October.  Ian questioned
Father Constantine when he heard this, asking exactly
what happened that night when Joseph escaped to the
chapel.  The old man repeated his story and said:\par

"Ian, I can tell you no more.  Our little family
is broken up.  God knows when it will be reunited.
Perhaps not till death binds us together."\par

Then, perhaps more pressing than all, was anxiety
about the crops.  It was quite possible the Cossacks
would fire them before they left.  Some were cut;
but most of them still stood, not ready for harvest.
And Ian, watching the Cossacks' lack of fodder for
their horses, trembled for the fate of his haystacks
and barns, where there was hay.  The retreating army
grew fiercer, more and more antagonistic towards the
civil population of the country it had to abandon.
The officers could keep in their men when they liked;
but the officers themselves were often at little pains
to hide their hostility, though the majority treated Ian
and his property with consideration.  But a retreating
army is rougher and more turbulent than an advancing,
or entrenched army.  God forgive them!  They
knew all the wretchedness of failure.  Rage and
disappointment had hold of them.  Some Cossacks
stopped in Ruvno; they were those who remembered
Roman Skarbek.  They kept mostly to the village,
but Ian wished they would go.  One night their
commander told him that the Prussians would be there
very soon, and it was time to make up his mind as to
what he was going to do.  Ian told him he had long
ago made up his mind to stay.  But he called up the
chief men from the village, a deputation chosen by the
rest.  The message he sent was for service in the
chapel; though he did have the service, the real
purpose was to discuss the situation; but the Cossacks
looked askance at him when they heard he had
decided to stay in Ruvno, so he had to be careful.  They
kept watch day and night from the church tower in
the village, either to direct the Russian fire on the
Prussians or else to watch for their coming.  Several
times they warned the villagers to leave before their
homes were razed to the ground.  Some peasants were
for taking their advice and going to Warsaw.  Hence
the meeting.\par

"The time has come for you to make up your
minds," he said when he had them all in the little
sacristy.  "Are you going to leave your land and
follow the retreating army, or to stop here and stick
to your fields?"\par

"What is the House going to do?" asked the
{\itshape{soltys}}, or head of the village community.\par

"We stop here so long as there is a roof over us."\par

A murmur of approval greeted this.  Ian went on:\par

"But I don't want you to be guided by what I and
the Lady Countess are doing.  You know what is
going on as well as I do."\par

"Ay.  All the devils have taken the Muscovites,"
said a voice.\par

"Thousands of peasants, once rich, like yourselves,
pass on their way to Warsaw," said Ian.\par

"Please, my lord Count," put in the {\itshape{soltys}}, "it's
Siberia and not Warsaw they are going to.  The
Cossacks down in the village are talking a lot about
it.  The Russian government is offering the fugitives
land in Siberia and work in the mines.  It's not fair.
This has been our land for centuries, long before the
Russians came here at all.  And I, for one, and my
three young sons, are for stopping here.  They can
but burn our crops and cottages.  Haven't the
Cossacks done that?"\par

A low growl of anger filled the room.  The old
man went on:\par

"But when they've burnt the crops and our huts and
stacks they've done their worst.  They can't take
away the land, even if they bring all the carts they've
got.  The land remains.  And I remain.  For I'd
rather starve through another winter on my own soil
than have the biggest farm they can give me in Siberia."\par

They talked a lot, arguing and disputing, as peasants
do.  But you cannot hurry them, so Ian and the priest
waited for them in the chapel.  After an hour, when
each had had his say, Baranski came out.\par

"Well, what have you decided?" Ian asked with
secret anxiety.  It is no joke to be left in a big place
like Ruvno without any peasants.\par

"Sir," answered the {\itshape{soltys}}, who had followed
Baranski, "we have decided that each man may take
his choice, and that the man who takes his family
from Ruvno, to join that poor starving mob on the
road outside, is stupid and a fool.  If God wills that
we shall die, we can die here.  We have two months
yet of warm weather, and the crops, thank God, are
not so bad, considering the trenches we've had put
upon us.  We can mend up our cottages and prepare
for the winter.  The Muscovites are retreating as hard
as they can.  So I don't see that there'll be any more
battles in this part for some time.  We can plow
and sow in the autumn as usual.  That's how most
of us think.  The others can go, if they like."\par

Next day Ian heard that the majority had decided
to stop.  The sight of those refugees haunted them.\par

\label{xiv}%
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\vs{4}
{\noindent}
{\centering
{\Large\strut{XIV}}
\endgraf}
\par


\vs{2}
{\noindent}
On the day when the peasants decided to stop in
Ruvno Ian had a visitor.  It was none other
than the narrow-eyed Colonel who was in the
same house at the beginning of the war, when
Rennenkampf came and Roman with him; when Father
Constantine had vainly interceded that Roman might
not be obliged to shoot his own brother.\par

The family, even to the Countess, was busy in field
and barn.  For the first time in her life she had taken
to manual labor.  But the peasant proprietors were
hurrying to get in their own crops; Ian's men had
been sadly thinned and he was therefore short-handed.
One idea possessed them all: to gather in what they
could before some enraged soldiers passed and took
next year's food from them.\par

Well, the Colonel drove up to the house, made a
great noise with his motor and was finally answered
by Father Constantine, who appeared on the scene,
rake in hand.\par

"I want to see the Count," said the Russian, saluting.\par

"He is with the others, at the home-farm.  If you
will go there."  He recognized the man, but saw that
his memory was better than the visitor's.\par

"I must see him alone.  Please tell him so."\par

In due course Ian arrived.  He was in his
shirtsleeves and had on an old pair of white flannel
trousers, formerly worn for tennis.  He had been
stacking hay.  Father Constantine very much afraid
that Roman's name would come up, had followed.
The Colonel came to the point without delay.\par

"The sooner you and your peasants leave this the
better," he said gruffly.  "We can't hold it any longer.
The enemy may be here at any moment."\par

"The peasants have made up their minds to stay,"
said Ian.\par

"And you?"\par

"I never thought of leaving."\par

The soldier's narrow eyes hardened.  He was of
those who thought it every civilian's duty to follow
in his retreat.  He drew himself up and spoke rather
sharply.  But he was still civil, knowing well that
the master of Ruvno was no squireen, to be treated
with contempt.  Ian, for his part, was slightly
hostile.  He knew the man for his anti-Polish feelings,
kept in check when things were going well, but ready
to leap out into action now that misfortune was
upon them all.  Besides, Ian had seen those fugitives,
and no man could look upon them without thinking
that the army, even in retreat, might have done
something to alleviate their sufferings, even if it were but
to leave them their corn.\par

"Count, you don't understand.  I repeat: the
Prussians are coming.  Surely you are not going to wait
to welcome the Czar's enemies."\par

"Nobody hates the Prussians more than I," he
rejoined.  "If I leave Ruvno I shall be a beggar.
Besides, it's my home."\par

"Russia is wide."\par

"And the road long.  No, Colonel.  We have lived
here, peasant and master, father and son, through
many wars, many invasions.  For me and my mother
there can be no choice, so long as a roof remains for
us here.  As to my peasants, I left them free to
choose, said not a word for or against.  But they
have seen those crowds--" he pointed towards the
road, where the weary stream of homeless humanity
struggled on towards the unknown.  "The old and
sick left to die alone, children hungry, mothers
exhausted.  They made up their minds that it is better
to die here than in ditches between this and Moscow."\par

"You accuse us of neglecting the refugees," cried
the Colonel, red to his hair-roots.\par

"No.  This is war.  The weak and poor and aged
suffer most.  But I claim the right to choose between
two kinds of suffering."\par

"Do as you please.  But you'll all starve.  I'm
giving orders to burn the crops."\par

Ian turned white at this.  For months he had been
fighting against starvation.  Every waking thought
had been connected with the problem of how to feed
those dependent on him for the ensuing year.  Even
his dreams had been of crops and storms and war
agriculture.  He had risen with the dawn to plow
and till and sow.  No landless peasant, hiring himself
by the day, had worked harder than the lord of Ruvno.
And now, when the fruit of his labors was ripening
in these fields so thinned by rapine, trenches and
mines; when, by dint of untold effort and determination
he had overcome difficulties none dreamed of a
year ago, this soldier threatened to fire the little that
remained to fill his garners.  Controlling himself with
an effort, he said:\par

"And how will you feed us all?"\par

"In Warsaw."\par

"You're leaving Warsaw to its fate," retorted Ian.
"And you know it."\par

The man looked perfectly furious at this, and would
have burst out, but Ian went on, that tone of authority
that Father Constantine knew well in his voice.  He
said:\par

"Listen.  I had the Grand Duke's promise, last week,
that Ruvno will be left intact so long as it or its
village is inhabited.  You know as well as I do that,
where Nicolai Nicolaievitch has been, no villages or
crops are ruined wantonly by his retreating army,
and no peasants driven to the road against their will.
If you tamper with my house or my people, who are
half-starved even now, I swear to you that not only
the Grand Duke, but the Czar himself shall hear of it."\par

The Colonel bit his lip and stalked off, fuming with
suppressed passion.  He knew that the Grand Duke
was friendly here.  He must have known, too, that
Poland's old foes, the Russian bureaucrats, were
responsible for driving people off their land by sheer
force and doing nothing to help them on their exile
into the most distant parts of the Russian Empire.
In silence Ian and his chaplain watched him motor
up to the nearest fields and inspect them.  They were
meager enough, God knows, cut as they were by
trenches.  As to the potatoes, they would not be ready
for a couple of months, and last year's had gone long
ago.  They watched him anxiously.  Was he going
to fire the corn or not?  He wanted to, it was plain,
if only to show a ruined Polish nobleman that his
word was law.  He prowled round and then went
back to the high-road, stopping some of the refugees
and talking to them.  Even after they heard his hooter
from the village their eyes still clung to the yellow
fields, fearing to see smoke.  He went off at sundown
without so much as a salute.  But he evidently thought
it risky to quarrel with Ian, and did not fire the crops.
With a sigh of relief Ian glanced across at Father
Constantine.  They had finished the stack and were
going in to supper.\par

"Thank God!" he muttered.  "But don't say anything
to the others."\par

"Of course not.  But look, what is that?"\par

On the horizon they saw columns of smoke and a
dull red glare; others had not been so fortunate.\par

The old priest had been trembling with fear all the
time lest the Colonel should remember Joseph, and
make him an excuse for burning the place.  But he
had evidently forgotten all about the incident last
autumn.  So much the better.\par

Next morning Ian, Vanda and Minnie, with a couple
of maids, started out with the reaping machine.
Ian, of course, was in charge, and the girls, willing
but inexperienced, were to work under him.  Since
the Colonel's visit he had been in a perfect fever of
haste to cut whatever corn was ripe.  He left his
mother and Father Constantine at the home farm,
with admonitions that neither of them must overwork.
These two old friends were in the farmyard when
some of the Cossacks who had been so busy about
the village and amidst the remains of the home forest,
came clattering up on their little horses.  A young
officer was with them.  He saluted the Countess, and
said civily, in broken Polish:\par

"Lady--I must ask you for that reaping machine
I saw here yesterday."\par

"Oh--are you going to reap our fields for us?"
she returned gaily.  "That would be very nice of you."\par

The youth looked sheepishly at her, but said nothing.\par

"Well--what do you want it for?" she insisted.\par

"Lady--I'm sorry.  But your reaping machine
contains steel and other metals; and we have orders to
take every ounce of steel and iron and copper away."\par

The Countess looked at her chaplain in silent
consternation.  The old man, ever ready to help her,
sharply told the officer to be off.  The Cossack was not
so civil to him.\par

"No nonsense," he said.  "Where is it?"\par

"But I protest against having my place looted," cried
the Countess.\par

"Lady, I'm sorry.  I would not take a nail from
Ruvno.  But orders are orders.  See here," and he
pulled a slip of paper from his boot, dismounted and
took it to her.\par

She waved it aside.\par

"It's Greek to me--I don't understand this taking
everything."\par

"No.  I--Lady Countess, I say again, I'm very
sorry.  But I'm only a poor Cossack, to obey orders.
Where is the machine?  We have to be off--or the
Germans will take us--and the metals."\par

"My son has gone out with it," she said shortly.
"You'd take the shoes from our feet if you'd the time."\par

"No--I would take nothing.  Whereabouts is your
son with his machine?"\par

She pointed angrily southwards.  The direction was
vague.  The man looked at the sun, which was getting
high.\par

"He'll be back at midday?"\par

"I doubt it.  He has much to do."\par

He turned to his men.\par

"Children!  Hasten.  Do you go and fetch the bells."\par

"What bells?" cried the priest in alarm.  But
nobody answered.  The Cossacks left the yard and
trotted towards the chapel.  Father Constantine
hastened after them, the Countess after him.  But as
the way was rather long and their feet older than
they thought, they arrived before the chapel just in
time to see the Cossack's take down the three bells
and put them on as many horses.  One had been cast
four hundred years before by an Italian who did
much work in the neighborhood.  The other two were
modern, but of good workmanship.\par

"And they've taken the bell that used to hang up
in the home farmyard," said the Countess ruefully,
as a Cossack they had not noticed before came up
with it.\par

Father Constantine had not recovered from the
shock of seeing his beloved bells slung across the
Cossack saddles, when she gave another cry of anger.
Several more Cossacks had come up.  Their horses
were laden with the copper pots and pans from the
kitchen.\par

"It's as bad as if the Prussians were here," she
exclaimed.  "What do they imagine we're to cook with?"\par

The young officer, who had been to the kitchen, now
went up to her.  His face was crimson.\par

"Lady Countess, I regret this as much as you
do--" he began.\par

"I doubt it," she retorted.\par

"... And church bells," put in Father Constantine.\par

"I wanted," said the youth earnestly, "God knows
I wanted to leave Ruvno, where we have had so
much kindness, as we found it.  But the orders are
explicit.  We are not to leave any metal at all--which
may serve the Prussians."\par

"It seems to me that between our friends and foes
we shall have nothing left but the bare ground," she said.\par

But she protested no more.  What was the good?
She and the Father watched them pack up all the
rest of the pots and pans in rueful silence.  Before
starting the young officer approached her again, his
cap in hand, his long, shaggy locks all loose and
dangling in his eyes.\par

"My Lady Countess," he said earnestly, "won't you
please come with us?  I have a spare horse or two
and will see you don't put foot to soil till we reach
Sohaczer.  The Germans will not treat you well.  We
can pick up your son and the young ladies on our way."\par

"It seems to me that you have left nothing for
the Germans to take," she remarked, but not angrily
this time.  There comes a point where civilians, in
the war zone, cease to protest.  It is not so much
dumb despair, as a knowledge that their words are vain
when the "military" come along.  They are but
spectators of their own ruin.\par

"Russia is wide," he said simply.  "I am a wealthy
Cossack at home.  If you will come with us I'll see
that you reach my farm in safety.  My old mother
will look after you, and you'll lack nothing, till the
war is over."\par

This touched her.  She answered warmly:\par

"Ah--that is good of you--but I cannot leave my
land.  Thank you all the same."\par

He waited a moment after this, saw she meant
what she said, and pressed her no more, but wished
them both good-bye and good luck, kissing her hand
and saluting the priest.\par

"I am sorry you won't come," he said, mounting
his horse.  "The Germans won't be good to you."\par

And he left them reluctantly, followed by his men.
The Countess laughed at the odd figures they cut,
with her bells and saucepans tied to their saddles;
but there were tears in her eyes all the same.  When
they were out of sight she and the Father returned
to their work in the farmyard.  They were still there,
two hours later, when Martin came running into the barn.\par

"My lady," he panted, more from emotion than
fatigue; "the Prussian brutes are here.  One of their
officers, who gives his name as Graf von Senborn,
wants to speak to my Lord the Count."\par

"The Count is in the fields.  Tell this officer I will
see him.  Bring him here," said the Countess.\par

She had on a cotton apron and a kerchief such as
peasant women wear.  She and the priest looked at one
another with uneasiness; they had hoped against hope
that the Prussians would keep off till their crops
were in a safe place; they had hoped that the
invaders would not care to put up at Ruvno, almost
denuded of wine and as desolate as could be after
nearly a year's war, comforting themselves with the
thought that there were places, nearer Warsaw, likely
to attract them better.  The clank of spurs sounded on
the stones; a moment later an officer, whose face was
vaguely familiar to the priest, swaggered into the
huge barn.  Some girls were working at the far end,
and stopped to look at him.  He saluted and said:\par

"Where are the Cossacks?"\par

"They left an hour ago," said Father Constantine,
racking his brains to remember where they had met before.\par

"Is that so?" he asked the Countess.\par

"Yes.  They took the chapel bells and the copper
things out of my kitchen.  For the rest, you can search
the place."\par

He eyed her with a certain interest.  I suppose he
had never seen a grand lady stacking before, except,
perhaps, for the fun of it.  And she was not very
quick at the work, for even stacking is hard to learn
when you are no longer young.  He looked lean,
hard, well-bred; a very different type from the man
who so nearly carried off their stores last winter.
He spoke French fluently, though with true German
gutturalness.  The others went on with their work.\par

"That is hard work, {\itshape{Madame}}," he said after a bit.\par

"These are hard times, {\itshape{Monsieur}}," she returned
gravely.  "The war has left us little but our health and
our determination to make the best of things."\par

"I always heard that Polish ladies have high
courage," he went on, with a stiff Teutonic bow.  "And
now I see it for myself."\par

"Courage is one of the few things war does not
destroy," put in the priest.\par

The Prussian gave him a glance, as if he were
trying to think where they had met before.  His face
was a worry to the Father.  Where, oh where had
he seen the man?\par

"{\itshape{Madame}}," he resumed, when he had stared at
Father Constantine a second time.  "Allow me to put
some of my men to this stacking.  They are rough
peasants and will get it done in no time."\par

She hesitated, then accepted his offer, which the
priest was glad of.  She had been working hard since
the early morning, and looked very tired.  He called
some troopers and set them to work with short, dry
words of command, which they obeyed with alacrity.
Then he went with the Countess and her chaplain into
the house, asking all sorts of questions about it.  Of
course he had heard of Ruvno and its now ruined
glories.  And when the Countess left them to rest,
he questioned Father Constantine about the plate,
jewels, and especially the emeralds.  The priest
answered him as best he could, and they gradually lapsed
into silence.  He sat in one of Ian's easy chairs
smoking a cigar.  Suddenly he got up and said:\par

"Take me to the Countess' wardrobe."\par

Father Constantine stared at him in amazement.
Hitherto his manners had been such an improvement
on those of preceding Prussians that he could scarce
believe his ears.\par

"Do you hear?  To her wardrobe," he repeated,
with a shade of sternness.\par

"What for?"\par

He laughed.\par

"She has no need for old laces and sables, now
she works on the farm," he answered.\par

"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Father
Constantine angrily.\par

The Graf's face flushed; he broke into German.\par

"I'm master here.  And I command you to take
me up to the Countess' wardrobe.  You'll find, if you
persist in your refusal, that my men can do other
things besides stacking."\par

And now that he was in a rage and had fallen back
to his native tongue, the priest recognized him.  And
his own wrath grew.\par

"So, Graf von Senborn," he cried, "you're a true
follower of the Crown Prince, your master.  He loots
in Belgium; you in Poland.  How many Polish
children have you tormented since I met you at Zoppot?"\par

"Ah--you're the little priest who refused to salute
His Imperial Highness," he retorted, forgetting furs
and laces for the moment.  "It's a pity I didn't chuck
you into the Baltic, I should have saved myself the
trouble of having your miserable body hanged up on
a tree now."\par

He made towards the old man, who stood firm,
because he did not care if he were hanged.  But he
did want to speak his mind first.\par

"I wish your evil-faced Crown Prince were here,
too," he said, as fast as he could, lest the Prussian
strike him down before he spoke his mind.  "I'll tell
that son of the Anti-Christ what none of his sycophants
dare speak of----"\par

"Some of your Polish plots again?"\par

"No plots, but the vengeance of the Almighty.
Hell-fires await him and his friends for all the
deviltries you----"\par

Strong hands were round the thin throat; Father
Constantine felt his last moment had come.  But there
arose a great noise and shouting outside.  Von
Senborn threw down his victim, as you would cast off
a cat whose claws have been cut, and rushed into the
garden.  He suspected treachery.  Father Constantine
picked himself up and followed.  There were things
he wanted to tell him yet, things which had lain heavy
on his soul for many a long day.\par

He was in the garden, surrounded by bawling
troopers, who were very excited.  Four of them held
two Cossacks.  Two of them held Ian.  Vanda was there,
too; she rushed up to the priest; she was in tears.\par

"Oh, Father, they've arrested him ... and he
knows nothing about it."\par

"About what?"\par

"These Cossacks.  They were hiding in one of the
lofts.  They had matches.  He says"--she indicated
von Senborn--"they were going to burn the troopers
as they slept."\par

"Found any more?" von Senborn asked some men
who came up now.\par

"Not one."\par

The officer turned to Ian.\par

"You're to blame for this."\par

"I know nothing about it."\par

"Do you know what we do to people who hide the
enemy?" von Senborn pursued.  "We shoot them."\par

"He knows nothing about it," put in one of the
Cossacks, and got a kick for his pains.\par

"Nothing," said Ian.  Was this the last moment of
his life?  He spoke up; but his words were of no
avail.\par

"Oh, please listen to me," cried Vanda, in agony.
"He knows nothing about it.  We have been harvesting
since six in the morning ... away over there."  She
pointed towards the south.  "Everybody says the
Cossacks left at eleven."\par

"Nobody knew of our hiding but our ataman," said
another Cossack.  "Shoot us you can.  But the Count
is innocent."\par

They did not even trouble to kick this one, who
protested and defended Ian in vain.  Ian defended
himself, too, but he felt all along how useless his
words were.  What was about to happen to him had
happened thousands of times since last July.  He
remembered Zosia's sister in Kalisz.  Father Constantine
felt his poor old head swimming with the agony of
the thought.  Nothing more terrible than this could
have occurred.  He, too, saw that von Senborn had
made up his mind.\par

"You were found near the Cossacks," the latter
argued.  "You're guilty."  Then he turned to Vanda:
"Go into the house.  Keep the Countess there and
away from the windows.  When I've shot him I'll
tell her myself."\par

"I hid them!  Shoot me!" cried Vanda, throwing
herself at his feet "For the love of God, spare him.
He went out at six.  The Cossacks left at eleven.  How
could he know?  Take me instead!  He is wanted
more than I!"\par

"Vanda!  Vanda!" cried Ian, struggling to get away
from those who held him.  "Don't believe her!" he
cried to von Senborn.  "She's as innocent as I am.
If you must shoot somebody, shoot me."\par

Von Senborn looked from one to the other; but
his face did not soften.\par

"You're wasting time," he said to her.  "Go into
the house."\par

She went up to Ian.  They gazed at each other,
reading the secret each had guarded too long.  Her
eyes were full of love as well as misery; his face,
under its sunburn, was white as hers.\par

"Can nothing be done?" she wailed.\par

"Go to Mother.  Don't let her see."\par

As her eyes lingered on his face his heart ached;
many bitter thoughts and feelings rose within his soul.
He wrenched an arm from one of his captors.\par

"Leave me!" he ordered.  "I'll not run away."\par

At a sign from their officer the two troopers
loosened their hold and stepped back a couple of paces,
leaving the cousins together.  They said little; for
at such moments human lips have not much to say.
Hearts are too full of words; words too poor to be
heart's mouthpiece.  He knew now, when it was too
late, that she loved him, that she had always loved
him, that Joseph was but an incident, mostly of his
making; that he loved her, that the happiest hours
of their joint lives had been spent together in his old
home, in his large, cool forests, by the frozen river,
under the broad grayness of a northern sky; over the
crisp snow and flower-decked meadows; on his sleek,
fleet horses, in his swift-running sleighs, whose bells
made jangled music in the frosted air; in every season
of God's good year, in every phase of his pleasant,
long-dead life, he and she had been all in all, she the
key to his happiness, the gate to that earthly paradise
which he had shunned till Joseph closed it to him.
And he, in his blindness and procrastination, learnt
about it too late.\par

"Oh--what we have lost!" he murmured, locking
her in a long embrace.\par

"Ian--Ian--my darling!" she sobbed.\par

This was all; and in broken words, choked with sobs.\par

The faithful old priest gently separated them at
last, for he saw von Senborn was going to do it.
He took her to the long window which led into the
Countess' favorite room.  She was crying bitterly, but
without sobs, forcing them down lest she make it yet
harder for Ian.\par

They bandaged his eyes.  He refused at first; but
the sight of that landscape, familiar in its desolation,
dear to him yet, was more than he could bear.  Oh,
to leave life thus, when others were dying like men!
And how dear was life, despite ruin and war and
uncertainty!  How many things he had meant to do;
how much more happiness he might have had before
this cataclysm fell upon them!  Then thought turned
to his mother.\par

"I must speak to my chaplain," he said in the firm
voice of a man accustomed to obedience.\par

"You dare not murder him without shrift," he
heard the priest say.  He had left Vanda in the house
and was returning hurriedly.  A moment later his
thin, shaking hand was on Ian's arm.\par

"Three minutes," said von Senborn's voice,
impatient now.  "Make the most of your time."\par

Hastily, the priest gave his quondam pupil what
comfort he could.  Then Ian whispered:\par

"Take the women away at once.  You may yet
reach Warsaw.  Then with Mother to Rome.  The
Cardinal is all she'll have left but Vanda.  Don't
forget the jewels."\par

"Yes, yes.  Courage, my boy.  Don't worry for us."\par

"I have that, thank God.  Good-bye, Father.  Get
away at once.  All of you."\par

Von Senborn came up, saying:\par

"You must leave him now, Father."\par

Catching a shade of regret in his voice, Father
Constantine pleaded for his dear patron's life, using
all the eloquence and arguments he had.  Not
unkindly, the Prussian pushed him aside.\par

"Can't you see you're making it harder for him?"
he cried.  Then he called up his men, who ranged
in front of their victim.  Father Constantine said
prayers for the passing of that beloved soul across
the gulf that leads into eternity.  Ian listened for
his death-order, his back to the wall, determined to
show these Prussians he could meet a dog's death
like a man.\par

"Ready!" von Senborn's voice rang out.\par

"Oh, Mother!" shouted Ian.  And this is not
strange, because when life is going, a man's thoughts
and heart turn to her who gave it him.\par

The men pointed their muskets.  Von Senborn's
mouth was open to give the word of command that
was to send Ian to the unseen world when his name
was called loudly, a few yards away.\par

"Von Senborn!  Quick!  Quick!"\par

With a gesture of annoyance he turned round.  The
men still pointed their arms; but they did not shoot.
Ian, expecting that every leaden-footed second would
bring the fatal word, whose nerves were strained
almost beyond endurance, thanked God for Prussian
discipline.  He heard footsteps, and hope arose in
his heart.  Perhaps the Russians were back again.
Father Constantine, through his tears, saw another
Prussian officer hurrying towards them.\par

"I've captured a {\itshape{sotnia}} of Cossacks ... and a ton
of copper," he cried, his voice full of life and triumph.
Then he saw Ian.\par

"What are you doing?"\par

Von Senborn told him.\par

"I know your voice," cried Ian.  "You talked to
me in the fields this morning ... for God's sake tell
him I'm innocent."\par

The two Prussians looked at one another.  Ian felt
sick with emotion.  Those minutes were the longest
he ever lived, whilst the new-comer had his eyes
uncovered and looked at him earnestly.\par

"Yes," he said at last.  "I talked to you in the
field.  You told me your name.  It was seven o'clock.
The Cossacks did not leave this till eleven.  They
own it themselves.  Let's have their captain up."\par

They did.  The officer who had offered the shelter
of his Cossack farm to the Countess came up.  He
said, in an undertone, to the priest:\par

"I told you to leave.  I knew the men were here,
hiding."  Then to the Prussians, in very bad German:\par

"I'm your prisoner.  I've nothing to lose or gain
by seeing this Polish Count shot.  He knew naught
about my men hiding.  He was in the fields with a
reaping machine I happened to want.  He left here
hours before I hid the men."\par

"That's it," said the other Prussian officer.  "Don't
be an ass, von Senborn."\par

Von Senborn turned to Ian.\par

"You can go."\par

Ian burst into a shout of joy.  Father Constantine
fell upon his knees and thanked God for this
miraculous escape.\par

\label{xv}%
\hypertarget{xv}{}%
{}

\vs{4}
{\noindent}
{\centering
{\Large\strut{XV}}
\endgraf}
\par


\vs{2}
{\noindent}
Towards dawn a shell fell near the house.  It
was followed by another, and yet another, but
these were nearer the village.  Ian went out,
to try and see if he ought to send his household into
the cellars.  At the front door he found von Senborn,
struggling with complicated locks and bolts.  He said
he was going out to reconnoiter.  Ian let him go alone,
having no wish for his company.  He knew that the
Russians were in telephone communication with
Lipniki at any rate, if not with the more distant centers
they had occupied during the last few days.\par

As the sun rose and the household began to stir,
Martin, the faithful old butler, being first on the scene,
a couple of maids following, von Senborn came back.
He took no notice of Ian except to ask where the
baron's window was.  It happened to be over the spot
where they stood.  Von Senborn aroused his friend
with a shout.  In the fullness of time a shock-head
appeared at the window.\par

"Come down," von Senborn cried in his native
tongue.  "The Russians have made a stand."\par

"Where?" asked the baron sleepily.\par

"God knows.  They are shelling Lipniki like the
devil.  Our losses are already heavy.  I'm going back
to the telephone."\par

He strode off.  The shock-head disappeared.  Ian
went to his bath; and the whole village soon knew
that the Germans in Lipniki were having a very bad
time of it, whilst their friends in Ruvno were breaking
their heads to know what to make out of the Russian
awakening.  Where had those fools found ammunition?
Where were they firing from?  Who was spying
for them?  There were no Russian aeroplanes
about, yet the news from Lipniki grew worse and worse.\par

This development made the Prussians very sullen,
but the household could barely hide their joy.  Later
on, news came in that the Russians, retreating beyond
Kosczielna, had found more ammunition and were
using it with good effect.  Firing seemed pretty near
all that day.  Ian and the others hoped it would send
these men off to help their friends; but not a bit of
it.  More Prussians came up and settled themselves
just outside the village.  The house was full of officers,
and it was worth something to see their disappointment
when they found out that all the wine had been
drunk, all the lace looted and all the plate sent to
Moscow.\par

As a matter of fact, this new phase was Ruvno's
undoing.  If the Russians had not been firing on
Lipniki it would probably have escaped the worst of its
troubles.  As it was, von Senborn worked his
vengeance upon the innocent household.\par

On the second day von Senborn sent for Ian just
as he was going out to the fields.  The squire found
him and a couple more standing on that hillock where
the pine copse used to be and where Ian had spent
many nights at the beginning of the war, watching the
shells hit his property.  The trees went months ago,
opening up a very good view of the neighborhood
country, denuded of timber.  Indeed, the war had
now taken every good tree Ruvno ever possessed.
They were using their field-glasses as he joined them;
he could see they were upset.\par

"Count," von Senborn began, "there must be a
Russian observatory in the neighborhood, between this
and Kosczielna, or even here, within reach of the
Russian retreating army.  It is either a tower or other
elevated building, or else an underground one.  It
might be hidden in such a place as this."  He stamped
his foot on the ground.  "Where is it?"\par

"There are no towers left in the neighborhood,
except that belonging to the village church.  As to an
underground observatory, I never heard of one in the
neighborhood, which is fiat as a pancake," he returned.\par

Von Senborn gave him one of his arrogant looks,
which Ian returned with interest.\par

"Your escape from shooting is so recent that I
need hardly remind you it would be better to tell the
truth at once," said the Prussian.\par

"Life, bad as it is, is too dear to me for me to run
needless risks," retorted the other.  "If you don't
believe me, I can't help it."\par

He only seemed half convinced, but walked off.  Ian
did not go to the fields, but hung about to watch
them.  They evidently suspected that he, or somebody
on his land was signaling to the Russians.  They
searched every inch of the hillock for a possible inlet
to a hidden observatory and then inspected the house
and outbuildings from top to bottom, turning over hay
and straw till Ian heartily wished them all at the
devil.  After that they tried the village.  He saw
some of them on the church tower from, where he
had signaled for help last winter with Minnie and
Martin to help, on the night his stores were looted....\par

A feeling of intense anxiety came over him, as if
instinct was foretelling fresh disaster more terrible
than anything which had yet fallen.  The firing from
the Russians went on and he could see von Senborn
and his fellow officers were not only disturbed but
very suspicious.  By the way Kosczielna lay it was
clear that the Russians, retreating on Warsaw, could
easily shell it if their fire was directed by anybody on
a high spot in Ruvno, since on the level it was above
all the other villages by a hundred feet.  They
questioned every man, woman and child in the village,
trying to find out if there was some vantage ground from
which the Russians could have their attack directed.
Ian kept as far away from von Senborn and his friends
as he could, not wanting him to think he spied on
their movements.  The experience of the day before
had taught him a lesson.  All the same, he was
determined to follow their movements as far as possible,
if only to be on his guard; and he managed it fairly
well, for some of them were always coming and going
between the house and the village, where they had put
up a telephone with their friends at Kosczielna.  These
were having a bad time of it and had lost heavily.
Before long he heard one trooper say to another who
was watering horses:\par

"We'll have work again soon.  All ours in that place
near by have been put out of action."\par

"Liar," said the man's comrade, with that courtesy
so characteristic of the race.\par

"True as gospel.  I was by the major when the
news came.  He's mad, too."\par

"What's going to happen?" said the man at the
trough.\par

"We're falling back from that place."\par

"What place, idiot?"\par

"That begins with a kay and ends in a curse."\par

The man was evidently right, for a lull came now
as though the retreating force had completed its tasks
in Kosczielna.  The day wore on.  The women, though
obsessed with the same sense of coming disaster, bore
up splendidly.  But at about four in the afternoon,
when the firing began again and two shells burst, one
on the site of the windmill, the other at the end of
the village, where Szmul used to live, Ian sent them
and the women and children from the village into the
cellars.\par

The Russians stopped firing at six o'clock and the
women came up from the cellars.  The little family
had supper in the dining-room as quietly as in times
of peace.  None of the Prussians came to table.  They
had just received a supply of fresh provisions by
motor-lorry and sent the Countess some, with a message that
there was beer too, if she liked.  They refused the
beer, but ate the food.  They could not afford to be
proud, for supplies, except for cereals, had quite given
out.  Being cut off from Russia, the land of plenty, and
the refugees they had fed, put them in this unenviable
position.  There was no chance of buying things in
the neighborhood, as bare of supplies as if it had seen
ten years' war.  Vanda, noticing that her aunt had no
appetite, laughingly remarked that she had better eat
a good meal, for who knew where the next would
come from.  Little did they think how true her jest
would prove to be.\par

They had finished and were sitting out in the ruins
of the rose garden when the firing suddenly began
again and so violently that Ian insisted upon the
women taking to the cellar.  Then he ran to the
sacristy, calling to Father Constantine to keep under
the broad archway leading from the chapel.  He heard
an answering voice, no more.  He wanted to see what
was happening with the Germans, so ran to the hillock,
which seemed safe so far.  Indeed, all the firing was
on the other side, towards the village.\par

This new attack made fearful havoc amongst the
Prussians who had taken up their quarters beyond the
church.  They had been making merry over the beer
when it began, and though not a shell dropped within
five hundred yards of the house the human target
was hit so well that even to Ian's civilian eyes it was
clear that the Russians knew exactly where to aim.
The earth didn't shake; it rocked; beasts and men were
belched up in an eruption of earth and smoke, to come
down again in pieces.  Those who could got away
and began running towards the house; but they must
have left three-fourths of their force behind, literally
blown to bits.\par

Von Senborn, who happened to be near the house
when the attack began, was saved.  But Ian could not
help admiring the way the surviving officers rallied
their handful of men and brought them up from the
village.  Even as they made for the cover of trenches
in the garden the shells had them.  Then, either
because their ammunition had run out or else because
their mysterious signaler could not work in the
dusk--for night was falling--there was sudden calm.  Ian
sighed to think what destruction the Russians could
work if only they had enough guns and gun-fodder.
Oh, the pity of it.\par

When things had quieted down, von Senborn turned
to his men.\par

"We are going to blow up that church tower," he
said, wiping the sweat from his face.\par

A haggard subaltern explained that they had
already searched every nook and corner of tower and
church several times.\par

"We'll blow it up," he repeated.  Then he turned
to Ian, every muscle of his face drawn with nervous
tension, his voice hoarse as a crow's.\par

"Hark ye, Count.  If I find that signaler I'll hold
you responsible."\par

"As for those two Cossacks," he retorted.  The
Prussian muttered something inaudible and turned on
his heel.\par

Ian followed them down to the church.  It stood a
little aloof from the village, nearest the house, yet
almost half-way between the two.  It had not suffered
from the day's bombardment any more than the house.
The scene of horror where the Russian shells had
done their work was beyond description.  Though
by now fairly hardened to the abominations of war,
the things Ian saw and heard through the twilight
of that summer evening made him very sick.  The
surviving Germans were too busy looking for the
signaler to worry about the wounded who howled,
groaned and shouted with pain.  It was a pandemonium
of anguish.  One man, mutilated beyond all
semblance of God's image, implored him to end his
misery ... as Ian stood there hesitating a trooper
shot him.\par

"He was my good friend," he explained, and burst
into tears.  But he soon controlled himself and a few
minutes later Ian saw him carrying out von Senborn's
orders, apparently unmoved by his ordeal.  Indeed,
again he could not help admiring these brutes when it
came to the pure fighting part of their work.  It was
in the intervals and with the unarmed that they were
so cowardly, such bullies.  Once it was a question of
fight they bungled nothing and left nothing to chance.
Perhaps their passion for perfection in detail made
them doubly furious at the trick a handful of Russians
who had found some ammunition played on them
that evening.  Von Senborn was determined to solve
the mystery.\par

"We must not blow the tower to bits," Ian heard
him say to the haggard subaltern.  "We must do the
work in such a way that we make a rift in the tower
and can explore it ourselves."  Then, aloud to his
men: "Now, you are going to avenge your dead
comrades."\par

They were willing enough, but found they must go
to fetch some explosives which they had stored near
the house.  It took them some few minutes to get
there.  The time seemed very long to Ian, listening
to and watching that human charnel house near by.
He wanted to get home, away from it all.  Yet some
mysterious force kept him there.  Later, he thanked
God for it....\par

Once more, Russian wit was to forestall Teutonic
thoroughness.  Before the men told off to the stores
got back a shell whizzed past, struck the tower at a
tangent.  Ian was thrown to the ground and half
buried.  It took him some time to get clear.  Sore,
dazed, yet alive and with, apparently, no bones broken,
he managed to regain his feet.  Then he sat down,
for his legs were like cotton wool.\par

The moon was rising now and lit up a hundred
details of the desolation around.  He could see von
Senborn, sitting down, holding his head and swearing.
Several dead bodies were near that had not been there
before.  Other men were perched on what seemed a
hillock, born out of nothing since that shell burst.
They were very excited, and he languidly wondered
what they found to be excited about, when he felt
so indifferent.  He heard them quite plainly, without
wanting to.\par

"It's a captain," said one.\par

"And an engineer," put in another.\par

"No--a sapper.  Look at his collar."\par

"Look at this," cried somebody else, and the tone
of his voice made Ian look, too.  He was holding up
a Russian drinking bottle.\par

"And food--look--a loaf of black bread.  {\itshape{Gott in
Himmel}}, he was a tough one."\par

Von Senborn stopped swearing and asked Ian if he
was alive.\par

"Yes," he answered.\par

"Then go and see what they've got there.  I can't
move till I've had something," he groaned loudly.\par

"Can't I help you?"\par

"Only that."  And he lay back, yelling for the surgeon.\par

Ian went up to what he had supposed was a hillock
and found it to be a heap of stones and debris--the
remains of the church tower.  Only the top part had
fallen; the rest loomed up, jagged and broken.\par

Several of the Germans squatted round a body, so
limp that every bone of it must have been smashed.\par

"A Russian, sir," said the man who held the
water-bottle.  "He fell with the tower."\par

They rifled the dead man's pockets, turning over
his broken body with as scant care as if it had been
a lump of beef.  They contained little; an old man's
photograph; one of a girl with a broad face and small
eyes, and a slip of paper.  Nothing more.\par

Von Senborn joined them, staggering but alert.  He
took the slip of paper and glanced at it by the light
of an electric torch.  Then he handed it to the haggard
subaltern.\par

"Russian.  Read it."\par

The boy took the slip and pored over it for some
minutes, either because the torch burnt dull or
because he had not much knowledge of the language.
They had left the body, which lay in shadow.  Ian
looked at that young, tired face without recognizing
in it any of the sappers who were in Ruvno during
the Russian retreat.  Later on, he heard from a
peasant that the Russians, when last in Ruvno, kept
everybody away from the church and that at night they
made noises, as with picks and spades.\par

"Go on," urged von Senborn impatiently.  "I
thought you spoke Russian like a native."\par

"It is hastily written," explained the other.  "And
therefore indistinct.  But I think I have the meaning
now."\par

"Well, for Hell's sake let me have it, too."\par

"You cannot take me alive," he read in his hard
North German.  "I have chosen how I shall die.
When I have written this I mean to signal to my
friends to shell the tower, before your men come back
to mine it.  And we, too, shall return, driving you to
the very streets of Berlin.  And Europe's wrongs
shall be avenged.  We Russians are slow; but neither
stupid nor discouraged, as you pretend."  He stopped
and looked up.\par

"That all?" asked von Senborn.\par

"All."  He returned the paper to his superior.\par

"{\itshape{Ja, ja,}}" said a voice.  "I see it now.  He had
himself bricked up in that tower, to signal and cover
the retreat.  He was no coward."\par

Nobody spoke.  The incident had impressed them
all.  The man who gets himself bricked up with enough
food to last till he is found out, is a hero.  Von
Senborn, having his head seen to by a surgeon, talked
it over.  Ian kept in the shadow, not wanting to be
seen.  Dazed though he felt from the last shell, he
knew that this discovery would spring back upon him
and his dear ones.\par

"How did he signal?" the surgeon asked.\par

"God knows."\par

"That Polish Count knew of this," murmured the
haggard lieutenant, little thinking Ian was within
earshot.\par

"Yes," said von Senborn savagely.  "I'll swear to
that.  But I'll be even with him.  Be quick, Surgeon,
there's work to do yet."\par

"Serve him right to shoot him after all," put in the
surgeon.  Von Senborn laughed angrily.\par

"Shooting's too good."  He lowered his voice.  Strain
his ears as he might, Ian only caught two words.  But
they were enough.  He waited to hear no more.\par

He ran as fast as sore legs would carry him up to
the house.  Outside, not a soul.  All the women and
children, besides several men, were in the cellars.\par

"Get out at once," he shouted.  "Run as hard as you
can, along the Warsaw road."\par

"What is the matter?" asked the Countess.\par

"A Russian bricked up in the church tower.  They
are coming to blow us up, shutting you in first.  Run
as far from the house as possible."\par

When he saw them on their way he left them, then
ran for an ax and made for the sacristy.  There was
no guard now, all the Germans being down by the
church and village.  He soon had the door in, to find
Father Constantine walking up and down, saying his
prayers.  Ian hastily said what had happened and
urged him to join the others on the Warsaw road.  But
the old man was in no hurry.\par

"They may not do it," he said.  "I expect they'll go
to sleep and wake up in a better mood."\par

"If you don't go I'll carry you," cried the squire
angrily.  "And that will prevent me warning the people
hanging about."\par

Then he dragged his chaplain from the room.  But
the priest insisted on taking a little malachite crucifix
which hung over the cupboard.  It was the only thing
they saved out of all Ruvno's beautiful things.\par

Then Ian warned as many of the peasants as he could
find, though the shelling had already frightened most
of them out of the village and on to the road.
Baranski, whom he met, helped him.\par

Terrible was the confusion and alarm that followed,
the calling of mothers to children, the cries of
frightened babies, the curses of old men.  Every second
of that awful night was burnt in Ian's brain; he did
not forget it whilst he lived.  In quite a short time
the Warsaw road was filled with panic-stricken peasants.
Some of them had snatched up a table, a chair,
a kettle or a pillow.  Those who had any left panted
along with a sack of potatoes or buckwheat.  A few
were fortunate enough to possess a horse.  He tried
to get a couple of his--farm horses were all he had
left--but the Germans were around the yard before
he could get back.  So quick were they that he had
not time to take a thing for the women.  The peasants,
being nearer the road, were more fortunate in this
way.  Even as Ian left the village he could see soldiers
hovering round the house, evidently shutting the
doors, lest their victims escape!  A wounded Prussian
cursed him and Baranski as they hustled some children
on to the highway.\par

"You'll starve and die on the way," he shouted.
"Decent Germans, not Polish swine, will have this
place."\par

His words ended in a yell.  Ian did not look round,
but Baranski silenced him with a stick.\par

"He won't people Ruvno, thank God," he cried.\par

They took the road, destitute as any of those hordes
they had pitied and tried to succor during the terrible
days of the Russian retreat.\par

Near where the windmill used to be Ian found his
mother, Vanda, Minnie, the Father and all those who
had been in the cellar.  Here he rallied his people,
giving the backward ones time to get up.  But many
laggards were yet to come when the earth rocked
under them; there was a dull rumbling in its bowels.\par

"Mother of God!" shrieked somebody.  They all
looked towards the house....\par

Ruvno, their home for centuries, where every stone
was a friend, rose towards the moonlit sky in a volcano
of smoke, flame and rubbish.\par

Courage failed Ian.  He fell down in the road and
sobbed like a child.\par

\label{xvi}%
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{\noindent}
{\centering
{\Large\strut{XVI}}
\endgraf}
\par


\vs{2}
{\noindent}
When Ian broke down--there by the road--the
Countess was thankful to God for it.  Only
the need of helping him recover courage
took her through that night and the days which
followed.  For next to him she loved Ruvno.\par

The peasants were rushing past wildly; the sight of
the old House, so stable for centuries and the pivot
round which their lives had always worked, dismayed
them more than the memory of those helpless fugitives
they had seen pass lately.  So they made a stampede
up the road, towards distant Warsaw.\par

"Father Constantine!" cried the Countess.  "He's
being carried with them."\par

Ian was up in an instant, and off with the crowd.
He knew enough of war by now to fear that if once
the old man got away from them they would never
see him again, dead or alive.  When fugitives block
the road, and especially at night, progress is slow,
confusion great; thousands of children had been
separated from their parents during that hasty retreat
at the beginning of the war, in December and,
presumably, now.  Ian did his best to rally his peasants,
shouting that they were safe in the road and would
probably be able to return to the village in the morning.
But they, poor things, were heedless of him as of the
wind.  Panic filled their hearts and made them deaf,
blind, fiercely obstinate.  Their one thought was to
put as many versts as possible between themselves and
Ruvno's downfall.  But he found the priest, very
tired with the hustling; indeed, only his indomitable
spirit kept him from sinking to the ground.  Together
they returned to where he had left the women.\par

"We must talk things over," he said.  He was
master of himself again, but harder, more bitter than
he ever felt before; and some of the acrimony that
sank into his soul that night remained with him always.\par

"We can't go back," said the Countess.  "Not even
to find shelter amongst the wreckage.  Von Senborn
would kill you.  Where shall we go?"  She looked
around at the desolation lighted by the moon and
choked a sob.  She must bear up for her boy's sake.\par

"We must find the jewels," said Vanda.\par

"We're destitute without them," returned Ian.\par

"Think of it!" cried his mother.  "And a year ago
people envied us."\par

Ian hated to leave what had been his home.  Only
his fears for the others prevented him from proposing
to them to creep back and live in the open rather than
desert it.  He knew they would need no persuasion;
but dared not risk it for them.\par

For the moment, he vainly tried to calm the
peasants.  At least, when he had shouted himself hoarse
without avail, the stream passed onwards.  Even old
Martin disappeared, and they were left alone, whilst
the cries and shouts of the fugitives died away in the
darkness.  They were near the bend of the road, where
stood the old windmill before a shell set it on fire.  Just
beyond it they could, in happier days, catch a glimpse
of the House.  He always looked forward to seeing
it when he came home after being in Warsaw or
abroad.  He and Vanda, as children, shouted for joy
when they came to it.  And now, when there was no
home to go back to, they turned their steps towards
that bend....\par

I can't tell you what it looked like.  The moon was
still high enough to light up its devastation.  A dark
mass showed where home had been.  The House was
absolutely leveled to the ground; here and there, higher
mounds of wreckage stood above the general ruin.
The Countess lost her self-control when she realized
that all had gone; for loud as was the noise when von
Senborn's men blew it up, she still harbored a faint
hope that a wing or story might be saved.  But there
was nothing, nothing, nothing.  Ian bit his lips and
the tears ran down his cheeks; but he was silent.  They
still wept for this ruin when they heard another
explosion, or rather series of explosions, not so terrific
as the first but powerful enough to be appalling.  This
time the Germans had destroyed the home-farm and
outbuildings, then the stud.  The little group stood
rooted to the spot, though Ian, at least, would fain
have hidden his eyes from this horrid sight.  The
thought that those barbarians, in less than an hour,
wrecked all which it took his race centuries to build
and improve maddened him.  He thought of all the
care and time and money he and his mother alone had
spent on the place, to say nothing of those who went
before and loved Ruvno even as he loved it.  It was
his life, the care of that which lay in wreckage.  How
would he shake down into a new existence, amongst
strangers, an exile, a ruined man at thirty-five through
no fault of his own?  In a modest way he knew what
a good administrator he was; how he had improved the
estate, and how he took its welfare to heart he realized
fully but now.  And his mother?  What could she
do with the rest of her days?  Oh, it is hard to be
uprooted in after years; the old tree cannot bear
transplanting, even if you put care to it; the trunk is too
stiff, the branches wither, the tree dies in new soil.
And she had been torn up roughly, by the strongest
and deepest root, cast into a ditch, to die of a broken
heart, in a foreign land.  He had yet to learn that the
thought of him would give her courage to live; but she
knew he still wanted her and she could help him to
endure.\par

And so they watched and wept and shook impotent
fists at those barbarians, whose dark figures still moved
amongst the ruins of home, their teeth chattering with
the chill, huddled together like the waifs they were
for a little warmth and comfort, with not a blanket
nor a crust between them.  Fires had broken out in
the ruins and Ian thought of the library, of those old
books and parchments which could not be replaced.
They never knew how long they sat thus; but the
Prussians ceased to move about.  Ian felt as if nothing
could make him close his eyes again.  When the flames
had given place to columns of smoke Father Constantine
struggled to his feet.  They had ceased to weep,
even to curse their foes; the silence of despair was
upon them.\par

"Children," he said quietly, "let us say a prayer
together."\par

He held up the old malachite Crucifix he had taken
from the sacristy.\par

Afterwards the Countess was wont to say that the
prayers saved her reason, though they did bring back
the tears, and in floods.  But supplication drew the
poison of despair from all their hearts; they let God,
Whom they had reproached aloud just before, back
into their souls; and he gave them strength to endure.
Ian, too, was all the better for it; his first outburst
over, he had had another and another, not of grief
but of rage, whenever he heard a fresh explosion and
saw flames consume yet one more building of Ruvno.
Vanda and Minnie, too, were the quieter afterwards.
The Father reminded them, in his simple intimate way,
in the tones they had heard over the supper-table, as
well as in the little chapel, that this was not the first
time that their dear Poland had been laid waste by fierce
enemies; that the Lord Jesus watches over the weak
and heavily stricken; that the Prussians, though they
destroy homes and even bodies, cannot kill souls!  He
used such simple words of consolation, of faith and
Christian courage, that they all felt new strength in
them to drink the bitter cup--to the dregs, if need be.\par

They were still on their knees by the roadside and
Father Constantine was giving the Benediction when
they heard the clatter of horses' hoofs coming down
from the direction of Kutno.  The Countess' first
thought was to crouch in the ditch, for she had grown
suspicious of all travelers; but the horseman, riding
low and fast on his horse's neck, had a drawn revolver
and with it covered Ian, who appeared to be nearest.\par

"A step and I shoot you!"\par

He spoke the German of the Russians who learn a
few words on the battlefield and in the trenches.\par

Probably they would have heard and seen nothing
more of him, but his horse, with a neigh of pain and
yet of affection, dropped.\par

"Dead," he muttered, this time in Russian.  Slipping
off the poor beast's back, he began to caress it, using
those endearing words even the wildest Cossacks have
for their horses, whom they love, calling him his beloved
Sietch, his little dove, his only friend, his brother.
And there were tears in his voice which moved the
spectators, now so well acquainted with grief.\par

He took no notice of them; said they two must part,
but he would not leave his good friend by the road,
like a dog, but would put him into a ditch or trench,
and cover him with earth, lest the vultures picked his
tired, faithful body.  He looked about, evidently for
a grave, and saw the desolate little group.\par

"Russian?" he asked.\par

"Polish," answered Ian.\par

"Running away, too?"\par

Ian told him, shortly, what they had run away from.\par

"Am I near Kosczielna?"\par

"Ten versts."\par

"Ah--do we hold it?"\par

"You do not.  But you've killed nearly all the
Prussians who held it last night."\par

"Warsaw is still ours?"\par

"So far.  But Prussians hold this road as far as
the river--perhaps farther."\par

He was thoughtful for a moment.  He looked the
wildest figure, capless, bootless, his long dark hair
blowing in the night breeze.\par

"To get to Warsaw is useless," he muttered at last.\par

"Then how can we escape ... where can we go?"
put in the Countess.\par

He pulled his long Cossack forelock and gave an
awkward bow.\par

"Madam, we must strike the Vistula and make for
Grodno, or Vilno."\par

"What?  Tramp four hundred versts?"  She was
horrified.  "We haven't as much as a horse, let alone
a cart."\par

"Four hundred versts," he repeated.  "I did not
know.  I don't see how we are to reach Warsaw
before it is German."  He turned to Ian.  "Do you, sir,
help me lay my little horse in its grave.  Then we can
decide."\par

Hastily they put it into a trench, and the Cossack
kicked earth over it, telling his story, meanwhile, in
odd, broken Polish, of which he was very proud.  He
had been captured by the Prussians not far from
Ruvno, and taken to the Vistula, he was not clear
where, to be sent by water into Germany.  But their
boat was shelled by the Russians and wrecked.  Like
all Cossacks he was an expert swimmer and he swam
up against the tide, got ashore near a wood and struck
the high road from Thorn to Warsaw.  He had been
riding since early morning and Sietch was already
much tried when they were captured.\par

But for all his advocating the Grodno route, he
seemed loathe to leave his new friends and strike out
done when he saw that they were bent upon trying
to get to Sohaczev.  I think the knowledge, gathered
from their talk amongst themselves, that Ian knew
every by-way and short-cut to that town--for much
of the way lay on his own land--impressed him.\par

"I am strange to this country," he explained.  "I
might not find the river, to strike across country into
Lithuania, and four hundred versts is a long way."\par

"You will come up with your friends once you cross
the river," said Ian.  "The Russians still held the right
bank of the Vistula, this evening."\par

"Have you no horses?" he asked.\par

Vanda told him that Ruvno and its contents lay
under a wreckage of brick and stone.  Ian turned to
his mother.\par

"I am for pushing on to Warsaw," he said.  "Neither
of us can tramp four hundred versts within three
weeks.  We must trust to our luck to find the Grand
Duke in Sohaczev.  Von Senborn said this morning
that he was there, waiting for the rest of his army
to come up."\par

"Very well," she said, putting her arm in his.  "If
only I could see the Grand Duke, he'd send us to
Warsaw by hook or by crook.  War changes many
things, but it doesn't kill the convenience of having
powerful friends."\par

"Will he go with us?" asked Vanda, meaning the Cossack.\par

"I hope not," whispered her aunt.\par

"They are wild people at the best," said the Father,
speaking English.  "If he joins us he'll see your jewels
taken from the earth."\par

"Besides," said Ian, "if the Prussians catch us
alone they may give us a pass to Warsaw--God
knows, we're harmless beggars, even to them.  But
to have an escaped prisoner--only--how to tell him?"\par

"Well--are we going to start?" asked the Cossack.
Nobody answered.\par

He was no fool, for he guessed the reasons why
they greeted his proposal in stony silence.  I suppose
he thought a woman would be soft-hearted, so
addressed himself to the Countess, giving one of his
awkward bows.\par

"Madam," he said, "I know you think me a savage
Cossack, given to pilfering and all sorts of wildness.
But I am a good Cossack, of the Don Troop, coming
of many atamans.  My name is Ostap Hovodsky; my
mother is an Efremov.  We serve the Tsar with our
own horses, uniforms and arms; we are warriors and
farmers, but neither Huns nor Prussians.  You need
not fear for any treasure you may have about you
for your journey.  As to this"--he threw down his
pistol--"it has been in the water and I have had no
ammunition for a week.  And this," he tore off his
ragged coat and threw it into the ditch.  "I spit upon
it.  I always meant to change it the moment I could
find a dead man to pilfer.  This is no place for Cossack
uniforms.  I'll walk in my shirt, or without it, rather
than make you anxious.  If you want my company
you will not regret it.  From your looks I see you are
not used to make your way through deserted battlefields.
You will find me useful, and I shall be glad
to know the nearest way to report myself to Nicolai
Nicolaievitch."\par

"I will take you with pleasure," said Ian, who felt
confidence in him after this little speech.  "But there
are others."\par

"I, too," agreed Minnie, who naturally did not share
the Polish aversion to Cossacks.\par

"I believe you'll be our friend," said Vanda.\par

"I have known good Cossacks," said Father
Constantine, "and I think you are one of them."\par

The Countess said no more, so it was settled that
Ostap, as he insisted on their calling him, should go
with them.  He thanked them, and then, of a sudden,
took the initiative, and became their leader.\par

"You have no pick?" he asked.\par

They looked at each other in consternation.  It was
true.  In his haste to leave the house Ian had
forgotten to bring a spade, to dig up the jewels.\par

"Where do the Prussians lie now?" he asked again.
Ian took him up the bank by the windmill site and
showed him, so far as he knew, where they had
occupied Ruvno soil.\par

"Very well.  I'll go for a pick, or a shovel."\par

"You'll be captured if you do," said Father
Constantine.  "They have sentries."\par

"Never mind.  We must have a few things.  Do
you all wait here and I'll be back very soon.  If you
hear a very long whistle you'll know I am taken and
then you must fend for yourselves.  Otherwise, wait."\par

"I'll come, too--" said Ian.\par

"Can you walk on your belly?"\par

"I can try."\par

"That's no good.  You learn it early or not at all.
And you cannot take a pannikin or water-bottle from
a sleeping man's side without waking him.  Even the
Prussians can't do that.  I'm safer alone."\par

And he disappeared, after taking up the bridle which
had been on Sietch--the only harness he had.\par

The moon had waned and darkness was upon them.
To save time they moved to the spot where Ian and
the Father had buried half of the jewels last
summer.  They put the rest in the lane which ran to the
east of the house.  During the momentary lulls when
safe from prying eyes, Ian had been in the habit of
going to see if they were safe and none the worse for
lying underground.  When the windmill was destroyed
they were anxious about them.  But on clearing away
the debris he found them safe and sound in kind
Mother Earth, who never deserts men, if only they
know how to tend and love her as she requires.  He
and his mother thought more and more about them
as their forests were ruined and fields ceased to bear;
for with them they could not only live, had they to
bolt, till the war would be over; but later on they
hoped to come back and repair some at least of the
damage done to Ruvno.\par

But in all their talks of the dim future they had
never dreamed of such utter ruin as now faced them.
For the Russians appeared to do well after driving
foes from the very gates of Warsaw, and everybody
was full of hope till a couple of weeks back.\par

They had all learnt by heart how many paces north
and west of the windmill was the hole, so did not
foresee much trouble in finding it.  It seemed hours
before Ostap came back, and they began to fear he
had been captured and could not even whistle to warn
them.  At last, however, a faint whistle came from
the road below.  Ian went to meet him.\par

He always knew the Cossacks for pilferers, but
never thought the night would come when he and his
family would be glad to share a Cossack's booty.
Ostap had lived up to the traditions of his people,
which includes a genius for finding the thing they
want and making the most of an awkward situation.
He struggled under the weight of many things, slung
on his back by means of Sietch's bridle.  He had a
pick, which he handed to Ian.\par

"Do you dig," he said.  "And I will divide these
things among us."\par

He had found what remained of the Prussians'
feast, so rudely interrupted by shells from Kosczielna.
He had three huge loaves of rye bread, brandy, which
the Countess insisted on Father Constantine's having
some of, three tins of preserved food (it was too dark
to read the labels) and cheese.  He had boots for
himself, taken, he said, from a dead trooper, and a jersey
from the same source.  The women shuddered at the
thought of wearing clothes stripped from a corpse, but
he was quite pleased with them.  Then he had a
water-bottle, three nose-bags and two horse-cloths.  These
were a good deal torn, but Vanda and Minnie, in light
frocks, were very glad of them.\par

"Only three loaves," he said regretfully.  "But I ate
the other on the spot.  I heard you say you had had
supper and I had touched no food for twenty-four
hours.  These nose-bags will do to carry the food in,
one for the priest and one each for us men."\par

Quickly he distributed his booty in the three nosebags.\par

"There," he said when it was done.  "We shall not
have a feast, but at least something to put in our
stomachs.  Mine was empty before I went over to
them.  They are all sleeping like the dead they lie by,
except the wounded, who groan and yell."  He turned
to the Countess.  "And where can I fill this
water-bottle without getting poisoned, my Lady?"\par

"We shall pass a spring soon after we start for
Sohaczev."\par

"My God, but I've a thirst.  Is there nothing nearer?"\par

"Only the House supply," she answered sadly.  "And
that must be under the ruins."\par

Meanwhile, Ian and the two girls were working
their hardest, Ian loosening the earth with the pick
and helping to shovel it up.  This they did with their
hands, having nothing else.  The Countess helped, too,
but they all insisted on the Father resting before his
long tramp.  His seventy-odd years could ill withstand
the experiences of the past twelve months.  His
rheumatism had grown worse, and the wound he took
in the winter, during the kitchen fight, never properly
healed.  A surgeon Ian had called in said it would
take years before the skin hardened over the bone.
They did manage to get a kind of cap, of aluminum,
to protect the skull.  But whereas a quiet life and
comfort would have done him good, all they could give
him that year was worry and hardship.\par

Ostap looked on but did not offer to help dig up
the "treasure" as he called it.  He did say how sorry
he was not to have found a spade as well as a pick;
but that was all.  He did not want them to suspect of
a desire to pilfer their jewels.\par

The three worked hard for some time, then Vanda
got up to stretch her legs, cramped by the posture.\par

"We haven't hit the right spot," she said.\par

"I believe you're right," agreed Ian.  "We've not
struck cement even."\par

"If only we had another pick," sighed Minnie.
"We'd get on quicker."\par

"What are they saying?" Ostap asked the priest.\par

"They are short of a pick."\par

Despite protests he disappeared; whilst Ian was still
measuring the paces, he came back, not with a pick but
a spade.  Ian, seeing the girls were exhausted with
work and anxiety, asked him to use it.\par

"Ah--you trust me," said the Cossack.  "I'll help
with pleasure."\par

They set to work again; silence holding the little
group.  Even the talkative Ostap did not speak.\par

"Cement!" Ian said suddenly.\par

He had said it so many times only to find stones
that the others took no notice.  However, he and
Ostap plodded on--and at last Ian held up a small object.\par

"The thermos bottle," he said, giving it to his mother.\par

In the dark she and the girls opened it, counting the
black pearls.  They were intact.\par

"Work carefully now," Ian warned Ostap.  "The
rest are in waterproof packets--we shall miss them."\par

"It's so dark," complained the priest.  "Can't we
use my electric torch?"\par

"Not if you want to be alive to-morrow," said
Ostap bluntly.  "Their sentries are watching."\par

And they fumbled on.  The moon had set long ago,
so they worked very slowly.  But at last, after feeling
every clod of earth near where they found the thermos
bottle, they came upon a waterproof packet.  It
contained Minnie's pearls.\par

"Only one more, Ostap," said Ian.  "It was put near
this.  We sha'n't be long."\par

In a few moments he found it; it held half of the
famous Ruvno emeralds, worth many thousand
roubles.  Ostap did not ask what was in the packet, but
remarked:\par

"Oh, God, it's wonderful how little room treasure
takes up.  Now do you all, ladies, secure them well
about your persons; and we must be off."\par

"Thank God, we have them at last," said the
Countess.  "We shall be able to keep the wolf from the
door."  She spoke thus, afraid that he would have an
idea of the treasure's real value.  For she did not
trust him yet.  Hastily they put the pearls about their
persons, while Ostap strolled a few paces away.\par

"And now for the lane," said Ian.  "We'll find that
easier."\par

They had to make a big detour to reach it, for it was
madness to go near the Prussians, as the Countess
pointed out.  Even as it was they heard the groans
as some wounded men very near at hand.  Once, Ian
stumbled over a softish stiff body, in the darkness.
He examined it as well as he could, fearing it might
be one of his own household.  But the dead man's
helmet told its tale.  They left it lying there, walking
as silently as they could, Ian leading the way, because
he knew every inch of the ground.  Every now and
again some noise from the Prussian camp made them
stand still, in terror that they were discovered.  But
they were all false alarms.  Many of von Senborn's
men were in their last long sleep, and the rest so tired
that it would have taken more noise than these poor
waifs made on the grass to awake them.  Their horror
was great when they finally arrived at the top of the
lane where Ian had buried the remainder of the
emeralds and his mother's rings.  It was blocked with
the wreckage of his once prosperous stud farm.\par

"We're ruined," whispered the Countess.  "None of
us can get through that."\par

"I'll get over," said Ostap, when the situation was
explained to him.  "But you must tell me where the
treasure lies."\par

"I'll come with you," said Vanda.\par

"Nonsense!"  This from Ian.  "I'll go."\par

She put her hand on his arm.\par

"You're too heavy.  You'll bring down a lot of the
ruins, wake the sentries and we shall be done."\par

"It's not safe," he said, squeezing her hand.\par

"It is," she whispered.  "I can climb like a cat.  Do
let me."\par

He made no further objection.  In silence he
watched her climb the ruins.  Ostap was wonderful.
He made not the faintest noise, reached the top of
the ruins, which were like those made by an
earthquake, then took Vanda in his arms and stepped as
noiselessly down the other side with her.  It seemed a
long time elapsed after their dark figures disappeared.
Then they arrived unexpectedly over the far end of
the ruins.\par

"Well?" asked Ian anxiously.\par

"Hopeless," she answered.\par

"The spot where your treasure lies is under twenty
feet of brick and rubbish," said Ostap.\par

"Can't we clear it?"\par

"Not without waking some Prussians.  We heard
their snores."\par

"Oh, Ostap," said the poor Countess, forgetting her
suspicion in her anxiety, "you are so clever--surely
you can help us.  I'll come--and we'll all lift the
debris away brick by brick, with our hands, silently."\par

"I cannot, my lady.  Look!"  He pointed eastward.
"Daylight would overtake us.  Besides, the ruins are
very heavy.  It can't be done without risking your
jewels and your lives."\par

"Yes, he is right, Aunt," said Vanda sadly.\par

They were all disappointed and loath to give up the
search.  The Countess wept a little at the thought of
leaving so much wealth behind.  Ostap, who had been
silent about the other jewels, did his best to comfort
them now.\par

"Your treasure is safer here than in a Moscow
bank," he said.  "The Prussians will not touch it, for
who would think to scrape under this horse farm?
And when we have come back and cleared the earth
of the enemy, you can dig for them in peace, and you
will have money with which to build up your home.
In Russia, neither bread nor meat is lacking and you
can very well live on what you dug up near the high
road.  Let us go.  The night passes, and darkness is
now our best friend."\par

He was right.  What good to linger weeping over
their misfortunes?  With heavy hearts they turned
away and set out across the trench-furrowed fields to
Sohaczev.\par

\label{xvii}%
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{}

\vs{4}
{\noindent}
{\centering
{\Large\strut{XVII}}
\endgraf}
\par


\vs{2}
{\noindent}
Although it was easy to see that the Countess
and the chaplain were tired, Ian listened to
his mother's entreaties to set out without any
rest; for who could sleep within sight of their ruined
home?  Besides, time was precious, unless they were
prepared to remain under the Prussian rule; and they
decided that exile, beggary, anything would be better
than living in some town to see them every day and
every hour of the day....  Their way lay through
what had been the home forest, by paths and fields
that run south of Kosczielna, thence south-west to
Sohaczev.  It was already the last day of July and
the Prussians at Ruvno had been boasting that they
would be in Warsaw for the third of August; and
the Kaiser's second son crowned King of Poland, in
the old palace, within a month.  They were a couple
of days late in getting into Warsaw, and Poland's
crown is not yet on a Hohenzollern's head.\par

The fear that the Grand Duke might no longer be
in Sohaczev haunted them all.  Even as the crow flies,
Ruvno was twenty versts from there.  By the road,
which ran fairly straight, it was thirty.  By cutting
across country, by the ways which Ian and Vanda
knew well, he thought they could save five versts, thus
leaving twenty-five to cover.  He and Ostap, walking
a little ahead, to warn the others of barbed wire and
trenches, soon saw what the short cut meant.\par

"I'm for getting back to the road," said the Cossack.\par

"But it is much further."  Ian explained the distances.\par

"Eh, God, but we can't do more than a verst an
hour if this kind of ground goes on, and I know this
part.  It's cut up like Hell.  We shall be clambering
in and out of trenches and dodging wire and dead
bodies all the way.  We might do three versts an hour
by the road.  None of you are walkers.  Nor I.  We
Cossacks are more at home on horses' backs than our
feet.  You walk as if every step hurt you."\par

"There's something inside me that grates about as
I move," admitted Ian.\par

"Broken ribs.  I had them several times.  If you tie
them up it's all right, but a bit nasty if you let them
jog into your flesh."\par

They stumbled on a bit and avoided some more wire,
making a long detour to do it.  Ian noticed that,
whereas his mother and the two girls kept up better than
he thought they could, the Father showed signs of
exhaustion, though he did his bravest to hide it.\par

"The priest," whispered Ostap.  "We shall be carrying
him soon.  Another reason for going to the road."\par

Ian said nothing, knowing he was right.  In fact, he
soon doubted if any of them could keep up this kind
of exercise very long.  The ground was intersected
with trenches, and full of pitfalls in the way of
tree-stumps.  They had all been working since daybreak,
even the Father, who was fit only for bed.  Ostap was
a worse walker than Ian himself, bruised and shaken
by the shell which buried him near the church and
led to their worst troubles.  Ostap said he had no sleep
for two nights, being afraid to doze on Sietch's back
for fear of getting entrapped.  Father Constantine
almost fought to keep his knapsack; but they managed
to get that from him.\par

"Even if we do three versts an hour, it will take
ten hours to Sohaczev," remarked Ostap, when they
had struggled thus for some time without much
progress.  "... Walking all the time.  That's an
impossibility.  What hour is it now?"\par

Ian took out his watch.  It had stopped.  The glass
was smashed, too.  Ostap studied the summer sky
with some attention.\par

"It is one o'clock," he said after a moment.  "In
two hours or so it will be the dawn.  We can perhaps
cover six versts by then, by the road.  Then we must
rest for an hour, or we shall be dead."\par

"This will be hard on the Father," Ian whispered.\par

"Yes.  And listen.  By three we may cover six
versts on the road.  That leaves twenty-four.  We
start again at four, a good hour to walk, for it is
fresh.  We go on till six.  That leaves us twenty-two
versts, for we shall be going slower than three an
hour, say two ... where was I?\par

"Twenty-two versts from Sohaczev."\par

"We rest an hour, walk three versts more.  That
makes eight o'clock ... we are yet nineteen versts
from our goal."\par

"There's a village nineteen versts from Sohaczev,"
Ian put in.  "Vulki, it's called."\par

"We rest a bit.  Then we make a great effort, and
if we are lucky, by noon we are ten versts from
Sohaczev."\par

"We'll never catch the Grand Duke," said Vanda,
who was with the two men.\par

"Who knows?  But at ten versts from Sohaczev
there is a large camp.  Or there was.  If we are
lucky we shall find some of the men there, or a place
in a train, for there is the railway, unless we have
already destroyed it.  But we shouldn't do that till
the last minute, for we are retreating with as little
loss to ourselves as can be.  Then we are safe for
either headquarters at Sohaczev, or Warsaw.  And
Warsaw leads to anywhere in Russia.  I shall join
my troop, and you can rest till the war is over.  It
must be over sometime, even the Prussians can't help
that.  And then your mother, who is a brave woman,
and a really great lady, can come back and rebuild
your house.  And you can marry your sisters in the
meantime."\par

"They are not my sisters."\par

"Then the young lady is your bespoken wife."\par

"My husband is a volunteer in the Cossack army,"
said Vanda.\par

Ostap gave a little shout of pleasure.  "Oh--good!
Which troop?"\par

"The Kuban troop."\par

"And the other young lady by your mother?"\par

"Is English.  She has been very good and kind
in helping us through our troubles.  She has lost
one brother in the war."\par

"And I three.  I spit upon my life.  And upon
money.  I want to fight the Prussians and burn down
a few of their towns before I am killed by them, or
the cholera.  For that is almost as sure as their
shells."\par

"Have you no family to keep?" asked the Countess.\par

"I have.  But they have the farm and the wife can
look after that when the time comes for my old
father to die.  Then my two boys will do their service,
too, but I want them to go to good schools first."\par

"But you said you spat upon money."\par

"I mean for its own sake.  There is enough on the
farm to keep them at school.  We Cossacks are
beginning to wake up and have our boys and girls
taught things besides fighting and horses.  But Tsars
have taken away all our autonomy, little by little, and
have never given us the free use of all our land, like
they promised.  Many men in the troop find it a great
burden to supply their own horses, guns and uniforms."\par

He was silent after that and then began again with:\par

"You, on the other hand, must be a powerful man,
for the peasants I used to talk to when we were at
Kosczielna spoke about Ruvno and its lord."\par

Ian told him they were mined, and had nothing but
their jewels, half of which they had left behind.\par

"But they must be worth many farms and horses,"
he argued.  "People like you don't bury treasure for
a few roubles.  As to what you left under your horse-farm,
it is quite safe.  The earth is your best friend
in war; better than banks."\par

Ian said nothing.  The others, too, listened in
silence.  There was something attractive about his
frank speech and simple outlook of life.  But Ian had
always noticed that about the Russians.  The Poles,
with their old civilization, had become as complex as
the French.\par

"I am sorry those rascals have burned you down,"
he resumed.  "The castle was a fine thing.  I often
saw it from the distance.  But I should have liked
most of all to see the horses you bred...."\par

Ian and he talked horses then, and got a little in
front of the others, till a muffled cry from the back
recalled them.  Father Constantine was on the ground.\par

"He fell," said Vanda.  "I am afraid he has fainted."\par

"No, I haven't," he retorted with a shadow of his
old spirit.  "I'll be--well--in a moment."\par

The Countess was for giving him brandy, but Ostap
intervened.\par

"Soak some into this," and he tore off a piece of his
rye loaf, which they gave him.  It finished their stock
of brandy, but revived the priest, who was on his feet
in another moment.\par

"I can walk now," he said bravely.\par

"No.  I'm going to carry you," said Ian.  Father
Constantine made a step forward, then fainted in
earnest.\par

"Let me look," said Vanda.  "I believe his wound
has opened."\par

She bent over him and said:\par

"Yes.  It ought to be bandaged.  But how?\par

"Your handkerchiefs," said Ostap.  But they
remembered that they were filthy after the digging
operations and feared to use one till they could rinse
it out.  Ian made up his mind that they must go back
to the road.\par

"Yes," said his mother, willing enough now.
"We'll never get along on these ghastly battle-fields."\par

So they started for the road, Ian carrying Father
Constantine on his shoulders, regaining the highway
by a little shrine, with an image of the Madonna.
Many years before the Countess had put it there as
a thanksgiving offering, when Ian recovered from an
attack of scarlet fever.  The peasants of the neighborhood
used to say that it had miraculous powers to heal
all sick children.  So it was very popular with mothers
of families.\par

"Who's there?" cried a familiar voice from the
darkness.\par

"Your own people," answered they.\par

It was poor old Martin, who had been carried on in
the general stampede; but he had grown very tired,
and seeing the others were not amongst the mob, had
the good sense to await them there, knowing they
must pass the shrine on their way to safety.  He had
fallen asleep to find, on waking, that the moon was
set and the night at its darkest.\par

"The others?" asked Ian.  "Where are they?"\par

"Mother of God, they rushed on.  They are mad
with fear," he answered sadly.  "Some fell and did
not get up again.  Old Vatsek, and somebody's child.
The road is hard, being strewn with rubbish, what
the other fugitives and soldiers have left for lack of
strength."\par

"Seen any horses, or carts?" asked Ostap.\par

"Dead ones, under the moon ... they lie as they
dropped, in the shafts."\par

"Far?"\par

"A quarter of a verst."\par

Ostap and Ian, leaving Martin with the others, went
off to look for a cart.  They wanted to get the side
of one for Father Constantine.  It would be better for
him than carrying him on their backs.  They had to
grope about for some time, because it was the moment
before dawn when night is darkest, when neither moon
nor the streaks of coming day help you, when the
air strikes chill to the very marrow and the heart
has least courage.  They finally found what they
wanted by the smell of decomposing horseflesh, which
guided them to a peasant's cart.  They broke off
one side of it, and took, too, some straw they found
at the bottom.  When they went back to the others
the Father was talking.\par

"Go on," he argued.  "Leave me....  I have
God....  I shall not be alone."\par

And he said this more than once before he reached
the end of his journey.\par

Ian managed to find a warm cover, too, and they
made him as comfortable as they could.  Then they
ate some bread and cheese, saving the tinned meat
for the morning.  There was a spring near this spot,
so they drank water and bathed their faces.  As well
as they could in the dark they washed out Ian's
handkerchief--the largest--and bound up the sick man's
head.  The cold, damp linen revived him.\par

"Where am I?" he asked.\par

"Going to Warsaw."\par

"Where is my diary?"\par

They knew he used to keep one and did not like
to tell him it was under Ruvno's ruins.  So they said
nothing.\par

"Please give it me.  I want it," he urged feebly.\par

"What does he want?" asked Ostap.\par

Ian told him.\par

"I remember," said the Cossack, "he did take two
books out of his skirt pocket, there under the moon
when you were digging up the treasure.  He put them
in his nose-bag."  He slung it off his back, drew out
the two books and handed them to the sick man, who
eagerly clutched at them.\par

"Ian," he said, "come here."  When his patron
obeyed he gave him the two little books, bound in black
oilcloth, such as children write their copies in.\par

"Keep them," he said with an effort.  "Have them
published.  People must know what Poland endures."\par

"I will," said Ian, putting them in his knapsack.\par

"Have you them safe?" he asked.\par

"Yes."\par

"Now, give me the little Crucifix.  It is in the
nose-bag that Cossack brought us."\par

They did so.  He clasped it tight and pressed it to
his lips.  It seemed to give him strength.  "I'll keep
it to the end--of my journey," he said.  "Countess,
forgive me, all forgive me, for adding to your burden
with my infirmities."\par

All tried to reassure him, and he spoke no more
for a long time.  They knew he suffered much.  His
head and hands burned with the fever that was
consuming him.\par

They started off again.\par

Ostap was right about the road being easier.  But
it was even more horrible than the fields.  In spite of
debris, bits of soldiers' accoutrements and stiff, silent
noisome forms scattered in their path, there was no
comparison between it and barbed wire or trenches,
so far as walking went.  They walked for another
hour, Martin taking short turns with one end of the
stretcher whilst either Ostap or Ian rested their arms.
They trudged steadily on, knowing that every step took
them nearer Warsaw, further from the Prussians.
Ostap and Ian, with the litter, took the side of the
road, for the middle, cut with a year's war traffic,
was no better than a plowed field.  The three women
walked near, to do the little that was possible for the
patient.  Martin walked by Ian, to tell him what he
saw and heard with the fleeing villagers.  Ian told
him how Ruvno ended.  They spoke low because of
the Father; instinctively--but heavy guns would not
have aroused him from his delirious torpor.\par

As dawn came on, painting the sky with gray and
purple and the breeze grew less chill, Ian could see
more and more plainly the desolation that lay around.
Not a living creature did they meet.  But the dead
were many.  The few surviving trees were bare as
in a January frost; the roadside and neighboring fields,
strewn, not only with every kind of garment, every
simple article of a peasant's cottage, but with costly
things which must have been a soldier's loot, with the
soldier's mortal remains; and with their knapsacks,
caps, ragged boots and bits of kit.  Dead horses were
many, too; and dead peasants, of both sexes and every
age, were not a few.  And he passed near by these
things, flotsam and jetsam of war, passed dead
hamlets, where only ruins remained, and one dead
mother he saw, her new-born child near by, and dead,
too.  He hoped the others had not noticed, for it was
the most terrible sight of all.  And as the dawn spread
he could see the distant fields with the burnt corn,
the trenches full of horrid sights and an army's
rubbish, burnt trees, wire twisted as by gigantic hands;
ruined crops, ruined homes, broken lives and perished
hopes....  And this was all they had left of Poland.\par

And when his weary eyes turned from the misery
around and fell upon his dear ones, he saw how fitted
they were to travel the road of death and despair.\par

The three women, dainty all their lives, were
ragged, dirty, disheveled, their thin frocks covered
with horse-blankets which were stained with blood.
What did the future hold for those brave souls?  He
preferred not to think of that, and turned to look at
Ostap, black with dirt and tan, coatless, his arms far
too long for the Prussian's jersey, his feet bare and
bleeding, for the boots proved too tight and he had
cast them aside, his long hair wild and dusty, his nose
swollen, a scar across his face; he looked as ferocious
a member of an army as you could ever fear to meet.
Martin had aged twenty years since he served supper
the night before; he limped along painfully, his
house-boots worn through with the rough tramp.  Happily,
the women were sensibly shod, having put on their
strongest boots for yesterday's field work.\par

Looking on Father Constantine's ashen face, Ian
knew his hours were numbered.  The seal of death
was on it.  The thin hands which had clasped the
crucifix so eagerly a little while back were clutching
at the rags with which they had covered him....\par

The forlorn party took stock of each other furtively
for some time.  Then their eyes met; and they smiled.\par

"It is war," said Ostap.  And, noting their low
spirits, he did the best to cheer them with the
humorous side of his year's campaign.  It made them forget
how dirty they looked, helped them to grow accustomed
to their new selves, perhaps.  Now that the
light was good, Ian noticed that the Cossack's dark
eyes were intelligent and merry.  He had that
contempt for death which enabled the retreating Russians
to make ramparts of their bodies when ammunition
failed.  He gave them unwittingly a grim story of
crippled men, muddled orders, peculation and pilfering;
with that childlike literalness which is wholly
Russian and the dash of fatality which stiffens
courage, and makes men patient under pain....\par

They made a wide detour before reaching
Kosczielna, fearing to run into the Prussians again,
and none wished for that.  No sounds came from its
ruins; but many gray forms showed how well that
Russian sapper, in Ruvno church did his signaling.
The fugitives had planned to rest awhile near the
little town; but the place was so horrible that they
hurried on, quickening their pace, to leave the orgy
of death behind, though death went with them step
by step.\par

At Vulki they made a halt.  Here there were signs
of life, the first since they left home, though the
village had been destroyed.  But they found that a
dozen or so of Ruvno peasants had halted there, and
were cooking a few potatoes they dragged from its
wreckage.  Baranski, whom they had chosen as
leader, saw the little procession and hurried to meet it.\par

"Oh--my Lady Countess," he cried, kissing her
hand, "to think you have come to this plight, and the
young ladies, too, and you, my lord Count, and the
Father--oh, if I could only help you.  But there is
nothing here.  Some of ours have started back to
Ruvno over the fields.  They hope to creep back into
the village unseen by the Prussians and pretend they
never left.  The sight of all this misery is too much
for them.  They fear they will die like dogs if they
go any further."\par

"And those people?" asked Ian, indicating the group
round the fire.\par

"Most of them meant to stop here.  The native
peasants have fled.  Those are too tired, they say, to
go back or go on."\par

"Have you a watch?"\par

"Yes."  Baranski pulled out a silver timepiece.  "It
is ten past five."\par

Ian looked at his little group.\par

"We can't reach that camp before one.  It's only
ten versts from Sohaczev."\par

"We had better rest," said his mother, and he saw
she could not walk much further without sleep.\par

"Baranski, do you wake us in two hours."\par

"Yes.  And I'll look to the poor Father here," he
said.  He was a loyal old peasant and heartbroken to
think of the tribulation that had come upon them all.
He found a mattress in a ruined cottage for Father
Constantine, and searched vainly for some refreshment
for them.  They all slept heavily, except the
invalid, till he woke them, at seven o'clock.\par

"And what are you going to do?" asked the
Countess, when they told him and the other peasants
their own plans.\par

"Some of us go back.  We have buried our grain
where the Prussians won't think to look for it," he
explained to Ian in a confidential whisper, as though
von Senborn himself were within earshot.  "I have
no liking for the road, or a tramp through Russia.
They can't take my good earth away and where shall
I find soil to bear like Ruvno fields?"\par

Six went with Ian.  They had sons fighting with
the Russians and did not want to be cut off from all
communication with them.  Ostap did not like this
addition to the party till one of them returned from
the far end of the village with a lean-looking but
sound horse and found a cart for it.  He had grown
very tired of carrying the litter.  They placed Father
Constantine in the cart and started off, taking a sad
farewell of those who remained behind....\par

Sore-footed, sore-hearted, faint for the lack of food,
they went slowly on, through the same scenes of
desolation and death, halting every half-hour for a
few minutes, scarcely daring to do so, but sure of
breaking down before reaching their goal unless they
did.  The road was very bad now; Ian and the other
men often had to clear the way of the human and
other wreckage which stopped the cart's passage.
They spoke little.  Each wrapped in his own thoughts,
listened to Father Constantine's delirium.  He, who
had helped so many souls through the Valley of
Death, must pass it unshriven.\par

At midday they halted again; they had not reached
the camp of which Ostap spoke.  The Father's frail
body was making a desperate effort to retain his
fleeting soul.  Vanda, who had watched so many die of
late, said the end was near.  The peasants came up
to the cart and joined in their prayers.  They wept,
for all loved the kind, simple old man who had taught
them what they knew of God and letters.\par

He opened his eyes, making a feeble sign that he
wanted to speak.  Ian bent over to catch his words.\par

"Go on--" he faltered.  "I'm not alone...."\par

And thus he died.  With tears they folded his hands
over the little malachite crucifix, the one relic of
home.  The Countess covered his thin, withered face,
so peaceful in its long sleep, with a peasant woman's
kerchief.  Then they urged on the tired horse and
their own weary limbs, the women praying for his
soul as they staggered on, because retreating armies
wait not and their one hope now lay in escaping the
Prussians.  They had no food left; every scrap of the
bread, stained with the blood of those who held it
in the Ruvno canteen, had gone.  And strength was
fast failing them.\par

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\vs{2}
{\noindent}
At last, however, they saw signs of life.  A train
whistle told them they were near a railroad
and they passed a group of soldiers who were
firing two large hay stacks.\par

"The camp, thank God!" cried Ostap, and they
all quickened their steps.\par

The place had been made by the war and for the
war.  There were no peasants' cottages, no farm
buildings.  There were rows and rows of wooden
huts where troops in repose had passed their time;
there was a wooden church with the onion-shaped
dome which pertains to Russian temples; there were
gardens in which the men had grown cabbages for
their soup and a few flowers, especially sunflowers,
for they liked to eat the seeds.  There were tents
and hospitals, magazines, guns and aeroplanes.  Above
all, there was great confusion.  Most of the troops
had left and ambulances, carts, trains, motor-lorries,
anything upon wheels the Russians could find, were
being packed with the sick and wounded.\par

Leaving the others at the upper end of the camp,
Ostap and Ian set forth to seek the commanding
officer.  It took them some time because nobody knew
anything about him, and nobody cared whether they
were refugees in distress or what they were.  The
whole mental force of the place was concentrated upon
getting away as many sick and wounded as possible
before the Prussians came in and seized them.  After
half an hour's search, however, Ian found his man.
He was standing by a large hospital tent, ticking off
entries from a notebook.  Judging from his looks,
he had neither slept nor washed for some days.  At
any other time Ian would have refrained from
interrupting a man with that stamp of haggard determination
on his face.  But his own plight was desperate.
He told his story as briefly as possible and asked for
help to get his women to Warsaw before the Russians
left there.\par

When the man heard the word "help" he looked
up in irate surprise.\par

"Do you know how many wounded I've got on
my hands here?" he asked.\par

"I can't say----"\par

"Three thousand of ours--a thousand Germans.
I've had four thousand to get off since the night before
last.  The Grand Duke with his staff leaves Warsaw
this evening.  You know what that means?"\par

Two men brought a stretcher from a tent.  Its
occupant's face was black; he fought desperately for
breath.  The officer asked the bearers curt questions,
made notes, signed to them to pass on.  Then he turned
to Ian.\par

"Gas.  That man's regiment has lost three thousand
by it, to my knowledge.  That gives you an idea of
our work here.  Help!  How can I help?"\par

"I'm sorry," said Ian quietly, but with that air of
authority he had learned in ruling Ruvno.  "But I've
a right to your help.  My home has been blown to
bits because you left a signaler bricked up in my
church-tower.  I know the Grand Duke will approve
of anything you can do for me.  If you've German
wounded you can surely let some of them wait here
for their friends and send my womenfolk to Warsaw
in their places."\par

"I've no orders to help refugees," he returned
sullenly.\par

"I'm a personal friend of the Grand Duke's."\par

"He has so many friends."\par

He was ticking off names from his list and asking
the bearers questions during this conversation, which
took some time.\par

"My time is precious, too," argued Ian.  "I'll bury
my chaplain and come back to you then.  In the
meantime you can perhaps think of some way to help me."\par

The officer pointed to a motor-lorry which was
passing them on its way out of the camp.  It was
packed full of ghastly-looking men.\par

"There's your answer.  How can I help with this
Hell going on day and night?" he exclaimed irritably.\par

"Give me two horses and a peasant's cart."\par

"There are none."\par

"Then a pass for a train ... room on the roof
will do."\par

His face softened now.  He thought he was to get
rid of this importunate civilian.\par

"A capital idea.  But I can't give you the pass.
It's not my job.  The officer who can is over there."\par

He pointed towards the station.  "Go to him.  Say
I sent you.  Nicolai Petrovich Ketov is my name.
Good luck!" and he hurried into the tent.\par

On his way to the station Ian met Ostap.\par

"The devil take this hole!" he cried by way of
greeting.  "Not a horse to be found.  Nor a cart.
Nothing but bad temper and confusion."  Then, when
he heard the other's experience:\par

"Ketov.  Don't know the name ... a Little Russian,
I expect.  But you can see all these officers are
too busy to bother with us.  I'll try humbler folk.
Never mind.  Do you go bury your priest.  Meanwhile,
give me your card, if you have one about you
and write down the number of your followers and
your quest upon it.  Have you any money?  That
is always useful."\par

"Yes."  Lately, he had been in the habit of
carrying about all the ready money he possessed in case
of an emergency like this.  But he did not tell the
Cossack he had enough to keep his little family for
a few weeks, till he could sell the family jewels.  In
silence he pulled out a couple of hundred roubles,
produced a card, and a note which he had had from
the Grand Duke a week before.\par

"I'll not take the money, because we don't pay for
any conveyance we may get till we're all in it.  But
I'll take that note.  It may help us to get the
conveyance," said Ostap.\par

He went off, whistling, and Ian sought the others.
He found they had been more fortunate, for they had
made friends with old Princess Orsov, better known
in Petrograd and Moscow as Vera Petrovna.  And she
had heard of the Countess, first from hearsay; then,
more fully, from the Grand Duke, for she was a
personal friend of the imperial family.\par

She listened in silence to the Countess' story, her
bright, Tatar eyes taking in every detail of that tired,
well-bred face and the torn clothes, never made for
tramping over battlefields.  She took a fancy to the
Polish woman at once, admired her courage and her
determination.  When the tale was told she made the
three women go into a little pinewood hut which stood
by the roadside, and managed to get them some hot
coffee in a remarkably short time, considering the
confusion.\par

"You shall have a dinner when it is ready," she
said, speaking the purest French.  "I'll help you to
get off by hook or crook.  But we are hard pressed
here to find room for your wounded.  Wait a moment
I'll go and talk to my head nurse."  And she hurried
out, leaning on her stick.\par

"How clean this is!" sighed Vanda, looking round
the cell-like place.  "I wonder if she'll give us some
soap and water, as well as a dinner.  I seem to want
it more than food."\par

"She'll give us everything," said Minnie cheerfully.
"She is the good fairy who always turns up, even in
real life, when things look blackest.  No, Countess?"\par

The Countess did not hear.  She was thinking of the
life they had left behind and wondered what the future
held in store.  And she thought of her faithful old
friend, the chaplain, now lying in peace after his long
journey and envied him, till she remembered that her
boy wanted her and this thought gave comfort.\par

In a few minutes the Princess came back.\par

"We're so packed that you couldn't put a bayonet
between the men," she said in her brisk way.  "But
I can take you three ladies on my hospital train if you
don't mind wearing white aprons and veils."\par

"I am most grateful to you," said the Countess.  "If
you will take these two girls for me, it will be a great
load off my mind."\par

"But you?"\par

"I'll do what my son does.  I've known so many
cases of families being separated and not finding each
other for months together.  And I don't think I could
bear the anxiety of that."\par

Vera Petrovna laughed.\par

"That is when people have to tramp the roads by
night," she argued.  "Your son can get on a troop
train, by hook or by crook.  On the roof, or with the
stoker.  It's nothing for a man."\par

"But the train he gets on might not go to Warsaw,"
objected the Countess.  "And where should I find him
with all the telegraphic communication stopped?"\par

"I sha'n't leave you," said Vanda.\par

"Nor I," added Minnie.\par

The old Russian was rather puzzled at this.  But Ian
came to the rescue.  He looked on the matter in a
far more practical light.\par

"It's the greatest piece of luck you could have," he
said.  "I can't tell you, Princess, how grateful I am.
I've not been able ever to get anybody to listen to my
request for a seat on the roof of a train, even.  But I
can tramp it.  And I'll do it all the better when I
know you're all safe."\par

"You can't help going to Warsaw," said the Princess.
"You can arrange that whoever gets there first
waits for the rest of the party.\par

"I wonder what the chances of getting from
Warsaw to Petrograd or even Kiev are?" Ian asked her.
This had been worrying him a good deal.  He did
not want to be left in Warsaw, unable to realize his
valuables.\par

The Princess blinked her narrow eyes at him and
tapped her stick on the floor.  It was the same ebony
stick whose knob was an enormous emerald set in
pearls which she used in peace days.  It was her one
vanity.  But in order to preserve the stones from
scratches and dirt she had a lot of little washleather
caps made for the knob which were changed and
washed as soon as they showed the need for it.  For
many months now this wonderful old woman, remnant
of a type which the revolution has probably swept
away forever, whose friends of youth had passed
away, who stood alone in her memories, had been
living between her hospital-train and her Petrograd
palace, turned into a hospital, too.  With that
independence characteristic of her House she refused to
have anything to do with the Russian Red Cross,
supplied her own train, nurses, surgeons and requisities,
her own engine-drivers, her own locomotives, and
wood from her own forests to heat the train and make
it go.  The food came from her own estates, the
civilian aid from her own circle of friends and
acquaintances.  In fact, she supplied everything but the
patients and they never lacked, for Vera Petrovna's
train and hospital soon won for themselves renown
for comfort and good nursing that the wounded
clamored to be taken there.  Ian watched her as she
stood, near his mother's chair, evidently revolving
some plan in her shrewd old head.  He, too, had heard
of her, of her wealth and imperiousness, her kind
heart and open hand.  He reflected, little bitterly, that
her fortune was safe, because her immense forests in
Central Asia and her hunting grounds in Siberia,
wherein you could have put Ruvno and lost it, where
trappers caught sables and marten for the world's
women, lay well beyond the invaders' grasp.  He could
not foresee her terrible end, which she met with
fortitude; little guessed that her palace in Petrograd would
be broken into by Lenine's mob, looted and burnt;
that her old body would be thrown into the nearest
canal after the life had been strangled out of it.  All
he saw now was a very energetic and prosperous
member of the Russian aristocracy, a woman who could
afford to laugh at the German advance because her
native land was intact.\par

"Count," she said, addressing him because she had
all her life preferred to deal with men....  "I have
a proposal."\par

"Yes?"\par

"Will you allow me to take these ladies in my train
to Petrograd?  We go straight through."\par

"Straight through?  But the difference in the gauge
of the rails?"\par

She gave him a wink.\par

"That's a Russian bureaucratic legend," she
returned.  "I have a contrivance they put on the wheels,
and all gauges are alike.  The Germans have it, too,
you may be sure, all ready to run their trains right up
to Vilna.  But to business.  It's far better for you,
Countess, and you, young ladies, to come straight up
to safety with me than to risk being left in Warsaw.
Who knows if you will get seats in a train or motor-car now?"\par

"It's very kind of you," said Ian, glancing at his
mother, "But----"\par

"No buts," retorted Vera Petrovna.  "You're going
to say we were complete strangers a few minutes ago.
That's true.  But in times like these one makes friends
or enemies very fast.  Oh, I've heard of all you've done
for wounded Russians at Ruvno," she went on, giving
the Countess one of her shrewd looks.  "And it would
be a great honor for me to show you that we Russians
are not like our government, that we wish to be
Poland's friend and help her brave sons and daughters,
who have borne the brunt of this awful war."\par

"Oh, how nice to hear you say that," exclaimed Vanda.\par

"I mean it.  But let us arrange this.  You, Count,
can join your little family at my house in Petrograd.
If you've never been there, all you have to do is to
ask for the Orsov Palace.  Every street-urchin knows
it.  Now, I must leave you for a moment.  So much
to do!  Do you wait here till a bath and dinner are
ready."\par

Then the others held a family council and persuaded
the Countess to accept Vera Petrovna's offer.  Later
on, if they decided to stop in Petrograd they might
find a furnished apartment, but it would be a great
thing, Ian argued, for him to know they were in safe
hands till he joined them.  He gave his mother half
his store of money and many promises to use every
means to join her as soon as he could.  He meant to
stop in Warsaw and see what had become of the
hardware factory which had been making field-kitchens
for the army.  But he kept this to himself, knowing
his womenfolk would only worry about him the more,
lest he fell into the Germans' hands.  They all had
lively recollections of that Prussian cavalryman who
was so interested in the family emeralds, and whom he
told a lie to.  The Countess still had scruples about
letting him go off alone.\par

"I shouldn't mind if I felt sure you wouldn't have
to tramp all the way to Russia," she said, as she
reluctantly took the money.\par

"But I sha'n't tramp, even to Sohaczev," he said
confidently.  "I'm sure to get on some kind of a train.
And it will be like getting rid of a millstone round my
neck to know you're all going in safety and
comparative comfort."  He lowered his voice.  "Vera
Petrovna's friendship will be a most valuable thing for us in
Petrograd.  And she's just as charming an old woman
as everybody said she was."\par

There came a loud rap at the door.\par

"Bath!" exclaimed Vanda.  "Come in!"\par

To their surprise, it was Major Healy, as large as
ever and now very sunburnt into the bargain.  He
looked at them for a moment, took in the situation in
his rather slow, very sympathetic way and said:\par

"Well, I'm glad to see you safe.  I've been horribly
worried about you these days.  I was going off to
Ruvno."  He glanced at Minnie, who flushed, partly
with pleasure at seeing him, partly with annoyance at
her unkempt appearance.\par

They told him their story.  He listened gravely,
putting in a nod or a slow, heavy gesture now and
again.\par

"I feared it," he remarked, when they had done.
"When the Princess told me Lipniki had been
bombarded I knew what that must mean for Ruvno.  I
was going to push on there this afternoon and get your
news.  As you're here, I'm back to Warsaw.  I've
distributed all my relief.  There's room in my side-car
for one.  Which of you is coming?"\par

"Oh!" said the Countess, and looked at her boy.\par

"I've some peasant women," said he.\par

Healy laughed and shook his head.\par

"I can only take one, and a light one.  I'm a
heavy-weight and the road is awful."\par

"They can draw lots," said Ian.  "The others will
have to shift with us men."\par

He saw Healy was not over eager to take peasants,
and determined he should.  They were still discussing
it when Vera Petrovna sent word by a nurse that the
bathroom in the train was ready for them and that
there would be a hasty dinner in half an hour.\par

The women hurried out.  Healy offered Ian a
cigarette and lighted one for himself.  Then, in his
pondering way, he began.\par

"Count, we've not seen each other as much as I'd
like, but I believe we're friends."\par

"We are," agreed Ian heartily.  "And you've been
a good friend to my country, too."\par

"Well, I've only done my duty and not half as much
as I'd like," said the American giant, sitting on the
camp bed, which creaked plaintively under his weight.
"But for the moment I want to talk to you about my
private affairs."  He looked round the log hut and
through the little window to the hospital beyond.  "It
seems an unsuitable time and place for me to worry
you, when you've been torn up, root and stock.  I
appreciate your troubles, but I've no choice but to
worry you a moment with my own affairs."\par

"By all means.  We part soon, and you never know
how long it'll be before----"\par

"Exactly.  You've hit the spot, Count, I may as
well say, without any more beating about the bush,
that I'm interested in Miss Minnie Burton."\par

"Ah!"\par

"Deeply interested.  I suppose she told you that we
saw quite a little of each other when she was in
Warsaw during that December advance."\par

"Oh, yes," said Ian, putting politeness before veracity.\par

"My interest has grown, deepened, since then.  She's
a real fine girl, is Miss Minnie Burton, and comes of
a fine old stock.  I want to marry her."  Here his
honest eyes met his friend's and his honest, broad face
became redder than ever.  "And I want to shoot her
out of this danger in my trailer."\par

"As to marrying her, I'm not her guardian," said
Ian.  "Her brother----"\par

"On the high seas.  And can't give opinions, one
way or the other right here."\par

"I doubt if you'd find a parson to marry you just
now," said Ian, who had exaggerated ideas of
American impatience.\par

"Good God!  I wasn't thinking of marrying her
this minute.  Nor in this Hell of a place.  I guess
there'll be time enough for the ceremony in Petrograd.
I'd like the wedding to be from Princess Orsov's
palace."\par

"Oh, does she know of your--your----"\par

"No.  But she will.  And she's just as cordial to
yours truly as she can be.  What I want is your
countenance to my taking Miss Burton on my side-car.  There
are a few points I want to fix up with her.  I guess
we'll have plenty of time to talk on the way to Warsaw."\par

"But Warsaw isn't Petrograd," objected Ian.  "I
think she'll be far safer in Vera Petrovna's train.  I'm
responsible for her, you know, till you--till you get
the family's consent to the match."\par

Healy laughed.  The idea of family consent
appeared to Ian to amuse him greatly.\par

"She's of age.  And family consent be darned if
she's willing, which I'm nearly sure she is.  As to
responsibility, I'd not like to have her get into any
unpleasantness with that brother of hers.  But she
needn't worry.  I'll get her safe to Petrograd as soon
as the Princess could.  And sooner, maybe.  I know
how they shunt those trains into sidings.  We've got
a fine touring car waiting in Warsaw and enough
petrol to take us to Vladivostock.  In fact, I'd be glad
to give you a seat in it if you can get there in time
for us to start fair of the Germans."\par

"Thanks very much."\par

"And then you'd do the chaperon, and that brother
couldn't say anything.  Now, then, can I take her on
my trailer?"\par

"Yes.  If she likes to go.  But you'd better arrange
with the Princess about taking a peasant woman in her
place.  I'm getting so many favors from her as it is,
I can't ask for any more."\par

"That I will."\par

Ian got up.\par

"I'll leave you to do it.  I've some things to see
about."  And he sought Ostap, to arrange with him
about Father Constantine's funeral immediately after
a hasty meal.\par

He was glad that Healy and Minnie were going
to marry.  It relieved him of any further responsibility
and would certainly put an end to maternal hints
about the advisability of settling down with her as
wife.  He did not want to settle down.  He meant to
go and fight as soon as he had put his mother in some
secure corner and provided her with enough money
to live upon.\par

They buried Father Constantine just as he died, in
his dusty alpaca soutane, his hands folded over die
malachite Crucifix.  They laid him in the cemetery
behind a group of tents which formed the camp
hospital, amongst Russian soldiers, digging his grave with
a spade Ostap managed to pick up somewhere.  Several
other hasty funerals were going on and nobody
paid the least attention to him.  They could find no
wood to make a rough cross; but there was some ivy
near and Vanda twisted that into one, putting it over
the newly-turned sods.  They could not even write his
name--so left him, unrecorded, and in peace.  They
had not gone far towards the station when a messenger
met them to say that the hospital-train was ready to
start.  Ostap ran up, too.  He had good news.\par

"It's nearly settled for you and your peasants," he
said to Ian.  "The transport officer asks for you."\par

Ian hurried off, leaving the Countess and Vanda to
go to the train under Ostap's guidance and found the
officer in question checking figures on a bit of paper.
He was as weary and worried as the first one had
been.  But he seemed to want men.\par

"Five hundred unwounded Germans leave at once,"
he said hurriedly.  "You and your peasants take charge
of some trucks.  The first train to leave.  We are
short."\par

"I accept with pleasure."\par

"Good.  Go with your peasants; for you'll be
wanted in a moment."\par

"My peasants are here.  I'll just go and say
good-bye to my womenfolk."\par

He ran up to the Orsov train which stood at one end
of the primitive station, ready to start.  Ropes had
been tied over the roof and down the sides of the
coaches; to these clung men with bandaged heads and
feet.  The Princess met him.\par

"They are down here," she said.  Then, seeing him
look at the crowded roof.  "You are wondering how
all these men are going to hold on till we reach
Petrograd.  But you know what happens.  We shall be
shunted into sidings for hours and then they can rest.
Some will be back in their regiments before a month.
The bad cases are all inside."\par

She led the way through a crowd of soldiers, prisoners
and stretcher-bearers towards the head of her train.
His mother and Vanda stood there, with Minnie and
the American.  Ian noticed two of his peasant women
on the steps of a coach as they passed.\par

"Why, have you taken them, too?" he asked.
"You're simply wonderful."\par

"A nurse is ill--typhoid, I fear.  So a peasant goes
to do her work.  Your mother tells me she has had
some experience.  The other goes in the English girl's
place."  Her narrow eyes twinkled.  "She's off with
Healy.  These Americans make me laugh.  They do
things nobody in Russia would do and with impunity, too."\par

"Yes.  But he's a good fellow."\par

"Excellent.  But you'll see he'll make me have the
wedding in my house, busy as I am."\par

"I shouldn't wonder," returned Ian.\par

He said his good-byes, with many injunctions to his
dear ones not to leave the Orsov palace till he fetched
them.  Vanda's soft eyes rested on his and their look
was an embrace.\par

"God bless you," he said, kissing her hand.\par

"And you," she returned in low tones.  "Listen.
There is a man here who is in Joseph's regiment."\par

"Have you spoken to him?"\par

"No.  But the Princess says he told her the name
of his captain.  He has gone on to Warsaw.  The
regiment, he says, must be there by now.  Will
you?----"\par

"Yes, I'll find out.  And tell him you are safe."\par

Then he thanked the Princess who returned his
hand-kiss in true Russian fashion, with a salute on his
forehead.\par

"God with you," she said in her native tongue.
"It's more hearty in Russian than in French."  She
knew the Polish dislike for the language of the
bureaucrats and government who had oppressed them for
generations.  "Your little family is safe with me."
Then in French: "I'm your friend, Count, and sha'n't
forget you."\par

A moment later he had helped her into the train,
which left.  He had to hurry back to his own.  Healy
and Minnie had disappeared.\par

The Germans were packed into cattle-trucks without
roofs or benches.  Over each truck were two sentry
boxes, at either end, facing one another.  Each of the
guards had a rifle, taken from the Germans.  But
there was no ammunition.  A weary-looking subaltern
came up as they were getting settled and told them to
use bayonet and butt if their charges gave any trouble.\par

Ian's peasants were distributed amongst the Russian
sentries.  He was with Ostap opposite him, Germans
packed like cattle in between.  Martin formed the
subject of heated talk with the subaltern.\par

"He has no more strength than a cat," grumbled the
Russian.  "You can't take him on this train."\par

"Very well," retorted Ian, furious.  "If you send
him off the train we all go.  I'll tramp to Warsaw, but
I won't leave him."\par

"He's neither so old nor weak as he looks," put in
Ostap.  "I'll answer for him to do his work here."\par

"You won't answer for prisoners getting loose,"
retorted the subaltern.  However, Martin was finally
put with the engine-driver.  He sat on the floor by
the wood-chest and slept for ten hours, without
feeling or hearing anything, though people came and went
and he found somebody's dog fast asleep on his chest
when he awoke.\par

It seemed as though they would never start.
Several times the word was given, only to be rescinded.
Many human odds and ends of a military camp
arrived, apparently from nowhere, and demanded to be
allowed standing-room amongst the prisoners.  The
weary subaltern protested and swore but all applicants
seemed to find places.  Before they left two empty
trains came up from Warsaw to take wounded.  Ian
noticed they were roped like the Orsov train.  In a
remarkably short time they were packed, inside and
out, with sick and wounded whom Nicolai Petrovitch
Ketov was striving to get off before the Germans came.
He was an amiable lawyer in private life, with a
passion for music and a speculative mind.  Ian had the
satisfaction of hearing later on that he left neither
man, woman nor child behind at the camp, that he
saw everything was burnt that the troops could not
carry away and that he even made the grain uneatable
by pouring petrol over it.\par

The delay fretted Ian, for he was in a good deal of
pain from his broken ribs and feverish as well,
suffering agonies of thirst.  He had a hasty visit from
Minnie and Healy, who came up as near as they could
to shout him good-bye.\par

"We're off," said she.  "I wish you were looking
more comfortable."\par

"Oh, I'm all right.  I forgot to get some water,
that's all."\par

Healy went off and brought a bottle full.  And he
insisted on Ian's taking a packet of cigarettes.\par

"I'll reach Warsaw before you," he urged.  "So do
take them all.  I'll keep the car there as long as I
dare.  Look me up at the American Consulate.  You
know where it is?"\par

"No.  But I can find out."\par

"Good.  Mind, your seat will be kept till we start."\par

"When is that?"\par

"When the Grand Duke leaves.  They say here he
leaves to-night.  But I don't believe it.  And I'm not
going to forget Poland.  When I've got more stores
I'm coming back again."\par

He watched them go off in a cloud of dust.  They
had luck with love, he reflected.  They would get on
very well together.  He knew Healy was well off,
and Minnie had a little fortune of her own.  And they
would spend it wisely, helping those poorer than
themselves.  He had no hope of marrying Vanda.  Joseph
was well and safe.  He ought to have been glad of it,
he knew.  But he hated his cousin bitterly, all the more
bitterly as ruin closed around him and years of exile
filled his tired vision.  Very likely he would get killed
before his rival.\par

Ostap was very cheerful.  After telling the
prisoners what they were to expect if they tried any
nonsense he shared his last cigarette with one of them.
Ian seemed to hear his voice all the time.  It broke
into his sorrowful meditations and sometimes got
mixed up with them, for the fever made him rather
muddle-headed.\par

"We haven't ammunition," Ostap said.  "But we
use the knife instead.  There were hundreds of you
in that camp wounded with our bayonets.  All ours
are wounded with shells and shrapnel because you are
afraid to come too close."\par

"We have enough ammunition to beat the world,"
put in a thick German voice; it belonged to one who
had been a clerk in Moscow.\par

"Perhaps," agreed Ostap.  "But we have more men
and don't care if we die or not.  That will beat the
people who beat the world, in the end."\par

Thus the talk went on.  Ian dozed on his perch,
wondering at last who was beating the world and
where the ammunition came from.  And just before
sunset they arrived at Sohaczev.\par

\label{xix}%
\hypertarget{xix}{}%
{}

\vs{4}
{\noindent}
{\centering
{\Large\strut{XIX}}
\endgraf}
\par


\vs{2}
{\noindent}
Here, a rough surprise awaited them.  They
were bundled off the train without ceremony
by a transport officer, whose temper was so
bad that the memory of Nicolai Petrovitch Ketov was
pleasant in comparison.\par

"Off with you!" he shouted.  "We're not going to
a party.  This is war."\par

"But we were put in charge of this train by the
transport officer at the last camp," protested Ostap.\par

"The devil take the train.  I've got wounded to send off."\par

"Then what are we to do?" asked Ian.\par

"Hang yourselves," was the polite reply and the
officer turned on his heel.\par

The fugitives, standing in an indignant little group
on the platform, hustled by the many passers-by,
turned to Ostap.  He was a soldier and ought to help
them out of their new predicament.\par

"What next?" asked Ian, voicing the thought of his
followers.\par

"God knows."  He looked round at the multitude of
races who jostled and cursed and shouted and
implored.  "If only I could see a Cossack I might get
some information.  But all the tribes of the Empire
seem to be here except ours."\par

"Look!  They're marching off our German prisoners,"
cried Dulski, the Ruvno village blacksmith, a
huge, good-natured man, whose three sons were
fighting, and whose wife had gone on Vera Petrovna's
train.  "They must be going to Warsaw.  If we follow
them we can't go astray."\par

"On foot!" exclaimed Ostap.  "Not if I know it.
And you, Count!"\par

"I'd rather tramp than be left here, but I think we
ought to try and get a lift first.  I know this town
and may find a Jew who will sell us something to go
in."  He turned to the peasants: "Don't any of you
move from the station till I tell you.  Here's money
to buy food."  He handed Dulski a twenty-rouble note
and was off in search of a horse and cart.\par

First, however, they tried to get some information
from the station-master about possible trains to
Warsaw.  But they might as well have talked to the moon,
for all the answer they could get.\par

"Let us go outside," said Ian after wasting precious
time in their vain quest for information.  "If there
are any Jews with a horse and cart to sell we shall find
them there."\par

The precincts of the station were as crowded as the
camp had been.  But they found, on talking to the
loiterers, that most of the citizens had decided to stay
where they were.  Ian noticed a prosperous horse-dealer
of the race of Israel, in a new alpaca {\itshape{halat}} and
a pair of very shiny top-boots.\par

"There's our man," he said in relief.  "If there's
a bit of horseflesh left in the place Hermann has got
it to sell."\par

Hermann met their request with florid expressions
of sympathy and devotion.  With tears in his eyes he
swore he could not provide a lift.\par

"There's not a beast on four legs left within twenty
versts or more," he said regretfully.  "What with the
army and the refugees we're as bare as that."  And
thrusting out the palm of one fat hand he pointed to it
with the other.\par

Ian turned to his companion.\par

"There's nothing for us but to tramp it," he said
sadly.\par

The horse-dealer shot out his arms in unaffected
horror.  In eastern Europe only the poor go on foot.
Bad roads and good horses have something to do with
people's dislike for walking.\par

"Tramp to Warsaw!" he cried.  "The Lord of
Ruvno tramp those horrible roads!  Such a thing was
never heard of.  Peasants and the poorest Jews do
that ... but no gentleman!"\par

"The times have changed," remarked Ostap.  "But
if you are so shocked at the thought of it do you help
us to ride."\par

"Wait I will ask some of ours what is to be done."\par

He disappeared into a dirty-looking general shop
which stood close at hand.  In a very short time he
emerged, beaming all over his broad, greasy face.\par

"My Lord Count," he cried, bursting with
importance, "I have arranged everything.  There will be a
train."\par

"The last is just leaving," said Ostap.  "We were
turned off it to make room for the wounded."\par

"One is to arrive from Warsaw," persisted the Jew.
"It will take the rest of the wounded and such of the
citizens as want to go."\par

"Who said so?"\par

"Our Rabbi."\par

"What does he know about it?"\par

"He had it from the transport officer."\par

Ostap, listening, looked at the Jew with mingled
scorn, wonder and admiration.\par

"You Jews are strange people," was his verdict.
"Here have we been trying to get information from
the authorities for half an hour, one a great gentleman
in these parts, the other a Cossack officer anxious to
rejoin his troop, and nobody will give us a good word.
Yet this Jew horse-dealer here knows everything."\par

"He may be wrong," said Ian.  "They often are."\par

"But I am right," said Hermann.  "You'll see for
yourself I am right if you wait in the station.
Meanwhile, I must go, for a messenger calls me
home."  And off he went.\par

Ostap looked down the forlorn road which led from
the station to the town and pointed to a Red Cross
flag flying from a distant building.\par

"There are wounded left.  Our people will try to
get them away.  We may not have to tramp after all.
I'll go to that transport officer again."\par

"Don't.  He'll only swear at you.  Let us get on the
train, if it comes, without asking anybody's leave."\par

Ostap gave him a quick look of alarm; he had
spoken in a listless tone the Cossack heard from him
for the first time since they met.\par

"You're ill?"\par

"Nothing.  A pain in my side and the devil's own
thirst."\par

"It's the broken ribs.  Go to one of the hospital tents
and get a bandage put around you.  It helps a lot."\par

"They've something else to do than see to a trifle
like that.  I'll go and get a drink."  And he rose from
a trunk, abandoned by some hasty traveler, which
stood near the station steps.\par

"Good.  Do you go get your drink at the station
pump and await me.  There must be food in this town
and I mean to have it."\par

Ian produced a banknote, but the other waved it aside.\par

"No.  Let this be my meal.  Besides, I don't count
to spend money."  And he hurried down the forlorn
road.\par

Ian went to the pump, slaked his thirst with its cool
water, soused his head and began to feel better.  The
long summer twilight still lingered and, as he sat down
on the bank, he saw a vaguely familiar figure come
towards him.  It was a Cossack, grizzled, thin as a rake,
hard as nails.  As the newcomer began to work the
pump he recognized the bluff colonel who had refused
to have him as a volunteer at the beginning of the war.\par

He waited till the man had drunk and washed,
baring himself to the waist, showing strong muscles that
stood out from his fair skin and a large scar on his
right arm.  Then he said:\par

"Are you still refusing volunteers?"\par

The Cossack turned sharply.\par

"Who the devil are you?" was his greeting.\par

"Do you remember a Polish squire who asked for
a commission at the beginning of the war?"\par

"No," he grunted, drying himself as best he might
with a bandana handkerchief he pulled out of his wide
trouser-leg.  But it was a hopeless business so he gave
it up, walking about and waving his arms.\par

"You said I was too fat."\par

"You don't look it."\par

"And too old."\par

"Older, better men than you are strewing the fields
to-night."\par

"Do you want volunteers now?"\par

At this the Cossack turned upon him, rage, mortification
and sorrow choking his voice, so that it came
harsh and thick.\par

"Want!" he cried.  "I want guns, gun-fodder,
batteries, honesty.  I want to sweep out all those
German-spawned traitors at Petrograd.  I want to clean out
the ministries, put honest soldiers there instead of the
breed of thieves and liars.  Want, indeed!  Russia
wants everything.  Everything!  Where are my men?
Where to God are the three thousand Cossacks I led
from the Don?  There!  There!"  He thrust his bare,
muscular arms towards the west.  "Carrion," he cried,
with a half-stifled sob.  "Not killed in fair fight.
Never a one of them.  But murdered; yes, murdered
by a horde of thieves in Petrograd, who sent me
promises for guns, empty words for muskets, champagne
for shrapnel!  Oh, think of it!  The flower of the
Don Troop, crying for the wherewithal to fight,
beating off the Germans with sticks we tore from the trees,
with never a musket, never a gas-mask, nothing but
corruption and treachery, bought with German gold.
Oh, my heart bursts with the burden of it!  All my
good Cossacks flung into the cannon's mouth, belching
forth fire, whilst we had nothing, nothing!"\par

He broke off, tore up and down, muttering like a
wounded lion.\par

"And they died like dogs!  For this!" His arms
swept the desolate landscape.  "For rapine and retreat!
For burning corn and ruined farmsteads!  To leave
the Lakes of Masuria; to leave the Vistula, the
Dneiper, the Niemen and God knows what besides!"\par

He stopped, overcome with his emotion, strode back
to the pump, let a stream of water flow over his
grizzled head, gave a gigantic sigh and relapsed into
silence.  And thus they stayed together for some time.
Ian did not even try to comfort him; what solace
could he offer when he knew that those bitter words
were all too true?  The Cossack spoke first.\par

"A cigarette," he demanded.\par

Ian handed him the packet which Healy had brought
up to the train.  He took a couple, threw back the rest,
and asked for matches.  It was now almost dark and
in the light of the little flame he scanned Ian's face.\par

"I remember you," he said when his cigarette was
half smoked through.  "You talked of shooting quail
on the wing and wanted to shoot me."\par

"Not quite.  But I was sore because you wouldn't
have me."\par

"It was all so different then.  Eh, God!  What a
fool I was to believe in that lying, thieving horde at
Petrograd!  Petrograd forsooth!  They might as well
have kept it Petersburg, for all the Germans that are
in it still.  Phew!  I spit on these politicians!"  And
he did so.\par

"Russia is wide," said Ian.\par

"Wide and bungling!  With a little order, a little
honesty we should have been in Berlin long ago.  God!
How they ran from the Lakes of Masuria!  How they
scuttled like geese before our Cossack spears!  And
then our supplies gave out, and none were forthcoming,
Oh, the Empire is a prey to a horde of thieves.  Many
defeats await us yet.  By the way, you spoke of your
country house and your lady mother and your forests,
when in Warsaw.  What of them?"\par

Briefly Ian told him.\par

"Ay.  The same story everywhere.  And I thought
I'd be coming to you with German booty," he
remarked sadly.  "It made my heart bleed to see the
fugitives.  But you may be glad your womenfolk got
safely away.  And what will you do now?"\par

"Fight.  Won't you take me in your regiment?"\par

"Regiment!" the other echoed bitterly, beating his
chest "I am the regiment."\par

"Not all gone?"\par

"Killed, wounded, gassed, a few prisoners, and you
have the lot."\par

"But you'll reconstruct?"\par

"Ay.  That I will.  If there's a Cossack left I'm game."\par

"Then let me be one of your new officers," pleaded Ian.\par

He was beginning to like this gruff, grizzled soldier.
He did not want to volunteer in France, for that would
mean going a long way from Vanda, and separating
his mother from her.  In his shy way he tried to
convey his eagerness to join the Russian army, and the
Colonel's manner softened.\par

"Eh, God.  I think you'd make a good soldier.  I
can't say ay or nay.  The matter lies with my superiors."\par

"But you can recommend me," he urged.\par

"I can and will.  I haven't a card.  Have you a scrap
of paper?"\par

Ian searched and produced a card and pencil, also
his electric torch.  The Cossack wrote some lines and
handed the card back.\par

"Now, headquarters will be in Rostov.  It is a long
journey.  But do you go there and say I sent you.
It's written on the card.  We shall meet there within
a fortnight, but I must go to that German cesspool first."\par

"So must I."\par

"Ah!  Where will you lodge?"\par

"I don't know yet.  But they'll tell you at the Orsov
Palace."\par

"So you know Vera Petrovna?  She is a powerful
friend to have.  You can get a softer bed to lie on
than campaigning with me if you ask her."\par

"I don't want to sit in some office.  I want to fight.
I hope to meet a man named von Senborn face to face
and give him back a little of what he's done to me and
my property."\par

"You're the right stuff.  But how war's changed
you!  You were as plump as one of your own quails
a year aback.  And sleek as a maid.  If we don't meet
in Petrograd do you seek me out in Rostov.  I have
to get a seat on this cattle-train.  Many of my children
are there."\par

He hurried into his clothes, rammed the cap well
on to his head and went off.  They parted the best
of friends.  Scarcely had his tall, lithe figure
disappeared into the summer night when Ostap hurried on
to the platform.  He had looted a deserted house
and they ate heartily of ham, bread, butter and cold
veal.  He brought a bottle of light Polish beer, too;
but Ian would not touch it, saying his head ached.
Ostap was much interested in hearing about his talk
with the Cossack colonel and asked to see the card.
He read it eagerly and looked up, saying with respect
in his voice:\par

"But it is my Colonel, Irmal Platov, of the family
that produced the famous Cossack general.  They say
he will be head of the Pan-Cossack League one day.
Where did he go?  It will cheer him to know that one
officer at least is alive and sound."\par

Ian pointed to the train, which was now getting
up steam, and he was off like a shot.  Ian put back his
card, reflected that it was a lucky chance to have met
this man, whom the Cossacks evidently respected
highly.  He went back to the station building.  It was
high time to find out definitely whether or no there
would be another train before the Russians left the
place.  Martin, he ascertained, was still fast asleep
on the floor of the engine which had brought them
from the camp and nobody disturbed him.\par

In the ticket-office he met the horse-dealer who was
running hither and thither in a great state of
excitement, calling Ian's name at the top of his voice.\par

"What are you yelling about?" he asked.  "Has the
train come?"\par

"Oh, thank God, you're here!  I feared you had started."\par

"What is it?"\par

"One of your friends wants you.  He is sick to
death.  Not a moment have we to lose."\par

"Who?"\par

"I know not.  But hurry!"\par

They made their way out of the disorderly, miserable
town, which knew all the vicissitudes of warfare,
and into squalid suburbs, where only Jews, and the
poorest at that, could live.  With many puzzling
thoughts Ian asked his guide whither they were going
and who of his friends lived in this unsavory quarter.\par

"I know nothing," answered he.  "It is a friend.
He wanted to send one of our people to Ruvno.  But
the messenger knew you had left Ruvno.  But at the
hospital none had the heart to tell him the truth.  Just
now I happened to see this messenger and tell him my
Lord Count was here.  So I sought you for a long
while."\par

"Haven't you any idea who is this friend?"\par

"A gentleman.  He sent out a hundred roubles to
the messenger, I know."\par

He did not add that he was the messenger and the
hundred roubles now lay in his pocket-book.  After
a quarter of an hour's brisk walking he led the way
to a field.  Ian could see the dim outline of a tent.\par

"A military hospital?" he asked.\par

"Yes."  Hermann stopped.  "Here I leave you.  I
fear the cholera."  And he was gone.\par

Cholera.  Ian hesitated.  Which of his friends was
dying of that loathsome pest?  Roman?  The thought
tore his heart.  Joseph?  Oh, he hoped not.  He
hastily prayed it might not be a man at all dear to him.
Yet he could think of nobody, friend or foe, whom he
wished to watch dying of cholera.\par

Troubled thus, he made his way up to the tent.  No
sentry guarded the entry.  That was unnecessary; all
shunned the place.  It was very quiet after the bustle
and babel of the station.  He heard no voices.  The
only sign of living man was a faint streak of light
that came between the canvas and the ground.\par

He held up the flap and went in.\par

It was a large tent and there were many beds in it
Some stood vacant, others held shrouded, still masses
of contorted humanity.  Others again, most ghastly
of all, were occupied by men of all ages and many
races.  Two bearers were carrying out a burden
through another entrance, at the far end.  He looked
around in an agony of disgust and suspense.  A nurse
and doctor were bending over one couch.  He learned
afterwards that the medical staff had drawn lots to
decide which of them should go with the retreating
army and which remain behind with those too ill to
be moved and enter captivity with them.  It seemed to
him that these two lingered a long time.  Then he
heard the doctor say:\par

"He'll live.  The worst is over."\par

Instantly Ian lost his shyness and hastened to them,\par

"Who is it?" he asked in French, true to the habit
of a lifetime which bade him address a Russian in the
international language.\par

The nurse turned and made room for him at the
bedside.\par

"Do you know him?"\par

A glance at the patient was enough.\par

"No," he answered.\par

The doctor hurried away.  The woman, attending to
the sick man, asked Ian whom he sought.\par

"I don't know.  A Jew brought me.  Said a man
here wanted somebody from Ruvno.  I am from Ruvno."\par

"Ah!  I remember now.  One moment."  Swiftly
she completed her task and turned towards the north
end of the tent.  He followed her to a far corner, till
she stopped before a bed which held one of the
shrouded forms.\par

"Too late!" he cried.\par

She gave him a look of sympathy.\par

"He died a few minutes ago."\par

Unable to utter a word, he signed to her.  Gently,
she turned back the sheet.  He stepped forward; all
hatred, all bitterness, slipped from him like a cloak.
Joseph was no more.  He could marry Vanda.\par

This was his uppermost thought; his next, as he
gazed at that familiar, yet transformed face, a deep
relief that Roman had not suffered that death.  Then
came remorse for the speed of his thoughts towards
marrying her this man had loved, and sharp pain that
Destiny had taken him in such a way.  He wanted
Joseph to die fighting, as young men should in
war-time, in the open, falling to God's good earth, whence
they come, mingling their life's blood with the
fountain of all life.  That livid, emaciated face, with evil
stains on the once healthy cheeks was a reproach to
modernity, a seal upon the Cossack's cry of "murdered!"\par

For a long time he gazed and many an emotion rose
and swelled in his heart; scenes of boyhood sprang
up again; memories of the chase, of the life they once
trod together, as dead for him now as was Joseph
himself.  And whilst he breathed a prayer for the
dead which Father Constantine had taught them all,
he thanked God that he had resisted the call of passion
a few nights ago, when he sat and watched the summer
moon, so sure it lighted Joseph's body on the
battlefield.  Now, at least, he could look on his remains
without remorse for evil action.\par

The nurse had gone; but two orderlies came up.\par

"We must bury him," one of them said in the
Russian of Moscow.\par

As Ian looked up they noticed his eyes were dimmed
with tears unshed.\par

"Is there a Catholic priest about?"\par

The men looked at one another.\par

"In the town perhaps--not here."\par

"I'll bring one."\par

"We cannot wait till you go so far.  We have strict
orders to bury each poor victim at once.  What will
you?  The infection is deadly and we are working
day and night."\par

"I'll be back before you close the coffin."\par

"Coffin!  There are none left."\par

Ian passed the one nearest him a fifty-rouble note.\par

"I know the town.  Wait for me."  And he hurried out.\par

He was desperately anxious to give Joseph Christian
burial.  He felt he must; it might atone for his
fault of feeling that great load off his heart now he
knew Vanda would be his.  Then he remembered the
Cossack colonel's card.  He had promised to fight,
had insisted on being drafted into a hard-fighting
regiment.  But that was an hour ago.  That was when
thoughts of Vanda were pain, and he did not so much
mind if he got killed.  Now, he hated the idea of it.
If he got killed soon he would be no more married to
her than Joseph had been.  He rebelled.  Why should
he go and get killed?  Russia had plenty of men.  He
had lost enough in the war already without losing the
last chance of happiness.  Russia had turned him away
once and he was not in duty bound to apply again.
Besides, he could do war-work without putting on a
Cossack coat; could volunteer for a mission abroad;
for instance say to the Pope, who only knew what
the Germans and their friends told him...\par

As he stumbled over the road, choked with the
debris of a retreating army, he felt particularly fitted
to tell the Pope what Poland was enduring.  He had
an uncle in Rome, a younger brother of his father,
created a cardinal during the pontificate of Pius the
Tenth.  So he could gain the Pope's ear far more
easily than many other people.  Rome, he argued, had
no more faithful children than the Poles, who have
suffered much persecution for their faith.  And it was
high time the Holy Father knew the truth about the
Germans.  He, Ian, would tell him.  Yes; he could
serve his country's cause, and the Allies' just as well
in Rome as in Colonel Platov's regiment.  Rome
would be a good place for his mother to live in.  If
he joined the army she would have to stop in Russia,
to be near him.  In Rome, they could all live quietly
and comfortable together--he, Vanda, his mother.
After all, it was fair to them to look after them; and
his mother had only him now.  And the Allies had
millions of men.  Russia wanted guns, which he could
not make, and organization, which he could not give her.\par

He reached the house of a priest he knew and very
few words sufficed to tell him what had happened;
then they hastened back together.\par

They buried Joseph in a field set apart as a
cemetery in connection with the cholera tent.  Ian gave
the priest money and instructions for a Cross to be
put over the grave.  Then he sought the nurse.  On
hearing who he was she took him to a clerk, who gave
him the things they had found in Joseph's pockets:
a photograph of Vanda, a packet of her letters, and
some money.  When it was all over and he had parted
from the priest he made his way back to the station.
It was nearly ten o'clock.  He found that the horse-dealer
was right after all.  A train, the last one, stood
ready to start for Warsaw.  The inside was packed
with wounded men, the roof with refugees, some of
whom were wounded, too.  He heard Ostap's voice
calling for him and shouted back that he was coming.\par

"Be quick!" he shouted.  "We're on the roof.
Third coach from the engine.  It's all we can do to
keep sitting room for you.  Climb up, for these Jews
are great pushers."\par

"Where are my peasants?"\par

"Here, thank God!" said a voice.\par

"All?"\par

"All.  Safe and sound.  Get up, my Lord Count,
for the train is starting already."\par

Ian clambered up and squeezed himself in between
the blacksmith and Ostap, who indignantly asked
where he had been hiding.\par

"We searched high and low.  If not for this
blacksmith, who sat as broad as he could, we'd never have
been able to keep your place."  He did not tell them
where he had been.  Heart and head were filled with
new emotions, and a new struggle.  The idea of going
to Rome fascinated him.  He found so much in its
favor, so little to say against it.  Only that Cossack
colonel would ever know he had drawn back.  None
shared his plans.  And the soldier would forget him.\par

He was no longer the man who urged Platov to
take him at the beginning of the war; then, he could
not realize the love that had grown with each month
of strife and anxiety, till it now overwhelmed every
other feeling.  Destiny led him to the tent wherein he
found a promise of happiness.  And a loud voice
within cried not to give it up.\par

It was an endless journey and very uncomfortable.
They were perpetually stopping to make way for other
trains, filled with troops, whole and wounded.  From
time to time some of the little party got down to
stretch their legs, one keeping the place for another
with that ready comradeship which war's vicissitudes
breed between men of vastly different race and caste.
Jew elbowed Gentile; patrician drank with outcast in
their flight before the stupendous Hun.  It seemed to
Ian that all the trains in Russia passed them; troops
in open trucks, who made an infernal noise with their
{\itshape{balalaikas}} and their voices.  He wondered sadly that
they could abandon Poland to her fate with such light
hearts ... and then remembered that they were
Russians, brave as lions, but mentally children yet; so the
direction in which they traveled was no affair of
theirs.\par

He thought of his ruined home and the many other
ruined homes they passed and wondered where their
late owners were, that cool, starry night.  Some, he
knew, lay quiet and still by the wayside, for he had
seen such in his flight.  Some, like Father Constantine,
had found rest in a soldier's graveyard before friends
left them, to seek a new life in exile.  And, as his
memory dwelt on the last year, as he passed farm after
farm alight with the fires of destruction, the weakness
born of the sudden knowledge that Vanda was free
left him.  He knew he could not go to Rome; knew
he would not have a quiet hour if he chose the easier
road; that every devastated home, every orphan in his
native land would ring a terrible chorus of reproach
into his soul.  Roman's words of that evening at the
"{\itshape{Oaza}}," came back:\par

"There is no love without sacrifice."\par

How little he had known of love then; how much
now!  He wondered at the craven Ian who had
planned a safe journey to Rome whilst his native land
was bleeding.  There was nothing for him but to fight.
Oh, he would marry Vanda, and perhaps live through
the war.  Then they would return to a free Poland and
a free Ruvno, to build and plant afresh for their
children, freed from bondage and all persecution.  In the
trenches, on the battlefield, he would have that
lodestar.  Now, he knew not how he ever could have
imagined the war without himself in it.\par

These thoughts ran through his mind, accompanied
by visions of burning houses, huddled, hungry
refugees, suffering, struggling humanity.  Through all was
the joy of knowing Vanda would be his--and over all
came Ostap's voice as he held forth to others on the roof.\par

"Yes; we spit upon life.  So we shall win, in the
end.  And our children will be freed."\par

And the Cossack's words gave him comfort.\par


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