One of Life's Slaves Part 22

"Turn him out! Turn him out!"

At last the cry sounded over the whole room. It was an interlude, during which the audience climbed up on to tables and benches to try to see.

Nikolai would blindly and roughly have forced his way in, had not the police officer met him at the door, and with his own and the constable's united efforts managed to drag the strong, unruly smith out.

His one thought, while with a certain cool, temperate leniency they dragged him out into the half-darkness, was to keep so near that he could have an eye on the door. He felt with suppressed rage that if they drove him to it, he would sooner die than leave the garden now.

The music ceased. A number of people, hot and breathless, streamed out during a pause in the dancing.

There came Veyergang--and Silla, bashful and half-resisting, with him.

They took the way up to the restaurant.

Nikolai suddenly disengaged himself with a jerk, and the next moment, emerging from the darkness, thrust himself between them.

Silla uttered a cry of terror, but Nikolai only gave her a half-glance, and flung her behind him--and thus stood face to face with Veyergang.

The young lion changed colour and retreated a step before the expression of violent hatred confronting him; but, recognising the old enemy of his school days, he curled his lip scornfully.

_That_ look made Nikolai rush upon him, and Veyergang, with a cry of "You cowardly ruffian!" returned the blow with his walking-stick right across Nikolai's face, so that the stick snapped.

"Help! help! Police!"

Nikolai had struck his fist into Veyergang's chest so that the b.u.t.tons of his coat were torn open, when he was surrounded by three policemen.

A young girl suddenly rushed wildly in among them.

Spectators collected in greater numbers around.

This was a fair-fight of the first sort; and that tall, dark girl too!

"A mad bull-dog of a smith! Put him under arrest!" exclaimed Veyergang furiously, when he felt himself in safety. "You may meditate there in the meantime. You are not at all indispensable, my friend!" he went on in a coolly teasing tone. "The black-eyed la.s.sie shall enjoy herself at the fair all the same."

The words were hardly spoken before Nikolai had wrenched himself free.

He swung the bundle, with the box in it, about him so that n.o.body could come near him, and darted like a flash of lightning upon Veyergang, exclaiming between his teeth: "It's the last time in your life that you'll say that!"

One hand fumbled with Veyergang's coat, and the other dealt him a blow with the full weight of the box, so that he fell backwards on to the snow.

He did not get up again--did not stir.

There were cries and a tumult among the spectators. Some cried "Murder,"

others for a doctor. And all the while the music clashed and jingled in three directions.

A high police functionary attempted to quiet the excitement, and discreet hands bore the unconscious man out to a sledge, and drove him to the hospital. All the excited wrath of the crowd was turned against the perpetrator of the deed, who was led out strongly guarded.

For safety's sake, out in the gate, irons were put on both his hands and his feet, and this was done in the midst of an ever-increasing crowd from the street.

But when there was a mention of taking him into the sledge, the girl threw herself upon him, and clung so tightly that it was impossible to tear her away. She still cried and clung to him, much to the delight and amus.e.m.e.nt of the a.s.sembled crowd of boys, after they had got him into the sledge.

It was impossible for them to start, although they dragged and pulled at her till the gathers of her dress gave way.

The boys shouted.

"Pull--tear--drag the clothes off my back!"

"There, have a little common-sense, la.s.s!" said one of the constables.

"You mustn't take him! You sha'n't take him!"

She wrenched and pulled at his handcuffs.

"It's my fault! Can't you tell them so, Nikolai?" she cried piercingly, and the policemen took the opportunity to detach her hands.

The sledge dashed off, and Silla, without a shawl, after it, followed by a swarm of boys.

She saw the door of the police-station open for Nikolai without being able to reach him or hinder it; hour after hour she pa.s.sed outside, listening and waiting, while the constables again and again intimated to her that she must go home.

When at length she wandered away in despair, she kept stopping; but up on the bridge over the waterfall she stood still a long while.

It roared so strangely down there in the dark. It seemed as if in some way or other she belonged to it.

All night she lay with a dull feeling of what had happened, and writhed under an unspeakable terror for the result of Nikolai's act.

Now and then she groaned out a suffering sigh.

She could not get rid of the sight of the handcuffs, and in her delirium felt the cold iron still in her hands, until at last the bitter feeling came over her of how miserably she had behaved to him. She felt as though the thought of her must make Nikolai sick.

She lay staring at herself as in a vision--how she had gone about and never thought or cared about anything but her own pleasure, while Nikolai, her smith boy, with the strong arms and the true eyes, who now sat behind the prison bolts, had striven and toiled, and saved, and worked for both of them, so that they might be together.

And she could see too, now, all at once, as if scales had fallen from her eyes, that he had been terribly afraid for her.

If only he still cared for her! He had said: "Go home, Silla"--twice--so kindly and gently, that she began to cry when she thought of it.

Had she known or understood what it was to love anybody before just now?

And perhaps it was too late!

The thought filled her with despair again, and wild pictures arose in her mind--Veyergang falling and lying stretched upon the snow, and then Nikolai's arms with the handcuffs on them stretching up out of the factory waterfall.

She lay awake until the morning and saw the same things--the handcuffs in the waterfall, and Veyergang turning away from the blow and falling; and then the whole thing over again--and again.

She sat there the whole day until dusk. Then her restlessness drove her down to the police-station.

There the gas was already lighted in the pa.s.sages, and there were so many doors through which busy men in uniform were going in and out. At the entrances several people were standing waiting.

She had not the courage to ask.

For a long time she walked restlessly in the thickly-falling snow round the building.

At last she felt that she must go in; and in a condition which made her blind to her surroundings, she at length stood patiently, white and covered with snow, at the gate of the prison.