“In that case we must leave at once — we must not be found here.”
“That I will not allow.” Marie Lou’s little pointed chin stuck out firmly. “Where would you go, at night, and in the snow? Monsieur le Duc is of my own people; we are in a strange land together; I will hide you if they come.”
“You stay here,” said Rex. “I’ll go and see if I can’t find any trace of Simon.”
De Richleau made an effort to rise; the girl pushed him back. “Monsieur the American is right,” she said. “Let him look for your little friend; you will stay here that I may bandage this poor shoulder. Afterwards I will hide you in the loft.”
“As you will, then; only promise me this, Rex — if Simon has been captured you will return for me before you attempt anything.” The Duke smiled at Marie Lou. “Mademoiselle, you are a woman of great courage. To allow you to take such a risk for us is against every principle of my life, but we are in desperate straits. I accept the shelter that you offer with the deepest gratitude.”
“There, now you talk sense at last. Rakov may say nothing after all; he will think, perhaps, that it is only another of my madnesses. Because I live differently to them, the people here think that I am queer — if it were not that the children like me, and for the memory of my mother — I think that fifty years ago the peasants would have burnt me for a witch.”
For the first time in hours Rex laughed, his ugly, attractive face lit with its old merry smile. “I’ll say you’re a witch all right,” he murmured. “I’ve half a mind to go get wounded myself if you’d promise to take a hand healing it!”
“Monsieur is pleased to be gallant,” she said demurely. “He would be wiser to seek tidings of his friend and return unwounded.”
“Take care, Rex,” begged the Duke, “and don’t be longer than you can help.”
“I’ll be right back, and I’ll give three knocks on the door, so you’ll know it’s me. See-yer-later.” With a cheerful smile Rex went out into the night.
When De Richleau’s wound was cleaned and dressed, Marie Lou barred the cottage door, and showed him a cupboard hidden behind a curtain. It contained a collection of old clothes, but behind these was concealed a series of stout shelves, up which it was easy to climb to the loft She told him that she had hidden there many times during the evil times, when Reds, Whites and Greens had ravaged the country indiscriminately.
The rifle was taken up to the loft, also the knapsacks and De Richleau’s furs. All other traces of the travellers were disposed of in anticipation of a surprise visit; then they put out the light, that the occupant of the cottage might be presumed to be sleeping, and sat together in the darkness near the stove.
“When I heard all the shooting,” she said in a low voice, “I thought that I should never see any of you any more.”
“Surely you could not hear the fight at this distance?” he asked, surprised.
“Ah, no — but when I was unable to get the horses I woke Monsieur the American, and he begged that I would conduct him to the Château. I should also have been in the trouble if he had not persuaded me to turn back at the gate where I left you. He had a feeling, I think, that all was not well. I like your big friend; he is so gentle.”
De Richleau nodded sadly. “He’s a fine fellow, but it is the little one I am troubled for. He was more gentle still.”
“You were very fond of him?”
“He had become almost like a son to me in my old age.”
“Monsieur Van Ryn will rescue him, perhaps — he is so strong. He could make mincemeat of half a dozen of these little Red soldiers.”
“Perhaps — he has rescued us once already this evening — but I fear poor Simon is lying dead in the snow among the bushes at the bottom of the garden. Tell me more about yourself, Mademoiselle, to take my thoughts off this terrible business.”
“What shall I say?” She shrugged her shoulders. “Life here has been supportable — the people are not unkind. They do not understand me one little bit; that I choose to live alone and will not marry or seek a man — that is strange to them. But in a way it is part of my protection. Many husbands look at me, but I always turn away my head, therefore the wives have nothing to fear from my good looks.”
“Have you never thought of going back to France?”
“Often, Monsieur, I have thought of it, that beautiful France that I know so well from books, and from my mother’s stories. But how? I have no money even if the authorities would let me make the journey.”
“Have you no relatives to whom you could have written?”
“None, Monsieur. As I have told you, my mother knew Prince Shulimoff since many years — long before I was born. She was cut off by her own people for that, you will understand?”
“I think so,” said the Duke, gently. “You are the Prince’s daughter.”
“Yes, Monsieur, I am his daughter, and legally so, for my mother was his wife, but he would never acknowledge that. It was a secret marriage made in Paris. I did not know of it myself until my mother told me when she lay dying. It seems that afterwards he made a great marriage here, in Russia, but later, when his wife died, he returned to my mother. She was in great poverty at that time, and he persuaded her to come and live at Romanovsk, but only as the companion of his niece. That proved to be our good fortune afterwards; they would surely have murdered us if they had known the truth.”
“You are, then, the Princess Shulimoff?”
She laughed gaily in the darkness. “Yes, Monsieur, a poor Princess who teaches in a school. It is like a fairy story, is it not, but where is the pumpkin that turned into a coach, and the little silver slippers, and the handsome Prince? One day I think I must write that story. We will call it The Fairy Story of The Princess Marie Lou.”
“What became of your cousin — the Princess Sophie?”
“Ah, that was terrible — “ she broke off suddenly as three loud raps sounded on the cottage door.
Marie Lou unbarred it at once, and Rex staggered in, bearing Simon slung like a sheep across his broad shoulders.
The Duke gave a cry of delight, then asked anxiously in the next breath: “Is he badly wounded?”
“Don’t know — pretty bad, I guess.” Rex gently lowered his burden to the floor. He waved back the girl. “Have a care, he’s bleeding as if he’d been hit in twenty places.”
The Duke was already kneeling at Simon’s side. “Where did you find him?” he murmured, as he helped Rex to pull off Simon’s blood-soaked clothes.
“Way outside the garden gate. I allow he crawled that far after he’d been shot.”
“He fainted, I expect, from loss of blood,” De Richleau replied, as with his long, slender fingers he carefully drew the shirt away from the wound. “It is this one place only, I think,” he added.
“Well, that doesn’t look any too good.” Rex bent over, and examined the ugly hole in Simon’s thigh, from which blood was welling.
Marie Lou joined them with a bowl of water. “Poor boy,” she sighed. “He is so white and still — almost one would think him dead.”
“I fear he will be very much alive in a moment,” said the Duke, taking out his penknife, and holding it in the flame of the lamp.
“What are you about to do?” asked Marie Lou, who had started to bathe the wound gently.
“Probe for the bullet — remove it if I can. The pain will bring him round, I’m afraid, but it must be done. He will thank me for it if we ever get out of this country alive. Rex, take this cloth — hold it over his mouth to stifle his cries. Mademoiselle, perhaps you would prefer to turn your back on this rough surgery?”