He must stop making a fuss about Hamylton Tregethner, and just come on here and see me and let us try together to find out some solution of the puzzle. But he must hold his tongue unless talking to the right pair of ears."

"I shall know no rest till I find him," replied Olga instantly. "And if I do not, I shall come back here. I will not leave you like this."

I kissed her; but did not tell her that so far as I was concerned her return would be useless, for the cogent reason that I should not be alive. It was impossible that I could survive by many hours the Imperial visit. This I kept from her, however, for the farewell was already more than sufficiently sad and trying; and I doubt if any consideration on earth would have induced her to leave if she had really known how imminent was my danger.

I talked much indeed of the help Balestier might be able to render, and thus impressed on her strongly the need for her to find him, however long it might take her. This giving her a task and connecting it with the work of helping me, kept her hope alive and tended to reconcile her to the parting, so that in the end she shook off much of her depression. I could see also she was battling with her feelings to distress me as little as possible.

I loved her the more as I saw this, but the parting was such pain for us both, that I was glad when it was over. I stood and watched the train steam out of the station and saw her leaning from the carriage window to catch the last glimpse of me. And I was sad indeed, as I turned away with a positively choking sense of loneliness such as I had never felt before in all my life.

The departure of my brave little sister, clever-witted counsellor, and dearest companion seemed to leave such a void in my life that in the first hours which followed her departure I mourned for her as one grieves for the dead. And in truth she was dead to me.

But the events of the day following left me little time for meditation.

It was Sunday and a day of brisk action. Early in the morning there were special regimental duties; and on my return to my rooms for breakfast I found waiting for me a stranger, whose card, given to my servant, described him as "J. W. Junker, St Petersburg Gazette."

He rose at my entrance and said in a very pleasant voice:--

"Excuse a journalist's liberty in coming to you. I am the special correspondent of the St Petersburg Gazette and have come to do the Czar's visit, and I should very much like a word with you on the matter."

"I don't see where I can be of any help, but if there's anything I can tell you, fire away," I said. "I've had a couple of hours' drill this morning, however, and I have to be on the parade ground in less than an hour, so you must excuse me if I have my breakfast while we chat. But perhaps you'll join me?"

"With the greatest pleasure," and down he sat, and while the servant was in the room for the first few minutes, he chatted away like the bright and pleasant fellow he appeared to be. But as soon as my man had left the room, his manner changed suddenly and his voice took a direct earnest tone that made me look at him in some astonishment.

"Don't have that fellow back again. Is it all acting, or don't you really recognise me? I knew you in a moment."

"Did you? Well, I certainly don't know you. I never met a journalist----" He broke in with a short laugh and waved his hand with a quick gesture of imperative impatience as he stared at me hard. His manner annoyed me.

"Well, if you're not what you said you were, what the devil are you doing here? What do you want?" I felt like pitching him out of the place.

"Didn't you expect me?"

"Expect you? No; how should I?"

"Instructions were sent to prepare you."

"I can only say I haven't the ghost of a notion what you want."

"To complete the arrangements for to-morrow's glorious event," and his face lighted with a momentary enthusiasm.

"How am I to know you?" I asked, suspiciously.

"I am Gorvas La.s.sthum; and I saw you twelve months ago when the other plan was laid, as you will remember, and failed. Your memory is treacherous, my friend."

"There are some things I train it to forget," I answered, equivocally.

I was in a fix. I guessed the man was a Nihilist agent, of course, and his air of self-importance suggested that he was high up in the leadership. But on the other hand Moscow was at the moment swarming with spies of all kinds; and this might be one. I a.s.sumed an air of extreme caution therefore, and after a flash of thought added: "And some that I prefer not to know at all. It pleases me now to hold that from my side you and I are strangers. You know me well; say then just what you wish to say. I on my side don't know you, and prefer to say nothing."

"Good," he cried; and reaching out offered me his hand and when I gave him mine, he pressed it and said earnestly:--"Would G.o.d we had more men like you--so ready in act and so cautious in word."

I bowed and made no other sign.

"You have the orders for the disposition of the troops to-morrow, and at the last minute the whole of them, or the most of them, will be changed. You yourself will be detailed to guard that part of the line which runs over the flat stretch by the river on the further side of the Vsatesk station. Guard it well; for a greater life than that of the Emperor depends on your vigilance--the life of the People."

As he said this another of those little flashes of light that seemed to transform him from a pleasant man of the world into an enthusiast leapt into his eyes. A pause followed in which I said nothing.

"Your orders will be to station your men at set distances on either side of the line--it being an easy place to guard--and you will have some three miles of the line under your command. It is good. Now, take thought. At one point in about the centre of your section, the land dips and the line is embanked to a height of some ten feet, for a length of about half a mile. At that spot there are four alder trees--three to the left of the line, and one to the right. These three form an irregular triangle, one side of which is much shorter than the others; and if you follow the short line which those two trees make, you will find that they form a comparatively straight line with the fourth tree on the other side of the railway embankment. Do you follow me?"

He made a rough model on the table-cloth, using some of the breakfast things for the purpose of shewing the positions of the railway and the trees.

"No one can mistake that," I said.

"Well, you are to take up your position here, you yourself, I mean, here, in a dead straight line between these two trees"--demonstrating them on the table-cloth--"for this is where there will be an accident.

And now, pay close heed to this. You will go out by train; and when your men are paraded at the station they will be joined by five of ours. These will mingle with yours at the very last moment; and if any questions are asked they will produce the necessary authority. These five men you will arrange carefully to take the next five positions to you on your right hand. When the train leaves the line, they will instantly close round and guard the Emperor's carriage; and you will see that nothing prevents them. That is all you have to do; and if you act discreetly you will run no risk. You will not fail. They know their duties and will do them; and will let no one come between them and their n.o.ble task. Five bolder men do not breathe in all Russia.

Remember, they are to be stationed next to you on your right. You understand?"

"Every item."

"It is a great day for you, friend," he said.

"It is a great day for Russia," I returned; and soon after he left me.

I was filled with the most anxious doubt as to what course I ought to take to checkmate this horrible plot, of which I was the most unwilling depository and was marked out as the forced agent.

During the whole day I was turning the problem over and over in my thoughts: and I could see no course that would be at all effective in thwarting the plot without at the same time exposing myself to all the hazard of being punished as a Nihilist. I could, of course, tell the police or Prince Bilba.s.soff, but this meant a double danger for me.

They would take measures to alter the arrangements as to the visit; the reason for this would have to be told to the Czar; it would certainly leak out to the Nihilists, and I should be a mark for their a.s.sa.s.sins at once. On the other hand the story told by Paula Tueski would seem to have the corroboration which my acquaintance with Nihilist matters would give to it, and I should be in peril there.

One consideration there was that gave some rea.s.surance. I had already had the orders for the distribution of the troops, and I knew that I was to be miles away from those cursed alder trees at the moment when the Czar would be pa.s.sing. I knew too that if the plot went wrong in that main feature, it would fail altogether.

The Nihilists were not such fools as to draw down on themselves all the sensational punishments which would inevitably follow the discovery of an organised attempt on the life of the Czar, for the mere empty purpose of sending the Imperial train off the line. Unless therefore, they had some emissary so highly placed as to be in possession of the information long before any of us in Moscow knew about it, the whole machinery was likely to be stopped for the one flaw. And though I had had some proofs of the extraordinary accuracy of their information, I could not believe their power to be such as this necessitated.

But in the afternoon, when according to arrangement I went again to the Prince Bilba.s.soff, startling news awaited me, that redoubled all these doubts and difficulties, and set them buzzing and rushing through my brain, threatening to muddle my wits altogether.

There was a distinct change in the manner of his reception of me, and it pleased me to set this down to the fact that his opinion of me was raised by the knowledge that the black past of Alexis Petrovitch was mine only by adoption, and that in reality I had the clean antecedents of an English gentleman.

"I can't give you more than a few minutes," he said, "and I must therefore squeeze as much as possible into them. I have taken your suggestion and have wired to London to find out about you. The result is what I am bound to say I hoped; and the consequences are I am going to trust you."

"That's as you please," said I, quietly.

"It does please me, because I don't want this duel to fall through.

Now you want some cause for fighting that will satisfy your honour.

Will you fight this man if he insults you?"

"I'll fight any man who does that," I replied.

"Now, whose officer are you?"

"The Czar's, while I am in Russia."

"Will you risk your life in his service?"