Part 6 (2/2)
”Yes, in two, if you like,” replied Arnold, not a little taken aback at the unexpected suddenness of what he knew at once to be the first order that was to test his obedience to the Brotherhood. ”But as I am absolutely ignorant of Russia and the Russians, I suppose you will make such arrangements as will prevent my making any innocent but possibly awkward mistakes.”
”Oh yes,” replied the President, with a smile, ”all arrangements have been made already, and I expect you will find them anything but unpleasant. Natasha goes to Petersburg in company with another lady member of the Circle whom you have not yet seen.
”You will go with them, and they will explain everything to you _en route_, if they have no opportunity of doing so before you start. Now let us go upstairs and have some supper. I am famished, and I suppose every one else is too.”
Arnold simply bowed in answer to the President; but one pair of eyes at least in the room caught the quick, faint flush that rose in his cheek as he was told in whose company he was to travel. As for himself, if the journey had been to Siberia instead of Russia, he would have felt nothing but pleasure at the prospect after that.
They left the Council-chamber by the pa.s.sage and the ante-room, the sentry standing to attention as they pa.s.sed him, each giving the word in turn, till the President came last and closed the doors behind him. Then the sentry brought up the rear and extinguished the lights as he left the pa.s.sage.
Fifteen minutes later there sat down to supper, in the solidly comfortable dining-room of the upper house, a party of ladies and gentlemen who chatted through the meal as merrily and innocently as though there were no such things as tyranny or suffering in the world, and whom not the most acute observer would have taken for the most dangerous and desperately earnest body of conspirators that ever plotted the destruction, not of an empire, but of a civilisation and a social order that it had taken twenty centuries to build up.
CHAPTER VII.
THE DAUGHTER OF NATAS.
Supper was over about eleven, and then the party adjourned to the drawing-room, where for an hour or so Arnold sat and listened to such music and singing as he had never heard in his life before. The songs seemed to be in every language in Europe, and he did not understand anything like half of them, so far, at least, as the words were concerned.
They were, however, so far removed from the average drawing-room medley of twaddle and rattle that the music interpreted the words into its own universal language, and made them almost superfluous.
For the most part they were sad and pa.s.sionate, and once or twice, especially when Radna Michaelis was singing, Arnold saw tears well up into the eyes of the women, and the brows of the men contract and their hands clench with sudden pa.s.sion at the recollection of some terrible scene or story that was recalled by the song.
At last, close on midnight, the President rose from his seat and asked Natasha to sing the ”Hymn of Freedom.” She acknowledged the request with an inclination of her head, and then as Radna sat down to the piano, and she took her place beside it, all the rest rose to their feet like wors.h.i.+ppers in a church.
The prelude was rather longer than usual, and as Radna played it Arnold heard running through it, as it were, echoes of all the patriotic songs of Europe from ”Scots Wha Hae” and ”The Shan van Voght” to the forbidden Polish National Hymn and the Swiss Republican song, which is known in England as ”G.o.d Save the Queen.” The prelude ended with a few bars of the ”Ma.r.s.eillaise,” and then Natasha began.
It was a marvellous performance. As the air changed from nation to nation the singer changed the language, and at the end of each verse the others took up the strain in perfect harmony, till it sounded like a chorus of the nations in miniature, each language coming in its turn until the last verse was reached.
Then there was silence for a moment, and then the opening chords of the ”Ma.r.s.eillaise” rang out from the piano, slow and stately at first, and then quickening like the tread of an army going into battle.
Suddenly Natasha's voice soared up, as it were, out of the music, and a moment later the Song of the Revolution rolled forth in a flood of triumphant melody, above which Natasha's pure contralto thrilled sweet and strong, till to Arnold's intoxicated senses it seemed like the voice of some angel singing from the sky in the ears of men, and it was not until the hymn had been ended for some moments that he was recalled to earth by the President saying to him--
”Some day, perhaps, you will be floating in the clouds, and you will hear that hymn rising from the throats of millions gathered together from the ends of the earth, and when you hear that you will know that our work is done, and that there is peace on earth at last.”
”I hope so,” replied the engineer quietly, ”and, what is more, I believe that some day I shall hear it.”
”I believe so too,” suddenly interrupted Radna, turning round on her seat at the piano, ”but there will be many a battle-song sung to the accompaniment of battle-music before that happens. I wish”--
”That all Russia were a haystack, and that you were beside it with a lighted torch,” said Natasha, half in jest and half in earnest.
”Yes, truly!” replied Radna, turning round and das.h.i.+ng fiercely into the ”Ma.r.s.eillaise” again.
”I have no doubt of it. But, come, it is after midnight, and we have to get back to Cheyne Walk. The princess will think we have been arrested or something equally dreadful. Ah, Mr. Colston, we have a couple of seats to spare in the brougham. Will you and our Admiral of the Air condescend to accept a lift as far as Chelsea?”
”The condescension is in the offer, Natasha,” replied Colston, flus.h.i.+ng with pleasure and glancing towards Radna the while. Radna answered with an almost imperceptible sign of consent, and Colston went on: ”If it were in an utterly opposite direction”--
”You would not be asked to come, sir. So don't try to pay compliments at the expense of common sense,” laughed Natasha before he could finish. ”If you do you shall sit beside me instead of Radna all the way.”
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