Front matter (continued 5)

She bent over him and said:

"Yes. It ought to be bandaged. But how?

"Your handkerchiefs," said Ostap. But they remembered that they were filthy after the digging operations and feared to use one till they could rinse it out. Ian made up his mind that they must go back to the road.

"Yes," said his mother, willing enough now. "We'll never get along on these ghastly battle-fields."

So they started for the road, Ian carrying Father Constantine on his shoulders, regaining the highway by a little shrine, with an image of the Madonna. Many years before the Countess had put it there as a thanksgiving offering, when Ian recovered from an attack of scarlet fever. The peasants of the neighborhood used to say that it had miraculous powers to heal all sick children. So it was very popular with mothers of families.

"Who's there?" cried a familiar voice from the darkness.

"Your own people," answered they.

It was poor old Martin, who had been carried on in the general stampede; but he had grown very tired, and seeing the others were not amongst the mob, had the good sense to await them there, knowing they must pass the shrine on their way to safety. He had fallen asleep to find, on waking, that the moon was set and the night at its darkest.

"The others?" asked Ian. "Where are they?"

"Mother of God, they rushed on. They are mad with fear," he answered sadly. "Some fell and did not get up again. Old Vatsek, and somebody's child. The road is hard, being strewn with rubbish, what the other fugitives and soldiers have left for lack of strength."

"Seen any horses, or carts?" asked Ostap.

"Dead ones, under the moon ... they lie as they dropped, in the shafts."

"Far?"

"A quarter of a verst."

Ostap and Ian, leaving Martin with the others, went off to look for a cart. They wanted to get the side of one for Father Constantine. It would be better for him than carrying him on their backs. They had to grope about for some time, because it was the moment before dawn when night is darkest, when neither moon nor the streaks of coming day help you, when the air strikes chill to the very marrow and the heart has least courage. They finally found what they wanted by the smell of decomposing horseflesh, which guided them to a peasant's cart. They broke off one side of it, and took, too, some straw they found at the bottom. When they went back to the others the Father was talking.

"Go on," he argued. "Leave me.... I have God.... I shall not be alone."

And he said this more than once before he reached the end of his journey.

Ian managed to find a warm cover, too, and they made him as comfortable as they could. Then they ate some bread and cheese, saving the tinned meat for the morning. There was a spring near this spot, so they drank water and bathed their faces. As well as they could in the dark they washed out Ian's handkerchief--the largest--and bound up the sick man's head. The cold, damp linen revived him.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"Going to Warsaw."

"Where is my diary?"

They knew he used to keep one and did not like to tell him it was under Ruvno's ruins. So they said nothing.

"Please give it me. I want it," he urged feebly.

"What does he want?" asked Ostap.

Ian told him.

"I remember," said the Cossack, "he did take two books out of his skirt pocket, there under the moon when you were digging up the treasure. He put them in his nose-bag." He slung it off his back, drew out the two books and handed them to the sick man, who eagerly clutched at them.

"Ian," he said, "come here." When his patron obeyed he gave him the two little books, bound in black oilcloth, such as children write their copies in.

"Keep them," he said with an effort. "Have them published. People must know what Poland endures."

"I will," said Ian, putting them in his knapsack.

"Have you them safe?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Now, give me the little Crucifix. It is in the nose-bag that Cossack brought us."

They did so. He clasped it tight and pressed it to his lips. It seemed to give him strength. "I'll keep it to the end--of my journey," he said. "Countess, forgive me, all forgive me, for adding to your burden with my infirmities."

All tried to reassure him, and he spoke no more for a long time. They knew he suffered much. His head and hands burned with the fever that was consuming him.

They started off again.

Ostap was right about the road being easier. But it was even more horrible than the fields. In spite of debris, bits of soldiers' accoutrements and stiff, silent noisome forms scattered in their path, there was no comparison between it and barbed wire or trenches, so far as walking went. They walked for another hour, Martin taking short turns with one end of the stretcher whilst either Ostap or Ian rested their arms. They trudged steadily on, knowing that every step took them nearer Warsaw, further from the Prussians. Ostap and Ian, with the litter, took the side of the road, for the middle, cut with a year's war traffic, was no better than a plowed field. The three women walked near, to do the little that was possible for the patient. Martin walked by Ian, to tell him what he saw and heard with the fleeing villagers. Ian told him how Ruvno ended. They spoke low because of the Father; instinctively--but heavy guns would not have aroused him from his delirious torpor.

As dawn came on, painting the sky with gray and purple and the breeze grew less chill, Ian could see more and more plainly the desolation that lay around. Not a living creature did they meet. But the dead were many. The few surviving trees were bare as in a January frost; the roadside and neighboring fields, strewn, not only with every kind of garment, every simple article of a peasant's cottage, but with costly things which must have been a soldier's loot, with the soldier's mortal remains; and with their knapsacks, caps, ragged boots and bits of kit. Dead horses were many, too; and dead peasants, of both sexes and every age, were not a few. And he passed near by these things, flotsam and jetsam of war, passed dead hamlets, where only ruins remained, and one dead mother he saw, her new-born child near by, and dead, too. He hoped the others had not noticed, for it was the most terrible sight of all. And as the dawn spread he could see the distant fields with the burnt corn, the trenches full of horrid sights and an army's rubbish, burnt trees, wire twisted as by gigantic hands; ruined crops, ruined homes, broken lives and perished hopes.... And this was all they had left of Poland.

And when his weary eyes turned from the misery around and fell upon his dear ones, he saw how fitted they were to travel the road of death and despair.

The three women, dainty all their lives, were ragged, dirty, disheveled, their thin frocks covered with horse-blankets which were stained with blood. What did the future hold for those brave souls? He preferred not to think of that, and turned to look at Ostap, black with dirt and tan, coatless, his arms far too long for the Prussian's jersey, his feet bare and bleeding, for the boots proved too tight and he had cast them aside, his long hair wild and dusty, his nose swollen, a scar across his face; he looked as ferocious a member of an army as you could ever fear to meet. Martin had aged twenty years since he served supper the night before; he limped along painfully, his house-boots worn through with the rough tramp. Happily, the women were sensibly shod, having put on their strongest boots for yesterday's field work.

Looking on Father Constantine's ashen face, Ian knew his hours were numbered. The seal of death was on it. The thin hands which had clasped the crucifix so eagerly a little while back were clutching at the rags with which they had covered him....

The forlorn party took stock of each other furtively for some time. Then their eyes met; and they smiled.

"It is war," said Ostap. And, noting their low spirits, he did the best to cheer them with the humorous side of his year's campaign. It made them forget how dirty they looked, helped them to grow accustomed to their new selves, perhaps. Now that the light was good, Ian noticed that the Cossack's dark eyes were intelligent and merry. He had that contempt for death which enabled the retreating Russians to make ramparts of their bodies when ammunition failed. He gave them unwittingly a grim story of crippled men, muddled orders, peculation and pilfering; with that childlike literalness which is wholly Russian and the dash of fatality which stiffens courage, and makes men patient under pain....

They made a wide detour before reaching Kosczielna, fearing to run into the Prussians again, and none wished for that. No sounds came from its ruins; but many gray forms showed how well that Russian sapper, in Ruvno church did his signaling. The fugitives had planned to rest awhile near the little town; but the place was so horrible that they hurried on, quickening their pace, to leave the orgy of death behind, though death went with them step by step.

At Vulki they made a halt. Here there were signs of life, the first since they left home, though the village had been destroyed. But they found that a dozen or so of Ruvno peasants had halted there, and were cooking a few potatoes they dragged from its wreckage. Baranski, whom they had chosen as leader, saw the little procession and hurried to meet it.

"Oh--my Lady Countess," he cried, kissing her hand, "to think you have come to this plight, and the young ladies, too, and you, my lord Count, and the Father--oh, if I could only help you. But there is nothing here. Some of ours have started back to Ruvno over the fields. They hope to creep back into the village unseen by the Prussians and pretend they never left. The sight of all this misery is too much for them. They fear they will die like dogs if they go any further."

"And those people?" asked Ian, indicating the group round the fire.

"Most of them meant to stop here. The native peasants have fled. Those are too tired, they say, to go back or go on."

"Have you a watch?"

"Yes." Baranski pulled out a silver timepiece. "It is ten past five."

Ian looked at his little group.

"We can't reach that camp before one. It's only ten versts from Sohaczev."

"We had better rest," said his mother, and he saw she could not walk much further without sleep.

"Baranski, do you wake us in two hours."

"Yes. And I'll look to the poor Father here," he said. He was a loyal old peasant and heartbroken to think of the tribulation that had come upon them all. He found a mattress in a ruined cottage for Father Constantine, and searched vainly for some refreshment for them. They all slept heavily, except the invalid, till he woke them, at seven o'clock.

"And what are you going to do?" asked the Countess, when they told him and the other peasants their own plans.

"Some of us go back. We have buried our grain where the Prussians won't think to look for it," he explained to Ian in a confidential whisper, as though von Senborn himself were within earshot. "I have no liking for the road, or a tramp through Russia. They can't take my good earth away and where shall I find soil to bear like Ruvno fields?"

Six went with Ian. They had sons fighting with the Russians and did not want to be cut off from all communication with them. Ostap did not like this addition to the party till one of them returned from the far end of the village with a lean-looking but sound horse and found a cart for it. He had grown very tired of carrying the litter. They placed Father Constantine in the cart and started off, taking a sad farewell of those who remained behind....

Sore-footed, sore-hearted, faint for the lack of food, they went slowly on, through the same scenes of desolation and death, halting every half-hour for a few minutes, scarcely daring to do so, but sure of breaking down before reaching their goal unless they did. The road was very bad now; Ian and the other men often had to clear the way of the human and other wreckage which stopped the cart's passage. They spoke little. Each wrapped in his own thoughts, listened to Father Constantine's delirium. He, who had helped so many souls through the Valley of Death, must pass it unshriven.

At midday they halted again; they had not reached the camp of which Ostap spoke. The Father's frail body was making a desperate effort to retain his fleeting soul. Vanda, who had watched so many die of late, said the end was near. The peasants came up to the cart and joined in their prayers. They wept, for all loved the kind, simple old man who had taught them what they knew of God and letters.

He opened his eyes, making a feeble sign that he wanted to speak. Ian bent over to catch his words.

"Go on--" he faltered. "I'm not alone...."

And thus he died. With tears they folded his hands over the little malachite crucifix, the one relic of home. The Countess covered his thin, withered face, so peaceful in its long sleep, with a peasant woman's kerchief. Then they urged on the tired horse and their own weary limbs, the women praying for his soul as they staggered on, because retreating armies wait not and their one hope now lay in escaping the Prussians. They had no food left; every scrap of the bread, stained with the blood of those who held it in the Ruvno canteen, had gone. And strength was fast failing them.

XVIII

At last, however, they saw signs of life. A train whistle told them they were near a railroad and they passed a group of soldiers who were firing two large hay stacks.

"The camp, thank God!" cried Ostap, and they all quickened their steps.

The place had been made by the war and for the war. There were no peasants' cottages, no farm buildings. There were rows and rows of wooden huts where troops in repose had passed their time; there was a wooden church with the onion-shaped dome which pertains to Russian temples; there were gardens in which the men had grown cabbages for their soup and a few flowers, especially sunflowers, for they liked to eat the seeds. There were tents and hospitals, magazines, guns and aeroplanes. Above all, there was great confusion. Most of the troops had left and ambulances, carts, trains, motor-lorries, anything upon wheels the Russians could find, were being packed with the sick and wounded.

Leaving the others at the upper end of the camp, Ostap and Ian set forth to seek the commanding officer. It took them some time because nobody knew anything about him, and nobody cared whether they were refugees in distress or what they were. The whole mental force of the place was concentrated upon getting away as many sick and wounded as possible before the Prussians came in and seized them. After half an hour's search, however, Ian found his man. He was standing by a large hospital tent, ticking off entries from a notebook. Judging from his looks, he had neither slept nor washed for some days. At any other time Ian would have refrained from interrupting a man with that stamp of haggard determination on his face. But his own plight was desperate. He told his story as briefly as possible and asked for help to get his women to Warsaw before the Russians left there.

When the man heard the word "help" he looked up in irate surprise.

"Do you know how many wounded I've got on my hands here?" he asked.

"I can't say----"

"Three thousand of ours--a thousand Germans. I've had four thousand to get off since the night before last. The Grand Duke with his staff leaves Warsaw this evening. You know what that means?"

Two men brought a stretcher from a tent. Its occupant's face was black; he fought desperately for breath. The officer asked the bearers curt questions, made notes, signed to them to pass on. Then he turned to Ian.

"Gas. That man's regiment has lost three thousand by it, to my knowledge. That gives you an idea of our work here. Help! How can I help?"

"I'm sorry," said Ian quietly, but with that air of authority he had learned in ruling Ruvno. "But I've a right to your help. My home has been blown to bits because you left a signaler bricked up in my church-tower. I know the Grand Duke will approve of anything you can do for me. If you've German wounded you can surely let some of them wait here for their friends and send my womenfolk to Warsaw in their places."

"I've no orders to help refugees," he returned sullenly.

"I'm a personal friend of the Grand Duke's."

"He has so many friends."

He was ticking off names from his list and asking the bearers questions during this conversation, which took some time.

"My time is precious, too," argued Ian. "I'll bury my chaplain and come back to you then. In the meantime you can perhaps think of some way to help me."

The officer pointed to a motor-lorry which was passing them on its way out of the camp. It was packed full of ghastly-looking men.

"There's your answer. How can I help with this Hell going on day and night?" he exclaimed irritably.

"Give me two horses and a peasant's cart."

"There are none."

"Then a pass for a train ... room on the roof will do."

His face softened now. He thought he was to get rid of this importunate civilian.

"A capital idea. But I can't give you the pass. It's not my job. The officer who can is over there."

He pointed towards the station. "Go to him. Say I sent you. Nicolai Petrovich Ketov is my name. Good luck!" and he hurried into the tent.

On his way to the station Ian met Ostap.

"The devil take this hole!" he cried by way of greeting. "Not a horse to be found. Nor a cart. Nothing but bad temper and confusion." Then, when he heard the other's experience:

"Ketov. Don't know the name ... a Little Russian, I expect. But you can see all these officers are too busy to bother with us. I'll try humbler folk. Never mind. Do you go bury your priest. Meanwhile, give me your card, if you have one about you and write down the number of your followers and your quest upon it. Have you any money? That is always useful."

"Yes." Lately, he had been in the habit of carrying about all the ready money he possessed in case of an emergency like this. But he did not tell the Cossack he had enough to keep his little family for a few weeks, till he could sell the family jewels. In silence he pulled out a couple of hundred roubles, produced a card, and a note which he had had from the Grand Duke a week before.

"I'll not take the money, because we don't pay for any conveyance we may get till we're all in it. But I'll take that note. It may help us to get the conveyance," said Ostap.

He went off, whistling, and Ian sought the others. He found they had been more fortunate, for they had made friends with old Princess Orsov, better known in Petrograd and Moscow as Vera Petrovna. And she had heard of the Countess, first from hearsay; then, more fully, from the Grand Duke, for she was a personal friend of the imperial family.

She listened in silence to the Countess' story, her bright, Tatar eyes taking in every detail of that tired, well-bred face and the torn clothes, never made for tramping over battlefields. She took a fancy to the Polish woman at once, admired her courage and her determination. When the tale was told she made the three women go into a little pinewood hut which stood by the roadside, and managed to get them some hot coffee in a remarkably short time, considering the confusion.

"You shall have a dinner when it is ready," she said, speaking the purest French. "I'll help you to get off by hook or crook. But we are hard pressed here to find room for your wounded. Wait a moment I'll go and talk to my head nurse." And she hurried out, leaning on her stick.

"How clean this is!" sighed Vanda, looking round the cell-like place. "I wonder if she'll give us some soap and water, as well as a dinner. I seem to want it more than food."

"She'll give us everything," said Minnie cheerfully. "She is the good fairy who always turns up, even in real life, when things look blackest. No, Countess?"

The Countess did not hear. She was thinking of the life they had left behind and wondered what the future held in store. And she thought of her faithful old friend, the chaplain, now lying in peace after his long journey and envied him, till she remembered that her boy wanted her and this thought gave comfort.

In a few minutes the Princess came back.

"We're so packed that you couldn't put a bayonet between the men," she said in her brisk way. "But I can take you three ladies on my hospital train if you don't mind wearing white aprons and veils."

"I am most grateful to you," said the Countess. "If you will take these two girls for me, it will be a great load off my mind."

"But you?"

"I'll do what my son does. I've known so many cases of families being separated and not finding each other for months together. And I don't think I could bear the anxiety of that."

Vera Petrovna laughed.

"That is when people have to tramp the roads by night," she argued. "Your son can get on a troop train, by hook or by crook. On the roof, or with the stoker. It's nothing for a man."

"But the train he gets on might not go to Warsaw," objected the Countess. "And where should I find him with all the telegraphic communication stopped?"

"I sha'n't leave you," said Vanda.

"Nor I," added Minnie.

The old Russian was rather puzzled at this. But Ian came to the rescue. He looked on the matter in a far more practical light.

"It's the greatest piece of luck you could have," he said. "I can't tell you, Princess, how grateful I am. I've not been able ever to get anybody to listen to my request for a seat on the roof of a train, even. But I can tramp it. And I'll do it all the better when I know you're all safe."

"You can't help going to Warsaw," said the Princess. "You can arrange that whoever gets there first waits for the rest of the party.

"I wonder what the chances of getting from Warsaw to Petrograd or even Kiev are?" Ian asked her. This had been worrying him a good deal. He did not want to be left in Warsaw, unable to realize his valuables.

The Princess blinked her narrow eyes at him and tapped her stick on the floor. It was the same ebony stick whose knob was an enormous emerald set in pearls which she used in peace days. It was her one vanity. But in order to preserve the stones from scratches and dirt she had a lot of little washleather caps made for the knob which were changed and washed as soon as they showed the need for it. For many months now this wonderful old woman, remnant of a type which the revolution has probably swept away forever, whose friends of youth had passed away, who stood alone in her memories, had been living between her hospital-train and her Petrograd palace, turned into a hospital, too. With that independence characteristic of her House she refused to have anything to do with the Russian Red Cross, supplied her own train, nurses, surgeons and requisities, her own engine-drivers, her own locomotives, and wood from her own forests to heat the train and make it go. The food came from her own estates, the civilian aid from her own circle of friends and acquaintances. In fact, she supplied everything but the patients and they never lacked, for Vera Petrovna's train and hospital soon won for themselves renown for comfort and good nursing that the wounded clamored to be taken there. Ian watched her as she stood, near his mother's chair, evidently revolving some plan in her shrewd old head. He, too, had heard of her, of her wealth and imperiousness, her kind heart and open hand. He reflected, little bitterly, that her fortune was safe, because her immense forests in Central Asia and her hunting grounds in Siberia, wherein you could have put Ruvno and lost it, where trappers caught sables and marten for the world's women, lay well beyond the invaders' grasp. He could not foresee her terrible end, which she met with fortitude; little guessed that her palace in Petrograd would be broken into by Lenine's mob, looted and burnt; that her old body would be thrown into the nearest canal after the life had been strangled out of it. All he saw now was a very energetic and prosperous member of the Russian aristocracy, a woman who could afford to laugh at the German advance because her native land was intact.

"Count," she said, addressing him because she had all her life preferred to deal with men.... "I have a proposal."

"Yes?"

"Will you allow me to take these ladies in my train to Petrograd? We go straight through."

"Straight through? But the difference in the gauge of the rails?"

She gave him a wink.

"That's a Russian bureaucratic legend," she returned. "I have a contrivance they put on the wheels, and all gauges are alike. The Germans have it, too, you may be sure, all ready to run their trains right up to Vilna. But to business. It's far better for you, Countess, and you, young ladies, to come straight up to safety with me than to risk being left in Warsaw. Who knows if you will get seats in a train or motor-car now?"

"It's very kind of you," said Ian, glancing at his mother, "But----"

"No buts," retorted Vera Petrovna. "You're going to say we were complete strangers a few minutes ago. That's true. But in times like these one makes friends or enemies very fast. Oh, I've heard of all you've done for wounded Russians at Ruvno," she went on, giving the Countess one of her shrewd looks. "And it would be a great honor for me to show you that we Russians are not like our government, that we wish to be Poland's friend and help her brave sons and daughters, who have borne the brunt of this awful war."

"Oh, how nice to hear you say that," exclaimed Vanda.

"I mean it. But let us arrange this. You, Count, can join your little family at my house in Petrograd. If you've never been there, all you have to do is to ask for the Orsov Palace. Every street-urchin knows it. Now, I must leave you for a moment. So much to do! Do you wait here till a bath and dinner are ready."

Then the others held a family council and persuaded the Countess to accept Vera Petrovna's offer. Later on, if they decided to stop in Petrograd they might find a furnished apartment, but it would be a great thing, Ian argued, for him to know they were in safe hands till he joined them. He gave his mother half his store of money and many promises to use every means to join her as soon as he could. He meant to stop in Warsaw and see what had become of the hardware factory which had been making field-kitchens for the army. But he kept this to himself, knowing his womenfolk would only worry about him the more, lest he fell into the Germans' hands. They all had lively recollections of that Prussian cavalryman who was so interested in the family emeralds, and whom he told a lie to. The Countess still had scruples about letting him go off alone.

"I shouldn't mind if I felt sure you wouldn't have to tramp all the way to Russia," she said, as she reluctantly took the money.

"But I sha'n't tramp, even to Sohaczev," he said confidently. "I'm sure to get on some kind of a train. And it will be like getting rid of a millstone round my neck to know you're all going in safety and comparative comfort." He lowered his voice. "Vera Petrovna's friendship will be a most valuable thing for us in Petrograd. And she's just as charming an old woman as everybody said she was."

There came a loud rap at the door.

"Bath!" exclaimed Vanda. "Come in!"

To their surprise, it was Major Healy, as large as ever and now very sunburnt into the bargain. He looked at them for a moment, took in the situation in his rather slow, very sympathetic way and said:

"Well, I'm glad to see you safe. I've been horribly worried about you these days. I was going off to Ruvno." He glanced at Minnie, who flushed, partly with pleasure at seeing him, partly with annoyance at her unkempt appearance.

They told him their story. He listened gravely, putting in a nod or a slow, heavy gesture now and again.

"I feared it," he remarked, when they had done. "When the Princess told me Lipniki had been bombarded I knew what that must mean for Ruvno. I was going to push on there this afternoon and get your news. As you're here, I'm back to Warsaw. I've distributed all my relief. There's room in my side-car for one. Which of you is coming?"

"Oh!" said the Countess, and looked at her boy.

"I've some peasant women," said he.

Healy laughed and shook his head.

"I can only take one, and a light one. I'm a heavy-weight and the road is awful."

"They can draw lots," said Ian. "The others will have to shift with us men."

He saw Healy was not over eager to take peasants, and determined he should. They were still discussing it when Vera Petrovna sent word by a nurse that the bathroom in the train was ready for them and that there would be a hasty dinner in half an hour.

The women hurried out. Healy offered Ian a cigarette and lighted one for himself. Then, in his pondering way, he began.

"Count, we've not seen each other as much as I'd like, but I believe we're friends."

"We are," agreed Ian heartily. "And you've been a good friend to my country, too."

"Well, I've only done my duty and not half as much as I'd like," said the American giant, sitting on the camp bed, which creaked plaintively under his weight. "But for the moment I want to talk to you about my private affairs." He looked round the log hut and through the little window to the hospital beyond. "It seems an unsuitable time and place for me to worry you, when you've been torn up, root and stock. I appreciate your troubles, but I've no choice but to worry you a moment with my own affairs."

"By all means. We part soon, and you never know how long it'll be before----"

"Exactly. You've hit the spot, Count, I may as well say, without any more beating about the bush, that I'm interested in Miss Minnie Burton."

"Ah!"

"Deeply interested. I suppose she told you that we saw quite a little of each other when she was in Warsaw during that December advance."

"Oh, yes," said Ian, putting politeness before veracity.

"My interest has grown, deepened, since then. She's a real fine girl, is Miss Minnie Burton, and comes of a fine old stock. I want to marry her." Here his honest eyes met his friend's and his honest, broad face became redder than ever. "And I want to shoot her out of this danger in my trailer."

"As to marrying her, I'm not her guardian," said Ian. "Her brother----"

"On the high seas. And can't give opinions, one way or the other right here."

"I doubt if you'd find a parson to marry you just now," said Ian, who had exaggerated ideas of American impatience.

"Good God! I wasn't thinking of marrying her this minute. Nor in this Hell of a place. I guess there'll be time enough for the ceremony in Petrograd. I'd like the wedding to be from Princess Orsov's palace."

"Oh, does she know of your--your----"

"No. But she will. And she's just as cordial to yours truly as she can be. What I want is your countenance to my taking Miss Burton on my side-car. There are a few points I want to fix up with her. I guess we'll have plenty of time to talk on the way to Warsaw."

"But Warsaw isn't Petrograd," objected Ian. "I think she'll be far safer in Vera Petrovna's train. I'm responsible for her, you know, till you--till you get the family's consent to the match."

Healy laughed. The idea of family consent appeared to Ian to amuse him greatly.

"She's of age. And family consent be darned if she's willing, which I'm nearly sure she is. As to responsibility, I'd not like to have her get into any unpleasantness with that brother of hers. But she needn't worry. I'll get her safe to Petrograd as soon as the Princess could. And sooner, maybe. I know how they shunt those trains into sidings. We've got a fine touring car waiting in Warsaw and enough petrol to take us to Vladivostock. In fact, I'd be glad to give you a seat in it if you can get there in time for us to start fair of the Germans."

"Thanks very much."

"And then you'd do the chaperon, and that brother couldn't say anything. Now, then, can I take her on my trailer?"

"Yes. If she likes to go. But you'd better arrange with the Princess about taking a peasant woman in her place. I'm getting so many favors from her as it is, I can't ask for any more."

"That I will."

Ian got up.

"I'll leave you to do it. I've some things to see about." And he sought Ostap, to arrange with him about Father Constantine's funeral immediately after a hasty meal.

He was glad that Healy and Minnie were going to marry. It relieved him of any further responsibility and would certainly put an end to maternal hints about the advisability of settling down with her as wife. He did not want to settle down. He meant to go and fight as soon as he had put his mother in some secure corner and provided her with enough money to live upon.

They buried Father Constantine just as he died, in his dusty alpaca soutane, his hands folded over die malachite Crucifix. They laid him in the cemetery behind a group of tents which formed the camp hospital, amongst Russian soldiers, digging his grave with a spade Ostap managed to pick up somewhere. Several other hasty funerals were going on and nobody paid the least attention to him. They could find no wood to make a rough cross; but there was some ivy near and Vanda twisted that into one, putting it over the newly-turned sods. They could not even write his name--so left him, unrecorded, and in peace. They had not gone far towards the station when a messenger met them to say that the hospital-train was ready to start. Ostap ran up, too. He had good news.

"It's nearly settled for you and your peasants," he said to Ian. "The transport officer asks for you."

Ian hurried off, leaving the Countess and Vanda to go to the train under Ostap's guidance and found the officer in question checking figures on a bit of paper. He was as weary and worried as the first one had been. But he seemed to want men.

"Five hundred unwounded Germans leave at once," he said hurriedly. "You and your peasants take charge of some trucks. The first train to leave. We are short."

"I accept with pleasure."

"Good. Go with your peasants; for you'll be wanted in a moment."

"My peasants are here. I'll just go and say good-bye to my womenfolk."

He ran up to the Orsov train which stood at one end of the primitive station, ready to start. Ropes had been tied over the roof and down the sides of the coaches; to these clung men with bandaged heads and feet. The Princess met him.

"They are down here," she said. Then, seeing him look at the crowded roof. "You are wondering how all these men are going to hold on till we reach Petrograd. But you know what happens. We shall be shunted into sidings for hours and then they can rest. Some will be back in their regiments before a month. The bad cases are all inside."

She led the way through a crowd of soldiers, prisoners and stretcher-bearers towards the head of her train. His mother and Vanda stood there, with Minnie and the American. Ian noticed two of his peasant women on the steps of a coach as they passed.

"Why, have you taken them, too?" he asked. "You're simply wonderful."

"A nurse is ill--typhoid, I fear. So a peasant goes to do her work. Your mother tells me she has had some experience. The other goes in the English girl's place." Her narrow eyes twinkled. "She's off with Healy. These Americans make me laugh. They do things nobody in Russia would do and with impunity, too."

"Yes. But he's a good fellow."

"Excellent. But you'll see he'll make me have the wedding in my house, busy as I am."

"I shouldn't wonder," returned Ian.

He said his good-byes, with many injunctions to his dear ones not to leave the Orsov palace till he fetched them. Vanda's soft eyes rested on his and their look was an embrace.

"God bless you," he said, kissing her hand.

"And you," she returned in low tones. "Listen. There is a man here who is in Joseph's regiment."

"Have you spoken to him?"

"No. But the Princess says he told her the name of his captain. He has gone on to Warsaw. The regiment, he says, must be there by now. Will you?----"

"Yes, I'll find out. And tell him you are safe."

Then he thanked the Princess who returned his hand-kiss in true Russian fashion, with a salute on his forehead.

"God with you," she said in her native tongue. "It's more hearty in Russian than in French." She knew the Polish dislike for the language of the bureaucrats and government who had oppressed them for generations. "Your little family is safe with me." Then in French: "I'm your friend, Count, and sha'n't forget you."

A moment later he had helped her into the train, which left. He had to hurry back to his own. Healy and Minnie had disappeared.

The Germans were packed into cattle-trucks without roofs or benches. Over each truck were two sentry boxes, at either end, facing one another. Each of the guards had a rifle, taken from the Germans. But there was no ammunition. A weary-looking subaltern came up as they were getting settled and told them to use bayonet and butt if their charges gave any trouble.

Ian's peasants were distributed amongst the Russian sentries. He was with Ostap opposite him, Germans packed like cattle in between. Martin formed the subject of heated talk with the subaltern.

"He has no more strength than a cat," grumbled the Russian. "You can't take him on this train."

"Very well," retorted Ian, furious. "If you send him off the train we all go. I'll tramp to Warsaw, but I won't leave him."

"He's neither so old nor weak as he looks," put in Ostap. "I'll answer for him to do his work here."

"You won't answer for prisoners getting loose," retorted the subaltern. However, Martin was finally put with the engine-driver. He sat on the floor by the wood-chest and slept for ten hours, without feeling or hearing anything, though people came and went and he found somebody's dog fast asleep on his chest when he awoke.

It seemed as though they would never start. Several times the word was given, only to be rescinded. Many human odds and ends of a military camp arrived, apparently from nowhere, and demanded to be allowed standing-room amongst the prisoners. The weary subaltern protested and swore but all applicants seemed to find places. Before they left two empty trains came up from Warsaw to take wounded. Ian noticed they were roped like the Orsov train. In a remarkably short time they were packed, inside and out, with sick and wounded whom Nicolai Petrovitch Ketov was striving to get off before the Germans came. He was an amiable lawyer in private life, with a passion for music and a speculative mind. Ian had the satisfaction of hearing later on that he left neither man, woman nor child behind at the camp, that he saw everything was burnt that the troops could not carry away and that he even made the grain uneatable by pouring petrol over it.

The delay fretted Ian, for he was in a good deal of pain from his broken ribs and feverish as well, suffering agonies of thirst. He had a hasty visit from Minnie and Healy, who came up as near as they could to shout him good-bye.

"We're off," said she. "I wish you were looking more comfortable."

"Oh, I'm all right. I forgot to get some water, that's all."

Healy went off and brought a bottle full. And he insisted on Ian's taking a packet of cigarettes.

"I'll reach Warsaw before you," he urged. "So do take them all. I'll keep the car there as long as I dare. Look me up at the American Consulate. You know where it is?"

"No. But I can find out."

"Good. Mind, your seat will be kept till we start."

"When is that?"

"When the Grand Duke leaves. They say here he leaves to-night. But I don't believe it. And I'm not going to forget Poland. When I've got more stores I'm coming back again."

He watched them go off in a cloud of dust. They had luck with love, he reflected. They would get on very well together. He knew Healy was well off, and Minnie had a little fortune of her own. And they would spend it wisely, helping those poorer than themselves. He had no hope of marrying Vanda. Joseph was well and safe. He ought to have been glad of it, he knew. But he hated his cousin bitterly, all the more bitterly as ruin closed around him and years of exile filled his tired vision. Very likely he would get killed before his rival.

Ostap was very cheerful. After telling the prisoners what they were to expect if they tried any nonsense he shared his last cigarette with one of them. Ian seemed to hear his voice all the time. It broke into his sorrowful meditations and sometimes got mixed up with them, for the fever made him rather muddle-headed.

"We haven't ammunition," Ostap said. "But we use the knife instead. There were hundreds of you in that camp wounded with our bayonets. All ours are wounded with shells and shrapnel because you are afraid to come too close."

"We have enough ammunition to beat the world," put in a thick German voice; it belonged to one who had been a clerk in Moscow.

"Perhaps," agreed Ostap. "But we have more men and don't care if we die or not. That will beat the people who beat the world, in the end."

Thus the talk went on. Ian dozed on his perch, wondering at last who was beating the world and where the ammunition came from. And just before sunset they arrived at Sohaczev.

XIX

Here, a rough surprise awaited them. They were bundled off the train without ceremony by a transport officer, whose temper was so bad that the memory of Nicolai Petrovitch Ketov was pleasant in comparison.

"Off with you!" he shouted. "We're not going to a party. This is war."

"But we were put in charge of this train by the transport officer at the last camp," protested Ostap.

"The devil take the train. I've got wounded to send off."

"Then what are we to do?" asked Ian.

"Hang yourselves," was the polite reply and the officer turned on his heel.

The fugitives, standing in an indignant little group on the platform, hustled by the many passers-by, turned to Ostap. He was a soldier and ought to help them out of their new predicament.

"What next?" asked Ian, voicing the thought of his followers.

"God knows." He looked round at the multitude of races who jostled and cursed and shouted and implored. "If only I could see a Cossack I might get some information. But all the tribes of the Empire seem to be here except ours."

"Look! They're marching off our German prisoners," cried Dulski, the Ruvno village blacksmith, a huge, good-natured man, whose three sons were fighting, and whose wife had gone on Vera Petrovna's train. "They must be going to Warsaw. If we follow them we can't go astray."

"On foot!" exclaimed Ostap. "Not if I know it. And you, Count!"

"I'd rather tramp than be left here, but I think we ought to try and get a lift first. I know this town and may find a Jew who will sell us something to go in." He turned to the peasants: "Don't any of you move from the station till I tell you. Here's money to buy food." He handed Dulski a twenty-rouble note and was off in search of a horse and cart.

First, however, they tried to get some information from the station-master about possible trains to Warsaw. But they might as well have talked to the moon, for all the answer they could get.

"Let us go outside," said Ian after wasting precious time in their vain quest for information. "If there are any Jews with a horse and cart to sell we shall find them there."

The precincts of the station were as crowded as the camp had been. But they found, on talking to the loiterers, that most of the citizens had decided to stay where they were. Ian noticed a prosperous horse-dealer of the race of Israel, in a new alpaca halat and a pair of very shiny top-boots.

"There's our man," he said in relief. "If there's a bit of horseflesh left in the place Hermann has got it to sell."

Hermann met their request with florid expressions of sympathy and devotion. With tears in his eyes he swore he could not provide a lift.

"There's not a beast on four legs left within twenty versts or more," he said regretfully. "What with the army and the refugees we're as bare as that." And thrusting out the palm of one fat hand he pointed to it with the other.

Ian turned to his companion.

"There's nothing for us but to tramp it," he said sadly.

The horse-dealer shot out his arms in unaffected horror. In eastern Europe only the poor go on foot. Bad roads and good horses have something to do with people's dislike for walking.

"Tramp to Warsaw!" he cried. "The Lord of Ruvno tramp those horrible roads! Such a thing was never heard of. Peasants and the poorest Jews do that ... but no gentleman!"

"The times have changed," remarked Ostap. "But if you are so shocked at the thought of it do you help us to ride."

"Wait I will ask some of ours what is to be done."

He disappeared into a dirty-looking general shop which stood close at hand. In a very short time he emerged, beaming all over his broad, greasy face.

"My Lord Count," he cried, bursting with importance, "I have arranged everything. There will be a train."

"The last is just leaving," said Ostap. "We were turned off it to make room for the wounded."

"One is to arrive from Warsaw," persisted the Jew. "It will take the rest of the wounded and such of the citizens as want to go."

"Who said so?"

"Our Rabbi."

"What does he know about it?"

"He had it from the transport officer."

Ostap, listening, looked at the Jew with mingled scorn, wonder and admiration.

"You Jews are strange people," was his verdict. "Here have we been trying to get information from the authorities for half an hour, one a great gentleman in these parts, the other a Cossack officer anxious to rejoin his troop, and nobody will give us a good word. Yet this Jew horse-dealer here knows everything."

"He may be wrong," said Ian. "They often are."

"But I am right," said Hermann. "You'll see for yourself I am right if you wait in the station. Meanwhile, I must go, for a messenger calls me home." And off he went.

Ostap looked down the forlorn road which led from the station to the town and pointed to a Red Cross flag flying from a distant building.

"There are wounded left. Our people will try to get them away. We may not have to tramp after all. I'll go to that transport officer again."

"Don't. He'll only swear at you. Let us get on the train, if it comes, without asking anybody's leave."

Ostap gave him a quick look of alarm; he had spoken in a listless tone the Cossack heard from him for the first time since they met.

"You're ill?"

"Nothing. A pain in my side and the devil's own thirst."

"It's the broken ribs. Go to one of the hospital tents and get a bandage put around you. It helps a lot."

"They've something else to do than see to a trifle like that. I'll go and get a drink." And he rose from a trunk, abandoned by some hasty traveler, which stood near the station steps.

"Good. Do you go get your drink at the station pump and await me. There must be food in this town and I mean to have it."

Ian produced a banknote, but the other waved it aside.

"No. Let this be my meal. Besides, I don't count to spend money." And he hurried down the forlorn road.

Ian went to the pump, slaked his thirst with its cool water, soused his head and began to feel better. The long summer twilight still lingered and, as he sat down on the bank, he saw a vaguely familiar figure come towards him. It was a Cossack, grizzled, thin as a rake, hard as nails. As the newcomer began to work the pump he recognized the bluff colonel who had refused to have him as a volunteer at the beginning of the war.

He waited till the man had drunk and washed, baring himself to the waist, showing strong muscles that stood out from his fair skin and a large scar on his right arm. Then he said:

"Are you still refusing volunteers?"

The Cossack turned sharply.

"Who the devil are you?" was his greeting.

"Do you remember a Polish squire who asked for a commission at the beginning of the war?"

"No," he grunted, drying himself as best he might with a bandana handkerchief he pulled out of his wide trouser-leg. But it was a hopeless business so he gave it up, walking about and waving his arms.

"You said I was too fat."

"You don't look it."

"And too old."

"Older, better men than you are strewing the fields to-night."

"Do you want volunteers now?"

At this the Cossack turned upon him, rage, mortification and sorrow choking his voice, so that it came harsh and thick.

"Want!" he cried. "I want guns, gun-fodder, batteries, honesty. I want to sweep out all those German-spawned traitors at Petrograd. I want to clean out the ministries, put honest soldiers there instead of the breed of thieves and liars. Want, indeed! Russia wants everything. Everything! Where are my men? Where to God are the three thousand Cossacks I led from the Don? There! There!" He thrust his bare, muscular arms towards the west. "Carrion," he cried, with a half-stifled sob. "Not killed in fair fight. Never a one of them. But murdered; yes, murdered by a horde of thieves in Petrograd, who sent me promises for guns, empty words for muskets, champagne for shrapnel! Oh, think of it! The flower of the Don Troop, crying for the wherewithal to fight, beating off the Germans with sticks we tore from the trees, with never a musket, never a gas-mask, nothing but corruption and treachery, bought with German gold. Oh, my heart bursts with the burden of it! All my good Cossacks flung into the cannon's mouth, belching forth fire, whilst we had nothing, nothing!"

He broke off, tore up and down, muttering like a wounded lion.

"And they died like dogs! For this!" His arms swept the desolate landscape. "For rapine and retreat! For burning corn and ruined farmsteads! To leave the Lakes of Masuria; to leave the Vistula, the Dneiper, the Niemen and God knows what besides!"

He stopped, overcome with his emotion, strode back to the pump, let a stream of water flow over his grizzled head, gave a gigantic sigh and relapsed into silence. And thus they stayed together for some time. Ian did not even try to comfort him; what solace could he offer when he knew that those bitter words were all too true? The Cossack spoke first.

"A cigarette," he demanded.

Ian handed him the packet which Healy had brought up to the train. He took a couple, threw back the rest, and asked for matches. It was now almost dark and in the light of the little flame he scanned Ian's face.

"I remember you," he said when his cigarette was half smoked through. "You talked of shooting quail on the wing and wanted to shoot me."

"Not quite. But I was sore because you wouldn't have me."

"It was all so different then. Eh, God! What a fool I was to believe in that lying, thieving horde at Petrograd! Petrograd forsooth! They might as well have kept it Petersburg, for all the Germans that are in it still. Phew! I spit on these politicians!" And he did so.

"Russia is wide," said Ian.

"Wide and bungling! With a little order, a little honesty we should have been in Berlin long ago. God! How they ran from the Lakes of Masuria! How they scuttled like geese before our Cossack spears! And then our supplies gave out, and none were forthcoming, Oh, the Empire is a prey to a horde of thieves. Many defeats await us yet. By the way, you spoke of your country house and your lady mother and your forests, when in Warsaw. What of them?"

Briefly Ian told him.

"Ay. The same story everywhere. And I thought I'd be coming to you with German booty," he remarked sadly. "It made my heart bleed to see the fugitives. But you may be glad your womenfolk got safely away. And what will you do now?"

"Fight. Won't you take me in your regiment?"

"Regiment!" the other echoed bitterly, beating his chest "I am the regiment."

"Not all gone?"

"Killed, wounded, gassed, a few prisoners, and you have the lot."

"But you'll reconstruct?"

"Ay. That I will. If there's a Cossack left I'm game."

"Then let me be one of your new officers," pleaded Ian.

He was beginning to like this gruff, grizzled soldier. He did not want to volunteer in France, for that would mean going a long way from Vanda, and separating his mother from her. In his shy way he tried to convey his eagerness to join the Russian army, and the Colonel's manner softened.

"Eh, God. I think you'd make a good soldier. I can't say ay or nay. The matter lies with my superiors."

"But you can recommend me," he urged.

"I can and will. I haven't a card. Have you a scrap of paper?"

Ian searched and produced a card and pencil, also his electric torch. The Cossack wrote some lines and handed the card back.

"Now, headquarters will be in Rostov. It is a long journey. But do you go there and say I sent you. It's written on the card. We shall meet there within a fortnight, but I must go to that German cesspool first."

"So must I."

"Ah! Where will you lodge?"

"I don't know yet. But they'll tell you at the Orsov Palace."

"So you know Vera Petrovna? She is a powerful friend to have. You can get a softer bed to lie on than campaigning with me if you ask her."

"I don't want to sit in some office. I want to fight. I hope to meet a man named von Senborn face to face and give him back a little of what he's done to me and my property."

"You're the right stuff. But how war's changed you! You were as plump as one of your own quails a year aback. And sleek as a maid. If we don't meet in Petrograd do you seek me out in Rostov. I have to get a seat on this cattle-train. Many of my children are there."

He hurried into his clothes, rammed the cap well on to his head and went off. They parted the best of friends. Scarcely had his tall, lithe figure disappeared into the summer night when Ostap hurried on to the platform. He had looted a deserted house and they ate heartily of ham, bread, butter and cold veal. He brought a bottle of light Polish beer, too; but Ian would not touch it, saying his head ached. Ostap was much interested in hearing about his talk with the Cossack colonel and asked to see the card. He read it eagerly and looked up, saying with respect in his voice:

"But it is my Colonel, Irmal Platov, of the family that produced the famous Cossack general. They say he will be head of the Pan-Cossack League one day. Where did he go? It will cheer him to know that one officer at least is alive and sound."

Ian pointed to the train, which was now getting up steam, and he was off like a shot. Ian put back his card, reflected that it was a lucky chance to have met this man, whom the Cossacks evidently respected highly. He went back to the station building. It was high time to find out definitely whether or no there would be another train before the Russians left the place. Martin, he ascertained, was still fast asleep on the floor of the engine which had brought them from the camp and nobody disturbed him.

In the ticket-office he met the horse-dealer who was running hither and thither in a great state of excitement, calling Ian's name at the top of his voice.

"What are you yelling about?" he asked. "Has the train come?"

"Oh, thank God, you're here! I feared you had started."

"What is it?"

"One of your friends wants you. He is sick to death. Not a moment have we to lose."

"Who?"

"I know not. But hurry!"

They made their way out of the disorderly, miserable town, which knew all the vicissitudes of warfare, and into squalid suburbs, where only Jews, and the poorest at that, could live. With many puzzling thoughts Ian asked his guide whither they were going and who of his friends lived in this unsavory quarter.

"I know nothing," answered he. "It is a friend. He wanted to send one of our people to Ruvno. But the messenger knew you had left Ruvno. But at the hospital none had the heart to tell him the truth. Just now I happened to see this messenger and tell him my Lord Count was here. So I sought you for a long while."

"Haven't you any idea who is this friend?"

"A gentleman. He sent out a hundred roubles to the messenger, I know."

He did not add that he was the messenger and the hundred roubles now lay in his pocket-book. After a quarter of an hour's brisk walking he led the way to a field. Ian could see the dim outline of a tent.

"A military hospital?" he asked.

"Yes." Hermann stopped. "Here I leave you. I fear the cholera." And he was gone.

Cholera. Ian hesitated. Which of his friends was dying of that loathsome pest? Roman? The thought tore his heart. Joseph? Oh, he hoped not. He hastily prayed it might not be a man at all dear to him. Yet he could think of nobody, friend or foe, whom he wished to watch dying of cholera.

Troubled thus, he made his way up to the tent. No sentry guarded the entry. That was unnecessary; all shunned the place. It was very quiet after the bustle and babel of the station. He heard no voices. The only sign of living man was a faint streak of light that came between the canvas and the ground.

He held up the flap and went in.

It was a large tent and there were many beds in it Some stood vacant, others held shrouded, still masses of contorted humanity. Others again, most ghastly of all, were occupied by men of all ages and many races. Two bearers were carrying out a burden through another entrance, at the far end. He looked around in an agony of disgust and suspense. A nurse and doctor were bending over one couch. He learned afterwards that the medical staff had drawn lots to decide which of them should go with the retreating army and which remain behind with those too ill to be moved and enter captivity with them. It seemed to him that these two lingered a long time. Then he heard the doctor say:

"He'll live. The worst is over."

Instantly Ian lost his shyness and hastened to them,

"Who is it?" he asked in French, true to the habit of a lifetime which bade him address a Russian in the international language.

The nurse turned and made room for him at the bedside.

"Do you know him?"

A glance at the patient was enough.

"No," he answered.

The doctor hurried away. The woman, attending to the sick man, asked Ian whom he sought.

"I don't know. A Jew brought me. Said a man here wanted somebody from Ruvno. I am from Ruvno."

"Ah! I remember now. One moment." Swiftly she completed her task and turned towards the north end of the tent. He followed her to a far corner, till she stopped before a bed which held one of the shrouded forms.

"Too late!" he cried.

She gave him a look of sympathy.

"He died a few minutes ago."

Unable to utter a word, he signed to her. Gently, she turned back the sheet. He stepped forward; all hatred, all bitterness, slipped from him like a cloak. Joseph was no more. He could marry Vanda.

This was his uppermost thought; his next, as he gazed at that familiar, yet transformed face, a deep relief that Roman had not suffered that death. Then came remorse for the speed of his thoughts towards marrying her this man had loved, and sharp pain that Destiny had taken him in such a way. He wanted Joseph to die fighting, as young men should in war-time, in the open, falling to God's good earth, whence they come, mingling their life's blood with the fountain of all life. That livid, emaciated face, with evil stains on the once healthy cheeks was a reproach to modernity, a seal upon the Cossack's cry of "murdered!"

For a long time he gazed and many an emotion rose and swelled in his heart; scenes of boyhood sprang up again; memories of the chase, of the life they once trod together, as dead for him now as was Joseph himself. And whilst he breathed a prayer for the dead which Father Constantine had taught them all, he thanked God that he had resisted the call of passion a few nights ago, when he sat and watched the summer moon, so sure it lighted Joseph's body on the battlefield. Now, at least, he could look on his remains without remorse for evil action.

The nurse had gone; but two orderlies came up.

"We must bury him," one of them said in the Russian of Moscow.

As Ian looked up they noticed his eyes were dimmed with tears unshed.

"Is there a Catholic priest about?"

The men looked at one another.

"In the town perhaps--not here."

"I'll bring one."

"We cannot wait till you go so far. We have strict orders to bury each poor victim at once. What will you? The infection is deadly and we are working day and night."

"I'll be back before you close the coffin."

"Coffin! There are none left."

Ian passed the one nearest him a fifty-rouble note.

"I know the town. Wait for me." And he hurried out.

He was desperately anxious to give Joseph Christian burial. He felt he must; it might atone for his fault of feeling that great load off his heart now he knew Vanda would be his. Then he remembered the Cossack colonel's card. He had promised to fight, had insisted on being drafted into a hard-fighting regiment. But that was an hour ago. That was when thoughts of Vanda were pain, and he did not so much mind if he got killed. Now, he hated the idea of it. If he got killed soon he would be no more married to her than Joseph had been. He rebelled. Why should he go and get killed? Russia had plenty of men. He had lost enough in the war already without losing the last chance of happiness. Russia had turned him away once and he was not in duty bound to apply again. Besides, he could do war-work without putting on a Cossack coat; could volunteer for a mission abroad; for instance say to the Pope, who only knew what the Germans and their friends told him...

As he stumbled over the road, choked with the debris of a retreating army, he felt particularly fitted to tell the Pope what Poland was enduring. He had an uncle in Rome, a younger brother of his father, created a cardinal during the pontificate of Pius the Tenth. So he could gain the Pope's ear far more easily than many other people. Rome, he argued, had no more faithful children than the Poles, who have suffered much persecution for their faith. And it was high time the Holy Father knew the truth about the Germans. He, Ian, would tell him. Yes; he could serve his country's cause, and the Allies' just as well in Rome as in Colonel Platov's regiment. Rome would be a good place for his mother to live in. If he joined the army she would have to stop in Russia, to be near him. In Rome, they could all live quietly and comfortable together--he, Vanda, his mother. After all, it was fair to them to look after them; and his mother had only him now. And the Allies had millions of men. Russia wanted guns, which he could not make, and organization, which he could not give her.

He reached the house of a priest he knew and very few words sufficed to tell him what had happened; then they hastened back together.

They buried Joseph in a field set apart as a cemetery in connection with the cholera tent. Ian gave the priest money and instructions for a Cross to be put over the grave. Then he sought the nurse. On hearing who he was she took him to a clerk, who gave him the things they had found in Joseph's pockets: a photograph of Vanda, a packet of her letters, and some money. When it was all over and he had parted from the priest he made his way back to the station. It was nearly ten o'clock. He found that the horse-dealer was right after all. A train, the last one, stood ready to start for Warsaw. The inside was packed with wounded men, the roof with refugees, some of whom were wounded, too. He heard Ostap's voice calling for him and shouted back that he was coming.

"Be quick!" he shouted. "We're on the roof. Third coach from the engine. It's all we can do to keep sitting room for you. Climb up, for these Jews are great pushers."

"Where are my peasants?"

"Here, thank God!" said a voice.

"All?"

"All. Safe and sound. Get up, my Lord Count, for the train is starting already."

Ian clambered up and squeezed himself in between the blacksmith and Ostap, who indignantly asked where he had been hiding.

"We searched high and low. If not for this blacksmith, who sat as broad as he could, we'd never have been able to keep your place." He did not tell them where he had been. Heart and head were filled with new emotions, and a new struggle. The idea of going to Rome fascinated him. He found so much in its favor, so little to say against it. Only that Cossack colonel would ever know he had drawn back. None shared his plans. And the soldier would forget him.

He was no longer the man who urged Platov to take him at the beginning of the war; then, he could not realize the love that had grown with each month of strife and anxiety, till it now overwhelmed every other feeling. Destiny led him to the tent wherein he found a promise of happiness. And a loud voice within cried not to give it up.

It was an endless journey and very uncomfortable. They were perpetually stopping to make way for other trains, filled with troops, whole and wounded. From time to time some of the little party got down to stretch their legs, one keeping the place for another with that ready comradeship which war's vicissitudes breed between men of vastly different race and caste. Jew elbowed Gentile; patrician drank with outcast in their flight before the stupendous Hun. It seemed to Ian that all the trains in Russia passed them; troops in open trucks, who made an infernal noise with their balalaikas and their voices. He wondered sadly that they could abandon Poland to her fate with such light hearts ... and then remembered that they were Russians, brave as lions, but mentally children yet; so the direction in which they traveled was no affair of theirs.

He thought of his ruined home and the many other ruined homes they passed and wondered where their late owners were, that cool, starry night. Some, he knew, lay quiet and still by the wayside, for he had seen such in his flight. Some, like Father Constantine, had found rest in a soldier's graveyard before friends left them, to seek a new life in exile. And, as his memory dwelt on the last year, as he passed farm after farm alight with the fires of destruction, the weakness born of the sudden knowledge that Vanda was free left him. He knew he could not go to Rome; knew he would not have a quiet hour if he chose the easier road; that every devastated home, every orphan in his native land would ring a terrible chorus of reproach into his soul. Roman's words of that evening at the "Oaza," came back:

"There is no love without sacrifice."

How little he had known of love then; how much now! He wondered at the craven Ian who had planned a safe journey to Rome whilst his native land was bleeding. There was nothing for him but to fight. Oh, he would marry Vanda, and perhaps live through the war. Then they would return to a free Poland and a free Ruvno, to build and plant afresh for their children, freed from bondage and all persecution. In the trenches, on the battlefield, he would have that lodestar. Now, he knew not how he ever could have imagined the war without himself in it.

These thoughts ran through his mind, accompanied by visions of burning houses, huddled, hungry refugees, suffering, struggling humanity. Through all was the joy of knowing Vanda would be his--and over all came Ostap's voice as he held forth to others on the roof.

"Yes; we spit upon life. So we shall win, in the end. And our children will be freed."

And the Cossack's words gave him comfort.

THE END