The Czar's Spy, William le Queux [reading like a writer txt] 📗

in the rowlocks, evidently in the belief that we had made for the river. But the Finlander had apparently foreseen this, and for that reason we were lying safe from observation in the deep shadow of an overhanging tree.

A gray mist was slowly rising from the water, and the Finn, noticing it, hoped that it might favor us. In Finland in late autumn the mists are often as thick as our proverbial London fogs, only whiter, denser, and more frosty.

"If we disembark we shall be compelled to make a detour of fully four days in the forest, in order to pass the marshes," he pointed out in a low whisper. "But if we can enter the river we can go ashore anywhere and get by foot to some place where the lady can lie in hiding."

"What do you advise? We are entirely in your hands. The Chief of Police told me he could trust you."

"I think it will be best to risk it," he said in Russian after a brief pause. "We will tie up the boat, and I will go along the bank and see what the guards are doing. You will remain here, and I shall not be seen. The rushes and undergrowth are higher further along. But if there is danger while I am absent get out and go straight westward until you find the marsh, then keep along its banks due south," and drawing up the boat to the bank the shrewd, big-boned fellow disappeared into the dark undergrowth.

There were no signs yet of the break of day. Indeed, the stars were now hidden, and the great plane of water was every moment growing more indistinct as we both sat in silence. My ears were strained to catch the dipping of an oar or a voice, but beyond the lapping of the water beneath the boat there was no other sound. I took the hand of the fair-faced girl at my side and pressed it. In return she pressed mine.

It was the only means by which we could exchange confidences. She whom I had sought through all those months sat at my side, yet powerless to utter one single word.

Still holding her hands in both my own I gripped them to show her that I intended to be her champion, while she turned to me in confidence as though happy that it should be so. What, I wondered, was her history? What was the mystery surrounding her? What could be that secret which had caused her enemies to thus brutally maim and mutilate her, and afterwards send her to that grim, terrible fortress that still loomed up before us in the gloom? Surely her secret must affect some person very seriously, or such drastic means would never be employed to secure her silence.

Suddenly I heard a stealthy footstep approaching, and next moment a low voice spoke which I recognized as that of our friend, the Finn.

"There is danger, Excellency—a grave danger!" he said in a low half whisper. "Three boats are in search of us."

And scarcely had he uttered those words when there was the flash of a rifle from the haze, a loud report, and again a bullet whizzed past just behind my head. In an instant the truth became apparent, for I saw the dark shadow of a boat rapidly rowed, bearing full upon us. The shot had been fired as a signal that we had been sighted, and were pursued. Other shots rang out, mingled with the wild exultant shouts of the guards as they bore down full upon us, and then I knew that, notwithstanding our escape, we were now lost. They were too close upon us to admit of eluding them. The peril we had dreaded had fallen. The Finn's presence on the bank had evidently been detected by a boat drawn up at the shore, and he had been followed to where we had lain in what we had so foolishly believed to be a safe hiding-place. Nought else was to be done but to face the inevitable. Three times the red fire of a rifle belched angrily in our faces, and yet, by good fortune, neither of us was struck. Yet we knew too well that the intention of our pursuers was to kill us.

"Quick, Excellency! Fly! while there is yet time!" gasped the Finn, grasping my hand and half dragging me from the boat, while, I, in turn, placed Elma upon the bank.

"Hoida! This way! Swiftly!" cried our guide, and the three of us, heedless of the consequences, plunged forward into the impenetrable darkness, just as our fierce pursuers came alongside where we had only a moment ago been seated. They shouted wildly as they sprang to land after us, but our guide, who had been born and bred in these forests, knew well how to travel in a semi-circle, and how to conceal himself. It was a race for freedom—nay, for very life.

So dark that we could see before us hardly a foot, we were compelled to place our hands in front of us to avoid collision with the big tree trunks, while ever and anon we found ourselves entangled in the mass of dead creepers and vegetable parasites that formed the dense undergrowth. Around us on every side we heard the shouts and curses of our pursuers, while above the rest we heard an authoritative voice, evidently that of a sergeant of the guard, cry—

"Shoot the man, but spare the woman! The Colonel wants her back. Don't let her escape! We shall be well rewarded. So keep on, comrades! Mene edemmäski!"

But the trembling girl beside me heard nothing, and perhaps indeed it was best that she could not hear. My only fear was that our pursuers, of whom there now seemed to be a dozen, had extended, with the intention of encircling us. They, no doubt, knew every inch of that giant forest with its numerous bogs and marshes, and if they could not discover us would no doubt drive us into one or other of the bogs, where escape was impossible.

Our gallant guide, on the other hand, seemed to utterly disregard the danger and kept on, every now and then stretching out his hand and helping along the afflicted girl we had rescued from that living tomb. Headlong we went in a straight line, until suddenly we began to feel our feet sinking into the soft ground, and then the Finlander turned to the left, at right angles, and we found ourselves in a denser undergrowth, where in the darkness our hands and faces became badly scratched.

Another gun was fired as signal, echoing through the wood, but the sound came from the opposite direction to that we were traveling; therefore we hoped that we had eluded those whose earnest desire it was to capture us for the reward. Suddenly, however, a second gun, an answering signal, was fired from straight before us, and that revealed the truth. We were actually between the two parties, and they were closing in upon us! They had already driven us to the edge of the bog. The Finlander recognized our peril as quickly as I did, and halted.

"Let us turn straight back," he urged breathlessly. "We may yet elude them."

And then we again turned off at right angles, traveling as quickly as we were able back towards the lake shore. It was an exciting chase in the darkness, for we knew not whither we were going, nor into what pitfall or ravine or treacherous marsh we might fall. Once we saw afar through the trees the light of a lantern held by a guard, and already the sweet-faced girl beside me seemed tired and terribly fatigued. But we hurried on and on, striving to make no noise, and yet the crackling of wood beneath our feet seemed to us to sound like the noise of thunder.

At last, breathless, we halted to listen. We were already in sight of the gray mist where lay the silent lake that held so many secrets. There was not a sound. The guards had gone straight on, believing they had driven us into that deadly bog wherein, if we had entered, we must have been slowly sucked down and engulfed. They were surrounding it, no doubt, feeling certain of their prey.

But we crept along the water's edge, until in the gray light we could distinguish two empty boats—that of the guards and our own. We were again at the spot where we had disembarked.

"Let us row to the head of the lake," suggested the Finn. "We may then land and escape them." And a moment later we were all three in the guards' boat, rowing with all our might under the deep shadow of the bank northward, in the opposite direction to the town of Nystad.

We kept a sharp look-out for any other boat, but saw none. The signals ashore had attracted all the guards to that spot to join in the search, and now, having doubled back and again embarked, we were every moment increasing the distance between ourselves and our pursuers. I think we must have rowed several miles, for ere we landed again, upon a low, flat and barren shore, the first gray streak of day was showing in the east.

Elma noticed it, and kept her great brown eyes fixed upon it thoughtfully. It was the dawn for her—the dawn of a new life. Our eyes met; she smiled at me, and then gazed again eastward, full of silent meaning.

Having landed, we drew the boat up and concealed it in the undergrowth so that the guards, on searching, should not know the direction we had taken, and then we went straight on northward across the low-lying lands, to where the forest showed dark against the morning gray. The mist had now somewhat cleared, but the air was keen and frosty.

This wood, we found, was of tall high pines, where walking was not difficult, a wide wilderness of trees which, hour after hour, we traversed in the vain endeavor to find the rough path which our guide told us led for a hundred miles from Alavo down to Tammerfors, the manufacturing center of the country. But to discover a path in a forest forty miles wide is a matter of considerable difficulty, and for hours we wandered on and on, but alas! always in vain.

Faint and hungry, yet we still kept courage. Fortunately we found a little spring, and all three of us drank eagerly with our hands. But of food we had nothing, save a small piece of hard rye bread which the Finn had in his pocket, the remains of his evening meal; and this we gave to Elma, who, half famished, ate it quickly. We knew quite well that it would be an easy matter to die of starvation in that great trackless forest, therefore we kept on undaunted, while the yellow autumn sun struggled through the dark pines, glinting on the straight gray trunks and reflecting a golden light in that dead unbroken silence.

How many miles we trudged I have no idea. It was a consolation to know that we now had no pursuers, yet what fate lay before us we knew not. If we could only find that forest-road we might come across some wood-cutter's hut, where we could obtain rough food of some sort, yet our guide, used as he was to those enormous woods of central Finland, was utterly out of his bearings, and no mark of civilization attracted his quick, experienced eye. The light above gradually faded, and over a sharp stone Elma stumbled and ripped her shoe.

I looked at my watch, and found that it was already five o'clock. In an hour it would be dark, the beginning of the long northern night. Elma, who was weary and footsore, asked by signs to be permitted to lay down and rest. Therefore we gathered a bed of dried leaves for her, and she lay