Week after week rolled away at the fort, and though Olga had absolutely
no one to whom she could speak except her own husband (for the Buriats
knew no Russian save the word of command), she didn't find time hang
heavily on her hands in the quaint, old-fashioned village. The walks and
rides about were really delightful; the scenery was grand and beautiful
to the last degree; the Chinese-looking houses and Tartar dress were odd
and picturesque, like a scene in a theatre. It was all so absurdly
romantic. After all, Olga said to herself with a smile more than once,
it isn't half bad being married to a Tartar chieftain up in the border
mountains, when you actually come to try it. Only, she confessed in her
own heart that she would probably always be very glad when the winter
came again, and she got back from these mountain solitudes to the
congenial gaiety of Tobolsk or Petersburg. And Niaz--well, Niaz loved her distractedly. No husband on earth could
possibly love a woman better. Still, Olga could never understand why he sometimes had to leave her for
three or four days together, and why during his absence, when she was
left all alone at night in the solitary fort with those dreadful
Buriats, they kept watch and ward so carefully all the time, and seemed
so relieved when Niaz came back again. But whenever she asked him about
it, Niaz only looked grave and anxious, and replied with a would-be
careless wave of the hand that part of his duty was to guard the
frontier, and that the Czar had not conferred a title and an order upon
him for nothing. Olga felt frightened and disquieted on all such
occasions, but somehow felt, from Niaz's manner, that she must not
question him further upon the matter. One day, after one of these occasional excursions, Niaz came back in
high spirits, and kissed her more tenderly and affectionately than ever. After dinner, he read to her out of a book of French poems a grand piece
of Victor Hugo's, and then made her sit down to the piano and play him
his favourite air from _Der Freischütz_ twice over. When she had
finished, he leant back in his chair and murmured quietly in French
(which they always spoke together), "And this is in the mountains of
Tartary! One would say a soirée of St. Petersburg or of Paris." Olga turned and looked at him softly. "What is the time, dearest Niaz?" she said with a smile. "Shall I be able to play you still that dance of
Pinsuti's?" Niaz pulled out his watch and answered quickly, "Only ten o'clock,
darling. You have plenty of time still." Something in the look of the watch he held in his hand struck Olga as
queer and unfamiliar. She glanced at it sideways, and noticed hurriedly
that Niaz was trying to replace it unobserved in his waistcoat pocket. "I haven't seen that watch before," she said suddenly; "let me look at
it, dear, will you?" Niaz drew it out and handed it to her with affected nonchalance; but in
the undercurrent of his expression Olga caught a glimpse of a hang-dog
look she had never before observed in it. She turned over the watch and
looked on the back. To her immense surprise, it bore the initials "F. de
K." engraved upon the cover. "These letters don't belong to you, Niaz," she said, scanning it
curiously. Niaz moved uneasily in his chair. "No," he answered, "not to me, Olga. It's--it's an old family relic--an heirloom, in fact. It belonged to my
mother's mother. She was--a Mademoiselle de Kérouac, I believe, from
Morbihan, in Brittany." Olga's eyes looked him through and through with a strange new-born
suspicion. What could it all mean? She knew he was telling her a
falsehood. Had the watch belonged--to some other lady? What was the
meaning of his continued absences? Could he----but no. It was a man's
watch, not a lady's. And if so--why, if so, then Niaz had clearly told
her a falsehood in that too, and must be trying to conceal something
about it. That night, for the first time, Olga Davidoff began to distrust her
Buriat husband. Next morning, getting up a little early and walking on the parapet of
the queer old fortress, she saw Niaz in the court below, jumping and
stamping in a furious temper upon something on the ground. To her
horror, she saw that his face was all hideously distorted by anger, and
that as he raged and stamped the Tartar cast in his features, never
before visible, came out quite clearly and distinctly. Olga looked on,
and trembled violently, but dared not speak to him. A few minutes later Niaz came in to breakfast, gay as usual, with a
fresh flower stuck prettily in the button-hole of his undress coat and a
smile playing unconcernedly around the clear-cut corners of his handsome
thin-lipped mouth. "Niaz," his wife said to him anxiously, "where is the watch you showed
me last night?" His face never altered for a moment as he replied, with the same bland
and innocent smile as ever, "My darling, I have broken it all to little
pieces. I saw it annoyed you in some way when I showed it to you
yesterday, and this morning I took it out accidentally in the lower
courtyard. The sight of it put me in a violent temper. 'Cursed thing,' I
said, 'you shall never again step in so cruelly between me and my
darling. There, take that, and that, and that, rascal!' and I stamped
it to pieces underfoot in the courtyard." Olga turned pale, and looked at him horrified. He smiled again, and took
her wee hand tenderly in his. "Little one," he said, "you needn't be
afraid; it's only our quick Buriat fashion. We lose our tempers
sometimes, but it is soon over. It is nothing. A little whirlwind--and,
pouf, it passes." "But, Niaz, you said it was a family heirloom!" "Well, darling, and for your sake I ground it to powder. Voilà, tout! Come, no more about it; it isn't worth the trouble. Let us go to
breakfast." III. Some days later Niaz went on an expedition again, "on the Czar's service
for the protection of the frontier," and took more than half his
able-bodied Tartars on the journey with him. Olga had never felt so
lonely before, surrounded now by doubt and mystery in that awful
solitary stronghold. The broken watch weighed gloomily upon her
frightened spirits. Niaz was gone for three days, as often happened, and on the fourth
night, after she had retired to her lonely bedroom, she felt sure she
heard his voice speaking low somewhere in the courtyard. At the sound she sprang from her bed and went to the window. Yes, there,
down in the far corner of the yard, without lights or noise, and
treading cautiously, she saw Niaz and his men filing quietly in through
the dim gloom, and bringing with them a number of boxes. Her heart beat fast. Could it be some kind of smuggling? They lay so
near the passes into Turkestan and China, and she knew that the merchant
track from Yarkand to Semi-palatinsk crossed the frontier not far from
Niaz's village. Huddling on her dress hastily, she issued out alone and terrified, into
the dark courtyard, and sought over the whole place in the black night
for sight of Niaz.