CHAPTER XV.AN EXCITING ESCAPE.
When the Tsar returned to Moscow and set himself deliberately to countup his losses, he was obliged to admit that what affected him moregrievously than anything else was the disappearance of poor Boris;a disappearance which he could not but feel certain meant death, orcaptivity and torture, in comparison with which death would be vastlypreferable. Peter missed his devoted servant and friend at every turnand at every hour of the day.
On the second day after his arrival, the Tsar was surprised to receivea request for an audience from, as his orderly informed him, "a littleEnglish fairy." Permission being given, the door opened, and in walkedNancy Drury, now nearly fifteen years old, and as sweet-looking anexample of English maidenhood as any could wish to see. Nancy was verygrave and hollow-eyed, and her face showed signs of many tears.
"Is it true?" said Nancy, advancing towards the Tsar, and speaking inthe hollowest and most tragic of voices.
"Is what true, my dear?" asked Peter kindly, taking the child on hisknee, though he thought he knew well enough what she required of him.
"Is it true that he is lost--my Boris--and perhaps dead?" Poor Nancyburst into tears as she spoke the last word, and hid her face in herhands. "Oh, what have you done with him, and why did you let theTartars have him?" she continued, through sobs and tears.
Peter did his best to pacify the child, assuring her, against his ownconvictions, that Boris was certainly alive and well, and promisingfaithfully that at the renewed campaign next summer his troops shouldcertainly release Boris from captivity before they did anything else.
When Nancy had extracted this promise from the Tsar, she dried hertears, and thanked him and smiled. Peter kissed the sweet English face."If only I were not married already, Nancy," he said, laughing, "Ideclare I should be tempted to make an empress of you when you wereold enough! Would you like to be an empress?"
Nancy blushed. "I love your Majesty very much," she said, "but I wouldnever be empress--" She hesitated.
"And why not, my little English fairy?" said the Tsar kindly.
"I--I shouldn't like to live in a big palace all my life," falteredNancy. "I love the woods and the fields, and--"
"But if Boris were emperor?" laughed the Tsar.
Nancy hid her face, and flushed scarlet. Then she jumped off his kneeand burst into tears again, throwing herself at his feet, and sobbing,"Oh, save him from the Tartars, your Majesty--do save him! Take himaway from the enemies of Christ, and God will bless you for it!"
There was not much of the man of sentiment about this practical youngpotentate, but Peter could not help feeling greatly touched to see thechild's anxiety and sorrow. Once more he assured her that all wouldbe well, and Nancy accepted his assurance and left the Tsar's cabinetsmiling and hopeful.
But my readers will wish to know what has become of poor Boris allthis time. They will think, very properly, that the fate of a singleChristian falling wounded into the hands of an excited mob of thechildren of the Prophet must be pretty well settled before everhis feet have touched the ground. So it would be, undoubtedly, inninety-nine cases out of a hundred; but Boris was not quite "donefor" when he fell, and therefore the swords and knives which wereanxiously awaiting the opportunity to dip into his Christian blood wereobliged first to fight for the privilege. He had received a terrificblow, certainly, but had guarded in time, and though overbalanced andtumbled off the wall, he was still unhurt. Regaining his feet in aninstant, he had placed his back against the wall, and stood to receiveattack. Half-a-dozen swords soon sprang out to give him battle, and ina minute he was engaged in an encounter compared with which his fightwith the Streltsi was the tamest of toy battles. Boris felt that therewas little hope of his keeping his antagonists at bay until some ofhis friends should have mounted the wall and arrived to give him themuch-needed assistance; but he was resolved, nevertheless, to keep upthe game until either death or assistance came, and to exact at leasttwelve Mussulman lives as the price of his own!
Boris fought a good fight that day. Turk after Turk fell before his bigswinging sword, and whenever one fell another took his place. Bravelyhe cut and thrust and guarded, and the very Turks themselves stayedtheir crowding upon the walls to see out this fine exhibition of skilland endurance and Muscovitish pluck. But cutting and thrusting andguarding one's body from two or three assailants at once is tiringwork, and poor Boris felt his strength failing him, and his eye grewdim, so that he could scarcely see accurately where he struck, andsome of his blows began to fall at random. His breath came and wentin gasps, and his arms ached with weariness. In another moment one ofthose flashing blades would find a billet somewhere in the region ofhis stout heart, and the career of the brave bear-hunter would be overand done with.
But fate had decided that the readers of these records of Boris shouldhave many more pages of his history to peruse, and just when the hunterwas making up his mind that he had fought his last fight and lostit, this same fate, in the person of a Turkish pasha who had watchedthe fray admiringly from the beginning, strode up and knocked asidethe swords of the assailants of Boris just in time to prevent themfrom dyeing themselves red in his blood. The pasha felt that herewas a splendid slave being wasted, or perhaps a prisoner for whom agood ransom might be eventually forthcoming. So he struck away theswords, and skipping aside to avoid a savage thrust from poor dim-eyedBoris, who could not see and knew not the signification of this newassailant's interference, he rushed in and pinned the half-faintingRussian to the wall. The sword dropped from Boris's hand as the fingersof the pasha closed around his throat, a thick film came over his eyes,black fog enveloped his brain, and the shouts and cries of the battlearound him receded further and further into space; his consciousnessfaded and failed, his senses vanished one by one like the extinguishingof candles, and Boris knew no more.
When Boris came to himself he was in a small room, whose only windowwas at a height of some five feet from the floor and iron-barred. Hecould hear a sentinel pass and repass beneath it, and from a distancecame the sounds of musketry and artillery fire, which quickly recalledto his mind the events of the morning--or of yesterday, for he waswithout means of ascertaining how long he had remained unconscious.Food--some coarse bread and a dish of water--stood upon the floorbeside the straw upon which he found himself outstretched. Boris wasvery hungry, and at once ravenously consumed the food, finishing thebread to the last crumb, and wishing there were more of it, coarsethough it was. He felt very weary still, and though unwounded, savefor a prick or two in the hand and fore-arm, quite incapable of anddisinclined for thought or exertion. So Boris lay still, and presentlyfell asleep.
He was awakened at night by voices as of people conversing within theroom, and opened his eyes to find the pasha, his captor, with anotherTurk and a third figure whose presence first filled him with joy,and then, as he remembered, with bitter loathing. It was Jansen, thetreacherous gunner, to whose perfidy and desire for vengeance was duethe repulse of Peter and his army, and, indeed, indirectly, his ownpresent situation.
Boris was for upraising his voice in angry denunciation of the traitor,but the pasha dealt him a blow in the mouth and bade him roughly besilent. Boris felt for his sword, but found it was no longer at hisside, neither was his dagger nor his big clumsy pistol; he was entirelyunarmed.
Jansen and the Turks were conversing in a language unknown to Boris,the pasha asking questions and putting down Jansen's replies in anote-book. Then Jansen, addressing Boris, informed him that the pashahad spared his life in order to employ him in his own service, eitherto teach his soldiers the art of swordsmanship, in which, the pasha hadobserved, he excelled, or perhaps to help him, Jansen, in managing thebig guns mounted upon the walls.
But at this point the tongue of Boris would be silent no longer, andburst into furious invective. That this man should desert his masterthe Tsar in his need was bad enough, but that the traitor should expecthim, Boris, to employ his skill in gunnery against his own belovedsovereign and his own people p
assed the patience of man, and Boriswas with difficulty prevented from casting himself upon the deserterand throttling him as he stood. Three swords flashing out of theirscabbards at the same moment, however, reminded the captive of hishelplessness, and Boris relinquished, reluctantly, the pleasure ofsuffocating the traitor.
Whether Jansen persuaded the pasha of the impracticability ofcompelling Boris to do any useful work with the guns, or whether itstruck the pasha that Boris might easily do more harm than good atthe walls, I know not, but the prisoner was never requested to takepart in artillery practice at the Russian lines. His duties, he found,consisted chiefly in helping to carry the pasha's palanquin about thestreets of the city--an occupation rendered exceedingly disagreeable bythe rudeness of the population, who pushed, and jostled, and cursed,and spat upon the "Christian dog" whenever he appeared. Occasionallyhe was directed to practise sword exercise with chosen Mussulmanswordsmen; and this he was glad enough to do, for it gave him amusementin plenty to teach these Easterns all manner of Western malpractices,tricks of swordsmanship of an obsolete and exploded nature such aswould undoubtedly expose them, should they come to blows with anexperienced fencer, to speedy defeat. Besides these occupations Boriswas ever busy in another way--a field of activity in which his energieswere employed without the sanction or the knowledge of his master, forhe was labouring every day to loosen the iron bars of his prison room.By means of peeping out of his window at moments when the sentry wasat a distance Boris had discovered that between him and the outer wallof the city there was but a space of thirty yards of stone pavement,up and down which paced the sentinel. Beyond this was the wall; andover the wall, not indeed the plain whereon the Russian troops had tilllately been encamped, but the shining waters of that arm of the BlackSea known as the Sea of Azof.
Day by day Boris worked at his bar, choosing those moments when thesentinel was farthest from him. Once, during the sword instruction inthe courtyard, a sword broke, and the broken end of the weapon, a bluntpiece of steel about eight inches in length, was left on the ground.Boris found an opportunity to seize this and secrete it before leavingthe spot, and the fragment proved of the utmost service to him inscraping the mortar from beneath and around the iron bars. Two monthsafter his capture Boris saw to his delight that he could now at anymoment he chose remove these bars and attempt his escape.
The opportunity arrived at last: a warm, dark night, drizzling withrain; the sentry, muffled in his _bashlik_, could see little and hearless; no one else would be about the walls in such weather and solate. The bit of sword end, by constant working, had worn to itselfby this time a sharp and formidable edge; it was no longer a weaponto be despised. In Boris's wallet were stored the economized savingsof many meals--food enough to keep him alive for several days. Thehunter removed carefully the iron bars which had made this little rooma prison-house for two long months, and clambering upon the somewhatnarrow ledge, sat in the darkness and waited. Would the sentinel neverpass close enough for his purpose? To and fro the man went, but he didnot guess what was required of him, and passed along rather furtherfrom the window than exactly suited the designs of Boris.
Seeing that the man was evidently a person of method, and stepped timeafter time in his old tracks, Boris determined that he must accept theinevitable and deal with matters as they were, without waiting longerfor desirable contingencies which destiny refused to bring about.Standing crouched upon the ledge, Boris waited until the sentinel wasopposite, as nearly as he could guess in the darkness; then settingevery muscle in his body, he sprang out as far as he could towards thespot where he judged the man to be. So vigorous was his leap, thatthough the soldier was upwards of five yards from the window, Borisalighted with tremendous force upon his shoulders, bearing him to theground and himself falling over him.
The wretched sentry, conscious only that something very heavy indeedhad fallen down upon him, apparently from the skies, was about to howlto his Prophet for help; but in an instant Boris had one big hand overthe fellow's mouth, and with the other felt for a spot where a dig ofhis little weapon might serve to silence for ever the man's appeals,whether to Mohammed or to any one else. A quick struggle as they rolledtogether on the ground, a sharp dig, and the sentinel lay still andharmless, and Boris had accomplished his task so far.
Taking the man's outer garment and bashlik, and leaving his own, takingalso the fellow's musket and pistol, Boris clambered up the outer walland looked for a moment into the darkness beneath. That the sea wasthere was certain, for he could hear the sound of the wavelets lappingthe wall below him; but how far down was the water--in other words, howhigh was the wall?
However, this was no time for anxious reflection. If Boris ever wishedto see his home again, and his beloved Tsar, and, lastly, his littlefriend Nancy Drury, he must jump now and at once. Murmuring a prayer,then giving one somewhat trembling look down into the grim darknessbeneath him, Boris took a long breath and jumped.
It must have been a high wall, for as Boris fell through the air itseemed to him as though he would never reach the water. At last hefelt the cold waves close over him, and then it seemed as though hewould never rise to the surface again; but when his breath was nearlyexhausted, and he was well-nigh choked for want of air, his heademerged once more, and he was able to float quietly for a while, inorder to obtain a fresh supply of breath, and to listen for any soundwhich might either warn him of danger, or indicate the direction inwhich he ought to strike out in order to make the shore.
Presently Boris heard the sound of oars, and remained where he wasuntil the boat should pass. It was a party of fishers putting out tosea, and Boris judged that by going in the opposite direction he wouldreach land; so he struck boldly out for the point whence the boathad come. Soon his intently listening ears caught the sound of thetwittering of sand-pipers, and Boris guessed that he neared the shore.This was the case, and in some twenty minutes from the time of hisplunge the hunter had the satisfaction of feeling the bottom, and ofwading, drenched and somewhat cold, but exceedingly rejoiced, ashore.There was no one about. The city lay to the left; he could hear thecrowing of cocks, and caught the occasional glimmer of a light. Boristook the opposite direction, and walked along what seemed to be theedge of an arm of the sea or of a large river. All night he toiledalong, sometimes swimming or wading, in order to put possible pursuersoff the track.
When morning came, Boris found himself on the skirt of a large forest,and here he concealed himself, and dried his clothes and his food inthe sun. Then, deep in the shade of a birch thicket, he lay down andenjoyed a good rest until the evening, when he rose up and recommencedhis flight, always keeping to the shore of the river, which, as heafterwards discovered, was the Don. Thus Boris travelled for threedays, pushing on at night and resting during the day, until his foodwas well-nigh exhausted. Then, to his joy, he reached a rough-lookingvillage where he found the Russian language was understood. Herehe was received kindly and entertained hospitably by the rough butgood-hearted inhabitants, a tribe of Don Cossacks; and here he restedfor several days, and collected his exhausted energies amid his kindCossack friends, in preparation for the long journey for Moscow andhome!