The Price of Power

“I have to go to the opening of the new wing of the Naval Hospital,” I said. “And I haven’t much time to spare.”

“We are going there, too. I have to perform the opening ceremony in place of the Emperor,” replied the Grand Duke. “So drive with us.”

“That’s it, Uncle Colin!” exclaimed his daughter. “Come out for an airing. It’s a beautiful afternoon.”

So we went forth into the great courtyard, where one of the Imperial state carriages, an open one, was in waiting, drawn by four fine, long-tailed Caucasian horses.

Behind it was a troop of mounted Cossacks to act as escort.

We entered, and the instant the bare-headed flunkeys had closed the door the horses started off, and we swung out of the handsome gateway into the wide Place, in the centre of which stood the grey column of Peter the Great.

Turning to the left we went past the Alexander Gardens, now parched and dusty with summer heat, and skirted the long façade of the War Office.

“I wonder what tales you’ve been telling the Emperor about me, Uncle Colin?” asked the impudent little lady, laughing as we drove along, I being seated opposite the Grand Duke and his daughter.

“About you?” I echoed with a smile. “Oh, nothing, I assure you – or, at least, nothing that was not nice.”

“You’re a dear, I know,” declared the girl, her father laughing amusedly the while. “But you are so dreadfully proper. You’re worse about etiquette than father is – and he’s simply horrid. He won’t ever let me go out shopping alone, and I’m surely old enough to do that!”

“You’re quite old enough to get into mischief, Tattie,” replied her father, speaking in French.

“I love mischief. That’s the worst of it,” and she pouted prettily.

“Yes, quite true – the worst of it, for me,” declared His Imperial Highness. “I thought that when you went to school in England they would teach you manners.”

“Ordinary manners are not Court manners,” the girl argued, trying to rebutton one of her gloves which had come unfastened.

“Let me do it,” I suggested, and quickly fastened it.

“Thank you,” she laughed with mock dignity. “How charming it is to have such a polished diplomat as Mr Colin Trewinnard to do nice things for one. Now, isn’t that a pretty speech? I suppose I ought to study smart things to say, and practise them on the dog – as father does sometimes.”

“Really, Tattie, you forget yourself, my dear,” exclaimed her father, with distinct disapproval.

“Well, that’s nothing,” declared my charming little companion. “Don’t parsons practise preaching their sermons, and lawyers and statesmen practise their clever untruths? You can’t expect a woman’s mouth to be full of sugar-plums of speech, can you?”

My eyes met those of the Grand Duke, and we both burst out laughing at the girl’s quaint philosophy.

“Why, even the Emperor has his speeches composed and written for him by silly old Calitzine,” she went on. “And at Astrakhan the other day I composed a most telling and patriotic speech for His Majesty, which he delivered when addressing the officers of the Army of the Volga. I sat on my horse and listened. The old generals and colonels, and all the rest of them, applauded vociferously, and the men threw their caps in the air. I wonder if they would have done this had they known that I had written those well-turned patriotic sentences, I – a mere chit of a girl, as father sometimes tells me!”

“And the terror of the Imperial family,” I ventured to add.

“Thank you for your compliment. Uncle Colin,” she laughed. “I know father endorses your sentiments. I see it in his face.”

“Oh, do try and be serious, Tattie,” he urged. “See all those people! Salute them, and don’t laugh so vulgarly.” And he raised his white-gloved hand to his shining helmet in recognition of the shouts of welcome rising from those assembled along our route.

Whereat she bowed gracefully again with that slight and rather frigid smile which she had been taught to assume on public occasions.

“If I put up my sunshade they won’t see me, and it will avoid such a lot of trouble,” she exclaimed suddenly, and she put up her pretty parasol, which matched her gown and softened the light upon her pretty face.

“Oh, no, Uncle Colin!” she exclaimed suddenly, as we turned the corner into the Yosnesenskaya, a long, straight street where the throng, becoming greater, was kept back by lines of police in their grey coats, peaked caps and revolvers. “I know what you are thinking. But it isn’t so. I’m not in the least afraid of spoiling my complexion.”

“Then perhaps it is a pity you are not,” I replied. “Complexions, like all shining things, tarnish quickly.”

“Just like reputations, I suppose,” she remarked, whereupon her father could not restrain another laugh.

Then again, at word in an undertone from the Grand Duke, both he and his daughter saluted the crowd, our horses galloping, as they always do in Russia, and our Cossack-escort clattering behind.

There were a good many people just at this point, for it was believed that the Emperor would pass on his way to perform the opening ceremony, and his loyal subjects were waiting to cheer him.

On every hand, the people, recognising the popular Grand Duke and his daughter, set up hurrahs, and while His Imperial Highness saluted, his pretty daughter, the most admired girl in Russia, bowed, and I, in accordance with etiquette, made no sign of acknowledgment.

As we came to the narrow bridge which spans the canal, the road was flanked on the left by the Alexander Market, and here was another huge crowd.

Loud shouts of welcome in Russian broke forth from those assembled, for the Grand Duke and his daughter were everywhere greeted most warmly.

But as we passed the market, the police keeping back the crowd, I saw a thin, middle-aged man in dark clothes lift his hand high above his head. Something came in our direction, yet before I had time to realise his action a blood-red flash blinded me, my ears were deafened by a terrific report, a hot, scorching breath swept across my face, and I felt myself hurled far into space amid the mass of falling débris.

It all occurred in a single instant, and I knew no more. I had a distinct feeling that some terrific explosion had knocked the breath clean out of my body. I recollect seeing the carriage rent into a thousand fragments just at the same instant that black unconsciousness fell upon me.

Chapter Seven.

Tells Tragic Truths

When, with extreme difficulty, I slowly struggled back to a knowledge of things about me, I found myself, to my great surprise, in a narrow hospital-bed, with a holy ikon upon the whitewashed wall before me, and a Red Cross sister bending tenderly over me.

Beside her stood two Russian doctors regarding me very gravely, and at their side was Saunderson, our Councillor of Embassy.

“Well, how are you feeling now, Colin, old man?” the latter whispered cheerfully.

“I – I don’t know. Where am I?” I asked. “What’s happened?”

“My dear fellow, you can thank your lucky stirs that you’ve escaped from the bomb,” he said.

“The bomb!” I gasped, and then in a flash all the horrors of that sudden explosion crowded upon me. “What happened?” I inquired, trying to raise myself, and finding my head entirely enveloped in surgical bandages. “What happened to the others?”

“The Grand Duke was, alas! killed, but his daughter fortunately escaped only with a scratch on her arm,” was his reply. “The carriage was blown to atoms, the two horses and their driver and footman were killed, while three Cossacks of the escort were also killed and two injured.”

“Then – then she – she is alive!” I managed to gasp, dazed at the tragic truth he had related to me.

“Yes – it was a desperate attempt. Fifteen arrests have been made up to the present.”

And while he was speaking, Captain Stoyanovitch advanced to my bedside, and leaning over, asked in a low voice:

“How are you, Trewinnard? The Emperor has sent me to inquire.”

“Tell His Majesty that I – I thank him. I’m getting round – I – I hope I’ll soon be well. I – I – ”

“That’s right. Take great care of yourself, mon cher,” he urged.