The Book of All-Power by Edgar Wallace (the best books to read .TXT) 📕

once asked him definitely why he did not turn to his 'Book of All-Power' for help. He told me the time had not yet come."

"May I see the book?"

Malcolm took the volume with its canvas cover from his pocket, and the girl looked at it seriously.

"Do you know, I have half a mind to throw it into the fire?" she said, pointing to the smouldering wood where the bomb had fallen. "There seems something sinister, something ominous about its possession that fills me with terror."

She looked at it for a moment musingly, then handed it back to Malcolm.

"Poor Israel!" she said softly, "and poor Russia!"

They waited until darkness fell before they moved on. Malinkoff had an idea that there was a crossroad before the town was reached, and progress was slow in consequence, because he was afraid of passing it. He was determined now not to go through the village, which lay directly ahead. The fact that the aeroplane had been able to procure a recruit, pointed to the existence of a camp of considerable dimensions in the neighbourhood and he was anxious to keep away from armed authority.

It was a tense hour they spent--tense for all except Cherry Bim, who had improvised a cushion on the baggage carrier at the back of the car, and had affixed himself so that he could doze without falling off. The side road did not appear, and Malinkoff grew more and more apprehensive. There were no lights ahead, as there should be if he were approaching the village. Once he thought he saw dark figures crouching close to the ground as the car passed, but put this down to nerves. Five hundred yards beyond, he discovered that his eyes had not deceived him. A red light appeared in the centre of the road, and against the skyline--for they were ascending a little incline at the moment--a number of dark figures sprang into view.

The chauffeur brought the car to a halt with a jerk, only just in time, for his lamps jarred against the pole which had been placed across the road.

Malcolm had drawn his revolver, but the odds were too heavy, besides which, in bringing his car to a standstill, the driver had shut off his engine and the last hope of bunking through had disappeared.

A man carrying a red lamp came to the side of the car, and flashed the light of a torch over the occupants.

"One, two, three, four," he counted. "There should be five."

He peered at them separately.

"This is the aristocrat general, this is the American revolutionary, this is the woman. There is also a criminal. Did any man jump out?" he asked somebody in the darkness, and there was a chorus of "No!"

Footsteps were coming along the road; the guard which had been waiting to close them in from the rear, was now coming up. The man with the lamp, who appeared to be an officer, made a circuit of the car and discovered the carrier seat, but its occupant had vanished.

"There was a man here, you fools," he shouted. "Search the road; he cannot have gone far. Look!"

He put the light on the road.

"There are his boots. You will find him amongst the bushes. Search quickly."

Malcolm, at the girl's side, put his arm about her shoulder.

"You are not afraid?" he said gently, and she shook her head.

"I do not think I shall ever be afraid again," she replied. "I have faith in God, my dear. Cherry has escaped?" she asked.

"I think so," he replied in a guarded tone. "He must have seen the soldiers and jumped. They have just found his boots in the roadway."

The officer came back at that moment.

"You have weapons," he said. "Give them to me."

It would have been madness to disobey the order, and Malcolm handed over his revolver and Malinkoff followed suit. Not satisfied with this, the man turned them out in the road whilst he conducted a search.

"Get back," he said after this was over. "You must go before the Commissary for judgment. The woman is required in Moscow, but we shall deal summarily with the foreigner and Malinkoff, also the little thief, when we find him."

He addressed the chauffeur.

"I shall sit by your side, and if you do not carry out my instructions I shall shoot you through the head, little pigeon," he said. "Get down and start your machine."


CHAPTER XVIII

THE MONASTERY OF ST. BASIL THE LEPER


He gave an order to the soldiers, and the barrier was removed, then he struck a match and lit a flare which burnt a dazzling red flame for half a minute.

"A signal," said Malinkoff, "probably to notify our capture."

A few minutes later, with a soldier on either footboard, and the officer sitting beside the chauffeur, the car sped through the night, checking only before it came to the cross-roads which Malinkoff had sought for. Turning to the left, the car swung into a road narrower and less comfortable for the passengers.

"I wonder if they will catch our brave friend," said the girl.

"They will be sorry if they do," replied Malcolm dryly. "Cherry will not be caught as we were."

Ahead of them and to the right apparently, on a hill by their height, a dozen fires were burning, and Malinkoff judged that the camp they were approaching was one of considerable size. He guessed it was a concentration camp where the Reds were preparing for their periodical offensive against the Ukraine. It must be somewhere in this district that the Polish Commissioners were negotiating with the Supreme Government--an event which had set Moscow agog.

An eerie experience this, riding through the dark, the figures of the soldier guards on either footboard gripping to the posts of the car. Bump, bump, bump it went, swaying and jolting, and then one of the guards fell off. They expected him to jump on the footboard again, for the auto was going at a slow pace, but to their surprise he did not reappear. Then a similar accident happened to the man on the other footboard. He suddenly let go his hold and fell backwards.

"What on earth----" said Malcolm.

"Look, look!" whispered the girl.

A foot and a leg had appeared opposite the window, and it came from the roof of the car. Then another foot, and the bulk of a body against the night.

"It's Cherry!" whispered the girl.

Swiftly he passed the window and came to the side of the officer, whose head was turned to the chauffeur.

"Russki," said Cherry, "_stoi_!"

"Stop!" was one of the four Russian words he knew, and the chauffeur obeyed, just at the moment when the car came to where the road split into two, one running to the right and apparently to the camp, the other and the older road dipping down to a misty valley.

The Red officer saw the gun under his nose and took intelligent action. His two hands went up and his revolver fell with a clatter at the chauffeur's feet. Deftly Cherry relieved him of the remainder of his arms.

By this time Malcolm was out of the car, and a brief council of war was held.

To leave the man there would be to ask for trouble. To shoot him was repugnant even to Cherry, who had constituted himself the official assassin of the party.

"We shall have to take him along," said Malinkoff. "There are plenty of places where we can leave him in the night, and so long as he does not know which way we go, I do not think he can do us any harm."

The Red officer took his misfortune with the philosophy which the chauffeur had displayed in similar circumstances.

"I have no malice, little general," he said. "I carry out my orders as a soldier should. For my part I would as soon cry 'Long live the Czar!' as 'Long live the Revolution!' If you are leaving Russia I shall be glad to go with you, and I may be of service because I know all the latest plans for arresting you. There is a barrier on every road, even on this which you are taking now, unless," he added thoughtfully, "it is removed for the Commissary Boolba."

"Is he coming this way?" asked Malcolm.

"You saw me fire a flare," said the man. "That was a signal to the camp that you were captured. The news will be telegraphed to Moscow, and Boolba will come to sentence the men and take back his wife."

He evidently spoke in the terms of his instructions.

"What road will he take, little soldier?" asked Malinkoff.

"The Tver road," said the man. "It is the direct road from Moscow, and we shall cross it very quickly. At the crossing are four soldiers and an under officer, but no barricade. If you will direct me I will tell them a lie and say that we go to meet Boolba."

"We're in his hands to some extent," said Malinkoff, "and my advice is that we accept his offer. He is not likely to betray us."

The car resumed its journey, and Cherry, who had taken his place inside, explained the miracle which had happened.

"I saw the first lot of soldiers we passed," he said, "and when the car stopped suddenly I knew what had happened. I took off my boots and climbed on to the roof. I only made it just in time. The rest was like eating pie."

"You didn't shoot the soldiers who were standing on the footboard, did you?" asked Malcolm. "I heard no shots."

Cherry shook his head.

"Why shoot 'em?" he said. "I had only to lean over and hit 'em on the bean with the butt end of my gun, and it was a case of 'Where am I, nurse?'"

Half an hour's drive brought them to the cross-roads, and the four apathetic sentries who, at the word of the Red officer, stood aside to allow the car to pass. They were now doubling back on their tracks, running parallel with the railroad (according to Malinkoff) which, if the officer's surmise was accurate, was the one on which Boolba was rushing by train to meet them. So far their auto had given them no trouble, but twenty miles from the camp both the front tyres punctured simultaneously. This might have been unimportant, for they carried two spare wheels, only it was discovered that one of these was also punctured and had evidently been taken out of use the day on which they secured the car. There was nothing to do but to push the machine into a field, darken the windows and allow the chauffeur to make his repairs on the least damaged of the tubes. They shut him into the interior of the car with the Red officer who volunteered his help, furnished him with a lamp, and walked down the road in the faint hope of discovering some cottage or farm where they could replenish their meagre store of food.

Half an hour's walking brought them to a straggling building which they approached with caution.

"It is too large for a farm," said Malinkoff; "it is probably one of those monasteries which exist in such numbers in the Moscow Government."

The place was in darkness and it was a long time before they found the entrance, which proved to be through a