In one of the poorer quarters of St.
Petersburg there is a street on a back canal, and
over the street an arch. To the right of the
arch is a flight of steps, ancient and worm-eaten,
difficult of climbing by day by reason of a hole here,
a worn place there, and the perilous tilting of the
boards; at night well nigh impassable without a lantern.
The steps wind and end in a tenement, once a palace,
spanning the water.
It was midnight.
A cloud had come over the moon, light
and fleecy at first, but gradually growing blacker
and spreading until finally it hung like a huge drop-curtain
screening the stars.
The street lay in darkness.
From a window in the top of the arch a single light
was visible, pale and flickering as the ray from a
candle; otherwise the grey bulk of the building seemed
lost in the shadows, lifeless and silent.
Suddenly the light went out.
“Hist st!”
As if at a signal something moved on the staircase,
creeping forward, and then from the shadow of the tenement,
from under the archway, emerged other shadows, moving
slowly like wraiths, hesitating, stopping, losing
themselves in the general blackness, and then stirring
again; shadows within shadows creeping.
Presently a door at the top of the
steps opened and shut. Every time it opened,
a shadow passed through and another crept forward.
No word was spoken, no sound; not a step creaked,
not a board stirred. It was a procession of
ghosts.
Behind the door was a long stone passage,
narrow and dark like a cave. The shadows felt
the walls with their hands softly, gropingly, but the
hands were silent like the feet. Except for a
hurried breathing in the darkness the passage seemed
empty.
Beyond were more steps leading down,
and another passage, and then a second door locked
and barred. Before this door the shadows halted,
huddled together. “Hist st!”
Instantly the floor under them began to quiver and
drop, inch by inch, foot by foot, down a well of continued
blackness. The minutes passed. They still
dropped lower and lower, so low that they were now
below the level of the canal; down, down into the
very foundations of the tenement, once a palace.
All of a sudden the darkness ceased.
The room into which the elevator entered
was large, low-raftered and lighted by a group of
candles at the far end. In the centre was a
black table, and about the table thirteen chairs also
black. The one at the head was occupied by a
figure garbed in a cloak and hood, with a black mask
drawn down to the lips. The other chairs were
empty.
By the light of the candles the shadows
now took shape, the one from the other, and twelve
black-cloaked and hooded figures stole forward, also
masked to the lips. They passed one by one before
the seated mask, touching his hand lightly, fleetingly,
as one dipping the fingers into holy water, and then
around the table to their seats, each in turn, until
all were placed.
Some of the figures were tall, broad-shouldered
and heavy, others small and slight. From the
height, the strength or delicacy of the chin, the
shape and size of the hand, was it alone possible to
distinguish the sex; the rest was shrouded in a mystery
absolute and unfathomable.
As the last and thirteenth chair was
filled, the mask at the head leaned forward and pointed
silently to a dark object at the far end of the room
about which the candles flickered and sparkled.
It was a huge Black Cross suspended as above an altar.
Below it lay an open bier, roughly hewn out of the
stone, and across it a name in scarlet lettering.
The bier was empty.
The twelve other masks turned towards
the Cross, reading the name, and they made a sign
with the hands in unison, a rapid crisscross motion
over the breast, the forehead, the eyes, ending in
the low murmur of a word, unintelligible, like a pledge.
Then the first mask to the left rose and bowed to
the Head.
“Speak,” he said, “the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Of what is this man accused?”
There was a moment of silence, intense
and charged with significance; then the mask spoke.
“In the province of Pskof there
is a Commune. One night, last winter, the peasants
rose without warning. They shot, they maimed,
they hacked, they burned alive every Jew in the village,
men, women and children; not one escaped. The
police were behind them. The instigator of the
police was ”
The Head raised his hand: “Do
you know this for a fact, from personal information?”
“I know it for a fact, from personal information.”
The first mask took his seat and the
second rose, a gaunt figure, the shoulders bowed and
crippled under the cloak. His voice was deep
and full, with tones plaintive and penetrating.
“A month ago there were seven
men arrested. They were taken to ’Peter
and Paul’ and thrust into dungeons unspeakable.
They received no trial; they were convicted of no
crime; they never saw their families again.
Three of these men are now in the mines. Two
are still in the cells. Two are dead.”
“Why were they arrested and by whose order?”
“They were workmen who had attended
a meeting of the Social Democrats and had helped to
circulate Liberal papers. It was done by the
order of ”
The third mask sprang to his feet.
His fists were clenched, and he was breathing hard
like one who has been running.
“It is my turn,” he cried,
“Let me speak! You know you
haven’t forgotten! On the Tsar’s
birthday, a band of students marched to the steps
of the Winter Palace. They went peacefully, with
trust in their hearts, no weapon in their hands.
They were surrounded by Cossacks, who beat them with
knouts, riding them down. They were boys,
some of them hardly out of the Gymnasium, the flower
of our youth, brave sons of Russia ready to fight
for her and die.” He hesitated and his
voice broke. “At the foot of the Alexander
Column, they were mown down like grass without warning,
or mercy; their blood still sprinkles the stones.
Many were killed, hundreds arrested, few escaped.
At the head of the Cossacks rode ”
A sigh stirred the room deepening
into a groan, and then came a hush. Some buried
their faces in their hands, weeping silently behind
the masks. After a while the Head raised his
hand and the fourth rose, slowly, reluctantly, speaking
in a woman’s voice so faint and low it could
scarcely make itself heard. The masks bent forward
listening.
“Last week,” it murmured,
“the Countess Petrushka was suspected.
She was torn from her home, imprisoned” The
voice grew lower and lower. “She was beaten tortured
by the guards; she never returned, yesterday
she was buried.” The voice broke
into sobs. “The man who signed the paper
was ”
So the trial went on amid the stillness,
more and more solemn, more and more impressive, as
one accusation followed the other in swift succession;
the candles dropping low in their sockets, the light
growing dimmer, the room larger and lower and more
ghostly, the night waning.
In every case the name was left a
blank; but in that strange pause, as if for judgment,
the eyes of the masks sought the bier, resting with
slow fascination on the words across it, gleaming scarlet
beneath the flickering candles, vivid and red like
blood.
The final accusation had been made.
The twelfth and last mask had sunk back in his chair
and the leader rose. The silence was like a pall
over the table. When his voice broke through,
it was sharp and stern, as the voice of a judge admonishing
a court.
“You have all heard,”
he said, “You are aware of what this man has
done, is now doing, will continue to do. Does
he merit to live? Has he deserved to die?
For the sake of our country, our people, ourselves,
deliberate and determine. His fate rests
in the hands of the Black Cross.”
He bowed his head on his breast and
waited. No one moved or spoke. At the
far end of the room, the candles dripped one by one
on the bier, falling lower and lower. Occasionally
the wax flared up, lighting the darkness; then all
was dim.
Suddenly, as from some mysterious
impulse, the thirteen sprang to their feet, and again
their hands flashed out in that curious crisscross
motion over the breast, the forehead, the eyes, and
a murmur went from mouth to mouth like a hiss.
“Cmeptb Death!”
rising into a sound so intense, so terrifying, so
muffled and suppressed and menacing, it was as the
cry of an animal wounded, dying, about to spring.
Falling on their knees, they remained motionless
for a moment; then, following the leader, each stepped
forward in turn and took their places about the bier.
The ceremony that followed was strange
and solemn; one that no outside eye has ever gazed
on, no lips have ever dared to breathe. They
stood in the shadow of death, their own and another’s.
Their heads were bowed. Their bodies shook
and trembled. With hands raised they took the
oath, terrible, relentless, overpowering, gripping
them from now on as in a vice; both sexes alike, with
voices spent and faint with emotion.
“In the name of the Black
Cross I do now pledge myself, an instrument in the
service of Justice and Retribution. On whomsoever
the choice of Fate shall fall, I vow the sentence
of Death shall be fulfilled, by mine own hands if
needs be, without weakness, or hesitation, or mercy.
And if by any untoward chance this hand should fail,
I swear I swear, before the third day shall
have passed, to die instead to die instead.”
The words ended in a whisper, low,
intense, prescient of a woe not to be borne.
“I swear I pledge
myself by mine own hands if needs be.”
A sigh broke the stillness.
The masks stirred, recovered themselves and bent over
the bier, drawing out, one after the other, a slip
of paper folded. There were thirteen slips.
Twelve were blank; on one was a Black Cross graven.
They drew in silence; no start, no
movement, no trembling of the muscles betrayed the
one fated. Twelve drew blanks. Which of
them had the Cross; which? They stared dumbly,
questioningly, fearfully from one to the other.
One was the assassin. Which? The answer
was shrouded behind the masks.
Lower and lower the candles burned
in their sockets, flickering fitfully. The room
grew darker and the figures, cloaked and hooded, seemed
to melt back into the shadows from whence they had
emerged, less and less distinct, until finally the
shadow was one, more and more vapoury, filling the
darkness.
Suddenly, a scream cut the silence,
like a knife rough and jagged. In a twinkling
the lights went out. There was a scuffling, a
struggling in the corridor, cries and shouting, the
sound of wood splintering, the blows of an axe, a
rushing forward of heavy bodies and the trampling
of feet. The doors burst open, and a cordon of
police dashed over the wreckage, cursing, shouting and
then stopped on the threshold, staring in amazement
and panting with mouths wide open.
“Oi! Oi! Tysyacha
chertei!”
The room was empty, dark, deserted
save for an old woman, half-witted, who was crouching
on the floor before the sacred Icon, rocking herself
and mumbling. They questioned her, but she was
deaf and answered at random:
“Eh, gracious sirs my
lords eh? So old so poor,
so wretched! See, there is nothing! A
copeck, for the love of heaven half a copeck a
quarter, only a little quarter! Ah! Rioumka
vodki rioumka vodki!”
The police brushed her aside and searched
the room. In the corner was a low cot, hanging
on a nail was an old cloak; on the table the remains
of a black loaf and an empty cup. They searched
and searched in vain; tapping the walls, tearing at
the stone foundations, peering up at the rafters,
tumbling over one another in their eagerness.
“Chort vozmi !”
shouted the captain, “We are on the wrong track.
The scream came from the other side. Head them
off! Run, men, run! Here, this passage,
and then straight ahead! Devil take the old
beggar! Shut up, you hag, or I’ll strangle
you! Head them off!”
Gradually the hurrying footsteps died
away in the distance. The shouting ceased on
the stairs. It was still as the grave, silent,
deserted. The old woman glanced over her shoulder.
She was still crouching before the Icon, rocking
herself backwards and forwards; the beads of the rosary
slipping through her fingers one by one; mumbling
to herself.
Suddenly she stopped and listened.
The rosary fell to the floor. Her eyes watched
the wreckage of the doorway closely, suspiciously,
like an animal before a trap. The shadows encircled
her, they were here, there, everywhere; but none moved,
none crept.
Snatching a slip of paper from her
bosom, she bent over it, her eyes dilated, her mouth
twisted with agony. In the centre of the paper,
clearly graven against the white, was a Black Cross.
She moaned aloud, wringing her hands.
Her teeth gnawed her lips. She clung to the
foot of the Icon, sobbing, struggling with herself,
glancing around fearfully into the shadows. A
gleam from the candle fell on her hood; it had slipped
slightly and a strand of her hair hung from under
the cowl. It sparkled like gold.
She staggered to her feet, still sobbing
and trembling, catching her breath. Then she
went to the nail on the wall and took down the cloak.
The woman stood alone in the midst of the shadows;
they were heavy, motionless. Glancing to right
and left, behind her, to the wreckage of the door,
to the furthermost corner, back to the Icon again,
her eyes roved, darting from side to side like a creature
hunted. Clasping the cloak to her quivering
bosom she approached the candle slowly, stealthily.
Her steps faltered. She hesitated. She
stooped forward another glance over her
shoulder, and blowing with feeble breath, the spark
went out.