Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1879 — A RUSSIAN “FIRE-WITCH.” [ARTICLE]

A RUSSIAN “FIRE-WITCH.”

Rather less than a year ago, during the spring season, at E , pleasantest of Garman watering-places, three persons, who seemed to be inseparable ( companions, walked daily together in the grounds of the KursaaL One was a beautiful Russian girl, Idi Koratine, who was always attended by her brother, an ex-Colonel in the Czar’s Army. The third member of the group was a young English officer. Captain the Hon. Charles Guerdon, of the Eighteenth Lancers. It was evident to all who observed this gay youngster that he was deeply in love with his Russian friend’s sistea. Was she in. love with him? On this pOintGuerdon himself could have made no satisfactory answer. He had been ordered to E—— by doctors to recruit his health after a hunting accident, and had made the acquaintance of the Koratines at the hotel table d’hote. They were persons of high birth, in affluent circumstances, ami of very pleasing manners. Count Koratine, who was not more than thirty, had seen a good deal of military service, had traveled was the most companionable of jnen, always ready to join in any amusement, to chat or to listen to others, Helpiite won Charley Guerdon’s heart by his horsemanship (for he had two or three splendid animals and rode every morning with his sister) and also by his bright manner at the ecarte table, for he played any stakes you pleased, without caring whether he won or lost. As for Ida Koratine, she was the most delicious of girls. Tall and graceful, with the fair wavy hair and pink complexion which bespoke her Lithuania)! blood, she had large dark eyes, at o|ce grave and soft, and a little mouth which Could smile with exquisite sweetness. Ida was, like most high-born Russian ladies, a capital linguist, speaking Engjish and French with faultless accuracy, and with just a slight foreign accent, which lent piquancy to her talk. She was, moreover an accomplished pianist and singer; so was her brother. Sometimes after dinner the Koratines as they called him for fun, to come to their apartments tp take a cup of Caravan tea, and then, at his request, they would sing him some of the ballads of their country. Koratine played' on the zitta, or Hungarian guitar, Ida on the piano, and the Count’s well-trained baritone voice blending with his sister's pure soprano made rare melody. Their Lithuanian songs were pervaded by a dreamy sadness which grew upon the Englishman, making him fall into long reveries, during which he was glad that there were no candles in the room, but only the spring twilight that veiled his emotion. After every one of Ida’s songs, Charley Guerdon became more ana more in love with her, though he gradually discovered that she had a few strange, ungiriish tastes, which at first pleased him Tess than her piano playing. She was a deadly pistol shot, and practiced every day with her brother at a target which had been set up in an alley of the hotel garden for their convenience by the landlord. The rapidity with which the brother and sister loaded, the cool quickness of their aim, their unerring precision in making patterns of crosses or lines on the cards at which they fired, filled the Englishman with surprise the first time he witnessed thefr performances. “j«ay. Miss Ida,” he remarked, “it won tdo for me to quarrel with you. You Would very soon call me out and pink me,” }* Oh, we are not practicing for duels,” laughed Ida. “# e have SoftZ 1“ °. u . r J country and a girl should know how to protect herself.” The peculiar way in which Ida emphasized the word “wolves,” and the light that kindled for a moment in her she spoke, ought to have arrested Guerdon’s attention, but they did not. He had noticed, however, that the Koratines appeared to have a mystery in their lives; they avoided all ailus ions-to- the motives which bad induced Count Koratine to leave the army, and they expressed radical or Nihnst opinions rather curious to heak from person? of their station. Ida seemed to be much mote of a revolutionist than her brother. She often '• Sb.

questioned the Englishman about his country's free Institutions, and listened with a wistful eagerness to his confused explanations, for constitutional law was not muob- studied in the Eighteenth Lancers, and Charley Guerdon was puzelod to define in what his birthright of liberty consisted. Now-and- thefr 4da betrayed to® unguardedly her love for political conversations, and then her brother would interfere with a joke and caress, which always checked her, tor every word of his was law in her eyes. Guerdon had been struck and touched from the outset by the whole-hearted affection whioh the brother and sister bore to each other. They were orphans, and up to her brother as a hero, as an infallible being? a demigod, and her mere manner of clinging to his arm when they walked, of orightening when he spoke to her, of putting up her forehead to be kissed w hen she wished him good-night, revealed the extent of her devotion. Now it naturally occurred to Charley Guerdon that so excellent a sister as Ida Koratine ought to make a perfect wife, so that when he had known and loved her about a month he began to ' hint timidly at a proposal, but she always parried these advances merrily, as though he were joking. If -he sulked, she smiled at him with irresistible archness, and sung him a ballad about a miserable Russian peasant who had fallen in love with a Lorelei, or wator-witoh, who persisted in asking him at the end of every stanza whether he could change his nature and live under the water with her. “Well, but you are not a Lorelei, Miss Ida.” Guerdon exclaimed, impatiently, when he had heard this song twice. “Perhaps I am a Pyrie, though,” she answered, with a smile. “ What is a PyrieT' “A fire-witch, in the modernized form, a girl who delights in fire-arms, shells, petroleum ana other horrid engines of revolutionary warfare,” saying which she laughed with rather forced % Guerdon made no answer, but honed that time might work for him. It thus befell that he remained two months at E— r, seeing Ida every day, and he was just beginning to feel dispirited by the consciousness that his suit made no progress when unexpectedly he received a summons to hurry back to England on account of his elder brother’s illness. As the younger Son of a Peer, Charley Guerdon might be said to have "expectations” in case of hts brother’s death; but he loved him too well to think of that, and was on the contrary sincerely grieved at the news. He hastened to pack his traps and then said good-bye to the Koratines. He found them both in the garden, looking sad. for he had sent his servant to apprise them of what had occurred. Ida especially was pale, and there was just the slightest quaver in her voice as she said: “ Good-bye, Capt. Guerdon; we are sorry to lose you.” “ But I shall return,” he replied. “ I hope my brother will recover, and then I shall hasten back to E . You will still be here, will you not?” “ Perhaps,” she anwered, evasively. “ Well, but you are surely not going to leave E just as the summer season is beginning. Let me go away with the hojJe that ;we shall meet again.” • “Perhaps,” she rejoined, anew. Then, as if to take the chill of despondency out of her words, she plucked a branch off a tree and handed it to the Englishman. “Take that to your brother, and let it carry health to him,” she said. “ I have the superstition of flowers, so you see 1 am not quite a Nihilist.” Guerdon took her hands, and, at an approving sign from hpr brother, drew her to him and kissed her on the brow. It was a chaste and hope was rekindled in his heart as he gave it.

The illness of Charley Guerdon’s brother turned out to be a serious affair. It lasted more than six weeks, and during that time Charley was unremitting in his attendance at the bedside. In such spare moments as he could snatch, he wrote several times to the Koratines, and once he received an answer from the Count with a postscript in Ida's hand; but after that he got no more replies. Charley had never been a newspaper reader, and the world might have gone all wrong without his hearing anything about it. He sometimes glanced at the Field, or at one of the military periodicals to look for army promotions, but into the Times he never dipped, and thus he was-kept from learning the grim reason which prevented his Russian friends from writing to him. He was not fated to ascertain it for k long while, for when Lord Guerdon became convales- > cant his crisrwL him off on a yachting cruise and Charley accompanied him. Charley spent two full months sailing over the seas and receiving no news, till at length they put in at Cadiz and landed. It was in this city that Lord Guerdon, perusing a batch of Londont papers one morning, while his brother sat at the open window looking odt listlessly Over the waters of the Tiarbor, exclaimed: “I say, Charley, didn’t you tell me you had a friend called Count Koratine P” “ Yes. What of him?” answered Charley, turning round with a sudden flush. “ Why, your friend is going to be beheaded for an attempt to murder- Read that!” Charley rose, doubting whether he was awake. He took the newspaper, and with reeling senses read the accoimt of an attempted politicaTassassination about which ail Europe had been talking for the last three months, An exalted personage—one of the half dozen who hold the destinies of in his hands —had'come to E——, and had peen shot at by Count Koratine. Arrested on the spot, along with his sister, the Count was now proved to be the head of a widespread Nihilist and Socialist conspiracy, His bullet had missed its aim, but as it had killed person who sat beside his intended vi< - tim, he was to be tried for his head, an t the Countess Ida, too. , “ I mqst leave for Germany tWB day,” faltered Charley Guerdon, as the paper fell from his hand. He was so hoarse that he could hardly ulateHis brother gazed at him with consternation. “ Great heavens!” he said; “ you don’t mean to say this girl Is anything to you, Charley?” “one is everything to ine,” was the younger brother’s answer. Two hours later Guerdon had left for Cadiz. • ♦ . ♦ *, ’ • The trial of the Koratines had taken ! place at D , and Ida had been acquitted, but the Count was sentenced to death. Guerdon heard this as he Journeyed, and he reached D——on the eve of the day appointed for the Count’s execution. His first Step was to repair to the Central,Police Office and inquire

where the Countess Ida lived. Ho was informed that she was lodging in a small house near the prison, with two servants, but that she was under orders to quit the Kingdom on the morrow. The Englishman hastened to the house indicated with all thadnat of travel on him. It was past midnight, but Ida received him at oncy. He found her writing by the fireside in that dismal parlor of her lodginghouse. She was dressed in deepest mourning, and her features, blanched by her grief and long sojourn in prison, were as those of a statue. But she held out her hand to Guerdon as if nothing much had happened since they had parted, t ' “ Give me no condolences.” she said interrupting the Englishman as he opened his mouth to speak. “I suppose you come to me as a friend." “Can you doubt it?” he faltered. “ Oh, Ida, God knows what I have suffered on hearing this.” “I want you to render me aservice,” she said, not heeding his remarks. “ You are the only friend I have on earth pow? You must go and witness my brother's execution; then come back and tell me what is the last thing be did before dying. I wanted to go myself, but they would not let me. The execution takes place at seven, in the prison, and you must contrive some means of getting in.” Guerdon hesitated, but a beseeching look from Ida nerved him. “Would you refuse me this?” she asked, sadly. “ My brother on the scaffold will make a sign which is intended for me, and on which the whole of my life may depend. I must have somebody there to see it.”

“ I will go then,” muttered Guerdon, hoarsely. He went, and was back with Ida at eight the next day. Heaven knows what he felt and what he looked like; his appearance struck the Russian girl speechless for a moment. But she did not weep; hers w’as the sorrow that sheds inward tears all a life long. She questioned the Englishman with a glance, folding her hands over her breast as if she were waiting an order. “He kissed the crucifix,” said Guerdon, in a low voice. Ida sighed. “ Then I am to abandon the work of conspiracy, and to lead a new life,” she answered, bowing her head. “Thank you, Capt. Guerdon; and goodby. lam going to Strelechtzki, where the plague is, to act as hospital nurse.” “Oh! let me give you a home, Ida,” the Englishman answered, feeling all his love well up in a sob of anguish. “No,” she replied, with a wan smile and a shake of the head; “ you could not brave tbe world’s prejudice by saying that you were proud of my brother, as Z gm. Tn ma he is a martyr who died for his country. We look at these things differently to what you do. Let me be alone to mourn my brother. Good-by again, and forgive me.” “Good-by,” Guerdon moaned, as he raised Ida’s hand to his lips. He felt that the strange girl was right, and that there was a gulf between him and her. But he would have given worlds to bridge it.— London Week. ””