Twenty minutes later she left the Fortress, the agreement made, though the plan was but vaguely formed. She drove swiftly home, bringing vast relief to Drexel, and with him hurried off to The White One’s where Dr. Razoff and Pestel were already waiting in anticipation of the meeting. Sabatoff was not present; his position in the Ministry of the Interior was too valuable to the Committee for him to endanger it by running any avoidable risks. They discussed the plan for half the night, and discussed it the next night, and the next; and Sonya had further interviews with the governor to perfect the Fortress arrangements. Sonya and Drexel went over the plan with Freeman several times in the house in Three Saints’ Court. Freeman was full of keen, able suggestions and was of tireless energy in arranging the details of Borodin’s flight.
Four days of consultation and work, and the plan was complete. The governor had demanded its first requisite to be that it should make him seem guiltless of complicity in the escape. Among the prison guards were two of his creatures of such dark records that, should they turn against him, their word would count for nothing. For a thousand rubles each these two gladly undertook the roles of scapegoats. At the hour set for the escape they were to be the watch before Borodin’s cell; a guard’s uniform was to be smuggled in to him; and, aided by a clever disposition of the prison forces which would keep all eyes off the cell for a few moments, he would be whisked out at the time of the changing of the guard and would march away as one of the relieved watch, and so out of the Fortress. A sleigh would be in readiness to carry him to the house in Three Saints’ Court, where he would change his guard’s clothing for a disguise, and from thence he would immediately set out for the German frontier. As for the two guards, they would straightway take to flight and would be far over the Finnish border before Governor Delwig made his discovery of the escape.
The plan had dozens of details, and Sonya and Drexel were ever on the move—always on their guard to avoid a sudden meeting with Captain Nadson. But though Drexel’s every hour was filled his mind went more than once to his relatives at the Hotel Europe, and he reached one definite decision regarding Alice’s approaching marriage. The hour this escape was consummated (two days before the day set for the wedding) he would return to his hotel, share with uncle, aunt and cousin the secret of Berloff’s position and character, and do whatever else might be needed to save his cousin from that arch-villain. In the meantime, to still any possible uneasiness, he wrote a letter to his uncle stating that he would be back from Moscow in time for the wedding, and this he sent to a friend in Moscow to be mailed.
These days made a deep impression on Drexel. He was in constant contact and coöperation with men and women whom he had to admire, yet whose ideals were the exact opposite of those that had ruled his life till two weeks before. Self-interest did not enter into their thought; their ideas, their energies, their very lives, were all directed to the interest of the people. Living in the midst of this fire of devotion, he felt for an instant now and then that a strange new fire was being kindled in him; but in the tense activity he did not analyze the impression made upon him, indeed he was not wholly conscious of it. He was stirred, he was busy—that was all.
Of another matter he was more conscious. His love made him sensible to every change in Sonya’s manner to him. She was engrossed with the plan for her brother’s deliverance; yet little things, the way she looked at him, the way she spoke to him, made him daringly hope that her comradely feeling might be turning to something more.
At length the darkness of the fifth evening settled like a black sediment into Three Saints’ Court, and found all in readiness. Sonya, Drexel and the housekeeper were on duty in the house to receive Borodin and aid his quick transformation; the others were assigned to assist his flight hither from the prison. On the table in Ivan’s room stood a bottle of hair-dye, and beside it were a pair of scissors and shaving utensils; across a chair lay a new suit of clothes; at nine o’clock, the hour set, a swift horse would wait in a side street. Thirty minutes after the bearded, brown-haired prison guard entered, a black-haired, smooth-chinned business man would ride off to the railway station.
As the appointed hour drew on, Sonya and Drexel hardly spoke. Sonya, tense, nervous, paced to and fro; and Drexel, in almost equal suspense, watched her pale strained face. How glad he would be when Borodin had come and gone and her dangerous task was ended, for though he had rejoiced in this close comradeship, he loved her far too dearly not to wish her safely out of this great and constant peril.
The bells of Three Saints’ Church rang seven. Two more hours, and all would be under way.
CHAPTER XIX
THE BATTLE IN THREE SAINTS’ COURT
AS THE bells of the little church ceased tolling seven Sonya paused a moment from her pacing. “Just about now they’ll be slipping his uniform into his cell,” she said.