Old Man Savarin and Other Stories

E >> Edward William Thomson >> Old Man Savarin and Other Stories

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When George Winthrop saw Bedell in pursuit, he bent to his ash-blades
more strongly, and Ruth, trembling to remember her father's threats,
urged her lover to speed. They feared the pursuer only, quite
unconscious that they were in the remorseless grasp of the river. Ruth
had so often seen her father far lower down than they had yet drifted
that she did not realize the truth, and George, a stranger in the
Niagara district, was unaware of the length of the cataracts above the
Falls. He was also deceived by the stream's treacherous smoothness,
and instead of half-upward, pulled straight across, as if certainly
able to land anywhere he might touch the American shore.

Bedell looked over his shoulder often. When he distinguished a woman,
he put on more force, but slackened soon--the pull home would tax his
endurance, he reflected. In some sort it was a relief to know that
one _was_ a woman; he had been anticipating trouble with two men
equally bent on being saved. That the man would abandon himself
bravely, the Squire took as a matter of course. For a while he thought
of pulling with the woman to the American shore, more easily to be
gained from the point where the rescue must occur. But he rejected the
plan, confident he could win back, for he had sworn never to set foot
on that soil unless in war. Had it been possible to save both, he
would have been forced to disregard that vow; but the Squire knew that
it was impossible for him to reach the New York Shore with two
passengers--two would overload his boat beyond escape. Man or
woman--one must go over the Falls.

Having carefully studied landmarks for his position, Bedell turned to
look again at the doomed boat, and a well-known ribbon caught his
attention! The old man dropped his oars, confused with horror. "My
God, my God! it's Ruth!" he cried, and the whole truth came with
another look, for he had not forgotten George Winthrop.

"Your father stops, Ruth. Perhaps he is in pain," said George to the
quaking girl.

She looked back. "What can it be?" she cried, filial love returning
overmasteringly.

"Perhaps he is only tired." George affected carelessness,--his first
wish was to secure his bride,--and pulled hard away to get all
advantage from Bedell's halt.

"Tired! He is in danger of the Falls, then!" screamed Ruth. "Stop!
Turn! Back to him!"

Winthrop instantly prepared to obey. "Yes, darling," he said, "we must
not think of ourselves. We must go back to save him!" Yet his was a
sore groan at turning; what Duty ordered was so hard,--he must give up
his love for the sake of his enemy.

But while Winthrop was still pulling round, the old Loyalist resumed
rowing, with a more rapid stroke that soon brought him alongside.

In those moments of waiting, all Bedell's life, his personal hatreds,
his loves, his sorrows, had been reviewed before his soul. He had seen
again his sons, the slain in battle, in the pride of their young
might; and the gentle eyes of Ruth had pleaded with him beneath his
dead wife's brow. Into those beloved, unforgotten, visionary eyes he
looked with an encouraging, strengthening gaze,--now that the deed to
be done was as clear before him as the face of Almighty God. In
accepting it the darker passions that had swayed his stormy life fell
suddenly away from their hold on his soul. How trivial had been old
disputes! how good at heart old well-known civic enemies! how poor
seemed hate! how mean and poor seemed all but Love and Loyalty!

Resolution and deep peace had come upon the man.

The lovers wondered at his look. No wrath was there. The old eyes were
calm and cheerful, a gentle smile flickered about his lips. Only that
he was very pale, Ruth would have been wholly glad for the happy
change.

"Forgive me, father," she cried, as he laid hand on their boat.

"I do, my child," he answered. "Come now without an instant's delay to
me."

"Oh, father, if you would let us be happy!" cried Ruth, heart-torn by
two loves.

"Dear, you shall be happy. I was wrong, child; I did not understand
how you loved him. But come! You hesitate! Winthrop, my son, you are
in some danger. Into this boat instantly! both of you! Take the oars,
George. Kiss me, dear, my Ruth, once more. Good-bye, my little girl.
Winthrop, be good to her. And may God bless you both forever!"

As the old Squire spoke, he stepped into the larger boat, instantly
releasing the skiff. His imperative gentleness had secured his object
without loss of time, and the boats were apart with Winthrop's
readiness to pull.

"Now row! Row for her life to yonder shore! Bow well up! Away, or the
Falls will have her!" shouted Bedell.

"But you!" cried Winthrop, bending for his stroke. Yet he did not
comprehend Bedell's meaning. Till the last the old man had spoken
without strong excitement. Dread of the river was not on George; his
bliss was supreme in his thought, and he took the Squire's order for
one of exaggerated alarm.

"Row, I say, with all your strength!" cried Bedell, with a flash of
anger that sent the young fellow away instantly. "Row! Concern
yourself not for me. I am going home. Row! for her life, Winthrop! God
will deliver you yet. Good-bye, children. Remember always my blessing
is freely given you."

"God bless and keep you forever, father!" cried Ruth, from the
distance, as her lover pulled away.

They landed, conscious of having passed a swift current, indeed, but
quite unthinking of the price paid for their safety. Looking back on
the darkling river, they saw nothing of the old man.

"Poor father!" sighed Ruth, "how kind he was! I'm sore-hearted for
thinking of him at home, so lonely."

Left alone in the clumsy boat, Bedell stretched with the long, heavy
oars for his own shore, making appearance of strong exertion. But when
he no longer feared that his children might turn back with sudden
understanding, and vainly, to his aid, he dragged the boat slowly,
watching her swift drift down--down toward the towering mist. Then as
he gazed at the cloud, rising in two distinct volumes, came a thought
spurring the Loyalist spirit in an instant. He was not yet out of
American water! Thereafter he pulled steadily, powerfully, noting
landmarks anxiously, studying currents, considering always their trend
to or from his own shore. Half an hour had gone when he again dropped
into slower motion. Then he could see Goat Island's upper end between
him and the mist of the American Fall.

Now the old man gave himself up to intense curiosity, looking over
into the water with fascinated inquiry. He had never been so far down
the river. Darting beside their shadows, deep in the clear flood, were
now larger fishes than he had ever taken, and all moved up as if
hurrying to escape. How fast the long trailing, swaying, single weeds,
and the crevices in flat rock whence they so strangely grew, went up
stream and away as if drawn backward. The sameness of the bottom to
that higher up interested him--where then _did_ the current begin to
sweep clean? He should certainly know that soon, he thought, without a
touch of fear, having utterly accepted death when he determined it
were base to carry his weary old life a little longer, and let Ruth's
young love die. Now the Falls' heavy monotone was overborne by
terrible sounds--a mingled clashing, shrieking, groaning, and
rumbling, as of great bowlders churned in their beds.

Bedell was nearing the first long swoop downward at the rapids' head
when those watching him from the high bank below the Chippewa River's
mouth saw him put his boat stern with the current and cease rowing
entirely, facing fairly the up-rushing mist to which he was being
hurried. Then they observed him stooping, as if writing, for a time.
Something flashed in his hands, and then he knelt with head bowed
down. Kneeling, they prayed, too.

Now he was almost on the brink of the cascades. Then he arose, and,
glancing backward to his home, caught sight of his friends on the high
shore. Calmly he waved a farewell. What then? Thrice round he flung
his hat, with a gesture they knew full well. Some had seen that
exultant waving in front of ranks of battle. As clearly as though the
roar of waters had not drowned his ringing voice, they knew that old
John Bedell, at the poise of death, cheered thrice, "Hurrah! Hurrah!
Hurrah for the King!"

They found his body a week afterward, floating with the heaving water
in the gorge below the Falls. Though beaten almost out of recognition,
portions of clothing still adhered to it, and in a waistcoat pocket
they found the old Loyalist's metal snuff-box, with this inscription
scratched by knife-point on the cover: "God be praised, I die in
British waters! JOHN BEDELL."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: The United Empire Loyalists were American Tories who
forsook their homes and property after the Revolution in order to live
in Canada under the British Flag. It is impossible to understand
Canadian feeling for the Crown at the present day without
understanding the U. E. Loyalist spirit, which, though Canadians are
not now unfriendly to the United States, is still the most important
political force in the Dominion, and holds it firmly in allegiance to
the Queen.]

VERBITZSKY'S STRATAGEM.

What had Alexander Verbitzsky and I done that the secret service of
our father, the Czar, should dog us for five months, and in the end
drive us to Siberia, whence we have, by the goodness of God, escaped
from Holy Russia, our mother? They called us Nihilists--as if all
Nihilists were of one way of thinking!

We did not belong to the Terrorists,--the section that believes in
killing the tyrant or his agents in hope that the hearts of the mighty
may be shaken as Pharaoh's was in Egypt long ago. No; we were two
students of nineteen years old, belonging to the section of
"peasantists," or of Peaceful Education. Its members solemnly devote
all their lives to teaching the poor people to read, think, save,
avoid _vodka_, and seek quietly for such liberty with order as here in
America all enjoy. Was that work a crime in Verbitzsky and me?

Was it a crime for us to steal to the freight-shed of the Moscow and
St. Petersburg Railway that night in December two years ago? We sat in
the superintendent's dark office, and talked to the eight trainmen
that were brought in by the guard of the eastern gate, who had
belonged to all the sections, but was no longer "active."

We were there to prevent a crime. At the risk of our lives, we two
went to save the Czar of all the Russias, though well we knew that
Dmitry Nolenki, chief of the secret police, had offered a reward on
our capture.

Boris Kojukhov and the other seven trainmen who came with him had been
chosen, with ten others who were not Nihilists, to operate the train
that was to bear His Imperial Majesty next day to St. Petersburg. Now
Boris was one of the Section of Terror, and most terrible was his
scheme. Kojukhov was not really his name I may tell you. Little did
the Czar's railway agents suspect that Boris was a noble, and brother
to the gentle girl that had been sent to Siberia. No wonder the heart
of Boris was hot and his brain partly crazed when he learned of Zina's
death in the starvation strike at the Olek Mines.

Verbitzsky was cousin to Zina and Boris, and as his young head was a
wise one, Boris wished to consult him. We both went, hoping to
persuade him out of the crime he meditated.

"No," said Boris, "my mind is made up. I may never have such another
chance. I will fling these two bombs under the foremost car at the
middle of the Volga Bridge. The tyrant and his staff shall all plunge
with us down to death in the river."

"The bombs--have you them here?" asked Verbitzsky in the dark.

"I have them in my hands," said Boris, tapping them lightly together.
"I have carried them in my inner clothing for a week. They give me
warmth at my heart as I think how they shall free Holy Russia."

There was a stir of dismay in the dark office. The comrades, though
willing to risk death at the Volga Bridge, were horrified by
Kojukhov's tapping of the iron bombs together, and all rose in fear of
their explosion, all except Verbitzsky and me.

"For God's sake, be more careful, Boris!" said my friend.

"Oh, you're afraid, too?" said Kojukhov. "Pah! you cowards of the
Peace Section!" He tapped the bombs together again.

"I _am_ afraid," said Verbitzsky. "Why should I die for your reckless
folly? Will any good happen if you explode the bombs here? You will
but destroy all of us, and our friends the watchmen, and the
freight-sheds containing the property of many worthy people."

"You are a fool, Verbitzsky!" said his cousin. "Come here. Whisper."

Something Boris then whispered in my comrade's ear. When Verbitzsky
spoke again his voice seemed calmer.

"Let me feel the shape," he said.

"Here," said Boris, as if handing something to Verbitzsky.

At that moment the outer door of the freight-shed resounded with a
heavy blow. The next blow, as from a heavy maul, pounded the door
open.

"The police!" shouted Boris. "They must have dogged you, Alexander,
for they don't suspect me." He dashed out of the dark office into the
great dark shed.

As we all ran forth, glancing at the main door about seventy feet
distant, we saw a squad of police outlined against the moonlit sky
beyond the great open space of railway yard. My eyes were dazzled by a
headlight that one of them carried. By that lamp they must have seen
us clearly; for as we started to run away down the long shed they
opened fire, and I stumbled over Boris Kojukhov, as he fell with a
shriek.

Rising, I dodged aside, thinking to avoid bullets, and then dashed
against a bale of wool, one of a long row. Clambering over it, I
dropped beside a man crouching on the other side.

"Michael, is it you?" whispered Verbitzsky.

"Yes. We're lost, of course?"

"No. Keep still. Let them pass."

The police ran past us down the middle aisle left between high walls
of wool bales. They did not notice the narrow side lane in which we
were crouching.

"Come. I know a way out," said Verbitzsky. "I was all over here this
morning, looking round, in case we should be surprised to-night."

"What's this?" I whispered, groping, and touching something in his
hand.

"Kojukhov's bombs. I have them both. Come. Ah, poor Boris, he's with
Zina now!"

The bomb was a section of iron pipe about two inches in diameter and
eighteen inches long. Its ends were closed with iron caps. Filled
with nitroglycerine, such pipes are terrible shells, which explode by
concussion. I was amazed to think of the recklessness of Boris in
tapping them together.

"Put them down, Verbitzsky!" I whispered, as we groped our way between
high walls of bales.

"No, no, they're weapons!" he whispered. "We may need them."

"Then for the love of the saints, be careful!"

"Don't be afraid," he said, as we neared a small side door.

Meantime, we heard the police run after the Terrorists, who brought up
against the great door at the south end. As they tore away the bar and
opened the door they shouted with dismay. They had been confronted by
another squad of police! For a few moments a confusion of sounds came
to us, all somewhat muffled by passing up and over the high walls of
baled wool.

"Boris! Where are you?" cried one.

"He's killed!" cried another.

"Oh, if we had the bombs!"

"He gave them to Verbitzsky."

"Verbitzsky, where are you? Throw them! Let us all die together!"

"Yes, it's death to be taken!"

Then we heard shots, blows, and shrieks, all in confusion. After a
little there was clatter of grounded arms, and then no sound but the
heavy breathing of men who had been struggling hard. That silence was
a bad thing for Verbitzsky and me, because the police heard the
opening of the small side door through which Alexander next moment
led. In a moment we dashed out into the clear night, over the tracks,
toward the Petrovsky Gardens.

As we reached the railway yard the police ran round their end of the
wool-shed in pursuit--ten of them. The others stayed with the
prisoners.

"Don't fire! Don't shoot!" cried a voice we knew well,--the voice of
Dmitry Nolenki, chief of the secret police.

"One of them is Verbitzsky!" he cried to his men. "The conspirator
I've been after for four months. A hundred roubles for him who first
seizes him! He must be taken alive!"

That offer, I suppose, was what pushed them to such eagerness that
they all soon felt themselves at our mercy. And that offer was what
caused them to follow so silently, lest other police should overhear a
tumult and run to head us off.

Verbitzsky, though encumbered by the bombs, kept the lead, for he was
a very swift runner. I followed close at his heels. We could hear
nothing in the great walled-in railway yard except the clack of feet
on gravel, and sometimes on the network of steel tracks that shone
silvery as the hard snow under the round moon.

My comrade ran like a man who knows exactly where he means to go.
Indeed, he had already determined to follow a plan that had long
before occurred to him. It was a vision of what one or two desperate
men with bombs might do at close quarters against a number with
pistols.

As Verbitzsky approached the south end of the yard, which is excavated
deeply and walled in from the surrounding streets, he turned, to my
amazement, away from the line that led into the suburbs, and ran along
four tracks that led under a street bridge.

This bridge was fully thirty feet overhead, and flanked by wings of
masonry. The four tracks led into a small yard, almost surrounded by
high stone warehouses; a yard devoted solely to turn-tables for
locomotives. There was no exit from it except under the bridge that we
passed beneath.

"Good!" we heard Nolenki cry, fifty yards behind. "We have them now in
a trap!"

At that, Verbitzsky, still in the moonlight, slackened speed,
half-turned as if in hesitation, then ran on more slowly, with zigzag
steps, as if desperately looking for a way out. But he said to me in a
low, panting voice:--

"We shall escape. Do exactly as I do."

When the police were not fifty feet behind us, Verbitzsky jumped down
about seven feet into a wide pit. I jumped to his side. We were now
standing in the walled-in excavation for a new locomotive turn-table.
This pit was still free from its machinery and platform.

"We are done now!" I said, staring around as Verbitzsky stopped in the
middle of the circular pit, which was some forty feet wide.

Just as the police came crowding to the edge, Verbitzsky fell on his
knees as if in surrender. In their eagerness to lay first hands, on
him, all the police jumped down except the chief, Dmitry Nolenki. Some
fell. As those who kept their feet rushed toward us, Verbitzsky sprang
up and ran to the opposite wall, with me at his heels.

Three seconds later the foremost police were within fifteen feet of
us. Then Verbitzsky raised his terrible bombs.

From high above the roofs of the warehouses the full moon so clearly
illuminated the yard that we could see every button on our
assailants' coats, and even the puffs of fat Nolenki's breath. He
stood panting on the opposite wall of the excavation.

"Halt, or die!" cried Verbitzsky, in a terrible voice.

The bombs were clearly to be seen in his hands. Every policeman in
Moscow knew of the destruction done, only six days before, by just
such weapons. The foremost men halted instantly. The impetus of those
behind brought all together in a bunch--nine expectants of instant
death. Verbitzsky spoke again:--

"If any man moves hand or foot, I'll throw these," he cried. "Listen!"

"Why, you fool," said Nolenki, a rather slow-witted man, "you can't
escape. Surrender instantly."

He drew his revolver and pointed it at us.

"Michael," said Verbitzsky to me, in that steely voice which I had
never before heard from my gentle comrade; "Michael, Nolenki can
shoot but one of us before he dies. Take this bomb. Now if he hits me
you throw your bomb at him. If he hits you I will throw mine."

"Infernal villains!" gasped the chief; but we could see his pistol
wavering.

"Michael," resumed Verbitzsky, "we will give Nolenki a chance for his
life. Obey me exactly! Listen! If Dmitry Nolenki does not jump down
into this pit before I say five, throw your bomb straight at him! I
will, at the moment I say five, throw mine at these rascals."

"Madman!" cried Nolenki. "Do you think to--"

He stopped as if paralyzed. I suppose he had suddenly understood that
the explosion of a bomb in that small, high-walled yard would kill
every man in it.

"One!" cried Verbitzsky.

"But I may not hit him!" said I.

"No matter. If it explodes within thirty feet of him he will move no
more."

I took one step forward and raised the bomb. Did I mean to throw it? I
do not know. I think not. But I knew we must make the threat or be
captured and hung. And I felt certain that the bomb would be exploded
anyway when Verbitzsky should say "Five." He would then throw his, and
mine would explode by the concussion.

"Two!" said Verbitzsky.

Dmitry Nolenki had lowered his pistol. He glanced behind him uneasily.

"If he runs, throw it!" said Verbitzsky, loudly. "THREE!"

The chief of the Moscow secret police was reputed a brave man, but he
was only a cruel one. Now his knees trembled so that we could see them
shake, and his teeth chattered in the still cold night. Verbitzsky
told me afterward that he feared the man's slow brain had become so
paralyzed by fright that he might not be able to think and obey and
jump down. That would have placed my comrade and me in a dreadful
dilemma, but quite a different one from what you may suppose.

As if to make Nolenki reflect, Verbitzsky spoke more slowly:--

"If Dmitry Nolenki jumps down into this pit _before_ I say five, do
_not_ throw the bomb at him. You understand, Michael, do not throw if
he jumps down instantly. FOUR!"

Nolenki's legs were so weak that he could not walk to the edge. In
trying to do so he stumbled, fell, crawled, and came in head first, a
mere heap.

"Wise Nolenki!" said my comrade, with a laugh. Then in his tone of
desperate resolution, "Nolenki, get down on your hands and knees, and
put your head against that wall. Don't move now--if you wish to live."

"Now, men," he cried to the others in military fashion, "right about,
face!"

They hesitated, perhaps fearful that he would throw at them when they
turned.

"About! instantly!" he cried. They all turned.

"Now, men, you see your chief. At the word 'March,' go and kneel in a
row beside him, your heads against that wall. Hump your backs as high
as you can. If any man moves to get out, all will suffer together. You
understand?"

"Yes! yes! yes!" came in an agony of abasement from their lips.

"March!"

When they were all kneeling in a row, Verbitzsky said to me clearly:--

"Michael, you can easily get to the top of that wall from any one of
their backs. No man will dare to move. Go! Wait on the edge! Take your
bomb with you!"

I obeyed. I stood on a man's back. I laid my bomb with utmost care on
the wall, over which I could then see. Then I easily lifted myself out
by my hands and elbows.

"Good!" said Verbitzsky. "Now, Michael, stand there till I come. If
they try to seize me, throw your bomb. We can all die together."

In half a minute he had stepped on Nolenki's back. Nolenki groaned
with abasement. Next moment Verbitzsky was beside me.

"Give me your bomb. Now, Michael," he said loudly, "I will stand guard
over these wretches till I see you beyond the freight-sheds. Walk at
an ordinary pace, lest you be seen and suspected."

"But you? They'll rise and fire at you as you run," I said.

"Of course they will. But you will escape. Here! Good-bye!"

He embraced me, and whispered in my ear:

"Go the opposite way from the freight-sheds. Go out toward the
Petrovsky Gardens. There are few police there. Run hard after you've
walked out under the bridge and around the abutments. You will then be
out of hearing."

"Go, dear friend," he said aloud, in a mournful voice. "I may never
see you again. Possibly I may have to destroy myself and all here.
Go!"

I obeyed precisely, and had not fairly reached the yard's end when
Verbitzsky, running very silently, came up beside me.

"I think they must be still fancying that I'm standing over them," he
chuckled. "No, they are shooting! Now, out they come!"

From where we now stood in shadow we could see Nolenki and his men
rush furiously out from under the bridge. They ran away from us toward
the freight-sheds, shouting the alarm, while we calmly walked home to
our unsuspected lodgings.

Not till then did I think of the bombs.

"Where are they?" I asked in alarm.

"I left them for the police. They will ruin Nolenki--it was he who
sent poor Zina to Siberia and her death."

"Ruin him?" I said, wondering.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They were not loaded."

"Not loaded!"

"That's what Boris whispered to me in the wool-shed office. He meant
to load them to-morrow before going to His Imperial Majesty's train.
Nolenki will be laughed to death in Moscow, if not sent to Siberia."

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