FICTION.

New Zealand Mail, 27 August 1902, Page 5

FICTION.

SHOUANETTE.

By CLIVE PHILLIPPS WOLLEY, Author of : 'Tlie Chicamon Stone,” “One of the Broken Brigade,” etc.

[All Rights Rj^skved.] (Copyright in United States of . America by 1). T. Pierce.) CHAPTER XIII. If there be anything in life- almost as ghastly as death, it is a ballroom when the guests have gone, and the cruel grey "of morning shames the- light of the* lamps, and pitilessly accentuates the decay of fading flowers, and the tawdriness of the bail-room trappings. The bigger the ball-room, the more hopelessly"depressing is the emptiness of it, and if this is so of any ball-room, think what the huge extemporised salon in Vladikavkaz looked like, with the white head of Kazbek peering in at- iris daughter dying amongst that little group of pale-faced silent men, with the paltry ribbons and stars upon their breasts, for which they had lied and laboured their lives through.

Stranger and suspect as 1 was. my misery would perhaps have gained me some consideration from my companions, even if I iiad not been' protected by the Tsar's personal commands.

As it was 1 was master of the situation. and men waited for my word, as we crouched there in silence, until the sound of the last hurrying carriage had clied away. Then, seeing that I made no move, one of ’ the staff touched me respectfully on the shoulder. “You had better leave her to the care of the sisters of mercy,” he said. ‘■You can do no good, and as it is, we shall none of us escape quarantine, even if that is the worst of it,” and the mail shuddered, in spite cl the bravery cf his military trappings. He could think of the future. For me, 1 could think of nothing, but the present and the past, and not clearly even of those. I had no answer to make him. Instead I asked him the one question worth asking. “Has she anv chance?”

But I felt the vanity of it even as it left my lips. Had i' not myself bargained with God, her life against the life of the Tsar, and had not the bargain been made? What had the Tsar’s doctor to do with the matter?

It was between mo and my Maker. Her life had been left in my bands to do with as I wcpild, and confident m the conviction of my narrow creed of right and wrong, I bad dared to judge, and this was wliat I had dono with it. And then because Nature revels in cruelty, the bandage was taken from my eyes, and I saw not only” what 1 had done for her,, but, set side by side with it, what this woman had done for me.

Alone, and under a curse, as it seemed to her, set apart from man, and damned by God beforehand, with her dead mother’s eyes haunting 'her, and with a terrible duty as she believed laid upon her to perform, this woman ■who had loved me, had in the crisis or nor lifo, held mo aloof from her; had borne my bitter speeches, suffering herself to be misjudged, when one kind woid would have been worth the world to her, and this, not because 1 was a suspect, whose society might endanger her, but because she would not havo ! uo ‘involved, in the trouble which she Know was to come.

There are many who dare face death. How many are there who dare face Sey love 0 ? 0 ’ tC> “ Ve * pang to those

v; i : r a S T e ’ • tl i ey J ay > is a masculine Is it-' Mon say “only a woman and write themselves “only fools” wien they say it. Men, 1 grant you, wil lush into danger and face death m hot blood without blenching, but a borHi f'l ™ ako ;jest3 on her death dm, that the man she loves may forget what is coming, and so suffer less. fUoU°’ Sai , c doctor, “there is practically nohope for her. One perhaps thousand, stricken as she is remany?> Not lUoro ‘ Per haps not so That was man’s verdict, but just tjen the little head which I had plopped against my shoulder, turned TIS, T’i and Sh °uanette’s lips partWhnt S w IGr • e , yes wero s tiU closed. notK- mi Sa,d) those others could The mew P iey w f ro n °t meant to hear, ■f message was for me—lvan. me a, tL la ? StrUggl< ? she ca!1 «l upon that nilu da T ns g,rl had called in asllS lt , S ° loflg > by tho Weva, and to me Ued a great strength was given * die ‘ My and’sheM^' 11 - alivc ’ warm in ln y arms, the dombbnT 0 ' , Deatll had n °t yet have. T , n i °T ei ' I'OG nor should ho the create betWeou llcr and sheer , lnimau autocrats; by C tt n„ of wiU 1 would her back one groat autocrat of earth,

and, as if she .heard my, heart, she nestled yet closer to‘mo, with a uicio sound, half sigh, half moan, but one, that, to my ear at least, had in it a note of contentment.

The doctor who watched her, interpreted her action with the ordinary infallibility of his profession. “The paroxysm is past now,” lie saw “and she will rest whilst her strength lasts and go with the coming of Hie sun. If you care to move her, she might be moved to her home. You know of course where that is?” I nodded.

“Has she any people here; father or mother?”

“Some of her people are with her.” I answered evasively, thinking indeed of Maclia, hut knowing of no others. Her mother, I guessed from her own strange speech, must be dead.' Brothers she had, I knew, little fellows tending their goats in Lesghian mountains, but I bad never heard mention of her father.

He, I took it, was dead long ago, killed probably as one of.Shamyl’.s Murids, in the last stand round Gunib. Old age is not a fashionable folly amongst the princes cf his land. By Shouauette’s own will,’ and for the sake of the cause she was pledged to, she had separated herself from all who loved her, and now in her need, there were hut two likely to face the peril of the plague for her sake, Maclia, the Lesghian maid, and myself. But my mind was mado up on the spur of tho' moment.

“If you will send me an ambulance, I will take charge of her. I have incurred the danger of infection already, and you might find it difficult to secure another nurse in time.”

“It. is hardly seemly to leave her to a stranger.”

“I am no stranger, though an Englishman, and besides her foster sister will ho with her, and yen youtself say that it cannot be for long. Let me stay to the end.”

The men looked hard in each other’s faces.

They wanted to be gone; they were frightened and tired to the point of sleeping whore they stood, but to leave a princess with whom the Tsar had danced, a princess almost in sight of her own kingdom, in the hands of a foreigner, seemed almost more than they dared do.

“Yon heard tho Tsar’s orders,” 1 hazarded.

“He left her in your charge, but iio did not dismiss us.” • ■

“Then help me carry her below.”' That settled the matter. Touch the plague-striven one if they could help it. they would not, and besides slio would be dead so soon that no one need know that they had left her. “Well, as.you will then,” said tho doctor after conferring with his companions. “There is nothing more that man can do. I will send an ambulance and bearers from the hospital, but you understand that you, and any house that you take her to, will bo isolated.” I bowed, well content. lfiey might isolate tho house; they oould not-isoiate me from my world. That 1 had in my arms—l had no wish to share it with any other, and so, a few minutes later, as the early shops opened," and the first smoke of the city went up in long blue columns to the pearly sky, 1 drove at a foot’s pace through the pugged streets of Vladikavkaz, feeling every jar of the' carriage in my heart. It was a strange home-coming from a ball, and yet altogether not an unhappy one, for there was peace, the peaoo of unsullied morning which breathed around us, and the royal patience of the great snow peaks soothed me, and made the life that was passing seem infinitely little, compared to that wider life of which they perhaps had learned the secret.

And from all except the Blague she and I were safe at last. To the satisfaction even of her own fantastic sense of humour, she had striven to keep her oath, and yet she had been spared the crime to which others would' have impelled her. Even from then she was safe now, for those who (to do (hem hut bare justice) fear neither man nor Tsar, nor God. would hesitate to trespass within the precincts of the Plague. Only love would do that, love such as Maclia and I bore her, for Maclia, wlien we reabhed their home never stayed to give one thought to herself, any more than she did to me. There was only one to be thought of by tho faithful Lesghian, and for that one she would have shed her blood or mine, if it. could have served her, and held it cheap as water. 'And so whilst Vladikavkaz dreamed of the State ball, or woke to shudder over the new monarch from tho East who had come to pay his court to the Absolute Master of an hundred million men, the Lesghian girl and 1 sat and waited for Death, but never for one moment did I let my love out of my arms.

Had she been conscious, she would havo thought of me first, and insisted upon sparing me the service that I loved to render, but as it was, in her helpless innocence, her heart betrayed her,, and she clung to me, as a tired . child clings to its mother; and as hour followed hour, and the strength went .out of my arms, I began .almost to believo that

she was drawing fresh strength from me, to aid. her in" .lier battle for" life.'

Slowly the red flush grew and deepened upon the peaks, and then the sun came, and iu all that sea of mountains flooded with the light- of a new clay, men stood with sheep skin hats in their hands, and prayed their one dauy prayer. Tho sun had come, but Shouanette did not pass with the coming of the sun. TV hen his hot rays were red on Kazbek and even foaming Terek, tired in his heat, she slept like a child, though my arms ceased to know that they held her. They were numb and dead to tho shoulder, but if my whole body had died inch by inch I would have let it die rather than have stirred one aching limb of her.

Hoiir after hour Maclia fanned her, or moistened her hot- forehead, and hour after, hour we watched for a change that never came, until, at last night came, ami even Maclia fell into a fitful slumber.

V hen, in the early morning, the dread visitor we had expected so long, arrived at last, both the women were sleeping. Only I was awake to receive him though, when lie touched one of them, she woke for a moment and then followed him.

I could not stir hand or foot to help, so that on the second morning cf my vigil a messenger sent from the royal household, took back tho news that a daughter of Lesghia was dead, and that same day because men love not that the victims of the Plague should tarry long with them, two of the women of their clan who were by chance in the city, came, and tied the dead woman’s hair and dressed her as their manner is, in the most gorgeous robe she had worn in life, painted tho cold cheeks, brightened the poor dumb lips, and bore her to her burial, with that great turquoise upon her finger, the royal stone of her house, whose colour never fades so long as love is faithful.

Well, the love of her who wore it had been tried, and found faithful (until death. Then these women who tired her, and accompanied her to her grave, made report to their countrymen, that the princess of Lesghia .was dead, and men knew that it was true, for these women were of her clan, and had been in the aoul in which she wa-s horn, since her birth.

And for an hour or two even the strange city mourned after a fashion, for the beauty that had perished, hut 1 turned again to the bedside of the woman who still lived, whilst silence settled down upon the house. Life was very still in those clays. Those who brought us the necessaries of life, left them at the door and hurried away. Foot passengers went round long distances by other streets, and either from fear or kindliness, no sound of wheels or hooves echoed on our cobble stones. For weeks we two were all the -world to one another, a common memory for companion and sickness for a chastener, so that, when at last health began to come back, and our quarantine was raised, we had lived so long in the valley of Shadows by ourselves, that I almost feared to go out into the world again alono.

But I had that to do which would not wait. A strange pact had been made by tho side of her who was dead, between us and the women who took her to her burial, and it was necessary that I should bestir myself in its fulfilment, but that wa3 a strange Vladikavkaz which met my eyes. When I had first entered the town of the narrow way, there was not room to camp in the streets of it; now those streets were worlds too wide for those who frequented them.

The Russian court had passed on through the Dariel to Tiflis, and men, who caro more for their financial interests than for life itself, had lied and concealed the fact that the Black Death had been amongst them. Heaven knows whether .they carried the seeds back with them across the pass, but even if they did, they were but carrying coals to Newcastle. In a deserted town to which I had come as a stranger, and in which I had hidden as a suspect, I had to seek for some one who knew me, and would help me.

There was no consul there in those days, and for all I know there may bo none yet. I did not even know whether there was a priest of my own church in the country, and it was my business to find a friend to stand by me, and a. priest to marry me. But luck must turn at last, and it had turned for me, so that my first steps took me almost into the arms of the man I most wanted to see.

It was poor old Long with • a great deal of the starch knocked out of him, and a whole year older than when 1 had last seen him, but Long for all that* To him of course I came like one risen from the dead. He had. settled the identity of the man found in the palanquin at the Casino, but, loyal comrade that? lie was, ho had stayed on week after week in the vain hope of bringing my supposed murderers to justice.

In that time he had learned a great deal moro of Russian police methods, and the more he had arned, the less he had liked them. Ho was pining to get back to Clubland, but still, for my sake, he consented to stay a few days

longer, albeit when he heard of my project, I chose to tell it to him, he raised every objection to it, taught by thq creed of the class to which ho belonged. Hft l ia d been the princess,' Peters, •ft nonld have been dilferent, though I bl dairying foreigners, but 111 be hanged if I understand this new madness. There’s no reason why' .\ou should marry a woman because you have, nursed her through the Blague, llunk better of it, man.” But I put his arguments gently on one side. ‘

I had learned in my long seclusion that force was not the best weapon especially in Russia, but T took him to see this maid I wanted to marry, this maid they call Maclia and when he bad seen her, his last scruple vanished. “Excellent ” lie said, “excellent-, you will fool them still, and we owe them one for having missed the Mainisson: hut you will have;to hurry. You know the Tsar comes back this "way to Petersburg at the end of the week.”

Shut up as I had been, I know nothing of what was going on in tho world, but Ins news moved me in the opposite direction to that which he liad expected it to.

At; our leisure he and I sought- and eventually found a priest of the English Church, one who for his pleasure was on liis way to visit the prisons of Siberia, and had branched off to obtain a glimpse of. the Caucasus, - en route. Hun. wo persuaded to stay with us, until the court returned.

After this I had nothing to do but lay my plans and listen to Long’s story of liis involuntary elopement with Trubner. It was of couro as I had imagined.

Having beguiled Long into tho buffet, Trubner liad missed the train, and persuaded the. gullible Colonel that he, Trubner, suffered most by the mistake, bi.it when owing to further misinformation, a second train was missed, there had been an end of faith, a row royal, and Trubner liad disappeared. After that, the Colonel, being left to his own resources, had worked his way to Vladikavkaz, and picked up a little really serviceable Russian on the journey. The rest of liis story I knew. “Well Long there must be no more eloping with my trav.—ng companion on the return journey.” “Rest content. Not even with her. I_vo had enough of Russia for some time, but by the way, do you and Madaino propose to sail under colours, or do you start fair a-s PctersP“l don’t think that that matters much now. especially if I got the answer I expect to the message you are to take for me to-morrow.”

“It is a strange message, and a strange card to leave at a Palace,” ho said turning over my bent iron souvenir iu his hand “but this is a deuced strange country.”

It was, as it is to-dav and I warrant you that less credible stories ar© being enacted in it to-day. than even this which I have written. Of mat the end came in this way. In a room in which rioli colours of tho East were subdued and mellowed as memory is by time a room in which, the greatest tyrant of the East onca reigned, stood another of earth’s autocrats. and with him, tho maid whom we called Macha a priest of one English church Long and myself, but the autocrat was called for the time simple Captain Sacha.

Pale my_ bride was, and worn, but lovely as Kazbec after storms, ana for the peace and happiness in her eyes I was well content to lose the sparkle which had lit them in the miisic hall, content even with the one braid of silver which ran through the.rich coils of her dark hair the only crown my love was ever to wear.

It was not Long after all, but Sacha who gave her away, and when tho solemn words had been spoken, and lie liad kissed her like a father on her broad white brow, she cried once, shaken to the very heart. “Foregive me, (sire, I never knew you.”

“There is nothing to forgive, little one. A hundred million cannot know me, nor I them. That is my cross. Be as faithful to the best vow as thou wouldst have been to that other.” After she had gone to prepare for our journey, this man we called Sacha, took me apart and drawing from his breast a fan of fine lace and quaint Caucasian damask work, gave it to me. “Let this be one ol my wedding presents,” he said. “The knowledge of this damascene work lias been lost, but the pattern lias been burned into tho steel with fire, and like other virtues and vices in Lesghia is. ineradicable. Give this to your wife from me, when timo has taken the sting from memory as I have been vandal enough to take the poison from these claws. I thought them dangerous in a clumsy dancer’s hands: they might touch her partner’s neck.”

I took tho fan from .uni in silence. Those long thing points which had lent it so much of its evil beauty had been ruthlessly trimmed off but it was a toy still. Rememberin'! as it had been, my eyes look: I a question that my lips dared not ask. “Yes,” lie said, understanding my unspoken question, “‘I knew from mo moment it fir;, t hovered over me. It

was a delicate- and dangerous fencing, but she could not concentrate her attention. You should never looK at the gallery when you are playing for a prize. And this was the coward who hid in Gatschina.

In a grey flower hound house in tho deep meadows by the Thames, those who stray through our park gates at evening, before die lights are may perhaps sometimes hear the pathetio notes of Lermontoff’s old song—- “ Open wide my prison portals;" but I fancy she who sings it does not now put into Lermontoff’s words all tho expression that she once aid. Perhaps it is Shouanette is contented with her lot, although it is a lower one than that she was bora to, and remembers Lesghßa only as her birth place, and the birth place of one who died in the service of her foster sister, and now lies buried with the great turquoise on her finger, as Shouanette princess of Lesghia. If -razbek forgives the substitution, I think that the rest of the world may, for both women were worthy of the wild land of which she is overlord, and perhaps, though I dare not tell Shouanette so, Macha was at heart a truer, more tameless Lesghian than her mistress. If any think that an apology is needed for my share in this last fraud, I can only plead that it was tho last I ever practised against Holy Mother Russia, and that her own Tsar was party to it. (Thoi End.)