Somewhere out there in the snow, Zara's brother Ivan was waiting and watching, and although I did not now feel that his affection for her included many of the self sacrificing qualities that a brother should have for a sister, he was nevertheless her blood kin, and without doubt he had loaded his pistol with a bullet for the man whom he believed would have it in his power to crush that beautiful sister to the earth, even to the point of literal seduction. For judged from the nihilists' standpoint again, they understood Zara to be one who would not hesitate at any sacrifice, in defense of the cause she served.

"It does not look as if danger, and even death, lurked somewhere yonder in the bright sunshine, Dubravnik," she said to me in a low tone, after we had stood for a long time in utter silence, together.

"No," I replied.

"It is a peaceful scene," she went on in a dreamy sort of manner, staring into the street, and with a half smile upon her lips. "It looks as if we might put on our furs and wraps, and go abroad together, without the least thought of danger, does it not?"

"Yes, Zara."

"And yet——" she raised one hand and pointed—"probably just around that corner, yonder, or behind one of the others, there are waiting men, who are intent upon your destruction, no matter what the consequences to themselves may be. It is awful to contemplate." She shuddered. "I cannot bring myself to believe that it is really true; and yet I know it to be so."

She turned to me with a swift gesture, and continued.

"Oh, Dubravnik, what shall we do? What shall be done to escape the death that threatens you and me? Tell me! Tell me what can be done? The condition is not the same, now, as it was. Everything is different since you kissed me. This world in which we live, is a new world, but we must nevertheless face the conditions of that old one we have deserted. What shall we do? What shall be done?"

I was silent, not because I hesitated to answer her, not because I really at that moment had no answer to give her, but because I was, myself, intently thinking upon the very problem she had suggested.

"What shall be done?"

Presently, with a slow and methodical motion, she withdrew from me again, and returned to the divan, which had been the scene of our awakening love, calling upon me to follow her as she went; and I stood before her, looking down into her eyes up-turned to mine, waiting for her to speak. I knew that she had hit upon some solution of the difficulty, and was about to present it to me. I don't think that it occurred to me to consider seriously whatever she might suggest, even then, for I had not for a moment lost confidence in my entire ability to free both of us from the dangerous environment; but I delighted to hear the sound of her voice. I loved to drink in her words, as she uttered them. I was enthralled in watching the play of expression upon her features while she talked; if she had rendered me a dissertation upon any theme which absorbed her, my interest would have been the same; I was overwhelmed in love.

"There is only one way; only one," she said, unconsciously repeating words she had used once before.

"Yes?" I replied, mindful only of the fact that she had spoken; unmindful of the import of what she said.

"Only one way," Zara repeated. "You must join the nihilists. You must take the oath."

I shook my head with emphasis, brought back suddenly to the intent of her words.

"It is impossible, Zara," I said.

"You must do it, Dubravnik."

"No."

"I say that you must do it. You must take the oath. You must become a nihilist. It is the only way. I will send a servant from the house, with a message which will bring two or three of the leaders here, and you shall take the oath."

She started to her feet again, reaching toward the bellcord, and I had to spring after her, and seize her arm, in order to restrain the act she was about to commit.

"No, Zara," I said, and forced her gently back to the couch, compelling her to be seated, and this time dropping down beside her, and putting my arm around her. "No, Zara, not that. I cannot take the oath. It is utterly impossible. It is much more impossible now, than it was before."

"Why?" she asked, in surprise.

"Because I love you, dear."

"Ah," she said smiling, "as if that were not a greater reason for your taking it, instead of denying it."

"No, Zara," I said again. "I cannot take the oath of nihilism. I have already taken an oath which thoroughly obviates such a possibility."

"Another oath, Dubravnik?"

"Yes."

"To whom?"

"To the czar."

"Oh," she exclaimed, and she shuddered. "I had forgotten that you were in the service of his majesty." I thought that she drew away from me at that, but the motion was so slight as to be almost imperceptible. "I had forgotten all that about you, Dubravnik." Again there was a shudder, now more visible than before. "You are under oath to the czar; to the man, who, because he permits so many wrongs to happen I have learned to hate." She straightened her body. "And Dubravnik I can hate quite as forcibly as I can love."

"I do not doubt it," I said.

"You must take the oath. You must take it. You shall repudiate that other one to the czar."

"It cannot be, Zara."

"It must be! It shall be!"

"No," I said; and there was such calm finality, such forcible emphasis in the monosyllable I used, that she drew still farther away from me, shuddering again as she did so, and I saw her face grow colder in its expression, although I did not believe that it was caused by any change in her attitude toward me.

"Can nothing move you, Dubravnik? Can nothing change you from this purpose of yours? Must you, because you have given your word to a tyrant, remain loyal to him? Must you, in spite of the great love you have for me, remain true to him who is my enemy?"

"I must; for your sake as well as for mine."

"For my sake!" she laughed, and it was not a pleasant laugh to hear, especially at that moment, and following as it did upon all the tenderness that had passed between us. "For my sake! Why Dubravnik, it is for my sake that I ask you to take the oath."

"Zara," I said, choosing my words deliberately, "last night in the glass covered garden, where the colored lights were glowing, I heard you utter words which I can never forget, and which I have thought upon many times since I heard them. You repudiated, with all the intensity of your soul, the methods which these nihilists employ to attain their ends. You called them murderers, assassins, scoundrels, cutthroats, defamers of character, and many other things which I need not name. What you did not accuse them of, in words, you charged them with, by implication; and now you ask me to become one with them; and not only that, to deny my manhood and my honor by repudiating my oath to another."

"I asked you to protect yourself and me," she said, simply, but with a coldness and a suggestion of hardness in her tone, that had been entirely absent from it until that instant.

"I will do that, Zara. I will save you, and I will save myself. I will save you from yourself. There will be a way. I have not yet determined upon what it will be, but I will find a means."

Suddenly she slipped to the floor, upon her knees before me, and with clasped hands upraised, in an attitude of supplication, she cried aloud in a very agony of intensity.

"Oh, my love, do as I ask you to do. Take the oath of nihilism."



CHAPTER XIV

THE SCORN OF A WOMAN

It seemed at that moment as if I could not deny her. Every impulse of my soul cried out to me that it would be a very little thing to do, after all.

It was not the danger which threatened, that influenced me, not at all that; it was her own supplication. The danger, and our own necessities, were very real for her, even if I, in my secret heart, made little of them.

For a moment I think I was undecided, but then the full force of what such an act would mean, the full realisation of what I would become in my own eyes by so stultifying myself, brought me back to energy, and I reached forward, grasping her, and drew her to her feet; I rising, also.

"Zara," I said with deliberation, "once and for all, and for the last time, we must not discuss such a thing. If I should take the oath of nihilism, if I should even consider doing so, I could not look into my mirror, save with horror. I am a man in the employ of his majesty, the czar. I have given him my word of honor, as an American gentleman, to do and perform certain things, and I will and must do and perform them all. I should say, too, that he did not seek me, but that I sought him. That is to say, he did not seek me with any knowledge on my part that he did so, and I sought him while I was entirely ignorant that he even guessed at my intent. Seeking him, I was brought into contact with him. I have found him to be a man who is worthy of much admiration; a man for whom I have infinite respect and esteem, notwithstanding the charges you make against him, and the things of which you deem him guilty." She made a gesture of repulsion, but I took no notice of it, and went on. "I find now, Zara, in the light of what has occurred here between us, and in the glory of our great love, that I must tell you who and what I am, and how it happens that I am here with you, at this moment." She bowed her head in acknowledgment of my statement, but made no reply in words. She had changed wonderfully in the last few minutes, and she was cold now, and distant, shocked, I thought, by this new difficulty that had come between us at the very moment of our greatest happiness. "I am Daniel Derrington, an American. I have been, for many years in the past, in the service of my government as a diplomatic agent and secret service officer; something very much after the character of what you would call over here, a spy. Yet, in my country, Zara, we have no spies, as you understand the term. My employment has been an honorable one, and no man can defame it." She shrugged her shoulders, and I went on rapidly. "In the operation of my duties, I have visited St. Petersburg several times. From a distance, and as an observer only, I have studied nihilism and the nihilist. Some time ago, a friend of mine whose name perhaps you will recognize, came to me and made a suggestion, which, having followed, has ended by my being here."

"Who was that man?" she asked.

"Alexis Saberevski."

She nodded.

"I know him," she said simply.

"In coming to St. Petersburg and seeking audience with his majesty, acting thereby under the suggestion made by my friend, I proposed to the czar the organization of a certain band of men whose duty it has been, and is, and will continue to be until it is successful, to drive organized nihilism out of Russia."

"You can never do that," said Zara, with fine contempt.

"I can do it. It shall be done."

She tore herself from my grasp and leaped to her feet, darting across the room and placing the table between us, with a motion so quick that she was beyond my reach before I could detain her. I had expected from her violent action, an outburst of words; but it did not come. Instead, she stood calmly beyond the table, leaning gently upon it with one hand, and gazed across the space that separated us, while she said, coolly, and not without contempt:

"Complete your story, Dubravnik. It interests me. I shall be glad indeed to hear it, finding as I now do, that I have permitted myself to fall in love with a professional spy."



God! how her tone hurt me! How the words she uttered pierced me! How the contemptuous scorn in her voice and manner, tore to shreds the fabric of a beatific existence I had created in my imagination! A moment ago, confident of her love, her admiration, and her esteem, I saw now, when it was too late, that the very announcement of my profession had destroyed it, with a stroke as deadly as the knife of an assassin in the heart of his victim.

And I understood, also, why my statement should have had such an effect upon her. Reared as she had been, in the society of St. Petersburg; taught from her cradle to hate and despise, as well as to fear, a spy; educated in utter abhorrence of everything that pertains to that class, at the Russian capital, she could look upon me, now, only with horror and loathing. I was that thing she had most despised. I was that monstrosity of creation, which, calling itself a man, was, according to Zara's lights, without principal, honor, integrity, or manhood.

I stood before her, not with bowed head, as perhaps I might have done had my true feelings been expressed, but with bowed and stricken heart, suddenly aware that I had gained the glory of her love only to lose it, and in a manner which carried with it no redress.

"I have completed an organization of men, Zara," I went on, calmly, and in a tone which I endeavored to render as monotonous as possible, "that has for its purpose the undoing of nihilism, as it is now practiced. That body of men extends, in its ramifications, throughout St. Petersburg, and even to other cities of Russia. Its purpose, primarily, is not to send conspirators to Siberia to suffer exile there, with all the other horrors that go with it, but to——"

"Enough!" she interrupted me. "I have heard quite enough, Dubravnik! What you say to me now, is meaningless twaddle. You are like all the others who pit themselves against the silent body of men and women who are engaged in seeking the freedom of their country. If you knew anything of the horrors of Siberia, to which you so glibly refer, you would shudder when you mention them, and you would fly with horror from any act of your own that might commit a person to Siberia, and exile."

She came half-way around the table, and stood facing me, somewhat nearer. "If you had taken a journey through Siberia before you offered your services to the czar, you would have strangled yourself, or have cut out your tongue, rather than have gone to him with any such dastardly proposition as you confess yourself to have fathered. You prate of stultifying yourself by taking the oath of nihilism, and repudiating your word to Alexander. YOU! YOU! A PROFESSIONAL SPY!" She threw back her head and laughed aloud, not with glee, but with utter derision of spirit, and I shrank from the sound of it as I might have done from a blow in the face.

Again she was a creature of moods and impulses. Again the wild Tartar blood, leaping in her veins, controlled her. With a sudden move she came nearer to me, and bending forward, looked into my face intently, as if searching for something which had hitherto escaped her notice.

"What are you doing, Zara?" I asked her; and she replied.

"I am searching for the man whom, but a moment ago, I thought I loved. I am seeking to find what it could have been that I saw in your eyes, or your face, or your manner, that has so 'stultified' ME. It is an apt word, Dubravnik."

"Seek further, and perhaps you will find."

"No," she said. "He is gone, if he ever was there;" and she shrank slowly away from me, backward, across the room, until the table was again between us, and she stood leaning upon it with both hands this time, peering at me with widened eyes that might have belonged to a child in the act of staring between the bars of a cage at some wild beast confined within it.

It is impossible to describe her attitude and the expression of her face, at that moment. Horror, repulsion, contempt, loathing, even hatred, were depicted there. I recognized the fact with shuddering despair. I was that one thing which she most despised.

It is strange how the light of the world went out, for me. In realizing the great calamity that had fallen upon me, I forgot all else; but strangely enough I did not once think of appealing to her. Slowly I turned away, and with slow strides approached the door which would admit me to the corridor, and so permit me to pass from the house to the street.

I reached it; I drew it open. I did not turn my head to look at her again, lest I should become unmanned, and degrade myself by pleading with her for the impossible. I passed into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind me, and then, somehow, I got as far as the balustrade, which, by following it, would lead me to the bottom of the stairs at the house entrance.

My foot was upon the first step of the stairs when I heard rushing footsteps behind me, and instantly was caught by clinging arms around my neck, and I felt her hot and quick breath upon my cheek.

She did not speak; she only clung to me. I did not speak; but I turned about with restored strength, and with my spirit renewed. I seized her in my arms. I crushed her against me, violently. I raised her from her feet, holding her as if she had been a child, and then, bearing her with me, I strode backward through the doorway, and into the room I had just left. I carried her to the divan, and I seated her upon the edge of it, still retaining my grasp upon her; and I said:

"Zara, you are mine. Nothing short of death shall take you from me. In the last few moments I have experienced all the horrors of a separation from you. A little while ago you loved me. Only a few moments ago, we were all there was in creation. For a moment which has seemed an eternity, I believed that I had lost you, but when you followed me to the landing of the stairway, I knew that I had not lost you, even for that instant. You love me, Zara, and you shall be mine. Before God, you shall be!"

For a moment I thought she intended to struggle again, to escape me. Indeed, I was certain that she was on the point of doing so, and I tightened my grasp upon her while I dropped upon one knee, and added:

"Zara, let me hear you say once again that you love me."

Her answer was a burst of tears, and for a time she could find no other expression for her emotions; and while these lasted, she clung to me the more tightly, so that when, at last, the storm did come to an end, her lips were closely against my ear, and I heard the whispered words:

"I do love you."

But instantly she started away from me, and she cried out.

"Wait! wait, Dubravnik! I remember, now, that I had begun to tell you a story. I was telling you what made me a nihilist."

"Yes."

"I will finish the story, if you will let me."

"Finish it," I said; "but do so while my arm is around you, and with your head resting against my shoulder. Let me hold you here, where you are, so that I may know I will not lose you again. You are a creature of such changing impulses. That half-wild nature of yours is sometimes so violent in its conclusions. Tell me the story, Zara. I will listen to it."



CHAPTER XV

THE MURDER OF A SOUL

Zara did as I requested. She seated herself upon the divan, and I sat beside her, with my arm around her. She rested her head against my shoulder, and in a low and dreamy tone she began, as if there had been no hiatus, the continuation of that story which was to thrill me as nothing else of the kind had ever done.

You must understand that she was pleading for my life, as she believed, in the relation of this bit of history which I was soon to learn had touched her so closely. She believed that my life could be saved only by means of my joining with the nihilists, in consenting to take their oath, and to become one with them. I have often, at retrospective moments, gone back again to that hour, and lived it over in thought, wondering how I could still resist her when I listened to the passion of her utterances, and to a recital of the terrible wrongs that had been visited upon those whom Zara loved, in the name of the czar.

As before, she told the story as if I had been the participant in it; as if the young woman whose history it touched most closely, had been my own sister.

In the retelling of it, I purposely render it as concise as possible, but I am utterly incapable of imparting to it the dramatic effect of her recital, heightened and added to by her warm sympathies.

"Remember," she said, "that I am representing you as the brother of this poor girl, Dubravnik. You, and your sister Yvonne, orphaned in your youth, occupied together the great palace of your father's, and were waited upon by an army of servants, many of whom had been in the employ of your family before either of you were born.

"Among your acquaintances there is another officer, one who is as great a favorite at court; and within the palace of the emperor, as you are. He is of good family, handsome, accomplished, and rich. Nevertheless, you dislike him, principally because he is in love with your sister and you know that he is, in every way, unworthy of her. She shares the aversion which you feel for this man, declining all his advances, and at last refuses to receive him. Beginning with that time, he persecutes her with his attentions, to the point where you are led to interfere; but this man has already been to the czar, and has secured his royal approval of the marriage. He laughs at you when you remonstrate. You also go to the czar, who listens attentively to all that you have to say, finally consenting that Yvonne shall not be forced into the marriage against her will. This officer, when he hears of it, is furious, and one night, at the club, he publicly insults you, so that you have no other course than to challenge him. He is a practiced duelist, and believes that he can kill you easily; thus he would leave the coast clear for his further machinations. In the affair which follows, you surprise everybody by wounding your adversary quite seriously; and during a few months that succeed the duel, you are relieved of further anxiety concerning the matter. But he recovers; he returns to his former position at the palace; and misjudging his power and influence, insults you again, almost in the presence of the emperor. For that, he is banished from the palace, and degraded in the army; and quite naturally he attributes his misfortunes to you, upon whom he vows vengeance. You hear of his threats, but laugh at them—and forget them. He does not.

"This man becomes a nihilist and a dangerous one. He plots and plans for your overthrow, and for the possession of your sister whom he continues to persecute in many ways. She does not tell you these things, fearing the consequences if you were to fight another duel. At last, however, more or less of it comes to your attention, and the consequence is that you publicly horsewhip him, for which act you are suspended from attendance at the palace for thirty days. During that interval a horrible thing occurs. It is at the time when the extremists among nihilists are rampant, and when the secret police does its deadly work unquestioned; a time five years ago. People are arrested and spirited away, from among the highest and the lowest. Victims are found in the palace as well as in the hovel. No person is sacred from these mysterious arrests; no tribunal hears a victim's defense; no official dares to interfere. Even you may at any moment become a victim of this awful method. A complaint is lodged against a wholly innocent person, no matter by whom; it may even be anonymous. In the dead of night police from the Third Section visit the house of the person complained against, a search is made, and if incriminating documents are found, that person disappears forever. Where? nobody knows save those who carry out the secret decree. I will not worry you with the useless details; in fact you have had sufficient introduction to the story already.

"Twice each week since your expulsion from the palace you are compelled to remain on duty over night, and at last the morning comes when you return to your home after one of these vigils to find yourself face to face with a horror which you knew existed, but which you had never before comprehended. Ah, it is pitiful; but listen. You find when you arrive, that all is excitement. The servants are running hither and thither; they whisper among themselves, and at first you can get no explanation from them. In vain you call for your sister. Frightened glances, sobs, and groans, are the only replies you get, and you rush to her apartment, only to find that it is empty—that she is gone. The room is in the utmost disorder. Clothing is scattered everywhere. Yvonne's most sacred treasures are strewn upon the floor. The contents of her dressing case are tumbled in confusion upon the furniture. Chairs are overturned. The cushions of the chairs and couches are ripped open. The bed is a ruin, dismembered, torn apart, and heaped in a corner. The carpet has been pulled from its fastenings, and is rolled and tumbled into a mass in the middle of the floor. The pictures are torn from the walls; vases have been overturned; even the French clock, on the mantel, has been ruined in the awful search, and the very walls of the room are dented by the hammer which has pounded them in the effort to find a secret hiding place. You know only too well what has happened, and yet you do not realize it. You are dazed. You think that you will awake and find that it is all a dream. You cannot believe that it is the sleeping room of your own sister that has been thus invaded and desecrated. At last from one of the older and more trusted servants you hear the truth, and while he speaks, you listen dumbly, wonderingly."

Zara left her place beside me on the divan, and stood facing me, near the center table, and in the intensity of her story, lowered her voice perceptibly. She bent forward a little, unconsciously throwing over me the same sort of spell that now dominated her. In my own eagerness I leaned forward, my right elbow resting upon my knee, and with bated breath, waited for her to continue. When she did resume, it was with a suppressed intensity that is indescribable.

"This is what the old servant told you: An hour after midnight there was a peremptory summons at the door, and when he opened it he discovered beyond the threshold, one of those terrible details of fiends which the Third Section sends out on its foulest errands; but he did not dream that they were after your sister; he only thought that you were in trouble. The officer in charge went straight to the door of your sister's room, as if he were as familiar with the internal arrangements of the house, as were its regular inmates. He threw the door ajar without warning, and followed by the scoundrels who accompanied him, entered the room where your sister was in bed. Sleeping innocence was aroused by a brutal command. Your sister, as pure, as sweet, as guiltless of wrong, as beautiful in spirit as the angels in heaven, was dragged from her bed by the rough hands of those human devils. Her shrieks and cries, were answered by jeers. Her piteous appeal that they would leave the room until she clothed herself, was refused with curses. She was compelled to dress in their presence, underneath the blazing glare of every light in the room, and before the eyes of those inhuman wretches whose gloating, bloodshot gaze befouled her sweet purity, as a drop of filth will befoul a limpid spring."

"If you had entered the room at that moment, and the czar had been there, would you have killed him, Dubravnik? Have you a sister? Answer! Would you have killed the czar, if he had been there? THE CZAR WAS THERE!"

Zara raised herself to her full stature as she cried aloud this statement. Her right hand was raised high above her head; her attitude was one of righteous denouncement, and the wrath of an outraged goddess glowed like living fire, in every attribute of her being. Then she came a step nearer to me, and continued:

"He was there in the spirit of the outrage. He creates and upholds the law which permitted it. Yes, you would have killed him, and you would not have called it murder. You would have given the deed another name; you would have called it retribution. I see it in your face; it flashes in your eyes. I am not telling you a romance, in order to excite your compassion, or to create sympathy. I am relating an actual occurrence. I am telling you the story that made me a nihilist."

What a woman Zara was at that moment! She seemed the embodiment of vengeance—of righteous retribution; the personification of the cause she so splendidly advocated. I looked upon her almost with awe, at the same time realizing that I was thrilled almost into active acquiescence to her demands. She continued:

"There are not words to describe the emotions that sweep over you, as you listen to the servant's story. You become benumbed, dazed. You hear it through to the end, and there is not much more.

"You learn from him that papers of incriminating character were found among your sister's effects; that a letter was there, which told that she was engaged in a conspiracy to assassinate the czar, by poison; that she, being a welcome guest at the imperial palace, had agreed to put poison in the wine that he should drink on the following day—a deadly poison—cyanide of potassium; that the poison itself was found with the letter—a harmless looking powder, but a deadly one. You are told that Yvonne was dragged away by those men, and taken—ah, the servant could not tell you where they took her; but he could tell you how she sobbed, and moaned, protesting her innocence, repudiating all knowledge of the things they had found, crying out for you, in her agony; and how one of the men struck her a brutal blow in the face, because she would not be quiet. That is all the servant could tell you. Yvonne was gone. That one truth glared at you from every hideous corner of the desecrated room. Hours—many of them—have passed since then. You laugh wildly, insanely, as you brush the servant aside, and dash from the house in pursuit.

"'The czar is my friend! He is her friend! He will save her!' That is what you cry aloud as you run along the streets towards the palace, forgetting your britzska, in your haste, and agony. You forget that you have been suspended from attendance at the palace, and that the guards have been ordered not to admit you, but you are made to remember it when you arrive. They stop you. You cannot get past them. In vain you tell them of the arrest of your sister, and that you must see the emperor, but you only give them an added reason for keeping you out. They order you away. You refuse to go. They attempt to force you, and you strike one of them, knocking him down."

"Then all your pent up agony is loosed. You have the strength of a dozen men. You scatter the guards around you like flies, and rush past them, straight for the cabinet of the emperor, where you have always been a welcome guest. You tell yourself that he loves you—that he loves your sister; that as soon as he hears the truth, he will correct the awful wrong that has been done; that the men who outraged the sanctity of your sister's sleeping room, will be punished. Ah! You do not know the czar—that man whom you call your friend; who is God's and man's worst enemy!

"But you are soon to know him better. You are soon to discover what manner of man it is to whom you have given your soul and body, your allegiance and your worship, all the years of your life. You are soon to know—and oh, how bitter is the awakening.

"You dash unannounced into his presence. In a wild torrent of words, you pour forth the awful tale. You laugh, you cry; you implore, you demand; he only frowns, or smiles derisively. You rave; he calls the guard. You find that he does know; that others have been there before you, and that the letter supposed to have been found in the possession of your sister, has already been read by him. With horror, you realize that he believes—that there is no hope for the sister you love so tenderly, who was placed in your arms by your dying mother; whom you swore to guard, and protect.

"That terrible man, who commits thousands of murders by proxy every year, frowns upon you, who have been almost like a son to him. He sneers at your agony. He believes all that has been told to him against your sister—he is even willing to believe that you are a party to her supposed misdeeds.

"'Forget your sister. She is dead to you, and to me,' his majesty commands you, coldly. 'I can forgive you for your present excitement. Forget her.'

"FORGET HER!! God! Forget your sister? Forget the little girl who was put into your arms when a child? Forget the glowing, gorgeous, beautiful young woman she has become? Then you loose another torrent of words. You curse your emperor. You revile the sacred person of the czar. You go mad; you even try to strike him. Ah! It is awful, your agony. The guard seizes you. The straps are torn from your shoulders. The buttons are cut from your coat. The czar himself uses his great strength to break your sword across his knee, and so far forgets his dignity that he strikes you in the face with his open hand; and then you are hustled to the palace gate, and thrust into the street, disgraced, helpless, insane." Zara paused an instant, then continued, monotonously:

"Then begins months of hopeless waiting. Every day you beg admittance to the palace. Every day you are refused. You write letters, begging that you may be told where your sister is detained, that you may go to her; that you may share her exile. They are unheeded. You know that she is in Siberia, but Siberia is a vast place—greater than all Europe. You petition men and officers who used to fawn upon you when you were in favor, for information concerning her. They will not even speak to you. They have been ordered not to do so. At last, when nearly five months have passed in this way, friendless and alone, for your property has been taken from you, you join the nihilists."

Zara crossed to the divan and seated herself beside me, clasping one of my hands in hers, and clinging to it as if she were herself in danger of being torn from my side, or of losing me. For a time she pressed my hand between hers, or stroked it gently, and when she resumed speech, it was in a softly-spoken voice.

"Then you find friends," she said, gently. "Through their agents, the nihilists ascertain where your sister has been taken. You learn that she is a prisoner on the unspeakably horrible island of Saghalien. Yes, and they tell you more, these new friends and helpers whom you have found among the nihilists. They know about the plot that sent her there. They know that the very man who pretended that he loved Yvonne, bribed one of your servants to place those awful papers among her things, that they might be found there by the police. You search for him, but he is abroad, so you seek out, and find, the servant who was bribed; and him, you strangle. After that, you disappear. The nihilists report that you are dead. St. Petersburg believes it. But you are not dead. You are on your way to Saghalien. Your new friends assist you with disguises; they aid you on your long journey; they provide you with money; and somehow—you never know how—you reach Saghalien, only to find that Yvonne is not there; that she has been transferred. Then you begin a weary search which consumes months; so many of them, that they swell into two long years. You go from prison to prison, from town to town, from hope to despair, from despair to hope, and at last—YOU FIND HER!"

Zara dropped to her knees before me. I knew that the climax of her story was at hand. Her beautiful eyes, widened, and speaking dumbly of infinite sorrow, sought mine, and held them. I bent forward, and kissed her on the forehead. Then she resumed:

"You find her in a far away prison in the north. You find her half clothed, lost to all sense of modesty, the sport, the victim, the THING of the inhuman brutes who are her guards. You find her body; her beautiful soul has fled. She is not dead, but she gazes at you with a vacant stare of unrecognition. She laughs at you when you tell her that you are her brother. She does not know you. She has forgotten her own name. She taunts you with being another brute, like the men she has known there, in that foul haunt of unspeakable vices. Then you go quite mad. You clasp her in your arms, and draw her slender body against you. When you release her, she falls at your feet, dead, for you have buried your knife in her heart. Never again will she be the sport of brutal men. You have dealt out mercy to your suffering sister, and the agony you have endured gave you the necessary strength of will. You are God's agent in the deed."

I could feel that Zara was shuddering with the horror of the scene she had described; not at the deed of that brother who stabbed his sister to death to save her, but because of the awful fate of that poor girl, which the tragic act of her brother brought to an end. I drew Zara tenderly into my arms, and held her so for a long time, while she wept softly, with her head pillowed against my shoulder; and after a time she resumed, haltingly:

"When you turned away from your tragic deed of mercy, you killed the guard who tried to stop you. You made your escape; how, you do not remember; but you found your way back here—here, to St. Petersburg. Nobody recognized you. Your hair was white, your face was the face of a corpse. You had one more purpose; the death of two men, the czar and the conspirator. And so you went again to your friends, the nihilists. Hush! I am not through yet. There is more—much more, much more!"



CHAPTER XVI

THE MOMENT OF VENGEANCE

Zara's intensity of passion during her dramatic recital, had imparted itself to me, so that when she ceased speaking for a moment, I felt myself glowing and throbbing with all the excitement that absorbed her. It seemed almost as if I were, indeed, the person who was concerned in the story she had related, and my nerves were strung to the point where I felt that I could go out and kill the czar for the wrongs that had been committed in his name; if not at his connivance, certainly with his permission, and with the presumption of his approval. She withdrew from me and crossed to the window, where she stood looking out upon the snow clad street; suddenly she started, and turned to me. How beautiful she was and how I loved her at that moment!

"Come here, Dubravnik," she said. I obeyed, and in an instant was at her side at the window.

"What is it?" I asked.

"There; look yonder. Do you see that karetta, just beyond the corner?"

"Yes. I see it."

"It has all the appearance of waiting for a passenger who is supposedly within one of the adjacent houses, has it not?"

"It certainly has," I replied, smiling.

"My love, I recognize that karetta, and the man in charge of it. It belongs to—never mind whom. That does not matter. But the man incased in fur, who seems to be the driver, is a nihilist; within the enclosure, there is certainly one, and possibly there are two more men. Each of them has sworn to take your life at the cost of his own, if need be. They will wait there until you leave me. Then they will do their work. Do you still doubt that you have been sentenced to death?"

"I have not doubted it, sweetheart."

"But do you doubt their ability to carry out the decree?"

"I do."

"Ah, Dubravnik, you little know the men with whom we have to deal."

How sweet it was to hear her include herself with me, against them. "They are like bloodhounds on a trail. They never leave it, nor tire. They are indefatigable. When one falls, another takes his place. They number thousands, and you are one."

"WE are one," I corrected her, smiling. "I do not doubt their intentions, but I have not lived till now, and found you, to be killed by the nihilists."

She gazed at me a moment in silence, and then, slowly, she added:

"Do not think that I sought to frighten you by what I just said. I already know you much too well for that. My intention was to warn you."

"I understood you, dear, perfectly."

She turned away from the window again and faced me, and her eyes were glowing with the light of love. Again for the moment we were face to face with the perils that menaced us from the outside, and before that consideration, all else faded to nothingness with Zara. A little while ago she had repudiated me, but all-conquering Love had stepped in again, had overpowered her, enthralled her, and I could see that she was more than ever mine own, now.

For a space we looked into each other's eyes across the short distance that separated us. We were reading each other's souls, and both saw and understood all that the heart of love could desire. It was an undiscovered country to each of us, upon which we trod just then; a new creation that was the sweeter because of its strangeness.

"I love you!" Zara whispered; and she came nearer until her hands rested upon my shoulders, until her face was close to mine so that I could feel her sweet breath against me. Her lips were parted slightly in a half smile, and I knew that she had forgotten the waiting karetta with its freight of assassins.

I took her in my arms, slowly, tenderly, firmly. I held her pressed closely against me for a moment and then my lips sought hers, and hers sought mine. It was a oneness of desire, a singleness of purpose that brought us together in the kiss of perfect love; and we remained so while minutes sped. I closed my eyes and held her the more tightly against me, so that I could feel the throbbing of her heart and the quivering eagerness of her lithe body, warm against my own. We forgot the dangers and perils that surrounded us; forgot the world and all it contained; forgot life and death, czars and their empires, nihilists and their plots, remembering nothing, in that great spasm of adoration. We did not speak. There was no occasion for words. There came no opportunity to utter them. But we breathed, and breathed together. Our hearts throbbed in unison. Our souls communed, intermingled, blended into one. We sighed together, thought together, until my own senses reeled under the strain of it, and I knew that Zara was more than half unconscious of all things save her present contact with me. Ah, heaven, the greatness of it! The magnificence of that moment! The rapture of her caress, and the great joy of mine to her!

Presently I felt her clinging arms relax and I guided her tenderly toward a huge chair. I lifted her as if she were a child and put her softly down among the cushions; and I dropped to my knees, still holding her, still with my arms wound tightly around her.

For a long time after that we were silent, and Zara was the first to rouse from our mutual revery.

"Dubravnik," she said, and you can have no idea how sweetly that name was made to sound by her utterance of it, "I have not yet completed the story I was telling you; but there is only a little more, and you must hear it."

"Yes," I replied. "As you will, Zara. I am content. But need we go more deeply into the sorrows of that poor girl and her suffering brother? Let us rather talk of the great joy that has come to us. There seems to be nothing but joy in the world, when I look into your eyes. Ah, little one, it is sweet indeed to be loved by you."

"And sweeter still to love you," she retorted, smiling and rousing herself. "Sit here in this chair," she added, rising and forcing me to do the same; and when I had complied she drew a large hassock toward me, and seating herself upon it while she rested one shapely arm across my knees, with her face upturned to mine, she continued the story.

"Shall I continue to represent you as being the embodiment of the character I am describing?" she asked.

"If you prefer it so."

"Listen, then, for I think I do prefer it so. I want you to hear the story to the end, for it will make you understand many things which are now obscured; and if I give you the part of the great actor in this tragedy, that also is for a purpose."

"Yes, dear."

"You returned to St. Petersburg intent upon two things, and only two. After those two duties should be accomplished, you meant to take your own life; and in that purpose you were upheld by those among your friends who knew your story.

"You meant to kill the man who had betrayed your sister into the hands of the police, and after that to destroy the real author of all her misfortunes and yours—the czar. You had changed so that you needed no disguise. Had your sister been alive and well, and had she met you on the street she would not have known you. Your once tall form so erect and soldier-like, was bent, and your former quick tread had become unsteady. Your hair, black as the wing of a raven when you went away, was now white, like the snow that is heaped out there in the street. None of your old friends recognized you although you met and passed many of them on the avenues and streets in the full light of the day. Even your fiance who loved you better than she did her life, saw you and passed you by unheeded. She saw your wistful glance, and looked upon you wonderingly; but she, like others, believed that you were dead, and although she felt that her heart leaped to her throat and that a spasm of sorrowful recollections convulsed her when she glanced into your eyes, yet she did not know you. And you—you thanked God that she did not, for you knew that she would have flown into your arms then and there—would have risked Siberia with all its horrors for one more word of love from you. So you passed each other on the street so nearly that her furs brushed against you, and she never knew—never knew—until long after you were dead, when those friends who had helped you when all others failed, went to her and told her."

"You were an invalid when you returned to St. Petersburg, and you waited for health and strength before completing your work. You had learned patience during those weary months of searching and waiting in Siberia. Then, too, that same Russian officer whom you had sworn to kill, was absent, and you wished him to return. Your friends told you that he had been restored to favor with the czar, that he had been sent to a post in Siberia; but when you arrived he was expected back within the month. He was to take the very place and assume the same official rank that you had once filled in the palace, next to the sacred person of the czar. Ah! If you could only find them together, and destroy them at the same time! Such a climax would be sweet indeed. It was for that that you waited and hoped. But he did not come; you waited, and he did not come.

"During all this time you were like a child in the hands of your friends. You did precisely what they told you to do, no more, no less. You were absorbed by the one idea. You could not see nor reason beyond that. You even forgot your fiance and your love for her, save on that one day when the sight of her on the street brought her vividly before your mind; but the following morning even that recollection was gone. At last your madness changed to a type more morose and sullen. The delay fretted you, and one day without consulting your friends, you resolved to act. You had reason enough left to know that your mind was growing weaker and you feared that it would be altogether shattered; that you would never avenge the fate of your sister unless you acted at once. You told nobody of your intention, but you armed yourself with a pistol and started for the palace. You had determined to kill the czar before your reason fled utterly."

"Regarding the two hours that passed between the time you were last seen by your friends, and the events that happened in the palace that day, nothing is known. What streets you traversed on your way there; how you gained admittance to the palace, which was guarded as strictly as it is now; how you passed the guards and gained access even to the cabinet of the emperor, are mysteries which have never been solved, and never will be this side of the grave. All that is known is that you ware your old uniform, the same one from which the czar once tore the buttons, and it is possible that it had something to do with passing you through. At all events you did pass them all, and you did reach the person of the emperor himself. Ah, it must have been grand! I would that I could have been with you then! I would that I could have seen and heard all that took place there at that time—the only time when the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth has been told to his august majesty. There was one of our agents there who heard it all; that is how I know about it now."

"The emperor was alone when you entered, and you had closed and locked the door of the cabinet before he discovered your presence. He did not know that you were there until a sharp command from you caused him to raise his head; but it was only to see you standing there with the pistol in your hand aimed at his head, and to hear you say that if he uttered one cry for assistance, or attempted to call for help in any way, you would shoot."

Zara leaped to her feet and strode rapidly across the room twice, wringing her hands. She paused, confronting me.

"Oh, my God!" she cried. "To think, if you had only told your friends of the errand, and of the plans you had made for reaching the presence of the czar, that it would have succeeded and you would have killed him—killed him."

She rushed again to my side, and seized me by the shoulders, so that she turned my face until it exactly confronted hers.

"Dubravnik," she cried. "I can almost believe that I am indeed talking to him—to the man whose history I am relating—when I look at you. In some ways you are like him, so like him! But I will still deceive myself with the idea that I am really talking to him about himself. It is easier so. Oh, my love, be patient with me. I must forget for the moment that you are the man I love. I must compel myself to believe that I am talking to him—to the brother of Yvonne."

"Alexander was always a coward, and he proved it then. He thought that his hour had come, and that a just vengeance for all the lives that he had taken, was about to fall upon him.

"'Do not shoot,' he pleaded. 'You shall have any demand you wish to make. Everything you desire shall be granted.' You only laughed at him.

"'Do you know who I am?' you cried.

"'No,' he replied. 'Who are you?'

"You told him your name, and he cowered lower in his chair, begging for mercy as a hungry dog begs for food; and all the time you laughed, repeating at every pause he made, those words so terrible for him to hear: 'I have come to kill you because you killed Yvonne.'

"Once he attempted to leave his chair, but you warned him to remain seated. You rehearsed the evils he had done, and was doing. You told him of the night when your sister was arrested. You related how the police had invaded her room. You went over again, the story of your pleading with him. You repeated how he had torn the buttons from your coat, and disgraced you because you loved your sister. You left no detail unrecited concerning that time of weary waiting you had undergone, while seeking tidings of your sister. You described the long journey to Saghalien, and the disappointment that awaited you when you arrived. And all the time he cringed lower and lower in his chair, expecting each moment that you would work yourself into the additional frenzy that was necessary to make you pull the trigger of your weapon. Ah, you made him suffer tortures such as he never endured, before or since, even if you did not succeed in killing him. Then, slowly, and with deadly earnestness, you related the story of the months of wandering over Siberia searching for Yvonne, and finally you came to the climax, where you told of her discovery and her death, at your own hands. You had approached nearer and nearer to him during the recital. Twice there had been a summons at the door of the cabinet, but each time, threatened by your pistol, the czar had ordered that he was not to be disturbed. Now, as you came to the end of all you had to say—as you told how you had returned to St. Petersburg, and why you had waited so long before the killing, hoping also to find the other and to kill him, too, you put the pistol almost in Alexander's face, and with a loud laugh of exultation—for you were mad, then, mad—you pulled the trigger."



CHAPTER XVII

LOVE, HONOR AND OBEY

The princess paused and bent her head until it almost touched me. I waited, wondering how it could be that the czar still lived. When death was so near, within a few inches of his face, what could have saved him?

"Hush!" she continued. "The end is not yet—not quite yet. You pulled the trigger, but the charge in the pistol did not explode. That is what you thought, when you leaped backward and raised the hammer for another trial. But it was even worse than that, for there was no charge to explode; the pistol was not loaded. Your poor mind, so overburdened, had forgotten the most necessary thing of all, and you had not prepared your weapon for the work it had to do. You discovered your error too late; but the czar had discovered it also."

"He was bigger and stronger than you. With a bound he was upon you. He seized the pistol and tore it from your grasp, and then, while he held you—for you were still weak and he always was a giant—he struck you with it, bringing it down again and again upon your unprotected head, until your brains were battered out, and were spattered upon the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling of the room. And then, when you were quite dead, killed by the hand of the czar himself, when he for once in his life was spattered with real blood, with blood that he had shed in person and not by deputy, His Imperial Majesty staggered to the door, called for assistance, and fainted."

Again she left me, this time crossing the room and throwing herself upon a couch, where she cried softly, like one who has an incurable sorrow which must at times break out in tears. After all, tears are the safety valves of nervous expansion, and there are times when they save the heart and the brain from bursting. I knew that, and I left her to herself. But I also believed that she had not yet told me quite all; that there must be a sequel to all this, and I was soon to hear it. After watching her for a long time, I left my seat and went to her.

She raised her head from the pillow, and looked at me, and I have never seen such a combination of emotions expressed in one glance, as there was in her eyes at that instant. Love for me, sympathy for the fate of the man whose story she had told, sorrow for that poor sister.

"There is more?" I asked.

"Very little more. I have not yet told you why I am a nihilist, and that is what this story is for. Yvonne was my most intimate friend. I loved her as I would have loved—no,—better than I could have loved a sister. Her brother Stanislaus, was my betrothed. We were to have been married within the year when Yvonne was taken away. Now you know all"; and she turned her head away again. I could see that she had dreaded this confession.

"No, not all, yet," I said. "What became of the officer who made all the trouble?"

"He returned," she replied, without again raising her eyes.

"Where is he now?"

"He is here."

"Here? In St. Petersburg?"

"Yes."

"Do you know him? Do you see him?"

"Yes, frequently. He was here last night."

"Will you tell me his name?"

"No."

"Shall I tell it to you?"

"Shall you tell it to me! Do you mean to say that you know it?"

"I can guess it."

"Well?"

"He is a nihilist. He has just returned to the city. All these years he has been absent, and had Stanislaus waited for his coming your story, and mine also, would have had a different ending. But Stanislaus did not wait. The man you mean is Captain Alexis Durnief."

She started bolt upright.

"You knew it? You knew it?" she cried. "Tell me how you knew it?"

"I guessed it only just now. I guessed it from the expression of your eyes when you greeted him last night, that is, coupling that expression with the recital of to-day, and with one or two hints of his character that I gleaned from him. He is the man?"

"Yes. He—is—the—man!!!"

"And you receive him here?"

"I cannot help it. My hands are tied."

"How are they tied?"

"You have already said."

"Yes? How?"

"He is a nihilist. He does not know that I am aware of all his foulness and villainy. He has been assured that I do not know it! And"—here she leaped to her feet and confronted me like an enraged tigress—"he has the effrontery to pretend that he is in love with me, and to believe that I can love him. Pah!"

"And you?" I asked.

"I?"

She crossed the room, but turned and retraced her steps, reseating herself upon the couch. She was smiling now. Her composure had returned though she was still pale, and there were deep rings under her eyes which told of the suffering she had undergone.

"Until you came I had thought that I would marry him," said she, calmly. I was more utterly amazed than I could have supposed possible.

"Indeed?" I remarked, raising my brows, but otherwise not showing the surprise I felt. Here was still another phase of the character of the woman I loved so madly. But I could see that she spoke in the past tense; of something no longer considered.

"Yes; I thought that. Why not? It seemed the only way by which I could secure the revenge I believed I must have. I could have obtained it in that way. Long ago he sheltered himself from anything that I could do, under the cloak of our order. I could have married him, and in six months have tortured him into the grave; or, if that had failed, I could have poisoned him. Ah! did you ever hate—truly hate—anybody? If you never did, you cannot imagine the rage that has been in my heart against those two men. No, they are not men; they are beasts, reptiles." So she spoke of Alexis Durnief and Alexander, the czar. I could scarcely recognize this woman who could hate others with such intensity.

"Do you think, princess," I said, slowly, "that if Stanislaus were alive, he would approve of such a method of taking revenge for the wrong done to him, and to his sister?" I asked the question impersonally, and without any resentment in my tone, or manner. Indeed, I felt none. We were referring to a possibility that was now as far in the past as were the incidents of the story she had related. But I desired to probe that other side of her, the vengeful one, as deeply as possible, and when she did not reply, I added: "Do you think he would have rested contentedly in his grave, if you had become the wife of the man who wronged him most, no matter what your purpose might be?"

"No," she said. "I do not. But I had not thought of it in that light. I remembered only Yvonne—and him."

"Zara, did you love Stanislaus?"

She sighed deeply. She raised her eyes to mine, and she stretched forth a tentative hand for me to clasp, and hold. My touch gave her a sense of personal protection.

"How you probe the innermost secrets of one's heart, Dubravnik," she smiled at me. "I will tell you the truth, and the whole truth. It is because I never loved him, because I never knew and appreciated his worth, until he was dead, that I believed that I could not live and bear the thought that he should continue unavenged, while Alexis Durnief, the perpetrator of such outrages, appeared boldly here at St. Petersburg, and even dared to make love to me. I was a girl then, and I did not appreciate all the love that was lavished upon me. I am a woman now, and you have taught me what love is. I am not the same creature, now, that I was a few short hours ago. You have changed the world for me, for you have made what was once a hell, a heaven of sweet thoughts."

"Zara, had you already abandoned the insane idea of becoming Durnief's wife, before we referred to it, now?"

"Yes, I never really entertained it. It only occurred to me as a means of accomplishing an end. I hate the man so, for all he did to Yvonne; and when he dared to raise his hopes to me, knowing that I had been her nearest and dearest friend, knowing also that I was once pledged to Stanislaus, I was filled with a bitter hatred more terrible than words can describe. Oh, if you knew the bitterness of one who is used only for a tool, because she happens to possess beauty. But you cannot know; you cannot guess."

"True, I do not know; but I can guess. Remember, I heard what you said to your brother, on this same subject, in the garden."

"Ah!"

Like a flash of light through the darkness, my own peril returned to her.

"You! What are you going to do?" she exclaimed.

"I am going about my daily duty just as though nothing had happened," I replied.

"Those men out there are waiting to kill you. Come! Let us see if they are there still."

We went to the window together and peered out. The karetta was still waiting.

"Tell me your true name again," she demanded, rather irrelevantly I thought, as we drew back. "You told me, but I have forgotten. To me you are Dubravnik; but I suppose I must learn the other one."

"You must learn how to answer to it, also, for it is to be yours as well as mine." Then I mentioned it, and she repeated it after me several times, under her breath.

"Do you know of any way, no matter how, to escape those men who are waiting outside?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied, "I know of one."

"What is it?"

"I can have them arrested where they are—every one of them; that is, if one of your servants can be induced to carry a message a short distance, for me."

"He would be stopped. The message would be taken from him, and read."

"He would be permitted to go on again, for the message would mean nothing to those who stopped him. It would be in cipher, and assistance would not be long in coming, once it were delivered. Men in whom I can implicitly trust would soon clear the streets for us. We would have nothing to fear after that."

"Then you are connected with the police, Dubravnik." But when she made the statement I noticed with joy that there was no suggestion of her former displeasure. There was no indication now that she would love me the less because I was associated with the powers she had been taught all her life to abhor.

"No, Zara, not with the police. I have nothing to do with them, nor with any department of that service. The men I shall send for are not even Russians; and they serve me, not this government. They will serve you, as well."

"I believe you, dear one; forgive me. You shall have the messenger."

"You have forgotten one thing, princess."

"What?"

"Your own danger."

She shrugged her shoulders and laughed at that. It was a return to the Zara I had first known. "I have forgotten much since you came," she said. "In what way am I in danger?"

"If those men are arrested, they will know that you have betrayed them to me. Their friends will know it, also."

"You mistake. I had not forgotten that. But I have remembered that you are here to protect me, Dubravnik. What have I to fear when you are near me?" It was sweet indeed to hear her say such words, sweeter still to realize the full import of them. But there was a phase of our present dilemma which had not yet claimed her attention, but regarding which it was necessary to remind her. Her brother Ivan was doubtless one of the assassins, waiting outside.

"What of Ivan, your brother?" I asked her.

She raised her eyes and looked at me, startled, and they were suddenly moist with unshed tears. There was that same indescribable pain in them, that I had noticed several times since our interview began; that same expression which I could not fathom. But the explanation was ready.

"I have found that there comes a time in a woman's life," she said slowly, "when all her pet theories fall flat and useless, and when every idol that she has worshipped is demolished. Let us not talk of the danger to me. Let us not even speak of my brother, until the message is prepared for my servant to carry."

"No, Zara," I told her, with decision. "I do not understand what you meant, just now, when you referred to the demolition of your pet theories. But it is imperative that we should speak of your brother."

"What of him?"

"Is it not more than possible that he is one of the men out there who are waiting for me?"

"Yes, it is. I had forgotten that. But——"

"He would be caught in the net with the others. He would suffer the same fate that fell to them. Are you willing to run the risk of his being there? He has been to Siberia once, you tell me. Are you willing that he should go there again?"

"No, oh, no!" she cried. "No; that must not be."

"You see, then, how impossible it is for you to give me a messenger, unless you can promise for Ivan as well as for yourself."

"Promise? And for Ivan? What promise need I make for him? If he is there shall he not take his chance with those who are with him? But no, no. You are right, Dubravnik. I cannot let him be captured, perhaps killed, in this way," she said brokenly. "I cannot sacrifice Ivan. Cannot you see how I am suffering? Even though I try with all my strength to conceal it, can't you see it? Is there not some other way? Is there not something that can be done? Will you not help me? Great God! Must my brother be sent back to the hell of Siberia—or must you——"

"Zara," I interrupted her, deliberately taking a step backwards and putting my hands behind me, fearing that I might clasp her in my arms in spite of my resolution to remain calm and to continue to be master of the situation, "I think there is another way; I believe that something can be done; I will help you; I do see why you suffer. You are torn by so many conflicting desires, child; you do not know which way to turn. Here am I, your lover; out yonder, waiting to kill me, is your brother. But, dear, if you will trust to me, and will obey me implicitly in all that I direct you to do, there is a way, and neither you nor your brother shall come to harm. Will you trust to me?"

"Yes, oh, yes," she cried unhesitatingly. "What am I to do?"

"Call the servant who is to take the message."

She turned to the door without another word, and disappeared beyond it. The moment she was gone, I took a fountain pen and a pad of paper from my pocket, and wrote rapidly—or seemed to write, for the pen left no trace upon the paper.

My invisible note was completed and I was writing with another pen upon a second sheet of paper when the princess reentered the room. This time the writing was plainly visible, and while I asked her for an envelope I passed it to her to read.

It was addressed to my friend Canfield who had charge of the messenger service, and merely instructed him to "forward the packages that had been left with him that morning" to their several addresses without delay. It was signed, "Dubravnik."

"Is this the note my servant is to take?" she asked, incredulously.

"Yes."

I folded the apparently blank sheet with the other and placed them both in the envelope which I had already addressed.

"You see there is no harm in that note, even if the men outside should read it," I added, when the servant had departed. "Your man, who is of course a spy, will read the note, which I purposely left unsealed, as soon as he is out of sight of the house. In an hour every man who is waiting to take my life will be in prison. If your brother is among them, he will not be harmed and you——"

I hesitated, and she raised her eyes to mine and said:

"Well, and I?"

"You will have to do as you have agreed to do, obey me." I hesitated again and then with a desperate courage, added: "Love, honor, and obey me."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE POWER OF THE FRATERNITY

The princess did not start—she did not even look surprised when I uttered the strange sentence, but her great round eyes welled up in tears, and she caught her breath in a half-sob once. Then, without uttering a word, she extended her hand and placed it in mine, and we remained thus, for a moment silent. Presently, in a low whisper, I heard her repeat after me, the words, "Love, honor, and obey;" and she added: "As long as we both shall live."

With a quick gesture that was purely feminine, she withdrew her hand from mine and thrust the clustering hair away from her temples. Then she went to the window and gazed upon the snow clad city, and thus she remained for several minutes.

Presently she returned and came back to where I was standing.

"It is strange, is it not, Mr. Derrington?" she asked in a low voice. "I do not think that I am myself to-day. It is hard to realize that this is Zara de Echeveria who speaks to you now. I am like another person; it is as though another spirit had entered my body, and I seem to act without a will of my own. It began last night when you first entered my presence. It was evident to me when I saw you apparently asleep in the garden, knowing that you had overheard the conversation between my brother and myself; it asserted itself when we stood together under the green light later in the evening, when you told me that I must keep the engagement made with you to-day, and when you entered this room a few hours ago, it seemed as though you belonged to me—as though you had stolen away my will—as though I had no right to act without your sanction. Can you explain it?"

"No," I replied, "nobody can explain it. It is a secret that is known only to God, and His ways are immutable. But we have each recognized it from the first."

We said nothing of love then. The subject seemed out of place at that moment. We both knew all that the other would have said, or could with truth say, and there was no need to do what would seem like repeating it.

"When will you hear from the note that you have sent?" she asked presently.

"Very soon, now," I replied. "If your servant has delivered the message, there should be a reply within a few minutes. Let us go to the window and watch."

So we stood there by the window, silently communing with each other without speaking. Her left hand was clasped within my right one, and the minutes came and went until I raised my other hand and pointed silently toward a large, double britzska that was approaching. I had recognized the huge proportions of Tom Coyle, holding the reins, and I knew that underneath the covering were trusty followers of mine who would make short work of the waiting assassins.

"There comes the answer to my note," I said, "Watch that britzska."

"I see it," she replied.

It dashed up on a run straight for the point where the other one was still waiting, and came to a stop with a suddenness that threw the horses back upon their haunches. At the same instant there dashed from beneath the covering a half dozen men, and while some seized the horses of the waiting britzska, and others pulled the man from the driver's seat, still others jerked open the curtains and sprang inside. From our post of observation we could see that a severe struggle was taking place, and twice we heard the reports of pistols; and then the smaller carriage drove away, while the larger one, that which Tom Coyle had been driving, dashed straight for the door of the princess' house.

"The other contained the prisoners," I said to my companion.

"This one is coming here. Remember now, Zara, that you promised to trust me implicitly. No matter what happens, remember that."

"I will remember," she replied.

Then there came the summons at the door, and the voice of Tom Coyle requesting an audience with the Princess Zara de Echeveria. She looked at me inquiringly, and I nodded. In a moment more, Tom, followed by two men, entered the room where we were awaiting them.

"Your name is Dubravnik?" said one of the men, addressing me.

"Yes," I replied.

"And may I ask if this is the Princess d'Echeveria?"

"That is my name," replied Zara.

"I am very sorry to disturb you, but I must request you both to go with me, in the name of the Czar."

Zara started violently, and turned one distrustful glance upon me; but I remained calm and unmoved.

"Do you mean that we are arrested?" she inquired indignantly, returning her gaze to the officer.

"Temporarily, princess. We were forced to make an arrest in the street near this house just now, and from one of the men taken we learned that we had to come here. I can say no more. You will come with us without resistance?"

"Arrested in the name of the czar," murmured Zara blankly. "I did not anticipate this. Yes, I will go with you. Is my house to be searched?"

"I have no such orders, madame."

Then he turned to me.

"And you, sir?" he inquired.

"I am at your service," I said.

"One moment——" began Zara, who evidently doubted the regularity of it all, but I interposed.

"Princess," I said. "I do not think that these men mean to treat us unkindly. It is evidently some official inquiry brought about by the arrest that he had mentioned. I think it decidedly best to go without question."

Her face flushed and she said nothing more, but having had her wraps brought to her, followed me into the street, and we were soon driving rapidly away. The men were thoughtful enough to give us the interior of the vehicle to ourselves, and as soon as we were seated Zara turned her wistful eyes towards me.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"It means that you are to be protected from the hands of your friends," I replied. "It means that I know that the nihilists would take your life as soon as they know that betrayal of those who were waiting for me came from your home. I do not propose that they shall have such an opportunity. It means that I am going to place you for a time where no harm can come to you, and that not one of them will know where you are."

"But how, how have you the authority to do all this?"

"Did I not tell you that I am in the service of the czar?"

"Of my worst enemy, yes."

"Is it not wise to compel your enemies to do your service?"

"Can I accept a service from one whom I hate as I do him?"

"I think so, if your life and mine are both dependent upon that service."

"But where are we going?"

"To the Vladek prison."

"I? Zara de Echeveria, to prison?"

"Yes."

"And you?"

"To the same place."

"How long are we to be detained there?"

"Only a sufficient time for us to pass through it and take our departure by another door, to enter another carriage, and to be driven to the house of a friend."

"Ah! I begin to understand. To whose house, then?"

"To the house of Prince Michael."

"I cannot go there! Oh, indeed, I cannot go there!"

"You must disappear for a time, Zara. The prince is my friend and yours; more than that, he loves you, and better than all, he is a prince among men as well as a Prince in rank. Will you not still trust me?"

She sighed and said no more, but as the britzska dashed onward she nestled closer to me, as though she found comfort in the thought that the authority was taken out of her hands, and when at last we came to a stop before the prison doors, she whispered:

"I trust you. Do with me as you will. I will obey."

Within the prison, I found Canfield awaiting me, and I gave him and Coyle a few hurried instructions; but we were soon on the road again, and in due time arrived at the house of the prince, we passing in by a side entrance. Presently, courtly and grave, but as white as mental suffering can render the face of a man, he came to us.

"You are welcome," he said, extending his hand, first to her and then to me. "The house is at your disposal, princess, and I need not say that there are no servants here to spy on you. I know them all, and your presence will be as secret as the grave."

She thanked him, and was proceeding to explain some of the circumstances which had brought us there when he stopped her with a gesture.

"It is true that I do not understand," he said, "but Dubravnik is my best friend and he will tell me all that is necessary to tell. In the meantime, I am commanded by his majesty, the czar, to remain at the palace for a few days. Let me entreat you to regard everything here as your own."

"Twenty-four hours will suffice, prince," I said. "After that time the princess can return in safety to her own home."

"Then, if you will excuse me," he murmured, bowing low over Zara's hand, "I will proceed at once to the palace, where I am even now expected. I will await you there, Dubravnik," he added, and the glance that he cast upon me made me wonder if I had not, perhaps, trusted—or, rather, tried—this chivalrous man too far, in taking the princess to his house.

Zara saw and correctly interpreted the glance, for as he left the room upon my assurance that I would follow him at once she put her hands in mine and said:

"Are you indeed assured of your own safety, Dubravnik? Ah, yes, I shall always call you by that name. Are you assured of your own safety? Tell me truly."

"Perfectly; and of yours, also. Have no fears."

Then I raised her hands to my lips, and kissed them both, first one and then the other, again and again; and she, standing on tiptoe, pressed her lips to my forehead.

"Love, honor, and obey," I murmured; and she repeated after me:

"Love, honor, and obey."

Then I left her.

It was still early in the day, but at that time of the year darkness settles over the earth while yet the day is young, and night was already abroad in the streets. I had much to do ere the dawn of another day, for the time had come when the power of the Fraternity of Silence must be asserted; when I felt that the work that I had agreed to do for the czar was nearly completed. My drag net was ready, and the time had come to cast it.



CHAPTER XIX

PRINCE MICHAEL'S ANGER

Nobody but myself in all Russia was familiar with the secrets and the mysteries of the Fraternity of Silence. In organizing it, I had anticipated just such a moment as the one that faced me now; that is, an emergency where I would have to depend entirely upon the loyalty of my men, and my own superior knowledge of who and what they were, for my safety.

The partial description already given of that organization conveys only a faint idea of its perfection and completeness. The different departments were thoroughly under the control of their several heads, and those heads were all men whom I could implicitly trust, and I knew that I might even dare to snap my fingers at the power of the police system itself, so great was my own. I had men everywhere; and my gift of remembering names and faces, a gift the Almighty had bestowed upon me, gave me the advantage of knowing nearly all of them by sight, although there was not a score, all told, who knew me; and those were every one importations of my own, upon whose devotion I could thoroughly depend, even in the face of regular police opposition. More than that, I had men within the ranks of the police, even within the fold of the mysterious and dreaded Third Section.

I realized fully the danger to my own person in going upon the street at that hour, when I had within so short a time been condemned to death by the extremists—the most implacable element among the nihilists. They do not dread death themselves so long as they accomplish the death of him who has been condemned, and one who has fallen under the ban of their disapproval is in as great danger in broad daylight, among a hundred companions, as he is on dark streets and among unfrequented byways. I thought it best, therefore, to provide as well as possible against another attempt to assassinate me, and therefore sought my own apartments before going to the palace. I intended to adopt a disguise of some kind, and, moreover, I had given orders for several of my leaders to meet me there, and I knew that I would find them waiting.

They were there when I arrived—Coyle, Canfield, Malet, St. Cyr, and with them several of their lieutenants. There was another one there also, whose hands were tied behind him, and whose feet were fastened together, while, by way of additional security, he was tied to the chair in which my friends had seated him. That man was Ivan, the brother of Princess Zara. I did not glance at him as I entered, but notwithstanding his presence, proceeded at once to business, instructing my men in exactly what they were to do that night. And he listened intently, first with anger and even rage, then with scorn and contempt, but finally with wonder and genuine fear. I had arranged the affair for the purpose of teaching Ivan de Echeveria a moral lesson. I had determined to save him, even against himself—for Zara's sake.

In order to convey some idea of the moral effect that the meeting had upon him, I must outline a part of it. One by one my men read off lists of the nihilists under their jurisdiction, accurately describing them, as well as the several disguises that they were in the habit of wearing, the meeting places of the different branches of the society, and where the members of those branches were to be found at certain hours. Included in the lists were names of many prominent people in the city, officers in the army, policemen on duty, spies in private families, in hotels and cafes, in the palace, at the barracks, in the prisons, and, in fact, everywhere. As name after name was read off, until the number amounted to many hundreds the face of Ivan de Echeveria became as pale as death, and when, at last, his own sister's name was read, and I remarked grimly that she was already a prisoner, and would be on her way to Siberia within the week, he broke out in curses and threats, to which, of course, not one of us paid the slightest attention. When he found that we did not notice him in any way, but proceeded quietly with our business, he relapsed into a moody silence, and I knew that my moral lesson was working. I knew that I could save Zara's brother, for that is what I meant to do. When the lists were completed, and I had given my orders regarding who was to be arrested that night, and who was to be spared, having directed that certain of them be told that they could obtain passports out of the country under certain conditions, I dismissed my leaders, and at last stood alone in the presence of Ivan.

"Now, sir," I said coldly, "what do you think of it?"

"I think that this night will see the end of our cause, until other children are born who will grow up to know the wrongs to which the people of Russia have to submit. You may crush out nihilism to-day, but you cannot crush it out forever. It will spring up again like——"

"Like the poisonous weed that it is. I expect that, but this present growth will be cut down to-night. You do not ask what is to be done with you, Ivan."

"Why should I? I know."

"I am afraid that you do not."

"One who would send my beautiful sister to Siberia—Bah! I will not talk with you."

"Have I been unmerciful except to those who are confessed murderers, and those who are only awaiting a chance to kill?"

"No," he replied, reluctantly.

"Do you not see how impossible it is to accomplish what your people want to do, by the commission of crimes? You, who were one of the men waiting to kill me as soon as I came out of the house of your sister—what was your first thought when my men fell upon and arrested you? Did you not think that your sister had betrayed you all to me?"

"Yes."

"Did you not say so?"

He hung his face in shame and answered:

"Yes."

"Is that not the thought among your friends at this moment, and would the life of your sister be safe from them if she were in her own house to-night?"

"It would not."

"And yet, you call such people your friends—those who would without question put her to death on mere suspicion—to a death to which you have helped to condemn her by your own foul suspicions and the more foul utterance of them. Shame on you, Ivan de Echeveria! Shame on you!" Pain contorted his face, and he was silent. "Did you fire the bullet that so nearly killed me?" I asked.

"No, I did not do that, but I directed that it be done. You would not have escaped if I had held the pistol."

"Perhaps not. It is unimportant, any way. Have you not wondered why I brought you to this house?"

"To torture me; that, at least, is what you are doing."

"I brought you here to save you."

"To save me!"

"Yes; from the folly of your youth. You are a man in years, but a boy in every act you commit. Have you manhood enough left in you to want to save your sister, who now, thanks to you, has two enemies to face? Russia would send her to Siberia, and the nihilists would murder her. She would have sacrificed herself for you—she offered to do so. Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for her?"

"God knows that I am."

"Will you prove it?"

"Oh, that I might!"

"You shall have the chance. I cannot quite trust you, Ivan, or, for her sake, I would loosen your bonds and set you free now. But you would hasten to your friends and warn them of their danger, and by that act, you would destroy your sister forever—by that act you would kill her. She is safe and will be safe, if they are not warned of what is to happen to-night. Shall I set you free, and trust to your honor not to go to them?"

"No—no—no! For God's sake, no! Leave me bound! Tie me more tightly! Do not let me go! Kill me if you will, but do nothing to injure her. Oh, are you telling me the truth?"

"The whole truth, Ivan. I will leave you as you are until I return. I do not think you will escape; I do not think that you will try to do so. But you must understand one thing: This night forever ends your connection with nihilism. That is the sacrifice you must make to save your sister. Will you make it?"

"If it will save her, I will make it. But will it?"

"If I find you here when I return, and if you are still in the same mood, I will take you to her, and she shall reply to that question for herself."

I left him then, and having altered my appearance sufficiently so that I would not be recognized in the darkness, and being assured that the orders that I had given respecting the work of my men for that night would be carried out, I hastened to the palace. I knew that I had a difficulty to face, for although I had unlimited confidence in the chivalry and generosity of Prince Michael, I also knew that he had an ungovernable temper, and I began to fear that my delay in following him might have led him to say something to the emperor, which would encompass me with puzzling conditions. As soon as I arrived at the palace I was told that the prince was awaiting me in his apartments, and I hurried to him. He rose as I entered the room, and, bowing stiffly, without extending his hand as was his invariable habit, said coldly:

"You are late, Mr. Derrington. I expected you an hour earlier, at least."

"I am very sorry, prince," I replied; "more sorry than I can say, to have kept you waiting, but I have been unavoidably detained."

"May I ask if it was at my house?"

"I was at my own apartments."

"Ah!"

It was evident that he did not believe me, and that he meant me to understand that he did not, but I was determined not to quarrel with him. Therefore I remained silent.

"May I venture to ask an explanation of the extraordinary proceedings of the evening?" he asked, icily.

"Yes; I think I owe you that much. But would it not be better if I first offered my respects to the czar? Then I can return here, and we can enjoy a long chat together."

"His majesty knows that you were to come to me first. After I have heard you, we will go to him together."

"Am I to understand, prince, that you have told his majesty of the occurrences of to-night?"

"You are to understand exactly that. I have told him all; at least all that I could tell."

"Indeed! In that case, we will go to him together. Such explanation as I have to make will be made in his presence. Whatever explanations there are to make are entirely in the princess' behalf, and I regret that I took you at your word and supposed that you would wait for me. She can offer you her own thanks at a more opportune time."

I saw that he was endeavoring with all his strength to control himself, but the veins on his forehead swelled until I thought that they would burst. For a full minute we stood facing each other thus, both silent, and then he turned and led the way in the direction of the official cabinet.

"Prince," I said, just before we entered, "you have no cause to quarrel with me. Remember that in the interview that is to come."

He stopped short, and turned and faced me before the door of the czar's cabinet.

"Are you quite sure of that?" he demanded.

"I am quite sure. I remember another interview of this kind, when you advised me what not to do. You have no warmer friend in Russia than Daniel Derrington, prince."

For a moment he pondered. I saw that he was hesitating, for I knew that he really liked me. But I also knew that he loved the princess, and that he was jealous, for I had done an unprecedented thing in taking her to his house under the circumstances. For a woman to commit herself to the care of a man in the way the princess had trusted herself to me, meant much more in Russia than it does in New York. The prince could find no excuse for the act; still less for my delay in following him when he left his own house in our possession. Presently he spoke. His words came slowly and with careful deliberation.

"What I say now, Mr. Derrington, you may accept in whatsoever spirit you please, but upon my soul I do not believe you!"

I bowed, and we entered the cabinet together.



CHAPTER XX

IN DEFIANCE OF THE CZAR

In all the interviews I had had with the czar during the many months of my association with him he had maintained the condition that he had himself made at the beginning, which was that we should meet on the basis of friends and equals. Whenever we were alone together he commanded me to forget that we were other than two friends who were enjoying an opportunity for a chat with each other, and as at such times we invariably conversed in French, he always insisted that I should address him by the simple term "monsieur." When the prince was with us, as was nearly always the case, the degree of familiarity was slightly, though hardly perceptibly modified, and I must say that I had learned to enjoy such occasions exceedingly.