The Vagrant Duke | Page 2

you had said to them--all that they owe to you. They are mad," he finished despairingly, "mad!"
The Grand Duke had folded his arms and was staring out of the window toward the white dome of the church now dyed red like a globule of blood in the sunset.
The old man watched him for a moment, all the fealty of his many years of service in his gaze and attitude.
"I do not like the look of things, Highness. What does it matter how good their hearts are if their brains are bad?"
"I must go and talk with them, Vasili," said the Grand Duke quietly.
The old man took a step forward.
"If I might make so free--"
"Speak--"
"Not to-night, Master--"
"Why not?"
"It will be dangerous. Last night their voices were raised even against you."
"Me! Why? Have I not done everything I could to help them? I am their friend--because I believe in their cause: and they will get their rights too but not by burning and looting--"
"And murder, Master. Two of Prince Galitzin's foresters were killed."
The Grand Duke turned. "That's bad. Murder in Zukovo!" He flicked his extinguished cigarette out of the window and made a gesture with his hand.
"Go, Vasili. I want to think. I will ring if I need you."
"You will not go to Zukovo to-night?"
"I don't know."
And with another gesture he waved the servant away.
When Vasili had gone, the Grand Duke sat, his legs across the chair by the window, his arms folded along its back while his dark eyes peered out, beyond the hills and forests, beyond the reddened dome of the village church into the past where his magnificent father Nicholas Petrovitch held feudal sway over all the land within his vision and his father's fathers from the time of his own great namesake held all Russia in the hollow of their hands.
The Grand Duke's eyes were hard and bright above the slightly prominent cheek bones, the vestiges of his Oriental origin, but there was something of his English mother too in the contours of his chin and lips, which tempered then hardness of his expression. The lines at his brows were not the savage marks of anger, or the vengefulness that had characterized the pitiless blood which ran in his veins, but rather were they lines of disappointment, of perplexity at the problem that confronted him, and pity for his people who did not know where to turn for guidance. He still believed them to be his people, a heritage from; his lordly parent, his children, who were responsible to him and to whom he was responsible. It was a habit of thought, inalienable, the product of the ages. But it was the calm philosophy of his English mother that had first given him his real sense of obligation to them, her teachings, even before the war began, that had shown him how terrible were the problems that confronted his future.
His service in the Army had opened his eyes still wider and when Russia had deserted her allies he had returned to Zukovo to begin the work of reconstruction in the ways his awakened conscience had dictated. He had visited their homes, offered them counsel, given them such money as he could spare, and had, he thought, become their friend as well as their hereditary guardian. All had gone well at first. They had listened to him, accepted his advice and his money and renewed their fealty under the new order of things, vowing that whatever happened elsewhere in Russia, blood and agony and starvation should not visit Zukovo.
But the news that Vasili brought was disquieting. It meant that the minds of his people were again disturbed. And the fact that Prince Galitzin had always been hated made the problems the Grand Duke faced none the less difficult. For his people had burned, pillaged and killed. They had betrayed him. And he had learned in the Army what fire and the smell of blood could do...
With a quick nod of resolution he rose. He would go to them. He knew their leaders. They would listen to him. They must listen....
He closed the piano carefully, putting away the loose sheets of music, picked up his cap and heavy riding crop from the divan, on his way to the door, pausing, his hand on the bell-rope as a thought brought a deeper frown to his brow.... Why had Conrad Grabar, his chief forester, said nothing to-day? He must have known--for news such as this travels from leaf to leaf through the forest. Conrad! And yet he would have sworn by the faithfulness of his old friend and hunting companion. Perhaps Conrad had not known....
The Grand Duke pulled the bell-rope, then went to the window again and stood as though listening for the voices of the woods. Silence. The sun had sunk,