Part 21 (1/2)
CHAPTER XXII
A FIGURE IN THE STRAW
A little light filtered down through the crevices and betrayed the secrets of that strange refuge in all their amazing simplicity. Here was neither costly furniture nor any adornment whatsoever. A thick carpet of straw, giving flecks of gold wherever the sunlight struck down upon it, had been laid to such a depth that a grown man might have concealed himself therein. A few empty bales stood here and there as though thrown down at hazard; there were coils of rope and great blocks of timber used by the stevedores who loaded the barges. But of the common things of daily life not a trace. No tables, no chairs, neither bed nor blanket adorn this rude habitation. Let a sergeant of police open his lantern there and the tousled straw would answer him in mockery. This, for a truth, had been the case. Little Lois could tell a tale of Cossacks on the barge, even of rifles fired down into the hold, and of a child's heart beating so quickly that she thought she must cry out for very pain of it. But that was before the men were told that the s.h.i.+p belonged to merry Herr Petermann. They went away at once then--to drink the old fellow's beer and to laugh with him.
That had been a terrible day and Lois had never forgotten it. Whenever old Petermann opened the door of his office now, she would start and tremble as though a Cossack's hand already touched her shoulder.
Sometimes she lay deep down in the straw, afraid to declare herself even though a friend's voice called her. And so it was upon that morning of Alban's visit.
Old Petermann had shut the cabin door behind him and discreetly left the young people together. Seeing little in the deep gloom and his eyes blinking wherever he turned them, Alban stood almost knee-deep in straw and cried Lois' name aloud.
”Lois--where are you, Lois--why don't you answer me?”
She crept from the depths at his very feet and shaking the straw from her pretty hair, she stood upright and put both her hands upon his shoulders.
”I am here, Alb dear, just waiting for you. Won't you kiss me, Alb dear?”
He put his arms about her neck and kissed her at her wish--just as a brother might have kissed a sister in the hour of her peril.
”I came at once, Lois,” he said, ”of course I did not understand that it would be like this. Why are you here? Whatever has happened--what does it all mean? Will you not teach me to understand, Lois?”
”Sit by my side, Alb dear, sit down and listen to me. I want you to know what your friends have been doing. Oh, I have been so lonely, so frightened, and I don't deserve that. You know that my father is in prison, Alb--the Count told you that?”
”I heard it before I left England, Lois. You did not answer my letters?”
”I was ashamed to, dear. That was the first thing they taught me at the school--to be ashamed to write to you until you would not be ashamed to read my letters. Can't you understand, Alb? Wasn't I right to be ashamed?”
She buried her head upon his breast and put a little hot hand into his own. A great tenderness toward her filled his whole being and brought a sense of happiness very foreign to him lately. How gentle and kindly this little waif of fortune had ever been. And how even those few weeks of a better schooling had improved her. She had shed all the old vulgarities--she was just a simple schoolgirl as he would have wished her to be.
”We are never right to be ashamed before those who love us,” Alban said kindly; ”you did not write to me and how was I to know what had happened? Of course, your father told you what I had been doing and why I went away from Union Street? It was all his kindness. I know it now and I have come to Russia to thank him--when he is free. That won't be very long now that I have found you. They were frightened of you, Lois--they thought you were going to betray their secrets to the Revolutionary party. I knew that you would not do so--I said so all along.”
She looked up at him with glowing eyes, and putting her lips very close to his ear she said:
”I loved you, Alb--I never could have told them while I loved you--not even to save my father, and G.o.d knows how much I love him. Did not they say that you were very happy with Mr. Gessner? There would have been no more happiness if I had told them.”
”And that is what kept you silent, Lois?”
She would not answer him, but hiding her face again, she asked him a question which surprised him greatly.
”Do you know why the police wished to arrest me, Alb dear?”
”How could I know that, Lois?”
”It was the Count who told them to do so. He is only deceiving you, dear. He does not want to release my father and will never do so. If I were in prison too, he thinks that Mr. Gessner would be quite safe. Do not trust the Count if you would help us. My people understand him and they will punish him some day. He has done a great wrong to many in Warsaw, and he deserves to be punished. You must remember this, dear, when he promises my father's freedom. He is not telling you the truth--he is only asking you to punish me.”
”But, Lois, what have you done, what charge can they bring against a little schoolgirl?”
”I am my father's daughter,” she said proudly, ”that is why they would punish me. Oh, you don't know, dear. Even the little children are criminals in Warsaw. My father escaped from Saghalen and I have no right to live in Russia. When he sent me to school here, I did not come under my own name, they called me Lois Werner and believed I was a German.
Then my people heard that Count Sergius wished to have me arrested, and they took me away from the school and brought me here. Herr Petermann is one of my father's oldest friends. He has saved a great many who would be in prison but for his kindness. We can trust Herr Petermann, dear--he will never betray us.”