All she could muster, amidst her fear was: “You have your revolver? You remember?”
“Yes, of course.”
His arm tightened upon leer; he whispered: “Poor child, don’t give up hope.” Then they both waited in silence. It seemed an age until the next whistle—an answering one that appeared to come from about the same distance on the other side. What was happening was not very clear; perhaps the two searchers were passing along the edges of the undergrowth and did not intend to make any detailed search amongst it. He could imagine their condition—tired, hot, thirsty, and probably bad-tempered after the so far fruitless search. The prickly brambles would hardly tempt them. On the other hand, there was the big reward that had most likely been offered—men would do most things for a few hundred roubles.
After a short time it was evident that the searchers numbered far more than two; whistling proceeded from every direction, and sounded rather as if fresh searchers were coming up at every moment. Then came echoes of shouting and talking, but voices did not carry very well and he could not catch any words. He judged, however, that some sort of a consultation was in progress. Next followed a chorus of whistling and counter-whistling from both sides, the meaning of which was only too easy to guess.
“They’re coming through!” she gasped.
He whispered: “I daresay they’ve got the sense to realise that this is a good place to hide. And so it is, too. There are so many of them there’s bound to be over-lapping and confusion. Keep calm. We’ve still a good chance.” The approach of almighty danger gave him a feeling of exaltation as difficult to understand as to control. He went on, a moment later: “Leaves—these leaves. A childish trick, but it might work. I want you to lie down in this hollow and let me cover you up.”
“Yes, if you wish.”
He placed her so that, with the leaves over her, there seemed no break in the level ground. The whistling by this time was very much nearer, and there could be heard also the tearing and breaking of twigs as some of the searchers broke through. He whispered: “Keep still—don’t move or say a word. And whatever happens, trust me and don’t be surprised. Whatever happens, mind.” A moment afterwards the tousled head of a Red soldier, streaked with dirt and perspiration, pushed itself through the undergrowth a few yards away. A.J. did not wait to be accosted. Wiping his forehead with his sleeve and kicking up some of the litter of twigs, he shouted: “Hallo? Found anything yet? There’s nothing here.”
The man answered: “Nor here either, Tovarish. It’s my belief she didn’t go into the forest at all. And if she did, she wouldn’t have got so far as this. It’s a terrible job, searching through this sort of country on a hot day.”
A J. agreed sympathetically. “You’re right, my friend—its the devil’s own job. And I’ve lost my whistle too, confound it.”
The other laughed. “Never mind, I’ll whistle for you.” He gave two mighty blasts. “That’ll show we’ve done our duty, anyway. Have a drink with me, Tovarish, and It’s get out of this muddle.”
A.J. accepted the offer by no means ungratefully, for he wanted the drink badly enough. The soldier seemed a simple, good-natured fellow, with a childishness, however, that was quite capable of being dangerous. “You were with the other lot, I suppose?” he queried, and A.J. nodded. They struggled through the thickets and reached at last the open ground. There a few other soldiers were already gathered together, evidently satisfied that they had performed their share of the search. They were all rather disgruntled. It was a ticklish moment when A.J. joined them, but his highest hopes were realised; there had been a tremendous amount of confusion and no man expected to know his neighbour. The chief concern of all was the food and drink due to arrive from the forests below.
A.J. found them a friendly lot of men, behind their temporary ill-humour; he soon learned that they had been promised a large reward for the discovery of the escaped Countess, and that the latter, if captured alive, was to be accorded a solemn full-dress execution in the market-place at Saratursk. “She will be hanged, not shot,” said one of the men, rolling a cigarette between grimy fingers. And he added contemplatively: “It is a pity, in some ways, to hang a woman, because their necks are made differently. I am a hangman by profession, and I can speak from knowledge.”
Soon a few men came toiling up the valley with sacks of bread and buckets of thin potato-soup. The searchers greeted them boisterously, relieved them of their burdens, and began to eat and drink ravenously. A.J. and his tousled companion, whose name was Stephanov, managed to secure a loaf of black bread between them, as well as a large can of soup. Stephanov was not astonished that A.J. knew none of the men. “That is the worst of the army nowadays,” he said. “They shift you about so quickly that you never get to know anybody. It was different in the old days when there were proper regiments.” He went on chatting away in a manner most helpful to A.J. “I suppose all the others have got lost—that’s what usually happens. I only know one of the fellows here by name. That’s little Nikolai Roussilov over there. Do you see him? That man snoring against that tree-trunk.” A.J. looked and observed. “I can tell you a secret, Tovarish, about that man—and though you’ll hardly believe it, I assure you it’s the heavenly truth and nothing less.” He dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. “That man was once kissed by the Emperor.”
A.J. made some surprised and enquiring remark and Stephanov went on, pleased with his little sensation: “Ah, I guessed that would startle you! Well, you see, it all happened like this. Nikolai was doing sentry duty one night outside a railway train in which the Emperor was sleeping. The train was drawn up in a siding, and it was Easter Sunday morning—in the old clays, of course. You know the custom—you kiss the first person you meet and give the Easter greeting. Well, Nikolai was the first person the Emperor met that morning when he stepped out of the train, so the Emperor kissed him. Isn’t that remarkable? And you would hardly think it to look at him, would you?”
Many of the men had already fallen to dozing in the shade, but Stephanov’s conversation showed no signs of early abatement. A.J. was not wholly sorry, for the man’s garrulous chatter gave him much information that he guessed might be of value in the immediate future. At last, towards the late afternoon, an officer appeared on the edge of the scene and gave leisurely instruction to the half-sleeping men. They were to form themselves into detachments and march back to Saratursk. Evidently the search, for that day, at any rate, was being abandoned.
A.J.’s problem, of course, was to escape from the soldiers without attracting attention, and there were many ways in which he hoped to be able to do so. Having, however, been given such incredible good fortune so far, he was determined to take no unnecessary risks, and he saw no alternative to accompanying the men for some distance, at least, on their march back to the town. He and Stephanov walked together, or rather, Stephanov followed him with a species of dog-like attachment which threatened to be highly inconvenient in the circumstances. The retreat began about six o’clock and dusk fell as the stragglers were still threading their way amongst the pine-trees. From time to time as they descended, other parties of soldiers joined them—all tired and rather low-spirited. But for the too pertinacious Stephanov, it would have been a simple matter to slip away in the twilit confusion of one or other of these encounters. At last, however, when the last tint of daylight had almost left the sky, an opportunity did come. Stephanov halted to take off his boot and beat in a protruding nail; A.J. said he would go ahead and see how far they had still to go. He went ahead, but he did not return, and he hoped that Stephanov would realise that, in the darkness, nothing was more likely than that two companions, once separated, should be unable to find each other again.