THE WOMAN FROM SIBERIA
At last there was a movement within. Halting footsteps approached the gates, and a man’s voice, hoarse and weak, demanded: “Who is there?”
“It is Yossof,” Anne exclaimed. “How comes he here alone? Where is my mother, Yossof?”
I started as I heard that. Her mother was alive, then, though Anne had said she could not remember her, and Treherne had told me she died soon after her arrest, more than twenty years back.
“She is within and safe; Natalya is with her,” came Yossof’s quavering voice, as he labored to unbar the gates. We heard him gasping and groaning as if the task was beyond his strength, but he managed it at last. The great doors swung open, and he stood leaning against one of them. In the chill morning light his face looked gray and drawn like that of a corpse, just as it had looked that first time I saw him on the staircase at Westminster. On the weed-grown path beside him lay a revolver, as if he had dropped it out of his hand when he started to unbar the gates.
“What has happened, Yossof?” Anne asked urgently.
“Nothing; all is well, Excellency,” he answered. “I rode and gave the word as the order was, and when I reached the town the madness had begun, so I did not enter, but came on hither. My horse was spent, and I found another, but he fell and I left him and came on foot. I found none here save the Countess and Natalya; the others had fled, fearing an attack. So I closed the gates and kept guard.”
“God reward thee, friend; thou hast done well, indeed,” Anne said, and moved on to the house.
I felt a twitch on my sleeve, and Mishka muttered in my ear.
“Count our men in and then see the gate barred. We shall be safer so. I will look after Yossof, and find also what food is in the house for us all. We need it sorely!”