CHAPTER VII.
ON THE QUAY.
That day we kept together until late in the afternoon, when Mary and I went for a short walk on the Court Quay. I had seen a few beggars, and had nearly always given them something, until I believe I was pretty well known to them as one who could easily be imposed upon, and now as I saw one coming toward me I began to harden my heart, and involuntarily put my hand upon the bag Carl had wrenched from me.
But something in the man’s face and attitude struck me as different from the ordinary beggar; and into the outstretched palm I put a few kopecks, and was asking where he lived and his name, when a hand was laid roughly on his shoulder and a harsh voice said: “I can tell you, madame; it is——”
I did not catch the name. I only knew I was standing face to face with Paul Strigoff, the gendarme, whom I had met after my encounter with Carl Zimosky.
There was a taunting sneer on his face as he said to me:
“So madame is playing the charitable? But it is not necessary. She is mistaken in her man. He is no beggar. We have been looking for him and have found him at last. His disguise is pretty good, but it did not deceive me.”
He spoke with the utmost pomposity and self-conceit; and I wanted to knock him down, while I pitied the poor wretch who had fallen into his clutches and in whose appearance a great change was taking place. His face grew pale, but took on a very different expression from the one it had worn when he asked me for alms. Then it had been the face of a hungry peasant, with little intelligence in it. Now it was that of a man resolute and defiant, but refined and educated. He had evidently been playing a hazardous game and had lost. His disguise was detected. He was a prisoner, with no way of escape, unless——
There was a quick glance toward the Neva, as if help lay in that swift stream, if he could only reach it. But the gendarme’s grip was firm, and the man seemed half his size as he cowered in his rags.
Extending his hand to me with the kopecks I had given him, he said, in fair English:
“Thank you, lady, but take them back; I shall not need them. We have little use for money where I am going. Please write to No. — Nevsky, and tell her I have been arrested, and tell Sophie and Ivan——”