The Black Cross

The Black Cross, by Olive M.
Briggs

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Black Cross, by Olive M. Briggs
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Black Cross
Author: Olive M. Briggs
Release Date: April 30, 2007 [EBook #21259]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
BLACK CROSS ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: "Ah, mein Gott!" he cried, "It is Kaya!"]

THE BLACK CROSS

BY
OLIVE M. BRIGGS

Frontispiece by
SIGISMOND DE IVANOWSKI

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1909

Copyright, 1909, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
Published, February, 1909

to
YAPHAH

THE BLACK CROSS

CHAPTER I

">
PART I
CHAPTER I
It was night in St. Petersburg. The moon was high in the heavens, and
the domes, crowned with a fresh diadem of snow, glittered with a
dazzling whiteness. In the side streets the shadows were heavy, the
façades of the great palaces casting strange and dark reflections upon
the pavement; but the main thoroughfares were streaked as with silver,
while along the quay all was bright and luminous as at noontide, the
Neva asleep like a frozen Princess under a breast-plate of shimmering
ice.
The wind was cold, the air frosty and gay with tinkling sleigh-bells. A
constant stream of people in sledges and on foot filled the Morskaïa,
hurrying in the one direction. The great Square of the Mariínski was
alive with a moving, jostling throng, surging backwards and forwards
before the steps of the Theatre like waves on a rock; a gay,
well-dressed, chattering multitude, eager to present their tickets, or buy
them as the case might be, and enter the gaping doors into the
brilliantly lighted foyer beyond.
It was ballet night, but for the first time in the memory of the Theatre
no ballet was to be given. Instead of the "Première Danseuse," the idol
of Russian society, a new star had appeared, suddenly, miraculously
almost, dropped from a Polish Province, and had played himself into
the innermost heart of St. Petersburg.
The four strings of his Stradivarius, so fragile, so delicate and slim,
were as four chains to bind the people to him; four living wires over
which the sound of his fame sped from city to city, from province to
province, until there was no musician in all the Russias who could play
as Velasco, no instrument like his with the gift of tears and of laughter
as well, all the range of human emotions hidden within its slender,
resinous body.

So the people said as they gossiped together on the steps: "The great
Velasco! The wonderful Velasco!" And now he was on his way to
Germany. It was his last concert, his "farewell."
The announcement had been blazoned about on red and yellow
handbills for weeks. One Salle after the other had offered itself, each
more commodious than the last; but they were as nothing to the
demands of the box-office. The list grew longer, the clamourings
louder; and at last the unprecedented happened. At the request of a
titled committee under the signature of the Grand-Duke Stepan himself,
the Mariínski, largest and most beautiful of theatres, had opened its
doors to the young god; and the price of tickets went up in leaps like a
barometer after a storm;--fifteen roubles for a seat,
twenty--twenty-five--and finally no seat at all, not even standing-room.
The crowd melted away gradually; the doors of the foyer closed; the
harsh cries of the speculators died in the distance. Behind the Theatre
the ice on the canal glimmered and sparkled. The moon climbed higher
and the bells of the Nikolski Church rang out clearly, resonantly above
the tree-tops.
Scarcely had the last stroke sounded when a black sleigh, drawn by a
pair of splendid bays, dashed out of a side street and crossed the
Pozeluïef bridge at a gallop. At the same moment a troïka, with three
horses abreast, turned sharply into the Glinki and the two collided with
a crash, the occupants flung out on the snow, the frightened animals
plunging and rearing in a tangled, inextricable heap.
The drivers rushed to the horses' heads.
"A pest on you, son of a goat!" screamed the one, "Have you eyes in
the back of your head that you can't see a yard in front of you?"
"Viper!" retorted the other furiously, "Damnation on you and your bad
driving! Call the police! Arrest the shark of an anarchist!"
Meanwhile the master of the black sleigh, a heavily built, elderly man,
had