Stolen Souls. Le Queux William

Three years ago I loved Nikanôr Baranovitch; but, although only eighteen, my mother compelled me to marry the Prince, who was nearly forty years older than myself. It is true he idolised me, but I cannot say that I experienced the least regret when, five months later, he died, leaving me all his wealth. Then, alas! my unhappiness commenced. The management of the estate was left to Délianoff, and there was a clause in the will which provided that if I died, or married Nikanôr, the property should go to Vladimir Lemontzeff, a nephew of the Prince’s who was an attaché at the Embassy in London.

      “Almost as soon as the Prince was buried, Délianoff proceeded to place me under his influence, for, my mother and most of my near relations being dead, I was utterly alone. The scoundrel was an accomplished hypnotist, and in order to further his villainous scheme, he put cruel rumours in circulation which caused Petersburg society to shun me. His irresistible power of fascination I was unable to withstand, and by hypnotic suggestion he has caused me to hand over to him the greater part of my fortune. He kept me constantly in his thrall by threatening to give information to the police that I had committed murder. This crime he had suggested to me, causing me to believe that I had actually stained my hands with blood. Just at that period I saw you in the Dominique, and, as I have already explained, he practised on you one of his devilish experiments. He was a Nihilist, and on that night he used his influence to induce me to attend a meeting alone, and swear to kill whoever the Executive decided should be removed. Soon afterwards I heard of Nikanôr’s illness in Pavlova, and you were good enough to convey to him a letter in which I told him how Délianoff had attempted to cut my throat, and how utterly helpless I was in his hands.”

      “Nikanôr died, and could not save you,” I observed sorrowfully.

      “Yes,” she sighed; “Délianoffs motive for getting me to take the oath was as ingenious as his other villainies, for, when his plans were complete, he brought me to London, invited Vladimir here, and then, by the exercise of his occult power, he made me believe that the Prince’s nephew was the man the Executive had ordered me to kill. But you saved me, for just as I was about to strike the fatal blow, you entered. Délianoff at that moment came behind you, and, with his curious touch, insinuated in your brain the image of sleep. Of what afterwards occurred I know nothing, for I fainted.

      “This scoundrel, who had planned that I should kill Vladimir and afterwards commit suicide, in order that his villainy should not be exposed, was mad with rage at the failure of his plot. When I regained consciousness, he dragged me about the room, brandishing a knife and threatening to murder me; but at last his anger cooled, and his demoniacal ingenuity devised a terrible torture. My passive will was still under his influence, and I could not escape or utter cry when he locked the fetters upon my wrists and chained me to yonder column. For several days he came regularly with food and water, but four days ago, after telling me how he had obtained possession of all that belonged to me, he laughed derisively, and said he should leave me to die of starvation.”

      “Yes; we were only just in time,” the doctor remarked, feeling her pulse, with his eyes upon his watch. “You would have been dead to-morrow.”

      The Princess had no friends in London, therefore I gave up my chambers to her, taking up quarters at a neighbouring hotel, while the hospital nurse I engaged attended her until she fully recovered.

      She can never recover the bulk of her fortune; nevertheless she has the satisfaction of knowing that Délianoff speedily met with his deserts.

      Although ostensibly a Nihilist, it was ascertained that he acted as a spy in the pay of the Secret Police. His end was befitting a coward and a traitor, for while assisting in an attempt to wreck the Winter Palace, he handled a bomb carelessly, with the result that it exploded and killed him.

      Some are of opinion that, being an informer, the vengeance of the Narodnaya Volya fell upon him, and I incline to that belief.

      Chapter Two.

      The Golden Hand

      Ramblings, erratic and obsession-dogged, had taken me to Bagnères de Luchon, over the snow-capped Pyrenees by the Porte de Vénasque to Huesca, thence to quaint old Zaragoza and Valencia, and in returning from Madrid I found myself idling away a few days at San Sebastian, that gay and charming watering-place which somebody has termed “the Brighton of Spain.” The month was July, the town was filled with Madrileftos attracted by the excellent bathing, and glad to escape the stifling heat and dust of the Castellana or the Calle de Alcala, while the shell-like Concha, or bay, was given up to the campamento of bathing-tents.

      From my seat in the porch of the Fonda de Ezcurra I gazed upon the beautiful Bay of Zurriola, with its twinkling lights, crowded with a thousand fantastic shadows; I heard the creak of the row-locks and the plashing of oars, and the laughter of girls; and in the deep gloom not far away the faint music of violins and mandolines trembled in the air. So still was the night that the regular throbbing of paddle-wheels from a steamboat not yet visible formed a rumbling undertone to all the other sounds, and the summer moon bathed all things in its mystic light, throwing far out over the water into the Bay of Biscay a bright, shining pathway.

      Across this path boats glided from time to time; on the asphalte walk at the edge of the beach fair flirtatious little dames in graceful mantillas passed to and fro, and as I lit a cigarette, I dreamed and dwelt upon the future.

      Presently a neat-ankled waiting-maid came out and handed me a telegram which she said had arrived during dinner, and I rose, sauntered over to where the great light was placed above the door, and opened the dispatch. It gave me satisfaction, for it was an order from the journal I represented to remain there, and transmit by telegraph daily what fresh intelligence I could gather with regard to the political crisis through which Spain was at that moment passing. By reason of the Queen-Regent, the young King, and the Court having left Madrid for San Sebastian a week earlier, the locale of the crisis had been removed from the capital, and among those staying at my hotel were Señor Canovas del Castillo, the Conservative leader, Señor Novarro Reverter, Minister of Finance, and Señor Villaverdi, ex-Minister of the Interior, besides several members of the Cortes. In these circumstances the prospect of a week or two at one of the most charming of European health-resorts was by no means distasteful, especially as I saw that I should experience but little difficulty in obtaining such information regarding the situation as I required. A rigorous censorship had been established by the Government over all telegraphic messages sent out of the country, therefore it would be necessary for me to cross the frontier into France each day, and send off my dispatch from Bayonne.

      Thrusting the telegram into my pocket, I lit a fresh cigarette, and lounged away down the Avenida de la Libertad to the Calle del Pozzo; the fine tree-lined promenade behind the Casino, where the life and gaiety of the town had assembled. Under the bright electric rays crowds of well-dressed promenaders were strolling slowly up and down, listening to the strains of a military band, and ever and anon, when the music paused, the chatter and laughter mingled in a din of merriment with the jingle of the many gaily-lit cafés in the vicinity. Carried to and fro the length of the asphalte by the ebb and flow of promenaders, I spent a pleasant hour watching the life around me, and enjoying the cool air after the heat and burden of the glaring day. San Sebastian is noted for the beauty of its female population, and, indeed, I am fain to admit that I saw more beautiful women during that brief hour than it had ever been my lot to meet at Vichy, Etretat, Royat, Arcachon, Biarritz, Nice, or any of the other favoured spots where Dame Society allows her world-weary children to disport themselves at certain seasons. Spanish women know how to dress, but the women of San Sebastian rely not upon the manipulation of the fan nor the arrangement of the mantilla to attract; they are naturally graceful in gait and fair of face.

      Two figures in that crowd riveted my attention, but, alas! only for a moment. I gazed upon them, but next instant they were gone, swallowed in that ever-shifting vortex of laughter-loving pleasure-seekers. Both were attired in black, one an elderly lady with white hair, upon whose refined face care had left deep furrows; the other a tall, graceful girl, scarcely more than nineteen, evidently from the South, whose calm, serious face was even more strikingly handsome than those of the many beauties about her. The chevelure had evidently been arranged by a maid of the first order; the mantilla she wore, graceful in every fold, gave to her clear olive complexion an essentially soft and feminine