The Playground of Satan

by Beatrice C. Baskerville

"We can't go back," said the Countess. "Not even to find shelter amongst the wreckage. Von Senborn would kill you. Where shall we go?" She looked around at the desolation lighted by the moon and choked a sob. She must bear up for her boy's sake.

"We must find the jewels," said Vanda.

"We're destitute without them," returned Ian.

"Think of it!" cried his mother. "And a year ago people envied us."

Ian hated to leave what had been his home. Only his fears for the others prevented him from proposing to them to creep back and live in the open rather than desert it. He knew they would need no persuasion; but dared not risk it for them.

For the moment, he vainly tried to calm the peasants. At least, when he had shouted himself hoarse without avail, the stream passed onwards. Even old Martin disappeared, and they were left alone, whilst the cries and shouts of the fugitives died away in the darkness. They were near the bend of the road, where stood the old windmill before a shell set it on fire. Just beyond it they could, in happier days, catch a glimpse of the House. He always looked forward to seeing it when he came home after being in Warsaw or abroad. He and Vanda, as children, shouted for joy when they came to it. And now, when there was no home to go back to, they turned their steps towards that bend....

I can't tell you what it looked like. The moon was still high enough to light up its devastation. A dark mass showed where home had been. The House was absolutely leveled to the ground; here and there, higher mounds of wreckage stood above the general ruin. The Countess lost her self-control when she realized that all had gone; for loud as was the noise when von Senborn's men blew it up, she still harbored a faint hope that a wing or story might be saved. But there was nothing, nothing, nothing. Ian bit his lips and the tears ran down his cheeks; but he was silent. They still wept for this ruin when they heard another explosion, or rather series of explosions, not so terrific as the first but powerful enough to be appalling. This time the Germans had destroyed the home-farm and outbuildings, then the stud. The little group stood rooted to the spot, though Ian, at least, would fain have hidden his eyes from this horrid sight. The thought that those barbarians, in less than an hour, wrecked all which it took his race centuries to build and improve maddened him. He thought of all the care and time and money he and his mother alone had spent on the place, to say nothing of those who went before and loved Ruvno even as he loved it. It was his life, the care of that which lay in wreckage. How would he shake down into a new existence, amongst strangers, an exile, a ruined man at thirty-five through no fault of his own? In a modest way he knew what a good administrator he was; how he had improved the estate, and how he took its welfare to heart he realized fully but now. And his mother? What could she do with the rest of her days? Oh, it is hard to be uprooted in after years; the old tree cannot bear transplanting, even if you put care to it; the trunk is too stiff, the branches wither, the tree dies in new soil. And she had been torn up roughly, by the strongest and deepest root, cast into a ditch, to die of a broken heart, in a foreign land. He had yet to learn that the thought of him would give her courage to live; but she knew he still wanted her and she could help him to endure.

And so they watched and wept and shook impotent fists at those barbarians, whose dark figures still moved amongst the ruins of home, their teeth chattering with the chill, huddled together like the waifs they were for a little warmth and comfort, with not a blanket nor a crust between them. Fires had broken out in the ruins and Ian thought of the library, of those old books and parchments which could not be replaced. They never knew how long they sat thus; but the Prussians ceased to move about. Ian felt as if nothing could make him close his eyes again. When the flames had given place to columns of smoke Father Constantine struggled to his feet. They had ceased to weep, even to curse their foes; the silence of despair was upon them.

"Children," he said quietly, "let us say a prayer together."

He held up the old malachite Crucifix he had taken from the sacristy.