IV
563 Words
IVIt was a cruel time that now followed. A fresh Polish conspiracy had been discovered, and His Excellency, Sergius Kousmenski, the governor, was more pitiless than ever toward those that fell into the clutches of the Russian police.
A woman, one Olga Kriwenko by name, was implicated in the plot. The governor heard that she was young and beautiful, and that she even succeeded in softening the hearts of her jailers. Many an influential person pleaded for her life, but the governor refused to listen, and ordered that she should be shot the next morning, along with the others; and he also ordered that the Angelus should be rung from the Trappist convent chapel at the hour of their death.
People heard this curious decision, and wondered if His Excellency was really sane. He hardly knew himself, but he thought that if he once heard the Angelus sound together with that volley of musketry it would cease to haunt him as it had done for all these long days.
And when night came he wandered once more toward the convent chapel. Nothing seemed altered in the peaceful little house of God. A monk—was it the same?—was kneeling before the altar. Sergius sat in the chapel he knew not how long. The hours seemed so wearying. Would dawn never come? Dawn, when she would die, she who had broken his heart while quietly telling her beads.
The chapel seemed oppressive. He wandered out and into the little cemetery toward the spot where that open grave had been that night, which now held the body of the Trappist who would not speak. Sergius had some difficulty in finding the exact spot; it had been levelled in this short while, and no crosses or stones mark the graves of the Trappists. Suddenly he paused; at his feet, over some newly trodden earth, something white was gleaming; it was a piece of paper pinned to the earth by a dagger. Sergius stooped to look. He could read the words, stained by mud and rain though they were:
“To His Excellency, the Governor of Warsaw, if he should chance to pass this way.”
Feverishly Sergius pulled out the knife and unfolded the paper. It contained a few scribbled lines written by a feeble hand:
“Sergius Kousmenski. I could not speak to thee in life, let me speak in death. My moments are numbered; thy dagger did its work well, but not quite so well as thou hadst thought. I forgive thee my death. Forgive Olga Kriwenko; her sins were not against thee. Poland needed money; she undertook to find it. She alone knows how she succeeded. The man she saw here was her brother. To him she gave the money. Go thou, and on thy knees ask her pardon for having suspected her purity.”
The paper dropped from Sergius’ hand. A look of joy and hope illumined his face. All was not yet lost. Thank God! Thank God! She still lived.
At that moment the first sound of the Angelus came from within the convent chapel, and the monks once more began to chant “Ave Maria!”
“No! no! Stop! stop! in the name of God, wait!”
Wait! Who should wait? Time or eternity?
“Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death!”
And a distant volley of musketry rent the still night air.
Sergius Kousmenski fell forward on his face, and buried his head in the dust.
- Writer
