Chapter 6. The Grip Of British Law

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_ CHAPTER VI. THE GRIP OF BRITISH LAW

It was night in Winnipeg, a night of such radiant moonlight as is seen only in northern climates and in winter time. During the early evening a light snow had fallen, not driving fiercely after the Manitoba manner, but gently, and so lay like a fleecy, shimmering mantle over all things.

Under this fleecy mantle, shimmering with myriad gems, lay Winnipeg asleep. Up from five thousand chimneys rose straight into the still frosty air five thousand columns of smoke, in token that, though frost was king outside, the good folk of Winnipeg lay snug and warm in their virtuous beds. Everywhere the white streets lay in silence except for the passing of a belated cab with creaking runners and jingling bells, and of a sleighing party returning from Silver Heights, their four-horse team smoking, their sleigh bells ringing out, carrying with them hoarse laughter and hoarser songs, for the frosty air works mischief with the vocal chords, and leaving behind them silence again.

All through Fort Rouge, lying among its snow-laden trees, across the frost-bound Assiniboine, all through the Hudson's Bay Reserve, there was no sign of life, for it was long past midnight. Even Main Street, that most splendid of all Canadian thoroughfares, lay white and spotless and, for the most part, in silence. Here and there men in furs or in frieze coats with collars turned up high, their eyes peering through frost-rimmed eyelashes and over frost-rimmed coat collars, paced comfortably along if in furs, or walked hurriedly if only in frieze, whither their business or their pleasure led.

Near the northern limits of the city the signs of life were more in evidence. At the Canadian Pacific Railway station an engine, hoary with frozen steam, puffed contentedly as if conscious of sufficient strength for the duty that lay before it, waiting to hook on to Number Two, nine hours late, and whirl it eastward in full contempt of frost and snow bank and blizzard.

Inside the station a railway porter or two drowsed on the benches. Behind the wicket where the telegraph instruments kept up an incessant clicking, the agent and his assistant sat alert, coming forward now and then to answer, with the unwearying courtesy which is part of their equipment and of their training, the oft repeated question from impatient and sleepy travellers, "How is she now?" "An hour," "half an hour," finally "fifteen minutes," then "any time now." At which cheering report the uninitiated brightened up and passed out to listen for the rumble of the approaching train. The more experienced, however, settled down for another half hour's sleep.

It was a wearisome business, and to none more wearisome than to Interpreter Elex Murchuk, part of whose duty it is to be in attendance on the arrival of all incoming trains in case that some pilgrim from Central and Southern Europe might be in need of direction. For Murchuk, a little borderland Russian, boasts the gift of tongues to an extraordinary degree. Russian, in which he was born, and French, and German, and Italian, of course, he knows, but Polish, Ruthenian, and all varieties of Ukranian speech are alike known to him.

"I spik all European language good, jus' same Angleesh," was his testimony in regard to himself.

As the whistle of the approaching train was heard, Sergeant Cameron strolled into the station house, carrying his six feet two and his two hundred pounds of bone and muscle with the light and easy movements of the winner of many a Caledonian Society medal. Cameron, at one time a full private in the 78th Highlanders, is now Sergeant in the Winnipeg City Police, and not ashamed of his job. Big, calm, good-tempered, devoted to his duty, keen for the honour of the force as he had been for the honour of his regiment in other days, Sergeant Cameron was known to all good citizens as an officer to be trusted and to all others as a man to be feared.

Just at present he was finishing up his round of inspection. After the train had pulled in he would go on duty as patrolman, in the place of Officer Donnelly, who was down with pneumonia. The Winnipeg Police Force was woefully inadequate in point of strength, there being no spare men for emergencies, and hence Sergeant Cameron found it necessary to do double duty that night, and he was prepared to do it without grumbling, too. Long watches and weary marches were nothing new to him, and furthermore, to-night there was especial reason why he was not unwilling to take a walk through the north end. Headquarters had been kept fully informed of the progress of a wedding feast of more than ordinary hilarity in the foreign colony. This was the second night, and on second nights the general joyousness of the festivities was more than likely to become unduly exuberant. Indeed, the reports of the early evening had been somewhat disquieting, and hence, Sergeant Cameron was rather pleased than not that Officer Donnelly's beat lay in the direction of the foreign colony.

At length Number Two rolled in, a double header, one engine alive and one dead, but both swathed in snow and frozen steam from cowcatcher to tender, the first puffing its proud triumph over the opposing elements, the second silent, cold and lifeless like a warrior borne from the field of battle.

The passengers, weary and full of the mild excitement of their long struggle with storm and drift across half a continent, emerged from their snow-clad but very comfortable coaches and were eagerly taken in charge by waiting friends and watchful hotel runners.

Sergeant Cameron waited till the crowd had gone, and then turning to Murchuk, he said, "You will be coming along with me, Murchuk. I am going to look after some of your friends."

"My frients?" enquired Murchuk.

"Yes, over at the colony yonder."

"My frients!" repeated Murchuk with some indignation. "Not motch!" Murchuk was proud of his official position as Dominion Government Interpreter. "But I will go wit' you. It is my way."

Away from the noise of the puffing engines and the creaking car wheels, the ears of Sergeant Cameron and his friend were assailed by other and less cheerful sounds.

"Will you listen to that now?" said the Sergeant to his polyglot companion. "What do you think of that for a civilised city? The Indians are not in it with that bunch," continued the Sergeant, who was diligently endeavouring to shed his Highland accent and to take on the colloquialisms of the country.

From a house a block and a half away, a confused clamour rose up into the still night air.

"Oh, dat noting," cheerfully said the little Russian, shrugging his shoulders, "dey mak like dat when dey having a good time."

"They do, eh? And how do you think their neighbours will be liking that sort of thing?"

The Sergeant stood still to analyse this confused clamour. Above the thumping and the singing of the dancers could be heard the sound of breaking boards, mingled with yells and curses.

"Murchuk, there is fighting going on."

"Suppose," agreed the Interpreter, "when Galician man get married, he want much joy. He get much beer, much fight."

"I will just be taking a walk round there," said the Sergeant. "These people have got to learn to get married with less fuss about it. I am not going to stand this much longer. What do they want to fight for anyway?"

"Oh," replied Murchuk lightly, "Polak not like Slovak, Slovak not like Galician. Dey drink plenty beer, tink of someting in Old Country, get mad, make noise, fight some."

"Come along with me," replied the Sergeant, and he squared his big shoulders and set off down the street with the quick, light stride that suggested the springing step of his Highland ancestors on the heather hills of Scotland.

Just as they arrived at the house of feasting, a cry, wild, weird and horrible, pierced through the uproar. The Interpreter stopped as if struck with a bullet.

"My God!" he cried in an undertone, clutching the Sergeant by the arm, "My God! Dat terrible!"

"What is it? What is the matter with you, Murchuk?"

"You know not dat cry? No?" He was all trembling. "Dat cry I hear long ago in Russland. Russian man mak dat cry when he kill. Dat Nihilist cry."

"Go back and get Dr. Wright. He will be needed, sure. You know where he lives, second corner down on Main Street. Get a move on! Quick!"

Meantime, while respectable Winnipeg lay snugly asleep under snow-covered roofs and smoking chimneys, while belated revellers and travellers were making their way through white, silent streets and under avenues of snow-laden trees to homes where reigned love and peace and virtue, in the north end and in the foreign colony the festivities in connection with Anka's wedding were drawing to a close in sordid drunken dance and song and in sanguinary fighting.

In the main room dance and song reeled on in uproarious hilarity. In the basement below, foul and fetid, men stood packed close, drinking while they could. It was for the foreigner an hour of rare opportunity. The beer kegs stood open and there were plenty of tin mugs about. In the dim light of a smoky lantern, the swaying crowd, here singing in maudlin chorus, there fighting savagely to pay off old scores or to avenge new insults, presented a nauseating spectacle.

In the farthest corner of the room, unmoved by all this din, about a table consisting of a plank laid across two beer kegs, one empty, the other for the convenience of the players half full, sat four men deep in a game of cards. Rosenblatt with a big Dalmatian sailor as partner, against a little Polak and a dark-bearded man. This man was apparently very drunk, as was evident by his reckless playing and his jibing, jeering manner. He was losing money, but with perfect good cheer. Not so his partner, the Polak. Every loss made him more savage and quarrelsome. With great difficulty Rosenblatt was able to keep the game going and preserve peace. The singing, swaying, yelling, cursing crowd beside them also gave him concern, and over and again he would shout, "Keep quiet, you fools. The police will be on us, and that will be the end of your beer, for they will put you in prison!"

"Yes," jeered the black-bearded man, who seemed to be set on making a row, "all fools, Russian fools, Polak fools, Galician fools, Slovak fools, all fools together."

Angry voices replied from all sides, and the noise rose higher.

"Keep quiet!" cried Rosenblatt, rising to his feet, "the police will surely be here!"

"That is true," cried the black-bearded man, "keep them quiet or the police will herd them in like sheep, like little sheep, baa, baa, baa, baa!"

"The police!" shouted a voice in reply, "who cares for the police?"

A yell of derisive assent rose in response.

"Be quiet!" besought Rosenblatt again. He was at his wits' end. The police might at any time appear and that would end what was for him a very profitable game, and besides might involve him in serious trouble. "Here you, Joseph!" he cried, addressing a man near him, "another keg of beer!"

Between them they hoisted up a keg of beer on an empty cask, knocked in the head, and set them drinking with renewed eagerness.

"Swine!" he said, seating himself again at the table. "Come, let us play."

But the very devil of strife seemed to be in the black-bearded man. He gibed at the good-natured Dalmatian, setting the Polak at him, suggested crooked dealing, playing recklessly and losing his own and his partner's money. At length the inevitable clash came. As the Dalmatian reached for a trick, the Polak cried out, "Hold! It is mine!"

"Yes, certainly it is his!" shouted the black-bearded man.

"Liar! It is mine," said the Dalmatian, with perfect good temper, and held on to his cards.

"Liar yourself!" hissed the little Polak, thrusting his face toward the Dalmatian.

"Go away," said the Dalmatian. His huge open hand appeared to rest a moment on the Polak's grinning face, and somehow the little man was swept from his seat to the floor.

"Ho, ho," laughed the Dalmatian, "so I brush away a fly."

With a face like a demon's, the Polak sprang at his big antagonist, an open knife in his hand, and jabbed him in the arm. For a moment the big man sat looking at his assailant as if amazed at his audacity. Then as he saw the blood running down his fingers he went mad, seized the Polak by the hair, lifted him clear out of his seat, carrying the plank table with him, and thereupon taking him by the back of the neck, proceeded to shake him till his teeth rattled in his head.

At almost the same instant the black-bearded man leaped across the fallen table like a tiger, at Rosenblatt's throat, and bore him down to the earthen floor in the dark corner. Sitting astride his chest, his knees on Rosenblatt's arms, and gripping him by the throat, he held him voiceless and helpless. Soon his victim lay still, looking up into his assailant's face in surprise, fear and rage unspeakable.

"Rosenblatt," said the bearded man in a soft voice, "you know me--me?"

"No," gasped Rosenblatt in terrible fury, "what do you--"

"Look," said the man. With his free hand he swept off the black beard which he stuffed into his pocket.

Rosenblatt looked. "Kalmar!" he gasped, terror in his eyes.

"Yes, Kalmar," replied the man.

"Help!--" The cry died at his teeth.

"No, no," said Kalmar, shutting his fingers upon his windpipe. "No noise. We are to have a quiet moment here. They are all too busy to notice us. Listen." He leaned far down over the ghastly face of the wretched man beneath him. "Shall I tell you why I am here? Shall I remind you of your crimes? No, I need not. You remember them well, and in a few minutes you will be in hell for them. Five years I froze and burned in Siberia, through you." As he said the word "you" he leaned a little closer. His voice remained low and soft, but his eyes were blazing with a light as of madness. "For this moment," he continued gently, "I have hungered, thirsted, panted. Now it has come. I regret I must hurry a little. I should like to drink this sweet cup slowly, oh so slowly, drop by drop. But--ah, do not struggle, nor cry. It will only add to your pain. Do you see this?" He drew from his pocket what seemed a knife handle, pressed a spring, and from this handle there shot out a blade, long, thin, murderous looking. "It has a sharp point, oh, a very sharp point." He pricked Rosenblatt in the cheek, and as Rosenblatt squirmed, laughed a laugh of singular sweetness. "With this beautiful instrument I mean to pick out your eyes, and then I shall drive it down through your heart, and you will be dead. It will not hurt so very much," he continued in a tone of regret. "No no, not so very much; not so much as when you put out the light of my life, when you murdered my wife; not so much as when you pierced my heart in betraying my cause. See, it will not hurt so very much." He put the sharp blade against Rosenblatt's breast high up above the heart, and drove it slowly down through the soft flesh till he came to bone. Like a mad thing, his unhappy victim threw himself wildly about in a furious struggle. But he was like a babe in the hands that gripped him. Kalmar laughed gleefully. "Aha! Aha! Good! Good! You give me much joy. Alas! it is so short-lived, and I must hurry. Now for your right eye. Or would you prefer the left first?"

As he released the pressure upon Rosenblatt's throat, the wretched man gurgled forth, "Mercy! Mercy! God's name, mercy!"

Piteous abject terror showed in his staring eyes. His voice was to Kalmar like blood to a tiger.

"Mercy!" he hissed, thrusting his face still nearer, his smile now all gone. "Mercy? God's name! Hear him! I, too, cried for mercy for father, brother, wife, but found none. Now though God Himself should plead, you will have only such mercy from me." He seemed to lose hold of himself. His breath came in thick sharp sobs, foam fell from his lips. "Ha," he gasped. "I cannot wait even to pick your eyes. There is some one at the door. I must drink your heart's blood now! Now! A-h-h-h!" His voice rose in a wild cry, weird and terrible. He raised his knife high, but as it fell the Dalmatian, who had been amusing himself battering the Polak about during these moments, suddenly heaved the little man at Kalmar, and knocked him into the corner. The knife fell, buried not in the heart of Rosenblatt, but in the Polak's neck.

There was no time to strike again. There was a loud battering, then a crash as the door was kicked open.

"Hello! What is all this row here?"

It was Sergeant Cameron, pushing his big body through the crowd as a man bursts through a thicket. An awed silence had fallen upon all, arrested, sobered by that weird cry. Some of them knew that cry of old. They had heard it in the Old Land in circumstances of heart-chilling terror, but never in this land till this moment.

"What is all this?" cried the Sergeant again. His glance swept the room and rested upon the huddled heap of men in the furthest corner. He seized the topmost and hauled him roughly from the heap.

"Hello! What's this? Why, God bless my soul! The man is dying!"

From a wound in the neck the blood was still spouting. Quickly the Sergeant was on his knees beside the wounded man, his thumb pressed hard upon the gaping wound. But still the blood continued to bubble up and squirt from under his thumb. All around, the earthen floor was muddy with blood.

"Run, some of you," commanded the Sergeant, "and hurry up that Dr. Wright, Main Street, two corners down!"

Jacob Wassyl, who had come in from the room above, understood, and sent a man off with all speed.

"Good Lord! What a pig sticking!" said the Sergeant. "There is a barrel of blood around here. And here is another man! Here you!" addressing Jacob, "put your thumb here and press so. It is not much good, but we cannot do anything else just now." The Sergeant straightened himself up. Evidently this was no ordinary "scrap." "Let no man leave this room," he cried aloud. "Tell them," he said, addressing Jacob, "you speak English; and two of you, you and you, stand by the door and let no man out except as I give the word."

The two men took their places.

"Now then, let us see what else there is here. Do you know these men?" he enquired of Jacob.

"Dis man," replied Jacob, "I not know. Him Polak man."

The men standing about began to jabber.

"What do they say?"

"Him Polak. Kravicz his name. He no bad man. He fight quick, but not a bad man."

"Well, he won't fight much more, I am thinking," replied the Sergeant.

A second man lay on his back in a pool of blood, insensible. His face showed ghastly beneath its horrible smear of blood and filth.

"Bring me that lantern," commanded the Sergeant.

"My God!" cried Jacob, "it is Rosenblatt!"

"Rosenblatt? Who is he?"

"De man dat live here, dis house. He run store. Lots mon'. My God! He dead!"

"Looks like it," said the Sergeant, opening his coat. "He's got a bad hole in him here," he continued, pointing to a wound in the chest. "Looks deep, and he is bleeding, too."

There was a knocking at the door.

"Let him in," cried the Sergeant, "it is the doctor. Hello, Doctor! Here is something for you all right."

The doctor, a tall, athletic young fellow with a keen, intellectual face, pushed his way through the crowd to the corner and dropped on his knees beside the Polak.

"Why, the man is dead!" said the doctor, putting his hand over the Polak's heart.

Even as he spoke, a shudder passed through the man's frame, and he lay still. The doctor examined the hole in his neck.

"Yes, he's dead, sure enough. The jugular vein is severed."

"Well, here is another, Doctor, who will be dead in a few minutes, if I am not mistaken," said the Sergeant.

"Let me see," said the doctor, turning to Rosenblatt. "Heavens above!" he cried, as his knees sank in the bloody mud, "it's blood!"

He passed round the other side of the unconscious man, got out his syringe and gave him a hypodermic. In a few minutes Rosenblatt showed signs of life. He began to breathe heavily, then to cough and spit mouthfuls of blood.

"Ha, lung, I guess," said the doctor, examining a small clean wound high up in the left breast. "Better send for an ambulance, Sergeant, and hurry them up. The sooner we get him to the hospital, the better. And here is another man. What's wrong with him?"

Beyond Rosenblatt lay a black-bearded man upon his face, breathing heavily. The doctor turned him over.

"He's alive anyway, and," after examination, "I can't find any wound. Heart all right, nothing wrong with him, I guess, except that he's got a bad jag on."

A cursory examination of the crowd revealed wounds in plenty, but nothing serious enough to demand the doctor's attention.

"Now then," said the Sergeant briskly, "I want to get your names and addresses. You can let me have them?" he continued, turning to Jacob.

"Me not know all mens."

"Go on," said the Sergeant curtly.

"Dis man Rosenblatt. Dis man Polak, Kravicz. Not know where he live."

"It would be difficult, I am thinking, for any one to tell where he lives now," said the Sergeant grimly, "and it does not much matter for my purpose."

"Poor chap," said the doctor, "it's too bad."

"What?" said the Sergeant, glancing at him, "well, it is too bad, that is true. But they are a bad lot, these Galicians."

"Poor chap," continued the doctor, looking down upon him, "perhaps he has got a wife and children."

A murmur rose among the men.

"No, he got no wife," said Jacob.

"Thank goodness for that!" said the doctor. "These fellows are a bit rough," he continued, "but they have never had a chance, nor even half a chance. A beastly tyrannical government at home has put the fear of death on them for this world, and an ignorant and superstitious Church has kept them in fear of purgatory and hell fire for the next. They have never had a chance in their own land, and so far, they have got no better chance here, except that they do not live in the fear of Siberia." The doctor had his own views upon the foreign peoples in the West.

"That is all right, Doctor," said the Sergeant, despite the Calvinism of generations beating in his heart, "it is hard on them, but there is nobody compelling them here to drink and fight like a lot of brutes."

"But who is to teach them any better?" said the doctor.

"Come on," said the Sergeant, "who is this?" pointing to the dark-bearded man lying in the corner.

"Dis man," said Jacob, "strange man."

"Any of you know him here?" asked the Sergeant.

There was a murmur of voices.

"What do they say?"

"No one know him. He drink much beer. He very drunk. He play cards wit' Rosenblatt," said Jacob.

"Playing cards, eh? I think we will be finding something now. Who else was in the card game?"

Again a murmur of voices arose.

"Dis Polak man," said Jacob, "and Rosenblatt, and dat man dere, and--"

Half a dozen voices rose in explanation, and half a dozen hands eagerly pointed out the big Dalmatian, who stood back among the crowd pale with terror.

"Come up here, you," said the Sergeant to him.

Instead of responding, with one bound the Dalmatian was at the door, and hurled the two men aside as if they were wooden pegs. But before he could tear open the door, the Sergeant was on him. At once the Dalmatian grappled with him in a fierce struggle. There was a quick angry growl from the crowd. They all felt themselves to be in an awkward position. Once out of the room, it would be difficult for any police officer to associate them in any way with the crime. The odds were forty to one. Why not make a break for liberty? A rush was made for the struggling pair at the door.

"Get back there!" roared the Sergeant, swinging his baton and holding off his man with the other hand.

At the same instant the doctor, springing up from his patient, and taking in the situation, put down his head and bored through the crowd in the manner which at one time had been the admiration and envy of his fellow-students in Manitoba College, till he found himself side by side with the Sergeant.

"Well done!" cried the Sergeant in cheerful approval, "you are the lad! We will just be teaching these chaps a fery good lesson, whateffer," continued the Sergeant, lapsing in his excitement into his native dialect. "Here you," he cried to the big Dalmatian who was struggling and kicking in a frenzy of fear and rage, "will you not keep quiet? Take that then." And he laid no gentle tap with his baton across the head of his captive.

The Dalmatian staggered to the wall and collapsed. There was a flash of steel and a click, and he lay handcuffed and senseless at the Sergeant's side.

"I hate to do that," said the Sergeant apologetically, "but on this occasion it cannot be helped. That was a good one, Doctor," he continued, as the doctor planted his left upon an opposing Galician chin, thereby causing a sudden subsidence of its owner. "These men have not got used to us yet, and we will just have to be patient with them," said the Sergeant, laying about with his baton as opportunity offered, not in any slashing wholesale manner, but making selection, and delivering his blows with the eye and hand of an artist. He was handling the situation gently and with discretion. Still the crowd kept pressing hard upon the two men at the door.

"We must put a stop to this," said the Sergeant seriously. "Here you!" he called to Jacob above the uproar.

Jacob pushed nearer to him.

"Tell these fellows that I am not wanting to hurt any of them, but if they do not get quiet soon, I will attack them and will not spare them, and that if they quit their fighting, none of them will be hurt except the guilty party."

At once Jacob sprang upon a beer keg and waving his arms wildly, he secured a partial silence, and translated for them the Sergeant's words.

"And tell them, too," said the doctor in a high, clear voice, "there is a man dying over there that I have got to attend to right now, and I haven't time for this foolishness."

As he spoke, he once more bored his way through the crowd to the side of Rosenblatt, who was continuing to gasp painfully and spit blood. The moment of danger was past. The excited crowd settled down again into an appearance of stupid anxiety, awaiting they knew not what.

"Now then," said the Sergeant, turning to the Dalmatian who had recovered consciousness and was standing sullen and passive. He had made his attempt for liberty, he had failed, and now he was ready to accept his fate. "Ask him what is his name," said the Sergeant.

"He say his name John Jarema."

"And what has he got to say for himself?"

At this the Dalmatian began to speak with eager gesticulation.

"What is he saying?" enquired the Sergeant.

"Dis man say he no hurt no man. Dis man," pointing to the dead Polak, "play cards, fight, stab knife into his arm," said Jacob, pulling up the Dalmatian's coat sleeve to show an ugly gash in the forearm. "Jarema hit him on head, shake him bad, and trow him in corner on noder man."

Again the Dalmatian broke forth.

"He say he got no knife at all. He cannot make hole like dat wit' his finger."

"Well, we shall see about that," said the Sergeant. "Now where is that other man?" He turned toward the corner. The corner was empty. "Where has he gone?" said the Sergeant, peering through the crowd for a black-whiskered face.

The man was nowhere to be seen. The Sergeant was puzzled and angered. He lined the men up around the walls, but the man was not to be found. As each man uttered his name, there were always some to recognize and to corroborate the information. One man alone seemed a stranger to all in the company. He was clean shaven, but for a moustache with ends turned up in military manner, and with an appearance of higher intelligence than the average Galician.

"Ask him his name," said the Sergeant.

The man replied volubly, and Jacob interpreted.

"His name, Rudolph Polkoff, Polak man. Stranger, come to dis town soon. Know no man here. Some man bring him here to dance."

The Sergeant kept his keen eye fastened on the man while he talked.

"Well, he looks like a smart one. Come here," he said, beckoning the stranger forward into the better light.

The man came and stood with his back to Rosenblatt.

"Hold up your hands."

The man stared blankly. Jacob interpreted. He hesitated a moment, then held up his hands above his head. The Sergeant turned him about.

"You will not be having any weepons on you?" said the Sergeant, searching his pockets. "Hello! What's this?" He pulled out the false beard.

The same instant there was a gasping cry from Rosenblatt. All turned in his direction. Into his dim eyes and pallid face suddenly sprang life; fear and hate struggling to find expression in the look he fixed upon the stranger. With a tremendous effort he raised his hand, and pointing to the stranger with a long, dirty finger, he gasped, "Arrest--he murder--" and fell back again unconscious.

Even as he spoke there was a quick movement. The lantern was dashed to the ground, the room plunged into darkness and before the Sergeant knew what had happened, the stranger had shaken himself free from his grasp, torn open the door and fled.

With a mighty oath, the Sergeant was after him, but the darkness and the crowd interfered with his progress, and by the time he had reached the door, the man had completely vanished. At the door stood Murchuk with the ambulance.

"See a man run out here?" demanded the Sergeant.

"You bet! He run like buck deer."

"Why didn't you stop him?" cried the Sergeant.

"Stop him!" replied the astonished Murchuk, "would you stop a mad crazy bull? No, no, not me."

"Get that man inside to the hospital then. He won't hurt you," exclaimed the Sergeant in wrathful contempt. "I'll catch that man if I have to arrest every Galician in this city!"

It was an unspeakable humiliation to the Sergeant, but with such vigour did he act, that before the morning dawned, he had every exit from the city by rail and by trail under surveillance, and before a week was past, by adopting the very simple policy of arresting every foreigner who attempted to leave the town, he had secured his man.

It was a notable arrest. From all the evidence, it seemed that the prisoner was a most dangerous criminal. The principal source of evidence, however, was Rosenblatt, whose deposition was taken down by the Sergeant and the doctor.

The man, it appeared, was known by many names, Koval, Kolowski, Polkoff and others, but his real name was Michael Kalmar. He was a determined and desperate Nihilist, was wanted for many crimes by the Russian police, and had spent some years as a convict in Siberia where, if justice had its due, he would be at the present time. He had cast off his wife and children, whom he had shipped to Canada. Incidentally it came out that it was only Rosenblatt's generosity that had intervened between them and starvation. Balked in one of his desperate Nihilist schemes by Rosenblatt, who held a position of trust under the Russian Government, he had sworn vengeance, and escaping from Siberia, he had come to Canada to make good his oath. And but for the timely appearance of the police, he would have succeeded.

Meantime, Sergeant Cameron was receiving congratulations on all hands for his cleverness in making the arrest of a man who had escaped the vigilance of the Russian Police and Secret Service, said to be the finest in all Europe. In his cell, the man, as good as condemned, waited his trial, a stranger far from help and kindred, an object of terror and of horror to many, of compassion to a few. But however men thought of him, he had sinned against British civilisation, and would now have to taste of British justice. _

Read next: Chapter 7. Condemned

Read previous: Chapter 5. The Patriot's Heart

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