The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

prepare himself to be taken before Her Majesty. He changed into his best suit, scented and powdered himself as if he were going to a ball, then accompanied them down to the echoing entrance-hall of the fortress. A shuttered carriage similar to that in which he had been brought to Schlusselburg was waiting outside. The two young men mounted their horses, Roger, his heart beating considerably faster than usual, was locked into the carriage, and it started on its long drive via St. Petersburg to the Peterhof.

They had set out at three o'clock, and with halts for changing horses, it was nearly eight by the time they arrived at the Imperial Palace. Roger was conducted to the inner guard-room and left to wait there for over an hour; then the two officers returned, drew their swords, and placing themselves one on either side of him, marched him across the vast hall and up a great marble staircase. Some way down a corridor six more glittering members of the Chevalier Guard were drawn up before a pair of tall, ornate double doors. A chamberlain tapped upon the doors with an ivory-headed staff, two footmen threw them open, and drawing himself up, Roger walked forward into the presence of the Empress.

Seated behind a great carved desk she seemed even smaller than he had first thought her, but no less regal. As he advanced he saw that the dark, sly-faced old Katerina Ivanovna, who was both the Empress's personal confidant and the head of her household, was seated just behind her, that her favourite, Momonof, looking very bored, was in one corner of the room playing with a spaniel, and that two young ladies-in-waiting working on some embroidery, occupied another.

As the guards halted, six paces from the table, Roger went down on one knee.

'Stand up,' commanded the Empress sharply. 'And give us your account of this heinous crime, which brands you the most abominable of murderers.'

'August Majesty,' he began. 'With your own fine mind, great heart and able hand, you gave a new code of laws to Russia. Through­out all the world you are revered for your sense of justice. I pray you, therefore, suspend judgment as to the degree of my guilt until you have heard the stroke of ill-fortune which renders me now a suppliant for mercy at your feet.'

Her blue eyes were hard and her little curved nose imperious, as she replied: 'You sound a plausible rogue; but think not to curry favour with us by idle flattery. The governance of an Empire leaves us little time for such as you; so be brief and to the point.'

Roger had intended to give a full description of the affair from his first meeting with Yagerhorn in Stockholm, but he now promptly changed his tactics. In a few brief sentences he described how, having a quarrel with the Count, he had used a pretext to get him to his apartment, then set upon him, and how, owing to an entirely unfore­seen sequel, Yagerhorn had been left there to die instead of being re­leased the following morning.

'If this be true,' said the Empress coldly, 'you are not quite the monster that you have been represented; yet you are bandit enough to have attacked an unsuspecting man, and the fact that your serf failed to carry out your orders in no way relieves you of the responsi­bility for Count Yagerhorn's death.'

'Nay, your Majesty,' Roger replied with sudden boldness. 'That

I admit, and a bandit I may be; but, vast as the gulf is that lies between us, we have at least two things in common; and 'tis on this similarity of our natures that I rely in pleading for your clemency.'

'Such insolence merits the knout,' muttered the Empress and her thin mouth hardened. But Roger ignored the danger signal. He knew that it was now or never, and he hurried on:

'I beg you, Madame, hear what led me to this deed and tell me then if, placed in similar circumstances, you would not have done as I did.'

She nodded. 'Speak then. But if you fail to prove your words your punishment shall be the more severe.'

Roger took a pace forward. One of his most fortunate gifts was the ability to put his thoughts with ease and grace into either writing or speech; and he was making his plea in French, the second language of himself and Catherine, which both of them spoke as fluently as their own.

'Gracious Majesty,' he began. 'The two things which we have in common are courage and a love of gallantry. The devastation that your eyes have wrought in innumerable hearts and your amiability to those who are fortunate enough to find favour with you, are too well-known for me to need to dwell upon them. As for your courage, all the world knows that no male ruler has ever taken braver decisions than your­self. Yet there is one example of it that I would recall, for it made ine think you braver than any fabled knight or classic hero.'

At last the Empress's glance softened a little, and she inquired: 'What deed of ours is it that you have in mind?'

' 'Twas when the small-pox was raging in Petersburg, and even striking down people of your Majesty's court,' replied Roger promptly. 'Fearing that your little son, His Highness the Grand Duke, might fall a victim to the fell disease you determined rather on submitting him to the risks of inoculation, a precautionary treatment then en­ tirely untried in Russia. You sent to England for Dr. Dimsdale, and refusing to allow him to experiment first, as he wished, on any of your Majesty's subjects, insisted on his inoculating you with the deadly virus in secret, before he did so to your son and others.'

The Empress shrugged her plump shoulders, but she smiled.

'Only a sovereign unfitted to rule would submit a helpless child or a subject to a risk that they were unwilling to face themselves. But if this be courage and we have a natural leaning towards romance, tell us now how these qualities led you to your present pass?'

Without naming Natalia Andreovna, Roger told Catherine then of his love-affair in Stockholm, and of the way in which Yagerhorn had ambushed him. He stoutly maintained that his plan to be revenged had been fully justified, and claimed that he had proved his courage by spurning the thought of hiring ruffians to waylay his enemy in the street at night. Instead, although the Count was far more heavily built, he had armed himself with only a whip, faced him man to man, and overcome him.

When the tale was done the Empress regarded Roger thoughtfully for a moment, then she said: 'We will allow that you had some pro­vocation for your act and that you gave Count Yagerhorn the oppor­tunity to defend himself with his superior strength, which was more than he had any right to expect. Yet the fact remains that you deprived him of his life. It is our pleasure that you should remain in the palace while we deliberate upon the matter further. In due course we will have conveyed to you our will.'

Sinking again to one knee Roger threw in his last reserves. 'May it please your Majesty. Should you decide that my fault merits a major penalty I pray you let me die like a gentleman rather than live like a slave; and should death be the portion you decree for me I have one boon to crave.'

'What would you?' asked the Empress a trifle impatiently.

Roger rose to his feet and smiled. ' 'Tis that, before I am led out to die, I may kiss the hand that sends me to my premature fate, in token of my respect for the august Princess who has done more for her people than any other ruler.'

He had taken a terrible gamble in saying that he would prefer death to a long imprisonment, but it was the only means that enabled him to follow up with his theatrical request, which, if she agreed to it, would ensure him a further, eleventh-hour, chance to plead for mercy.

It was all or nothing now; but, as she signed to his guards to take him away, he felt sure that he saw her bridle slightly at the compli­ment, and she murmured: 'Your request is granted.'

Instead of turning to be marched out like a prisoner, he played the well-trained courtier, and made her three perfect bows while backing unerringly towards the doors. He was then taken down to the guard­room, given some supper and provided with a truckle-bed on which to spend the night.

The following day passed uneventfully. The guards treated him courteously and he had no reason for complaint, but with nothing to do he found it terribly difficult to stifle the anxiety he was feeling. He felt sure that he had made a good impression on the Empress, but she prided herself so greatly on her sense of justice that he did not believe for one moment that she would let him go scot-free. She had vowed that she would suppress crimes of violence in her capital, and there was no half-way house between imprisonment and death, so she well might take him up on his quixotic gesture.

When, at seven o'clock in the evening, two guards appeared to fetch him, his first sensation was one of relief, at the thought that, in a few moments now, he would know the worst. But as he accompanied them up the grand staircase it dawned upon him that the Empress would send for him again only to do him the favour he had asked in the event of her decreeing his death. His mouth suddenly grew dry, and strive as he would, he could not think of a single new argument which might incline her to mercy. He had had all day to do so, yet somehow, he had never thought that it would come to this, and had frittered the hours away in idle speculation.