Part 72

“You love her, then?” inquired Pere Alexis.

“No,” replied Rouletabille, with a self-mocking smile. “No, I don’t love her. But if it is she who poured the poison, then it was not Michael Nikolaievitch, and it is I who had Michael Nikolaievitch killed. You can see now that therefore I must die. Show me your finest images.

“Ah, my little one, if you will permit your old Alexis to make you a gift, I would offer you these two poor ikons that are certainly from the convent of Troitza at its best period. See how beautiful they are, and old. Have you ever seen so beautiful a Mother of God? And this St. Luke, would you believe that the hand had been mended, eh? Two little masterpieces, little friend! If the old masters of Salonika returned to the world they would be satisfied with their pupils at Troitza. But you mustn’t kill yourself at your age!”

“Come, bat ouclzka (little father), I accept your gift, and, if I meet the old Salonican masters on the road I am going to travel, I shan’t fail to tell them there is no person here below who appreciates them like a certain pere of Aptiekarski-Pereoulok, Alexis Hutch.”

So saying Rouletabille wrapped up the two little ikons and put them in his pocket. The Saint Luke would be sure to appeal to his friend Sainclair. As to the Mother of God, that would be his dying gift to the Dame en noir.

“Ah, you are sad, little son; and your voice, as it sounds now, hurts me.”

Rouletabille turned his head at the sound of two moujiks who entered, carrying a long basket.

“What do you want?” demanded Pere Alexis in Russian, “and what is that you are bringing in? Do you intend to fill that huge basket with my goods? In that case you are very welcome and I am your humble servant.”

But the two chuckled.

“Yes, yes, we have come to rid your shop of a wretched piece of goods that litters it.”

“What is this you say?” inquired the old man, anxiously, and drawing near Rouletabille. “Little friend, watch these men; I don’t recognize their faces and I can’t understand why they have come here.”

Rouletabille looked at the new-comers, who drew near the counter, after depositing their long basket close to the door. There was a sarcastic and malicious mocking way about them that struck him from the first. But while they kept up their jabbering with Pere Alexis he filled his pipe and proceeded to light it. Just then the door was pushed open again and three men entered, simply dressed, like respectable small merchants. They also acted curiously and looked all around the shop. Pere Alexis grew more and more alarmed and the others pulled rudely at his beard.

“I believe these men here have come to rob me,” he cried in French. “What do you say, my son?--Shall I call the police?”

“Hold on,” replied Rouletabille impassively. “They are all armed; they have revolvers in their pockets.”

Pere Alexis’s teeth commenced to chatter. As he tried to get near the door he was roughly pushed back and a final personage entered, apparently a gentleman, and dressed as such, save that he wore a visored leather cap.

“Ah,” said he at once in French, “why, it is the young French journalist of the Grand-Morskaia Hotel. Salutations and your good health! I see with pleasure that you also appreciate the counsels of our dear Pere Alexis.”

“Don’t listen to him, little friend; I don’t know him,” cried Alexis Hutch.

But the gentleman of the Neva went on:

“He is a man close to the first principles of science, and therefore not far from divine; he is a holy man, whom it is good to consult at moments when the future appears difficult. He knows how to read as no one else can--Father John of Cronstadt excepted, to be strictly accurate--on the sheets of bull-hide where the dark angels have traced mysterious signs of destiny.”

Here the gentleman picked up an old pair of boots, which he threw on the counter in the midst of the ikons.

“Pere Alexis, perhaps these are not bull-hide, but good enough cow-hide. Don’t you want to read on this cow-hide the future of this young man?”

But here Rouletabille advanced to the gentleman, and blew an enormous cloud of smoke full in his face.

“It is useless, monsieur,” said Rouletabille, “to waste your time and your breath. I have been waiting for you.”

XVI. BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL

Only, Rouletabille refused to be put into the basket. He would not let them disarm him until they promised to call a carriage. The Vehicle rolled into the court, and while Pere Alexis was kept back in his shop at the point of a revolver, Rouletabille quietly got in, smoking his pipe. The man who appeared to be the chief of the band (the gentleman of the Neva) got in too and sat down beside him. The carriage windows were shuttered, preventing all communication with the outside, and only a tiny lantern lighted the interior. They started. The carriage was driven by two men in brown coats trimmed with false astrakhan. The dvornicks saluted, believing it a police affair. The concierge made the sign of the cross.

The journey lasted several hours without other incidents than those brought about by the tremendous jolts, which threw the two passengers inside one on top of the other. This might have made an opening for conversation; and the “gentleman of the Neva” tried it; but in vain. Rouletabille would not respond. At one moment, indeed, the gentleman, who was growing bored, became so pressing that the reporter finally said in the curt tone he always used when he was irritated:

“I pray you, monsieur, let me smoke my pipe in peace.”

Upon which the gentleman prudently occupied himself in lowering one of the windows, for it grew stifling.