Red Stefan (22 page)

“Wolves,” he said. “Don't bother.”

“I'm not bothering,” said Elizabeth. She felt a certain excitement, but no fear.

Stephen was watching their road now. He spoke without turning his head. There was always a chance of this, especially on a moonlight night.

“But you really needn't bother—we'll beat them all right. There's a place where we can shelter if we're put to it. Can you shoot?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth.

“I hope you won't have to, but you'd better have one of the revolvers. I took Petroff's, and I've got my own, and I always carry a rifle on this run. Even if they catch us up, we shall beat them. They don't like firearms. What sort of shot are you?”

“Only fair.”

He took a revolver out of his pocket and gave it to her. He had the rifle slung at his back peasant fashion.

“Don't fire at anything you can possibly miss. Don't fire at all if you can help it.”

Elizabeth looked over her shoulder again. The trees had closed them in. The clearing lay behind. Looking back at it was like looking out of a dark cage at a stretch of silver sand. Only it wasn't sand, it was snow, and over the snow came the wolf-pack hot on their trail. As she watched, the trees drew close and hid the clearing. She turned, and Stephen spoke again.

“Stasia didn't want me to bring you. Ilya had told her there were wolves about. I told her you would rather meet the wolves than Petroff. What would you have said if I had asked you?”

“Why didn't you ask me?”

“What was the good? I knew what you would say. I didn't want to frighten you. There mightn't have been any wolves, then you would have been frightened for nothing. Most of the things one worries about never happen.

Elizabeth leaned forward with her hands clasped on the revolver.

“How did you know what I would say?”

“Well, there wasn't much choice, was there? Glinka and his friends would have haled us off to Orli and handed us over to the G.P.U. We'd both have been in the trap. I couldn't have helped you. Petroff would have had his knife well into us both. I don't think we should have had a chance in a thousand of getting out alive. I'd rather race a wolf-pack any day myself, and I was pretty sure you would too.”

A broad belt of moonlight lay across their path. They slid through it and were plunged in darkness again. Over her shoulder Elizabeth watched the shining patch. If she could watch it out of sight and lose it, still white and uncrossed, it would mean that they were gaining on the wolves. The road drove straight into the forest. She could see the light for a long way. But before she was expecting it the pack poured into sight. Just for a moment she saw the wolves quite plainly—one running ahead, then two or three, and then the pack. The moonlight shone on them, and then shone only on the trampled snow. They were all in the dark together now.

For the first time she felt a stirring of fear. The palms of her hands tingled. It was as if the moonlight had been a barrier between them and the following fear, and now the barrier had been crossed. The fear had crossed it and was gaining upon them in the darkness.

As if he discerned her thought, Stephen said,

“We'll do it all right. We haven't much farther to go.”

“Where are we going?”

“There's a hut in the forest—I use it sometimes. One of Paul Darensky's foresters used to live there, but he's dead long ago.”

She echoed the name in surprise.

“Paul Darensky—your step-father?”

“Yes. It used to be his land. I know every yard of it.”

He spoke to the horse again, encouraging him. And then they were off the road and following a narrow track that went deep into the forest growth. Just at the turn the trees stood back and the moonlight lay in a pool of light.

Once more Elizabeth looked back. This time Stephen looked too, and this time they had not run fifty yards before the wolves came into view.

Stephen cracked his whip and shouted. Grischa bounded forward. The wolves like shadows melted again into the darkness, but now it seemed to Elizabeth that she could hear them. It might have been only her own troubled blood that beat against her ears, but she thought that she could hear the sound of panting breath, the padding of those tireless feet, and the drip of all those slavering jaws. How much had the wolves gained since the turn, and how near were they now? The trees stood close, and darkness covered them. It was the dark that was so horrible. To strain eye and ear and yet to achieve neither sight nor sound, to feel a chill of the blood at every blacker shadow and yet to know that the fierce surge of the pack might come upon them unawares—these things called up that last desperate reserve of courage which lets go of hope and steadies itself to face the end.

If there were light … Horrible to die in the darkness. Horrible to go down under a smothering rush and die in the dark. Light—light—light … Light to know what they had to meet—light to aim by—

She was on her knees, with the encumbering sheepskins pushed away and the revolver in her hand. A single ray of moonlight touched the path. As they went swaying and bumping through it, she saw just for one instant Grischa's head with the ears laid flat—straining. Then Stephen, standing up with the reins in his left hand. And then the dark again. And over her shoulder she saw by the same gleam the pack not twenty yards behind.

Stephen looked round and back again.

She said, “They're very near.” And as the words left her dry lips, she saw the moonlight shine through the trees ahead.

Stephen spoke without looking round.

“We're there. The hut is just ahead of us. When I pull up I want you to jump and run for the hut. There's a wooden bar that lifts up. Get the door open, run right through into the inner room, and shut yourself in. I want to save Grischa if I can, but I don't want him to kick your brains out.”

“Stephen!”
said Elizabeth imploringly.

He cracked his whip and shouted at the top of his voice. The sledge creaked and lurched. The pace increased, the trees thinned away, letting the moonlight through, and with a last desperate rush they came out upon a clearing bright with untrodden snow. Not thirty yards away was the forester's hut, like a beehive thatched with snow.

But the wolves were nearer than that. The leader ran beside the sledge level with Stephen where he stood with the reins in his left hand and a revolver in his right, whilst around and behind the sledge the pack closed in. As the wolf leapt for the horse's flank, Stephen fired at him. He fell rolling and snapping in the snow, and in an instant the others were upon him. Stephen fired twice more into the tumbling, worrying mass. Grischa reared and sprang forward.

They were within a stone's throw of the hut, but the chase was up again. Elizabeth fired at the nearest wolf and saw him check. Her hand was steady and she had stopped being afraid. Stephen shouted to her, and she turned, ready to jump. With both hands on the reins he pulled the terrified horse back almost on to his haunches and called out,

“Jump!”

As she raced the few yards to the hut, terror raced with her. To be caught here defenceless in the snow, to go down under the pack, as she had seen those wolves go down … She said,
“No!”
and did not know whether she said it aloud or not. And then her hands were tearing at the bar and thrusting open the door.

She was inside, in a sudden blackness darker than anything in the dark forest, stumbling forward with outstretched hands and the door open behind her. For a moment the terror had her by the throat. Then her hands touched a doorpost and she was in the inner room with the door in her hand. She had done what Stephen had told her to do, but she hadn't done all that he had told her. He had told her to shut herself in. How could she shut herself in whilst he was still outside? She was sickeningly afraid, but she was more afraid for Stephen than for herself. There was a bolt under her hand, but she could not drive it home. What good would it do her to be safe unless Stephen were safe too?

She held the door a handsbreadth open and looked through the outer room to the outer door. It stood wide, opening inwards. The doorposts framed a white shining panel of snow and moonlight. She saw that first. Her ears were full of the shrill whinnying of the horse and the sharp crack of the revolver. She could see only that empty shining panel. A horrible snarling and worrying turned her sick. She had a moment of agony. And then the revolver cracked again, and into that empty shining panel there came the head, the tossed mane, and the wild hoofs of the rearing horse. They crossed the picture, flinging madly up, and down again.

She saw Stephen—his hand at the horse's head, his great shoulders straining. Then the doorway darkened and was blocked as he dragged Grischa down and over the threshold.

Elizabeth thrust her own door to and leaned against it. He was inside. Nothing else mattered. She leaned against the door, and presently slid to her knees, because the floor was tilting and the darkness was full of fiery sparks.

She did not lose consciousness. She heard another shot. She heard Grischa stamp and plunge. She heard the slam of the outer door and the rattle of heavy bolts shot home. After that, Stephen's voice soothing the horse.

CHAPTER XXIV

When he called her name, she was still half kneeling, half sitting with her forehead pressed against the rough unpainted wood of the door. It was pine-wood, for a faint aromatic scent still came from it and one of her hands was a little sticky as if it had touched resin. It was odd that she should notice things like that. She was conscious of the piny smell, and of her sticky fingers. But for a moment she could not find any voice with which to answer Stephen, nor did it seem as if she could get upon her feet.

He called again, this time urgently.

“Elizabeth—are you all right? Where are you?”

She drew in a long breath. Surely with as much breath as that she should be able at least to say his name. She said it in a wavering whisper which hardly carried a yard, yet through the closed door Stephen heard. It may be said that it took a most horrible load off his mind. If Elizabeth had not done as he told her—if she had remained in the outer room—if the horse had kicked her … All these suppositions were dispersed by that very faint, wavering “Stephen.”

Grischa was quiet now, though still sweating and trembling. Stephen stood gentling him. He said,

“Elizabeth—are you all right?”

“Yes.”

It was not a yes that carried much conviction. Stephen frowned in the dark, but he let it go.

“You can come out now. I want to put Grischa in there. Turn to the right as soon as you get through the door. Feel your way along the wall until you come to the stove. Climb up on to it and then you'll be out of the way. I'll get a light as soon as I've shut Grischa in.”

Elizabeth got to her feet. Her knees still shook, but the floor had stopped tilting. She did exactly what Stephen had told her to do and, having reached the stove, sank down there and waited.

Stephen spoke to the horse and fondled him. Grischa blew into Stephen's hand, after which he allowed himself to be led into the inner room. It was not the first time that a horse had been stabled there. Stephen fastened the halter to a peg and came back again, shutting the door behind him.

Presently a match flared. It pierced the darkness with its sharp orange flame, gave Elizabeth a momentary picture of Stephen bending over a rough table, and went out. With the next match she could see him coaxing a frozen wick. In the end he got the lamp to light. It was a wall-lamp with a tin reflector. He hung it from a nail in the party wall and proceeded to light the stove. There was wood piled ready in a corner of the hut—logs, and branches of resinous pine which burned up quickly. The worst of the icy cold began to pass. Elizabeth had not known how very cold she was until it began to pass. She felt forlorn and useless. There did not seem to be anything that she could do.

Stephen moved to and fro, large, competent, and cheerful. From a cunningly devised hiding-place behind the stove he produced materials for a meal—cubes of solidified soup to be boiled up with snow water, bully beef, and bars of chocolate. When he opened the door to fill a bucket with snow, Elizabeth shuddered, but not with cold. He was out and back again in a flash. He laughed as he set the bucket down and shot the bolts.

“They're sitting round with their tongues hanging out. I'll have a shot at them presently. There aren't more than half a dozen of them left.”

Elizabeth crouched down against the stove. It was beginning to get warm, and she needed warmth. She felt most forlorn, cold, and uncomforted. Stephen was a hundred miles away and more concerned with his horse than he was with her.

He set the bucket of snow by the fire to melt and disappeared into the inner room, where she could hear him rubbing Grischa down and talking kindly to him. He came back with another bucket for some of the water. She could hear the rustling sound of hay being stirred and pulled about. Grischa was being fed and watered. She could hear Stephen praising him for saving their lives. He was a kind master to his horse. It was she who was a hundred miles away and on the far side of a gulf which seemed to widen continually. It came to her that the gulf was of her own making. If she had trusted Stephen instead of believing herself betrayed, there would have been no gulf. She had believed her eyes and her ears instead of believing her heart. It was her own fault.

But Nicolas had betrayed her.

What had that to do with Stephen? She ought to have known that it was not in Stephen to betray a trust. He had risked his life to-night to save his horse.… A shiver ran through her.

“Are you cold?” said Stephen kindly.

She started. She had not heard him come in. The cold was about her heart. The warmth of the stove would not help that kind of cold. She said,

“No.”

The snow in the bucket had melted. Stephen tipped some of the water into a tin can, put in the soup cubes, and set it on the hottest part of the fire. Then he touched Elizabeth's hand, and found it icy.