XXV THE FINAL RECKONING

THE door leading to the hall was flung open. Shimilin, the Cossack captain, stood on the threshold, and behind him was a group of his wild-looking soldiers, their heads hooded with wrappings of furs, and the points of their shining bayonets bristling about their shoulders.

Shimilin did not advance, but remained in the doorway, coldly surveying those inside the room. He gave each of them a casual glance—Michael, Katerin, Peter, and even the shivering Slipitsky who stood cowering against the wall and whispering to himself through trembling lips and fingering his beard in nervous terror.

“The Ataman Zorogoff!” announced Shimilin, and the soldiers behind him opened a narrow lane, as Shimilin stepped aside and into the room.

The Ataman pushed through the guards, and strode into the room, looking straight at Peter, stern and challenging. The Mongol chieftain’s greatcoat was off, and his somewhat fantastic costume betrayed his childish love for personal display. Rising from the swarthy forehead was the towering white cap of long hairy wool, studded in the center of its flat front by a wide slab of crudely hammered gold half the size of a man’s hand, and in it set a diamond. At his left side hung a tremendous scimitar with a hilt-knot of gold fiber swinging from the guard. He wore a snuff-brown tunic with big brass buttons, blue riding breeches with double stripes of gold braid down the sides, and heavy black boots fitted with wheel-like spurs of silver. His shoulders were covered with broad straps of gold cloth. In his belt were a pair of pistols, the butts sticking up from the tops of uncovered holsters. An order of the Czar hung from the top of a tunic pocket, an odd link between the shattered empire and this usurper, who was crafty enough to display upon his person something which still had a meaning to many of his followers and reflected a trace of the vanished glory of the throne.

A pair of gold devices gleamed upon the standing collar of the tunic of the Ataman, and his long black hair which fringed his ears, was all the blacker for the whiteness of the woolly cap.

Zorogoff marched toward Peter, his boots pounding the floor belligerently, his small black eyes burning with a glittering menace. But he stopped when he could have put out his hand and touched Peter—stopped with an abrupt and final thump of the heel of his left boot as he planted it close beside the right boot.

“There is the American officer,” said Shimilin, still standing by the door. “That is the man, sir, who sent the message.”

Some of the soldiers edged into the room and grounded their rifles with jarring thuds, and the others outside in the hall pressed forward, thrusting their heads in.

Peter bowed. “I am Lieutenant Gordon of the American army,” he said with cold formality, and returned the Ataman’s angry stare.

“I have come to hear you oppose my will,” growled Zorogoff, a wicked twist to the corner of his lips, and venom in his eyes.

“And what is your will, sir?” demanded Peter, putting enough deference into his words and manner to prevent Zorogoff from having any complaint on the ground of lack of civility or respect.

“My officers report that you have been in my city several days. You come here as an American and ignore me and my government.”

“I can assure you that you will not be ignored by the American army, sir,” said Peter.

“Do you, representing the American army, dare tell my officers what they may not do?”

“I requested your officer not to arrest General Kirsakoff and his daughter in my room. They came here to talk with me, and till I have finished talking with them, your officers must not interfere, sir.”

Zorogoff’s breathing became audible to Peter, and he saw the flat nostrils of the Ataman twitch, and growing anger flashing in his eyes. But he did not take his eyes from Peter’s, nor was there the slightest change of expression in the Mongol’s immobile face after that lifting of the nostrils. Behind the Ataman stood Shimilin, smiling sneeringly over the shoulder of his chief, in an obvious attempt to break through Peter’s armor of stolid patience.

“My officers must not interfere!” echoed the Ataman. “Is it that I take orders from the Americans?”

“No, it is not an order, but——”

“Good!” blustered the Ataman. “It is not an order!”

“It is not an order,” went on Peter, in the same even tones. “But you must take care that you do not interfere with American officers. I tell you now, sir, that if these people are arrested in my room, I shall demand to know the reason for their arrest, that they are properly charged and tried, and given the right to a proper defense. Otherwise it may appear to the Russian people that an American officer has betrayed this old man and his daughter to you, and delivered them into your hands. I cannot prevent you from arresting them, from executing them if you wish, but I can reveal to the commander of the American army and to the people of America, the methods of your rule, sir.”

“I rule here, and in my own way. I ask no help in ruling from the Americans,” grunted Zorogoff.

“And the Americans are vitally interested in how you rule, sir,” retorted Peter.

“I rule as I please, with account to no one!” raged Zorogoff. “Captain Shimilin! Take the old man and the woman!”

“Wait!” cried Peter, throwing up his hand to Shimilin. “You are invading my room! I claim the only right to give orders here!”

“I take Russian subjects where I find them, and I do with them as I see fit!” thundered Zorogoff, his face seeming to swell with rage at Peter’s words.

Captain Shimilin turned as if to obey the Ataman’s order, but he hesitated, the same sneering smile upon his lips. He appeared much amused at Peter’s defiance, and only too willing to let him further enrage the Ataman.

“You speak of subjects of Russia, sir,” said Peter, addressing Zorogoff. “Am I to have the honor of reporting that the Ataman Zorogoff occupies the throne of all the Russias? And perhaps part of Mongolia?”

Zorogoff made a grimace, and the flesh about his eyes crinkled tightly. Peter saw that he had struck a vital spot in the pride of Zorogoff, and had touched upon a matter which revealed some of Zorogoff’s power as a pretender—his strength came from his affinity with Asiatic people through his Asiatic blood. His leadership was racial, for he was exploiting his Mongol heritage and behind him were princes of ancient Tartary whispering against white ascendancy in their own land.

“That is the Russian speaking,” said Zorogoff, “not the American! You turned your back on your own people, and come now in a strange coat to give orders with——”

“I came to give you warning that America will not allow you to persecute and kill a helpless old man and a defenseless woman! To keep your hands off helpless——” Peter checked himself in sheer wonderment at his own words—he who had come to kill the helpless old father of Katerin, suddenly found himself defending the very man he had waited twenty years to slay! “America will not allow you to persecute and kill,” he repeated weakly, as if it were an idea which he had just discovered! And he had! For the first time in his life he had been able to express the Americanism which he had acquired in twenty years. It was something that had overgrown his spirit and had smothered all unknowingly to him the smoldering fires within him which impelled him finally to seek the blood vengeance of the Slav!

“Take the Kirsakoffs away!” ordered Zorogoff, turning to Shimilin in the instant of what seemed to him Peter’s indecision. “No Russian, even in an American uniform, can oppose my will here, or——”

A small object came hurtling through the air past Peter, and struck the Ataman in the face. It was a heavy pocket-knife, with the blades closed, and its end, capped with curved grooves, left three short gashes parallel in the cheek of Zorogoff, before it ricocheted against the wall and clattered to the floor.

Michael sprang forward closely after the missile which he had hurled at the Ataman, and thrust forward his fists, past Peter.

“God’s curse upon you!” screamed Michael, his voice rising to a shrill shriek. The Ataman stepped back, and put his hands to his face, and then looked at the tips of his fingers covered with blood. He regarded them thoughtfully for the fraction of a second, a look of surprise in his eyes.

Shimilin spoke in restraint to his soldiers, for they had started forward into the room, their bayonets coming up aslant.

Michael pushed forward and thrust his fists into the Ataman’s face, the body of the old general coming between Peter and Zorogoff, so that Peter’s view of Zorogoff was temporarily cut off. And in that time Zorogoff drew a pistol, and fired, the crash of its report booming out above the startled cries of Katerin and Slipitsky and the high-pitched shrilling of Michael at his enemy. Zorogoff’s bullet almost lifted Michael from his feet, being fired from the hip and upward into Michael’s breast. The old general swung half round and then staggered backward and fell with startling impact across the low writing table.

Peter turned to look after Michael, just as Katerin came plunging toward the Ataman, who stood partly hidden in a cloud of gray smoke. Peter caught the flash of the naked blade—the blade of the small dagger which Michael had handed to Peter and which had been taken from Peter’s hand by Katerin.

Peter clutched after her, fearful of the consequences of another attack upon Zorogoff. But she eluded his grasp, and lunged straight forward into the smoke about Zorogoff, to bury the dagger to its hilt in the Ataman’s neck at the base of the standing collar of his tunic.

Zorogoff gave a gurgling cry and the heavy pistol fell from his hand. He threw up his arms and then clawed at his throat as his knees gave beneath him—and pitched forward at Peter’s feet to the ringing clatter of the great scimitar against the floor.

Peter caught Katerin in his arms as she reeled back, and held her, his left hand flying to his own pistol to be ready against the expected attack from Shimilin and the soldiers. But Shimilin stood with his arm raised to hold the soldiers in check, his eyes upon the dying Ataman.

Peter stood thus holding Katerin for a minute, as she cried incoherently. Slipitsky had run to Michael and had lifted the old general down into a chair and the moans of the stricken general came above the wailing of the Jew. Peter gave no heed to them but held his pistol with the barrel half downward and watched the soldiers pressed about the door, fearing that Shimilin would not prevent them from using their rifles. Peter knew well that there was no hope of coming out of a fight alive, but he knew that a weapon had a restraining effect if not aimed at any particular person.

The Ataman lay face down upon the floor, his back hunching up spasmodically, as if he were struggling to get to his feet. At times he drew his knees up, and then his toes would slip back and he would fall upon the scimitar with a musical clang, his life gurgling out through his lips in a crimson stream. Presently he lay still, stretched out at full length, his spurs sticking up from the heels of his boots, the gold knot of the scimitar hilt at his left side, and the toe of the scabbard showing at the right, and his great white cap near his head on the floor.

Shimilin spoke first. “Go and tell Bouran that the Ataman is dead,” he ordered one of his men. “But let no one else know. You others stand outside and let no one enter or have knowledge of what has happened here.”

Katerin recovered herself and slipped from Peter’s arm. She looked round wildly, and then went to her father. He lay back against the chair, held upright by Slipitsky, though the old general’s body swayed from side to side as he was gripped by the tremors of his agony. His hands were clutched to his breast, holding the old peasant’s coat against his wound.

Peter followed after Katerin, for he felt now that whatever Shimilin intended against them in retaliation for the killing of the Ataman would not come in the form of summary action. Katerin was on her knees before her father, speaking to him tenderly in her anguish for him, and at times sobbing out prayers.

Michael opened his eyes and stared up at Peter, and let his hands fall upon Katerin’s head. A spasm of pain crossed his graying face, and he opened his mouth several times before he could speak.

“Save her!” he gasped to Peter. “Now I—no longer stand between you—forgive—forgive——” His breath failed him, and his breast heaved as he was shook by a mighty convulsion.

“Die in peace, Michael Kirsakoff,” said Peter. “I forgive.”

Michael recovered himself for a brief space.

“Good!” he whispered. “Every man has his wolf to kill, but it is better—I was but a millstone hanging from her neck—but now you can save her—you forgive——”

“As I hope to be forgiven, I forgive,” said Peter, putting his face down close to Michael. “Do you hear me, Michael Alexandrovitch?”

A smile came into Michael’s pain-tortured face—a smile of helpless assent, with which was mingled his joy at Peter’s words. But still he was troubled, and his head shook with his effort to express his further wishes.

“Save her—from the Ataman!” he pleaded.

“The Ataman is dead,” said Peter. “Look! There upon the floor!”

Michael’s eyes roved as Peter stepped aside, and finally rested upon the prone body of Zorogoff.

“A-h-h!” cried Michael. “The Ataman submits to the general of his Emperor! My Katerin, do not be sad for me—let the birds sing for both of you—I go happy—God’s blessing upon you both—Gorekin—I, who go to meet the dead, sal—ute——”

Shimilin came and stood beside Peter. The Cossack captain drew off his cap, crossed himself, and uttered a few words of prayer. Michael’s dimming eyes saw him—and revealed a new terror.

“Shimilin!” he gasped.

“Have no fear of me, Michael Alexandrovitch,” said Shimilin. “You, nor your daughter need have no fear of me.”

Peter glanced at Shimilin in surprise, for the Cossack captain was strangely gentle and sympathetic for a man who might be expected to take vengeance for the slaying of his chief.

“I saved you both from Zorogoff, the time at the house,” said Shimilin. “It was I who prevented an execution because you would not give up your money. If you had trusted me and given me the money, I would have protected you, for I could have been Ataman then—as I am the Ataman now.”

“You have succeeded Zorogoff?” asked Peter, in startled amazement.

“I am the new Ataman,” repeated Shimilin. “We Cossacks had a plot, but all was not ready——”

“God’s blessing—on—my little——”

Michael’s head fell forward upon his chest, and he was dead.

Katerin gave a wailing cry and put her hands tenderly upon the cheeks of her father. Peter and Shimilin turned away to leave her with her dead, while Slipitsky stole out into the other room to return with the icon from the corner in which stood Michael’s bed. The Jew put the sacred image into the wasted hands of him who had been Michael Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff, governor and general of the Czars in the Valley of Despair.