“It came from higher hands than mine, mademoiselle,” I replied gravely, watching the color flushing her downcast face. “Vengeance was taken out of the reach of my sword, and now you will be safe in a father’s care.”
I added this to note the effect, and saw anxiety cloud her expression. This unknown father was another source of perplexity. We were both absorbed in our own thoughts and emotions, and had not heeded the sounds which must have been approaching, for we were now startled by the roar of a mob. I sprang to the window and looked out, at first seeing nothing; but the noise was only too near, the rabble was evidently in the street in front and in the lane behind the house, for, on every side, rose the shouts and screams of the angry populace.
“What can have brought them this way?” Zénaïde cried, coming to the window; but I pulled her back out of sight, for I had seen the foremost of the rioters crowding into the court. Without a word, I ran down and saw that the postern and lower windows were secure, and then returned. Zénaïde was standing out of sight, but where she could look from the window upon the court, which was filling fast.
“What can they want?” she whispered, as if afraid that they would hear her voice.
I thought I knew, remembering that Vladimir’s death was not known, nor Feodor’s identity. I knew that the dead boyar had been bitterly hated by the lower classes, that he had been intimate with one or more of the colonels of the Streltsi who had been scourged. He had been identified with the Naryshkins, and this, with the fact that he was a perfect type of the arrogant boyar, was enough to excite the fury of the mob, whose taste for blood had only been excited, and not slaked, by the carnival of murder at the Kremlin. What evil fate had induced me to linger a moment in this house? I saw my folly too late, and looked at Zénaïde with the keenest apprehension and self-reproach. How could I save her? I was reflecting upon some means of rescuing her. They had already begun to clamor for admittance, and no door could resist them long. I must find some way to delay their entrance, to give the Boyar Ramodanofsky time to come to our relief, for I felt sure that he had some influence with the rioters. The house was completely surrounded, and I could think of no way of getting Zénaïde out with any chance of escape. Meanwhile, I heard the resounding blows upon the main entrance replied to with similar ones on the postern and the kitchen door. No time could be lost.
“Stay here, mademoiselle,” I said; “I must speak to those in front, and so draw off the canaille from the other entrances.”
“You are mad, M. le Vicomte,” she exclaimed; “your presence will merely excite the mob. If we must die, let it be by our own hands; I cannot fall into theirs alive.”
She stood in the center of the room, her face white and composed, and her blue eyes gleaming with the fire of her race. I saw that, in the extremity, she would meet death with the resolution of a soldier’s daughter. I had never loved her more than at that moment, when I saw her stand there, facing death, and a peril worse than death, with the unfaltering courage of a noble soul. I took her hand in mine and kissed it.
“Mademoiselle,” I said in a low voice, “I swear to you that you shall not fall into their hands alive.”
She did not withdraw her hand, and her blue eyes looked steadily into mine.