CHAPTER V
THE GERMANS
Boris jumped up.
"That is good!" he said. "I have been hoping he would come."
"You do not know who it is," said the servant. "Boris Petrovitch, do notsee this man. He is a German. He looks to me like one of their spies."
"I will look at him first," said Boris, with a smile. "But, Vladimir, Ithink your eyes are getting feeble. It is time you were sent to theplace in the Crimea to rest, like the old horses that can no longer dotheir share of the work."
Vladimir bridled indignantly. But then a slow smile came over his face.
"Is it Ivan?" he asked.
"It should be," said Boris. "I shall know as soon as I see him."
The newcomer was waiting in the great hall. Boris, with Fred at hisheels, got a glimpse of him; then without ceremony he ran down thepolished staircase.
"So you have come at last!" he cried.
Ivan was a loutish German in appearance, and only his eyes betrayed thefact that he was not as stupid as he looked. At the sight of Boris hesmiled, and the act changed his whole expression. But Fred thought hehad never dreamed of so splendid a disguise. This man, he guessed, musthave come many miles through Germany, in a country where the closestpossible watch was being kept for spies, and for all, indeed, who mighteven be suspected of espionage. And it was easy to see how he had beenable to do it. Fred knew that he must be a Russian. Yet in every detailof his appearance he was German. His clothes, his bearing, his everylittle mannerism, were carefully studied. Fred guessed that this was noservant, but a secret agent of much skill and experience. He was tolearn the truth of his surmise before many days had passed.
"Ivan Feodorovitch!" said Boris. "So you really got through! Have youbrought the--"
He stopped at a forbidding look in the man's eye. For a moment he seemedto be puzzled. Then he understood that it was the presence of Fred, astranger, that was bothering Ivan.
"Oh!" he cried, with a laugh. "Ivan, you may speak before this strangeras freely as before me. Let him be a stranger to you no longer. He is mycousin from America--the son of Marie Feodorovna, who went away to bemarried before I was born!"
Fred was not prepared for what followed. There was an outcry, first ofall, from the half dozen servants in the great hall. They crowdedforward curiously to look at him. And as for Ivan, he stared blankly fora moment, and then plumped down on one knee and, to Fred's unspeakableembarrassment, seized his hand and kissed it.
"He and all of them are old, old retainers of our house," Borisexplained swiftly. "To them one of our blood ranks second only to theCzar himself. My father saw to it always that here we were surroundedonly by such faithful ones. These people and their ancestors before themhave been in the service of us and of our ancestors for many, manygenerations--since before the freeing of the serfs, of course."
It was Boris who brought Ivan back to the errand that had caused hissudden appearance.
"Have you brought the parts for the wireless?" he asked. "It was as myfather foresaw. The first thing the Germans did was to come here andrender the installation useless, as they supposed."
"It need not remain useless," said Ivan. "Everything needful I havebrought. The station may be working by to-night. Except that there cannot be anything worth sending for a few hours, it might be set up now.Better not to use it and risk betraying our secret until there is realneed of it."
Boris turned to Fred to explain.
"We have spies all through East Prussia, and through Galicia andSilesia, too, of course," he said. "They can find out a good many thingsof interest and importance to our army. But it is one thing to obtainsuch knowledge and quite another to find some means of sending it backto our people. We hope, if we are not sent away from here too soon, thatwe can make this house very useful that way. It stands high, you see,and we have a very powerful wireless. The Germans knew this and theythought they had made it useless."
"Oh, that's great!" said Fred. "Perhaps I can help, too, because I cansend by wireless. I don't know whether I would be much good with theContinental code, because I've learned only with Morse. But I might beof some use."
"Another operator will be of the greatest use," said Boris. "I know alittle, a very little, about it. And there is a man here. But I amafraid that they will come very soon and take every man who is offighting age away."
"But your men aren't soldiers!"
"Most of them have served their term in the army. But, even if they hadnot, the Germans would take every able-bodied man. That is all right.We are probably keeping back all Germans who might go home and go intothe army, and all the other countries will do the same with men of anation with which they are at war."
"Vladimir has all that I brought," said Ivan, breaking in now. "As forme, I must go again."
"Go? Now? Aren't you going to stay?"
"No! I have much to do. I may be back. But if I return, I shall comethrough the cellar--you understand? There are strange movements oftroops in this region that I cannot understand at all. There are farfewer soldiers here than I thought there would be. I have not been ableto find traces of more than a single corps of Germans--and we hadexpected them to have three or four, at the very least, concentrated inEast Prussia as soon as the war broke out. At Augustowo they were evenexpecting an attack."
"Then if there are so few as that, won't we advance?"
"Ah, that I don't know! The Austrians, I hear, are very busy. They saythey are moving already in great strength across the border, but that isfar away from here, and it is not our concern. It is for us to keep theGermans so busy here that they will not be able to crush France beforeEngland can get her army into action. At the beginning it does notmatter so much whether we win victories or not, so long as we can forcethe Germans to send many corps here instead of using them to invadeFrance. But I have talked enough. Now--good-bye, and may God be with youhere!"
"Good-bye," said Boris, and Fred repeated Ivan's wish in Russian. Ivanseemed astonished.
"So your mother taught you her mother tongue!" he said. "Ah, but that issplendid!"
Then he was off.
"Ivan might have been a great actor, I believe," said Boris. "See, isn'the the German to the life as he goes, there? No wonder he can deceivethem so!"
"It's pretty dangerous work for him, though, I should think," said Fred."They wouldn't waste much time on him if they caught him, would they?"
"Only the time they needed for a drumhead court-martial. After that, ifhe was lucky, he would be shot instead of being hung. But he is ready,you see. It is his part. Oh, we Russians are all united now, if we neverwere before! Germany has threatened us for years. She has set Austriaagainst us. This time we had to fight, and you will see that all Russiawill be behind the Czar. We learned our lessons against the Japanese.That was not a popular war. It was not made by the people, but by a fewwho forced the Czar's hand. Now we shall make the world see that thoughRussia may be beaten, she has the power to rise from defeat."
"What will happen here if they do take the men away?"
"They won't take them all. Only the younger ones. There will be enoughleft to look after the place and after us. Though if they come, I shallhave to hide you, my cousin! I am just thinking of that. I shouldn'twonder if those stupid people would have sent word to someone. We hadbetter be prepared. Come with me--I will show you something."
Fred followed Boris, and in a few minutes found himself in a great roomthat was obviously the dining-room of the house. In this room there weremany pictures, and the walls were panelled in oak, blackened by smokeand age. Boris looked about to make sure that they were not observed,then he touched a spot in one of the panels, and it slid open. Beyondthis, however, was revealed an unbroken wall. Again Boris touched acertain spot, and now this wall, seemingly solid and unbroken, gave way,just as the oaken panel had done.
"Even if they discovered the panel, you see, they would not have thesecret," said Boris. "I will show you the exact spots you must touch.Then if they come,
you can reach this place by yourself. Once in here,you will be safe. Carry an electric torch always with you. I will giveyou one later. You will find two sets of arrows marked every few feetthrough the passages to which this leads. The upper ones point to theoutside door that is at the end of a passage far beyond the house. Thelower ones, if you follow their course, will bring you back to thesepanels. So you cannot lose your way."
"By George, that certainly sounds mysterious! Have you always plannedfor something like this?"
"Oh, these passages are very old. This house, you see, was built at atime when intrigue was more common than now. But when my father began tosee, as he did years ago, that Germany was sure to force war upon us,and that it would probably come in his lifetime, he made many changes.This is not really a private house at all--it is a little outpost ofRussia, here in the midst of an enemy's country. And it is not the onlyone. In Silesia and in Galicia we have places like it."
"Perhaps the Germans will find that Russia is not so slow after all!"
Outside now there rose a peculiar sound, but one that Fred identifiedat once.
"That sounds like your Germans coming now, Boris," he said, quietly."I've heard crowds making just that same noise at home--on electionnight, for instance, when they were coming to make the winner give thema speech."
Boris listened for a moment, then he went to a window.
"Yes," he said. "But it's not the sort of Germans we need to worryabout. It's only the people from the village. Old men, and women, andchildren--boys, of course. I'm surprised that they should come for theyknow they can't get in."
But even as he spoke, there came a thunderous sound of knocking at theouter door and the sharp grounding of arms--a noise as ominous as it wasunmistakable.
"There are soldiers, too. They are here much sooner than I thought theycould come!" exclaimed Boris. "Here, into that passage with you! Listen!Follow the arrows! They will lead you down. Stop at a double arrow. Youwill be able to hear. The wall is very thin there, on purpose. You canhear what is going on in the great hall and still be perfectly safe.I'll come for you as soon as I can get rid of them."
"All right. But will you be safe yourself? Oughtn't you to come with me,Boris?"
"Oh, they won't do anything to me! I'm only a boy, you see. They'llnever think that I could be dangerous. In with you, now! We can't keepthe soldiers out. I don't want to give them an excuse for burning theplace down, and they'd do it in a minute if there was any resistance."