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Show We Have Changed All That i by Herbert Ouick and Elena Stepanoff Mac Hahori Copyright by The Bobbs-Merrlll Co. WNU Service CHAPTER XIV Continued 25 "But," said tlie maid. "Tovarlsch Villusky bas ordered thm none of us shall be allowed to go." "Will you not go," said Musia authoritatively, au-thoritatively, "and tell my mother what I have said?" With her look of astonishment rendering ren-dering her face blank of all other expression ex-pression Susha went ; nnd In scarcely two minutes 6he returned, looking blanker still. "Your mother sends you word," said she, "that she does not wish to see you; and she said I remember her very words that she knows of noth Ing which she would rather say to you than farewell, but that she begs to be excused from saying anythlnn !" Musia walked out of the house with out hindrance. Her mother's message seemed a matter of little consequence, as. she skulked her roundabout way under the shrubbery to that back gate through which poor Vladimir had gone to captivity and death. She opened it and slepped out Into the street. It closed behind her, with a sharp click, as the spring lock fastened her out Into the beast-haunted forest of Kazan. She moved away a few steps, and then, turning back, she passed her hands over the outside of t lie gate as if It had been the face of a loved one, and kissed It good-by. The day had darkened down Into the early autumnal dusk She could see nobody In the street. She walked ou rapidly Into the darkness. In the ancient mansion of the Krassins, there were now left of all that great family only a crazed old woman and an Imbecile Im-becile old man. Down in the railway yards stood the luxurious vagon de luxe of Tovarlsch Loris In Its usual state of readiness for movement. And Tovarlsch Loris himself came speeding down from a meeting of the council of commissars a meeting in which Tovnrisch Villn-sky Villn-sky had carried everything before him. Vllinsky was now the favorite of the sailors. He had conlrol. He was In position to oust Loris from his position posi-tion of superiority; and he had been too smooth, to deprecatory to Loris even while remorselessly riding him down with votes, to leave any doubt in the mind of that experienced young man, as to how that control would be exercised. When Vilinsky was savage and discourteous, Loris thought, he was not dangerous ; what he was when he tried to be courteous was a problem prob-lem which Loris believed himself effectively to have solved. "It means a rupture," said Loris to himself. "Well, even so, I might outgeneral out-general him; but it Is not worth while. Only one thing has kept me here so long and that " The automobile stopped at his car, and he stepped out. He called to him tlie officers In charge. "Is all ready?" he asked. "Ready, your honor, as if has been for three weeks." "Is ail clear along the line?" "All clear, except for. the unexpected." unex-pected." "Then send out orders to have the wires cut, couple the engine on at once, and pull out ; the unexpected we have always with us." He was leaving the Bolshevik!: he strode across the tracks, leaped np the steps, his heart beating high that the great adventure was under way. A Jar moved the train ; It was the engine en-gine being coupled on ; his machine was working promptly. In the car was the usual silence; but as he stepped lightly and buoyantly buoy-antly through the reception room, he stopped short. A little dark figure rose, swayed toward him, shrank back and stood still. "You see," Musia snld very simply, like a little child, "I came." He stepped forward, swept back the curtains so that the light might solve his doubts, and stooping, peered Into her face In the semi-darkness inquiringly. in-quiringly. "I have no one but you now," she said. "Do not drive me away !" He took both her hands In bis nnd pressed them respectfully to his lips. She lifted her face to his shyly. "Be good to me," said she; " am so tired !" "My dear! My dear!" he half whispered, whis-pered, slill holding her hands. "Do you think you can care for me?" "I think 1 do," said she. As she said this, tlie train swayed, rattled and righted itself, as It moved over the switch points out upon the main line. Tovarlsch Loris Tova risch no longer had made his sensational sensa-tional escape from Kazan: escaped In tlie very hour when Vilinsky had condemned con-demned him to death; escaped only a bare half hour before the company of sailors came to arrest him ; escaped over the line which by his orders his adherents had cleared for his train, and whose cars he picked up as he made his wild flight. To what? Safety? There was never any certainty as to that. All sorts of reports were accepted and rejected in turn. The Bolshevik handbills called newspapers stated that he had got away with much treasure and a considerable body of men to the Cossacks on the Caucasian front Rewards were offered for him dead or alive. Other rumors had It that he had won through to Constantinople. Constan-tinople. Others said that he had found refuge on a British ship in tlie Black sea, and with his young I ! I wife had made his way to America. The Bolshevlkl stated that he ws s mere robber and had carried Itway with him an Immense amount of loot ; this was answered In certain c-rcles by the assertion that he had on:y restored re-stored the treasure to the Rrssian forces to whom It really belonged. And there were rumors that a'l the treasure he possessed, except hlg little girlish wife in her black dress, were certain rugs and curios. One thing only was certain; Loris and Uusla had vanished from Kazan togetl er. Kazan lay next day stripped of its summer greenery, hut otherwise as It had appeared when we first saw It. The leaves had turned from green to gold, had fallen and mingled with the piles of fiitb In the streets, nhlch were higher and fouler than ever. Tlie mysterious old city, half European, Euro-pean, half Asiatic, was more thrnnyed with people than ever; but out-aged nature here, as In all Russian lilies, was taking care of that ; for thesa human hu-man beings, crushed by the ruthless blind forces of revolution Into the mud-ball called Kazan, were rapidly passing through the gate of typhus and plague and famine Into a city more mysterious still. The Cathedral of the Annunciation was there, and might be Imagined as engaged in carrying on a debate vith the Suyumbeka tower. Judged by what "You See," Musia Said Very Simply, Like a Little Child, "I Came." they both had seen, as to the relative merits of Jesus and Mahomet They now looked down upon Tovarlsch Vilinsky In full command awaiting a Marat to displace a Robespierre. They looked down on the old Krassin mansion, man-sion, and In it upon an old woman with purple spots in her cheeks, tolerated because she was useful as a caretaker-and caretaker-and housekeeper. They looked down on a society In the last stages of dissolution. War, tyranny, anarchy had worked their will 'with the greatest of all empires, upon which thinkers had long looked as either the peril or the hope of the world according to what use the Fates might make of It . It still remains re-mains even more emphatically the peril or the hope of a world In which hope has become an essential need, with the scales sloping down steeply on peril's side. Travelers still came over the hills bound for Kazan, but not so mftny as In mids-mmer; and now they drifted rather than traveled drifted like human flotsam Id some raging stream. People struck with palsy do not migrate; they drift Of those who came now, none was of the sort who, when they caught their first glimpse of- the city spoke of the Krassin family; and if one did, he spoke as do travelers among the ruins of Nineveh or Babylon of what was once. Fate had struck that family down In ruins; but Hint was the usual thing In Russia. Over all the former empire It was the same. The people of the Krassin type had met their doom; and now tlie wave which had overwhelmed over-whelmed them was rising to engulf every mind, whether that of an aristocrat aristo-crat or not, which could not accept ready-made, the daily-altered formula of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat' With which dictatorship, the proletariat prole-tariat had as little to do as the Krassins Kras-sins and their fellows. To all, save to the few maniacs who had overcome their keepers and ossiyned rulershlp, had come the same fate: desolation, disillusionment, dissolution, and the supreme su-preme trial of souls. The Bolshevik organization Is a mysterya mys-terya mystery full of terror. The people are afraid of what Is safe, and they are not able to estimate tlie danger dan-ger of what Is perilous. They feel as one might in dealing with wild beasts which might lick one's hands or devour de-vour one. as a whim or appetite might suggest One great element in the Terror lies in the inability of people to understand one another. Human minds become mysterious as they come under the sway of new purposes, are offered new temptations in the living of new lives. THE E.T. Land of Thunderstorms Java Is probably the country which has the most thunderstorms. The earth experiences about 10,000,000 thunderstorms a year, or an average of 44.000 daily. |