KRONSTADT

BEING THE STORY OF MARIAN BEST AND OF PAUL ZASSULIC, HER LOVER, TOGETHER WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE RUSSIAN FORTRESS OF KRONSTADT, AND OF THOSE WHO WOULD HAVE BETRAYED IT

BY MAX PEMBERTON Author of “A Puritan’s Wife,” “The Sea Wolves,” “The Iron Pirate,” “The Impregnable City,” etc.

With a Map, and 8 Full-Page Illustrations by A. Forestier

TENTH THOUSAND

CASSELL and COMPANY, Limited London, Paris, New York & Melbourne 1898 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

[COPYRIGHT]

First Edition April 1898. Reprinted April 1898, May 1898.

[DEDICATION]

To My Wife.

CONTENTS.

Prologue

Chapter I. The Masquerade upon the Ice

Chapter II. “A Spy within the Gate”

Chapter III. At the coming of the Light

Chapter IV. Lover and Judge

Chapter V. Foreboding

Chapter VI. The Honour of Paul Zassulic

Chapter VII. Paul bears Witness

Chapter VIII. After Forty Days

Chapter IX. Out of the Darkness

Chapter X. Temptation

Chapter XI. The Beginning of the Flight

Chapter XII. The Citadel Awakes

Chapter XIII. At the Zenith of the Night

Chapter XIV. The Terrible Night

Chapter XV. Upon the Nameless Island

Chapter XVI. Alone

Chapter XVII. Forsaken of All

Chapter XVIII. A Strange Figure on the Shore

Chapter XIX. The Quest of the Woman

Chapter XX. The Ship of the Golden Cross

Chapter XXI. Acheron of the Waters

Chapter XXII. Prisoner of Love

Chapter XXIII. The Unforeseen

Chapter XXIV. Toward the Light

Chapter XXV. The Word of Tolma

Chapter XXVI. The Evening of the Second Day

Chapter XXVII. At Midnight

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

“They had come up to the Headland, wherefrom they could overlook the strange Haven into which destiny had cast them”

Sketch Map of Kronstadt and its Surroundings

“Conspicuous upon the Field of the Frozen Sea stood the Palace of Ice”

“But Marian did not hear him. She had Fallen in a Swoon”

“Kronstadt herself Stood Silhouetted as an Island of Rock and Pinnacles”

“She bounded forward into the heart of the Breakers”

“The Procession advanced slowly”

“On toward the Sea he bore her”

“Silently, determinedly, they fell upon the fugitive, and threw him to the ground”

PROLOGUE.

Someone cried out that the flashing light we saw upon the far horizon was Tollboken itself, and at this we left the quarter-deck and hurried to the bows of the ship. Even the invalid clergyman, who had not been more than an hour at the tea table, came panting up the companion and stood with us while the beacon magnified and gained majesty, and other lights shone over the vista of the waters, and the black line of the island fortress took shape as some terrible mausoleum of the sea. We had made Kronstadt at last—the Kronstadt of my dreams. While others turned the pages of their guide-books, while some were ready with history and some with anecdote, I gazed entranced as the mighty citadel shaped itself against the lurid canopy of cloud which hung in the eastern sky, and all the outward power and sullen magnificence were revealed to me. I stood at the gate of Russia indeed, at the impregnable gate, which the summons of war will never open. The exclamations of wonder uttered by my companions seemed the lispings of credulous children. The chatter of the tourist was like a

horrid discord in the temple of majestic silence. I had the wish to be apart from my fellows, to stand in some place of solitude and offer the worship of the imagination at the altar where I had worshipped in spirit so many months.

A Russian stood at my side, a young officer of artillery, who spoke English with some fluency. He had found our pleasure yacht at Copenhagen, and had taken passage with us to the island of Kronstadt, where his duty lay. We had found him a pleasant companion—a man who gave his laughter no holiday. But when the shores of the gulf began to draw in toward one another, and the lights of the great citadel flashed upon the horizon, I observed that the Russian was silent. Awe of his own home possessed him. He leaned heavily upon the bulwarks of the yacht, and had no eyes but for the ramparts and bastions before him. When I spoke to him he came down from some high place of the imagination to answer me; moments of time passed before he realised that he stood upon the deck of a ship, and that gaping tourists were his companions.

“Forgive me,” he said, while he watched the group contemptuously. “You asked me——?”

“If those two lights to the right of Tollboken are the lights of Menzikoff?”

The question interested him, and after a word of surprise that I knew the name of the harbour fort, he began to explain many things to me.

“Yes,” he said, “that is Menzikoff, though the lights are not the lights of the fort but of the harbour gates. The seven-fathom channel is there, and that flashing light, still more to the right, is the lantern upon the fort of Kronslott. Away a little to the south is Fort Paul, and that battery which crosses its fire is Battery 3. You see how well we protect the channel, which is no more than three hundred yards wide, though covered by a hundred guns.”

I asked him how long the island was, questioning at the same time the accuracy of the statement that the southern channel was so narrow.

“I should have given it a breadth of at least a mile, but of course there are shallows.”

“Exactly; the Oranienbaum spit runs out as far as Kronslott itself. It is a spur of sand creating shallows—another barrier which nature has put between Russia and her enemies. Though I am a Russian, and my word may be the word of prejudice, I say that there is not in all the world another citadel such as this; there is not one stamped out of the earth so clearly, a work of God unmistakable, for the defence of an empire. Observe the great bay into which we are sailing. It is in the shape of a V; the mouth turned toward the Baltic, the apex toward our capital. Kronstadt itself is also V-shaped, but the mouth of the letter is now turned toward Petersburg, the apex toward the open sea. Observe this clearly and you will see how the island, fitting into the neck of the gulf, becomes a vast and natural wedge which foreign ships may never pass. If they come by the north channel, there is the great boom of granite which a hundred navies could not destroy. If they attack us by the south channel, there are the guns of all the forts, a

tremendous armament, which would crumble cities to the dust. No, my friend, you may search all seas and you will never find another citadel like this. She is invincible, the terrible gate of my country. We call her the tomb of spies, for no spy has betrayed her or ever will betray her. She stands for all that is dear to us—our liberty and our freedom. Her secrets are entombed in a heart of granite. He who seeks for them walks with Death for his guide.”

He turned upon his heel and left me to wonder as much at his eloquence as at his earnestness. I had supposed him to be a mere lieutenant of artillery doing his duty soberly and with no concern for the romance of war. But it has been my good fortune since that day to meet many of those who serve the fortress of Kronstadt, and I have found the same love of the citadel, the same pride in its power influencing them all. To them it is more than the mistress of the Gulf of Finland, it is the temple of their country’s freedom, the arsenal of God’s weapons, a barrier given of the Eternal for the safety of their kingdom. When it shall fall the empire must fall with it. But that day will be the great, the dreadful day.

It was almost dark when our yacht came abreast the eastern end of the island, where the lieutenant took leave of us. We seemed at this time to be hemmed in by forts and batteries and by the tremendous walls which protect the town and harbours; lights flashed from every side, the lights of war-ships, the lights of barracks, the red and white and green lanterns of the bastions. I thought as I watched the lieutenant rowing away to the service he loved so well, that he had spoken truly when he named Death as the comrade of him who would snatch the secrets of this mighty fortress. Death indeed; or if not death, then the terror worse than death, the sunless labour of the mines, the eternal solitude, the groans and sufferings of the desolate land.

To write a story of this fortress, and of certain people named in its recent history, I had come to Russia. No books or plans could help me to measure the achievements or the courage of those I was to speak about. I must see with my own eyes the things which they had seen, must stand where they had stood. As far as it lay in my power, I must realise the grandeur and the greatness of that sanctuary of war which they had invaded so resolutely; must hear the tramp of armed men and the bugle’s blast where they had heard them. In that spirit I left my yacht and entered the city which the Russian had called the tomb of spies. And I thought as I went of Marian Best, the Woman of Kronstadt, of her love and of her sorrows.*

* The author would wish it to be clearly understood that the characters in this book are entirely fictional.

CHAPTER I. THE MASQUERADE UPON THE ICE.

Though the great bell of Kronstadt had struck the hour of nine and the bugles had called “lights out” in the barracks of the town, there was no perceptible curb upon the merriment of those who kept the carnival of the sea. For Kronstadt was ice-bound, and the New Year, bringing an end to the stress and storm of the earlier winter, had sealed the waves with the seal of the welcome frost. Where ships sailed a month ago, the merry skaters now ventured. Far out from the great citadel the gulf was still and frozen. No longer was the call of the pilot heard or the voice of the seaman crying to his men. The whirr of skate and sledge, the music of artillery bands, the prattle of pretty women, had taken their place. But here and there vast fires blazing upon the ice drew the busy throngs to the door of tent or wooden theatre. The light of many torches made golden rings upon the fields of glistening snow. Old and young, generals and ensigns, rothmisters and feldwebels, hurried to the joy of the whirling life. As prisoners from the cells of solitude and silence they rushed from

their island home to the sea, which frost had stilled and the ice made war upon.

Conspicuous upon the field of the frozen sea, for it was built in the ring of light shed by the beacons of Menzikoff, stood the palace of ice, which the officers of the garrison had set up as the monument of a winter so generous. Ready hands had hewn blocks from the shallower waters of the military harbour; stout arms had dragged the glistening boulders and piled them up for the foundations of the temple of the frost. Soon a vast building arose, a tabernacle of shimmering and transparent whiteness, into which cunning engineers carried wires for the electric light, while zealous corporals brought the flaming eagles of their regiments, and laughing girls bedecked the temple with draperies of silk and satin. The enduring frost looked upon the work and found it to be good. A keener breath of winter breathed strength upon the palace and made it a perfect whole. Its builders spoke of masquerade and carnival. Generals shook their heads but did not refuse. The 29th of January in the year 1895 brought the proposal to maturity, and all social Kronstadt came out that night to offer the

incense of laughter at the shrine. Old and young, poor and rich hastened to enjoy an opportunity so rare.

While the palace within shone with countless lights, which gave a glittering radiance to the uniforms of gold and white and green, the dark field of the ice without was vantage ground for the townspeople and sailors weary of waiting for an open sea. Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Swedes, but English outnumbering all, they stood shivering in the icy blast, or warming themselves at the great fires, or roaring with laughter at the jests and the antics of the masqueraders. For them the sup of vodki must suffice; no frothing champagne, no warmth of fur or dance, no occupation of looking love gave them armour against the cold. But they were critics always, and being critics, they spoke their minds and were not afraid. Half an hour had not passed before they had a name for every prominent person in the palace. The fat general perspiring in an effort of agility, the gorgeous cuirassiers of the Guard in their dazzling uniforms of white and blue—“flour mills,” the English sailors called them, and qualified the noun; the mincing cornets of cavalry; the three-starred colonels of artillery

groping for the honours of the clown—as each made the tour of the frozen ballroom and came to clearer view of the uninvited, his new name was roared lustily by the volleyed voices of the seamen.

“Higher up, spangled shanks—lift ’em up!” bawled the bullet-headed skipper of a trading steamer as an exceedingly stout lady came shuffling into view. “There ain’t no bally ’oop in Roosher as you’re a-going to jump through, marm.”

“Leave the lady be, Bill,” retorted his mate. “ ’Tain’t often as you see a fine growed thing like that—at her age too! You ain’t got no manners. If she weighs more than twenty stun, I’m a nigger!”

“She shall pose for Venus!” said a merry little Frenchman; but a German protested—

“Blitzen! it is her harvest time. In ze summer der zun will melt her down!”

“Why, here’s little ‘Sixpence-a-box,’ ” chimed in a burly engineer as a mannikin in the green uniform of an artillery officer came prancing by. “ ‘Sixpence-a-box’ along with the ‘Tower of Babel’!”

“He’ll want a ladder to hail her, I guess!” cried an able seaman who surveyed the tall lady in question with the expression of one who could not take in the whole of her height and magnificence at a glance. “You’d have to take three reefs in that lot, Bill, before you could lay your course for ’Ampstead ’Eath on a Sunday!”

“Two to one St. Frusquin!” roared the purser of a small passenger steamer when a lank and lean stabcapitaine came galloping round with feet lifted high as though he must crush the earth beneath him. “I’m damned if he don’t fancy he’s running for a cup.”

“I’ll be thinking he’s took with the spasms,” exclaimed the red and shaggy-haired mate of a Scotch trading vessel.

“Which shows your ignorance, Jack,” cried the engineer. “Don’t you know a valtz when you sees one? Look at him cuddling Miss ‘Fore-and-aft’! It don’t want a book to tell you that she likes it neither.”

“I hear as cuddling’s come in again with the quick valtz,” said the purser. “They’ve give up walking round one another like hands round a capstan now. Maybe the weather’s too cold.”

A few ejaculations of approval greeted the surmise, one of the most melancholy among the company hazarding the opinion that the infernal regions were already “froze up”; but thereafter the conversation began to dribble away and was almost run out when a shout from the Frenchman awoke all to attention, and a new buzz of talk was born of the passing of a dancer whose steps were followed with pleasure and approval by every eye in the group of the uninvited.

“La voici! la belle Anglaise! la voici! Comme elle sait danser la polka!”

“That’s her right enough,” exclaimed the bullet-headed skipper; “and ain’t she a beauty afore the wind. By gosh! I’d pay off with her myself, I’m damned if I wouldn’t! See how she goes about—and sudden too! It wants a head for that, mates, if so be as you’ve not been brought up to it.”

“She’s a daisy!” exclaimed the purser. “I told you so yesterday when she was out at Fort Paul with ‘Sixpence-a-box.’ Look at the way she carries her canvas! There’s style about that, mates, as anyone can see.”

“And look at the way her hair is wove! Oh, I tell you she’s a beauty!”

“If you lofe her, you lofe little,” said the German, nettled at the unanimity of the admiration.

“Little it is for me, by thunder!” cried the skipper. “I don’t want a wife, as I’ve got to walk round every morning to see if any of her is missing. Give me the English miss, and the devil take all fat Rooshians!”

The argument waxed hot, but la belle Anglaise skated on unconscious of it. She was a brown-haired girl whose bright eyes and white skin had cheated Time so that he forgot the day of her birth, which was twenty-five years ago, and had come to believe her still in the teens. A slightly-built, fragile creature, whose face was ever changing and rarely carried the same expression; a creature of quick impulses and unresting gaiety, whose words cost her nothing, whose gesture was the gesture of a Frenchwoman. They called her “La Petite” in the fortress, where she had won much love and many friends—none more zealous than the deputy-governor, General Stefanovitch, who painted his eye-brows and wore stays. He had followed her like a dog this night of carnival, and she repaid him generously with many a word of compliment whispered into his willing ear and many a press upon a hand which, younger men said, should have been already paralysed. For they begrudged him la belle Anglaise. There was no man in all that company of glittering

masqueraders who was not the happier for her word or the message of her eyes. And one, at least, there had given her the best offering an honest man can give—the offering of his love.

He skated with her now, and had earned already from an approving audience the name of the “Green-baize-tree.” A tall flaxen-haired man, for whose fine figure the neat uniform of the artillery betrayed close friendship, he had something of the manner of the more civilised West; and had learnt in Paris and London, as many of his brothers had not, the elements of those polite arts which win upon a woman’s favour. For the moment he applied such arts to the purpose of pleasing his partner, la belle Anglaise; and it was plain to be seen that he had eyes only for her. In and out of the glittering throng they skated, a harmony of gold and green, and soft furs and azure stuffs lifting to the breeze like wings of gauze. But while the man looked ever into the girl’s face, she, in turn, was spellbound by the trance of sensuous music; and being carried from the world about her to a kingdom of her imagination, she forgot all else and abandoned herself to the exalting rhythm of the dance. Not until the last chord was a lingering harmony

upon the air did she so much as remember that a man’s arm was close about her waist, or that his head was bent down toward her until his lips almost kissed her ear.

“You suffocate me,” she said, drawing back from his embrace and fanning herself vigorously. “Am I so very like a rifle, Captain Paul? Really, I thought you were going to present arms with me.”

The great artilleryman began to pull his moustache and to look foolish.

“I thought you might fall,” he stammered. “It is very slippery, Mademoiselle Marian. Besides, when I come to think of it, you are very like a rifle—your bullets wound and your eyes are bayonets!”

She took his arm and they walked with the others; the whole company being drawn by a subtle law of gravitation to the refreshment-room, where the corks popped, and silk petticoats rustled, and laughter struck many chords, and champagne frothed in silver goblets. The touch of her little gloved hand was like the caress of a rose; she seemed so slight and fair and fragile that he had the impulse to crush her in his strong arms and make her a part of his being.

“You repent?” he asked her in a low voice, while he handed her a cup of boiling tea.

“I?—of what?”

“Of many things—of all the dances you have not given me!”