Part 24 (2/2)

”I don't know why mother does this. I never knew her to until yesterday. Father never used to let her look straight ahead of her as she does now. She has always been very brave and strong. She has done wonderful things--but I was not there. When troubles came on my father, I was put in a convent--I know now it was to keep me from harm. I did not know then why I was sent away from them, for my father was not of the religion of the good sisters at the convent,--but now I know--it was to save me.”

”Why did troubles come on your father?”

”What he did I do not know, but I am very sure it was nothing wrong.

In my country sometimes men have to break the law to do right; my mother has told me so. He was in prison a long time when I was living in the convent, sheltered and cared for,--and mother--mother was working all alone to get him out--all alone suffering.”

”How could they keep you there if she had to work so hard?”

”My father had a friend. He was not of our country, and he was most kind and good. I think he was of Scotland--or maybe of Ireland; I was so little I do not know. He saved for my mother some of her money so the government did not get it. I think my mother gave it to him, once--before the trouble came. Maybe she knew it would come,--anyway, so it was. I do not know if he was Irish, or of Scotland--but he must have been a good man.”

”Been? Is he dead?”

”Yes. It was of a fever he died. My mother told me. He gave us his name, and to my father his papers to leave our country, for he knew he would die, or my father never could have got out of the country. I never saw him but once. When I saw you, I thought of him. He was grand and good, as are you. My mother came for me at the convent in Paris, and in the night we went to my father, and in the morning we went to the great s.h.i.+p. We said McBride, and all was well. If we had said Manovska when we took the s.h.i.+p, we would have been sent back and my father would have been killed. In the prison we would have died. It was hard to get on the s.h.i.+p, but when we got to this country, n.o.body cared who got off.”

”How long ago was that?”

”It was at the time of your great war we came. My mother wore the dress of our peasant women, and I did the same.”

”And were you quite safe in this country?”

”For a long time we lived very quietly, and we thought we were. But after a time some one came, and father took him in, and then others came, and went away again, and came again--I don't know why--they did not tell me,--but this I know. Some one had a great enmity against my father, and at last mother took me in the night to a strange place where we knew no one, and then we went to another place--and to still another. It was very wearisome.”

”What was your father's business?”

”My father had no business. He was what you call a n.o.bleman. He had very much land, but he was generous and gave it nearly all away to his poor people. My father was very learned and studied much. He made much music--very beautiful--not for money--never for that. Only after we came to this country did he so, to live. Once he played in a great orchestra. It was then those men found him and came so often that he had again to go away and hide. I think they brought him papers--very important--to be sacredly guarded until a right time should come to reveal them.”

”And you have no knowledge why he was followed and persecuted?”

”I was so little at the beginning I do not know. If it was that in his religion he was different,--or if he was trying to change in the government the laws,--for we are not of Russia,--I know that when he gave away his land, the other n.o.blemen were very angry with him, and at the court--where my father was sent by his people for reasons--there was a prince,--I think it was about my mother he hated my father so,--but for what--that I never heard. But he had my father imprisoned, and there in the prison they--What was that word,--hectored? Yes. In the prison they hectored him greatly--so greatly that never more was he straight. It was very sad.”

”I don't think we would say hectored, for that. I think we would say tortured.”

”Oh, yes. I see. To hector is of the mind, but torture is of the body.

It is that I mean--for they were very terrible to him. My mother was there, and they made her look at it to bring him the more quickly to tell for her sake what he would not for his own. I think when she looks long before her at nothing, she is seeing again the tortures of my father, and so she cries out in that terrible way. I think so.”

”What were they trying to get out of him?”

Amalia looked up in his face with a puzzled expression for a moment.

”Get--out--of--him?” she asked.

”I mean, what did they want him to tell?”

”Ah, that I know not. It was never told. If they could find him, I think they would try again to learn of him something which he only can tell. I think if they could find my mother, they would now try to learn from her what my father knew, but her lips are like the grave.

At that time he had told her nothing, but since then--when we were far out in the wilderness--I do not know. I hope my mother will never be found. Is it a very secret place to which we go?”

”I might call it that--yes. I've lived there for twenty years and no white man has found me yet, until the young man, Harry King, was pitched over the edge of eternity and only saved by a--well--a chance--likely.”

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