Week after week, and month after month, the Baltic Fleet was declared to be on the point of departure. Time after time the Czar went on board to review it in person, and speak words of encouragement to the officers and crew. And every time, after everything had been p.r.o.nounced ready, some mysterious obstacle arose at the last moment to detain the fleet in Russian waters.

Journalists, naval experts, politicians and other ill-informed persons invented or repeated all sorts of explanations to account for the series of delays.

Only in the very innermost circles of the Russian Court it was whispered that the guardian spirit of the great Peter, the founder of Russia's naval power, had repeatedly come to warn his descendant of disasters in store for the fleet, should it be permitted to sail.

M. Auguste was earning his reward.

CHAPTER XXI

MY FUNERAL

The extreme privacy with which I had managed my negotiation with M.

Auguste completely baffled the plotters who were relying on the voyage of the Baltic Fleet to furnish a _casus belli_ between Russia and Great Britain.

They realized, of course, that some powerful hand was interfering with their designs, and they were sufficiently intelligent to guess that that hand must be mine.

But they were far from suspecting the method of my operations. They firmly believed that M. Auguste was still carrying out their instructions, and sowing distrust of England in the mind of Nicholas II. Indeed, on one occasion he informed me that the Princess Y---- had sent for him and ordered him not to frighten the Czar to such an extent as to make him afraid to let the fleet proceed to sea.

Unable to detect and countermine me, it was natural that they should become impatient for my removal.

Accordingly, I was not surprised to receive an urgent message from Sophia, late one evening, requesting me to come to her without delay.

By this time our friendship, if such it could be called, had become so intimate that I visited her nearly every day on one pretext or another.

Her greeting, as soon as I had obeyed the summons, showed me that a fresh development had taken place in the situation.

"Andreas, the hour has come!"

"The hour?"

"For your removal. Petrovitch has been here. He suspects something.

He has rebuked me severely for the delay."

"Did you tell him I was not an easy man to kill?"

"I told him anything and everything. He would not listen. He says they have lost confidence in me. He was brutal. He said----"

"Well, what did he say?"

"He said--" she spoke slowly and shamefacedly--"that he perceived it took a man to kill a man."

I smiled grimly.

"History tells us differently. But what then?"

"To-morrow I shall no longer be able to answer for your life."

"You think some one else will be appointed to dispose of me?"

"I am sure that some one else has been appointed already. Most likely it is Petrovitch himself."

"Well, I shall look out for him." I did not think it necessary to tell Sophia that I had been expecting something of this kind, and had made certain preparations.

"It will be useless, Andreas. You do not know the man with whom you have to deal."

"The ignorance may be mutual," I observed drily.

The Princess became violently agitated.

"You must let me save you," she exclaimed clasping her hands.

"In what way?"

"You must let me kill you _here_, to-night.

"Don't you understand?" she pursued breathlessly. "It is absolutely necessary for your safety, perhaps for the safety of both of us, that they should think I have carried out my instructions. You must appear to die. Then they will no longer concern themselves about you, and you will be able to a.s.sume some other personality without being suspected."

The scheme appealed to me strongly, all the more that it seemed as though it could be made to fit in very well with my own plans.

"You are a clever woman, Sophia," I said cautiously. "How do you purpose to carry out your scheme? They will want to see my corpse, I suppose."

She drew out the little key I have already described.

"Come this way."

I followed her through the bedroom as before to the door of the locked oratory.

She opened the door and admitted me.

By the light of the wax candles I saw what was surely one of the strangest sights ever presented to mortal eyes.

It was myself, lying in state!

On a high bier draped in white and black cloth, I lay, or, rather, my counterpart presentment in wax lay, wrapped and shrouded like a dead body, a branch of palm in the closed hands, and a small Russian coin resting on the lips, in accordance with a quaint custom which formerly prevailed in many lands.

In spite of my habitual self-command I was unable to repress a cold shiver at this truly appalling spectacle.

"Your stage management is perfect," I observed after a pause. "But will they be satisfied with a look only?"

"I do not think so. It will be necessary for you to put on the appearance of death for a short time, till I have satisfied them.

Afterward I can conceal you in here, while this--" she pointed to the ghastly figure--"is buried under your name."

"Let us get back to the other room, before we talk about it," I urged. "This is not altogether a pleasant sight."

As we pa.s.sed out of the oratory I stealthily took note of the fastening of the door. The lock was on the outside only; in other words, if I permitted myself to be immured in the cell-like chamber, I should be a prisoner at the mercy of my charming friend.