This tall spire, shooting upwards like a lance, is the crowning glory of Russia's great State prison, and Russia's Imperial tomb of kings, the grim fortress of Petropavlovsk. It is a familiar sight to Petersburg's populace, as they pass to and fro across the Troitski Bridge, or linger in the spacious Boulevard-park, which is never empty, and through which the dwellers on the Petersburg side go in and out to their homes.
Beneath its solid foundations lie the bones of Russia's greatest sovereigns; within its granite walls languish many of Russia's truest patriots; while without its precincts, separated only by a few rods, lying almost within its shadow, rises the stately palace, within which lives Russia's Tsar, conscious always of the everlasting surveillance of Peter's prison, yet unable to cast it from him, or flee before it.
It was very early in the day, about a month after Olga Naundorff's interview with Ivor Tolskoi, and as yet but few people were astir in the city's streets, save those whose avocations called them forth in the pursuance of itinerant trade. Now and then a mounted orderly would ride past, leading an uncaparisoned horse by a long rein, the iron hoofs clattering over the bridge, breaking clear and distinct across the sharp morning air; presently they would disappear under the arched entrance to the barracks, and then, perhaps, a dark, sombre figure would come next, passing swiftly along, with secrecy written on every line of the face and habiliments, to be swallowed up in the frowning doorway of the Imperial Chancellerie; while those he passed on his way drew back instinctively, the women crossing themselves furtively, the men cursing below their breath. For was not this an emissary of that terrible secret police, from whom no one was safe, whose inexorable will was as iron and blood? And who could say who would be the next in turn to feel that cruel hand upon his throat, and know, with helpless certainty, that Petropavlovsk was his eternal destination?
Just as the clocks on tower and steeple struck seven, following the single notes by the ecclesiastical melody of triumph, "How glorious is our Lord in Sion," a young man appeared, walking quickly, and with long, swinging steps, across the Troitski Bridge. He was tall and straight, and though muffled in a long coat and profuse furs, the yellow tint of his close-cut curls beneath his sable cap, his fresh complexion and boyish gaiety of appearance, at once betrayed him to be Ivor Tolskoi.
He was humming lightly as he walked some half-remembered refrain from last night's ball or opera, but as he reached the middle of the bridge he halted, and folding his arms upon the parapet looked out across the marshy delta of the river, to where the Finnish Gulf made an indistinct grey line.
The gloomy fortress frowned heavily upon him, but the sun's shafts were making merry with the Palace windows, and Ivor's thoughts had more just then to do with hope and love, than with treachery and despair. The opera melody died on his lips unfinished and he heeded it not; his fancy had leapt the bounds of prosaic realism and was wandering as it listed in the realms of conjecture.
It was of Olga he thought as he wondered with idle curiosity which might be her casement among those that glittered and gleamed like jewels in a crystal setting, across the great marble front of the Winter Palace. If he waited long enough would he see the blind raised, the silken hangings withdrawn, and the face of his lady-love look forth to greet the day? Then would he, standing below her, bare his fair head and veil his bold blue eyes, and pray the passing wind to carry to her his message of fealty and true love.
But the windows remained hermetically sealed, the curtains undrawn, and presently Ivor with a shrug of his shoulders, a laugh at his sentimentality, and the fragment of song once more on his lips, passed on his way, looking neither to the right nor the left, and vanished within the heavy portals of the Imperial Chancellerie.
Mounting one flight of stairs with quick step, and passing along a short corridor, Ivor knocked at a closed door, and hearing the sharp French "entrez," opened it and stepped within that inner chamber where so few weeks ago Vladimir Mellikoff had weighed his chances, and made his choice.
Patouchki sat, as then, at the table writing; and without raising his eyes from his occupation, bade the young secretary good-morning, signing him to his place by a gesture of his left hand.