"Being Chapters from the Secret History of the Imperial Court of Russia" (continued 3)

“I saw you throw the bomb,” I added. “You were dressed differently, but I now recognise you. Come, admit it.”

“I admit nothing,” he answered sullenly. “You are both of you entirely welcome to your opinions.”

“Forty persons are now in prison for your crime,” I said. “Have you no remorse—no pity?”

“I have nothing to say.”

“But you shall speak,” I cried angrily. “Once I nearly lost my life because of the outrage you committed, and last night you followed me in Brighton with the distinct purpose of killing both Her Highness and myself. But you were frustrated—or perhaps you feared arrest. But I tell you plainly, if ever I catch you in our vicinity again I shall hand you over to the nearest policeman. And at the police-court the truth concerning ‘The One’ will quickly be revealed and seized upon by the halfpenny press.”

“We need not wait for that, Mr Trewinnard,” remarked Hartwig. “We can deal with him this evening—once and for all. When we leave here we shall leave with the knowledge that ‘The One’ no longer exists and the revolutionary party—Terrorists, as they are pleased to call themselves on account of the false bogy which the Secret Police have raised in Russia—will take their own steps towards punishing the man to whom they owe all the great disasters which have befallen their schemes during the past couple of years. Truly, the vengeance of the Terrorist against his betrayer is a terrible vengeance indeed.”

As he spoke the creak of a footstep was heard on the landing outside the locked door.

I raised my finger to command silence, whereupon the man known throughout all revolutionary Russia as “The One” crossed the room swiftly, and unlocking the door, looked out. But he found no one.

Yet I feel certain that someone had been lurking there. That slow creak of the bare boards showed that the pressure of a foot had been released. Yet whoever had been listening had escaped swiftly down the stairs, now dark and unlighted. Danilovitch reentered the bedroom, his face white as a sheet.

“Somebody has overheard!” he gasped in a low, hoarse voice. “They know the truth!”

“Yes,” responded my companion in a hard, distinct tone. “They know the truth because of your own failure to be frank with us. I warned you. But you have not heeded.”

“Your words were overheard,” he whispered. “They no doubt suspected you to be officers of police who had found me here in my hiding-place, and were, therefore, listening. I was a fool!” he cried, throwing his hands above his head. “I was an accursed fool!”

His lips were grey, his dark eyes seemed to be starting from his head.

Well did he know the terrible fate which awaited him as a betrayer and informer.

“Why did you throw that bomb?” I cried. “Why did you last night follow the Grand Duchess Natalia with such evil intent? Tell me,” I urged.

“No!” cried “The One,” springing at me fiercely. “I will tell you nothing—nothing!” he shrieked. “You have betrayed me—you have cast me into the hands of my enemies. But, by Heaven! you shall neither of you leave this place alive,” he shrieked. “My comrades shall deal with you as you justly deserve. I will see that you are not allowed to speak. Neither of you shall utter a single word against me!”

Then with a harsh, triumphant laugh he called loudly for help to those below.

In an instant Hartwig and I both realised that the tables had been suddenly and unexpectedly turned upon us, and that we were now placed in most deadly and imminent peril. The object of the informer was to close our mouths at once, for only by so doing could he save himself from that terrible fate which must assuredly befall him.

It was his own life—or ours!

Chapter Fifteen.

A Statement by the Informer.

Quick as lightning, Hartwig drew a big Browning revolver and thrust it into the informer’s face, exclaiming firmly:

“Another word and it will be your last!”

The fellow started back, unprepared for such defiance. He made a movement to cross the room, where no doubt he had his own weapon concealed, but the police officer was too quick for him and barred his passage.

“Look here!” he said firmly. “This is a matter to be settled between us, without any interference by your friends here. At word from me they would instantly turn upon you as an enemy. Think! Reflect well—before it is too late!” And he held the revolver steadily a foot from the man’s hard, pale face.

Danilovitch hesitated. He controlled the so-called Terrorist movement with amazing ingenuity, playing three rôles simultaneously. He was “The One,” the mysterious but all-powerful head of the organisation; the ardent worker in the cause known as “the shoemaker of Kazan”; and the base, unscrupulous informer, who manufactured plots, and afterwards consigned to prison all those men and women who became implicated in them.

“If I withdraw my cry of alarm will you promise secrecy?” he asked in a low, cringing tone.

From the landing outside came sounds of footsteps and fierce demands in Russian from those he had summoned to his assistance. Two of us against twenty desperate characters as they were, would, I well knew, stand but a poor chance. If he made any allegation against us, we should be caught like rats in a trap, and killed, as all police-spies are killed when denounced. The arm of the Russian revolution is indeed a long one—longer than that of the Secret Police itself.

“What has happened, Danilo?” demanded a man’s rough voice. “Who are those strangers? Let us in!”

“Speak!” commanded Hartwig. “Reassure them, and let them go away. I have still much to say to you in private.”

His arm with the revolver was upraised, his eyes unwavering. The informer saw determination in his gaze. A further word of alarm, and a bullet would pass through his brain.

For a few seconds he stood in sullen silence.

“All right!” he shouted to them at last. “It is nothing, comrades. I was mistaken. Leave us in peace.”

We heard a murmuring of discontent outside, and then the footsteps commenced to descend the steep uncarpeted stairs. As they did so, Hartwig dropped his weapon, saying:

“Now let us sit down and talk. I have several questions I wish to put to you. If you answer frankly, then I promise that I will not betray you to your comrades.”

“What do you mean by ‘frankly’?”

“I mean that you must tell me the exact truth.”

The man’s face grew dark; his brows contracted; he bit his finger-nails.

“What was the motive of the attempt you made upon the Grand Duke Nicholas and his daughter, and the gentleman here, Mr Trewinnard?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“But you yourself committed the outrage?”

“At the orders of others.”

“Whose orders?”

He did not reply. He was standing against the small, cheap chest of drawers, his drawn face full in the light of the hissing gas-jet.

“Come,” said Hartwig firmly. “I wish to know this.”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Then I will tell you,” the detective said in a hard voice. “It was at the orders of your master, General Markoff—the man who, finding that you were a revolutionist, is using you as his tool for the manufacture of bogus plots against the Emperor.”

Danilovitch shrugged his shoulders, but uttered no word.

“And you went again to Brighton last night at his orders. You—”

“I went to Brighton, I admit. But not at the General’s orders,” he interrupted quickly.

“Why did you go? Why did you follow Her Imperial Highness and Mr Trewinnard?”

“I followed them because I had an object in so doing.”

“A sinister object?”

“No. There you are mistaken. My object was not a sinister one. It was to watch and endeavour to make clear a certain point which is a mystery to me.”

“A point concerning what?”

“Concerning Her Imperial Highness,” was his reply.

“How does Her Highness concern you?” I asked. “You tried to kill her once. Therefore your intentions must be evil.”

“I deny that,” he protested quickly. “I tell you that I went to Brighton without thought of any evil intent, and without the orders, or even knowledge, of General Markoff.”

“But he is Her Highness’s enemy.”

“Yes, Excellency—and yours also.”

“Tell me all that you know,” I urged, adopting a more conciliatory tone. “It is outrageous that this oppressor of Russia should conspire to kill an innocent member of the Imperial Family.”

“I know nothing of the circumstances. Excellency,” he said, feigning entire ignorance.

“But he gave you orders to throw that bomb,” I said. “What were your exact orders?”

“I am not likely to betray my employer,” he laughed. “If you do not answer these questions, then I shall carry out my threat of exposure,” Hartwig said in a hard, determined voice.

“Well,” said the informer hesitatingly, “my orders were not to throw the bomb unless the Grand Duchess Natalia was in the carriage.”

“Then the plot was to kill her—but unfortunately her father fell the victim of the dastardly outrage!” I cried.

“Yes,” the man replied. “It was to kill her—and you, Excellency.”

“But why?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and exhibited his palms in a gesture of complete ignorance.

“And your present intention is to effect in Brighton what you failed to do in Petersburg—eh?”

“I have no orders, and it certainly is not my intention,” responded the man, whom I remembered at that moment had deliberately killed the girl Garine in order to preserve his secret.

I turned from him in loathing and disgust.

“But you tell me that General Markoff intends that we both shall come to an untimely end,” I said a few moments later.

“He does, Excellency, and the ingenuity of the plot against you both is certainly one which betrays his devilish cunning,” was the fellow’s reply. “I have, I assure you, no love for a man who holds my life in the hollow of his hand, and whose word I am compelled to obey on pain of exposure and death.”

“You mean Markoff,” I exclaimed. “Tell me something of this plot against me—so that I may be on my guard,” I urged.

“I know nothing concerning it. For that very reason I went to Brighton yesterday, to try and discover something,” he said.

“And what did you discover?”

“A very remarkable fact. At present it is only suspicion. I have yet to substantiate it.”

“Cannot you tell me your suspicion?”

“Not until I have had an opportunity of proving it,” was his quiet reply. “But I assure you that the observation I kept upon Her Imperial Highness and yourself was with no evil intent.”

I smiled incredulously. It was hard indeed to believe a man of his subtle and unscrupulous character. All that Tack had told me crowded through my brain. As the catspaw of Markoff, it was not likely that he would tell me the truth.

Hartwig was leaning easily against the wooden mantelshelf, watching us keenly. Of a sudden an idea occurred to me, and addressing the informer, I said:

“I believe you are acquainted with my friend Madame de Rosen and her daughter. Tell me what you know concerning them.”

“They were arrested and exiled to Siberia for the attempt in the Nevski on the return of the Emperor from the south,” he said promptly.

Hartwig interrupted, saying gravely:

“And that attempt, Danilo Danilovitch, was conceived by you—conceived in order to strike terror into the Emperor’s heart. You formed the plot and handed over the list of the conspirators to your employer, Markoff—you, the person known to the Party of the People’s Will as ‘The One.’”

“I knew of the plot,” he admitted. “And though I gave certain names to the police, I certainly did not include the names of Madame de Rosen or of Mademoiselle.”

“Why was she arrested?”

He was silent for a few moments.

“Because her presence in Petersburg was dangerous to the General,” he said at last sullenly.

“You know this—eh? You are certain of it—you have evidence, I mean?” asked Hartwig.

“You ask me for the truth,” the informer said, “and I tell you. I was extremely sorry for Madame and the young lady, for I knew them when I carried on my trade as bootmaker. An hour after their arrest, at about four o’clock in the morning, the General ordered me to go and search their house for certain letters which he described to me—letters which he was extremely anxious to obtain. I went alone, as he did not wish to alarm the neighbourhood by a domiciliary visit of the police. I searched the house for nearly nine hours, but failed to discover them. While still engaged in the investigation I was recalled to the house where it is my habit to meet the General in secret, when he told me that by a false promise of release he had extracted from Madame a statement that the letters were no longer in her possession, and that Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia held them in safe-keeping. Madame, perfectly innocent as she was of any connection with the conspirators, expected to be released after telling the truth; but the General said that he had only laughed in her face and ordered her and her daughter to be sent off with the next convoy of prisoners—who were leaving for Siberia that same night. By this time the ladies are, I expect, already in the great forwarding-prison at Tomsk.”

“And the letters?” I demanded, my blood boiling at hearing his story.

“I was ordered to search for them.” Danilovitch replied. “The General gave me instructions how to enter the palace of the Grand Duke Nicholas and there to investigate the apartments of the Grand Duchess Natalia. I refused at first, knowing that if I were detected as an intruder I should be shot at sight by the sentries. But he insisted,” the man added. “He told me that if I persisted in my refusal he would expose me as a spy. So I was compelled to make the attempt, well knowing that discovery meant certain death. The sentries have orders to shoot any intruder in the Grand Ducal palace. On four occasions I went there at imminent risk, and on the fourth I was successful. I found the letters concealed in a room which had once been used as Her Highness’s nursery.”

“And what did you do with them?”

“I met the General at our usual meeting-place and handed them to him. He was at first delighted. But a moment later, finding that the seal of the envelope in which were the letters had been broken, he charged me with reading them. I denied it, and—”

“Then you did not read them? You do not know what they contained, or who they were from?”

“They were from General Markoff himself. I looked at the signatures, but, alas! I had no time to read them. I drove straight to the meeting-place, where the General was awaiting me.”

“They were from the General!” I echoed. “To whom?”

“They bore his signature—one a long letter, closely written,” was the informer’s reply. “Seeing that the seal had been broken, the General flew into a sudden rage and declared that the Grand Duchess Natalia had learned what they contained. The words he used to me were: ‘The girl must be silenced—silenced at once, Danilovitch. And you must silence her. She knows the truth!’”

“Well?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, his mouth drawn and hard, “under compulsion and more threats of exposure, I launched the bomb, which, alas! killed her father, while the young lady escaped unhurt.”

“Then he still intends that Her Highness shall die? His warning the other day was no idle attempt to terrorise me?”

“No, Excellency. Take every precaution. The General means mischief, for he is in hourly fear lest Her Highness should expose certain facts contained in those fateful letters which have already cost two ladies their liberty and a Grand Duke and several Cossacks their lives.”

“Is this the actual truth?” asked Hartwig in a changed voice, looking the informer full in the face.

“Yes,” he answered solemnly. “I have told you the truth; therefore I believe your solemn word that you will make no exposure to the Party.”

“If you will disassociate yourself from these dastardly actions,” he said.

“Ah!” sighed the other in despair, “that is impossible. The General holds me always to the compact I made with him. But I beg of you to be warned,” he added. “Her Highness is daily in gravest peril!”

Chapter Sixteen.

Incognita!

Shortly after eleven o’clock that same evening I was strolling with Hartwig up and down the deserted platform at Victoria Station, my intention being to take the eleven-fifty p.m. train back to Brighton.

For a full hour we had pressed the informer to explain the real reason of his visit to Brighton on the previous day. But beyond assuring us that it was not with any evil intent—which I confess we could scarcely believe—he declined to reveal anything.

He only repeated his warning that Natalia was in grave personal danger, and entreated me to be careful. The refugees in that house, all of them Russians, seemed filled with intense curiosity regarding us, and especially so, perhaps, because of Hartwig’s declaration that he was bearer of a message from that mysterious leader who was believed to live somewhere in Moscow, and was known throughout the Russian Empire as “The One.”

No doubt after our departure Danilovitch had told them of some secret message he had received from the mysterious head of the organisation, who was none other than himself.

But his confession had held both of us practically silent ever since we had left that dingy house in Lower Clapton.

“Markoff believes that Her Highness is aware of the contents of those letters,” Hartwig said as we strolled together in the great, well-lit station. Few people were about just at that hour, for the suburban theatre-goers had not yet arrived. “For that reason it is intended that her mouth shall be closed.”

“But this is murder!” I cried in hot indignation. “I will go straight to the Emperor, and tell him.”

“And what benefit would that be? His Majesty would declare it to be an effort by some of the General’s enemies to disgrace him,” my companion said. “Such damning statements have been made before, but, alas! no heed has been taken of them!”

“But His Majesty shall hear—and he shall take notice! I will demand in inquiry into the arrest and exile of Madame de Rosen.”

“I thought you told me that you had already mentioned her name to His Majesty,” Hartwig said quietly.

I had forgotten. Yes. His words recalled to me my effort on her behalf, and the futility of my appeal. I sighed, and bit my lip. The two innocent ladies were on their way to that far-off dreaded penal settlement of Yakutsk. From the time which had elapsed since their arrest I calculated that they were already in Siberia, trudging that long, never-ending post road—that wide, deeply-rutted track which runs across those boundless plains between Tobolsk and Tomsk—on the first stage of their terrible journey of over six thousand miles on foot.

A sudden suggestion flashed across my mind. Should I follow, overtake them and hear the truth from Marya de Rosen’s lips?

Yet before doing so I should be compelled to apply for a passport and permits at the Ministry of the Interior at Petersburg. If I did this, Markoff would at once suspect my intention, for travellers do not go to Siberia for pleasure. And if he suspected my intention a way would quickly be found by which, when I arrived at my destination, neither of the ladies would be alive. In Siberia, where there is neither law nor inquiry, it was, I knew, very easy to close the lips of any person whose existence might be prejudicial to the authorities. A word from General Markoff, and an accident would certainly occur.

No. I realised that to relax my vigilance over the safety of Natalia at that moment would be most injudicious. Besides, was not Natalia herself aware of the contents of the letters? If not, why had her enemies made the firm determination that she should meet with a sudden and mysterious end?

I mentioned to my companion my inclination to travel across Siberia in search of the exiles; but he only shook his head gravely, saying:

“You are, no doubt, under very close observation. Even if you went, you might, by so doing, place yourself in grave personal peril. Remember, Markoff is desperate. The contents of those letters, whatever they may be, are evidently so damning that he cannot afford exposure. The pains he took to secure them, and to send Madame de Rosen into exile, plainly show this. No,” he added, “the most judicious plan is to remain here, near Her Highness, and watch Markoff’s operations.”

“If Her Highness would only reveal to me the secret of those letters, then we should be in a position to defy Markoff and reveal him before the Emperor in his true light,” I said.

“She has refused—eh?”

“Yes. I have questioned her a dozen times, but always with the same result,” was my answer.

“But will she refuse, if she knows that her father’s tragic end was due to the wild desire of Markoff to close her lips?”

“Yes. I have already pointed that out to her. Her reply is that what she learnt was in confidence. It is her friend’s secret, and she cannot betray it. She is the very soul of honour. Her word is her bond.”

“You will tell her now of Danilovitch’s confession; how the letters were stolen and handed back to the General by the man whom he holds so completely in his power?” Hartwig said.

“I shall. But I fear it will make no difference. She is, of course, eager to expose the General to the Emperor and effect his downfall. She is fully aware of his corrupt and brutal maladministration of the department of Political Police, of the bogus plots, and the wholesale deportment of thousands of innocent persons. But it seems that she gave a pledge of secrecy to poor madame, and that pledge she refuses to break at any cost. ‘It is Marya’s secret,’ she told me, ‘not mine.’”

As we were speaking, a tall, straight, good-looking young man in crush-hat and black overcoat over his dinner-clothes had strolled along the platform awaiting the train.

My eyes caught his features as he went, when suddenly I recognised in the young man Richard Drury, whom Her Highness had told me she had known in her school-days at Eastbourne. I glanced after him and watched his figure retreating leisurely as he smoked a cigarette until he came beneath a lamp where he halted. Then, producing an evening paper, he commenced to while away the time by reading. He was evidently returning to Brighton by my train.

Apparently the young fellow had not recognised me as Miss Gottorp’s companion of the previous night, therefore standing near, I had an opportunity of examining him well. He was certainly a typical specimen of the keen, clean-shaven young Englishman, a man who showed good-breeding, and whose easy air was that of the gentleman.

Yet I confess that what Her Highness had revealed to me both alarmed and annoyed me. Madcap that she was, I knew not what folly she might commit. Nevertheless, after all, so long as she preserved her incognito no great harm would be done. It was hard upon her to deny her the least suspicion of flirtation, especially with one whom she had known in the days before she had put up her hair and put on her ankle-frocks.

Hartwig and I were undecided what our next move should be, and we were discussing it. One fact was plain, that in view of the assertion of Danilovitch, I would now be compelled to keep constant watch over the skittish young lady whom the Emperor had given into my charge. My idea of following and overtaking Madame de Rosen in Siberia was out of all question.

“Are you remaining long in London?” I asked the police official, just as I was about to step into the train.

“Who knows?” he laughed. “I am at the ‘Savoy.’ The Embassy is unaware I am in England. But I move quickly, as you know. Perhaps to-morrow I may have to return to Petersburg. Au revoir.”

And I wished him adieu, and got into an empty first-class compartment just as the train was moving from the platform.

I sat in the corner of the carriage full of grave and apprehensive thoughts.

That strange suspicion which the Emperor had revealed to me on the afternoon before the last Court ball recurred to me. I held my breath as a sudden idea flashed across my brain. Had it any connection with this foul but cunningly-conceived plot to kill an innocent girl whose only offence was that she was in possession of certain information which, if revealed, would, I presumed, cause the downfall of that camarilla surrounding the Emperor?

The thought held me in wonder.

Ah! if only the Emperor would listen to the truth—if only he would view Markoff and his friends in their true character! But I knew, alas! that such development of the situation was impossible. Russia, and with her the Imperial Court, was being terrorised by these desperate attempts to assassinate the Emperor. Hence His Majesty relied upon Markoff for the safety of the dynasty. He looked upon him as a marvel of astuteness and cunning, as indeed he was. But, alas! the burly, grave-eyed man who led a life haunted by the hourly fear of death—an existence in armoured rooms and armoured trains, and surrounded by guards whom he even grew to suspect—was in ignorance that the greater part of the evidence of conspiracies, incriminating correspondence and secret proclamations put before him had been actually manufactured by Markoff himself!

At last, after an hour, the express ran slowly into the Brighton terminus, and as it did so, I caught sight of a figure waiting upon the platform, which caused me to quickly draw back. The figure was that of a young girl neatly dressed in black with a small black hat, and though she wore a veil of spotted net I recognised her at once as Natalia! She was smiling and waving her tiny black-gloved hand to someone. In an instant I knew the truth. She was there, even though it were past one o’clock in the morning, to meet her lover, Richard Drury.

I saw him spring out, raise his hat and shake her hand warmly, and then, taking care not to be seen, I followed them out as they walked side by side down the hill in the direction of King’s Road.

This action of hers showed her recklessness and lack of discretion. Apparently she had walked all the way from Hove in order to meet him, and as they strolled together along the dark, deserted road he was evidently explaining something to her, while she listened very attentively.

Surely it was unsafe for her to go forth like that! I was surprised that Miss West allowed it. But, in all probability that worthy lady was in bed, and asleep, all unconscious of her charge’s escapade.

I had not followed very far before I became aware of a footstep behind me, and, turning, I saw a small, insignificant-looking man in dark clothes, who came quickly up to me. It was one of the police-agents employed at the house in Brunswick Square.

“Well, Dmitri!” I exclaimed in a low voice in French. “So you are looking after your young mistress—eh?” I asked, with a laugh, pausing to speak with him in order to allow the lovers to get further off.

“Yes, m’sieur,” replied the man in a tone of distinct annoyance.

“This is hardly wise of Her Highness,” I said. “This is not the hour to go out for a stroll.”

“No, m’sieur,” replied the shrewd agent of police, who had been for years employed at the palace of the late Grand Duke Nicholas in Petersburg. “I tell you I do not think it either safe or proper. These constant meetings must result in scandal.”

“Who is that young man?” I asked quickly. “You have made inquiry, no doubt?”

“Yes, m’sieur, I have. But I can learn very little. He seems to be a complete mystery—an adventurer, perhaps,” declared the suspicious police-agent in a low, hard voice; adding: “The fact is, that man who calls himself Richard Drury is, I feel sure, no fit companion for Her Imperial Highness.”

“Why not?” I demanded in eager surprise.

“Because he is not,” was the man’s enigmatical reply. “I do hope m’sieur will warn Her Imperial Highness of the danger,” he said reflectively, looking in the direction of the retreating figures.

“Danger!” I echoed. “What danger?”

“There is a grave danger,” he asserted firmly. “I have watched, as is my duty, and I know. Her Highness endeavours all she can to evade my vigilance, for naturally it is not pleasant to be watched while carrying on a flirtation. But she does not know what I have discovered concerning this stranger with whom she appears to have fallen so deeply in love. They must be parted, m’sieur—parted at once, before it is too late.”

“But what have you discovered?” I asked.

“One astounding and most startling fact,” was his slow, deliberate reply; “a fact which demands their immediate separation.”

Chapter Seventeen.

Her Highness is Outspoken.

“Now, Uncle Colin! It’s really too horrid of you to spy upon me like that! I had no idea you were behind us! I knew old Dmitri was there—he watches me just as a cat watches a mouse. But I never thought you would be so nasty and mean!” And the girl in her fresh white gown stood at the window of the drawing-room drumming impatiently upon the pane with the tips of her long, white fingers, for it was raining outside.

“My dear Natalia,” I said paternally, standing upon the white goat-skin hearthrug, and looking across at her; “I did not watch you intentionally. I travelled by the same train as your friend, and I saw you meet him. Really,” I laughed, “you looked a most interesting pair as you walked together down Queen’s Road. I left you at the corner of Western Road and went on to the ‘Métropole.’”

“Oh! you actually did have the decency to do that!” she exclaimed, turning to me her pretty face clouded by displeasure. “Well, I say quite frankly that I think it was absolutely horrid of you. Surely I may meet a friend without being spied upon at every turn!” she added resentfully.

“Dmitri only does his duty, remember,” I ventured to remark.

“Oh, Dmitri’s a perfect plague. He shadows me everywhere. His crafty face irritates me whenever I see it.”

“This constant surveillance is only for your own protection,” I said. “Recollect that you are a member of the Imperial family, and that already six of your uncles and cousins, as well as your poor father, have met with violent deaths at the hands of the revolutionists.”

“I know. But it is perfectly absurd ever to dream that they want to kill me—a girl whose only object is to live quietly and enjoy her life.”

“And her flirtations,” I added, striving to make her laugh.

I was successful, for a smile came to her pretty, pouting lips, and she said:

“Well, Uncle Colin, other girls may flirt and have men friends. Therefore I can’t see why it is so actually sinful for me to do the same.”

“But think for a moment of your position!”

“Position!” she echoed. “I’m only plain Miss Natalia Gottorp here. Why should I study my family?”

“Ah!” I sighed. “I know how wayward you are. No amount of argument will, I fear, ever convince you of your error.”

“Oh, yes,” she sighed, in imitation of the sadness of my tone, saying: “I know what a source of trouble and deep anxiety the wicked, wayward child is to you.” Then, next moment, she burst out into a merry, mischievous laugh, adding:

“It’s really too bad of me to tease you, poor old Uncle Colin, isn’t it? But there, you’re not really old. I looked you up in ‘Who’s Who’ only yesterday. You’re only thirty-two next Thursday week. And if you are a very good boy I’ll give you a nice little present. Shall I work you a pair of slippers—eh?” she asked, with sarcasm, “or a winter waistcoat?”

“Thanks. I hate girls’ needlework,” I replied frankly, amused at her sudden change of demeanour.

“Very well. You shall have a new cigarette-case, a solid gold one, with our grand Imperial arms engraved on it and underneath the words ‘From Tattie.’ How will that do—eh?” she laughed.

“Ah! now you’re only trying to tease me,” I said. “I wonder if you tease Mr Drury like that?”

“Oh! Dick knows me. He doesn’t mind it in the least,” she declared, looking at me with those wonderful eyes that were so much admired everywhere. “Have a cigarette,” and she handed me a box of Petroffs, and taking one herself, lit it, and then threw herself negligently into an armchair, lazily displaying a pair of neat silk stockinged ankles and patent-leather shoes.

“I certainly think that Mr Dick is a very lucky young fellow,” I said, “though I tell you openly that I entirely disapprove of these constant meetings. Remember your promise to me before we left Petersburg.”

“Well, I’ve been a very wayward child—even an incorrigible child, I suppose—and I’ve broken my promise. That’s all,” she said, blowing a cloud of smoke from her red lips. Like all Russian ladies, she enjoyed a cigarette.

“I certainly think you ought to have kept your word,” I said.

“But Dick, I tell you, is an old friend. I couldn’t cut him, could I?”

“You need not have cut him,” I said. “But I consider it unnecessary to steal out of the house after Miss West has gone to bed, and meet him at the station at one o’clock in the morning.”

“Then upon that point we’ll agree to differ. I’m old enough to be my own mistress, and if you continue to lecture me, I shall be very annoyed with you.”

“My dear Natalia, I do not blame you in the least for falling in love. How can I?” I said in a changed tone, for I knew that the young lady so petted and spoiled by her earlier training must be treated with greatest caution and tact. “Why, shall I confess a truth?” I asked, looking her straight in the face.

“Yes, do,” she said.

“Well, if I were ten years younger I should most certainly fall in love with you myself,” I laughed.

“Don’t be so silly, Uncle Colin!” she exclaimed. “But would that be so very terrible? Why, you’re not an old man yet,” she added, her cheeks having flushed slightly at my words.

“Now you’re blushing,” I said.

“I’m not!” she cried stoutly. “You’re simply horrid this morning,” she declared vehemently, turning away from me.

“Is it horrid of me to pay you a compliment?” I asked. “I merely expressed a devout wish that I were standing in Drury’s shoes. Every man likes to be kissed by a pretty girl, whether she be a shopgirl or a Grand Duchess.”

“Oh, yes. You are quite right there. Most men make fools of themselves over women.”

“Especially when their beauty is so world-famed as that of the Grand Duchess Natalia!”

“Now, there you are again!” she cried. “I do wish you’d change the topic of conversation. You’re horrid, I say.”

And she gave a quick gesture of impatience, blew a great cloud of smoke from her lips and put down her half-consumed cigarette upon the little silver ashtray.

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed at last. “What a funny lover you would make, Uncle Colin! You fancy yourself as old as Methuselah, and your hide-bound ideas of etiquette, your straitlaced morality, and your respect of les convenances are those in vogue when your revered Queen Victoria ascended the throne of Great Britain. You’re not living with the times, my dear uncle. You’re an old-fashioned diplomat. To-day the world is very different to that in which your father was born.”

“I quite agree. And I regret that it is so,” I replied. “These are surely very lax and degenerating days, when girls may go out unchaperoned, and the meeting of a man in the early hours of the morning passes unremarked.”

“It unfortunately hasn’t passed unremarked,” she said, with a pretty pout. “You take jolly good care to rub it in every moment! It really isn’t fair,” she declared. “I’m very fond of you, Uncle Colin, but you are really a little too old-fashioned.”

“You are comparing me with young Drury, I suppose?”

“Oh, Dick isn’t a bit old-fashioned, I assure you,” she declared. “He’s been at Oxford. He doesn’t dream and let the world go by. But, Uncle Colin,” she went on, “I wonder that you, a diplomat, are so stiff and proper. I suppose it’s the approved British diplomatic training. I’m only a girl, and therefore am not supposed to know any of the tremendous secrets of diplomacy. But it always strikes me that, for the most part, you diplomats are exceptionally dull folk. In our Court circle we always declare them to be inflated with a sense of their own importance, and fifty years behind the times.”

I laughed outright. Her view was certainly a common-sense one. The whole training of British diplomacy is to continue the traditions of Pitt and Beaconsfield. Diplomacy does not, alas! admit a new and modern régime affecting the world; it ignores modern thought, modern conditions and modern methods. “Up-to-date” is an expression unknown in the diplomat’s vocabulary. The Foreign Office instil the lazy, do-nothing policy of the past, the traditions of Palmerston, Clarendon and Dudley are still the traditions of to-day in every British Embassy throughout the world; and, unfortunately for Britain, the lesson has yet to be learned by our diplomacy that to be strong is to be acute and subtle, and to be dictatorial is to be entirely up-to-date. The German diplomacy is that of keen progress and anticipation; that of Turkey craft and cunning; of France, tact, with exquisite politeness. But Britain pursues her heavy, blundering “John Bull” programme, which, though effective in the days of Beaconsfield, now only results in the nation’s isolation and derision, certain of her ambassadors to the Powers being familiarly known at the Courts to which they are accredited as “The Man with the Gun.”

“What you say is, in a sense, quite true,” I admitted. “But I’m so sorry if I’m really very dull. I don’t mean to be.”

“Oh! You’ll improve under my tuition—and Dick’s—no doubt,” she exclaimed reassuringly.

Her Highness was nothing if not outspoken.

“The fact is, Uncle Colin,” she went on seriously, “you’re far too old-fashioned for your age. You are not old, but your ideas are so horribly antiquated. Girls of to-day are allowed a freedom which our grandmothers would have held as perfectly sinful. Girls have become independent. A young fellow takes a girl out to dinner and to the theatre, and even to supper nowadays, and nobody holds up their hands in pious horror—only you! It isn’t fair,” she declared.

“Girls of the people are allowed a great deal of latitude, I admit. And as far as I can see, the world is none the worse for it,” I said. “But what other girls may do, you, an Imperial Highness, unfortunately may not.”

“That’s just where we don’t agree,” she said in a tone meant to be impertinent, her straight nose slightly raised as she spoke. “I intend to do as other girls do—at least, while I’m plain Miss Gottorp. They call me the ‘Little Alien’—so Miss West heard me called the other day.”

“No,” I said very firmly, looking straight at her as she lolled easily in her chair, her chin resting on her white palm as she gazed at me from beneath her long, dark lashes. “You really must respect the convenances. If you take a stroll with young Drury, do so at least in the daylight.”

“And with Dmitri watching me all the time from across the road. Not quite,” she said. “I like the Esplanade when it is quiet and everybody is in bed. It is so pleasant on these warm nights to sit upon a seat and enjoy the moonlight on the sea. Sounds like an extract from a novel, doesn’t it?” and she laughed merrily.

“I fear you are becoming romantic,” I said. “Every girl becomes so at one period of her life.”

“Do you think so?” she asked, smiling. “Myself, I don’t fancy I have any romance in me. The Romanoffs are not a romantic lot as a rule. They are usually too mercenary. I love nice things.”

“Because you are cultured and possess good taste. That is exactly what leads to romance.”

“I have the good taste to choose Dick as a friend, I suppose you mean?” she asked, with an intention to irritate me.

“Ah, I did not exactly say that.”

“But you meant it, nevertheless. You know you did, Uncle Colin.”

I did not reply for a few moments. I was recalling what Dmitri had told me—that strange allegation of his that this young man, Richard Drury, was an enigma, an adventurer. He had told me that he was no fit companion for her, and yet when pressed he apparently could give no plain reason. He had been unable to discover much concerning the young fellow—probably because of his failure it seemed he had become convinced that the object of his inquiry was an adventurer.

Suddenly rising, I stood before her, and placing my hand upon her shoulder, said:

“I came here this morning to speak to you very seriously, Natalia. Can you really be serious for once?”

“I’m always serious,” she replied. “Well—another lecture?”

“No, not a lecture, you incorrigible little flirt. I want to ask you a plain question. Please answer me, for a great deal—a very great deal—depends upon it. Are you aware of what was contained in those letters which Madame de Rosen gave you for safe-keeping?”

“I have long ago assured you that I am. Why do you ask again?”

“Because there is one point which I wish to clear up,” I said. “I thought you told me that they were in a sealed envelope?”

“So they were. But when I heard of Marya’s exile, and that Luba had been sent with her, I broke open the seal and investigated the contents.”

“And what did you find?”

“Ah! That is my business, Uncle Colin. I have already told you that I absolutely refuse to betray the secrets of my poor dear friend. You surely ought not to ask me. You have no right to press me to commit such a breach of trust.”

“I ask you because so much depends upon the extent of your knowledge,” I said. “I have already solved the secret of the disappearance of the letters from the place where you hid them in the palace.”

“Then you know who stole them!” she gasped, starting to her feet. “Tell me. Who was the thief?”

“A man whom you do not know. He has confessed to me. He was not a willing thief, but a wretched assassin, whom General Markoff holds as his catspaw, and compels to perform his dirty work.”

“Then the General has secured them! My suspicions are confirmed!” she gasped, all the colour dying from her beautiful face.

“He has. The theft was committed under compulsion, and at imminent risk to the thief, who most certainly would have been shot by the sentries, if discovered. The letters were handed by him back to General Markoff.”

My words held her dumbfounded for a few seconds. She did not speak. Then she said in a hard, changed tone:

“Ah! Markoff has destroyed them! The proof no longer exists, therefore I am powerless! How I wish I were permitted to speak—to reveal the truth!”

Her teeth were set, her face was white and hard, and the fingers of both hands had clenched themselves into the palms.

“But you know the truth!” I cried. “Will you not speak? Will you never reveal it? It is surely your duty to do so,” I urged.

But she only shook her head sadly, saying:

“I cannot betray her confidence.”

“Remember,” I said, “by exposing this secret which Markoff has been at such infinite pains to keep, you can perhaps obtain the release of poor Marya and her daughter! Is it not your plain duty?” I urged in a low, earnest voice.

But she only again shook her head resolutely.

“No, I cannot expose the secrets of my lost friend. It was her secret which I swore to her I would never reveal,” she responded in a harsh, strained voice. “Markoff has secured the proofs and destroyed them. I suspected it from the first. That brute is my bitterest enemy, as he is also Marya’s. But, alas! he is all-powerful! He has played a clever double game—and he has won—he has won!”

Chapter Eighteen.

Shows Hartwig’s Anxiety.

Her Highness’s firm refusal to reveal to me the contents of those letters, the knowledge of which had caused Madame de Rosen and her daughter to be sent to Siberia, while the Grand Duke Nicholas, her father, hid lost his life, disappointed me.

For a full hour I remained there, trying by all means in my power to persuade her to assist me in the overthrow of the fêted Chief of Secret Police.

She would have done so, she declared, were it not for the fact that she had given her solemn word of honour to Marya de Rosen not to divulge anything she knew concerning the contents of those mysterious letters. That compact she held sacred. She had given her faithful promise to her friend.

I pointed out to her the determination she had expressed to me in Petersburg that she intended to reveal to the Emperor his favourite in his true light, and thus avenge the lives of thousands of innocent persons who had died on their way to exile or in the foetid, overcrowded prisons of Moscow, and Tomsk, and the vermin-infested étapes of the Great Post Road.

But in reply she sighed deeply, and, looking straight before her in desperation, declared that she had now no proof; and even if she had, she had not the permission of Marya de Rosen to make the exposure. “It is her secret—her own personal secret,” she said. “I vowed not to reveal it.”

Then for the first time I indicated her own peril. Hitherto I had not wished to alarm her. But I now showed her how it would be to the advantage of the General, cunning, daring and unscrupulous as he was, that some untoward incident should occur by which her life would be sacrificed in his desperate attempt to conceal the truth.

In silence she listened to me, her beautiful face pale and graver than I had ever before seen it. At last she realised the peril.

“Ah!” she sighed, and then, as though speaking to herself, said: “If only I could obtain Marya’s consent to speak—to tell the Emperor the truth! But that is now quite impossible. No letter could ever reach her, and, indeed, we have no idea where she is. She is, alas! as dead to the world as though she were in her grave!” she added sadly.

I reflected for a moment.

“If it were not that I feared lest misfortune might befall you during my absence, Highness, I would at once follow and overtake her.”

“Oh, but the long journey to Siberia! Why, it would take you at least six months! That is quite impossible.”

“Not impossible, Highness,” I responded very gravely. “I am prepared to undertake the journey for your sake—and hers—for the sake of the Emperor.”

“Ah! I know, Uncle Colin, how good you always are to me, but I couldn’t ask you to undertake a winter journey such as that, in search of poor Marya.”

“If I go, will you, on your part, promise me solemnly not to go out on these night escapades? Indeed, it is not judicious of you to walk out at all, unless one or other of the police-agents is in close attendance upon you. One never knows, in these present circumstances, what may happen,” I said. “And as soon as Markoff knows that I have set out for Siberia, he will guess the reason, and endeavour to bring disaster upon both of us, as well as upon the exile herself.”

For some minutes she did not reply. Then she said: “You must not go. It is too dangerous for you—far too dangerous. I will not allow it.”

“If you refuse to reveal Marya’s secret, then I shall go,” was my quiet response. “I shall ask the Emperor to send you Hartwig, to be near you. He will watch over your safety until my return.”

“Ah! his alertness is simply marvellous,” she declared. “Did you read in the London papers last week how cleverly he ran to earth the three men who robbed the Volga Kama Bank in Moscow of a quarter of a million roubles?”

“Yes. I read the account of it. He was twice shot at by the men before they were arrested. But he seems always to lead a charmed life. While he is at your side, I shall certainly entertain no fear.”

“Then you have really decided to go?” she said, looking at me with brows slightly knit. “I cannot tell—I cannot—what I read in those letters after giving my word of honour to Marya.”

“I have decided,” I said briefly.

“I do not like the thought of your going. Something dreadful may happen to you.”

“I shall be wary—never fear,” I assured her with a laugh. “I intend to secure the release of Madame and Luba—to set right an unjust and outrageous wrong. I admire your firm devotion to your friend, but I will bring back to you, I hope, her written permission to speak and reveal the truth.”

Five minutes later I rose, and we descended to the hall, where patient Dmitri was idling over his French newspaper.

Then the weather being fine again, we passed out together into the autumn sunshine of the Lawns, at that hour of the morning agog with well-dressed promenaders and hundreds of pet dogs. And a few moments later we came face to face with Richard Drury, to whom she introduced me as “Mr Colin Trewinnard, my uncle, Mr Drury.” We bowed mutually, and then all three of us strolled on together, though he seemed a little ill at ease in my presence.

I had made a firm resolution. In order to learn the secret of those letters and to place Her Highness, who so honourably refused to break her word, in a position to expose the unscrupulous official who was the real Oppressor of Russia, I intended to set out on that long journey in search of the exile, now, alas! unknown by name, but only by number.

Drury struck me as a rather good fellow, and no doubt a gentleman. We halted together, and, when near the pier, he raised his hat and left us.

Before leaving Brighton I had yet much to do. I was not altogether satisfied concerning the young man, my object being to try and learn for myself something more tangible regarding him.

“Well,” she asked, when he had gone, “what is your verdict, Uncle Colin?”

“Favourable,” I replied, whereat she smiled in gratification.

An hour later I succeeded in obtaining a short confidential chat with the hall-porter of the Royal York Hotel, whom I found quite ready to assist me. As I had suspected, Dmitri had failed and formed utterly wrong conclusions, because of his lack of fluent English. It is always extremely difficult for a foreigner to obtain confidential information in England.

The hall-porter, however, told me that their visitor was well-known to them, and had frequently stayed there for several months at a time. He had, he believed, formerly lived with his invalid mother at Eastbourne. But the lady had died, and he had then gone to live in bachelor chambers in London. From the bureau of the hotel he obtained the address, scribbled on a bit of paper—an address in Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, to which letters were sometimes re-directed.

“And he has a friend—a doctor—hasn’t he?” I asked the man.

“Oh, yes, sir. You mean Doctor Ingram. He was down here with him the other day.”

Having obtained all the information I could, I telegraphed to Hartwig at the Savoy Hotel, asking him to make inquiries at Albemarle Street and then to come to Brighton immediately, for I dared not leave until I could place my little madcap charge in safe hands. I knew not into what mischief she might get so soon as my back was turned.

That afternoon we strolled together across the Lawns, and presently sat down to listen to the military band.

She looked extremely neat in her dead-black gown, which, by its cut and material, bore the unmistakable cachet of the Rue de la Paix, and as we passed up and down I saw many a head turned in her direction in admiration of her remarkable beauty. Little did that crowd of seaside idlers dream that this extremely pretty girl in black who was so much of a mystery to everybody was a member of the great Imperial House of Russia. She was believed to be Miss Gottorp, whose father had been German and her mother English, both of whom were recently dead.

Seeing her so often walking with me, everyone, of course, put me down as the lucky man to whom she was engaged to be married, and I have little doubt that many a young man envied me. How strange is the world!

When in a tantalising mood she often referred to that popular belief, and that afternoon, while we rested upon two of the green chairs set apart from the others on the Lawn, she said:

“I’m quite sure that everybody in Hove is convinced that I am to be Mrs Trewinnard;” and then, referring to her English maid, she added: “Davey has heard it half a dozen times already.”

I laughed merrily, saying:

“Well, that’s only to be expected, I suppose. But what about Drury—eh?”

“They don’t see very much of Dick. We only meet at night,” she laughed, poking the grass with her sunshade.

“And that you really must not do in future,” I said firmly.

“Then I can go about with him in the daytime—eh?” she asked, looking up imploringly into my face.

“My dear child,” I said, “though I do not approve of it, yet how can I debar you from any little flirtation, even though the Emperor would, I know, be extremely angry if it came to his ears?”

“But it won’t. I’m sure it won’t, Uncle Colin, through you. You are such a funny old dear.”

“Well,” I said reluctantly, “for my own part I would much prefer that you invited your gentleman friend to the house, where Miss West could at least play propriety. But only now and then—for recollect one fact always, that you and he can never marry, however fond you may be of each other. It is that one single fact which causes me pain.”

Her hard gaze was fixed upon the broad expanse of blue sea before her. I saw how grave she had suddenly become, and that in her great dark eyes stood unshed tears.

Her chest heaved slowly and fell. She was filled with emotion which she bravely repressed.

“Yes,” she managed to murmur in a low whisper.

“It is too cruel. Because—”

“Because what?” I asked, in a sympathetic voice, bending towards her.

“Ah, don’t ask me, Uncle Colin!” she said bitterly, her welling eyes still fixed blankly upon the sea. “It is cruel because—because I love Dick,” she whispered in open confession.

“My little friend,” I said, “I sympathise with you very deeply. It is, I admit, a very bitter truth which I have been compelled to point out. For that very reason I have been so much against your friendship with young men. Drury is in ignorance of your true identity. He believes you to be plain Miss Gottorp. But when I tell him the truth—”

“Ah, no!” she cried. “You will not tell him—you won’t—will you? Promise me,” she urged. “I must, I know, one day find a way of breaking the bond of love which exists between us. When—when—that—time—comes—then we must part. But he must never know that I have deceived him—he must never know that the reason we cannot be more than mere friends is on account of my Imperial birth. No,” she added bitterly, “even though I love Dick so dearly and he loves me devotedly, I shall be compelled to do something purposely in order that his love for me may die.” Then, sighing deeply, my dainty little companion implored: “You will therefore promise me, Uncle Colin, that you will never—never, under any circumstances, breathe a word to him of who I really am?”

I took her trembling hand for a second and gave her my promise.

I confess I felt the deepest sympathy for her, and told her so frankly and openly as I sat there taking leave of her, for that very evening I intended to leave Brighton and catch the night mail from Charing Cross direct for Moscow.

She said but little, but when we had returned to Brunswick Square and I stood with her at the window of the big drawing-room, she was unable to control her emotions further and burst into a flood of bitter tears.

In tenderness I placed my hand upon her shoulder, endeavouring to console her. Alas! I fear my words were stilted and very unconvincing. What could I say, when all the world over royal birth is a bar to love and happiness, and marriages in Imperial and Royal circles are, for the most part, loveless, unholy unions. The Grand Duchess or the royal Princess loves just as ardently and devotedly as does the free and flirting work-girl or the tea-and-tennis girl of the middle-classes. Alas! however, the heart of the Highness is not her own, but at the disposal of the family council, which discusses her marriage as a purely business proposition, and sells her, too frequently, to the highest bidder.

The poor girl, crushed by the hopeless bitterness of the situation, declared with a sob:

“To be born in the purple, as the outside world calls it, is, alas! to be born to unhappiness.”

I remained there a full half-hour, until she grew calm again. Never in all the years I had known her—ever since she was a girl—had I seen her give way to such a paroxysm of despair. Usually she was so bright, buoyant and light-hearted. But that afternoon she had utterly broken down and been overcome by blank despair.

“You are young, Natalia,” I said, with deep sympathy. “Enjoy your life to-day, and do not endeavour to meet the troubles of the future. As long as you remain here and are known as Miss Gottorp, so long may your friendship with young Drury be maintained. Live for the present—do not anticipate the future.”

I said this because I knew that Time is the greatest healer of broken hearts.

But she only shook her head very sadly, without replying.

The black marble clock on the mantelshelf chimed six, and I recollected that Hartwig had wired that he would meet me at the “Métropole” at that hour. My train was due to leave for London at seven. I had already bidden Miss West adieu. So I took Natalia’s hand, and pressing it warmly, wished her farewell, promising to regularly report by telegraph my progress across Siberia, as far as possible.

She struggled to her feet with an effort, and looking full into my face said in a voice choked by emotion:

“Good-bye, Uncle Colin, I am sorry I cannot betray Marya’s secret. You are doing this in order to save two innocent women from the horrors of a living tomb in the Siberian snows—to demand that justice shall be done. Go. And may God in His great mercy take you under His protection.”

What I replied I can scarcely tell. My heart was too full for words. All I know is that a few moments later I turned out of the great wide square, where the rooks were cawing in the high trees, and hurried along the wide promenade, where the red sun was setting behind me in the sea.

Hartwig I found at the “Métropole” awaiting me. He related how he had called at the flat in Albemarle street, and, by a judicious tip to the young valet he found there, had learnt that Mr Richard Drury was the son of old Sir Richard Drury, knight, the great ship-builder of Greenock, who had built a number of cruisers for the Navy. He was a self-made man, who commenced life as a fitter’s labourer in a ship-builder’s yard up at Craigandoran on the Clyde—a bluff, hearty man whose generosity was well-known throughout the kingdom.

“Young Richard, it seems,” Hartwig went on, “after leaving Oxford became a director of the company, and though apparently leading a life of leisure, yet he takes quite an active part in the direction of the London office of the firm in Westminster.”

He expressed the strongest disapproval when I told him of my intention to leave for Siberia and instructed him to remain there and to take the Grand Duchess under his protection until he received definite orders from the Emperor.

“I certainly don’t like the idea of your going to Siberia alone, Mr Trewinnard,” he declared. “Markoff will know the instant you start, and I fear that—well, that something may happen.”

“It is just as likely to happen here in Brighton, Hartwig, as in Russia,” I replied.

“Well,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “all I advise is that you exercise the very greatest care. Why not take my assistant, Petrakoff? I will give him secret orders to join you at the frontier at Ekaterinburg—and nobody will know. It will be best for you to have company on that long sledge journey.”

“If I want him I will telegraph to you from Petersburg,” was my reply.

“You will want him,” he said, “depend upon it. If you go alone to Siberia, Mr Trewinnard,” he added very earnestly, “then depend upon it you will go to your grave!”

Chapter Nineteen.

Orders in Cipher.

“And pray, Trewinnard, why are you so extremely desirous of following this woman into exile and speaking with her?” inquired the Emperor in French, as I sat with him, a week later, in a small, dismal, tapestried room in the old Castle of Berezov, the Imperial hunting-box on the edge of the Pinsk Marshes, in the Government of Minsk.

Dressed in a rough shooting-suit of drab Scotch tweed, he sat upon the edge of the table smoking a cigarette after a hard day after wild boar.

I had driven since dawn from the wayside station of Olevsk, three hundred miles south of Moscow, where I had arrived tired and famished from my long night and day journey of a week from Brighton.

On arrival in Moscow I had learnt that His Majesty was hunting at Berezov, and a telegram prefixed by the word “Bathildis,” had at once been replied to by a command to audience. Hence I was there, and had placed my appeal before him.

He was much puzzled. In his eyes Madame de Rosen was a dangerous revolutionist who had conspired to kill him, therefore he regarded with entire disfavour my petition to be allowed to see her. There was annoyance written upon his strong features, and by the expression in his eyes I saw that he was entirely averse to granting my request.

“I am anxious, Sire, to see her upon a purely private matter. She was a personal friend,” I replied.

“So you told me some time ago, I recollect,” he remarked, twisting his cigarette between his fingers. “But Markoff has reported that both she and her daughter are highly dangerous to the security of the State. He was speaking of them only the other day.”

I bit my lip fiercely.

“Perhaps he may be misinformed,” I said coldly. “As far as I am aware—and I know both the lady and her daughter Luba intimately—they are most loyal subjects of Your Majesty.”

“Tut,” he laughed. “The evidence put before me was that they actually financed the attempt in the Nevski. I had a narrow escape, Trewinnard—a very narrow one,” he added. “And if you were in my place how would you, I wonder, treat those scoundrels who attempted to kill you—eh?”

“I have no knowledge of the true facts, Sire,” I replied. “All I petition Your Majesty is that I may be granted an Imperial permit for the post-horses, and a personal order from yourself to see and speak with the prisoners.”

He shrugged his shoulders, and thrust his hands deeply in his breeches pockets.

“You do not tell me the reason you wish to see her,” he said with a frown of displeasure.

“Upon a purely private matter,” I said. “To ask her a question concerning a very dear friend. I beg that Your Majesty will not refuse me this request,” I added, deeply in earnest.

“It is a long journey, Trewinnard. I believe she has been sent beyond Yakutsk,” he remarked. “But, tell me, were you a very intimate friend of this woman? What do you actually know of her?”

“All I know of her,” I replied, “is that she is suffering a great wrong, Your Majesty. She is in possession of certain information which closely concerns a friend. Hence my determination to try, if possible, to amend matters.”

“What—you yourself desire to make amends—eh?”

“Not exactly that, Sire,” I replied. “I wish to learn the truth concerning—well, concerning a purely private matter. I think that Your Majesty is convinced of my loyalty.”

“Of course I am, Trewinnard,” was his quick reply. “You have rendered me many important personal services, not the least being your kindness in looking after the welfare of that harebrained little flirt Tattie. By the way, how is she? As much a tomboy as ever, I suppose?” And his big, strong face relaxed into a humorous smile at thought of the girl who, at her own request, had been banished from Court.

“She is greatly improving,” I assured him, with a laugh. “She and Miss West are quite comfortable, and I believe enjoying themselves immensely. Her Highness loves England.”

“And so do I,” he sighed. “I only wish I could go to London oftener. It is to be regretted that my recent visits there have not exactly found favour with the Council of Ministers.” Then, after a long pause, he said: “Well, I suppose I must not refuse this request of yours, Trewinnard. But I fear you will find your winter journey an extremely uncomfortable one. When you are back, come direct to me. I would like to hear the result of your observations. Let me see? Besides the permit to use the post-horses, you will require an order to speak with the prisoner, Marya de Rosen, alone, and an order to the Governor of Tomsk, who has the register which will show to which settlement she has been deported.”

My heart leaped within me, for at first I had feared refusal.

“As Your Majesty pleases,” was my reply, and I added my warmest thanks.

“I’ll write them out now,” he said; and, turning, he seated himself at the little escritoire in the corner of the small, old-world room and commenced to scribble those Imperial decrees which no one within the Russian Empire would dare to disobey.

While he did so I stood gazing out of the small, deep-set double windows across a flat dismal landscape, brown with the tints of autumn—the wide and weedy moat which surrounded the castle, the stretch of grazing-land and then a belt of dense forest on the skyline—the Imperial game preserves.

That silent old room, dull, faded and sombre, was just the same as it had been when Catherine the Great had fêted her favourite Potemkin, the man who for years ruled Russia and who fought so valiantly against the Turks. There, in that very room, the Treaty of Jassy, which gave Russia the littoral between the Bug and the Dniester, had been signed by Catherine in 1792, and again in that room the Tzar Alexander the First had received the news of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.

At that small buhl table whereat the Emperor was now writing out my permits the Tzar Nicholas had signed the decree taking away the Polish constitution, and, years later, he had written the final orders to his ill-fated army fighting against the British in the Crimea.

Somewhere in the stone corridor outside could be heard the measured tramp of the sentry, but that, and the rapid scratching of the Emperor’s pen, were the only sounds which broke the quiet.

At last he rose and handed me three sheets of foolscap bearing the Imperial arms—the orders which I sought.

I took them with thanks, but after a moment’s hesitation I ventured to add:

“I wonder if I might request of Your Majesty a further favour?”

“Well,” he asked with a smile, “what is it?”

“That my journey to Siberia should be kept a secret from the police?”

“Eh—what?” he asked quickly, looking at me strangely. “You do not wish the police to know. Why? There is to be no attempted escape, surely?”

“I give Your Majesty my word that Madame de Rosen will not attempt to escape,” I said. “I will, indeed, make myself responsible for her. The fact is that I know I have enemies among the Secret Police; hence I wish them to remain in entire ignorance of my journey.”

“Enemies!” he echoed. “Who are they? Tell me, and I will quickly turn them into your friends,” he said.

“Alas, Sire, I do not exactly know their identity,” was my reply.

“Very well,” he replied at last, selecting another cigarette from the big golden box upon the table, “I will say nothing—if you so desire. But, remember, you have made yourself responsible for the woman.”

“I willingly accept the responsibility,” I replied. “But, Your Majesty, there is another matter. I would suggest that Hartwig be detailed to remain with Her Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia at Brighton until my return. He is there at present, awaiting Your Majesty’s orders.”

At my words he rang a bell, and Calitzine, his private secretary, appeared, bowing.

“Send a telegram at once to Hartwig. Where is he?” he asked, turning to me.

“At the Hotel Métropole, Brighton,” I said.

“Telegraph to him in cipher that I order him to remain with Natalia until further orders.”

“Very well, Your Majesty,” replied the trusted official, bowing.

“And another thing,” exclaimed the Emperor. “Telegraph, also in cipher, to all Governors of Siberian provinces that Mr Colin Trewinnard, of London, is our guest during his journey across Siberia, and is to be treated as such by all authorities.”

“But pardon me, Your Majesty,” I ventured to interrupt, “would not that make it plain to those persons in Petersburg of whom I spoke a moment ago.”

“Ah! I forgot,” said the Emperor. “Write the telegram, and send a confidential courier with it to Tiumen, across the Siberian frontier. He will despatch it from there, and it will then only go over the Asiatic wires.”

“I fear, Your Majesty, that a courier could not reach Omsk under six or seven days, travelling incessantly,” remarked the secretary.

“In seven days will be sufficient time. Both messages are confidential.”

And he dismissed Calitzine with a wave of his hand, the secretary backing out of the presence of his Imperial master.

When the door had closed the tall, muscular man before me placed his hands behind his back and slowly paced the room, saying:

“Well, Trewinnard, I must wish you a safe journey. If you find yourself in any difficulty, communicate direct with me. I must admit that I can’t quite understand the object of this rather quixotic journey of yours—to see a female prisoner. I strongly suspect that you are in love with her—eh?” and he smiled knowingly.

“No, Sire,” I replied, “I am not. On my return I hope to be able to show Your Majesty that I have been actuated by motives of humanity and justice—I hope, indeed, perhaps even to receive Your Majesty’s commendation.”

“Ah! you are too mysterious for me,” he laughed. “Are you leaving at once? Or will you remain here, in the castle, until to-morrow?”

“I am greatly honoured and appreciate Your Majesty’s hospitality,” I said. “But I have horses ready, and I am driving back to the railway at Olevsk to-night.”

“Very well, then,” he said with a smile. “Good-bye, and be back again in Petersburg as soon as ever you can.”

And he stretched forth his big sinewy hand and gave me such a hearty grip that I was compelled to wince.

I was backing towards the door, when it opened and the chamberlain Polivanoff, standing upon the threshold, announced:

“General Markoff begs audience of Your Majesty.”

“Ah! Let him come in,” the Emperor replied, smiling.

The next moment I found myself face to face with the man whom I knew to be Natalia’s worst enemy and mine—that bloated, grey-faced man in military uniform, through whose instrumentality no fewer than ten thousand persons were annually being exiled to the Siberian wastes.

We met just beyond the threshold.

“Ah! my dear M’sieur Trewinnard!” he cried, raising his grey brows in evident surprise at meeting me there. “I thought you were in England. And how is your interesting young charge?”

“She is very well, I believe,” was my cold reply.

I passed on, while he, crossing the threshold into the Imperial presence, bowed low, cringing before the monarch whom he daily terrorised, and yet who believed him to be the guardian of the dynasty.

“Ah! I am so glad you have come, Markoff!” I heard the Emperor exclaim as he entered. “I have several pressing matters to discuss with you.”

I passed the two sentries, who presented arms, and followed Colonel Polivanoff along the corridor, full of gravest apprehension.

Ill fortune had dogged my footsteps. Markoff had seen me there. He would naturally inquire of the Emperor the reason of my audience.

His Majesty might tell him.

If so, what then?

Chapter Twenty.

The Land of No Return.

The day had been grey and dispiriting, the open windswept landscape a great limitless expanse of newly-fallen snow of dazzling whiteness—the same cheerless wintry tundra over which I had been travelling by sledge for the past four weary weeks to that everlasting jingle of harness-bells.

My companion, the police-agent Petrakoff, a smart, alert young man, wrapped to the tip of his nose in reindeer furs, was asleep by my side; and I, too, had been dozing, worn out by that fifteen hundred miles of road since leaving the railway at Ekaterinburg.

Suddenly I was awakened by Vasilli, our yamshick, a burly, bearded, unkempt ruffian in shabby furs, who, pointing with his whip to the grey far-off horizon, shouted:

“Tomsk! Tomsk! Look, Excellency!”

Straining my tired eyes, I discerned upon the far skyline a quantity of low, snow-covered, wood-built houses from which rose the pointed cupolas of several churches.

Yonder was the end of the first stage of my long journey. So I awoke Petrakoff, and for the next half-hour we sat with eyes fixed eagerly upon our goal, where we hoped to revel in the luxury of a hotel after a month of those filthy stancias or povarnias, the vermin-infested rests for travellers on the Great Post Road of Siberia.

The first sod of the great Trans-Siberian railway had already been cut by the Tzarevitch at Tcheliabyisk, but no portion of the line was at that time complete. Therefore all traffic across Asia, both travellers and merchandise, including the tea-caravans from China, passed along that great highway, the longest in the world.

Six weeks had elapsed since I had left the Emperor’s presence, and I had accomplished by rail and road a distance of two thousand four hundred miles.

Since I had left the railway at Ekaterinburg I had only rested for a single night on two occasions, at Tiumen and at Tobolsk.

At the former place I made my first acquaintance with the inhuman exile system, for moored in the river Obi I saw several of those enormous floating gaols, in which the victims of Russia’s true oppressor were transported en route to the penal settlements of the Far East—great double-decked barges, three hundred feet long, with a lower hold below the main deck. Along two-thirds of the barge’s length ran an iron cage, reaching from the lower to the upper deck-cover, and having the appearance of a great two-storied tiger’s cage. Eight of them were moored alongside the landing-stage. Five of them were crowded by wretched prisoners, each barge containing from four to five hundred persons of both sexes and the Cossack guards—a terrible sight indeed.

Provided as I was with an Imperial permit and a doubly-stamped road-passport that directed all keepers of post-stations to provide me with the mail horses, and give me the right of way on the Post Road, I had set forth again after a day’s rest towards Tobolsk.

The first snow had fallen on the third day after leaving Tiumen, and the country, covered by its white mantle, presented always a dreary aspect, rendered drearier and more dispiriting by the gangs of wretched exiles which we constantly overtook.

Men, women, and children in companies from a hundred to three hundred, having left the barges, were marching forward to that far-off bourne whence none would ever return. They, indeed, presented a woeful spectacle, mostly of the criminal classes, all their heads being half, or clean-shaven. The majority of the men were in chains, and many were linked together. Not a few of the women marched among the men as prisoners, while the rest trudged along into voluntary exile, holding the hands of their husbands, brothers, lovers or children. Some of the sick, aged and young were in springless carts, but all the others toiled onward through the snow like droves of cattle, bent to the icy blast, a grey-clad, silent crowd, guarded by a dozen Cossacks, with an officer taking his ease in a tarantass in the rear.

Once we met a family of Jews—husband, wife and two children—in a tarantass, with a Cossack with bayonet fixed alongside. We stopped to change horses with them, as we were then midway between post-stations. The man, a bright, intelligent, middle-aged fellow, addressed us in French, and said he had been a wealthy fur merchant in Nijni Novgorod, but was exiled to the Yenisei country simply because he was a Jew. His eyes were clouded with regret at the bitter consciousness of his captivity. Four thousand of his townsmen had, he said, emigrated to England and America, and then pointing to his pretty, delicate wife and two chubby children, the tears rolled down his cheeks, as he faltered out: “Siberie!” Poor fellow!

That word had all the import of a hell to many—many more than him.

The distance between relays on the Great Post Road was, we found, from sixteen to thirty versts, and the speed of fresh horses about ten versts an hour.

Vasilli, the ugly bearded yamshick who had lost one eye, we had engaged in Tiumen, and he had contracted to drive me during the whole of my journey. He was a sullen fellow, who said little, but on finding that I was travelling with an Imperial permit, his chief delight was to hustle up the master of each post-station and threaten to report to the Governor of the province if I, the Excellency, were kept waiting for a single instant.

Usually, changing operations at the stations occupied anything from forty minutes to two hours, according to the temper or trickishness of the post-horse keeper and his grooms, for they were about the meanest set of knaves and rogues on the face of Asia. Yet sight of my permit caused them all to tremble and cringe and hustle, and I certainly could not complain of any undue delay.

We had set out in a tarantass from Tiumen—the town from which the Imperial courier had despatched the order to the various Governors—but as soon as the snow came I purchased a big sledge, and in this we managed to travel with far greater comfort over the snow than by cart over the deeply-rutted road.

None can know the terrible monotony of Siberian travel save those who have endured it.

Nowadays one can cover Siberia from the frontier to far Vladivostock in fifteen days in a luxurious drawing-room car, with restaurant and sleeping-berth, a bath-room and a piano, the line running for the most part near the Old Post Road. But leave the railway and strike north or south, and the same terrible greyness and monotony will grip your senses and depress you as perhaps no other journey in the world can do.

It was dusk when at last we sped, our runners hissing over the frozen snow, into the wood-built town of Tomsk, and alighted at the Hotel Million, a dismal place with corridors long and dark, and bedroom doors fastened by big iron padlocks and hasps! The full-bearded proprietor wandered along with an enormous bunch of keys, opening the doors and exhibiting his uninviting apartments; and at first I actually believed that Vasilli had mistaken my order and driven to a Siberian prison instead of conducting me to a hotel.

Upstairs, however, the rooms were much better. But there were no washing arrangements whatever, or mattresses or bedding; for every traveller in Siberia is expected to carry his own pillows and bedclothes. Here, however, we put up and ate our evening meal in true Siberian style—a single tough beefsteak—simply that and nothing more.

Afterwards I drove through the snowy, unlighted streets to the Governor’s palace, a long, log-built place, and on giving my name to the Cossack sentry at the door he at once saluted. Apparently he had been warned of my coming. So had the servants, for with much bowing and grave ceremony I was shown along a corridor lit by petroleum lamps to a small reception-room at the farther end.

The furniture was of the cheap, gaudy character which in England would speak mutely of the hire-system. But it had, no doubt, come from Petersburg at enormous cost of transit, and was perhaps the best and most luxurious furniture—it was covered with red embossed velvet—in all Siberia.

Scarcely was I afforded time to look round the close, overheated place with its treble windows, when General Tschernaieff, a rather short, white-haired, pleasant-featured man in a green uniform, with the Cross of St. Anne at his throat, entered, greeting me warmly and expressing a hope that I had had a pleasant journey.

“I received word of your coming. Mr Trewinnard, some weeks ago,” His Excellency said rather pompously. “I am commanded to treat you as a guest of my Imperial Master. Therefore you will, I hope, be my guest here in the palace.”

I told him that I already had quarters at the Hotel Million, whereupon he laughed, saying:

“I fear that you will find it very rough and uncouth after hotels in Petersburg or in your own London.”

I replied that as a constant traveller, and one who had knocked about in all corners of the world, I was used to roughing it. Then, after he had offered me a cigarette, and a lean manservant, who, I afterwards learned, was an ex-convict, had brought us each a glass of champagne, I explained to him the object of my visit.

“Madame Marya de Rosen and her daughter Luba de Rosen, politicals,” repeated His Excellency, as though speaking to himself. “Of course, sir, as you know, all prisoners, both criminal or political, pass through the forwarding-prison here. It is myself who decides to which settlement they shall be sent. But—well, there are so many that the Chief of the Police puts the lists before me and I sign them away to Nerchinsk, to Yakutsk, to Sredne Kolimsk, to Verkhoiansk, to Udinsk, or wherever it may be. Their names, I fear, I never notice. I have sent some politicals recently up to Parotovsk, fifty versts north of Yakutsk. The two prisoners may have been among them.”

“Here, I suppose, they lose their identity, do they not?” I asked, looking at the white-headed official who governed that great Asiatic province. He was sixty-five, he had told me, and had served twenty-seven years in Siberia.

“Yes. Only across the road in the archives of the forwarding-prison are their names kept. When they leave Tomsk they are known in future—until their death, indeed—only by a registered number.”

Then, rising, the white-headed Governor rang a bell, and on his secretary, a young Cossack captain, entering, he gave him certain instructions to go across to the prison and obtain the registers of prisoners during the previous month.

Afterwards, he stretched himself out in his long chair, smoking and asking me questions concerning myself and the object of my journey.

As soon as he learned that I was a British diplomat and personal friend of His Majesty, his manner became much more cordial, and he declared himself ready to do everything in his power to bring my mission to a successful issue.

Presently the secretary returned, carrying two large registers and accompanied by a tall, dark-bearded man in uniform and wearing a decoration, who I learned was the governor of the prison.

He saluted His Excellency on entering the room, and said in Russian:

“Your Excellency is, I believe, inquiring regarding the prisoner Marya de Rosen, widow, of Petersburg, deported by administrative order?”

“Yes,” said the General. “Where has she been sent, and what is her number?”

“She was the woman about whom we received special instructions from the Ministry of Police in Petersburg, Your Excellency will remember,” replied the prison governor.

“Special instructions!” I echoed, interrupting. “What were they?”

But His Excellency, after a moment’s reflection, said: “Ah! I now remember! Of course. There was a note upon the papers in General Markoff’s own handwriting to the effect that she was a dangerous person.”

“Yes. She was one of those when your Excellency sent to Parotovsk,” remarked the prison governor.

“To Parotovsk!” I echoed. “That is beyond Yakutsk—two thousand five hundred miles from here—far in the north, and one of the most dreaded of all the settlements!”

“All penal settlements are dreaded, I fear,” remarked His Excellency, blowing the cigarette smoke from his lips. Then, turning to the prison governor, he inquired under what number the prisoner was registered.

On referring to one of the books the officer declared Madame to be now known as “Number 14956” and her daughter as “Number 14957.”

I took a note of the numbers, protesting to His Excellency:

“But to compel delicate ladies to walk that great distance in the winter is surely a sentence of death!”

“And if the politicals die, the State has fewer responsibilities,” he remarked. “As you see, we have received notification from Petersburg that your lady friend was a dangerous person. Now, of dangerous persons we take very special care.” Then, turning to the prison governor, he asked: “How did they go?”

“By tarantass. Excellency. They were in too weak a state to walk, especially the elder prisoner. I doubt, indeed, if ever they will reach Parotovsk.”

“And if they don’t it will perhaps be the better for both of them,” His Excellency remarked with a sigh, rising and casting his cigarette-end into the pan of the round iron stove. He was a stiff, unbending official and ruled the province with a ruthless hand, but at heart he often evinced sympathy with the female exiles.

“Were they very ill?” I inquired quickly of the prison governor.

“They were very exhausted and complained to me of ill-treatment by their guards,” he answered. “But if we investigated every complaint we should have more than sufficient to do.”

“How long ago did they leave here?”

“About two months,” was the man’s reply. “The elder prisoner implored to be sent to the Trans-Baikal, where the climate is not so rigorous as in the north, and this would probably have been done had it not been for the special memorandum of His Excellency General Markoff.”

“Then he suggested her being sent to the Yakutsk settlement—in fact, to her death—eh?” I asked.

His Excellency replied:

“That seems so. The prisoners have already been on their way two months, at first by tarantass and now, no doubt, by sled. There were fifteen others, nine men and six women—all dangerous politicals, I see,” he added, glancing at the order which he had signed and was now produced by the prison governor. “If it is your intention to travel and overtake them, then I fear your journey will be futile.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I expect that long before you reach them their dead bodies will have been left upon the road,” replied His Excellency. “Politicals who die here in Siberia, and especially those marked as dangerous, are not mourned, I assure you.”

“There was, if I remember aright, a telegram to Your Excellency from General Markoff regarding prisoners of that name only three days ago,” remarked the Cossack captain. “It inquired whether you knew if Madame de Rosen were still alive.”

“Ah, yes, I remember. And I replied that I had no knowledge,” the General said.

I was silent. My heart stood still.

By the fact of that telegraphic inquiry I knew that Markoff was, as I feared, aware of my journey. He would most certainly prevent my overtaking her—or, if not, he would, no doubt, contrive to seal her lips by death ere I could reach her.

Chapter Twenty One.

Hot Haste across Asia.

I resolved to push forward in all haste and at all hazards. I lost no time.

With only forty-eight hours’ stay at the wretched Hotel Million in Tomsk we went forth again, our faces set ever eastward on that wide, straight road which first runs direct for a hundred miles to Marinsk, a poor, log-built place with a dirty verminous post-station and an old postmaster who, when I presented my Imperial permit, sank upon his knees before me. Fortunately the mail was two days behind me, hence, at every stancia I was able to obtain the best horses, though it seemed part of Vasilli’s creed to curse and grumble at everything.

With the snow falling continuously our journey was not so rapid as it had been to Tomsk. Winter had now set in with a vengeance, although it still wanted a few days to the English Christmas. Yet the journey from Marinsk to Krasnoyarsk, two hundred miles, was one of wondrous beauty. It was cold, horribly cold. Often I sat beside the sleepy Petrakoff cramped and shivering, even in my furs.

But those deep, dark woods, with their little glimpses of blue sky; the dashing and jingling along under the low-reaching arms of the evergreen trees, league after league of the forest bowed down to the very earth and in places prostrated with its white weight of snow, the weird ride over hill and mountain, skirting ravine and precipice, the breaks along and across the numerous watercourses, over rude bridges or along deep gullies where rough wooden guards protect the sleds from disaster—with this quick succession of scenery, wild and strange, was I kept constantly awake and charmed.

At the stancias we met the travelling merchants from the Far East and from China with their long train of goods hauled in sleds or packed on the backs of horses. Five pood, we found, was the regulation load, and all packages were put up in drums bound with raw hide and so strapped that they could easily be transported by the pack-horse, which carried half a load on either side of a saddle-tree prepared for the purpose.

But those stancias were filthy, overcrowded, evil-smelling places, wherein one laid in one’s sleeping-bags upon a bench amid a crowd of unwashed, vodka-drinking humanity in damp, noxious sheep-skins.

Fortunately the moon was at that moment nearly full, and often at night I went forth alone to smoke, sometimes with the snowy plain stretched on every hand about me, and at others with gigantic peaks lifting their hoary heads far into the blue night vault of heaven; silent, frigid, white. Ah! what grandeur! I rejoiced that it was night, when I could smoke and ponder. So cold and still was it that those snowy summits, bathed in the silver radiance of the Siberian moon, filled me with awe such as I had never before experienced.

Yes, those were wonderful nights which will live for ever in my memory—nights when my thoughts wandered far away to the gay promenade at Hove, wondering how fared the little madcap, and whether her peril were real or only imaginary.

Ever obsessed by the knowledge that Markoff was aware of my journey, and would endeavour to prevent its successful issue, I existed in constant anxiety and dread lest some prearranged disaster might befall Madame de Rosen ere I could reach her.

Siberia is, alas! the country where, as the exiles say: “God is nigh, and the Tzar is far away.”

Thus, after three weeks more of hard travelling, I passed through the big, straggling, snow-covered town of Krasnoyarsk, and arrived at the wretchedly dirty stancia of Tulunovsk, where the road to Yakutsk—distant nearly two thousand miles—branches to the north from the Great Post Road, up the desolate valley of the Lena.

We arrived in Tulunovsk in the afternoon, and, having sent a telegram to Her Highness from Krasnoyarsk, eight days before, I was delighted to receive a charming little message assuring me that she was quite well and wishing me a continuance of good fortune on my journey.

Since I had left Tomsk no traveller had overtaken me. At Tulunovsk we found a party of politicals, about sixty men and women, in the roughly-constructed prison rest-house, being permitted a few days’ respite upon their long and weary march.

Already they had been six months on the road, and were in a terrible condition, almost in rags, and most of them so weak that death would no doubt have been welcome.

And these poor creatures were nearly all of them victims of the bogus plots of His Excellency General Markoff.

To the Cossack captain in charge of the convoy I made myself known, and after taking tea with him I was permitted to go among the party and chat with them.