And now these matchless horsemen of the Wild Division came galloping up around the sleigh. Brilliant little slanting eyes glittered under shaggy head-gear; broad, thick-lipped mouths split into grins at sight of the two little American flags fluttering so gaily on the sleigh.
Then two booted and furred riders climbed out of their saddles, and, under their sheepskin caps, Brisson saw the delicate features of two young women, one a big, superb, blue-eyed girl; the other slim, dark-eyed, and ivory-pale.
The latter said in English: Could you help us? We saw the flags on your sleigh. We are trying to leave the country. I am American. My name is Palla Dumont. My friend is Swedish and her name is Ilse Westgard.
Get in, any way, said Brisson briskly. We cant be in a worse mess than we are. I imagine its the same case with you. So if were all going to smash, its pleasanter, I think, to go together.
At that the Swedish girl laughed and aided her companion to enter the sleigh.
Good-bye! she called in her clear, gay voice to the Cossacks. When we come back again we shall ride with you from Vladivostok to Moscow and never see an enemy!
When the young women were comfortably ensconced in the sleigh, the riders of the Wild Division crowded their horses around them and shook hands with them English fashion.
When you come back, they cried, you shall find us riding through Petrograd behind Korniloff! And to Brisson and Estridge, in a friendly manner: Come also, comrades. We will show you a monument made out of heads and higher than the Kremlin. That would be a funny joke and worth coming back to see.
Brisson said pleasantly that such an exquisite jest would be well worth their return to Russia.
Everybody seemed pleased; the Cossacks wheeled their shaggy mounts and trotted away into the woods, singing. The sleigh drove on.
This is very jolly, said Brisson cheerfully. Wherever were bound for, now, well all go together.
Is not America the destination of your long journey? inquired the big, blue-eyed girl.
Brisson chuckled: Yes, he said, but bullets sometimes shorten routes and alter destinations. I think you ought to know the worst.
If thats the worst, its nothing to frighten one, said the Swedish girl. And her crystalline laughter filled the icy air.
She put one persuasive arm around her slender, dark-eyed comrade:
To meet God unexpectedly is nothing to scare one, is it, Palla? she urged coaxingly.
The other reddened and her eyes flashed: What God do you mean? she retorted. If I have anything to say about my destination after death I shall go wherever love is. And it does not dwell with the God or in the Heaven that we have been taught to desire and hope for.
The Swedish girl patted her shoulder and smiled in good humoured deprecation at Brisson and Estridge.
God let her dearest friend die under the rifles of the Reds, she explained cheerfully, and my little comrade can not reconcile this sad affair with her faith in Divine justice. So she concludes there isnt any such thing. And no Divinity. She shrugged: That is what shakes the faith in youththe seeming indifference of the Most High.
Palla Dumont sat silent. The colour had died out in her cheeks, her dark, indifferent eyes became fixed.
Estridge opened the fur collar of his coat and pulled back his fur cap.
Do you remember me? he said to Ilse Westgard.
The girl laughed: Yes, I remember you, now!
To Palla Dumont he said: And do you remember?
At that she looked up incuriously; leaned forward slowly; gazed intently at him; then she caught both his hands in hers with a swift, sobbing intake of breath.
You are John Estridge, she said. You took me to her in your ambulance! She pressed his hands almost convulsively, and he felt her trembling under the fur robe.
Is it true, he said, that ghastly tragedy?
Yes.
All died?
All.
Estridge turned to Brisson: Miss Dumont was companion to the Grand Duchess Marie, he said in brief explanation.
Brisson nodded, biting his cigar.
The Swedish girl-soldier said: They were devotedthe little Grand Duchess and Palla It was horrible, there in the convent cellarthose young girls She gazed out across the snow; then,
The Reds who did it had already made me prisoner They arrested me in uniform after the decree disbanding us I was on my way to join Kaledines Cossacksa rendezvous Well, the Reds left me outside the convent and went in to do their bloody work. And I gnawed the rope and ran into the chapel to hide among the nuns. And there I saw a White Nunquite crazed with grief
I had heard the volley that killed her, said Palla, in explanation, to nobody in particular. She sat staring out across the snow with dry, bright eyes.
Brisson looked askance at her, looked significantly at the Swedish girl, Ilse Westgard: And what happened then? he inquired, with the pleasant, impersonal manner of a physician.
Ilse said: Palla had already begun her novitiate. But what happened in those terrible moments changed her utterly I think she went mad at the moment Then the Superior came to me and begged me to hide Palla because the Bolsheviki had promised to return and cut her throat when they had finished their bloody business in the crypt So I caught her up in my arms and I ran out into the convent grounds. And at that very moment, God be thanked, a sotnia of the Wild Division rode up looking for me. And they had led horses with them. And we were in the saddle and riding like maniacs before I could think. That is all, except, an hour ago we saw your sleigh.
You have been hiding with the Cossacks ever since! exclaimed Estridge to Palla.
That is her history, replied Ilse, and mine. And, she added cheerfully but tenderly, my little comrade, here, is very, very homesick, very weary, very deeply and profoundly unhappy in the loss of her closest friend and perhaps in the loss of her faith in God.
I am tranquil and I am not unhappy,said Palla. And if I ever win free of this murderous country I shall, for the first time in my life, understand what the meaning of life really is. And shall know how to live.
You thought you knew how to live when you took the white veil, said Ilse cheerfully. Perhaps, after all, you may make other errors before you learn the truth about it all. Who knows? You might even care to take the veil again
Never! cried Palla in a clear, hard little voice, tinged with the scorn and anger of that hot revolt which sometimes shakes youth to the very source of its vitality.
Ilse said very calmly to Estridge: With me it is my reason and not mere hope that convinces me of Gods existence. I try to reason with Palla because one is indeed to be pitied who has lost belief in God
You are mistaken, said Palla drily; one merely becomes ones self when once the belief in that sort of God is ended.
Ilse turned to Brisson: That, she said, is what seems so impossible for some to acceptso terriblethe apparent indifference, the lack of explanationGods dreadful reticence in this thunderous whirlwind of prayer that storms skyward day and night from our martyred world.
Palla, listening, sat forward and said to Brisson: There is only one religion and it has only two preceptslove and give! The restthe forms, observances, creeds, ceremonies, threats, promises, are man-made trash!
If mans man-made God pleases him, let him worship him. That kind of deity does not please me. I no longer care whether He pleases me or not. He no longer exists as far as I am concerned.