The Great White Army

by Max Pemberton

Was not Mademoiselle Valerie a fellow-countrywoman, and had not these two looked into each other's eyes as lovers are wont to do?

I remembered the impression she had made upon him in the prince's palace, and how he had sworn to hunt her out at Moscow; and I for one could not wonder that his heart leapt when she wrote to him and named a rendezvous to his liking.

He was to dine with her, the letter said, and her carriage would carry him to the barracks afterwards. He little knew the kind of journey that it was meant to be, nor what would lie under the tarpaulin which the assassins had made ready for him.

So off goes our gay cavalier, dressed in his best and as cock-a-hoop as a page-boy who has been kissed by a duchess.

The warnings he received fell on deaf ears. He knew that the regiment had lost good officers who went out upon just such a foolish errand as this; but they had gone to Russian houses, while Valerie was a Frenchwoman who bore an honoured name. There could be nothing to fear in such society. He would dine with her and tell her what she most desired to hear. This was a Guardsman's proper employment, and he would not be doing his duty if he shirked it. To give him his due, Léon was rarely remiss in these matters.

So you will understand why he did not suspect anything—even when they drove through the wood and came to the drawbridge. She would desire secrecy, of course, and this place appeared to be a very citadel of love. Léon merely remarked that aspect of it when he crossed the bridge and the great gate which Ivan the Terrible had built was shut upon him.

She would be alone, and he would find her complacent. The words were hardly said when he found himself face to face with Nicholas, the princely assassin, whose name had struck terror to the heart of many a French prisoner. Now a man trained to the surprises of war has some command of himself whatever the circumstances.

Léon was such a man, and you may be sure he did not betray himself.

Though the peril of the situation was now fully revealed, and he understood the trap into which he had fallen, what should he do but bow in a grand manner to his Highness, and declare his pleasure at that rencontre? The prince in his turn affected to be as agreeably surprised. He apologised for the absence of Mademoiselle Valerie, whom he declared to be confined to her room with an indisposition; and upon that he led the way immediately to the great apartment in which the supper was to be served.

This was nothing else than the round tower which Ivan had built, and a strange place it was, surely, for the entertainment of a man's friends. Léon observed that the walls of the apartment were hung entirely in black velvet, while at the northern arch there was a platform similarly draped in black, but with its plain boards strewn with rushes, as they strew a scaffold in my own country. So ominous was this that even my nephew's sang-froid was hard put to it to forbear a remark; but the prince smiled affably all the time, and appeared to be quite unaware that there was anything extraordinary about this habitation. Léon admitted that he spoke French like a fellow-countryman, and his first act was to introduce my nephew to some dozen officers of the Russian Guard who had come to the house to make merry with him.