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Read Ebook: When I Was Czar by Marchmont Arthur W
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Ebook has 4024 lines and 102166 words, and 81 pages
THE PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG.
MY DEAR MILLER,--
Your letter, which was as short as old Canfield's temper, reached me in Berlin as I was starting for here. I'm off to Khiva, this wise.
You'll remember my old yarn about the Czar having saved my life years ago in a pig-sticking do in Germany--he shoved or kicked me into a bush just in the nick of time when the brute made his rush--and how we then discovered the strong resemblance between us? Well, it's still true, and things have been happening in consequence.
I ran across Burnaby's book about Khiva a while back and resolved to go there. He says that three Tartars can eat a whole sheep at a single meal, and I want to see if it's true. Any old tag's good enough excuse for a globe-trotter, so I wrote to the Czar, reminded him of the pig incident, and asked permission to go East. As a result, I'm here as his guest; we've had a chat over the old time, and I'm to go where, when and how I like all over his dominions. He's an awfully decent sort, and I'm in for a real good time. But it's been a queer show.
There's a woman in it of course--and a glorious woman too. A tall, queenly creature, as handsome as a Greek, with the free carriage of one of our own American girls. I saw her on the train, or rather she saw me and seemed particularly interested in me, and it was suiting me very nicely when out came the reason. We stopped at a station some miles from the capital, and as the girl and I were separated from the rest of the people, she said in an undertone--
"Your Majesty does not count the risks of travelling incognito, alone?"
"There are pleasures to counterbalance any risks, mademoiselle," I answered. "Your solicitude is one of them." And I smiled, partly at her amazing mistake and partly because she was so pretty. Then to put myself right, I added: "But you mistake, I am no Majesty. I am an American, Harper C. Denver is my name." She lifted her eyebrows and smiled again, in obvious disbelief, and replied in French--
"An American who understands Russian, speaks French, and resembles His Majesty the Czar."
"An American who would gladly welcome an opportunity of seeing you again, mademoiselle."
How's that for an adventure, eh? But that was only scene one. I sat thinking it over until the train ran into the station at Petersburg, and then came scene two.
The moment I stepped from the cars I saw that considerable preparations had been made to receive some one of importance, and while I stood looking about for him an old man, tightly bound in a somewhat rich uniform, with two or three companion volumes in attendance and a shelf of soldiers behind, came up to me. He waved everybody else out of earshot, and then with an almost reverential salute, said, in a low voice--
"Mr. Denver, I am sure."
"Yes, that's my name."
"Allow me to welcome you to the capital in my august master's name. I am Prince Kalkov, and His Majesty has instructed me to conduct you to the Palace. Will you accompany me?"
"I shall be delighted," I replied; and accordingly the Prince gave a word of command to those in attendance, a guard of soldiers was formed, and I was in this way escorted to the first of a string of carriages in waiting.
"To the Palace at full gallop," cried the Prince in a tone loud enough to reach the by-standers. Some one raised a shout of "God save the Emperor," and in another minute we were off to the accompaniment of loud cries and ringing cheers from the crowd, which was by that time a pretty big one.
That was my sensational entrance into the capital. Here I am at the Czar's Palace, and from what I can judge there's a great deal more of the same kind to follow.
"Which is why I remark, And my language is plain, That for ways that are dark And for tricks that are vain, The Russian at Home is peculiar. And the same I shall hope to explain"--another time.
Comic opera with a dash of mysticism seems about a fair description of things up to now. More, when I've time to write.
HARPER C. DENVER.
N.B.--I'm not monkeying about the Pekin business. Come and meet me like the good fellow you are, and hang Wall Street.
H. C. D.
"You mean seriously that I am to impersonate His Majesty?"
"For this purpose, M. Denver, that is my serious meaning."
"Well, it's a most extraordinary proposition."
"The occasion itself is quite an extraordinary one, of course. But I repeat, you will be doing His Majesty and his Ministers a service of extreme importance. I have asked you, of course, as I said before, only because I understand you deem yourself under a deep obligation to my master."
"You heard us speaking to-night of the incident. I owe him probably my life, and certainly an escape from serious injuries. We Americans don't go back on a call, and I admit it's up to him to call now. But this is such an odd thing."
"Think it over. It is a national characteristic of your countrymen to be prompt. Shall I return, say, in an hour?"
"Wait a minute, Prince," I said as he rose, and pushing my chair back I took a few turns up and down the room.
We were in the apartments which had been assigned to me in the Palace, and the Prince had interrupted me as I was planning out my projected journey to Khiva. It was nearly midnight, and my maps and papers lay open on the table.
"I am quite at your disposal, M. Denver," he replied courteously as he resumed his chair and watched me.
"Let me see that I've got the hang of the thing right," I said after a while. "You say this man, Boreski, is really dangerous; but I thought you had a quick method of dealing with dangerous men in Russia."
"It is not a case for ordinary methods, M. Denver, or I should not have come to you. I wish to deal with you with complete frankness, and have spoken unreservedly as to a personal friend of my master."
"We shan't pull very far together if you don't."
"To be candid, I am not sure what the man's secret object is--presuming, that is, he has one. We know little of him beyond the fact that he is an adventurer and a musician of exceptional brilliance, and that the Duchess Stephanie has conceived a great--I suppose, I should say--fondness for him. She declares she will marry him--in defiance of the Emperor's prohibition: a marriage of the kind being outside the pale of possibility, of course, owing to her relationship to the Imperial Family."
"You think he's after her money?"
"What other conclusion can one draw? The Duchess is twenty years older than he; she is the reverse of prepossessing in appearance; and he is young, handsome and certainly clever. Apart from other reasons the marriage would be a tragedy."
"And then there are these papers?"
"And then there are these papers, as you say. She is entirely dominated by him, and there is no doubt she acted at his instigation and--well, purloined them and carried them to him."
"He is certainly a daring fellow."
"A daring scoundrel, unquestionably," assented the Prince, accenting the "scoundrel."
"But knowing this, why not have arrested him?"
"I thought I had made that clear. I tried it, but he met me too cleverly. Indeed, I believe he actually angled for the arrest."
"Angled for it. How do you mean?"
"That he might get face to face with me and let me realize how far he could go, and would if pressed. It was then he told me of these papers, and that he had placed them in reliable hands to be given, if he were detained, to those who must of course never see them. Never, at any cost."
I smiled at the frank avowal.
"They are very awkward, then?"
"They might mean even war with the Powers chiefly concerned. They are extremely confidential documents. You understand, of course, M. Denver, that in diplomacy, any more than in poker, we cannot always lay the cards on the table."
"It was a fine bluff."
"Too dangerous for me to see him," returned the Prince with a smile, falling readily into the language of the pool room. "And the worst of it was he knew it and claimed the jack pot."
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