"Do you know that I would ten thousand times rather that you had left me here bound and helpless as I was than take me away in this fashion.

I must see my sister. I must save her--why man, are you lost to every sense of feeling? Take her away first--make her safe; and then I swear to Heaven, you or this man can do with me what you please."

The stolid stony impa.s.siveness of the man's face crushed every hope out of me. I could have struck him in my baffled rage.

"I have twenty men in the troop here, Lieutenant My instructions are to take you at once to Moscow. I prefer to use no force; but I have it here, if necessary."

I wrung my hands in despair; and then with a wild dash I rushed to the door to try and find Olga for myself. It was useless. They closed on me in an instant, and I was helpless. Then they marched me out to the horses, venting as I went bitter reproaches and unavailing protests, mingled with loud curses, laments, and revilings.

"Will you give me your parole to go quietly, Lieutenant?" asked the leader.

"On one condition. That we ride at full speed all the way."

"I can make no condition," replied this block of official stolidity; "but my instructions are to act with all haste. One question--have you been illtreated here?"

"Only as I told you."

Then he went back into the house for a moment, saying he would speak to Devinsky about it. I saw the latter change colour when he received the police report and he made a gesture of seeming repudiation, lifting his hands and shrugging his shoulders. After that he threw me a malicious look from his angry evil face that almost made me clamber down from the saddle to try and have a reckoning with him there and then.

"When I'm out of this, I'll hunt you out," I cried, between my teeth.

"When!" he answered: and the sneer in which he shewed his teeth as he uttered the word, was in my eyes for half that long, wild ride.

The police leader kept his word; and we rode at a hard gallop nearly all the way, the whole country side turning out as we thundered by.

The man would not say a word to me on the journey, except that he had been ordered to hold no communication at all with me; and thus I did not know where they were taking me, or whether I was arrested or rescued, until we drew rein at the Police head-quarters in Moscow and I was ushered straight into the presence of Prince Bilba.s.soff, all dirty, dishevelled, bruised, and travel-stained as I was.

He rose and met me, holding out his hand.

"My dear Lieutenant, you are really giving me an unconscionable amount of trouble. As much, indeed, as if you were already a member of my family."

"What does all this mean?" I asked. "Am I arrested?"

"What an impatient fellow you are! It will all come in time," he returned, with an indescribable blending of good nature and suggestive threat. "Is this all the thanks one gets for rescuing you from what, judging by your appearance, has been a very ugly mess. This harum-scarum business will really have to stop--when you marry." He seemed almost to laugh behind his grizzled moustache in the pause that emphasised the last three words.

"Will you tell me the real meaning of this? I have already asked you."

"Sit down;" and he sat down himself, and lounged back easily in his chair. "By the way, have you lunched?"

"For G.o.d's sake man, don't trifle in this way. If you know the facts, as I suppose you do, you'll know I'm in no mood for bantering courtesy.

Why am I torn away by your men by force at the very moment when my sister is in danger at the hands of the brute who has carried her off.

I suppose you know all this. What does it mean, I repeat."

"You can understand, perhaps, Lieutenant, that as it is two days since my sister referred you to me, and you had left Moscow hastily, she was growing a little anxious. You know something of women in love and their insistent moods."

"To h.e.l.l with all these plots and intrigues," I cried, furiously. "If you mean that that devil Devinsky is to have my sister in his power and I am to sit down coolly and bear it while you talk to me about marriage, you don't know me. I'll think of nothing, talk of nothing, do nothing, till I have either saved her and killed that villain, or am killed myself."

"Do you mean that you will set me at defiance?" cried the Prince, in stern ringing tones, his eyes flashing at me. "That you dare to flout the offers we have made you, and have the hardihood to set the needs of the country below your own little petty personal feelings and wishes?

Do you know what that means, sir?"

"I care not what it means," I answered, recklessly. "I tell you this to your face. If my sister be not saved at once, I'll never set eyes on you or your sister again, unless it be that you make me grin at you from behind the bars of some one of your cursed gaols. That is my last word, if it costs me my life."

He rose and looked at me so sternly that I could almost have flinched before him if my stake in the matter had not been so great. I never met such a look of concentrated power before.

"If you dare to repeat that, Lieutenant Petrovitch, I will send you straight to the Mallovitch," he said, with positively deadly intensity of tone, pointing his finger through the window to where the gloomy frowning tower of the great prison was visible.

"I care not if you send me to h.e.l.l," I cried. "Save my sister, or my hand shall rot at the wrist before I lift it in your service."

We stood staring intently dead into each other's eyes; and he stretched forward a hand to summon those who would carry out his threat.

Then he breathed deeply, smiled, and offered me his hand instead.

"By G.o.d, you're the man we want, in all truth. Now, I'll tell you what you ask."

He had only been testing me after all, and my wits were so blunt in my agitation that I had not seen through him.

"Have no fear for your sister," he continued. "She is quite safe. My man gave that Devinsky a message when he was leaving that puts all doubt on that score aside. She is part of our bargain, and the arm of the State is over her. If you accept my offer at once, your sister herself shall decide that man's punishment. My object in all this is twofold--to let you feel something of the substance of power that will be yours when you have consented; and secondly to test a little more thoroughly your staunchness. I am satisfied, Lieutenant. And I hope you are."

"Where is my sister now?" I asked, after a moment's consideration.

"Where you left her, of course. Decide how you wish her to come to Moscow. Shall my men fetch her? Shall that man bring her back himself? Or will you ride out. It is a matter of the merest form--but as yet, of course, you are unaccustomed to your influence and power."

He was the devil at tempting; and though he had told me his motive, and I knew the rank impossibility of doing what he wanted--I could not help a little thrill of pleasure at the consciousness that this power lay within my grasp.

"I will ride out and bring her in myself," I said, with a flush of pleasant antic.i.p.ation at the thought.

"As you will. This will do everything," he said, as he wrote me an order in the name of the Emperor. I knew its power well enough. "One condition, by the by. You must not fight this Devinsky; nor do anything to provoke a fight."

"I won't promise," I answered.

"Then I give no order. Your life is ours, not yours to play with.

That is the essence of the matter."

"I will promise," I said, changing suddenly as I thought of Olga and the delight of seeing her under the circ.u.mstances. "My word on it. I do nothing except in self-defence, or in defence of my sister."

"Well, be off with you then," he said, rising and shaking hands, and speaking as lightly as if I were a schoolboy being sent off for a ride; and as though there were not between us a jot or t.i.ttle of a plan in which life and death, fortune and marriage were the stakes.

I hurried back to make preparations for riding back at once; and half an hour later I had had my first meal for twenty-four hours and was again in the saddle, p.r.i.c.king at top speed along the northern road, followed by one of the Prince's confidential servants, sent as the former said to me, with especial instructions to look after the welfare of one who was soon to be a member of the family.

There is no need to describe with what different emotions and thoughts I made that journey. It is enough to say that I dashed along at top speed, haunted by half a fear that something might yet go wrong with the plans and that Olga might still be in some danger; while a desire more keen than words can express came upon me to have her once more under my own care.

At the same time the sense of power to which the appeal had been so astutely made was roused, and I was conscious of an unusual glow of pride.

When I reached the house where I had had the ugly experience of the previous night I looked out for any sign of hostility. But there was none. A man came immediately in answer to my summons, and Devinsky was waiting for me in the large hall, which I scanned curiously after my night's experience in it.

The sight of Devinsky roused me, but I put the curb on my temper.

I handed him the order in silence. He read it and sneered.

"It is a good and safe thing to shelter behind Government powers," he said. "Your sister is upstairs. This way." He led and I followed, my heart beating fast.