CHAPTER V
IN THE ENEMY'S HANDS
Ivan's first impression was of a dead, heavy chill which the fireburning in the great fireplace at the other end of the vast room waspowerless to lighten. The place was half underground, and what lightentered was filtered through dusty and cobwebbed panes of leaded glassset high under the vaulted roof. The windows partially lighted the heavyoak beams which supported the ceiling, but the lower parts of the roomlay in deep shadow. Emblems and rude pictures were scratched and chalkedon the walls, but Ivan could not make them out in the dim light.
Running the width of the room before the fireplace was a massive table,and on either side of it were benches built where they stood. From thesize and strength of them, they might have been intended for the use ofa race of giants or exceedingly fat men! Their carved bases spreadheavily apart, and huge dragon claw feet braced them on the floor which,beneath and around the table, was carefully paved with stone.
At one side of the fireplace a great pile of wood was placed, broken andsplintered pieces picked up from the buildings which had been shelled bythe great guns of the enemy. Bits of oaken beams, pieces of rare, highlypolished furniture, and scraps of priceless carvings made the pile whichsoon would go in flames to cook the wretched supper even then in courseof preparation.
A woman stood by the table, scraping scales from a fish. A heavy knifewas in her hand, and as she raised her dark and scowling face Ivanrecognized her and shuddered.
As she stood watching the entrance of the group at the door, scowlingand peering through the gloom, she looked to Ivan's eyes like one of thefuries of the French Revolution. All the history he had read of thatdreadful period was made clear and real to him. Ivan, closely watched,and closely guarded from harm, had up to the time of the bombardment ofWarsaw, never come in contact with anyone out of his own noble classwith the exception of the Morris family. His father, knowing theeducational standing of Professor Morris in America, and judging thewhole family by his mild, inoffensive manner, had decided to allow Ivan,his son, to learn English from the Professor. It had not occurred tohim, a man of many affairs, to suspect the presence of an ingeniouslively, mischievous whirlwind in the person of the Professor's elderson.
When Ivan told his father with enthusiasm of the Professor's family, thePrince imagined them of course to be exactly like the Professor, andrejoiced that Ivan could be among such studious and book loving, quietpeople. So he told Ivan that he might spend what time he liked with theMorris family, and then forgot the whole thing in the fearful questionof War which soon arose. When he left for the Russian front he leftorders that in case of any peril or disaster Ivan was to go to theMorris house and there remain for greater safety.
Before the happenings of the last chapter, however, Ivan had been almostconstantly with Warren for a year, and had so imbibed his democraticideas and had studied so hard to make good as a Scout that Prince Ivanthe Magnificent, had he returned, would have had difficulty inrecognizing his only and dearly loved son.
But as a matter of fact, Ivan the Magnificent did not return. Instead,blood stained, mud stained and distorted, he slept in a far away trenchpast which had swept the invaders' line, grim and terrible.
He had fought well and desperately for the honor of Poland until atlast, under a leaden rain, Ivan the Prince had gone to meet the fate ofIvan the Man. And not one word of this did Ivan the boy suspect.
It had never seemed that harm could touch his wonderful father. He mustbe safe; and Ivan moved through his many adventurous days with only thethought that he would have so much more to tell his father on one of therare and precious evenings when Prince Ivan's duties at court and withhis regiment would allow him to spend a few happy hours with his son.
So it was with a keen and appraising eye that Ivan viewed that dark anddungeon-like interior, thinking to tell his father all about it.
The woman beside the table scowled darkly as she saw the group.
"What now?" she demanded. "Are those the spies? They are nothing butboys! Why do you bother with them, Michael Paovla, why did you bringthem here? Crack them on the head! The river runs swift enough down thestreet there."
She brandished her knife as she spoke.
"I will not give them one single meal, do, you hear that?"
"Peace, Martha! Do not jest," said the large man with a wry smile.
He looked at Ivan as he spoke.
"Who are you?" he asked. Clothed as the boy was in mean and soiledgarments, there was still something distinguished about him.
He stood proudly erect. Perhaps his name would help out.
"Ivan Ivanovich, of the House of Sabriski," he said, looking the man inthe face.
The three shouted with laughter. "Isn't he clever?" cried the woman."Ask him something else!"
"No," said the man. "I want to think that over. Come, it is cold here!"
He picked Warren up from the floor where he had thrown him, and,carrying him down the long room, made his way around the great table anddropped him roughly on the pile of rags where, Elinor and Rika werecrouched.
Poor little Elinor, huddled on her pile of rags, did not recognize thelimp burden carried in by the larger of the two men, whom she hadlearned to dread with unspeakable terror. When he threw it down in themiddle of the room, the pale face was turned toward the child, and sherecognized, Warren. She commenced to scream. Shriek after shriek lefther pale lips, and the man started over to her side, when a short, sharpword silenced her. She looked to see who had spoken, calling her sofamiliarly by name.
"Stop, Elly, stop," said the voice in English, and her cries werestilled as by magic, although she still gazed with longing and terror atthe pale face down which a tiny line of blood trickled.
The second man clasped a second boy, dirty and torn, and meanly dressedin a workman's blouse. She stared at him, never recognizing Ivan, whomshe had always seen so gorgeously clothed in furs and fine broadclothand exquisite linen. It was not until he spoke again that she recognizedhim.
"Be quiet, Elinor," he said. "We will save you. Warren is not hurt, heis just dizzy. He will be all right soon."
Ivan spoke hopefully, but as he looked down at the boy lying before him,he wondered in his heart if there was really a spark of life left inthat still, pale, bleeding body. As for Elinor, after the firstoutburst, she sat dumbly trembling.
The past day and night had been so crowded with horrors that the tenderchildren were fast passing into a state where they neither realized norfelt the hardships and abuse they were subjected to.
The time when they sat playing in Professor Morris's quiet house seemedtoo far away to remember.
They had been playing happily, the two children, when the family decidedto go away for a few hours, but so happily were they with their dollsand each other, that they paid no attention to the stir and unrest aboutthem. Even Elinor, who was almost six years old, had not concernedherself with the sound of the big guns.
She did not notice when her father left the room. If he told her, as hethought he had, to "sit quietly" and await his return, she failed tohear him. So she took Rika by the hand and "went, visiting." They satdown on the top step, and looked into the empty street, and watchedoccasional groups of fleeing Poles hurry past to the safety of theplains. A rough looking woman came past, noticed them, and returned,looking as she did so at the house, and peering into the hall throughthe open door.
Then she approached the children and in a voice she tried in vain tomake soft, she asked what they were doing, and who they were.
Little Rika, who could say but few words, sat and stared at her with afrown.
Elinor answered politely. The woman studied them carefully. Elinor was achild whose beauty was always remarked wherever she went, and the littleRika was equally lovely. They had been used to kindness and attentionfrom everyone, so when the woman took out a queer little box, andoffered them each a funny little black candy, they accepted them quiteas a matter of course. Then she drew back, and the children turned to
their dolls again. But only for a moment. Then the head of golden curlsand the long, black ringlets drooped and the drugged children wereasleep. The woman shook two big sacks out from beneath her dress, and ascoolly and as cruelly as though she was filling them with straw, sheshoved a child in either bag, crossed to the curb with her heavy burden,and sat down to wait.
When her two accomplices joined her, they went rapidly to the hovelwhere Warren had tracked them later, and releasing the half smotheredand unconscious children, they laid them down on a pile of rags, and satlooking at them, while they ate their evening portion of black bread andcold fish.
There was a great discussion. The larger man, Michael, was in favor ofoffering the children for a ransom. The others would not consider it atall.
"Remember," said Martha, the woman, "there is much danger in collectingsuch fees. Rather will I prepare these little ladies for the trade ofbeggars. So beautiful are they that I can go through every capital inEurope, if so Europe still stands."
"Have it your own way," said the smaller man, Patro by name.
"I always do," she said simply. Then she studied the sleeping formsagain.
"I think it will be well, some time soon, to twist the legs of the smallone," she said. "She would make a sweet cripple."
"No!" said Michael. "You may not do so. I will not have it."
The woman laughed. "Said I not that I have my own way?" she asked.
"All right, Martha, you do," said Patro, "but believe me, it is betterto take the greatest care of those little ones. Think what dancers theymay make some day. There is a fortune in those little feet, I'll bebound. Be careful of them, watch them, and perhaps some day they may beprancing on the opera stage at St. Petersburg, or even here in Warsaw."
The woman sat thinking for a little. "Perhaps you are right," she said."People are dance-mad these times. They are pretty enough to climb toany heights."
Patro laughed.
"Why laugh?" said Martha angrily.
"Nothing, nothing, dear Martha, only that it is funny to think you aretaking these children down from the heights where they belong so thatthey may climb back for your pleasure."
The woman's brow grew black. She reached out a heavy foot, and pushedElinor away from her.
"Not for thy pleasure," she said sneeringly.
"No, Patro, no! They are to pay me over and over for my life. Drop fordrop, pain for pain, I will take from them all I have myself suffered.They shall sleep cold, because so I slept all my childhood. They shallhunger because I did so. They shall beg in the streets while I listen.Ah!" she shook her fists above her head, "I have hated all the world,and now these shall pay me!"
Patro shrugged his shoulders. "As you will," he said. "They are comingto life again, however. I would advise you to feed them enough to keepbeauty in their faces and grace in their limbs, if you indeed wish touse them for food and light and fire."
"That is sound sense, Patro," she answered, and when the children camedizzily to consciousness again, she treated them with almost a roughkindness. But when they cried, she beat them, taking pains to let theblows fall where they would not leave visible scars or bruises.
So passed the dragging hours, until Warren, unconscious and bleeding,was flung down at Elinor's side.
"There!" said Michael. "You will spy, will you? Well, we have you now.And when next you walk the streets, if so you do, you will have cause toremember Michael Paovla and his friends."
Patro frowned. "You are too handy with names," he said. "Trust only adead dog."
"Leave that to me," said Michael with a dark frown. "You," he said toIvan, "you see this gun? We'll not bind you, but if you stir toward thedoor, or make a move to free yourself, you are lost. I will shoot youdown."
"We only want the children," said Ivan boldly. "Give them to us, and wewill go away, and you will not be harmed."
The three set up a shout of laughter. "Thanks, thanks!" said Michaelwhen he could speak, but Martha said angrily, "What! Give up my fire andlight and food? Not much!"
"Suppose I pay you," said Ivan, "I will reward you well."
Again a shout went up.
"A million thanks," said the woman. "What will you give--a dozen driedfishes?"
"You don't know me," scowled Ivan proudly. "I am the son of your Prince,Ivan the Brilliant. Beware how you treat me and these friends of mine."
"The boy will kill me!" cried the woman, leaning back and wiping thetears of mirth from her leathery cheeks. "Go on, go on, my prince. Andwill you not ask us to the palace some day soon? We would like to seeyou at your own home."
"Give us the children and set us free, and you may come," said Ivanafter a pause.
"No; you are too amusing," said the woman. "Rather we will take you withus, or else leave you safely locked here where no one shall disturbyou."
Ivan looked at the worn and haggard children and the form of Warren nowstirring slightly, then he handed the great ruby to Michael.
"Take, this and let us go," he pleaded.
The man looked wonderingly at the flashing stone. "So you too helpyourself in these war times?" he said sneeringly. "What else do youcarry, little rat?"
He ran a practiced, light fingered hand over Ivan, searching for morejewels, but of course found none.
Night seemed to come all at once in the dark and partly undergroundroom. Warren, untended, came slowly back to consciousness, and lay wherehe had fallen in a sort of doze. Little Elinor crept to him and, layingher head on his shoulder, went to sleep. Presently Martha began to yawn,and the men nodded where they sprawled on the benches. The woman drewout an armful of rags, and prepared for the night by wrapping anothershawl around her shoulders.
The men rose after a whispered consultation, and taking Ivan to thefurthest and darkest corner, tied him securely to a ring in the wall.His bonds were loose enough to permit him to lie down on the hard earthand stone floor, but he sat with his back against the wall, wide awake,every nerve tense and quivering.
Twice Michael came and looked at him in the light of a torch from thefire, and retreated muttering. Ivan decided to pretend sleep. The thirdtime Michael gave a grunt of satisfaction.
He went back to the fire and beckoned the others from their pallets.
"He is dead asleep," he said in a low whisper. "We must make our plans."
"Good!" said the woman. "What do you want to do about it?"
She too whispered in a low tone and it struck Ivan that for some strangereason he was listening to a conversation spoken in tones thatordinarily could not be heard three feet away from the speakers. Helistened intently. Every syllable was clear and distinct. Owing to somepeculiar formation of the vaulted ceiling, the sounds were brought tohim, forty feet from the speakers, as accurately as though spoken into atelephone. Ivan's courage rose once more.
He heard the man Michael light his pipe.
"I don't know," he said.
"Of course not!" sneered the woman. "You never do! I suppose you don'twant to kill them?"
"What's the use?" asked the man. "Why blacken our souls further than wemust?"
"I'll tell you why," said Martha suddenly. Her whisper cut like a knife."I'll tell you. Because I fear them. Boys as they are, I fear them!There is a spirit in the eyes of the one who calls himself Ivan thatwill never die until death blinds them. The little rat! The smart littlerat! Calling himself a prince! My, I wish I had had the training of him.Well, whoever he is, he is a Pole, and he will hurt us yet. I feel it. Ican feel it, anyway, that harm will come to us through those boys. Iwarn you, Michael. Patro, I warn you. Once, twice, thrice! You know Inever fail."
There was a silence, and Ivan heard Patro catch his breath sharply.
"Well, what would you?" he said finally.
There was a note of triumph in the woman's voice when she spoke.
"Tomorrow night," she said, "we will leave them here, tied to the table.I will leave food on the table for them, just enough for one meal. Ihave still my little friends in the pill box on the chim
ney ledge. Theyare as strong as ever. We will not stay to see whether they eat or not.But I think they will, because I will see to it that they do not tastemuch food tomorrow. We will lock the door. I will go down to Prague.They say it is but little harmed, and I have a sister there. I will givethe smaller child to her. I have a fancy for the light one myself, andthey are too unlike to pass off for sisters."
There was a long pause. Then, "Have it as you like," said Michael. "Ofcourse, the boys will bother a good deal, if they go free."
"Certainly they would," said Martha. "We would never know where theywould crop up, especially that Ivan one."
"Suppose they do not eat?" asked Patro.
"Eat, eat!" cried Martha. "Well, know you nothing of boys! And they willsuspect nothing. You are brutes, brutes, remember, and I so kind and sosorry," she laughed. "They will believe all I say," she added.
Michael nodded. "Then it is settled," he said.
In the United States, every possible precaution is taken to protectchildren from harm. Laws are made especially for their safety; societiesexist in every town and city to look after them. They go unharmedthrough the streets. Noble men and women give their lives to visitingthe poorest districts and making easier the lot of the unfortunate onesthey find there. Special cases are frequently written up in the papers,and help found for them in that way. In factories, shops, stores,asylums, in the streets, in the slums, every possible, effort is made tomake the lot of children an easier and happier one.
In a great number of the European countries, the case is different.There are no laws, for instance, governing the age at which a childshall be put to work. In fact, in order to keep body and soul together,children labor from the time they are babies. They do the work of farmanimals when their little hands can scarcely grasp the implements oftoil. There are many, oh, so many of them; and they are held cheaply.Poorly clothed, poorly fed, they take kindly to theft, as a means ofgetting the necessities of their bare, miserable little lives.
Once upon a time, there was a dark and dreadful age when making cripplesand dwarfs was a regular trade. Children were taken (nearly alwaysstolen ones) and their limbs twisted, or their faces distorted, in orderto gain sympathy from the passersby, of whom they were taught to beg.That frightful time is long past; but the trades of begging and thievingare still taught.
And to criminals like those in whose hands the children had fallen,life, and child life especially, was too cheap and of too little accountto matter much. They did not in the least mind the contemplation of acrime as horrible as the one they had just decided on. They were afraidof the bright, alert Scouts who had fallen into their clutches, and tothem there was but one way to treat the matter--the shackles and thepoisoned food.