Chapter XX · GWENNY'S PLAN.

If, even to save Gwenny Wedderburn, he broke his parole of honour and escaped, he knew that he should inevitably forfeit, at home, his position as an officer and gentleman for ever. If he withdrew it, that would be simply a warning to Galitzin that he meant flight, if he could achieve it; and to preclude that, he should be made a close prisoner, helpless to assist her, and probably sent away to the rear, like poor Newnham, who, exasperated by the brutality of his capture, had declined to give his parole at all in any way.

It was, every way, a horrible dilemma!

Could he by any means communicate with the officer commanding the nearest allied forces or outpost? He had by this time, however, ascertained that the Russian troops in Tchorgoun—that place which had proved so fatal to his destiny—the nearest point to Yaila, were very insignificant in number, though their position was strong, and connected with that held by their army along the whole line of heights between the Tchernaya and the Belbek.

He inquired for the Hospoza (i.e., Madame) Tegoborski, of the pretty Karaïte Jewess, who had, doubtless, received her full instructions beforehand, as she at once ushered him into the bare and chilly chamber which we have already described as the "drawing-room" of the Pulkovnick's lady, to which some additional ornaments had been added, in the shape of gildings washed up by the sea from the Ernescleugh yacht; and there Gwenny was seated alone, busy with some needlework, which she tossed aside, and hastened to receive him with a bright and tender smile.

They were alone, and were instantly hand in hand!

Ramornie could perceive with concern, that since he had last seen her, there was a change in her face, the result, doubtless, of the "worry" occasioned her by the absurd and obtrusive attentions of Galitzin and her separation from himself, when they had so much to say, so much to ask and to tell each other. She had become thinner; her large, dark, and finely-lidded eyes—usually so full of brilliant expression and emotional changes—looked dull and weary, till they caught some vivacity from his.

"Oh, Horace darling, how have you been enabled to visit me? I feared they were about to keep us for ever apart, those horrid people! Do they fear our conspiring, or what? Four whole days, Horace, and I have not even seen you!" she exclaimed.

"I have come at the suit of a lover of yours," said Ramornie, with a smile on his lip, but a stern expression in his eyes.

"Who? that odious Galitzin?" asked Gwenny, laughing.

"The same, darling. But this is no laughing matter for us—for you especially. I dare not tell you all that man has ventured to hint, and commissioned me to say."

"Well, I don't want to hear it. Pet Horace, sit beside me here, and talk to me; we shall speak of each other and not of him—the Russian toad!" and drawing closer to her lover, she nestled her sweet face in his neck; and yielding to the charm of the situation, they forgot all about Galitzin, and sat dreaming in silence, or talking of Willowdean and the Lammermuirs, of St. Abb's Head, and the wild sea shore, of scenes and places far away, of past times, their earlier emotions as they stole into their hearts, and of much more on which their listener—for they had one—could not enter.

"And Galitzin has been making you proposals?" said Horace, suddenly coming back to their present predicament.

"Yes, frequently; ridiculous, is it not?"

"And how do you receive them?

"I laugh; but there are times when I become angry. He is an absurd old creature; I loathe the sight of him, with his strange cruel smile, and sincerely hope that he won't come here to pester me with any more of his solemn, hard and deliberate love making, that has not one atom of softness or tenderness in it."

"Could I get pistols and an opportunity, I should blow the brains out of this middle-aged Russian cupid!" said Ramornie, in a low voice of concentrated passion.

"Oh fie, Horace; he cannot mean anything serious," said Gwenny, her eyes dilating with surprise at his quiet vehemence.

"Ah, my love, you know not the man or all he is capable of; unfortunately, I do. My letters informed you how infamously poor Cyril suffered at the hands of a Russian officer whom he was succouring, when we stormed the heights of the Alma."

"Yes."

"Well, that Russian officer, so wantonly ready with his pistol; the notorious spy so often found in our camp at Varna, and even in the trenches at Sebastopol—he who could so well act the part of a Frenchman, is Ivan Tegoborski the Prince Galitzin; but—but—did you not hear a noise?"

"Oh what is all this you tell me? A noise! no, I heard only the beating of my heart, dear, dear Horace."

"Poor little heart! It may have much to make it palpitate yet. If I had only some money for bribery. Oh, if Heaven would only give me the means——"

"Money, Horace, is the root of all evil, says the proverb; and but for the reputation of wealth, I should not be troubled by this Galitzin."

"True; but money is also the root of all good; for none can be done without it."

"How well he speaks English."

"Ah, and French too—the mouchard!"

To a certain extent he explained to her, the views, the wishes, but not the ulterior threats of Galitzin in case of her non-compliance; his tender love and her natural delicacy, made him shrink nervously from a hint so odious; but she fully understood and recognised all the danger of the position occupied by Horace and herself though she could not quite understand the difficulties.

On Horace Ramornie had rested all her hopes for weeks past; they must meet some time alone, she had thought, when they should have a careful conference and sudden flight together; though the chief obstacle seemed the want of money, a vehicle and horses. But when he set the latter wants before her, with the moral and military obligations enforced by his parole, the penalties of breaking it, the Cossacks' eyes that seemed constantly to watch him, and the chance of his transmission to Yekaterinoslav, her heart, so full of hope and fond anticipations, seemed to die within her.

And little thinking that they were watched by jealous eyes, they would frequently clasp each other's hands by the instinct of sudden affection, and sit thus for precious minutes in silence, gazing into each other's eyes that were full of tenderness and light.

When they did speak, it was fortunately in a tone that was low, and heard by themselves only.

"Good Heavens, darling!" said Gwenny, suddenly, "it cannot be that in this time of civilization and progress, as the newspapers call it, we have got into a scrape of the Middle Ages—an adventure worthy of some old castle on the Rhine!"

"I am afraid it looks deuced like it, Gwenny," replied Ramornie: "but oh, if the Allies would only take an airing this way, and knock the whole place to pieces! One Lancaster gun should do it in two hours! but they devote all their energies to Sebastopol, and never think of the petty outposts."

"And oh, Horace, if this man should take me away from you?" suggested Gwenny, in a really piteous tone.

"I would kill him in front of his men!" was the husky reply.

"And be bayonetted or shot instantly?"

"I ran those risks daily with the Fusileers, for no reason that I could see, Gwenny; but Heaven alone knows what you and I shall do!"

"And I had formed such a nice plan for our escape!" said she, mournfully.

"You, my pet love?"

"Yes," she sobbed.

"And your plan, darling, what was it?"

"Simply this—it involved a little horse stealing, however."

"Go on, Gwenny, go on."

"You know that Madame Tegoborski often drives me out, without any attendants, in her little phaeton, which is drawn by two Tartar ponies; and I thought that if you could contrive to meet us, unexpectedly as it were, a mile or so from this place, you might simply assume her seat and whip, and we should drive off together! She would soon give an alarm, of course——"

"Nay, I should tie the old hag hand and foot to a tree——"

"But oh, Horace, wolves might come!"

"Let them," said Ramornie, savagely. "Yours is an admirable plan, and I am astonished that it never occurred to me before; but it is woman's wit, and you have such a clever little head, darling. Then," he added, with a sigh, "there is my—parole!"

"Oh that weary parole!" exclaimed the girl, as her head and spirit drooped again; "it destroys our only plan, our sole remaining hope! This very evening we are to drive so far as the pine wood, on the road between those two great mountains with the fantastic names."

"The Tchatr Dagh and the Demirdji."

"Yes; you know it, then!"

"I have seen the wood from the gate; it lies some versts beyond the distance I am permitted to go from the glacis of Yaila."

"Can you not break this promise?" she whispered, imploringly, with her hands on his shoulders and her bright eyes looking imploringly into his.

"No, it is impossible; an officer's word once given thus is irrevocable!"

"Then I am in despair! Oh, Horace, Horace, what is to become of us? What is to become of me?" exclaimed the girl, in a passion of grief, as she flung herself upon his breast and clung to him, so full of her own and their mutual sorrow that she was quite unconscious of the door having opened and shut, and that Galitzin stood behind her with lowering, inquiring, and malevolent eye.

"You here, Monseigneur le Prince?" exclaimed Ramornie, indignantly, and not without alarm, as he tenderly deposited the half-fainting girl upon a sofa.

"Oui, ma foi!" replied the pale, unhealthy-looking Russian, with his detestable grin; "and what then? I was simply adopting the privilege of Le Diable Boiteux, and peeping in here."

"And, doubtless, you have overheard all?"

"I am sorry to say that I have not."

"How so?" asked Ramornie, greatly relieved.

"You spoke rather too low for that; but I can guess its interesting nature, as I have overseen all."

"Silence, for Heaven's sake, Prince Galitzin; do you not see that this young lady is almost fainting, and cannot even speak?"

"Ah, indeed!" replied Galitzin, scornfully. "'Silence adorns the sex,' says Sophocles; perhaps silence, seclusion, and sal-volatile, together with a glass of kimmel will be advantageous here. Have the goodness to see to this, Madame," he added, as the wife of Tegoborski entered, and with an exhibition of considerable agitation, the exact source of which it might be difficult to discover, seated herself by the side of Gwenny, while Galitzin, saying to Horace, "Follow me, Monsieur le Capitaine," led him into an adjoining room.

"Now, Monsieur, I must speak plainly," said Galitzin; "we understand each other perfectly, I believe. How often have I made love, as people say, St. Ivan Veliki alone knows; but this time I am in earnest—I have an additional incentive, and shall not be crossed by you. A turn of the wheel of fortune has thrown a golden opportunity in my way, and I shall not be such a fool, such an utter Asiatic, as to neglect it!"

Galitzin paused and breathed hard; for opposition to his wishes had begun to pique and inflame him; while, on the other hand, young Ramornie, proud and fiery by nature, inspired by all the genuine emotions of a gentleman and a free-born Briton, felt as if on the verge of madness, and yet had to be most guarded in all he said and did.

"Beware, Prince Galitzin," said he, as the drowning will cling to straws; "in proposing to marry this orphan girl, you, a foreigner, a stranger, one of a different religion——"

"Bah! you said all this before. What care I, though she were a Hindoo?"

"You promise yourself a month's amusement during the ennui of Yaila, forgetting that to her it may be the destruction of a life."

"You mistake me, my would-be Mentor. I promise myself the enjoyment of a fine fortune when the cannon of Cronstadt and the Kremlin announce peace to Europe. But by Heaven I don't understand you, or this tone of insolent advice that you have ventured to adopt!"

"She has trustees—if you understand what I say—and you may not be able to get at her fortune without their consent, even if you married her to-morrow," said Ramornie, quietly.

Galitzin seemed to be transported with rage by this new suggestion, for he felt the too probable truth of it.

"Vassili blajennoi!" he exclaimed; "this to me? Say as much more, and I would not give a copper kopec for your life!"

A bitter smile escaped Ramornie on hearing the pious invocation of a saint blended with a threat of violence against himself. For this man had no religion or real veneration for holy things; yet in his superstition or adherence to outward forms and to traditions of the Russian Greek Church, he would as soon have thought of pistolling himself as of sitting down to his dinner of green borsch and stuffed carrots without first bowing to the eikon; or of killing and eating one of the countless pigeons, which at, Yaila, as in every other Russian edifice are to be seen clustering in clouds over the roofs, belfries, and cupolas, and sitting in long rows like cornices along the eaves; for it is pre-eminently the holy bird of the Muscovites. On fast days he would not even look on butter or cream; but in place thereof, used plenty of oil for his ouka, or fish-soup of sterlet, or salmon cutlets, pleasantly boiled in vinegar and flour à la Russe.

"Do you actually threaten me, a prisoner, an unarmed man?" asked Ramornie, after a pause.

"I do; so beware, Monsieur le Capitaine, of what you are about. It is not known, I am almost sure, to the Allies that you are in our hands, as you stumbled among us amid the snow on that dark night march to Tchorgoun; and as yet I have never sent in your name to Prince Mentschicoff. Hence I might, without the slightest risk of being questioned, make as short work with you as I did with that fellow Chesters when on the march to this place. If inclined to be more merciful I could send you inland with a note—a mere note of a few words would do—which would ensure your safe transmission to Tobolsk or Irkutsk. The mines there, if not favourable for the lungs are admirable for the development of the muscles, and you have been getting fleshy in idleness, though having a thirty-two pound shot at one's heels is apt to cure one of all taste for dancing. Now we understand each other, I think?"

"And this is said to me within fifty miles of the British camp before Sebastopol?" said Horace, with crimsoned brow and sparkling eyes.

"Well, perhaps a few versts more or less."

"Such threats are alike ungenerous and outrageous!"

"I could hang you by the wrists from a tree with a cannon ball for one toe to rest on; and how should you like forty-eight hours of that without food or water?"

Even that threat was more than sufficient for Horace Ramornie!

"Enough," thought he; "I shall be at the pine wood this evening, and trust to Heaven and my own wit for the rest!"

"Take care how you trifle with me," said Galitzin, almost as if he understood or read what was passing in the mind of Ramornie. "You will wish yourselves among the graves of Inkerman, rather than here, if you bring my jealous vengeance on you."

Horace could scarcely understand to what all these threats tended, but drawing himself up and eyeing the Russian sternly he said, proudly and haughtily—

"I demand, Prince Galitzin, that you shall remember that I am a British officer on parole of honour, and in no way subject to you."

"A British officer—bah! I do not forget it. In three days we shall have a convoy proceeding to Yekaterinoslav. Prepare, Monsieur, to accompany it with your hands tied again to the mane of a Tartar pony if you are not marched there on foot!"

And, as Galitzin said this, he bowed and left the room.

"This again more than ever renders my parole null and void," said Horace, in a low and concentrated voice, in which passion and satisfaction were curiously mingled; "three days? now for Gwenny's plan of escape, and this very night too! Blessed be Heaven, that Muscovite rascal did not overhear her!"