George Gibbs - The Golden Bough

The Russian stared a moment.

"Then you-" He paused.

Rowland smiled a little.

"It seems, Monsieur," he said coolly, "that I am your new Priest of Nemi."

There was a long silence during which the Russian stared at Rowland more intently as though correcting a former and mistaken impression. At last he took a pace forward and the eyes of the two men met.

"You-you knew?" he asked.

"Nothing," said Rowland.

"And now-?"

The American shrugged but Picard broke in eagerly: "All the conditions have been fulfilled, Monsieur Khodkine-all from the first to the last-"

And while Rowland stood silent, in good-humored contempt, the Frenchman told all that had happened, including the American's escape from imprisonment and the breaking of the Bough. Rowland keenly watched all the actors in this drama, the zealous sincerity of the excitable Frenchman, the mystic absorption of Stepan, the fixed burning gaze of Issad, sure that those who played the minor parts were committed beyond question to a strict interpretation of the symbols of the order. Tanya, the color coming slowly into her cheeks, answered briefly and clearly the questions that were put to her. If there had been restraint in her acceptance of this successor to Ivanitch, or wonder at the strange chain of facts which linked this matter-of-fact American with the destinies of Nemi, she spoke now with an air of definite assurance and fatalism which went far to convince Rowland that if she were not sincere in her beliefs she was playing a skillful part which warned him how deeply he too was committed to his strange new office. But it was Monsieur Khodkine that Rowland watched the closest. From an expression of consternation the face of the Russian settled into a frowning inquiry and then as his glance and Rowland's met, into a mask-like immobility which revealed nothing of his own state of mind. As one by one the facts were revealed to him, his voice became more quiet, his manner more suave, while he nodded his head in solemn deliberation. The phrases he used were theirs, the jargon of mysticism, and yet to Rowland, the man of the world, this change of tone and demeanor failed to comport with the very obvious air of modernity and materialism which Monsieur Khodkine had brought in with him from the world outside.

"The Bough-broken," Khodkine was muttering, "an escaped prisoner of the Germans, – a slave surely! And the combat-either one may challenge… The Visconti… There seems no doubt. Yes-it is strange. You say that Monsieur Rowland did not know the tradition…?"

"Not until after Kirylo Ivanitch was dead," said Tanya calmly. "I told him."

"It is most extraordinary," repeated Khodkine, turning to Rowland with level brows. "An act of Destiny, striking as with the hand of God from out of the mists of the Eternal ages. But it is a sign too definite to be ignored-an act of Revelation and a Prophecy."

The words were spoken soberly, with an air of rapt introspection, but Rowland missed nothing of the alert intelligence of Monsieur Khodkine's pale blue eyes, keen and observing, which unlike Issad, the dreamer's, fairly blazed with objectivity.

The impression that Monsieur Khodkine was playing a part, became more definite. He acted a little too well. The talk of mysticism and destiny fell a little too glibly from his lips to be quite in keeping with Rowland's reading of his character, which made the Russian out to be a politician of an advanced type, a doctrinaire perhaps, but an intriguer with a definite and perhaps sordid purpose, who had come expecting to find the dreamer Ivanitch, and instead had found a heretic and an unbeliever. But under this skillful camouflage of mere words, which though they may have meant much to Issad, Stepan and Picard, conveyed nothing to Rowland, he hid his disappointment well, and when all questions had been answered, he went and viewed the dead Ivanitch and agreed as the others had done to an immediate interment of the body.

Through it all Rowland had said little, reading in the quick furtive glances of the girl Tanya a silent petition to accede in these arrangements, and so when the orders had been given Rowland returned with Monsieur Khodkine to the room on the lower floor where Tanya, after a warning glance which Rowland interpreted and answered, left the two men to their own devices. Rowland, now fully aware that he was to deal with a man of no ordinary ability, took a leaf from Monsieur Khodkine's book and fairly met him at his own game.

"An American, Monsieur!" began the Russian, after they had lighted their cigarettes. "It is indeed a far cry from the 'white lights' of Broadway to the Priesthood of Nemi-"

"Ah, you know New York?" asked Rowland.

"I have been there. An extraordinary city-a wonderful people-intensely practical. But you are no nation of dreamers, Monsieur."

"Upon the contrary," replied Rowland, politely. "Were we not dreamers-we should long since have finished disastrously our experiment in individualism. Like you in Russia we dream, Monsieur, but unlike you, our dreams come true."

Khodkine gazed at Rowland with a new interest. Was this smiling American less stupid than he looked?

"Individualism! Yes. You are even slaves to liberty, which has made you the mere creatures of your own desires."

"You are a monarchist, Monsieur Khodkine?" asked Rowland, with an innocent gaze.

"May the good God forbid!" cried Khodkine abruptly. "I am a Russian, of the heart of Russia which throbs with the pulse-beats of humanity. The Czar has fallen, but the era of absolutism in Russia is not yet over."

Rowland shifted his knees and fixed a cool look of inquiry upon Khodkine.

"I am only a soldier, Monsieur," he said. "For a year I have been in a prison camp. As you must see, I am vastly ignorant of what is going on in the world."

"Then you must know that my country has changed in nothing but a name. Instead of monarchy we have oligarchy-a band of men bent upon usurping the rights of the people. The people of Russia are drunk with freedom and accept the new order of things because they think it is what they have long fought for. But the men now in power in the Provisional Government are not to be trusted-capitalists, bureaucrats, the enemies of-"

"You are a Socialist Democrat, then, Monsieur?" put in Rowland.

"A friend of Russia's freedom-call me by whatever name you please."

Khodkine shrugged and blew a cloud of smoke.

"You mean that there are still those in power who are in sympathy with Germany?" asked Rowland.

Khodkine rose and walked the length of the room while Rowland watched him keenly.

"What else? Is it not clear to you?"

"I am perhaps dull, Monsieur," said Rowland, vacuously. "Rasputin is dead. The Czarina has gone. In them you will admit the fountain heads of German intrigue have been destroyed."

"Diverted, let us say, Monsieur-upon the surface. But the evil stream still flows-secretly, below the ground, to appear in high places where least expected."

Rowland rose and threw his cigarette into the hearth.

"I have no doubt that what you say is true, Monsieur Khodkine. I am not wise. If I am to be of service here" – Rowland paused significantly, until he found Khodkine's gaze-"if I am to be of service here, I must trust myself into the hands of those who have a deeper insight into the politics of Europe than myself. I have promised Mademoiselle Korasov to stay at Nemi and do what I can. I would like to help." He paused again and then, with an air of frankness: "Perhaps, Monsieur Khodkine, I could do no better than to entrust myself into your hands."

Khodkine turned half toward him, his fine white teeth showing in a smile and then thrust forth a hand in confirmation.

"Can it be that you will trust me?"

"Implicitly."

Khodkine's pale eyes glowed with purpose.