The Crimson Tide: A Novel

Then, suddenly motionless, she crouched and listened.

“Oh, Mother of God!” she panted, “intervene now–now!–or never!”

The muffled rattle of a rather ragged volley answered her prayer.

Outside the convent a sentry–a Kronstadt sailor–stood. He also heard the underground racket. He nodded contentedly to himself. Other shots followed–pistol shots–singly.

After a few moments a wisp of smoke from the crypt crept lazily out of the low oubliettes. The day was grey and misty; rain threatened; and the rifle smoke clung low to the withered grass, scarcely lifting.

The sentry lighted a third cigarette, one eye on the barred oubliettes, from which the smoke crawled and spread out over the grass.

After a while a sweating face appeared behind the bars and a half-stifled voice demanded why there was any delay about fetching quick-lime. And, still clinging to the bars with bloody fingers, he added:

“There’s a damned novice in the chapel. I promised to cut her throat for her. Go in and get her and bring her down here.”

The novice was nowhere to be found.

They searched the convent thoroughly; they went out into the garden and beat the shrubbery, kicking through bushes and saplings, their cocked rifles poised for a snap shot.

Peasants, gathering there more thickly now, watched them stupidly; the throng increased in the convent grounds. Some Bolshevik soldiers pushed through the rapidly growing crowd and ran toward a birch wood east of the convent. Beyond the silvery fringe of birches, larger trees of a heavy, hard-wood forest loomed. Among these splendid trees a number of beeches were being felled on both sides of the road.

“Did you see a White Nun run this way?” demanded the soldiers of the wood-cutters. The latter shook their heads:

“Nothing has passed,” they said seriously, “except some Ural Cossacks riding north like lost souls in a hurricane.”

An officer of the Red battalion, who had now hastened up with pistol swinging, flew into a frightful rage:

“Cossacks!” he bellowed. “You cowardly dogs, what do you mean by letting Kaledines’ horsemen gallop over you like that–you with your saws and axes–twenty lusty comrades to block the road and pull the Imperialists off their horses! Shame! For all I know you’ve let a Romanoff escape alive into the world! That’s probably what you’ve done, you greasy louts!”

The wood-cutters gaped stupidly; the Bolshevik officer cursed them again and gesticulated with his pistol. Other soldiers of the Red battalion ran up. One nudged the officer’s elbow without saluting:

“That other prisoner can’t be found–”

“What! That Swedish girl!” yelled the officer.

Several soldiers began speaking excitedly:

“While we were in the cellar, they say she ran away–”

“Yes, Captain, while we were about that business in the crypt, Kaledines’ horsemen rode up outside–”

“Who saw them?” demanded the officer hoarsely. “God curse you, who saw them?”

Some peasants had now come up. One of them began:

“Your honour, I saw Prince Kaledines’ riders–”

“Whose!”

“The Hetman’s–”

“Your honour! Prince Kaledines! The Hetman! Damnation! Who do you think you are! Who do you think I am!” burst out the Red officer in a fury. “Get out of my way!–” He pushed the peasants right and left and strode away toward the convent. His soldiers began to straggle after him. One of them winked at the wood-cutters with his tongue in his cheek, and slung the rifle he carried over his right shoulder en bandoulière, muzzle downward.

“The Tavarish is in a temper,” he said with a jerk of his thumb toward the officer. “We arrested that Swedish girl in the uniform of the woman’s battalion. One shoots that breed on sight, you know. But we were in such a hurry to finish with the Romanoffs–” He shrugged: “You see, comrades, we should have taken her into the crypt and shot her along with the Romanoffs. That’s how one loses these birds–they’re off if you turn your back to light a cigarette in the wind.”

One of the wood-cutters said: “Among Kaledines’ horsemen were two women. One was crop-headed like a boy, and half naked.”

“A White Nun?”

“God knows. She had some white rags hanging to her body, and dark hair clipped like a boy’s.”

“That–was–she!” said the soldier with slow conviction. He turned and looked down the long perspective of the forest road. Only a raven stalked there all alone over the fallen leaves.

“Certainly,” he said, “that was our White Nun. The Cossacks took her with them. They must have ridden fast, the horsemen of Kaledines.”

“Like a swift storm. Like the souls of the damned,” replied a peasant.

The soldier shrugged: “If there’s still a Romanoff loose in the world, God save the world!.. And that big heifer of a Swedish wench!–she was a bad one, I tell you!–Took six of us to catch her and ten to hold her by her ten fingers and toes! Hey! God bless me, but she stands six feet and is made of steel cased in silk–all white, smooth and iron-hard–the blond young snow-tiger that she is!–the yellow-haired, six-foot, slippery beastess! God bless me–God bless me!” he muttered, staring down the wood-road to its vanishing point against the grey horizon.

Then he hitched his slung rifle to a more comfortable position, turned, gazed at the convent across the fields, which his distant comrades were now approaching.

“A German nest,” he said aloud to himself, “full of their damned Deaconesses! Hey! I’ll be going along to see what’s to be done with them, also!”

He nodded to the wood-cutters:

“Vermin-killing time,” he remarked cheerily. “After the dirty work is done, peace, land enough for everybody, ease and plenty and a full glass always at one’s elbows–eh, comrades?”

He strode away across the fields.

It had begun to snow.

ARGUMENT

The Cossacks sang as they rode:

I

“Life is against us
We are born crying:
Life that commenced us
Leaves us all dying.

We were born crying;

We shall die sighing.

“Shall we sit idle?
Follow Death’s dance!
Pick up your bridle,