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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
In "A Secret Service: Being Strange Tales of a Nihilist," William Le Queux crafts a captivating narrative that intertwines elements of espionage, political intrigue, and the psychological motivations of its characters. Written during the early 20th century, a period rife with upheaval and anxiety about national security, the book employs a vivid and suspenseful style. Le Queux skillfully plays with themes of nihilism, depicting characters whose ideals clash with the realities of a world teetering on the brink of chaos, thereby reflecting the existential uncertainties of his time. William Le Queux, an influential figure in Edwardian literature, was deeply immersed in issues of national security and the rise of foreign threats, inspired by his own experiences in journalism and a fascination with espionage. His multifaceted background, from traveling to various European countries to engaging in discussions about the sociopolitical climate, allowed him to explore the motivations behind the actions of those caught in the web of conspiracies and undercover operations. This personal investment informs his nuanced portrayal of characters that often operate in the shadows. For readers interested in the intersection of fiction and political history, "A Secret Service" offers a thrilling lens through which to understand the anxieties of a bygone era. Le Queux's masterful storytelling and ability to weave complex narratives make this book not only a gripping adventure but also a thoughtful commentary on the human condition under duress. This work is essential for anyone looking to delve into the intricacies of early 20th-century fiction and its reflective engagement with contemporary societal fears.
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A Secret Service: Being Strange Tales of a Nihilist
Table of Contents
PREFACE.
While writing for The Times a series of articles dealing with the Russian Revolutionary movement and the condition of political exiles in Siberia, I became acquainted with the original of Anton Prèhznev. Strange as his stories chronicled in these pages may appear, there are nevertheless in London at the present moment many refugees from the Tzar’s empire who could relate facts of an even more startling character. Tzaricide is unfortunately as popular in Russia as it ever was, and the so-called Nihilists have, since the accession of Nicholas II., relinquished none of their activity. There was but little genuine mourning for Alexander III., and the feigned national affliction was speedily succeeded by joyful anticipations of a new and prosperous era. But Russia has already found that her golden hopes have faded. The powerful, unscrupulous officials surrounding the young sovereign, prompted by those evil principles that made Russia under Alexander III. a blot upon European civilisation, have, by painting in lurid colours a rude and ungrateful nation whom to govern is now his thankless task, quickly succeeded in crushing any projected reforms. Thus the despairing nation continues to writhe under the oppression of corrupt officials, and those who dare lift their voices in protest are arrested and hurried without trial to far Siberia. The land is inundated with the swelling flood of the people’s sorrow as rivers in spring, abundant with water, overflow the fields, and it will always be as long as an irresponsible, cruel, and despotic autocracy holds and directs her destinies.
The Tzar knows little of the horrors committed in his name. He has never been inside the tenth pavilion in Warsaw Citadel, where starving people have, times without number, been knouted to death. He knows nothing of the dark underground dungeons overrun with vermin in the Peter-Paul Fortress; he has never breathed their fœtid, poisoned atmosphere. Even when he crossed Siberia the officials who surrounded him took every precaution to prevent him from witnessing the troops of wretched, shivering humanity trudging through trackless snows and driven to their gloomy tombs with knouts and butt-ends. Revolutionists are the creation of circumstances, of the general discontent of the people, of the striving of Russia after a new social framework. Discontent only grows the more when it is repressed. For this reason the places of slain and imprisoned Revolutionists are constantly taken by individuals who come forth from among the people in ever-increasing numbers, and who are still more embittered, still more energetic. Truly the Imperial Autocracy is tottering towards its doom.
By a special order issued from the Press Bureau at St. Petersburg copies of this book are prohibited from entering the Russian Empire, while, not content with the formal interdiction of my novel, “Guilty Bonds,” which deals with a political conspiracy, the Russian Government has also sent one of its emissaries to my house in London to inform me of the fact. This, I believe, is a personal attention received by no other English author. The methods of the agents of the Russian Secret Police in London and the measures taken by the Revolutionists to repress their activity will probably be a revelation to English readers, some of whom will doubtless recognise a few of the following chapters as having appeared in my “Strange Tales of a Nihilist,” now out of print. That I have been compelled to bestow fictitious names upon the actors in these dramas, add and suppress certain incidents, and change the scene in more than one instance, is obvious; nevertheless, I anticipate that many will recognise in Anton Prèhznev’s stories solutions of more than one sensational mystery that has startled Europe.
William Le Queux.
A SECRET SERVICE.BEING STRANGE TALES OF A NIHILIST.
CHAPTER I.WHY I BECAME A NIHILIST.
Brief forewords are necessary to this record of an adventurous life.
At the outset it is my earnest desire to disabuse the minds of English readers that the Narodnaya Volya, or the Party of Freedom, are mere murder leagues. Unfortunately, English writers, unacquainted with Russian life, ignorant of the true objects of the organisation, or of its inner working, and only recognising its far-reaching influence, have surrounded Nihilism with a glamour and mystery that would be highly amusing to us were it not for the fact that their sensational and sanguinary narratives injure our cause. So little does the average Englishman know of the conditions of life under the Tzar, that any argument in favour of Nihilism would be useless and wearisome, therefore I leave him to decide for himself, after reading the exciting episodes of a strange career, whether Autocracy or Freedom is to be preferred.
I, Anton Prèhznev, subject of the Tzar, now in exile in England, hereby make free and full confession of my secret alliance with the so-called and mis-called Nihilist Party. We, who are struggling to effect a change for the better in the internal and economical condition of the Russian people, look with envy upon every Englishman, at the same time regarding him as a brother. To overthrow the dynasty by murder is not our object, although, alas! human life has been sacrificed, as my narrative will show. We desire peace; and while staying our hand and refraining from dealing the blows that are at this moment in our power to strike at the Imperial Autocracy, we are living in the expectation that the flood of popular indignation will sweep off the face of the Russian soil the bureaucracy, the tchinovniks, and the present ruinous and shameful system of organised robbery and tyranny, and create something better than the existing brutality and corruption that has plunged so many millions in abject misery.
Prior to narrating the exciting incidents of my career, it will be necessary, in order that it should be rightly understood why I lifted a hand against the rule of the Tzar, Alexander III., or his successor the Tzar Nicholas, to describe the tragic events which led to the overflow of my indignation against tyranny, and caused my subsequent alliance with the Brothers of Freedom.
Few English readers rightly understand the claims of the Russian Revolutionists, therefore it will be well to make an explanation, and I cannot do better than quote from the secretly printed manifesto issued by the Narodnoe Pravo (“Popular Right”) Party. This manifesto, which was recently circulated widely by clandestine means throughout the Russian Empire, and even in Siberia, points out in forcible language that Russia must now determine her further destinies, and consider the question of political freedom. It proceeds as follows:—
“As there is not, and cannot be, a hope that the Government will willingly enter upon the path indicated, there is but one course remaining to the people, to oppose by the force of organised public opinion the inertness of the Government and the narrow dynastic interests of the autocracy. The Narodnoe Pravo has in view the creation of this force. In the opinion of the Party popular right includes in itself alike the conception of the right of the people to political freedom, and the conception of its right to secure its material needs upon the basis of national production. The Party considers the guarantees of this right to be:—Representative government on the basis of universal suffrage; freedom of religious belief; independence of the Courts of Justice; freedom of the Press; freedom of meeting and association; inviolability of the individual, and of his rights as a man.
“Thus understanding popular right, the Party sets itself the task of uniting all the oppositional elements of the country, and of organising an active force which should, with all the spiritual and material means at its disposal, attain the overthrow of autocracy, and secure to every one the rights of a citizen and a man.”
I commenced life under a disadvantage, for I am a Jew.
In Russia the law declares all Hebrews to be “aliens whose several rights are regulated by special ordinances,” and my race is regarded as a pariah caste in consequence. The memory of my earlier years it is unnecessary to recall. My father, Isaac Prèhznev, was a well-known operator on the Bourse in Petersburg, and he and my mother moved in good society. Our house in the Isàkievskaya was well known to people with long-sounding titles and long pedigrees, and, as children, my sister Mascha and I had made a practice of standing upon the stairs on Thursday nights, watching the arrival of the uniformed and much-decorated men and handsome ladies who attended the receptions which my parents gave weekly during the season.
Mascha, three years my junior, was petted by the guests and servants none the less than I had been, for we were a pair of over-indulged children, and lived a life of uninterrupted happiness.
At last I arrived at an age when departure from home became compulsory, and one eventful day I bade farewell to those I loved and was drafted to Vologda to perform my military service. From a life of luxurious ease to a soldier’s existence in the barren district around Lake Kubinskoi was by no means a pleasurable change, especially as, according to law, no Jew can rise to the rank of officer, although he is bound to serve in the rank and file like all other Russians. Nevertheless, I endured the wearying monotony of eternal drill, receiving occasional letters that came from my distant home like brief rays of sunshine upon my otherwise dark, unhappy life. Suddenly, when I had been at Vologda about two years, they ceased. Several times I wrote, but received no answer. I telegraphed, but with the same result. I wrote to relatives in Petersburg inquiring the cause of my parents’ strange silence, yet even these letters remained unanswered.
Unable to obtain leave of absence, the days passed slowly, and I grew sorely puzzled at the mystery.
Imagine my feelings when one morning a comrade, who had had a Novoë Vremya sent to him, handed me the newspaper and pointing to a line, asked—
“Is he any relation of yours?”
I looked eagerly where he indicated. My heart stood still, and the paper fell from my nerveless grasp.
It was an announcement to the effect that “Isaac Prèhznev, Jew, of the Isàkievskaya, St. Petersburg,” had formed one of the convoy of prisoners exiled by administrative process to Siberia during the past week!
Ignorant of the whereabouts of my mother and sister, and apprehensive regarding their future, I was refused leave and forced to continue my military service until the day arrived when I was free to return and seek them.
To preserve the continuity of this narrative, events must here be described which were afterwards related to me by Mascha.
From some unknown cause my unfortunate father had fallen into disfavour with the Tzar, although nothing was known of it until one night, during the progress of a ball at home, half-a-dozen men from the Okhrannoë Otdelenïe,[1] entered and arrested him. A fortnight later he was sent, without trial, to the mines of the Trans-Baikal, all he possessed was confiscated by the Government, and my mother and sister turned into the streets to starve.
Our relations were poor and could do little to assist them; therefore, in order to hide their poverty, Mascha and her mother went to Mstislavl, a small sleepy town in the Government of Moghilev, where for nearly a year they earned a precarious livelihood by doing needlework and making lace. But the year was disastrous to Russia, for a terrible famine spread over the land, and, alas! for my unfortunate family, its effects were keenly felt in Moghilev. At the time I arrived at Petersburg in search of them, they had no work and were starving.
Stretched upon a straw mattress in the corner of a cold, bare room in a wretched isba, lay my mother, her thin, haggard face, protruding cheek bones, and sunken eyes showing unmistakably that death was at hand.
Mascha stood, pale and motionless, looking sorrowfully down upon her. In the grey light of the brief autumn day the dismal place presented a woeful aspect, being almost devoid of furniture, the round discoloured stove having gone out several days ago. Notwithstanding her plain shabby dress, it was certain that Mascha was beautiful; all Mstislavl, if called upon, would bear witness to this fact. About eighteen years of age, she was tall, slender, graceful, with beautifully rounded throat and arms, fair wavy hair drawn back upon her brow, a dazzling complexion, and eyes of clear child-like blue. When she smiled her charms were enhanced by an expression of indescribable simplicity and frankness.
At this moment, however, she presented a sad picture, for her hair had fallen dishevelled about her handsome face, and her eyes were red with weeping. As her mother tossed wearily upon her pallet, moaning in pain, Mascha fell upon her knees and kissed the cold, drawn face.
“Are you suffering much, mother dearest?” she asked, tenderly, smoothing away the dark hair from the clammy forehead.
“Yes—I—I’m sinking fast, my child,” she replied in a faint, hoarse voice. “I shall leave you very soon, Mascha, and you will be alone, with no other protector except God, to whose mercy I confide you. Trust in Him in the hours of affliction or misfortune, and by His infinite power He will guide your footsteps and protect you from all harm.” She paused, and added, “Though you may be scoffed at and persecuted by Orthodox Russians, never forget that you are one of God’s chosen, and while resenting insult, always refrain from revenge.”
“I can’t bear to hear you talk like this,” cried my sister, bursting into tears. “You must not—you shall not die!” Springing suddenly to her feet, she stifled her sobs, and said, “You sha’n’t starve! I’ll save you, even if compelled to beg bread from the Gentiles. I shall not be long, and I will bring you food.”
With these words, she threw a cloak around her shoulders, and opening the door, disappeared; while her mother closed her wearied eyes and prayed earnestly for succour.
Through the old uncleanly Ghetto—the quarter in which Jews were suffered to reside—Mascha wandered aimlessly, wondering where she could discover a person generous enough to give her a morsel of bread. She knew it was useless to ask for food of the people of her own faith, for they were all in terrible distress. Owing to the failure of the harvest for two consecutive seasons food was so scarce in Western Russia, that in many places the peasants were subsisting on grass and roots, while hundreds were dying daily of sheer starvation. But worst of all, the feeling against the Jews had become greatly embittered, from the fact that the moujiks, in their ignorant fanaticism, had been taught to believe by the village popes that the Hebrews had brought the famine upon the land. Hence Jew-baiting had become rife. Unfortunate Israelites were cuffed and assaulted in the open streets, and were unable to obtain redress, and in dozens of towns in Little and Central Russia the Ghettos had been looted and afterwards burned.
In these anti-Semitic excesses Jews were treated worse than dogs, often ruthlessly murdered without a hand being stretched forth to save them, while women were outraged in sight of their children, and there were committed diabolical atrocities that had raised the indignation of every European nation. Murder and pillage ran riot through the Tzar’s domains, side by side with the grim spectre Famine, that had spread starvation and death through the great Empire from the White Sea to the Caucasus.
The Ghetto at Mstislavl was the oldest quarter of the little town, consisting of one dark, evil-smelling street, into which the sun never seemed to shine. The black wooden houses, with numerous poles projecting from the windows, further increased the darkness of the narrow lane. From end to end Mascha walked through it, but found no one who could render her assistance. The place seemed deserted, the houses were all closed; the usually noisy colony seemed hushed by death.
Leaving the Jews’ quarter, she made her way through the town and entered the market-place, where a little business was still being carried on. Groups of moujiks in their dirty sheepskins were standing about idly, their thin, pinched faces showing that they, too, were feeling the effect of the dearth of food. While wandering along, engrossed in her own sad thoughts, Mascha chanced to look up, and her eyes fell upon a buxom young woman, who held a large piece of bread in her hand, from which she was feeding a great black dog.
The thought flashed across her mind that she must get food by some means, and save her mother’s life. Without a moment’s reflection, she stifled her pride, and rushing wildly across to where the woman stood, begged for a portion of the bread.
“You!—Give bread to you!” cried the woman, with a harsh, brutal laugh. “Hebrews are dogs, but this”—and she pointed to the animal at her feet—“this is a Christian dog, and I would rather feed him than you.”
“For my mother’s sake!” implored Mascha. “She’s dying!”
“Bah! If she dies it will be one Jewess the less. Your people are our curse. Go home and die too!”
And the woman spat upon her contemptuously, and turning her back upon the supplicant, continued feeding the dog.
Mascha, crestfallen and dejected, was walking slowly away when she suddenly felt a heavy hand upon her shoulder.
“Now, girl; what do you want here?” inquired a rough, coarse voice.
Glancing up quickly, she recognised the sinister features and shifty feline eyes of Ivan Osnavitsch, the ispravnik.[2]
“I want bread; my mother is starving,” she replied.
“Starving? Like all the other dogs that infest the Ghetto kennels, eh? Well, you’ve no right to beg of Christians. The law of the Mir forbids it, and I ought to take you to prison as a vagabond. If you want food you should go to the Governor. His Excellency has received relief for distribution, and if you call upon him he may probably give you some. Tell him that I sent you.”
“Oh, thank you,” she replied, gratefully; “I’ll go at once.”
Turning, she directed her steps hurriedly towards the palace of the Government, about a mile from the town on the Lubkovo road, while the ispravnik laughed, muttering as he watched her retreating figure: “His Excellency is a connoisseur of pretty faces. He will thank me for sending her.”
Feeling that not a moment was to be lost, Mascha walked quickly along the muddy highway, that ran through a bare, barren country, beside the sedgy bank of the swiftly-flowing Soj.
Only by repute was General Martianoff, the Governor of Mstislavl, known to her. She knew that by the inhabitants of the Ghetto he was dreaded as a cruel, drunken, and depraved official, and she had heard the Rabbi warn them against breaking any of the thousand tyrannical laws which comprise the Swod, or penal code. A Russian District Governor is locally as much of an autocrat as his Imperial Master, the Tzar. He can do exactly what he pleases with the poor, cringing wretches over whom he is given authority. He can condemn Jew or Gentile to prison without trial; he can order any one who displeases him to be knouted, and with his colleague, the ispravnik, and his myrmidons, can enforce inhuman tortures not a whit the less terrible than those of the Spanish Inquisition.
General Martianoff, an average specimen of the nachalniki, ruled his district with the knout, and hating Jews, considered death without torture too good for them. He had even ordered unoffending Hebrews to be flogged because their children omitted to doff their caps to Government officials whom they met in the streets!
It was of this harsh, inhuman Governor that my poor, trusting sister, famished and desperate, sought aid for her dying mother.
The General was lazily smoking a cigar and reading the Novosti in his own well-furnished room, when a man-servant entered, and, after saluting, said, “A young girl desires to see your Excellency. I told her you could not give audience to any one.”
“Idiot! Why did you send her away?”
“She was only a Jewess, your Excellency. But she is still here. She’s the daughter of the financier Prèhznev, of Petersburg, who was sent to the mines.”
“Prèhznev!” repeated the General, in surprise. “Ah! Show her in—and—and see we are not disturbed, Ivanovitch—you understand.”
“Yes, your Excellency.” And the man saluted and disappeared.
In a few seconds Mascha, pale and trembling, advanced timidly into the room. The Governor was standing near the door when she entered, and as he closed it after her he pushed the small brass bolt into its socket. Then he turned sharply, and asked—
“Well, girl, what do you want?”
“Your Excellency,” said Mascha, bowing with that fawning humility which every Hebrew is bound to show towards Government officials, “I have been sent by our good ispravnik, Ivan Osnavitsch.”
“Very kind of him to select beauty for me and send it to my door, I’m sure,” remarked the General, under his breath.
Continuing, Mascha briefly explained that she and her mother were starving, and that her parent was dying of sheer want.
“But you are a Jewess,” he said sternly. “The relief which my Imperial Master has entrusted me to distribute is only for Orthodox Russians.”
“Have pity; have mercy upon us,” she cried earnestly. “I know that I, a Jewess, have no right to ask a favour of your Excellency, but my dear mother is dying!”
“I cannot prevent that, my pretty one,” he said more kindly, stroking her fair, dishevelled hair.
With a quick movement he placed his arm around her waist, and grasping her tightly, pressed her against his breast, adding, “Come, I must have a kiss!”
Before she could evade him, she felt his hot breath upon her face, and his lips pressed her soft, dimpled cheek. Trembling with fear and flushed with indignation, she struggled and succeeded in freeing herself from his hateful clutches. But she did not upbraid him, although her face became more woeful than before.
Frowning, he regarded her with an expression of displeasure, saying: “The wife and child of a political exile classed among dangerous Nihilists can expect no relief from His Majesty’s private purse.”
“It is to your sympathy that I appeal,” Mascha exclaimed imploringly. “Although my people and yours are of different creed, we all adore the same Father, our Tzar.”
“And Isaac Prèhznev was sent to Siberia by étape for conspiring against his life! Curious adoration, eh?”
“It’s false!” she cried hotly. “He was wrongly accused; denounced by some unknown enemy, and sent straight to Irkutsk without any chance of defence.”
“Ha! ha! my pretty champion. So that is the way you speak of the justice of His Majesty! Your words betray you: they show that you, too, have become imbued with the revolutionary teaching of the propaganda.”
Mascha saw she had been trapped. In a moment she knew that he suspected her of Nihilistic tendencies.
Martianoff noticed her alarm, and said: “You need not fear. I don’t intend that you should share your father’s fate. You are too pretty for that.”
“Have you decided to give me food?” she demanded, her brows knit in displeasure.
His coarse, sensual features again relaxed into a leering smile, as he suddenly flung his arm around her neck. Bending, he placed his lips close to her ear, and whispered some words.
“No! no!” she cried wildly. “God protect me!” And she struggled to free herself from his hateful embrace.
“You refuse?” he said, in a stern, harsh voice.
“I would rather die than agree to such terms,” she replied, her eyes flashing with indignation.
“Very well,” he snarled, as he thrust her from him impatiently. “Go back to your hovel and die, you daughter of a dog. Begone!”
“But your Excellency—I——”
“No more words,” he thundered, adding a curse. “Go! or I’ll fling you out.”
Staggering to the door, sorrowful and crestfallen, she drew back the bolt and went out, her eyes half-blinded by tears.
The moment she had gone, the General touched a gong, at the same time muttering: “The dainty, obstinate little bird must be brought to her senses. She must be put into a cage and tamed.”
“Ivanovitch,” he said aloud, addressing his servant. “That Jewess is a Nihilist. Order Osnavitsch to have her closely watched.”
Then he viciously bit the end off another cigar, and taking up the paper, resumed his reading.
Mascha, after leaving the Palace of the Governor, had wandered about for several hours in search of some one who would give her bread; but all her efforts were futile, and when she returned to the Ghetto she had found that her mother had passed away.
With the moonlight full upon her she was kneeling beside the body, her face buried in the ragged covering, and sobbing as if her heart would break. Unable to restrain her flood of emotion, she did not notice the cautious opening of the door, or the entrance of a tall, dark figure that crept noiselessly up behind her and stood in the shadow watching, and listening to her murmurings.
“It’s cruel,” she said aloud, suddenly drawing a long breath and clenching her teeth in despair. “To the Tzar is due the dire misfortune that has fallen upon our house. He has taken our money and cast us forth to die like dogs! It is he—the Tzar—the murderer!—who is responsible for my mother’s death. He is a vampire who lives on the blood of such as us.” Raising her white, tear-stained face and looking up to the bright moon, she cried despairingly: “What can I do? My father exiled, my mother dead, Anton on military service, and I am left alone—alone!” she added, in a half-fearful whisper, “to seek revenge!”
“Very pretty sentiments indeed,” remarked a gruff, harsh voice.
Springing to her feet, she confronted General Martianoff.
“You!” she gasped. “Why—why do you come here?”
“To see you, my pretty one,” he replied, throwing off his great sable-lined shuba. He endeavoured to place his arm around her waist, but she drew back quickly.
“And you have followed me here,” she said, in a tone full of reproach and disgust; “here, into the room where my mother lies dead, in order to continue your hateful attentions—to insult me before her corpse!”
“Ho! ho!” he exclaimed, annoyed. “Then you have not reconsidered your decision?”
“No,” she replied firmly. “Have I not already told you that I prefer death?”
He argued with her, flattered her, laughing all the time at her indignation, and treating it with flippancy. Suddenly she turned upon him with angry passion, saying: “I desire none of your detestable caresses. It is such heartless officials as you who curse our country, who carry out the ukases of the Autocrat with fiendish delight, and who are the catspaws of the Persecutor of our race. What mercy ought I to expect from you, General Martianoff, who sent Anna Ivanovna to the mines merely because she displeased you, and who condemned Paul Souvaroff to solitary confinement in Petropaulovsk for no offence except that he endeavoured to save a defenceless woman from your merciless clutches. It is——”
“Silence! Wench!” he thundered.
“I will not be hushed when you insult me! You talk of love—you—whose dissolute habits are as well-known as the yellow ticket of shame you would thrust upon us Jewesses. I begged bread from you, and you refused. See! there is the result!” and she pointed to where the body lay.
His face had grown livid, and rushing towards her, he grasped her roughly by the shoulder. “I have not come here on a fool’s errand,” he said fiercely; “I don’t intend that you shall evade me—you understand?”
“Let me go!” she demanded, struggling to get free. “Help! help!” she cried.
“Silence! Curse you!” he growled, striking her a heavy blow upon the mouth. Although stunned for a few moments she continued to struggle desperately.
Suddenly he lifted her from her feet and tried to drag her by sheer force to the door leading to the room beyond. She saw his intention, and for several minutes fought fiercely with a renewed strength of which she had not believed herself capable.
Presently, in the heat of the struggle, something heavy fell from his pocket. She stooped and snatched it up. At that moment she felt her strength failing, and exerted every muscle.
“Will you let me go?” she shrieked, her lips cut and swollen by the cruel blow he had dealt her.
“No, I will not,” he replied, with an imprecation.
As he uttered the words something bright glittered in her hand. He grasped her arm, endeavouring to gain possession of it, but was too late.
There was a flash, a loud report, and General Martianoff staggered back against the wall with an agonised cry.
“You—you’ve shot me!” he gasped hoarsely, and then sank upon a chair, inert and helpless, with blood streaming from a wound in his shoulder.
Mascha, in desperation, had resorted to the last extremity in defence of her honour.
That night was an eventful one in Mstislavl.
The ignorant moujiks, encouraged by the officials of the Government, had heaped every indignity possible upon the Jews, and the anti-Semitic feeling reached a climax when it became known that a Jewess had attempted to assassinate the Governor.
Led by a wild-haired local agitator, a mob of a thousand persons proceeded to the Ghetto and carried out a frightful work of destruction. They surged down the narrow street, and after entering the houses and treating the inmates with shocking brutality, looted and set fire to their homes. The enraged rioters wrecked the Synagogue and killed the Rabbi, shouting, “Clear out the rats’ nest! Kill them all!” Screams of pain mingled with wild yells of triumph, and through the long night the Ghetto was a veritable Pandemonium.
The scene was terrible. The street ran with blood. Many Jewish women fell victims to the brutal lust and frantic frenzy of the mob, and were so barbarously maltreated that eleven succumbed, while a dozen men were shot or stabbed.
Before dawn the Ghetto had been totally destroyed and its unfortunate inhabitants, having lost everything they had, were compelled to seek shelter in the forest on the Kritchev road, where many afterwards died of exposure and starvation.
General Martianoff lost no time in wreaking vengeance upon my hapless sister. She had been arrested and taken to prison immediately after firing the shot, and he had condemned her to receive fifty lashes of the knout. Such a sentence was tantamount to death, for punishment by the knout is so barbarous a torture that few strong men could survive so many strokes. Yet whippings were of everyday occurrence in the Tzar’s empire, and even women are not spared by the officials.
It was about ten o’clock on the following morning when Mascha emerged from the grimy portals of the prison, and under a strong escort walked across the market-place to the temporary platform that had been erected. A great crowd had assembled to witness the chastisement of “the pretty Jewess,” and as she mounted the steps, with pale, determined face, they greeted her with fierce yells of triumph.
She looked round upon the sea of upturned countenances contemptuously.
On the platform there had been set up a square wooden frame. Unceremoniously, the brutal moujiks, who assisted the executioner, grasped her with their coarse, dirty hands and tore off her clothing, exposing her bare, white back down to the waist.
The mob roared with approbation when they saw this preparation. A few moments later she was forced upon the black frame, and her wrists and ankles secured so tightly that the tension almost caused dislocation of the joints. Then the executioner, whose duty it was to carry out the sentence, seized the knout—a number of triangular thongs of leather fixed into a short whip handle—and looked round for the signal to commence. As he did so, General Martianoff, with his shoulder bandaged, made his way through the expectant crowd, and shouted—
“Come, get to work. Don’t spare her, but keep the death-blow till last.”
Hushed and open-mouthed, the spectators awaited the result of the first blow.
The executioner receded, swung the terrible torture instrument over his head, and giving it a peculiar twist, brought it down upon the victim’s back with a sound like a pistol-shot.
The cruel thongs cut their way into the flesh and the blood gushed forth. Time after time the blows fell monotonously, until the quivering flesh was beaten to a pulp, and both victim and executioner were covered with blood.
Such was the scene of fiendish brutality that met my gaze on my arrival at Mstislavl, after having traced my mother and sister from Petersburg.
I was making my way through the shouting populace when, out of mere curiosity, I glanced at the face of the unfortunate girl, and recognised her.
Was it surprising that I rushed wildly up and endeavoured to stop the horrible punishment? So suddenly did it all happen, however, that I remember very little about it, except that in my wrathful indignation I cursed the Tzar’s myrmidons, and struck in the face the inhuman Governor who attempted to throw me from the platform. Thinking that I was Mascha’s lover, and enraged at the blow, he thereupon ordered me to receive thirty lashes.
I saw them carry away the insensible, mutilated form of my poor sister. Then they tied me to the frame.
I felt the thongs cut into my back like knives. Once! Twice! Thrice! The pain became excruciating. My head reeled, and a moment later all became blank.
When I regained consciousness I found myself in the prison hospital with warders rubbing salt into my wounds. I asked after Mascha, and was informed that she was still alive, and recovering.
One morning, while exercising in the prison yard, I saw her for a few brief moments, and she told me the story I have narrated.
