Read CHAPTER V of The Black Cross , free online book, by Olive M. Briggs, on ReadCentral.com.

It was snowing steadily. The drops came so thick and so fast that the city was shrouded as in a great white veil, falling from the sky to the earth. Drifts were piled in the streets; they were frozen and padded as with a carpet, and the sound of sleigh-bells rang muffled in the distance. It was night and dark, with a bitter wind that came shrieking about the corners, blowing the snow, as it fell, into a riot of feathery flakes; sudden gusts that raided the drifts, driving the white maze hither and thither, flinging it up and away in a very fury of madness. The cold was intense.

Before the door of a house on the little Morskaia stood a kareta. It was large and covered. Behind and on top several boxes were strapped, protected from the snow by wrappings of oil-cloth, and on the driver’s seat was a valise.

The horses pawed the snow impatiently, tossing their heads and snorting whenever the icy blast struck them. The wind was sharp like a whip. Occasionally the kareta made a sudden lurch forward; then, with guttural oaths and exclamations, the animals were reined back on their haunches, slipping and sliding on the ice, plunging and foaming. The foam turned to ice as it fell, flecking their bits. The breath from their nostrils floated out like a vapour, slender and hoary.

The driver, muffled in furs, swung his arms against his breast, biting his fingers, stamping his feet to keep them from freezing. The kareta, the driver and the horses were covered with snow, lashed by it, blinded with it. They waited wearily. From time to time the driver glanced up at the door of the house and then back at the carriage, shaking his head and muttering fiercely:

“Stand still, you sons of the devil, stand still! You prance and shy as if Satan himself had stuck a dart in you! Hey, there! Back, back, you limb! Will the Barin never come?”

He swore vigorously to himself under his beard, and the flakes fell from him in a shower. After a while the door of the house opened; some one appeared on the steps and a voice called out:

“Bobo, eh Bobo! Is that you, are you ready? Heavens, what a night!”

“All ready, Monsieur Velasco, all ready.”

“The boxes on?”

“Yes, Barin.”

“You took my valise, did you?”

“Yes, Barin.”

The figure disappeared for an instant within the doorway and the light went out; then he reappeared, carrying a violin-case under his arm, which he screened from the wet with the folds of his cloak, carefully, as a mother would cover the face of her child. He leaped to the carriage.

“All right, Bobo, go ahead. Wait a moment until I get the latch open. Ye gods! I never felt such cold. My fingers are like frozen sticks. There! Now, the Station: Warchavski Voksal as fast as you can! Ugh, what a storm!”

The Violinist flung himself back in the corner of the kareta, huddling himself in the furs; the windows were shut and his breath made a steam against the panes. The carriage was black as a cave.

“There ought to be another fur!” he said angrily to himself. His teeth were chattering and his whole body shivered against the cushions. “I told Bobo to put in an extra fur. The devil now, where can it be?”

He groped with his hands, feeling the seat beside him, when all of a sudden he gave an exclamation, alarmed, half suppressed, his eyes staring into the darkness, trying vainly to penetrate.

What was it? Something was there, moving, breathing, alive, on the seat close beside him. Gracious heaven! He wasn’t alone! Velasco crouched back instinctively, putting out both hands as if to ward off a blow. He listened, peering. Surely something breathed there, in the corner! He could make out a shadow, an outline. No, nothing it was nothing at all.

His pulses beat rapidly; he groped again with his hands, slowly, fearfully, hesitating and then groping again. It was as though something, someone were trying to elude him in the darkness. His breath came fast; he listened again.

Something cowered and breathed “Bozhe moi!” He gripped his lip with his teeth and hurled himself forward, grappling into the furthermost recesses of the kareta. His hands grasped a cloak, a human shoulder, a body. It dragged away from him. He clutched it and something shrank back into the shadows. His eyes were blind; he could see nothing, he could hear nothing; he could only feel. It was breathing.

His hand moved cautiously over the cloak, the shoulder. It resisted him, trying vainly to escape; and then, as the carriage dashed on through the darkness, he dragged the thing forward, nearer nearer, struggling. The breath was on his cheeks. He felt it distinctly the rustle of something alive.

Velasco clenched his teeth together, clutching the thing, and held it under the window-pane, close, close, straining forward. As he did so the rays of a street lamp fell through the glass, a faint, pale light through the steam on the panes; a flash and it was over. Velasco gave a cry.

Beside him was a woman, slight and veiled, and she was crouching away from him, holding her hands before her face, panting, frightened, even as he was.

“Who are you?” cried Velasco, “What are you? Speak, for the love of heaven! I feel as if I were going mad. Speak!”

He shook the cloak in his trembling grasp and, as he did so, a hand pressed into his own. It was bare, and soft like the leaf of a rose. He grasped it. The fingers clung to him, alive and warm. Velasco hesitated. Then he dropped the hand and from his pocket he snatched a match, striking it against the side of the carriage. It sputtered and went out. He struck another. It flickered for a moment and he held it between his hands, coaxing it. It burned and he held it out, gazing into the corner, coming nearer and nearer. The eyes gleamed at him from behind the veil; nearer He could see the oval of the face, the lips. Then the match went out.

“Kaya Kaya!”

He snatched at her hand again in the darkness and held it under the fur. “You came after all,” he whispered hoarsely, “I thought I had dreamed it. Speak to me; let me hear your voice.”

He felt her bending towards him; her shoulder touched his. “You promised I hold you to your promise.”

“Yes; yes!”

“Have you changed your mind?”

“No. Don’t take your hand away. No! It is horrible, the storm and the blackness. Hear the wind shriek! The hoofs of the horses are padded with snow; they are galloping. How the carriage lurches and sways! Are you afraid, Kaya? Don’t don’t take your hand away.”

Velasco’s voice was husky and forced like a string out of tune. It was strange, extraordinary to be sitting there in that dark, black cave, his hand clasping the hand of a woman, a stranger. The two sat silent. The horses plunged forward.

Suddenly they stopped. Velasco started as out of a dream and sprang to the window, wiping the steam from the panes with his sleeve.

“Bobo!” he cried, “Madman! This is not the Station. Where are you going, idiot fool!”

His voice was smothered suddenly by a hand across his lips.

“Hush, Monsieur, have you forgotten? The driver knows, he is one of us. Come with me; and I pray you, I beseech you, don’t speak, don’t make a sound; step softly and follow.”

In a moment the girl was out of the carriage and Velasco behind. Her veil fluttered back; her cloak brushed his shoulder. The storm and the wind beat against them. He ran blindly forward, battling with the gale; but fast as he went she went faster. He could scarcely keep up. In the distance behind them, the carriage and horses were lost in a white mist, a whirl.

“Here,” she cried, “Bow your head, quick, the arch and then through the gate run! Take my hand in the court let me lead you. I know every step. Run run! You waited so long; we shall be late. There is barely time before the train. Ah, run, Monsieur run!”

The two figures dashed through the alley and into an open cloister, running with their heads bowed against the wind, struggling with the snow in their eyes, in their throats; blinded, panting.

“Stop!” gasped Velasco, “I can’t run like this. Stop! You mad thing, you witch! Where, where are you going? Stop, I tell you!”

She dragged at his hand. “Come a moment further. Come, Monsieur. Ah, it is death don’t falter. Run!”

She caught at a little door under the wall and pushed it madly. It yielded. He sprang in behind her; and then he stood blinking, amazed.

They were alone in the dark, ghostly nave of a huge Church. The long rows of columns stretched out in the distance, tall and stately like pines in a forest; the aisles were broad and shadowy, leading far off in a distant perspective to the outline of an altar and a high cross suspended. They were dim, barely visible.

“Where are we?” he murmured, faltering. “Kaya, speak tell me.”

She put up her face close to his and he saw that her lips were quivering, her eyes blurred with tears. Her veil was white with the snow, like a bride’s. She dragged at his hand, and he followed her dumbly, their footsteps echoing, a soft patter across the marble of the church.

It was absolutely dark; only on the far distant altar three candles were lighted, three sparks, red and restless, like fireflies gleaming. Otherwise the nave, the chancel, the transepts were as one vast blackness stretching before them. They fled on in silence; their goal was the candles.

At first the space before the altar seemed empty, deserted, like the rest of the Church; but as they approached, nearer and nearer, three forms seemed to melt from the back of the choir and stood on the steps; two were figures in cloaks; the third was a priest. His surplice shone in the shadows against the outline of the columns. He mounted the steps of the altar and stood with his face to the cross. They seemed to be waiting.

To Velasco the sound of his footsteps echoed and reverberated on the marble, filling the darkness. The noise of them was terrible. He would have covered his ears with his hands, but the girl urged him forward. The soft fingers crept about his own like a vine, clinging, irresistible.

“Come,” she breathed, “ah, come, Monsieur come!”

Then he followed, moving forward hurriedly, blindly, like one hypnotized. His senses were dulled; his will was inert. When he came to himself he was kneeling beside her on the marble, and he heard the voice of the priest, chanting slowly in Slavonic:

“Blessed is our God always, and ever, and unto ages of ages.

“In peace let us pray to the Lord for the servant of God, Velasco, and for the hand-maid of God, Kaya, who now plight each other their troth, and for their salvation. . . . That he will send down upon them perfect and peaceful love. . . . That he will preserve them in oneness of mind and in steadfastness of faith. . . . That he will bless them with a blameless life. . . . That he will deliver us from all tribulation, wrath, peril and necessity. . . . Lord have mercy!

“Lord have mercy!”

He listened in bewilderment; was it himself, or his ghost, his shadow. He tried to think, but everything melted before him in a mist. The girl by his side was a wraith; they were dead, and this was some strange unaccountable happening in another world. The marble felt cold to his knees. Velasco tried to move, to rise, but the hand of the priest held him down. The voice chanted on:

“Hast thou, Velasco, a good, free and unconstrained will and a firm intention to take unto thyself to wife this woman, Kaya, whom thou seest here before thee?”

And in the pause, he heard himself answering, strangely, dreamily, in a voice that was not his own:

“I have, reverend Father.”

“Thou hast not promised thyself to any other bride?”

“I have not promised myself, reverend Father.”

Then he felt the hand of the priest, pressing the crown down on his forehead; it weighed on his brow, and when he tried to shake it off he could not.

“The servant of God, Velasco, is crowned unto the hand-maid of God, Kaya. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

“The servant of God, Kaya, is crowned unto the servant of God, Velasco. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

“O Lord our God, crown them with glory and honour.

“O Lord our God, crown them with glory and honour.

“O Lord our God, crown them with glory and honour!”

Velasco passed his hand over his face; he was breathing heavily. The crown glittered in the darkness.

“And so may the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the all-holy, consubstantial and life-giving Trinity, one God-head, and one Kingdom, bless you, and grant you length of days, . . . prosperity of life and faith: and fill you with all abundance of earthly good things, and make you worthy to obtain the blessings of the promise: through the prayers of the holy Birth-giver of God, and of all the saints. Amen.”

“Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit now, and ever, and unto ages and ages.”

“Amen.”

The chanting ceased suddenly, and there was silence. Then he felt something falling against him, and he staggered to his feet, dragging the girl up with him. She trembled and shook, pushing him back with her hands; her eyes were full of terror, staring up into his, the eyes of her husband. Again everything grew misty and swayed.

He was signing a paper; how his fingers quivered; he could scarcely hold the pen! The priest drew nearer, and the two cloaked figures. They all signed; and then he felt the paper crackling in the bosom of his coat, where he had thrust it. They were hurrying back through the dark, ghostly nave.

They were running, and the sound of their footsteps seemed louder and noisier than before; they ran side by side, through the door in the wall, the cloisters, the arch, bowing their heads; and there was the carriage, a great blot of whiteness, the horses like spectres. The snow came whirling through the air in sharp, icy flakes, cutting the skin. The wind grew fiercer, more violent.

With a last desperate effort Velasco dashed forward, pursuing the veil, the fluttering cloak and the door of the carriage closed behind them. In that moment, as it closed, the horses leaped together, as twin bullets from the mouth of a cannon; galloping, lashed and terrified through the night. It was still inside the kareta.

Suddenly Velasco was conscious of a voice at his elbow, whispering to him out of the silence: “Thank you, Monsieur, ah, I thank you! We shall be at the station directly; then a few hours more and it will be over! You will never see me again! I thank you I thank you with all my heart.”

The voice was soft and low, like a violin when the mute is on the strings. He could scarcely hear it for the lurching of the carriage. The horses gave a final plunge forward, and then fell back suddenly, reined in by an iron hand, and the kareta came to a standstill.

The station was all light and confusion; porters were rushing about, truckmen and officials, workmen carrying coloured lanterns. “Not a second to spare!” cried Velasco, “Send the trunks after me, Bobo Here my valise!”

He snatched up his violin-case, and the slim, dark-veiled figure darted beside him. “If we miss it!” he heard her crying in his ear, “I shall never forgive myself! I shall never forgive myself!”

“We shan’t miss it!” cried Velasco, “I have the tickets, the passports for you and for me! Here to the left! The doors are still open!”

An official rushed forward and took the valise from Velasco’s hand: “Here, sir here! First class compartment!”

Velasco nodded breathlessly, and the two sank down on the crimson cushions; the door slammed. “Ye gods!” They were alone in the compartment; they were saved! Velasco gave a little laugh of triumph. He was hugging his violin close in his arms, and opposite him sat the slim veiled figure. She was looking at him from behind the veil and she was his wife. “Ye gods!” he laughed again.

“Why are you trembling?” he said, “We are safe now. I told you I had the passports. Are you cold, or afraid? You shake like a leaf!”

The girl put out her hand, touching his. “Did you see?” she breathed, “There on the platform Boris, the Chief of the Third Section! He was watching!”

Velasco laughed again aloud, happily, like a boy: “What of it? Let him watch! Put up your veil, Kaya. Great heavens, what a night it has been! My heart is going still like a hammer is yours? Lean back on the cushions put up your veil. Let me see you once, let me see you! Look at me as you did in the Theatre Kaya! Don’t tremble.”

“He is there,” breathed the girl, “I see him behind the curtain! He is talking to the official The train is late and it doesn’t start. Why doesn’t it start?”

She gave a little moan and peered out through the veil: “Something has happened, Monsieur! The officials are clustered together, talking there is some excitement! They are gesticulating and several are pointing to the train! What is it what is it?”

Velasco laughed again; but the laugh died in his throat. The two turned and gazed at one another with wide, frightened eyes.

“The Chief of the Third Section see! He is going from compartment to compartment He is looking at the passports! He is coming here here!”