“Very well,” answered I. “I do not know who your Princess is, but I undertake to deliver her letter in safety.”
Having waited some time, I found an opportunity of sailing to my destination. I presented myself once more to the Princess, made my adieux, and left Ragusa. The very same day the Prince Radzivill gave, in honour of the Princess, his fairy-like and long-renowned fête. For a long time in Europe the newspapers could talk of nothing else. The extravagant and generous prince, madly in love with the Princess, had already been lavishing his wealth upon her, like an Indian nabob; but this time he surpassed himself. The fête lasted a long time; the most precious wines flowed like water. There was music, cannon were fired in the gardens, and a beautiful display of fireworks of more than 1,000 rockets astonished all the town. At the end of the feast, the knightly lover suddenly announced that the dances would continue till the morning, and that at dawn all the revellers, to refresh themselves, should see a real winter, and should drive home, not in carriages, but in sleighs. On the morrow, when the guests came out on the perron, the neighbouring streets were really quite white, and to all appearance covered with snow. During the night busy workers had spread a thick layer of salt over everything, and the joyous, noisy crowd of masques, amidst repeated salutes of cannon and the shouts of the newly-awakened citizens, were really driven home to the musical sound of the sleigh bells.
I took my departure for Italy, puzzling my brain with various questions. “Was this Princess really the daughter of the Empress Elizabeth? Did she believe in the truth of what she said herself, or did she spread these rumours on purpose?” As far as I could remember the expression of her face, there appeared from time to time, especially in her eyes, something it seemed to me almost impossible to catch—a look of indecision, mingled with a gleam of hope.
In taking with me her letter and the particulars I had learnt, I was prompted by feelings of duty, as an officer of Her Majesty Ekaterina, but I was half won over by pity for the Princess as a lovely and helpless woman.
CHAPTER VIII.
I DELIVER A LETTER.
I landed at Ancona. From there I started for Bologna, which I had heard the commander had chosen for his headquarters. The Count Alexis Orloff, although the hero of Chesma, hated the sea from the bottom of his heart, and having given over the command of the squadron to his vice-admiral, the first flag-officer, Vice-Admiral Samuel Greig, he spent most of his time on land.
To those beneath him he was ever amiable and good. He was very fond of simple jokes, and surrounded as he was by almost Imperial luxury, was always attentive and easy of access. The life of the count at Moscow, before the campaign in the Greek waters, which had covered his name with glory, had remained graven on my mind. The Orloffs were no strangers to our family. My late father in days gone by had been their companion-in-arms, and I, in going backwards and forwards from the naval schools to my birthplace, used very often to spend long holidays in their Muscovite house. The Count Alexis especially was a favourite of bright Moscow; the gigantic and splendid figure of Count Alexana, as all Moscow called him, full of robust health, his fine Grecian eyes, his gay and careless manners, his enormous wealth, all tended to attract to his hospitable halls all that Moscow could boast of as regards aristocracy, nobility, and also almost all other classes.
The house of the Count Alexis, as I well remember it now, stood not far from the gates of Moscow, and not far from the “Crimean Ford,” and very near to his property in the environs of Moscow, the village Niaskouchnavo (the “not gloomy” village).