The two boys having finished college, what was more natural than that they should wish to see the world?
Colonel Hoffman gladly acquiesced. With infinite finesse, he pictured Uncle Vladimir as sorrowful, repentant, anxious to see his nephew for his sister's sake.
He cabled to St. Petersburg.
Three weeks later a letter came to Maurice Hammond—a warm invitation to visit the Russian capital before the approach of summer made it unpleasant.
The tempting prospects that the letter held out proved irresistible.
The two boys sailed from New York late in February, and contenting themselves with a brief stay in London and Paris, travelled by easy stages across the Continent.
Vladimir Saradoff, at the time this story opens, had reached the age of forty-five years.
The last member of an old and renowned Russian family, his brilliant birth, his political influence, and above all the favour of the Czar, gave him a prestige at Court and in St. Petersburg society that was surpassed by few. His education, acquired partly at home, partly in German universities, was lacking in nothing, and he possessed a fluent knowledge of English language and customs, the result of a diplomatic term of service at the Russian Legation in London. In disposition he was crafty and revengeful.
His sister's marriage had been a severe shock to his pride.
He was absent in the Caucasus at the time it occurred; when he returned she had already left Russia, and the vengeance which he meditated on the daring American was beyond his reach. The events of the past twenty years—the death of his sister and her husband, and the fortune left to their child—had only added fuel to the flame of his wrath.
To-day he hated Maurice Hammond as implacably as he had hated Frederick Hammond twenty years before.
Let us add one more fact.
Vladimir Saradoff had been all his life addicted to that especially Russian vice—gambling.
He was supposed to be wealthy.
He owned a palace on the Nevskoi Prospekt, a country seat in the North.
It seems a cheerless reception to the two young travellers.
Not a word is spoken during the half-hour's ride. The grim-visaged man with the astrakhan-cap sits between them.
At length the sleigh halts before a huge palatial building. Their guide leads them up a broad flight of steps. Massive doors are flung open, revealing a soft light within, and they are ushered into a spacious apartment. Maurice has barely time to observe the furniture, the tapestries, the paintings, and the rugs, when a tall, fine-looking gentleman in evening dress comes quickly forward.
"My dear nephew!" he exclaims, as he takes him by the hand "Yes, your mother's face—her very features. But how did you endure the long journey? You must be terribly fatigued."
He extends a warm welcome to Phil, and presently Maurice concludes that he was utterly mistaken in his previous estimate of Vladimir Saradoff.
They dined informally in a large apartment that was a marvel of luxury with its gilded decorations, and then Vladimir Saradoff led the way back to the library.
"My dear Maurice," he began, abruptly, "an unfortunate thing has happened, urgent business demands my presence in Moscow. I am compelled to forego the pleasure of showing you our city in person. I shall start by an early train, and will be absent two or three days. What I would suggest to you is this: remain here to-morrow, and look around St. Petersburg under Ivan's guidance. Ivan Tambor is my trusted servant who met you at the train to-night. He has always accompanied me, and speaks good English. Then on the following day he will escort you to Moscow, and there I shall devote myself to your pleasure. There is much to be seen at Moscow."
The boys expressed themselves as delighted with this arrangement.
"Meanwhile," continued their host, "you will find everything here arranged for your comfort. Ivan will see that nothing is neglected. And now I observe that you are weary and in need of rest. Pardon my thoughtlessness."
He rang for a servant, and the boys were speedily ushered to another floor, where luxurious bedrooms, not unlike apartments they had seen at home, awaited them.
Vladimir Saradoff, alone in his library, paced the floor with an ill-concealed expression of triumph on his features.
At last, seating himself at a large ebony desk, he seized paper and pen and began to write rapidly. The first letter completed, he sealed and stamped it with coloured wax, and addressed it as follows:
"TO COUNT PAUL BROSKY
"Minister of the Interior."
He at once resumed his writing. and on finishing a second letter half an hour later, he sealed that in the same manner, and addressed it to.
"CAPTAIN SASHA
"Commandant of the Forwarding Prison,
"MOSCOW."
He pulled a bell-cord, and Ivan Tambor speedily entered the room. Vladimir Saradoff handed him the letter.
With his wealth, his standing at Court, his influence with high officials, what could not Vladimir Saradoff accomplish if he willed?
In the dark days of Ivan the Terrible no viler deed was ever conceived than this aristocratic Russian so coolly perpetrated that night.
* * *
CHAPTER III
One day Maurice Hammond and Philip Danvers spent amid the grandeur and magnificence of St. Petersburg—a day so vivid in contrast to the darkness and gloom that followed that it never remain undimmed in their memories.
In a huge Russian sleigh, drawn by three powerful horses, they drove the length of the vast Nevskoi Prospekt, a boulevard more than a hundred feet broad and three miles long. The buildings were huge, massive, and imposing, the frozen roadway was filled with sleighs of every description, from the peasant's humble box on runners to the magnificent turnouts of the nobility. The side-walks were thronged with foot passengers, merchants, porters, civil servants, officers in long cloaks, ladies in Parisian toilettes, priests in flowing black gowns and brimless hats, while over the horizon rose gilded and painted domes and countless Greek crosses.
Presently the great street merged into the Court Quay, a marvellous highway of rose granite, bordered on the one side by the palaces of the nobility, on the other by the frozen waters of the Neva.
Ivan, sitting like a statute on the front seat, points out from time to time places of note—the Winter Palace, where the Czar lives in regal state, the adjoining Hermitage, and the palaces of the Grand Dukes.
Now he inclines his hand across the frozen Neva.
"The Fortress," he says, briefly, and, with thrilling interest, the boys gaze on the bastions and towers of that noted citadel, where unhappy prisoners languish in their bombproof cells.
For hours they drove through the streets, crossing and recrossing the seven canals which appear in every direction.
Turning back late in the afternoon, they entered through a massive archway the Palace square.
A burst of music reached the boys' ears, and a scene of splendour opened before them.
From the centre of the square towered a shaft of red granite, the Alexander Column—and at its base the band of the Imperial Guard was playing airs from Offenbach. Mounted Cossacks were keeping back the impetuous crowd.
"There has been a review," said Ivan, "the troops are returning."
He signalled to the driver, and as the sleigh drew up before the imposing facade of the Admiralty, the head of the line, a squad of the Imperial Guard, reached the archway. Close behind, at a sharp trot, came the Asiatic troops.
Georgians, Persians, Circassians, and Mongols, armed with lances and steel maces, clad in long coats of mail.
Then followed compact bodies of infantry—Finland Chasseurs and the giants of the Paul Regiment with massive copper hats—marching sharply to avoid the hordes of cavalry who were crowding at their heels—Red Hussars, Grenadiers, Lancers, and swarms of Cossacks on their shaggy ponies.
They hastened on towards their quarters, and as the last Cossack ambled through the arch a battery of artillery charged into the square from the other extremity.
Maurice watched the approaching group with eager interest. They clattered past the Alexander Column, the fiery black chargers curvetting and prancing to the music of the band, and as they drew near the arch, an officer, superbly uniformed and mounted, galloped into the square almost beside the sleigh where the boys sat.
The horse slipped on the smooth-trodden snow, and plunged heavily to the ground, bearing his rider with him and pinning him firmly from the waist downward directly in the track of the rumbling cannons.
One loud cry burst from the startled spectators, and the artillery horses, scared at the uproar, bore madly down on the helpless officer, lost to all restraint.
Maurice took in the situation at a glance—the frightened people on the sidewalks, the mounted Cossacks before the sleigh, who seemed petrified with horror, and the rapidly advancing artillery.
He sprang to the ground, and in three leaps reached the luckless officer's side. Grasping him under the arms, he pulled with all his might, once, twice, and as the portly form yielded, he sprang back with his burden from under the very hoofs of the snorting horses and sank down on the trampled snow. The heavy cannon passed within an inch of his feet, and then with a sickening crunch the wheels rolled over the fallen steed.
Eager hands lifted them to their feet, and a shouting mob surged round on all sides.
The officer, who was apparently uninjured, tore loose from the Cossacks, who were brushing his uniform, and seizing Maurice in his arms, implanted a kiss fairly upon his lips, talking volubly all the while in Russian. He was a noble-looking man, with light, wavy beard and moustache.
"I can't speak Russian," Maurice finally stammered in despair.
"Ha!" cried the officer, joyously, "you are English. I speak your language, too. That was a noble deed. These base cowards here were too alarmed to move. To whom do I owe my life?" and he thrust a card into Maurice's hands.
At that moment a bare-headed man, wearing the garb of one of the palace servants, pushed forward and momentarily attracted the officer's attention.
In the same instant a pair of strong arms were thrown about Maurice, and he was forcibly dragged through the crowd and lifted into the sleigh.
Ivan Tambor—for it was he—shouted to the driver, and before Maurice could recover breath to speak, the sleigh had passed out the square, and the horses were galloping swiftly through the crowded street.
Maurice turned to the Russian.
"What did you do that for?" he exclaimed indignantly.
Ivan Tambor stared him full in the eye, with an expression in his face that made Maurice shiver.
"It was necessary," he said; "we should have been arrested. Private sleighs are not allowed in the square during a review."
"I don't believe what he says, whispered Phil, when the Russian's back was turned. "I mistrust that man, Maurice. You should have seen how savage he looked when you dragged that officer out of danger. I wonder who he was?"
"I have his card," whispered Maurice, "but I don't intend to risk taking it out here. Ivan doesn't know I have it."
Little did Maurice imagine when he acted on that resolve what an important bearing that deed was destined to have upon future events.
The short wintry day was nearly over when they reached Vladimir Saradoff's mansion, and the dim, coppery sun was slanting on the gilded domes and crosses of the Imperial City.
Dinner was served in solitary state, a fitting accompaniment to the magnificence which the boys had just witnessed.
Waiters attired in European full dress supplied them with curious Russian dishes, and all the while Ivan Tambor stood motionless in one corner of the room.
"His Excellency, your uncle, wishes you to start for Moscow at four o'clock in the morning," he said to Maurice, when the boys had returned to the library.
"Do you prefer to retire early, or shall I escort you to the Italian opera?"
"I don't care anything about the opera, for my part," said Maurice, "but I should like very much to see the city by night. What do you say, Phil?"
"Splendid," rejoined his friend.
Ivan shrugged his shoulders, gave an order to a servant who answered the bell, and in ten minutes the sleigh was again at the door.
They drove for miles through the dimly-lighted streets, finally passing out on the frozen Neva, and speeding far down towards the Gulf of Finland on the smooth crust.
As they were returning through one of the spacious streets leading into the Nevskoi Prospekt, a man in fur coat and cap emerged from the portal of a brilliantly lighted mansion. The rays from a lamp-post close by showed Maurice a strangely familiar face.
"Is not that my uncle?" he exclaimed—" that man with the heavy coat?"
Ivan Tambor turned quickly in the direction Maurice indicated, but the man had already vanished in the shadows.
"His Excellency is in Moscow!" he said. "There may have been a resemblance—nothing more."
Maurice was readily satisfied with this explanation, but an hour later, as he tossed sleeplessly on his bed, he wondered vaguely whether that could have been Vladimir Saradoff or not.
The features were like those of his uncle, he felt sure.
Puzzling over this, and various other incidents of his brief visits he fell asleep.
The boys were wakened early, and after a hasty breakfast—eaten by the light of huge bronze lamps—Ivan announced that the sleigh was waiting to convey them to the station. At his request the boys handed him their passports.
He refused to accept any money for the railway tickets.
"His Excellency, your uncle, has given me instructions," he said, quietly, "distress yourself about nothing."
St. Petersburg was silent as the grave when they drove away from Vladimir Saradoff's mansion.
As the more central parts of the city were reached, some activity was noticed, and at the railway station all was hurry and excitement.
"It is fourteen hours to Moscow," said Ivan. "You will take sleeping apartments. Stay here while I get the tickets."
In the brief period that he was gone, Maurice examined the card given him the day before by the Russian officer. He read it aloud:
"COLONEL ALEXIS JAROSLAV,
"St. Petersburg."
"I'll put that away safely," he said to his companion. "I may meet the colonel some day after our return from Moscow."
Little did Maurice think under what circumstances he and Jaroslav would next meet.
