Out of Russia

Credits: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (The New York Public Library's Digital Collections)

THE PROFESSOR was pottering about his laboratory. He called it a laboratory, this work-room down in New Jersey, where he was peacefully ending his days, but it was not such in the ordinary acceptation of the term. The brightly burning lights shone on no apparatus for distilling evil-smelling gases, no glass retorts, no long lines of bottles. What instruments it disclosed were of a kind more likely to appeal to a sailor than to a chemist, though many of them would probably have seemed odd to both. A lead-line with “marks” and “deeps,” various scoop nets, a long sectional aquarium in which various sea creatures moved, barometers, anemometers, and other “meters” for measuring winds and waters, a great globe, and piles of charts, were some of the articles the room contained, for this was the workshop of Professor Shishkin, the great Russian physicist, member of scores of learned societies, and the ultimate authority on the waves, winds, currents, flora, and fauna of the ocean.

The Professor had come to America about twenty[8] years before, bringing with him a young daughter, a working knowledge of the English language, and a profound acquaintance with the ocean. He had secured a post in a small school, from which he had gone from one college to another, all the while growing in reputation until he came to be probably the best known physicist in the world. When he came to America, he was apparently about fifty years of age, but where and how he had passed those fifty years he never told. Obviously, he must have been a student if not a professor, and it seemed strange that one with his attainments could have lived for half a century unnoticed; yet of his early life no trace was to be had. His name did not appear on the rolls of any of the great European universities; and even after he grew to distinction, no alma mater claimed him for her own. Deliberately he had cut himself off from his early life. To him, the past was dead.

But the past is never really dead. Its beginnings are untraceable, and its ending must ever be unknown. Men put their finger on some turning point in their lives and say, “Here this began,” or, “Here that ended.” Wrong in both assertions! The beginning began long before, and the ending will not end even when R.I.P. is graven on their tombstones. At the very moment when Professor Shishkin was congratulating himself on the peaceful afternoon of his life, strenuous fate was on its way in the darkness of that March evening to call him again to action.

[9]The avatar of fate was one who would attract attention even in New York, that melting pot of the nations. Carelessly dressed, dark, with high cheek-bones and glowing eyes, even the casual might pronounce him a fanatic who was living on his nerves and declare that some day the nerves would burn out and the man collapse.

At the door he gave his name to Olga Shishkin, the Professor’s daughter, now grown to womanhood, and she took it to the Professor in his laboratory.

The Professor was puzzled. “Maxime Gorloff,” he repeated doubtfully. “I don’t recall the name. Did he say what he wanted, Olga?”

Olga shook her head. “No,” she answered. “Only that he wanted to see the distinguished Professor. He seemed very much in earnest. He speaks English well, but with an accent. I think he must be an immigrant.”

“An immigrant! Eh?” The Professor did not measure men by the price of their steamer passages. “Well, show him in. I am always glad to talk with strangers, especially if they are very much in earnest. They usually have a new point of view and can teach me something. Show him in.”

The man came in. If a shade of disappointment crossed his face as he noted the Professor’s white hair and wasted limbs, it disappeared as he returned the latter’s courteous greeting. “I have come many miles to see you, Professor,” he declared quietly, as he took the chair proffered.

[10]“So!” The Professor preened himself with harmless vanity. People often came many miles to see and consult him. “Many miles!” he repeated. “That means so different a thing to-day than it did when I was young. Fifty miles were very many in those days.”

The man Maxime nodded understandingly. “And four thousand is many to-day; yes! Moscow is four thousand miles away.”

“You come from Moscow?” The Professor’s tone expressed only polite interest. Moscow was indeed very far from him, mentally as well as geographically.

The Professor sat rigid, the smile fading slowly from his lips. His hands slowly tightened on the arms of his chair until the knuckles showed white. “I—I—did not catch—that is, what—the House of the Seven Feathers, did you say?”

Pity showed in the young man’s eyes, but he did not waver. “Yes, I said that—Brother,” he reiterated.

Maxime leaned forward. “What shall I say to remind you?” he asked. “Shall I recite the oath of brotherhood or call the names of the Defenders of the Cause? Shall I adjure you by fire or steel or rope? I come from the House of the Seven Feathers, Brother. Make answer!”

[11]The Professor’s dry lips moved. “What is their color, Brother?” he asked, the words dropping unwillingly from his lips.

“May they prosper!” The Professor stroked his beard. The first shock was past, and the words came easier. After all, the visit could portend little. He was too old. “Very well,” he said. “I acknowledge the call. What will you?”

“The Brotherhood has no longer a claim on me. I did it good service once. I gave it my youth and my early manhood, and I paid for it to the full. That was twenty years ago. For twenty years I have had no intercourse with it. My obligation is ended.”

“So long as fire burns and water flows; so long as steel cuts and grass grows; till death and after it,” quoted the other softly.

“Adoption does not free a man from his mother’s call. Your long exemption only adds to your obligation.”

The Professor moved uneasily in his chair. Fear was growing on him, but he tried to shake it off. “I am not in sympathy with the present aims of the Brotherhood,” he protested. “I have lived too long in the outer world. No cause was ever helped by murder. Besides, Russia is not fitted for self-government.”

[12]Maxime shrugged his shoulders. “We will not discuss it,” he declared. “The Brotherhood calls you. Will you obey, or must I first remind you of what it did for you twenty years ago, just before you fled secretly by night from the palace of the Grand Duke in St. Petersburg, bearing in your arms——”

But the man went on pitilessly. “Twenty years ago,” he said, as one repeating a lesson, “you were known by the name of Lladislas Metrovitch. You were a subordinate member of the Brotherhood, and rendered it good though not material service. You were married twice, the second time to an American lady who had been the governess of your nieces. You had one child by her. You were well known for your scientific attainments. One day you were arrested, charged with sedition. You disappeared. Your property was confiscated, your household scattered.

“Three years went by, during which you rotted in the dungeons of the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. Then, by the aid of the Brotherhood, you escaped—old before your time, broken, feeble. You sought for your wife, your family. You could learn little of them. At last you heard that your wife was dead, and that her child and yours was being brought up in the household of the Grand Duke Ivan. You did not dare to claim the child openly, but, aided by the Brotherhood, you stole her and escaped with her to America.”

The Professor raised his head. His shoulders[13] shook. The forgotten horror of those by-gone days had all come back as if it had been but yesterday. He was about to speak when the man interposed.

“I have more to tell,” he said. “When you fled from Russia you thought your wife was dead. You were deceived. She did not die until about a year ago.”

“Not dead! Not dead!” The Professor’s face flushed red, then changed to a ghastly pallor. “Not dead!” he muttered.

“No, not dead!” The worst was over, and the man hurried on. “There was much connected with your arrest that you did not know. You believed that it was due to your association with the Brotherhood. You were wrong. You were arrested because the Grand Duke Ivan admired your wife.”

The Professor’s shoulders shook, but he said no word. Age dulls the capacity to feel; cools the passions as well as the affections. The old man had borne much; no further shock could greatly move him.

“You disappeared. Ivan was kind to your wife, but declared that your arrest had been ordered by the Emperor himself, and that he could do nothing. Soon you were reported dead. Not long after he married her—morganatically, of course. She is not to be too much blamed. She was penniless, alone, in a strange land, with a child to support. She married him. When you stole your child you stole it from her.”

“No, you did not know. The fault was not yours, but that of the system we are trying to destroy. So much for the past! Now for the future. Will you obey the orders of the Brotherhood?”

Maxime’s voice dropped, and he sat silent, watching the older man dumbly fighting through the shock. Pity was in his eyes, but relentlessness was there also—the relentlessness of the priest who pities the victim, but does not drop the sacrificial knife. Patiently he waited for the other to speak.

At last the words came, and Maxime’s face flushed with triumph as he heard them.

The younger man stretched out his hand to the great globe that stood beside him and twirled it on its axis. “In March, just two years ago,” he began, “the ship Orkney sailed from London for St. Petersburg with five millions in gold on board, consigned to the Russian government. It was the people’s gold, borrowed on the people’s credit, to aid in enslaving the people. We swore it should never reach St. Petersburg. We kept our word. The Orkney was wrecked in the night in the Gulf of Bothnia—no one survived to tell where. Russia long sought for it in vain. We ourselves sought for it in vain. But now, at last, a clue has reached our hands.”

[15]“It is not perfect yet, but it will be. Marie Fitzhugh, our agent, will be here in a few hours, and will forge the last links. Her task is difficult, but she will succeed. By one means or another, she will succeed. I would have waited till she had finished her part before seeing you, but I have been ordered to another duty and must leave to-night. So she herself will send you word—perhaps to-morrow. If not to-morrow, soon after.”

“If she succeeds, we shall be able to go to the spot and get the gold. If she fails, we nevertheless shall know approximately where to look for it. But, as you are aware, no vessel can dredge in the Baltic without being watched. We do not want to find the gold for Russia to seize. So we come to you for help.”

“What?” Amazement showed in Professor Shishkin’s face and voice. “Are you serious?” he demanded.

“Why not? You have spent a lifetime studying the sea. You have made a specialty of the Baltic. You have won a great name by your work there. What more natural then than that you should revisit your chosen field? What more natural than that you should take divers with you to explore the sea-bottom? You, and you alone, of all the Brotherhood, can do this without suspicion. You, and you alone, can get the gold safely on board after it is found.”

“There are no buts when the Brotherhood speaks,[16] and it has spoken. If the task be difficult, the more honor in accomplishing it. A ship will be provided, manned, and equipped. Your sole duty is to prepare such apparatus as you may need for your scientific work, and to spread abroad the alleged object of your trip. Probably you had better send an announcement of it to the newspapers. Of course you will not do this until Marie notifies you.”

“One thing more,” went on the messenger, gravely. “I am instructed to command you to take your daughter with you. Her presence will add force to your declaration that the trip is purely scientific.”

The Professor shook his head. “I cannot do it,” he declared. “I cannot and will not take Olga to Russia, under any circumstances. You know why.”

The man sprang to his feet. “Refuse, do you?” he cried, in a sibilant hiss that seemed to fill the room. “Refuse? Have you forgotten the penalty of disobedience? Have you forgotten the oath you took?—‘If I fail in obedience, may I be cut off, I and my children and my children’s children, and my name live no more forever.’ Do you remember, Professor Shishkin?”

The man paused, and his voice changed. “Believe[17] me, I am sorry,” he murmured; “but I, like yourself, am a subordinate. It is the Brotherhood that speaks, not I. And the Brotherhood speaks for the people—do not forget that—speaks for the great, inarticulate Russian people, struggling to burst their age-long shackles. While we sit here, men are sacrificing their lives and women their honor for the cause. Who are you to hold back? No harm will come to your daughter, but even if the risk were ten times greater, still she must take it. You and she both owe it to Russia.” He paused. “What shall I say to the Brotherhood?” he demanded.

The old man bowed his head. “I will obey,” he muttered. “I must obey. I have no choice.”

ALSTON CARUTH lived in the Chimneystack Building. When he returned to his apartments at midnight on the day of Gorloff’s visit to Professor Shishkin, he found Marie Fitzhugh, agent of the Brotherhood, awaiting him. She had risen at the sound of his key in the lock, and stood facing him, externally cool and self-possessed, but with apprehension shining in her soft dark eyes. Her fingers trembled as they rested on the edge of the table, and her color came and went. A close observer would have said that she was frightened half to death.

Caruth, however, was not a close observer; at least, not at that moment. Amazement showed in his eyes as he snatched off his hat and whipped the cigarette from his parting lips. His fresh young face, flushed from the gaiety of the evening, looked almost boyish in its confusion.

His obvious embarrassment seemed to restore the girl’s balance. “Mr. Caruth?” she inquired, with a slight movement of her head.

Caruth nodded. For the moment he was beyond words. Her soft, musical voice and air of refinement impressed him, despite the unconventionality[19] of her presence in his rooms at that time of the night, and his attitude became even more respectful. “Yes,” he stammered; “I am Mr. Caruth. What can I do for you?”

“I am Miss Fitzhugh. I have come four thousand miles to talk with you, Mr. Caruth. Your valet was kind enough to let me wait, though he was clearly horrified by my desiring to do so. Will you not sit down?”

Caruth hesitated. Of medium build, clean-shaven, correctly dressed, he might have stepped out of a Gibson drawing. Every detail was present, even to the strong chin and the firm mouth.

“It is late,” he suggested, glancing at the clock, the hands of which stood straight upward. “I am at your service, of course, but perhaps to-morrow——”

The girl smiled, a trifle wearily. “One does not come four thousand miles for a trifle,” she answered. “The convenances must yield to necessity. I must talk with you to-night.”

Caruth bowed and seated himself across the centre table from her. Though his surprise had not abated, he was rapidly regaining his self-possession, and as the girl resumed her own chair, he leaned forward a little, studying her thoughtfully, noting the anxious lines about her youthful eyes and mouth.

Although her English had been excellent, she did not impress him as being of American nor yet of English birth. An alien air clung intangibly about her and about her costume, which, even to his[20] masculine intelligence, bespoke the work of a dress-maker of more than ordinary skill.

She was plainly a lady. Had it not been too amazing, he would have guessed that she must be a person of distinction in her own land—wherever that might be. That she was beautiful seemed somehow not surprising; that she was very young did. What could such a woman be doing alone in his bachelor rooms at that hour of the night.

Disguising his wonder, he sought to carry off the situation. “You are tired?” he questioned gently. “I’m afraid I kept you waiting a long time. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Can’t I offer you something to eat or drink, Miss Fitzhugh?”

Slowly the girl nodded. “I’m glad,” she breathed, half to herself. “They told me American men were like this, but I could scarcely believe it. In Europe it would have been very different. I am proud of my half-cousins.” She paused; then answered his question. “Thank you,” she said. “I will take a glass of sherry and a biscuit.”

Caruth touched the bell. “Sherry and crackers, Wilkins,” he ordered briefly.

Not until the tray had been set before them, and the valet had gone, did either of them speak again. Caruth was slowly awakening to the fact that the beauty of the woman before him was not ordinary. It was not alone the perfection of her features that appealed to him. Every detail about her was artistically perfect. Her coloring, the poise of her head,[21] the slim roundness of her taper fingers, the iridescent gleam of her brown hair beneath her wide hat—all satisfied his somewhat critical taste.

Suddenly he realized that he was staring, and, dropping his eyes, he forced himself to speak casually. “Your half-cousins?” he queried, answering her lead. “You are, then——”

“American? Yes! On my mother’s side, but my father is Russian, and I have never been in America until to-night. I like it, Mr. Caruth,” she ended—“what I have seen of it. It rests with you to confirm my opinion.”

Caruth questioned her with his eyes. “Yes?” he answered politely. “I hope I shall be able to do so.”

For a moment the girl did not speak. Her bosom rose and fell a trifle faster. She crumbled her cracker nervously, and her hand shook slightly as she lifted her glass. Caruth, silent, attentive, awaited her pleasure.

“Ten days ago,” she said, at last, “a letter was mailed to you at Stockholm in Sweden. It was not intended for you. It was sent to you by mistake—a mistake realized within a few hours after it had been posted. An effort was made to recover it, but it had already started on its way. Its progress has been traced carefully. It left Brest on the steamship Latourette, which reached quarantine here at eight o’clock to-night. It may be delivered to you at any moment.”

Caruth glanced at the clock and smiled. “I fear[22] you are mistaken,” he objected. “Even if this letter reached the post-office to-night—which seems to me doubtful—it will not be delivered until to-morrow—unless, of course, it has a quick delivery stamp on it.”

The girl nodded. “It has a quick delivery stamp on it,” she rejoined promptly; “and if I understand your post-office methods, it will be delivered very soon. The mail-bags left the ship when I did.”

“Yes. Special arrangements had been made, and I was permitted to come up to the city on the tug that brought the mail. I came straight here and have been waiting ever since. The letter has not arrived yet; therefore it must come soon.”

“And when it does?” Caruth’s wonder was growing. Dimly he suspected whither the conversation was tending, and with growing interest he waited for his guest to come to the point. “When it does?” he questioned again, gently.

“You see, Mr. Caruth,” she argued, “I do not try to conceal from you the importance of this letter. It is of the very highest value to me and to my friends. To you, it is neither of value nor of importance, and, not being intended for you, it does not belong to you. It was sent to you by mistake. I have come to ask you to give it back to me unopened. Will you do it?”

Caruth drew a long breath. The inborn tendency of all men of his race to do anything that a pretty[23] woman wishes impelled him to promise. Yet the request was certainly amazing.

“You ask a good deal, Miss Fitzhugh,” he temporized. “I know nothing of this letter. I have no correspondents that I know of in Sweden—nor in Europe either, for that matter. You may be right in saying that the letter is not intended for me; yet—well, I think I am entitled to ask a little further explanation. How is it possible for a letter not intended for me to be addressed to me here—for I presume it is so addressed?”

Miss Fitzhugh drew herself up. “Yes, the address is correct,” she answered coldly. “I have told you it was put on by mistake by a friend of mine who sends me to reclaim the letter——”

She broke off suddenly, as with startling abruptness the electric bell at the door of the apartment sounded in their ears. “There! It’s come! Go quick,” she cried.

Mechanically Caruth rose and turned to the door; then hesitated. “Wilkins will bring it,” he explained.

“Wilkins? Your man? No! Go yourself. This matter is too grave to trust to any one. Go quick.”

Under the spell of her command, Caruth stepped hastily to the door of the room and flung it open. At the end of the hall the valet was just signing the book of a letter carrier. As Caruth appeared he looked up. “Quick delivery letter for you, sir,” he said.

The girl was standing where he had left her. Her lips were parted, and her breath came fast. When she saw the letter her eyes glistened and she stretched out her hand.

The girl’s eyes flashed. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “I have explained my claim to that letter. You have no right to keep it. Give it to me at once.” An imperious stamp of her foot put a period to her words.

A weaker man would have yielded, but Caruth set his jaws. “You have set forth your claim to this letter,” he answered coldly, “after a fashion. But, if you will pardon my saying so, you have by no means proved your right to it. It may very well have been mailed to me by mistake, and you may know it—without being entitled to it.”

Scornfully the woman stared at him. Her head was thrown back, and the breath whistled through her distended nostrils.

“So!” she breathed, at last. “So this is American manhood! For the first time in my life, my word has been questioned to my face.”

Caruth looked, as he felt, acutely uncomfortable. “No, no!” he protested eagerly. “I don’t question your word. I didn’t know that you had given it. Nobody”—a flash of admiration showed in his eyes—“nobody could look at you and doubt you.[25] I don’t doubt that you have told me the exact facts. But I am also very sure that you have not told me all of them. If the letter does not belong to me, I will willingly surrender it to the real owner. But I might do endless harm by surrendering it to the wrong party. I cannot give it up without knowing more.”

Caruth quailed as he spoke. It was terribly hard even to debate anything this woman asked. Scarcely could he force himself to go on. “I must know more,” he pleaded. “Really, I must know more! Don’t you see that I must?”

“Very well. You shall.” The woman paused for an instant and then went on: “This letter and another were put into a bottle which was thrown overboard from a sinking ship. It floated about until ten days ago, when it was picked up by a fisherman. One of the letters was for my friends. The address was legible, and it was forwarded to us by mail, reaching us twenty-four hours later. The address on the other had partly faded; the name of the person for whom it was meant had disappeared altogether. But it was addressed in your care, at your address here. The fisherman who found it showed it to a casual American, who advised him to send it on to you, and who provided him with an envelope and postage, including a quick delivery stamp.

“When our letter came, we hurried down to question the fisherman, and from him learned what I have told you. Our letter had once contained all the information we needed, but part of the writing had been washed out by the sea water, and could[26] not be read. We hope that the letter sent to you may be in better condition, so I have hurried over here to get it from you.”

Caruth listened amazedly. “But,” he objected, “for whom was the letter really meant?”

“I do not know. Evidently for some one associated with you. Can you not guess?”

Caruth shook his head slowly. “No,” he mused. “No, I cannot guess.” Curiously he studied the envelope he held in his hands.

The woman hesitated; then came to a sudden resolution. “There are two envelopes,” she explained. “One of them was put on by the fisherman. Open that, if you will, but be careful.”

Caruth obeyed and drew out the inclosure. It was a small envelope, dirty and stained and smelling strongly of fish. Indeed, a minute scale clung to one corner until he mechanically brushed it away. On the face, in blurred writing, appeared his own name: “Care Mr. Alston Caruth, Chimneystack Apartment Building, New York, N. Y.” Another name had been written just above, but it was indecipherable.

“The whole address was there when the fisherman opened the bottle,” explained the girl. “Part of it soaked off in his pocket on the way to shore. Can you make it out?”

Caruth studied the superscription, and shook his head. “No,” he declared; “I can make out nothing. But I soon will.” With a quick motion, he ripped open the envelope.

[27]Before he could draw out the contents, the girl caught his hand. “Wait!” she cried. “Wait! Have I not proved my right to that letter?”

Caruth shook his head. “Certainly not,” he decided. “So far as I can see, neither you nor I have any title to it, or any right to read it. Nor do I intend to read it further than to see whether the inside gives any clue to the man for whom it is intended.”

“Wait!” Tensely the girl’s hand fell on his arm. “If nothing else will avail,” she cried, “will not my entreaties do so. I beg you, I implore you, to give me that letter. It is nothing to you; it may easily be life or death to me. You do not know for whom it is meant. You are under no obligations to an unknown writer and an unknown addressee. Do not look into it farther. Give me the letter, I implore you!”

She leaned forward. Her violet eyes gleamed into his; her lips quivered, her form shook with the stress. “Oh!” she pleaded. “Give it to me. You will give it to me?”

A sudden passion flamed in Caruth’s veins—a passion that gripped and shook him. “By God!” he cried hoarsely. “You—you——”

The girl started back and dropped her hand. Then her lips curled. Men were all alike, after all. American men were no better than their European brothers. She had seen so many; so very many. Caruth would yield, and she would despise him for it. Yet she went on. “Give it to me,” she breathed.

[28]“No!” Caruth’s voice rang out. “No! No! Oh, you women! You beautiful women! How easily you beguile men! How dare you do it? How dare you use beauty such as yours for such a purpose? How dare you use such tools to gain your selfish ends?”

“How dare I?” The girl’s form straightened till to Caruth’s gaze she seemed to tower above him. “How dare I?” Her voice was low and thrilling, but it did not quiver. “How dare I? I dare because my country calls me to do it. All that I am and have belongs to it. My future, my liberty, my life, are all at its service. I am entitled to that letter—I swear it. If you ask it, I will tell you everything, and in so doing put my life in your hands. Shall I do it?”

Caruth drew his hand across his eyes. “No!” he said hoarsely. “I believe you. Take the letter.”

Eagerly the woman reached out her hand, but before her fingers could close upon the envelope, the portières that hung between the apartment and an inner room clashed gently on their rings and Caruth’s valet pushed his way through them. “I beg pardon, sir!” he murmured deferentially.

Annoyed, Caruth faced him, the hand holding the letter dropping to his side. “Well, Wilkins?” he questioned coldly.

“I beg pardon, sir,” repeated the man. “But I think that letter belongs to me, sir. Will you kindly look inside and see if it doesn’t begin ‘My dear Jim’ and end ‘Yours, Bill,’ sir? If it does, it is certainly mine, sir. I think it’s from my brother Bill, sir.”

SLOWLY Caruth regained his balance. The valet’s deferential plea came like a tonic to his overstrung nerves. Nothing was more natural than that Wilkins should have had a letter addressed in his care; he wondered that the possibility of this had not occurred to him at once. And with the advent of the valet, the whole situation had become ridiculous; he felt as if he had been playing a part in some melodrama and had suddenly stepped back into the realm of common sense. With a laugh on his lips, he turned to Miss Fitzhugh.

His lips straightened and his smile froze. Never had he seen such disappointment on the face of a woman. Her eyes glared roundly and her breath whistled through her parted lips. Blindly she caught at the table, like one about to collapse. Her trembling fingers touched a wine-glass, and mechanically she lifted it to her lips.

As she drank, the color came back to her cheeks and her eyes brightened. Caruth, watching, noticed that she was listening to some one. An instant later he realized that it was Wilkins, and, with an effort, he wrenched his eyes away from hers and turned them on the valet.

[30]The man’s attitude was deferential in the extreme. His eyes were discreetly dropped, and he seemed unaware of the confusion his appearance had caused. “I had a brother that was a sea-faring man, sir,” he was saying. “Sailed out of Lunnon in the steamship Orkney for St. Petersburg, hard on two years ago, sir. She was never heard from again. Lost at sea somewheres, sir. The letter may be from him, sir. I told him to write me in your care, sir.”

Miss Fitzhugh did not speak, and Caruth hesitated, but only for a moment. Slowly he opened the letter and glanced at the top and bottom of the scrawl; mechanically he refolded it and slipped it back into its envelope. “You’ve hit it, Wilkins,” he declared. “The letter does begin ‘Dear Jim’ and does end ‘Your brother, Bill.’ Your claim seems to be clear.” He handed the letter to the man.

As the latter took it, the woman came out of her trance. “Wilkins!” she called sharply.

Without taking her eyes from him, Miss Fitzhugh sank into her chair. “So, Wilkins,” she said slowly, “you have been listening?”

“Yes, madam.” There was no defiance nor disrespect in the valet’s tones, nor was there any apology. He simply admitted the undeniable fact, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“It is a vice of servants the world over. When one subordinates himself to the will of another, he seems[31] to lose many of the manly virtues. If you have been listening, Wilkins, you know that I put a high value on that letter. It seems that it is yours. Well, I will buy it from you—unread. What is your price?”

Slowly the man shook his head. “I would rather not sell it, madam,” he answered.

“Nonsense! Of course you will sell it.” The woman spoke imperiously, but the valet did not change his submissive yet dogged bearing. “I have not much money with me, but I will give you five hundred dollars cash for it.”

Miss Fitzhugh opened the bag that swung from her belt and threw a roll of bills on the table. “Count that for me, please, Mr. Caruth,” she ordered. “I am not quick at American money.”

Caruth obeyed in silence. Though Wilkins was clearly within his rights, he found himself regarding the man with rising anger, and would have intervened if it had seemed possible for him to do so. But the situation for the time being, at least, was dearly beyond his control. “Eleven hundred and fifty-one dollars,” he announced.

“It is all I have. Take it and give me the letter.” Miss Fitzhugh was again addressing the valet.

Undisturbed, the woman turned to Caruth. “Lend me a thousand dollars,” she requested.

[32]Caruth started. Then, with a smile, he took out his pocket-book and added its contents to the pile. “There’s only about seven hundred here, Wilkins,” he remarked, half humorously, “but I’ll give you my check for the balance—if you’ll accept it.”

The letter rustled in Wilkins’s fingers as he twisted and turned it. Obviously he was tempted. Yet, after a quick questioning glance at the woman’s face, he again shook his head. “No, madam,” he replied coolly. “Bill took a good deal of trouble to get this to me, and I fancy it’s valuable. Any way, I think I’ll chance it, madam.”

“Valuable!” The woman stared at the valet in seeming surprise. “Nonsense!” she scoffed. “What could your Bill tell you that could be worth eighteen hundred dollars. If you suppose that the information I hope it contains will be worth anything to you in a money way, you are mistaken. It would cost you your life to try to use it. Be wise: take the money and give me the letter. The value of the letter to us lies chiefly in preventing other people from getting it.”

“Very well, madam. I’ll destroy it, then, madam.” He stepped to the fire and made a motion to throw it upon the flames.

Like a cat, the woman sprang forward and caught his arm, her silken skirts hissing as she moved. “No, no!” she cried.

A triumphant smile curled the valet’s lips. “Very well, madam,” he acceded meekly. “As you wish, madam.”

[33]The woman fell back a step, and stood staring at the valet. For the first time, she seemed to try to take his measure as a man, and to bend her faculties to reading the lines of his features. “Humph!” she murmured, at last, in a singular tone. “I am beginning to see. How long have you been with Mr. Caruth, Wilkins?”

“You brought recommendations, of course! Mr. Caruth, I should advise you to look up the writers of those recommendations at once. You may learn something that will surprise you. Now, Wilkins, listen to me.” A subtle change came into Miss Fitzhugh’s voice; she might almost have been addressing an equal. “You have played your part well and have served your master well. But you had better not push matters too far. It is dangerous.”

A glint of fear crept into the valet’s eyes, and his look wandered up and down the girl’s person, as if expecting to see a weapon; almost he seemed to fear an attack of some kind. “Dangerous in what way, madam?” he asked, still respectfully.

“Dangerous by violence. Do you think those who sent me here—four thousand miles—to get that letter, will let you escape with it? Once you have read it, there will be no more safety for you on the face of the earth. Death will dog your footsteps and sit by your side. Sleeping and waking, he will be upon you. You cannot beg for mercy, for there will be no one from whom to beg. When I go out of that door,[34] I disappear, and even if you could find me, it would not save you, for I am only an agent, powerless to change the will of my superiors. I give you my word that in asking for that letter I am trying to save your life, as well as to gain my own ends. I give you my word that I know of no way in which you can evade your fate, once you have read it. For the last time, I beg you, take the money and give me the letter.”

There was silence in the room as the valet turned the letter over and over, staring at it, hesitating. His fingers trembled and his eyes grew wider.

With a shock, Caruth realized that murder had been threatened in his very presence—and that he was not horrified, as he knew he ought to have been. Rather, he sympathized with the woman, who towered above the man in angry beauty.

At last the valet broke the silence. “My God!” he whispered. “My God!” Slowly and unsteadily, he made his way to the table and laid the letter upon it. Slowly, he picked up the bills one by one. Then he raised his heavy eyes and for an instant looked into the face of the woman. The next moment he was at the door, hurrying away with the swift, silent footsteps of the well-trained servant. The portières fell together behind him.

With a long sigh of relief, the girl picked up the letter. The strain of the past moments showed itself in her face.

“I will return your money as soon as I can see my friends,” she declared weariedly. “Meanwhile,[35] perhaps you will retain this.” She stripped a ring from her fingers. “It is worth more than the money,” she added.

Caruth drew back, deeply hurt. “Thank you,” he returned angrily, “but I am not a pawnbroker—even if I am accessory to a threat to commit murder. Return the money when you like.”

He spoke bitterly, for he was furious that he should have allowed his man to be forced into the surrender of his rights. Man-like, he felt the necessity of blaming his own derelictions on some one else.

Miss Fitzhugh seemed to understand, for she stepped forward and laid her hand on his arm. “Believe me, Mr. Caruth,” she declared earnestly, “believe me, you have done right. Whatever value this letter possessed belongs to us of right. The man who wrote it betrayed a secret that was not his; and, whether his or no, your valet could not have profited by it. You have done a good deed, and you have been as kind and true and staunch to me as my own brother could have been. My mother was right when she told me a woman could always appeal safely to an American gentleman. Now, good-night and good-by.”

Alarm drove away Caruth’s misgivings. “You—you will let me see you again,” he begged.

Slowly the woman shook her head. “I fear not,” she answered. “I shall sail for home on the next steamer—this very day if I can find one leaving. This is good-by.”

[36]“But—but—where are you going? It is not easy for a woman to find accommodations at this time of the night. See, it is after twelve o’clock. Won’t you stay here? I can easily go to a hotel.”

Again the woman shook her head. “I have friends waiting for me,” she averred. “Good-night.”

The blackness of despair settled on Caruth. “But—but—I can’t let you go like this. I must see you again. Tell me where your home is. Let me hope to see you there some day. I’ve known you only an hour or two, but I can’t—I can’t let you go out of my life this way, without a word or a sign. I must see—good God! What’s the matter?”

On the woman’s face a look of frozen horror had dawned. Her eyes dropped from his to the letter she had unconsciously withdrawn from its envelope; and following them, Caruth saw in her hand a sheet of paper, stiff and white, very different from the soft, sea-stained sheet he had handled a few moments before. It scarcely needed her terrified words to give the explanation.

“He has substituted another letter!” she cried. “He was acting all the time! And I did not guess! I did not guess! He has gone with the hope of Russia in his hands!”

RECKLESSLY Caruth plunged down the half-lighted steps. The elevator had stopped running, and, in any event, he had no time to wait for elevators. Down he sped, past tight-shut doors, whose occupants slept calmly despite his noisy rush; over marble steps, through tessellated halls, round slippery corners. Twice he nearly fell, but he saved himself and went on, bursting at last like a meteor on the scandalized watchman, whom the clatter of his coming had roused from a blameless nap.

“Now, now, now!” clamored that individual. “What in hell’s bells you think you’re doing, gallopin’ like this? Why, it’s Mr. Caruth!”

“Yes, it’s I.” The young man’s breath came in gasps. One does not race down eight flights of steps without showing the effects. “Yes, it’s I! Has my man, Wilkins, gone out in the last five minutes?”

“Wilkins? Naw! Say, Mr. Caruth, you’d better go to bed and sleep it off, or it’ll be you for the psychopathic ward the first thing you know.”

“Bosh! Wilkins has run away from my rooms with a valuable letter and eighteen hundred dollars in money. Are you sure he hasn’t passed you?”

[38]“Eighteen hundred! Gee! ’Course I’m sure. Ain’t I been here right along?”

Caruth drew a long breath and glanced up the stairway down which he had just raced. So sure had he been that Wilkins had fled that he had not stopped to search in his own apartments. A suspicion that he had made himself ridiculous began to penetrate to his brain, and he glanced shamefacedly at the watchman.

That individual was regarding him suspiciously. He caught the look, interpreted it correctly, and smiled encouragingly. “It’s all right, Mr. Caruth,” he extenuated. “It’s all to the regular for a gent to have the nightmare when he goes to sleep in his chair. Just you go back to your rooms and take a dose of bromide and say your lay-me-downs, and neither of us’ll remember anything about this to-morrow. I’d start the elevator for you if I could, but I can’t, so it’s you for the glue-foot climb.”

Caruth scarcely heard the man. His first spasm of distrust in his own action had quickly passed, and by the time the other had finished he had gone back to his first idea.

“Nonsense, Jackson!” he burst out impatiently. “I haven’t been asleep. Wilkins has fled within five minutes. If he hasn’t passed you, he must have gone some other way. How else could he go? Quick, man! He must be caught.”

But the watchman refused to be hurried. “There ain’t no way out but this,” he declared, “unless he done a high dive from the fire-escape.”

[39]Caruth started. He had forgotten the dangerous combination of open platforms and loose-hung ladders plastered across the hall windows on each floor. If Wilkins had taken that means of escape, as was entirely probable, he must be well out of reach, and no way to find him would remain except the slow appeal to the police. He would call up the headquarters and——

Suddenly he recalled his visitor. Would she care to have the affair made public? Certainly he could not act without consulting her.

The watchman’s voice broke on him. That individual had switched on the lights in the hall, and had gone back to where a closed door gave on an alley. “We’ll take a look at that Jacob’s ladder just to satisfy you, Mr. Caruth,” he called. “See here!” He threw open the door and let Caruth step out into the night.

At first the alley seemed dark, but soon objects began to stand out in the faint light. First the skyline showed, clear against the towering sides of the chasm, then the iron of the fire-escape disentangled itself from the darkness and began to show in rectangular tracery.

Before Caruth could distinguish more, the watchman uttered an exclamation. “By George!” he cried. “Somebody has been on that escape. It’s been let down.”

Caruth looked where the other pointed. Plainly discernible now to his distended pupils, the lowest stretch of the iron ladder trailed across his field of[40] vision. Some one had cut loose the fastenings that held it high in the air, out of reach of casual sneak thieves, and had lowered it to the ground.

Wilkins’s selection of a route was obvious. But it was also obvious that he was gone.

Caruth turned disconsolately away. He was beginning to wonder what had become of Miss Fitzhugh. When he had started down the stairs, she had been close behind him, and he had expected her to follow, but though more than time enough for her to reach the bottom had elapsed, she had not appeared. His first thought was that she had remained above out of some belated care for her reputation. Then, quickly following, came the possibility of a more sinister explanation.

The incidents of the night to his mind admitted but one explanation. Despite her American name (which might well have been assumed) the girl was a Russian, and he who says Russia nowadays connotes revolution, plots, arrests, and all the rest of the melodrama. The girl might be a nihilist or she might be a police spy, but he was sure that she must be one or the other. And Wilkins was her enemy. She had recognized him as such—not at first, but toward the end, when he had tricked her by his feint of throwing the letter in the fire. Caruth remembered her every word. And he had left her alone! How did he know that Wilkins had gone? How did he know that he had not concealed himself and waited——

[41]Slow and long-drawn-out when written down, the sequence of events with all its possibilities flashed like lightning through his mind. His hair rose upon his head, and the sweat stood out upon his forehead. His heart thumped furiously! Scarcely could he comprehend the words of the watchman.

Yet that individual was cursing roundly. “I’d like to know who in h——’s setting leaky pots out on that escape,” he finished. “Dropping stuff on a man’s clothes and spoilin’——”

The voice died away in an inarticulate murmur, and Caruth saw the man’s face blanch as he held out his hand. “It’s blood,” he hissed. “Blood! Blood! Somebody’s bleedin’ like a stuck pig up there. Somebody’s been murdered.” He ran down the hall and pressed the button of a police call. Then he came hurrying back.

“Here; you!” he shouted, his respectful manner falling from him like a garment. “Chase up them steps to the third floor and meet me at the window. On your way, now, Willie!”

Caruth came out of his trance and sped up the main stairway as the watchman ran up the fire-escape. One flight—two flights—three flights! Along the hall he rushed and threw open the window, just as the watchman reached it from below.

The electric lights threw a white glare upon the grating and upon a human form huddled across it in a strange, unnatural shape. The light fell upon the livid face and staring eyes and upon the dark[42] spot that marred the whiteness of the open shirt bosom. Caruth drew his breath sobbingly. For the body was not that which he had feared to see.

The watchman bent and peered into the white face. “It’s Wilkins, all right,” he commented. “He didn’t get far with that eighteen hundred of yours. Somebody must have been laying for him. They’ve turned his pockets inside out, and I guess they got it, all right.” Deftly he ran his hand over the body.

“Nothin’ doing,” he reported. “They’ve skinned him clean. Here, Mr. Caruth! The cops’ll be here in a minute. I wish you’d chase down and put ’em wise.”

Caruth obeyed as he would have obeyed any behest of the stronger will. The situation had dazed him. An immense relief mingled with an immense terror; relief that his worst fears had not been realized; terror lest something even worse had happened in its stead. Wilkins was dead; presumably the woman still lived. But whose hand had struck the blow?

A swish of silk sounded in his ears, and he looked up. She was there before him, peering downward with curious, frightened eyes.

“Mr. Caruth,” she called, in hushed tones. “Mr. Caruth! Has anything happened?”

[43]“I have no time to tell you. You must go. The police are coming, and you must not be seen. Hurry!”

The unsolved mystery of the girl’s visit had grown blacker than ever, but Caruth did not hesitate. He knew that it was his duty to detain her till the fire-escape had given up its secret, but not for a moment did he pause. He refused to think of what it all meant. He only knew that he was on her side, heart and soul, and would do her bidding till he died.

But the girl held back. “The letter,” she pleaded. “I cannot go without it.”

“You must. I didn’t want to tell you, but—Wilkins has been murdered, and the police are coming. The letter is out of reach, for the moment anyhow. You must go at once. The police will be here in a moment.” He hurried her to the door and peered out. Bare and silent in the first break of dawn, the street stretched interminably away. No human being seemed to stir. But as he listened a far-away rumble grew on his ears.

In an instant she was gone, hurrying swiftly down the street, with steps that did not falter. Caruth watched till he saw a man’s figure step from the shadows to join her, and the two vanish around a corner. Then, sick at heart, as only the young can[44] be when they find their heart’s idol clay, he turned back to greet the police. They were at his elbow—six of them—leaping from a wagon and hurrying forward. “What’s doing?” demanded the foremost.

The officer spun round. “On your way, boys!” he ordered. “Front and back!” He turned to Caruth. “Who did it?” he demanded.

If the young man hesitated, it was only for an instant. “I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s my valet. He robbed me and fled. I discovered it a moment later, and started after him. He had disappeared. The watchman found his body. His pockets were empty. Some confederate must have been waiting for him.”

The two men were alone in the hall. The other officers had all vanished, some through the rear entrance; some up the stairs. The crowd that was to come had not yet gathered, though the sound of running footsteps outside showed that its first units were coming, attracted by the clatter of the patrol.

The officer, used to scenes of excitement, and knowing the importance of ideas expressed before those in touch with tragedy had time consciously or unconsciously to mould their opinions, waited to ask one more question before he too hurried to the rear.

[45]Caruth looked him straight in the face. “No,” he lied. “No, I’ve seen nobody. As I said, the man robbed me, and I suppose some confederate killed him for his booty.”

When the officer had gone, Caruth turned and with leaden feet climbed the weary stairs that led to his room. He did not stop at the third floor, nor go again to inspect the lump of pallid flesh that alone remained of his servant. In fact, for the time he had altogether forgotten Wilkins. The murder had driven the murdered man from his mind.

He had answered the officer on the spur of the moment, thinking only to shield the girl, and not considering the possible—yes, the inevitable—consequences. The words once said, he would have given worlds to recall them, and yet he knew that he would only have reiterated them, if given the chance.

He would have no such chance, however. The true tale of the night’s events would have been preposterous enough at best. He could fancy how a hard-headed American jury would have listened to it, and how even a fourth-rate lawyer would have proved its impossibility. But, at all events, in telling it, he would have been telling the truth, and would have had the consciousness of rectitude to support him.

But his hasty answer had made the truth impossible, and he must go on piling lie upon lie in sickening iteration. Liars need good memories; would[46] his prove equal to the task? Would no one catch him tripping? His answer had made him a criminal in the eyes of the law—an accessory after the fact. The thought sickened him; and yet mingled with his dismay was a fierce joy that he was doing it for her sake—for the sake of the woman who had walked into his life a few moments before; a woman of whose status and probably of whose real name he was ignorant.

Why had he done it, he asked himself with dazed wonder. He owed her nothing. She had forced herself on him, had cajoled him, and had finally fled, leaving him to bear the brunt of her crime—hers or her accomplices. He had done all she asked, had aided her meekly, and at the end had placed himself in shameful jeopardy without even being asked to do so. Harshly he laughed as he thought of it.

Then he threw out his hands. “There’s no use in thinking,” he muttered. “I’m a fool—but it’s stronger than I am. I must go on to the end—and lie and lie and lie.”

AFTER all, matters went off very quietly. The murder of James Wilkins caused a surprisingly small sensation. Circumstances were against it. A prominent statesman had just denounced another prominent statesman for having accepted the tainted money of a wicked trust, and the accused statesman was calling heaven and earth as witness to his innocence; the champion heavyweight pugilist of the country had just given way to a new champion; and the Black Hand had blown up a restaurant whose proprietor had defied it. The papers had little space left for a plain case of robbery and murder, such as that of Wilkins seemed to be.

Caruth had told a straight story, which had been accepted at its face value. According to him, he had come home late and had sat down to smoke before going to bed. He had laid some money—about eighteen hundred dollars in bills—on the table beside him. Wilkins had been moving about and had seen the money and after a moment had left the room. When Caruth looked for the money an instant later it had disappeared. He had hurried downstairs in hope of catching the man, and with the aid of the night watchman had found his body. On looking[48] up the references Wilkins had brought him, he had found that they were forged. He suspected, therefore, that the man had entered his service with sinister intent, and had been murdered by a confederate who had come to join him in the robbery.

The recital of this combination of fact and fancy gave Caruth no compunctions so far as Wilkins was concerned; the man’s references really were forged, and he had really stolen the money, by whatever particular name the law might label his act.

To Caruth, this tale seemed very lame, but, to his astonishment, no one questioned it. So utterly was this the case that it irritated him; it seemed to him extraordinary that the actual sequence of events could have happened without in some way impressing itself on the intelligence of every one who came within reach of it. He did not want to be suspected, yet the lack of detective ability on the part of the police angered him. Why this should be so, let psychologists explain.

The money borrowed from him by the so-called Miss Fitzhugh had been returned the afternoon after the crime in the form of a money-order sent by mail, about as clever a way of combining safety in transmission with concealment of the sender as could well be contrived. Clearly she did not desire to continue the acquaintance.

Caruth did! For several days he carefully abstained from any search, fearing that to do so might excite suspicion, but after a week had passed and[49] Wilkins seemed forgotten, he began to think it safe to start inquiries.

His search began at the steamship offices. He first examined the passenger list of the Latourette, the vessel on which Miss Fitzhugh had claimed to have arrived, and sought for her name, only to find that it was not there. Less hopefully, he examined the lists of the vessels sailing from New York during the week that had elapsed since the murder, only to find no trace of her. Finally something happened that determined him to enlist the aid of Joe Bristow, a newspaper man of his acquaintance.

Bristow was ship-news reporter of the Consolidated Press. His duties required him to remain at Quarantine so long as any steamship was likely to arrive there. Ordinarily he left for the city at five or six o’clock in the afternoon, but if one of the great liners reported itself by wireless as intending to make port that night, he had to remain to see what news and passengers she brought. Few steamships reached New York without being boarded by him, and few important visitors entered port without being interviewed by him. He, if any one, would be likely to know if anybody answering Miss Fitzhugh’s description had arrived recently.

Caruth, who knew him slightly as the occupant of a small apartment high up in the Chimneystack Building, took the first opportunity that afforded to accost him and to invite him into his apartment.

Bristow accepted readily, though a faint smile[50] curved his lips, as if some secret idea were stirring in his mind. He did not know Caruth very well, though he had frequently passed the time of day with him, and he had never before been asked to join the young fellow. Newspaper men are apt to grow cynical, and Bristow had learned to suspect the motives of those who sought him out.

Caruth led his guest to his den, and placed the decanters before him. Then, through the wreaths of tobacco smoke, he put his question, leading up to it with what he believed to be commendable astuteness.

Bristow listened quietly; then he answered one question with another. “The Latourette?” he repeated. “Yes; she arrived at eight o’clock on the night of March 5. Her mails and two of her passengers were brought up to the city on the mail tug. Let’s see—that was the night your valet was murdered, wasn’t it?”

Caruth blenched slightly. The reporter’s inquiry was probably only casual, but it might easily be otherwise. Perhaps he had erred in consulting this keen-faced newspaper man. However, there was nothing to do but to go on.

Bristow nodded. “I saw the lady,” he stated reflectively. “She was a looker all right. She had deep violet eyes and dark hair with a glint in it. She spoke English perfectly, but there was something foreign about her.” He paused and knocked the[51] ash from his cigar. “I came up on the tug with her,” he added casually.

Bristow smiled inscrutably. “I don’t doubt you have,” he answered drily, “and, as it happens, I can probably give you some information. The question is whether I shall do it.”

Caruth colored. “I don’t understand you, Mr. Bristow,” he syllabled anxiously.

“Probably not. I will try to explain.” The reporter tossed his cigar into the fire and leaned back in his chair. “Isn’t it curious how things fit in together?” he began reflectively. “Life is a mosaic made up of hundreds of separate facts. Each belongs in one place and only in one. Until rightly fitted, the whole is an unintelligible jumble. But when fitted, we see that they are all parts of one design. I am interested in Russia and Russians. My work has compelled me to be; some of the best ‘stories’ I have gotten for the Consolidated Press have had to do with Russia. I am well acquainted in the Russian colony here. Professor Shishkin, the distinguished Russian scientist, is a great friend of mine. I’m telling you this so that you may understand why I was interested in this woman—this Russian woman, for she was Russian—about whom you are inquiring. My interest did not decrease when she took a cab at the Battery and told the cabman to drive her to this building.”

“When I returned home after midnight,” went on the reporter, “the elevator had stopped running, and I had to walk up the stairs. Your door was ajar. As I passed it I distinctly heard a woman’s voice—and yours. It was none of my business, and I went on upstairs and to bed. The next morning I heard about your valet’s murder, and noticed that you said nothing about a visitor in your flat. Yet a woman must have been there when your man fled; in fact, I suspect that he had left your door open in his flight only a moment before I passed up the stairs. Your inquiry seems to bring all these facts into a somewhat curious consonance.”

Caruth was breathing hard. “Well?” he asked. “What are you going to do about it?”

The reporter hesitated. “I don’t know,” he answered at last, frankly. “It all depends! But I want you to understand one thing, Mr. Caruth: I am not a police reporter nor a yellow sensation reporter. My duty to the Consolidated Press does not call on me to solve murder mysteries, nor to pry into scandals. I don’t know you very well, nor what you are capable of doing at a pinch. For the matter of that, nobody does know what a man is capable of—not even himself. I’ve seen too many unexpected manifestations of virtue and of crime to judge lightly. That is why I have kept silent, though I knew you were holding back something about this murder. I don’t think to-night’s developments will lead me to[53] change my course, though I cannot be certain. If you have any explanation to make, I shall be glad to hear it. I shall not make a newspaper story out of it, and I shall not repeat it without grave cause. More than this I cannot promise.”

Caruth did not answer for a moment. His thoughts whirled, unsettled as dry leaves in an October blast. His secret, it seemed, was not his secret at all—had never been his secret. From the first, this newspaper man had been able to shatter his glib story by a word, and had refrained from doing so. How many others possessed the same potentiality for mischief? Abruptly he threw away his cigar.

“I’ll tell you the whole story,” he declared. “I don’t know whether you’ll believe it or not. Probably I shouldn’t believe it myself if any one else told it to me. It seems too preposterous to talk about plots and terrorists and all that here in New York.”

“Not at all,” Bristow smiled. “New York is a hot-bed of plots. Probably nine-tenths of all the political plots in the world are hatched here and hereabouts. Just consider a moment! Anybody can plot in this country in perfect safety; and there are plenty of plotters handy. Is it a Russian plot? New York is the second largest Russian city in the world. It has thousands upon thousands of dwellers who have been driven out of Russia at the blow of the knout. Is it a German one? Berlin is the only city in the world holding more Germans than New York. Is it an Italian one? There are more Italians[54] in and around New York than there are in Rome. Plots? Why, New York reeks with plots and plotters! Men lay their schemes, raise their funds, choose their emissaries, and a month or so later something happens in Europe—it may be the murder of a king. But it started here, beneath our noses.”

“But if there are so many plots, why are there so few results? We seldom hear——”

“Because if plotters are safe here, so are spies. Every European Government maintains an army of spies in this country. Every assemblage of plotters has one or more traitors in the pay of those who are menaced. It’s as broad as it’s long. But go on with your story. I only wanted to assure you that it will have to be a very remarkable case of plotting to surprise me.”

Caruth plunged in. “When I came home that night,” he began, “she was waiting for me. I had never seen her before. She said she was a Russian—the daughter of a Russian man and an American woman. She gave me a name, but it was probably assumed. She wanted a letter that had been mailed to me in Stockholm ten days before—by mistake, she said. It enclosed another letter that had been picked up in a bottle floating in the Baltic. The address of this second letter was partly illegible, but it was directed in my care and was sent to me accordingly. She said the letter belonged of right to her friends. While she was speaking the letter arrived—by special delivery. It seemed to be as she had stated.[55] I was about to surrender it to her when my man, Wilkins, claimed it. More, he proved his claim. I gave him the letter. She tried to buy it from him—offered eighteen hundred dollars cash for it. Wilkins refused. Then she threatened him. Said she asked him to surrender it for his own sake; that he would be killed if he once read it; that she could not save him. Of course this smacked of revolution, nihilism, terrorism. Wilkins appeared to be frightened. He agreed to surrender the letter. He laid it on the table, took the money, and went out. Three minutes later we discovered that he had substituted blank paper for the letter. I ran after him and found him dead. The girl left just before the police came.”

Caruth colored. “It—it isn’t a thing that one tells to just any one,” he stammered. “But—well, I suppose it sounds foolish to you, but—I love her.”

The reporter did not smile. “Foolish?” he echoed gently. “Why foolish? Love is not foolishness. It’s madness, perhaps, but not foolishness. Good Heavens! Do you think one can be a newspaper man and see daily the broad trail of joy and sorrow, blood, death, ruin, happiness, rapture, and all the rest of it that love marks athwart the path of human life, and think it foolishness? Why, man, love means life! It means the preservation of the race! It means evolution! It is the one great primal passion![56] No, Mr. Caruth; never expect a newspaper man to laugh at love. He has seen too much of it. Of course I knew that must be your reason for screening the woman. But do you think she killed him?”

“She couldn’t.” The young fellow leaned forward. “She couldn’t,” he declared eagerly. “See here: Wilkins took the money and fled. He knew we would be after him in a moment. He would not have delayed. He must have been out on that fire-escape and down to the place where he was killed before I left the room. This is the eighth floor; he was found on the third. He must have gone there by himself. No one could have carried his body there—not possibly! And it is preposterous to suppose that he went down to the third floor and waited there for her to overtake and murder him. No! She didn’t do it! She couldn’t have done it.”

Caruth threw up his hands. “Very likely,” he groaned. “And yet how could an accomplice know that Wilkins had gotten away with the letter before she knew it herself? For he was probably dead when she did discover it. If not, he must have been killed within a very few seconds afterwards. She made no signal; she had no reason to make any. How could an accomplice know?”

[57]“Let’s see!” Bristow looked around the room. “You were sitting in here, were you not?” he asked.

“Of course you were. My dear fellow, can’t you really answer your own question?”

Caruth shook his head hopelessly. “I’ve thought and thought,” he declared, “but I don’t progress an inch. Can you answer it?”

“Of course! Look through the sliding doors behind you. What is that thing that cuts across the upper left-hand corner of the window at the back?”

Caruth looked, then rose to his feet. Chagrin was pictured on his features. “Do you know,” he admitted disgustedly, “I never thought of that before? I never realized that that infernal fire-escape crossed my window. There is such a little piece of it that——”

“There is quite enough to permit a man to peer into your rooms. No doubt the murderer was watching there, and when Wilkins tried to escape by that route he found death awaiting him.”

“Perhaps he didn’t know it. Perhaps he was a mere thief who killed for money; or perhaps he saw the shift which was made too deftly for you to notice; or perhaps the girl signalled him.”

Caruth protested. “She couldn’t, I tell you!” he cried. “The time element——”

“Oh, I don’t think she did. I am merely citing[58] possibilities. I don’t think she did, and I am free to admit that I really believe that Wilkins got only what he was fishing for. He was clearly a thief, and he seems to have been playing a dangerous game and to have lost out. I certainly do not feel called upon to take any steps to avenge him. But the girl is a different matter. You want to find her. Why?”

Caruth flushed. He looked very boyish to the reporter, who, scarcely older in years, was infinitely his senior in man-making experiences and responsibilities. Boyish, Caruth was without doubt, but American boys possess possibilities of rapid development that amaze the older people of the globe.

“Can’t I?” he answered, between his teeth. “Perhaps not. But if she is free, I mean to try. Anyhow, I must see her. I must. You said you might be able to help me!” he finished, with a boyish appeal in his voice.

The reporter rose and took up his hat. “I can give you some information,” he admitted. “Whether it will help you, is another question. You have been assuming, I believe, that the lady is a nihilist, or terrorist, or whatever they may call themselves?”

“God knows! She may be. On the other hand she may be an agent of the Russian Government, or she may be playing for her own hand. Europe[59] breeds plenty of men and women—aristocrats to their finger-tips—who are driven by poverty to shady ways. Until the bloom is rubbed off, they are the most dangerous rogues living, bearers of proud names, masters of every social grace, apparently with everything to commend them, and yet rotten to the core. Europeans spot them and weed them out after a while, but we Americans are always fair game. I don’t say your Miss Fitzhugh is one of these—but she may be. An angel face is often part of a stock in trade. Be wise, Mr. Caruth. This woman has taken herself out of your life. Let her go!”

But the young fellow shook his head. “I won’t believe any evil of her,” he muttered, “and, any way, I must find her.”

The reporter shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, very well, then,” he said. “You’re old enough to decide for yourself. You will find her at the Women’s Hotel. She is staying there.”

THE event that had driven Caruth to seek Bristow’s aid was the appearance of a man who called himself Tom Wilkins and claimed to be a brother of the deceased valet.

Tom Wilkins was a tall, well built, red-faced individual with a projecting chin and small, sharp eyes. He bore a general resemblance to his brother James, but his eyes had a fiery gleam that Caruth had never noticed in those of his late valet. Perhaps the difference came by nature and perhaps by training; or perhaps there was no difference, the valet having merely hidden his soul behind discreetly down-dropped lids. Since he had played the trick that had led to his death, Caruth had been very uncertain as to his real character.

But he was in little doubt concerning that of Tom Wilkins. The man, he decided almost at first glance, was distinctly dangerous. Years of life in the West had rubbed away any smugness that might have characterized him in early life, and had made him bold and aggressive. The quickly arising necessities of the frontier had developed him, implanting or improving the power of quick decision and action, until it was almost automatic. Caruth had never[61] known a Western “bad man,” but he felt instinctively that Tom Wilkins would fall into that category.

On his first visit to the Chimneystack Building Wilkins had said little to Caruth, but that little had been calculated to disturb the younger man, and to show him how thin was the ice over which he was skating.

“There ain’t been no special affectation lost between me and Jim,” he declared. “I ain’t laid eyes on him for years. Jim stayed here in the effete East and played the human doormat; I went West and played pretty nearly everything and everybody in reach. Once in so often I’d hear of a chance in stocks or horses or something that Jim could use, and I’d put him wise about it. Now and then Jim would learn of something that I could use, and he’d put me wise. Jim cat-footed through life, and I bulled through it. We played into each other’s hands reasonable well.”

“Yes! I got sort of tired last month, an’ made up my mind to emigrate. I had a bunch of sheep over on the Gunnison that I’d been herdin’, and I was yearning for the company of something that wouldn’t say baa whenever you addressed ’em. Playing collie to a bunch of muttons ain’t what it used to was when shepherds carried crooks and wore loose effects, and I found it mighty monumentous and unsatiated, so I shakes the job and lines out for Denver, and there I finds a letter from Jim telling me to come to New York P. D. Q. So I comes,[62] and gets here to find he got croaked just about the time his essay was postmarked. How about it?”

As gently as he could, Caruth repeated the gist of his tale concerning the theft of the money and the murder. It was a somewhat delicate matter to tell this violent-looking individual that his brother was a thief, and Caruth stumbled more or less over the details.

Wilkins, however, did not seem worried. “I never thought Jim would go into the hold-up business,” he commented, “especially for a measly one thousand eight hundred dollars. Maybe you don’t know it, but Jim was gettin’ tolerable plethoric. He was mighty saving and propinquous, Jim was; and he had some property out West—maybe ten thousand dollars’ worth. I’m his heir, and as I ain’t been in no ways intimidated with him, of course I ain’t inconsolable about his decease, nor I ain’t pretendin’ to be. But this hold-up story don’t explain none about that letter from Bill that he sent me.”

Caruth’s heart stopped for an instant; then raced madly. “What letter?” he questioned, as calmly as he could.

“This one.” Wilkins drew a paper from his pocket. “Jim enclosed it with a note of his own. He says: ‘Come at once. Millions in sight, but mighty dangerous. Bill’s letter explains.’ Bill’s letter is monumentous—mighty monumentous; but it ain’t to say illuminatin’. Maybe Jim forgot to[63] send the key. I ’spose you don’t know anything about it?”

Caruth thought for a moment. To cover his pause, he poured out a drink and shoved the bottle across to Wilkins, who promptly followed his example.

“Perhaps I do,” he said at last. “About an hour before your brother’s flight, a special delivery letter arrived here from some place in Europe. It was addressed to me, but when I opened it, I found it enclosed another, stained and rumpled, which was addressed in my care. The name of the person for whom it was intended had been washed out. Your brother saw it and claimed it was for him. He asked me to open it and see if it was not addressed to ‘Jim’ and signed ‘Bill.’ I found that it was, and gave it to him. Perhaps that is the letter he sent you.”

“I reckon it is. And you don’t know nothing more about it? I don’t ’spose Jim showed it to you. But he might have intimidated something about it. You don’t know nothin’ at all?” Plainly the Westerner was disappointed.

“Well, I’ll tell you unequivalent, Mr. Caruth! I don’t believe Jim robbed you none. Jim warn’t a damn fool; none whatever! An’ nobody but a damn fool would rustle that money the way you think he did. I’m apostrophizing that the same parties stole it that did for Jim. An’ I’ve got an idea they croaked him to get this here crypto cable. I’m gamblin’ that it’s worth a good deal more’n[64] any eighteen hundred dollars, if a man could only elusivate it. Sure you don’t know nothin’ more about it?”

The big plainsman studied him for a moment. “Well,” he said, “I’ve told you how I feel. Jim’s dead, and I don’t say I’d go out of my way to envenom him. But I do say that I want some light on this missive, and I’m going to have it. And if anybody gets hurt in consequence of my sloshing around, it won’t be my fault. You said you didn’t know no more about it, didn’t you?”

Caruth jumped up, white but vicious looking. “That’s the third time you’ve asked me that,” he exploded. “Do you mean to insinuate——”

“Not at all! Not the least bit in the world. I’m just theologizing. You’ve treated me square, and I ain’t dangerous to nobody who does that. But I’m exacerbated over that letter. I wouldn’t mind doing the ingenuous thing by anybody that helped me to guess it.”

The frown faded from Caruth’s face, and an expression of thought took its place. “I’m too much in the dark to help you much,” he parried.

Without the least hesitation the plainsman thrust forward the letter. “Maybe this’ll help you,” he suggested. “This here is a copy. I’ve got the aboriginal cached where it’ll be safe. But this is all to the accurate except that it’s got two or three names[65] of places left out. I ain’t givin’ the whole thing away, you understand.”

Caruth took the letter with a hand that trembled in spite of himself. He did not want to read it; to do so seemed a sort of dishonor—a lack of consideration for the desires of Miss Fitzhugh. On the other hand, it would be madness to let slip what might very well be his only chance to acquaint himself with a letter she had bought and paid for and with facts that might spell life and death to him and to her.

His uncertainty must have showed in his face, for the other encouraged him. “Go ’long!” he said. “Read it. It won’t bite none.”

Caruth’s hands dropped, and he looked up. His cheeks were white. So this was the explanation? The girl’s quest was for gold. The letter she sought contained, not the names of revolutionists, as he had inferred, but information as to the whereabouts of gold that seemed already to have cost many men[66] their lives. It all seemed very sordid to Caruth. He had never earned or lacked a penny in his life, and to struggle for mere money seemed to him little short of disgraceful. It speaks volumes for the impression Marie Fitzhugh had made upon him that it never even occurred to him to misdoubt her interest in the matter, or to question whether she might not be a mere adventuress, the tool of private thieves rather than the agent of public conspirators. Perhaps, after all, this was because he was tenacious of his beliefs, and, once having formed them, did not readily change.

One thing, however, stood out in his consciousness: He must discover her whereabouts and tell her that her letter had been found. He had no qualms in regard to Wilkins. The man had forced his confidence upon him, and he was under no obligation to preserve it. Miss Fitzhugh owned the letter. She had bought it from its owner and had paid for it, and was entitled to know its contents. His part was to find out if she still wanted it, and to make sure that the man who held it would be available if she did.

He turned to Wilkins, who had waited patiently for him to speak. “I can’t help you off-hand,” he declared, “but perhaps I may be able to do so later. Perhaps I can trace that letter. I don’t know whether I can or not, but I will try. Certainly I can learn something about the wreck of the Orkney, and that ought to help. Your brother’s room is[67] vacant. Suppose you occupy it to-night, and meanwhile I will see what I can learn. And if I were you, I should keep that letter to myself.”

The man’s lips curled contemptuously. “Don’t you worry about me none!” he responded grimly. “I ain’t takin’ no chances. I’ve had time to arrange things. Do you know what would eventuate if I didn’t show up for such and such a time? Well, I’ll tell you. Copies of this here letter would go to half a dozen newspapers mucho pronto. An’ I judge that would queer the game some for the folks that did for Jim.”

It was this interview that had caused Caruth to consult Bristow and to tell that clever newspaper man a great deal more than he had dreamed of doing when he began, though, for some reason not entirely intelligible to himself, he did not touch on the arrival of the Westerner. It was the interview, too, that led him to the presence of his charmer.

THE WOMEN’S HOTEL of New York is sacred to the unattended woman. The clerks and the cooks are women; women wait on the tables; and women convey characteristically feminine trunks to virgin apartments. No man, attended or unattended, may spread his name upon its register, or settle himself within its sacrosanct precincts. Scarcely may he win permission to wait in a parlor while a feminine bell-hop carries his card to the arcana above.

In this parlor Caruth awaited an answer to his call. Fearing that a card alone might meet denial, he had inscribed it with the words “On most important business” before he sent it up.

He had the parlor to himself, and carefully he chose a position, partly screened by flowering plants, where he might hope to talk unheard and undisturbed by any one who might enter. What he had to say was not too pleasant, and he wanted no chance eavesdroppers.

He waited a long time—so long, in fact, that he began to fear that his note might be ineffective, and he was contemplating a further appeal and wondering, in the event that this too failed, how long he[69] could roost on the steps of the opposite house watching for her to come out, without being arrested. For he was determined to see her.

She wore an evening dress of some glittering material, rich and black. Her clear-cut profile and delicately arched eyebrows reminded him of a cameo or an old French miniature. Her shoulders, rising from a corsage of black velvet, gleamed like tinted marble in the soft lights of the hall. It seemed incredible that she and the girl of a week before could be the same. He bowed in silence, dumbly staring.

He was recalled to himself by her voice. “Well, sir,” she reminded him, “you have something to say to me? Have you forgotten your lines?”

Caruth shook his head. “No,” he answered slowly; “I had only forgotten my cue. I was thinking in the fifth act, while we are yet still in the first. However, you have helped me out. My lines are these: ‘Your letter has turned up. Wilkins’s brother called on me to-day with a copy of it.’”

If Caruth intended to startle the girl by his abrupt announcement, he undoubtedly succeeded. She grew so white that for a moment he feared she was about to faint. Then a sparkle came into her eyes.

“Oh, no, no! Another brother. One who has been living in the West for years. A typical Westerner.”

“I can only guess. Probably Wilkins really took your warning words to heart, for he scribbled a brief letter on an envelope, and mailed the whole, probably by the chute in the building. The postmark shows that the letter was collected about three A.M. that same morning. It went to Denver to the brother, whose name is Thomas. Thomas dropped everything and started east. He got here this morning and came to my rooms to see his brother. He had heard nothing of the fellow’s death.”

“And he showed you the letter? You have read it?” The tones were quiet, but Caruth could see the suspense lurking in her eyes.

“Yes, he showed it to me. That is, he showed me a copy of it—with certain words cut out. I have brought it with me. But before I show it to you, I must—forgive me—I must be convinced of your rights in the matter.”

“Yes, your rights. It seems outrageous for me to question you; but—I must know.”

“Know all there is to know! I have the right to ask! You came to my rooms seeking a letter. You warned Wilkins that the possession of the letter might be fatal to him. He did not heed you, and he was murdered within the hour, apparently to get the letter you wanted so much. To-day I learn that this[71] letter contains information, not about a political conspiracy as I had supposed, but about money—money! I was ready to shield you—even when I thought you or your accomplices had been guilty of murder—as long as your acts were political. But to kill for money—to waylay a man and murder him for gold—that goes beyond me!”

Caruth flushed and paled again. “No!” he stammered. “Not you. But your friends——”

“My friends are no more guilty than myself. Two of them were awaiting me, and I thought at first that they had killed your man. But they did not. I give you my word that they did not. Neither of them touched him! He was killed by some one else.”

“Ah, God! I wish I knew!” The woman’s words were a sob. “Perhaps a chance garroter! Perhaps—perhaps my enemies! I thought I had eluded them. I thought they were ignorant that I was here. But perhaps they knew that I came to the city that night. Perhaps they followed me. Perhaps they killed him. I do not know! But it was done by no friends of mine.”

Caruth drew a long breath. “Thank God for that! But the money! The money! You threatened him with death unless he gave up the clue to it——”

“Stop!” The girl’s interjection was swift. “Stop, Mr. Caruth! I did not threaten him. I warned[72] him. I belong to a great organization that is waging a desperate warfare for the rights of millions of human beings. We fight as we can. Think for a moment! You have been free so long—you and your English forebears—that you take your freedom as a right. But it did not come as a right. All of it, all of it, was bought for you at a price. Every forward step was forced. Every grant from Magna Charta down was wrested from the king. Thousands upon thousands of unknown men died that you might live in peace and freedom, undespoiled. For a thousand years the path has been drenched in blood. What right have you—you to whom freedom came with your first breath; you who have never known tyranny; you who can freely assemble and criticise and change your rulers—what right have you to rebuke us who are just starting on the same bloody road your fathers trod for you? Granted that some innocent lives are taken; granted that some excesses and outrages are perpetrated in the name of freedom; granted that some of us go too far and shock your moral sense. What of it? Think you your ancestors of a thousand or even a hundred years ago were always calm and self-contained? Think you they perpetrated no crimes when they had the power? The world has grown thin-skinned with prevailing peace, and shrinks aghast at primitive Russians struggling for primitive freedom with what weapons they can grasp. You do not approve our methods! Do you[73] approve the government’s methods? For every innocent man whom the terrorists have slain, the Czar has slain a hundred and imprisoned a thousand. From the salt mines of the north, from the frozen steppes, from the purgatory of water-soaked dungeons, they cry to Heaven. That letter placed in our hands might have meant—may still mean—the end of all this. At least, it would hasten the day when all will end. We did not kill your valet. We do not know who did. But if we had, what is his life compared with the lives of millions?”

The girl’s eyes flashed; her voice came rich and strong; like a Judith she stood.

“You shall! Although when I tell you I place my life in your hands. I will tell you the story of the Orkney. Then you may judge.”

The girl paused to take breath. “In March, two years ago,” she went on, “the steamship Orkney sailed from London for St. Petersburg with a million pounds sterling in gold on board. This gold, borrowed on the people’s credit, was to be used in crushing the people. We determined to capture it, or, if that could not be done, at least to prevent its reaching Russia. It belonged to the people; the Czar should not use it to enslave them.

“A war-ship had been sent to bring this gold, but at the last moment the bureaucrats discovered that we had gained over the men on board and that[74] a mutiny was probable. Urgently as it needed the money, the Russian government dared not send it by that means. Nor did it dare to send it by rail. We had inspired a wholesome terror in the hearts of the ministers of the Czar. At last it hit on the idea of blackening the gold bars and shipping them on an ordinary steamer as pig lead to Kronstadt. A battalion of soldiers would go along, ostensibly as passengers. So swiftly was this decided on and carried out, we learned it only at the very last minute. Had it not been for a lucky chance, we should not have known it at all. But, as it happened, two of the soldiers were our men, and we managed to get orders to them to see that the gold should never reach its destination. If they could not throw it into our hands, they were to sink the vessel and prevent its reaching Russia.

“The Orkney sailed, going north through the Irish Sea, and around the north end of Scotland. The war-ship followed her out of the harbor and hung on her heels persistently, secretly convoying her. Moreover, Russian agents were watching all along the route. Our agents, so far as we could reach them, were also watching.

“Yet the Orkney disappeared. She passed Copenhagen and entered the Baltic. There on the first night, at one o’clock in the morning, when near the opening of the Gulf of Finland, less than three hundred miles from her destination, her lights went out. In vain the cruiser tried to find her; in vain[75] the various observers strained their eyes. In the scant hours between one o’clock and daylight she vanished, gold, crew, vessel, all! Since then, though Russia has sought incessantly, she has learned nothing as to her fate. We are certain of this.

“We ourselves know a little—a very little—more. A fishing boat saw her passing the Upsula Islands going north into the Gulf of Bothnia. The news came to us and not to the Government.

“Except this, we knew nothing until two weeks ago. Then a friend sent us a bottle he had found floating in the Baltic. It contained a message from the dead. It told us how well our men had done their work. It said in brief that the writer and his friends had risen and attacked the officers. Bitter fighting had followed. The stokers, imprisoned below, kept the fires up and the ship moved slowly but steadily northward. A storm arose. Our men made a rush and gained control. But at the moment of victory one of the officers exploded some powder that was on board, and the ship began to sink. Nearly everybody was dead or dying by that time, and all that our agent could do was to drive the vessel ashore. Just before she sank he must have thrown overboard the bottle with his message. He had done his duty well and patriotically; his name will be honored when the Russian people come to their own.

“In one thing alone he failed. The part of his letter that told just where the Orkney sank was[76] blotted out. We can infer only that she sank on the coast of Finland, the Russian side of the Gulf of Bothnia; that she is lying somewhere within a stretch of one hundred and fifty or at the most two hundred miles. She must have sunk intact without breaking up, for no wreckage has come ashore from her. Somewhere at the bottom of that water she is lying with her gold.”

Miss Fitzhugh paused. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks flushed. Thrilling as was her tale, Caruth came near not heeding it through looking at her. The charm of the teller nearly effaced the interest of the tale.

“And now, Mr. Caruth, you know all. I have put myself wholly in your hands. A word from you to the Russian authorities and I shall be an exile from my native land, proscribed, with a price on my head. If I go back and am caught, I shall rot in the dungeons of St. Peter and St. Paul. I am not afraid. I faced the risk when I entered on this work. I knew that sooner or later I must be caught; that permanent escape could come only from the advent of freedom before fate overtook me. I took the risk, and I will pay the penalty without whining if the need comes. But I wish to do something to aid my country before that time. Hitherto I have been able to do but little. I bear a great name. Fitzhugh is my mother’s name—not my father’s. I am reputed wealthy, but I have no real power over my money.[77] My fortune is in the hands of a guardian who is loyal to the Czar, and who watches me narrowly. In his grip I am held powerless. I am only a woman. I cannot fight with my hands. I can only use my wits. You reproach me because I am contending for gold. Can you conceive what this gold will do for our cause? What a mighty lever it will be in our hands? For we are poor—poor! If I can put this money in the hands of the Brotherhood, I shall have done more than I ever hoped to do. Then let the bureaucrats lay me by the heels and I will laugh in their faces, content to die.”

Abruptly the girl stopped; and then went on with an entire change of tone. “Now, Mr. Caruth,” she said, “you know all. What will you do? Will you betray me or aid me? Choose!”

The girl’s breath came fast between her parted lips. Her eyes shone starlike. Her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. “What will you do?” she demanded. “Choose!”

Caruth’s face glowed. “Do!” he cried. “Is there anything I will not do? I did not know that women such as you lived. I am wholly in your hands. Ask of me what you will: Money—risk—life—anything! In life and in death I am yours!”

Passionately he stretched out his arms and drew the girl forward. She swayed toward him and for an instant he held her against his madly beating heart. “I love you!” he cried. “I love you! I love you!”

It was for an instant only, for, with a strength of[78] which he had not thought her capable, the girl tore herself free.

“Why ‘for shame’?” he questioned. “I love you. I have loved you from the first moment I saw you. Within an hour from that first moment I lied for you! I risked the electric chair for you! I did it willingly, gladly, without being asked. I would do it again! I love you! Miss Fitzhugh—Marie—will you be my wife?”

A curious expression came into the girl’s face. “What!” she demanded incredulously. “You would marry me? Me! The woman who came to your rooms at midnight? The woman whom you suspected of murder? The adventuress who plots for gold? You would marry me?”

“You and none other. Is it so strange? Many men must have loved you! Every one who saw you must have loved you.”

“But not under such circumstances as these. Mr. Caruth, all my life I shall be grateful to you. As long as I live, I shall remember your words. They will console me when my dark hour comes, as come it must for each of our Brotherhood. But I cannot accept. I am pledged to a cause which I cannot desert. No, Mr. Caruth! Go back to your safe and harmless American life and forget me. It would be ill requital for your kindness to draw you further into my fated existence.”

[79]Caruth stretched out his hand and took hers. She did not resist, but her fingers lay cold in his and she shook her head slowly, smiling wanly. “No,” she breathed. “No.”

Caruth’s grasp did not slacken. “Why not?” he questioned. “This matter of the Orkney will not last forever. When it is over, you will have earned your freedom; you will have done a great work for your country. Then——”

The girl did not pretend to misunderstand him. “It cannot be,” she murmured, and there was a world of sadness in her tones.

The girl flung up her arms. “Oh!” she cried. “Can’t you understand? I shall never marry, or, if I do, it will be at the behest of the Brotherhood. I shall marry some one who is helping to set Russia free. Perhaps—perhaps I may buy some part of her freedom with the only pawn I possess—myself. I am not free—I never will be free till Russia is.”

Caruth drew a long breath. “You mean to sell yourself?” he questioned gently.

“Then”—Caruth’s voice rang out—“then sell yourself to me. I can take risks as well as another. I am rich, young, strong. All that I have is at your[80] service. Let me help. Tell me what to do, and it shall be done. I’ll drag this Orkney up from the sea. If you are for sale, let me bid! And if I pay the price—if I win back the gold from the sea—then let me claim my reward.”

But the girl shook her head. “I will not!” she cried. “I was wrong to let you become involved in this. But I did not know you then. Now that I do know you I shall not let you take chances such as these.”

“Because you do not gauge them. Or no, I do not mean that—I believe you would take them even if you understood what you were facing. But it is not fair to let you.”

Caruth laughed. “I’m the best judge of that!” he declared. “Come, we won’t discuss it any more. I am going to help you, and that’s all there is to it.” Gently he raised the girl’s hand to his lips. “There!” he announced, as he released it. “It’s all settled. I won’t bother you about it any more till that gold is in our hands. Come, sit down, and tell me what you want me to do first.”

“There are no buts. You want to know about this Wilkins who has turned up. Very well. I’ll tell you what I noticed, and you can ask questions.”

Before Caruth left the hotel that night, he had imparted to Miss Fitzhugh every detail concerning the plainsman that his quickened memory could[81] supply. The man’s appearance, his language, history, desires, threats, and the precautions he had taken to secure his safety, had all been minutely depicted. Miss Fitzhugh possessed the rare power of making those she questioned recall particulars that had made almost no impression on them when they occurred. Just as a powerful developer brings out on a photographic plate once invisible details, so her interrogatories, acting on Caruth’s memory, quickened it and evolved details concerning Thomas Wilkins that the young man himself had not suspected that he possessed.

At the end the girl had dismissed him with instructions to bring the plainsman to call upon her the next day.

Caruth hesitated. “He seems to be a very sharp fellow,” he objected. “He put two and two together very quickly, and asked some questions that worried me. Undoubtedly he thinks my story fishy. And it is fishy. If he knows that you are involved in the case, he may become dangerous.”

The woman threw out her hands. “Don’t I know it?” she flamed. “But I’ve got to see him for myself. How do either you or I know that he is your valet’s brother? How do we know that he is not an agent of the man who killed your valet? Russia has many spies as improbable as he. Probably he is what he purports to be, but I must see him and judge for myself. And I must see that letter—the whole of it. There is no other way. Somebody must do the[82] bargaining. No, I must see him. Do you know where to find him?”

“Then have him ready at ten to-morrow morning. Be at the door of your building at the moment, neither too soon nor too late. A motor will pick you up and take you to a safe place where I will meet you.”

AS the clock struck ten the next morning, Caruth, with Tom Wilkins at his heels, stepped from the elevator in the Chimneystack Building and walked to the great entrance. Just as he reached it a red automobile drew up at the curb. Caruth motioned Wilkins into it, and jumped in behind him; and before he had time even to take his seat the machine was off. Caruth, glancing back expectantly, was somewhat surprised to see that his hasty departure had apparently roused no interest. The spies in attendance, if spies there were, either did not care to follow or recognized the hopelessness of attempting to do so.

After racing northward for several blocks, the motor turned into a side street, ran east past two or three streets, and, once more turning, sped downtown, finally stopping at the ladies’ entrance of one of the big Broadway hotels.

Caruth laughed to himself as he got out. Anything less like the mysterious Nihilistic rendezvous at which he had expected to land could scarcely be conceived. Still less excitement remained in the venture when, after sending up his card by a very matter-of-fact bell-boy, the two were shown into a[84] parlor and allowed to wait for a very characteristically feminine interval.

If the plainsman felt out of place in surroundings which must have been wholly new to him, at least he did not show it. His face was as expressionless as a poker player’s, and he carried himself as if he owned the place, seemingly unconscious of his ill-fitting, ready-made clothing, and of the heavy boots that clattered loudly on the polished floors.

Caruth had told him little as to the object of their visit, merely saying that the lady on whom they were to call had something to say that might throw light on the object of his search. Wilkins had asked no questions. His small, furtive eyes had rested for a moment on the younger man’s face, and then he had nodded. “I’m your potato,” he remarked.

Miss Fitzhugh kept the two waiting for a time which seemed long to the plainsman, unused as he was to the intricacies of the feminine toilet. When she swept in at last, her appearance made both men catch their breath, Caruth not less than the unsophisticated Westerner.

Dressed entirely in black, high-throated, and with her hair arranged with severe plainness, she looked years older and more sedate than the magnificently vital creature Caruth had before seen. In her eyes lay a look of slumbering sorrow which persisted even when she smiled. Caruth, amazed, wondered what facet of her kaleidoscopic nature would manifest itself next.

[85]But if her appearance bewildered Caruth, it absolutely overwhelmed Wilkins. He dropped his hat, stammered, and almost gasped at sight of her. When she gave him her hand, he seemed afraid to touch it.

But this phase passed. Miss Fitzhugh had a way with her—whether inborn or acquired it might be hard to guess—that was most effective in dealing with the opposite sex. Within ten minutes, Wilkins, his errand forgotten, was telling her a story of his experiences as a sheep-herder. “Yes, ma’am,” he wound up. “Muttons are all right when they’re served with mint sauce or when they’ve been cropped to furnish trouserings, but for steady company they’re about on the level of a Boston tea party. When you’ve watched ’em masticating daisies for a few spaces, you begin to yearn for something that don’t look like it had come out of a Noah’s ark.”

Miss Fitzhugh smiled sympathetically. “So when you got your brother’s letter, with its promise of millions, you were glad enough to hurry east,” she suggested. “You wanted some of the fleshpots of Egypt.”

Wilkins hesitated. “No’m,” he answered uncertainly. “I ain’t caring much about no foreign grub; chile con carne is good enough for me. But, of course, if there’s any chance of strikin’ a pocket and dredgin’ a million or so out of that ship, I’d like to do it. And, of course, I’d like to do up the fellows that did for Jim.”

[86]Miss Fitzhugh stared at him questioningly. “There is a chance of doing it,” she answered meaningly; “but it isn’t as easy as you may suppose. You may have to fight for it.”

Wilkins’s right hand wandered back to his hip-pocket, reappearing with a huge revolver, while the other hand suddenly became possessed of a great knife. “I’m heeled,” he responded grimly.

Miss Fitzhugh showed no surprise. Deliberately she took the revolver from the plainsman’s hand and with practised fingers twirled the cylinder and drew back the hammer, smiling at the man’s warning exclamation. “I’m used to them,” she explained.

She handed back the weapon and went on. “Your brother’s ship was the Orkney, Mr. Wilkins. It sailed from Liverpool March 5, nearly two years ago, and was wrecked somewhere in the Baltic four days later. It had on board more than a million pounds sterling—nearly five million dollars. That money really belongs to me and my friends, though it is claimed by others who have been moving heaven and earth to get it. Your brother who wrote the letter had no right to any part of it. Your brother who was murdered had no right to it. You have no right to it. But we are very generous to our friends. It is really impossible that you should get this gold yourself. You will have to call either on us or on our enemies to help you. If your letter proves valuable and enables us to get it—to get our own money, mind you—we will share it with you.”

[87]The plainsman’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth changed to a straight slit above his chin. For the first time Caruth noticed his likeness to the dead man. This was business, and accordingly Wilkins promptly relegated sentiment to the background. “How big a share?” he demanded roughly.

“Well——” Miss Fitzhugh hesitated. “First let me explain,” she went on at last. “The Orkney was wrecked in the Baltic Sea about three thousand miles from here. We shall have to charter a steamer and seek for her. Your letter may or may not enable us to find her. If we do find her, we will have to send down divers and bring the gold up—not a very easy task, I imagine. The search will have to be made secretly, for our foes are watchful and able. We may have to fight to save both the gold and ourselves after or before we get it on board. The whole trip will cost money—a great deal of money. It will strain our resources to the utmost—and it may come to nothing in the end. We need the money—need it desperately. Now, considering all this, what do you think will be a fair share for your aid?”

Wilkins considered. His small eyes wandered from Miss Fitzhugh to Caruth and back again, but his impassive face gave no clue to the thoughts that were passing in his mind. The others believed that he was calculating how large a share he could demand. Long afterwards, they suspected that his ideas had been very different.

“Well,” he declared, at last, “I don’t mean no[88] officiousness. Maybe you’re givin’ it to me straight. But I reckon the other side would have about as good a yarn to tell, and maybe it would have more money to pay with. I guess this money don’t belong to either of you. If it did, you wouldn’t be so durned mysterious about it. I reckon you’re both out to steal it. But, h——l! that don’t make no difference to me. I’ll steal just as soon as any other hombre will, if he can steal enough to make it worth while and can get away with the goods. Now, let’s talk straight. Who are your fellows, any way?”

Miss Fitzhugh hesitated, but only for a moment. After all, it was better to tell this plain-spoken frontiersman what he wanted to know rather than to have him make inquiries that might perhaps come to the ears of the Russian government and lead to the betrayal of the whole plan. If he were really a traitor or a spy all was lost anyhow. He could ruin everything by telling what he already knew in the right quarter; he could do no worse if he knew more. Perhaps he might be forced to hold his tongue by fear, although this did not seem very probable. However, it was neck or nothing.

She leaned forward. “Did you ever hear of the Russian revolutionists, Mr. Wilkins?” she asked.

“Them fellows that are tryin’ to knock the Czar into the middle of a puddle duckski? Sure! They’re all right, if they’d only talk less like a seidlitz powder.”

“I am a member of the inner circle of the Brotherhood.[89] This gold belongs to us. It was borrowed on our credit by the Russian Government. We tried to take it from them, and we succeeded, but lost it in the moment of success. We need it to help the cause of freedom—to get for our people the freedom that you have as a birthright. We are trying to get it back. Your letter may enable us to do so. Will you help us?”

Wilkins nodded. “I reckon so,” he responded. “What’ll they do to us if they catch us?”

“Do!” The girl laughed harshly. “I don’t know. Shoot us, hang us, drown us, or jail us for life. Are you afraid?”

“No’m! Not to say afraid. But I always like to know what I’m goin’ up against. Buckin’ the Czar looks to me a good deal like going against a phony faro game. But, thunder! I always was willing to take a sporting chance. I’ll go you for one-tenth of what we get. I guess that’s fair.”

Miss Fitzhugh nodded slowly. “That’s a good deal,” she remarked, “considering that we take all the risks. But I accept. One-tenth of all we recover shall be yours. You shall go with us and help us to get it, and you shall have your share. Here’s my hand on it.”

Awkwardly the plainsman took the smooth, slim fingers which she stretched out to him. “It’s a whack, ma’am,” he said.

“It’s a ‘whack’! But, Mr. Wilkins, there is something more that I want to say, and I want you[90] to understand that I say it not as a threat, but simply as a warning. I don’t know how much you may know of our society, but it has representatives all over the world, and it does not tolerate traitors. No one who has ever betrayed it has lived long. If either you or Mr. Caruth here tried to play fast and loose with it, you might succeed for the moment, but it would be for a moment only. Your heirs might profit by your treachery, but you would not.”

Wilkins laughed. He seemed neither offended nor worried by the girl’s words. “Sure!” he answered cheerfully. “That’s understood. No gang can hold together or be successful unless they does for anybody that splits on ’em. I ain’t boastin’ none of my whiteness. Maybe I’d sell out if I thought it would pay me; but, naturally, I count myself some better than the State of New Jersey. I ain’t offerin’ myself for sale promiscuous desultory. And in this case it don’t look as if it would be altogether healthy to sell out. No! You can count on me as long as you play fair yourselves. Now, what’s the program?”

Miss Fitzhugh leaned back in her chair with an expression of relief on her face. “I believe you are truer than you say, Mr. Wilkins,” she murmured. “I’m going to trust you. As to the program, I must consider. The first thing is to let me look at that letter.”

[91]Miss Fitzhugh only glanced at it. “I mean the original,” she explained, with a steely glint in her eyes.

But Wilkins shook his head decidedly. “Not any,” he replied. “The aboriginal is safe, and I don’t show it to no one yet aways. It tells where the Orkney’s sunk, all right, and I’ll go with you and guide you till we get somewhere near. I’ve been lookin’ up the place on the map, and I can do it. Or I’ll tell you: I’ll show you the letter as soon as we get into the Baltic? How’ll that do?”

“It ain’t valueless. It tells, all right. It says ‘in a narrow strait between this island and that island.’ You needn’t worry about that part of it.”

The woman hesitated. Was all this a cunningly devised plot of the Czar’s agents or was the man honest? His refusal to disclose his secret was not unnatural, and yet——

“Mr. Wilkins,” she said slowly, “I’ll take your word for it, since I can do nothing else. But I warn you solemnly that if I fail in this thing after I have spent all the money that I shall have to spend, it will cost both you and me our lives. The Brotherhood will not tolerate such a costly failure as this would be. So beware.”

Miss Fitzhugh looked slightly bewildered. “Very[92] well,” she said. “On your head be it. Now we must see about getting a ship.”

“A ship!” Caruth leaned forward. All through the conversation he had lain back in his chair, listening but not uttering a single word. The girl seemed entirely competent to manage things, and he felt no call to intervene, though he shivered once or twice when she spoke so openly to this plainsman, who frankly confessed that he was ready to play traitor for a sufficiently large reward. But his chance had come around at last.

“A ship!” he echoed. “Don’t worry about that. I have a thousand-ton yacht eating its head off down the bay. I’ll be delighted if you will use it as your own. When shall we sail?”

PROFESSOR SHISHKIN spent the next ten days after Maxime’s cataclysmal visit in worrying over what he had to do and in trying to devise some way of eluding at least that part of his orders that required him to take Olga with him. Knowing the methods of the Brotherhood, he guessed that, if need be, they would not hesitate to use the girl in accomplishing their ends, at whatever peril to her. On the other hand, he was resolved that she should never go back to Russia. But how to avoid the necessity he could not see. He worried himself sick over it.

He was in this state of mind when Marie Fitzhugh notified him by the long-distance telephone—for she did not wish to be seen in his company or at his house—to send the notice of his impending departure on Mr. Caruth’s yacht to the papers, and to be ready to sail in four days.

It was not difficult to get the announcement printed. The Professor’s scientific achievements, while they had never brought him wealth, had brought him the homage of the intellectual of all lands. He had even been discovered by the New York Sunday papers and had had his achievements attractively described in a syndicate letter written[94] by a special writer, who criticised—and disproved—the Professor’s famous theory of rising sea-floors by the sole light of information derived from the books of the Professor himself.

In spite of this, the Professor was a friend to newspaper men, and was always willing to be interviewed on almost any subject connected with his work. So when he desired to give out the news of his coming trip, he had only to choose to which newspaper friend he would send it.

Finally he picked out Bristow, for much the same reasons that had led Caruth to consult that well-informed individual. He had first met the reporter on his arrival from a trip to Europe several years before, and had been attracted to him by the able and intelligent account which the reporter had printed concerning certain scientific discoveries he had made on his trip. This good impression was confirmed on several later occasions. Further, the reporter naturally occurred to him, because that young man had recently become a somewhat constant caller at the New Jersey cottage. (The Professor was slightly bewildered by his apparent assiduity in the pursuit of science, but did not suspect that his daughter might have something to do with it.) Further, as ship-news reporter for the Consolidated Press, Bristow was not only the exact man to handle such an item, but was best adapted to give it the wide publicity desired by its publication in the papers served by that great news organization.

[95]Bristow put the item “on the wires,” and then hurried down to East Orange at the first possible moment. He did not, however, go straight to the Professor himself, but to that gentleman’s daughter. Moreover, he addressed her as Olga, from which it might be suspected that matters had progressed further than the Professor imagined.

The girl glanced at the paper in his hand. “I don’t know,” she answered thoughtfully. “I don’t know.”

“Ten days ago a young man came to see father. They talked together a long time. Father was a good deal excited; I could hear his voice away upstairs. Since then he has been ill. He cannot rest. He never laughs or even smiles. He has grown nervous and irritable. Always he is puzzling over something. He is killing himself. Yesterday he had me write you that note telling of his coming trip. I have begged him not to go, but he is quite determined. He says he wants to confirm his sea-floor theory.”

“Of course! But he insists that he must go. Yet I don’t believe he wants to. I believe something or somebody is forcing him—though I don’t understand how any one can. Do you?”

Bristow looked thoughtful. Caruth’s association[96] with the affair, as announced in the notice sent to the papers, caused him to conclude inevitably that the forthcoming trip had some connection with the arrival of the fair but mysterious Russian and with the murder of the valet. He could not quite understand the object, however, being ignorant of the Orkney and her fate, as well as of the recovery of the missing letter.

“How does Mr. Caruth come to be in this?” he asked abruptly, wondering what excuse had been offered for the young man’s sudden interest in affairs scientific.

“Mr. Caruth? Father seems to have known his father, and Mr. Caruth, knowing that father wanted to go to the Baltic, offered his yacht. At least, that’s what they say,” concluded the girl. “For my part, I don’t believe it. Do you?”

Bristow hesitated. “No,” he answered, at last. “I happen to know that it is at least partly untrue. But, Olga, don’t express any doubt publicly. I suspect this is a big thing, and indiscreet talking would probably play hob with a good many people, including the Professor. What is your part in this, Olga? Do you go with him?”

The girl nodded. “Of course,” she answered readily. “He says he wants me to, and of course I can’t let him go alone. And yet, do you know, Joe, I don’t believe he really wants me to go at all?”

The reporter nodded slowly. The skein was still too tangled for him to unravel, but he was studying it intently. “Why go?” he asked. “Olga, I don’t[97] want to be selfish. I have waited a long time, and I was prepared to keep on waiting as long as I could see you from time to time. But I can’t let you go away from me this way, especially to Russia. Why not marry me at once? Then I can speak to your father from a different footing. Perhaps I can persuade him to give up the trip.”

Bristow thought she was yielding and pushed his advantage. “Olga dear!” he urged. “Come to me.” He took the girl in his arms, and she gazed up into his face with the expression that a woman wears for one man only. “If I could, Joe,” she murmured. “If I only could! But I can’t; you know I can’t. Father would go alone, and I should never forgive myself.”

For a moment the reporter held her, looking tenderly into her blue eyes; then he released her. “Well,” he said briskly, “that settles it. I must talk to the Professor. I suppose he is in his laboratory?”

When Bristow entered the laboratory, he found the Professor pacing up and down the room in a state of suppressed excitement. When he recognized his visitor, he strove to greet him calmly, but despite himself his irritation shone through.

“I have nothing more to say. I told it all in the note. I am going to the Baltic to get proof of my theory about sea-floors. I am going on the yacht of Mr. Caruth, a young scientific friend of mine. That is all. I can’t discuss it further.”

The reporter concealed his dismay. Olga had certainly not exaggerated the old man’s condition. He had aged markedly since Bristow had last seen him. He was burning himself out. It occurred to the reporter that the conspirators—for he did not doubt that there was a conspiracy—had better be careful or the Professor would not live to carry out their wishes, whatever these might be.

“Just as you say, Professor,” he answered. “But I want to talk to you about something else. Won’t you ask me to sit down?” He moved a chair up beside the old man’s accustomed seat, and stood waiting.

Professor Shishkin hesitated for an instant. Then the demands of courtesy had their way. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’m not myself. I’m an old man, and I grow forgetful. Sit down, Mr. Bristow. I’m very glad to see you. Ask me what you will.”

“Even unto the half of your kingdom?” queried the reporter. “I want more than that, Professor. I want Miss Olga!”

“I mean that I want to marry her,” returned Bristow. The people who called Bristow cheeky[99] would not have known him. His heart was thumping painfully, and his color came and went, though he managed to keep his features calm. “We love each other, and we want to marry.”

For a moment Professor Shishkin stared at the young man. Then he burst into a fit of laughter that made the reporter look at him in amazement.

But, unheeding, the Professor cackled on as if he would never stop. His shrunken form fairly shook with merriment that rapidly grew hysterical. So long it continued that Bristow forgot his own excited feelings and grew anxious.

At last the old man calmed himself. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Bristow,” he quavered. “I beg your pardon. I was very discourteous. I was not laughing at you, but at the way things come about. What creatures of fate we all are! We think we control events, but events really control us! Mr. Bristow, I have been worrying myself sick about Olga, and here you come, pat to the moment, to set everything straight. You say that Olga loves you?”

“Then everything is all right. I shall be delighted to have her marry you. But I must impose some conditions.”

The Professor’s voice had grown stronger. Years seemed to have fallen from his shoulders. Bristow stared at him in wonder.

[100]Shishkin smiled. “Oh, it won’t be hard on you,” he promised. “Though you may find my conditions difficult to understand. Let me explain. I am compelled to go on this trip concerning which I have written you. I am compelled to take Olga with me—or to appear to do so. I don’t want to take her, but I cannot refuse openly. But no one acquainted with her will be on the vessel. If I can find a substitute who resembles her somewhat, no one is likely to detect the change. The trouble has been to get Olga’s consent and to hide her away while I was gone. Your proposal makes this easy.”

Amazedly the reporter listened. The old man was showing a new phase of character—a phase novel to Bristow, who had always thought of him only as an aged scientist engrossed in matters far removed from worldly scheming. But then, neither had he ever thought of him in connection with Russian terrorism, in which it now seemed that he was involved. Breathlessly, yet delighted at his easy success, he waited for the old man to continue.

Professor Shishkin did not keep him waiting long. “Now,” he went on, “my consent to your marriage to Olga is conditional on this. You must find some one who reasonably resembles Olga, and who is willing for a consideration to go with me in her place. You must bring her here the night before we sail. I will have an old minister friend of mine waiting. He can marry you and Olga. Then Olga and the substitute will change clothes. When you[101] take Olga away, the substitute can remain. She can wear a veil as long as any one who knows Olga is likely to see her. Once on the yacht, we will be safe from detection.”

Bristow gasped. Scarcely could he believe his ears. The Professor had taken to intrigue as if he had been dabbling in it all his life. What next?

“But,” he questioned, “where can I find a substitute? Do you know of any one like Olga——”

“Dozens of them. Hundreds of girls in New York resemble her more or less. Olga is of a very common type.”

The reporter flushed angrily. He did not think Olga of a common type. To him there was no one like her. Still, he could scarcely quarrel with her father for saying so.

“It won’t be as easy as you think,” he returned. “Still, it might be done.”

“It must be done. Otherwise Olga must go with me. A power stronger than I decrees it.”

“Oh, well, in that event—let me think!” The reporter was beginning to enter into the spirit of the thing. “I believe I know the very girl you want. She’s doing a turn at Weser’s Music Hall. She does look like Olga in a general sort of way.”

“Humph! Well, she calls herself one, and I guess we’ll let it go at that. I’ve known her for a good while, though never very well, and I believe she’s straight. That’s her reputation, anyhow. I do[102] believe that by making-up a little she could pass for Olga with people who didn’t know her well.”

“That is all that is necessary. So long as she has the right height and figure, and bears a general resemblance to Olga, no one will question her identity if I introduce her as my daughter. Oh, yes! It will be easy. Where can I see this girl?”

Bristow looked at his watch. “She’ll be at the theatre now,” he announced. “I’ll hurry up to town and catch her as she comes out, and arrange——”

“Never mind. I’ll go with you and see her at once. There is no time to lose.” The Professor rose. “Remember, Mr. Bristow,” he added seriously: “this is no pleasure masquerade. It may easily become a matter of life and death for me, for Olga, and for others. I do not tell you more because I am sworn not to do so, and because the less you know the better; but don’t think for a moment that this is anything but deadly earnest. Now, let us go.”

Bristow rose. “Certainly,” he agreed. “But hadn’t we better speak to Olga first?”

“Well, she might conceivably object. Women don’t always look at things from the same point of view as men.”

The Professor hesitated; then he waved his hand indifferently. “Perhaps you are right,” he admitted. “But Olga must agree. Seriously, this is the only means of saving her life and mine.”

BRISTOW and the Professor had been waiting at the stage door for only a few minutes when men and women, singly or in twos or threes, began to dribble through the gates and lose themselves in the homeward-bound crowds.

“Miss Lee will be out here in a minute now, Professor,” observed the reporter. “See if you can pick her out. If you can, it will be a sort of a test as to her resemblance to Olga. If you can’t, I’ll show you.”

The Professor nodded. Years seemed to have fallen from his shoulders. “Very well,” he agreed cheerfully.

No misgivings as to the girl’s acceptance of his offer troubled him. His idea was to offer her a trip to Europe, abundant fine clothes, reasonable money, and the chance to play lady for a few months among cultured people, and to ask in return only that she should pass as his daughter. Concerning the risks of the trip, he intended to say nothing, feeling confident that there would be no risk for her. Even if the worst came to the worst and he himself went to a Russian prison—which seemed unlikely—he could not conceive how she could come to harm, his desire[104] to leave Olga behind being based on very different reasons. Offering everything, and asking only a service that was in itself a pleasure, Professor Shishkin could not see how any girl could hesitate. All of which shows that he was not familiar with certain temptations which every handsome working girl and especially every actress in the great city had long been schooled to resist.

At last she came, and he picked her out instantly. The likeness to Olga was striking, though the differences were so great that no one who really knew either girl would be at all likely to mistake her for the other. With Bristow at his side, he started forward.

Miss Lee might fairly be called a type. From her high-ratted pompadour, past her exaggerated straight-front, to the flare at the bottom of her cheap skirt, she was dressed in the style. Neat as a cherry blossom, she carried herself with a dash that the Professor found himself mentally approving. A spot of red burned in either cheek, and her eyes snapped as she stepped upon the street. A student of the sex would have declared that she was in a royal rage.

The Professor was not a connoisseur in women, however, and he did not suspect that Miss Lee had just been “called down” by the stage manager for being late in answering her call, and had been told in no uncertain terms that if she was late again she could stay away for good. Miss Lee had glared at[105] the stage manager, but had not answered back. Twelve dollars a week may not be much to some people, but when it is one’s sole support, one is likely to think twice before casting it away. Having held her tongue, Miss Lee was in the condition of an engine on which the safety valve is tied down. She trembled on the verge of an explosion.

Ignorant of this, the Professor and Bristow stepped in the girl’s way and raised their hats.

“How do you do, Miss Lee?” remarked the latter. “I want to introduce to you my friend, Professor Shishkin. He wants to talk to you on a very important subject.”

If the girl was startled, she did not show it. “Gee!” she exclaimed, with pretended lightness, glancing at the Professor’s venerable aspect. “What’s broke loose? Has me long lost uncle cashed in and left his money to his darling brother’s offspring?”

The Professor did not quite follow. “No-o,” he quavered slowly. “I wanted to see you on a personal matter. I have been studying your appearance, and I——”

“My dear young lady!” The Professor did not understand what the girl meant, but he gathered that she was reproving him. “My dear young lady! It is because I am so old that I venture to address you. As I say, I have been studying your appearance,[106] and I want to talk with you quietly. If you will go with me to——”

Miss Lee flushed. “Ain’t you the frisky grandpop!” she demanded scornfully. “Back to the bald-headed row for yours. You mashers make me tired. Gee! I’ll have to take to eating onions to keep you off. I take it right hard that you should let me in for this, Mr. Bristow. You know I ain’t that sort.”

Bristow had been listening in secret amusement, but at the girl’s protest he started forward. “It’s all right, Miss Lee!” he said. “The Professor really wants to talk to you on business. He is to be my father-in-law, and I wouldn’t think of encouraging him in any capers. He’s no masher.”

“Masher!” At last the Professor understood. “Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “Do you take me for one of those vapid fools that exhibit themselves on the street corners? I should have thought my white hair would have shielded me from such an imputation. After all, however, it may be natural enough. I suppose I began wrong. But I am not that kind. Without denying your evident attractions, young lady, I assure you that I have sought you for a very different reason. This is strictly business. I can’t talk here. Perhaps”—an idea struck the Professor—“perhaps you will do me the honor of dining with me at some place near here—any place you like to name!”

For some moments the girl stared at him shrewdly.[107] After all, perhaps—— “I guess I made a mistake,” she said at last, slowly. “It’s hard to guess sometimes. I’ll take dinner with you and hear what you’ve got to say. But you take my tip and don’t try any funny business, or I’ll call a cop. See?”

“All right, then,” declared the girl. “There’s a spaghetti emporium right back of here on Sixth Avenue. We’ll go there.”

A few moments later the trio were sitting in a huge plate-glass restaurant, and Miss Lee, at the Professor’s request, was ordering a somewhat elaborate dinner. Then, while she awaited its coming, she leaned forward across the table. “Well!” she began, ignoring Bristow, who plainly desired to remain in the background. “Well, now’s the time to spring the story of your life in thirteen chapters and tell what led up to this thrilling moment—unless you’d rather wait till after the tooth-picks. You ain’t going to spring an Arabian Nights fable on me, are you?”

The waiter brought the soup, and the girl began to eat with elaborate interest. The Professor noted that her table manners were good and would arouse no suspicion. Her slangy way of speaking gave him some misgivings, but he put them aside.

“What!” The girl laid down her spoon and regarded[108] him severely. “Well, you’re original, any way,” she laughed. “Sure it ain’t Jones?”

“No—Shishkin. I am a Russian, but I have been living in this country for twenty years. Will you tell me something about yourself?”

“Cert. Florence Lee. Twenty years old. From Missouri. Been working in New York three years. Live in Brooklyn. Anything else? Want to see my vaccination certificate?”

“No, what you have said is sufficient for the present. I only wanted something to go on. I am a scientist. My work is chiefly in connection with the ocean. I am about to start for Europe on what will undoubtedly be my last trip. Ordinarily, my daughter would go with me, but she desires to get married. I must have some one in her place.”

Miss Lee paused in the act of raising an olive to her lips. “I ain’t a trained nurse,” she objected tentatively.

“I don’t want a trained nurse,” returned the Professor, with a show of spirit. “I have sought you out because you look very much like my daughter. What I want you to do is to take her place and her name; to pretend to be she; and to go to Europe with me. We may be gone six months. You shall have everything my daughter would have had and be treated exactly as she would be treated. Will you go?”

But Miss Lee was past speech. With mouth agape, she stared at the old man. Anything can[109] happen in New York, but this went beyond her experience.

“Well, if that ain’t the limit!” she murmured, at last. “Say, when did you come out of Bellevue?”

“The psychopathic ward. Gee! it must be a lovely world you live in—till the pipe goes out.”

Dimly the Professor understood that he was being mocked. “I am not jesting, young lady,” he explained, with dignity. “I may add that when the trip is over I will bring you back to New York and give you a thousand dollars.”

The girl’s eyes burned into his. “I am not for sale,” she answered briefly. “Don’t think it, grandpop. There are plenty that are. Go after them.”

“No one will do so well as you. Didn’t I explain? I am compelled to seem to take my daughter with me on this trip. I don’t want to take her, and she does not want to go. Yet she must go unless I can find some one to pass for her. You look like her. When you dress as she does, you will look very much like her. That is why I have come to you first. With a few days’ training, you will find it easy to pass for Olga, my daughter. No one who is going on this trip has ever met her. And it won’t be unpleasant. You will be treated with all honor and consideration. Will you come?”

“Come!” Miss Lee had gone back to her dinner and was discussing it with much gusto.[110] “Look here, grandpop! Do you mean to tell me that all this is on the level?”

“Certainly.” The Professor did not speak slang, but he understood it to some extent.

Florence stared at him once more. She did not believe that he was speaking the truth, or, rather—for she had been trained in a hard school—she did not believe that he was speaking the whole truth. She felt sure that there was something behind—as, indeed, there was. Still, she was tempted. A yacht, a trip to Europe, a masquerade, and a thousand dollars! It all sounded very fascinating to a girl who realized that she might be thrown out of work at any moment, with only a week’s salary between her and starvation. Of course it might be a trap. Florence was handsome, and she knew it; and she had heard of traps for handsome girls. This might be one, but if so, it was very elaborately baited. Besides, she felt supreme confidence in her ability to defend herself if need be. Still, she hesitated.

“How’m I to know?” she questioned. “The men are always springing something new, and a girl’s got to be mighty careful. I ain’t for sale; anyhow, I ain’t on the bargain table; before I go off I’ve got to be sure that the man’s on the level and can do more than make a noise like a tin bank. If you ain’t stringing me—if you ain’t escaped from the crazy house—prove it. It oughtn’t to be hard.”

Professor Shishkin considered. “My friend and[111] future son-in-law, Mr. Bristow, will endorse everything I say,” he declared. “Further, I should be glad to have you talk with my daughter, whose place you will take. Do you know East Orange?”

“Very well. Come down there early to-morrow. Ask any one to show you where Professor Shishkin lives. You’ll find a pretty, vine-clad cottage. Nothing at all to make you afraid. Come in and you’ll find Olga and me waiting for you. I think we can make you believe. Only”—the Professor’s voice grew serious—“only please wear a veil, and don’t tell any one what I have told you. I’d much rather you would refuse outright than have you talk. I want you to pass as my daughter. The moment the truth gets out, you cease to be of use to me, and I get into grave danger. So you must be secret. Now, on that understanding, will you come?”

Miss Lee reached her hand across the table. “I’ll come,” she promised. “I’ll see the thing through. If it ain’t straight, you’re the biggest—— Well, never mind, I’ll see it through.”

Baron Demidroff, chief of the third section of the Russian police, the dreaded secret police, pondered this sentiment as he sat in the office of his immediate superior, the Minister of the Interior. The Baron had been thirty years in the police service, and for fifteen years he had been its chief. In those years he had weathered many a storm that had bade fair to sweep him from place and power, but never a one of them had seemed so menacing as that which he was confronting.

“‘Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king,’” he quoted, “‘he would not leave me naked to my enemies.’ You think the case is desperate, then?”

The Minister flung out his hands. “Judge for yourself, Baron,” he said. “Count Strogoff demanded your immediate dismissal. He was striking at me over your shoulders, of course. Your retirement meant mine, for I cannot afford to have one of Strogoff’s men in your place. The Emperor knew it, and that is the only reason you still hold your post. I did what I could, and will do what I can. But the most I could win was three months’ delay,[113] and to get that I had to talk vaguely of great discoveries you had in train. You will have to make them, my friend, or it is good-by to power for both of us.”

The Baron considered. He was a vigorous young-old man, with a hawk-like face, crowned by beautiful white hair. His mustache and imperial were the pink of military exquisiteness. In his eyes slumbered a consuming fire.

“Humph!” he said slowly. “What discoveries would your excellency suggest?”

The other laughed shortly, but with no merriment in his tones. “First and best,” he answered, “find the Orkney and recover her gold. Its loss is Strogoff’s strongest card against you and me. I wish I had never recommended borrowing that money on the Princess Napraxine’s estates. To take it out of Strogoff’s control was like snatching a bone from a hungry dog.”

“Of course Russia needed it. There was neither justice nor expediency in longer holding an estate for the benefit of a girl who had been missing twenty years, and who is certainly dead. The Emperor only anticipated when he decided to escheat part of it. But Strogoff had controlled it as trustee for ten years. It was madness to suppose that he would not seek revenge when forced to give it up.”

“Of course”—impatiently. “But I did not count[114] on the money being lost. That was your fault, Baron. You were much to blame.”

The Baron’s face showed that he did not agree with his superior’s assertion, but he offered nothing in rebuttal. The Minister knew all the circumstances, and if he chose to blame his subordinate, that subordinate could gain nothing by demonstrating the unjustness of the accusation.

“It would help! It would help! It would gain us time, and time fights for us. Find the gold, and we can baffle Strogoff for a year or two longer; but as long as he controls the vast remaining estates of the Princess Napraxine, he will be dangerous.”

“Ah!” Baron Demidroff tugged at his mustache thoughtfully. “Failing recovery of gold,” he suggested, “is there anything else your excellency can recommend as likely to rehabilitate my position?”

“Nothing! Except, of course, the impossible. Find the Princess Napraxine, and let her take the control of her property out of Strogoff’s hands, and he will be crippled permanently. But that is moonshine.”

“Perhaps not!” The Baron smiled cheerfully at the Minister. “Stranger things have happened. As a matter of fact, I came here to-day to inform your excellency that I have good hopes of recovering the Orkney’s gold, and that I believe I have found the Princess Napraxine.”

[115]The Minister did not start. Instead he sat and stared at the Baron as if he would read the other’s very soul. “Humph!” he grunted. “Humph! Humph! Humph!” Then after a moment: “The proofs will have to be very strong, Baron!”

The other mused a moment. “The girl will have to be carefully coached,” he suggested, “and she will have to be a strong character to carry the thing through. Strogoff is a hard man to deceive. And detection would be serious!”

The Baron did not resent the clear imputation that the other’s words conveyed. He seemed to take distrust as a matter of course. “Your excellency is mistaken,” he replied suavely. “This is no case of imposition. I have really found the Princess.”

“After twenty years! The proofs are not completed, but the evidence is already morally conclusive. If I can recover the gold, as I believe I can, I should be ready even now to submit them to the Emperor, confident that he would consider them satisfactory.”

The Minister settled back in his chair with a long breath. The thing was too good, and came too pat to the moment, to be true. It seemed incredible that the Princess Napraxine, stolen at the age of three, should be found twenty years later and restored to her rightful position. Still, Demidroff was a wonderful man, and could be relied on not to undertake[116] anything unless he had good prospects of carrying it through. If he brought forward a claimant, that claimant would be well fortified with proofs. And if she won the estates, the victory would be so overwhelming that it was worth taking some risks to win it.

The Baron obeyed. “As your excellency knows,” he began, “I have agents in terrorist circles—practically as many as they have in ours. Most things that they do reach me in the course of time, though usually too late to be of much value. Some months ago I began to realize Strogoff’s power, and it seemed to me that it might be well to find the Princess. It occurred to me to make investigations through one of my agents into the records of the Brotherhood dating back to the time of the abduction. In consequence I learned that the Princess had been stolen by Count Lladislas, a Pole, who had been committed to the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul three years before, at the behest of the Grand Duke Ivan, who admired the Countess Lladislas. After Lladislas was reported dead, the Countess married the Grand Duke morganatically.

“Lladislas escaped and stole the child. Possibly he had been misinformed and thought he was stealing his own child; I am not certain as to this. At all events, he passed her off as such. He took her to America, changed his name to Shishkin, and became[117] professor in one of the small colleges. He still lives, and I think can be made to testify. I learned this only yesterday, and am still considering how to go about the matter.

“So much for the Princess. Now for the gold. I learned recently, through the same agent who gave me the first information in the matter of the Princess, that the Brotherhood had obtained a clue to the Orkney’s gold. My information was fragmentary, but I learned that it had dispatched an agent to New York to see a Mr. Ashton Caruth, to whom had been sent a letter which was supposed to tell something about the gold. I cabled Struve, our consul-general at New York, to get that letter at all hazards. He tried, but he bungled somewhere. His men killed a valet of Caruth’s, but did not get the letter. He does not know who did, but he believes it is now in the hands of a woman calling herself Marie Fitzhugh, who was in Caruth’s apartments that night, and who is probably the agent of the Brotherhood. She has not been identified yet, but she will be soon. Struve is keeping a close watch on her, and thinks that sooner or later she will lead us to the gold.

“So the case stands. I am awaiting developments. Any day—any hour—news may come. Did I speak too strongly when I said I had hopes?”

The Minister sprang to his feet and thrust out his hand enthusiastically. Naturally optimistic, he was already certain of triumph. “Hopes!” he cried.[118] “Hopes! They are more than hopes, my dear Baron; they spell triumph.”

“I think so.” The Baron rose. “I have three months’ time,” he added. “Much may be done in three months.”

“I found this on my desk,” he cried. “It came in half an hour ago. Read it.”

THE Sea Spume, with its curiously assorted passengers, sailed from New York on Saturday.

Besides Caruth, it carried Marie Fitzhugh, Professor Shishkin, his pretended daughter, Thomas Wilkins, and several bewhiskered individuals whose names ended in ski or vitch. They were the divers whom Miss Fitzhugh had selected and Professor Shishkin had brought along ostensibly to explore the bottom of the Baltic for proofs of his theory of rising sea-floors. Caruth felt sure that they were nihilists and suspected them of having bombs on their persons, but it was too late to balk at that.

The yacht was swift and the weather fine, and the miles fell behind with gratifying regularity. The sun shone bright by day, and the moon cast silvery gleams by night. In short, the astronomy of the trip was all that could be desired.

As soon as the yacht was out of sight of land, the Professor, who was a born sailor, took occasion to explain matters a little more fully to Miss Lee, who likewise seemed not to feel the motion of the vessel. He explained them not because he wanted to do so, but because he could not help himself. The girl was altogether too clever not to suspect that something[120] was being kept back. In any event, she must very soon find out that the yacht was going to dredge for something besides sea creatures. Unless told enough to satisfy her, she would surely ask questions that might show her ignorance of matters concerning which Olga could scarcely be supposed to be ignorant. It was better to tell her something of the objects of the trip rather than to risk the possible effects of her inquisitiveness.

He told her that the Sea Spume was going to search for a vessel that had been wrecked a year or two before, with a large sum in gold on her. He admitted frankly that he himself had come in order that by his scientific reputation he might conceal the true object of the trip.

He meant to go so far and no farther. But he had not reckoned on Miss Lee. She heard him out; then she turned questioner.

“These heart-to-heart talks are all right,” she remarked, “if they are all right. But if they ain’t, they’re punk. I’m from Missouri, y’know, and I’ve got to be shown. Why d’ye want to hide the object of your trip? Who owns this gold you’re after?”

“Then why don’t they go after it openly? A man’s got a right to his own, ain’t he? What’s the need of all this masquerading?”

The Professor squirmed. The question, though natural, was not what he had expected.

[121]Pitilessly the girl went on: “Who are you afraid of? Who’s likely to interfere with you?”

“Well!” Professor Shishkin was desperate. “Well!” he admitted. “I might as well tell you that our title to the gold is disputed, and we are likely to have trouble if it is known that we are after it. It is really ours, but our enemies are unscrupulous and dangerous, and they could make things very unpleasant for us. They would have gotten the gold long ago if they had known just where it was.”

Miss Lee considered a while. “It ain’t good enough,” she remarked. “I’ve studied geography, and I’ve been looking up the Baltic lately. There’s too much Russovitsky about this game. I’ll bet a box of taffy there’s a nihilist plot mixed in it somewhere.”

“Sh!” The Professor’s face had changed, and he held up his hand warningly. “There’ll be suspicion enough on that point before long, I fear,” he whispered. “Don’t start it any sooner than it can be helped.”

“I can’t tell you. You must draw your own conclusions. If it is true, would you draw back? The cause of the revolution is the cause of freedom.”

“Humph! Maybe so. I’ll think about it. But—I want to know. What’ll the Czarski do to us if he catches us?”

[122]“Nothing. We’ll lose the gold, but nothing more. We are American citizens on an American vessel on the high seas. No one will dare to touch us.”

“You?” The Professor was amazed. “Why, my dear young lady, my daughter wanted to marry and didn’t want to come. I told you all this.”

“Ye-es. You told me why she didn’t want to come. But you ain’t told me why you want everybody to think she did come.”

The Professor hesitated, and the girl put her finger on the weak spot. “You didn’t bring her because you thought it was too dangerous,” she remarked shrewdly; “and you didn’t want others to know how risky you thought it was. And you picked me for the goat. Ain’t that it?”

The Professor leaned forward. “Not exactly,” he explained. “It would be very dangerous for her to visit Russia. Being what she is and who she is, it would be very dangerous. For you, it is not so. Danger may threaten you, but you can always escape by declaring who you are. With her it is different. Besides”—he spoke slowly and impressively—“I have reasons—reasons that I assure you are crucial—for having it thought that she is with us. I implore you to keep the secret. It might and probably would cost her her life if certain persons on board suspected the truth. You will keep faith?”

“Oh, sure! I’ll keep faith. You needn’t worry[123] about that. Especially if that stuck-up Fitzhugh woman is one of the ‘certain persons.’”

The Professor said nothing more. He was by no means satisfied with the situation; but, then, he had been dissatisfied with it from the first. It was a mere choice of evils, and, he told himself despondently, in trying to better matters he was only too likely to make them worse. Nothing but the absolute necessity of keeping the real Olga out of Russia would have ever driven him to such a desperate scheme as this.

It was really more desperate than he knew, though not more so than he might have guessed had he known of the relations that were developing between Miss Lee and Thomas Wilkins.

These two had drawn very close together during the trip. While neither would have endured for a moment any intimation that they were not as good as any one breathing, still neither could help feeling more or less out of place in their new surroundings. The girl saw this more clearly and felt it more sharply than the man. She recognized the fact that these people were lucky enough to possess what she had longed for all her life—money and social position—and concluded that their ways must be correct ways. Therefore she set herself to study them and to mould herself by their standards. The conditions were peculiar, and perhaps she might grasp the money and the position if she once fitted herself for them.

Wilkins, on the other hand, had no yearnings for[124] the social altitudes. It never occurred to him to copy any one else’s manners. He only felt vaguely uncomfortable, more or less seasick, and very much bored. Therefore he welcomed the companionship of the one person among the cabin passengers with whom he somehow felt himself to be on a plane.

As the voyage continued, this intimacy increased. Caruth noticed it and vaguely wondered at it; but then he had wondered from the first at the rather singular manners and conversation of the Professor’s daughter. Miss Fitzhugh noticed it, and did not like it; just why, she scarcely knew. But neither she nor Caruth made any effort to check it. Supposing Miss Lee to be the Professor’s daughter and therefore devoted to his cause, they naturally were glad of anything that tended to bind Wilkins closer to their cause.

So matters ran along till nearly the end of the voyage. Cattegat and Skagerrak had been traversed, Copenhagen was a blur of light on the clouds behind them; the widening sea space before them showed that the broad Baltic lay close at hand.

Miss Lee and Wilkins sat together on the quarter-deck watching the moonlight as it shone white on the wake of the Sea Spume. For some time neither had spoken.

At last Wilkins broke the silence. “Lady,” he said, “I s’pose your pa’s told you how I come to be on this here trip?”

[125]Florence nodded. The Professor had not told her, but it seemed unnecessary to admit that fact.

Wilkins went on. “I’ll own right up to you,” he explained, “that when I come I warn’t by no means satisfied that I was gettin’ a square deal; a ten per cent rake-off ain’t very high when you hold the joker and nobody else can get nothin’ unless you helps. Then I wasn’t satisfied about Jim. That Miss Fitzhugh swears her friends didn’t kill him; but, then, she naturally would, you know, and I’ve got my doubts. Still, there didn’t seem nothin’ else for me to do but to come along, and give ’em all the rope they wanted, and watch my chance to find out about Jim and to get a bigger share of the gold. But I want to say now that that’s all to the past. Your friends is my friends, and I’ll stick by ’em. You understand?”

Florence did not understand—how should she? She had never heard of “Jim,” nor of his death; nor did she know that Wilkins held the key to the location of the treasure. She was rapidly finding out things, however; so she held her peace and let the plainsman talk on.

“I promised to show them Bill’s letter as soon as we got into the Baltic,” he continued. “That means to-night. I guess I’d have done it any way, but now I know you, I ain’t hesitatin’ no more.”

Florence found her tongue. “It’s Bill’s letter that tells where the wreck is, isn’t it?” she guessed.

“Sure! The place ain’t much more than a day[126] from here. I’m going to show it to them pretty soon. But first I wanted to say somethin’ to you.”

Florence scarcely heard him. An idea, vague and unformulated, was stirring in her brain. Could any gain accrue to her personally from the fact that Wilkins alone knew the whereabouts of the gold?

While she considered, the man went on. “Lady,” he declared earnestly, “I’m a rough fellow, and I know I ain’t half good enough for you. I know your dad would have a fit if he thought I was makin’ love to you; and your fine friends would think I was crazy. Maybe I am; but it’s for you to say. I’m a sheepman, lady, and many a night when I’ve been bedded down alongside a camp-fire, watching them muttons masticatin’ and baain’ to each other, I’ve thought how nice it would be to go home to find somebody waiting for me. And the minute I see you and hear you talk so bright and clever, says I to myself: ‘That’s the girl for me.’” Wilkins paused for an instant and then went on. “I ain’t no poor man, lady. I’ve got twenty-five thousand baa-baas in Colorado. I didn’t come on this trip for the money, though half a million ain’t to be snuz at. So you’ll understand that when I gets my share home I’ll be mighty well off. Now can’t you and me frame it up together? Say the word, and I’ll make ’em consent before I gives up the letter telling where the gold is.”

Wilkins paused and waited for an answer. His face was as expressionless as ever, but in spite of[127] himself a tremor crept into his voice. Plainly he was very much in earnest.

Florence, on the other hand, was by no means ready to answer. To keep “him” guessing was one of the cardinal precepts of the school in which she had been trained.

“I mean this ain’t bargain day,” exclaimed the girl impatiently. “I ain’t saying a word against you, but I’ll have to think a long time before I make up my mind. When I do, it won’t be anybody on this yacht that’ll stop me. But I guess I’ll have to leave you on the anxious bench for a while.”

“I’m going to. But I’m goin’ to tell you something right now, and that is that I ain’t stuck on this crowd I’m with.”

“Popper ain’t the man he was. He ain’t nothing but a deuce in this game. He ain’t going to make anything out of it at all. Do you know who is?”

“Well! I’m not in this to help any old revolution. I tell you right now, Mr. Wilkins, that it’s me for the gold if I can get it to Noo York.”

A delighted grin came over Wilkins’s face. “Say!” he exclaimed. “You’re all rightski. They tried to scare me with them fellows, and I let ’em think they had, but, Lord sakes, they ain’t troubling me none. If they come to Colorado after me, the Czar’ll have one less to put in his dungeonoffski.”

“Then”—the girl held out her hand—“it’s understood. We’ll stand together. If we get a chance to skiddoo with the gold, we’ll do it. An’ I’ll marry you the day we get it to Noo York.”

BLACK and high, the islands of the Aland Archipelago rise out of the Baltic. All winter long they lie bound about with ice. With the spring, the ice, borne southward by the waking streams of the north, grinds past them, scraping and tearing, rending all that lies in its path. The short summer follows, when the great bowl of the Baltic rocks to the horizon like molten gold; when the black rocks take on a coat of living green; and the sea birds scream as they flash through the surf that breaks against them or tears through the narrow channels between.

On the eastern edge of the archipelago rise two islands, Burndo and Ivono, Siamese twins whose tie has not been wholly severed. The channel between them lies almost east and west and not north and south, and so has been spared the full scour of the annual ice-flood. Cut deep at each seaward end, in the middle it is interrupted by a dike of harder rock that as yet persists against the inevitable and at low tide changes it into two inlets that nearly touch each other.

Into the western inlet, driven by her slowing engines, and urged by waves and tide, the Orkney[130] had sped two years before; had impaled herself upon a sunken rock; and, shuddering backward, had sunk with her crew and her passengers and her million pounds sterling of gold.

No eye had seen her sink. The little fishing village of Burndo, scattered along the western inlet, close to the central neck, had slept soundly, lulled by the roar of the wind. The watchman at the beacon tower on the heights of Ivono Island had dozed, not watching. If cries arose from the sinking ship; if men battled for life in the surf; if the waves hammered and the wind tore, it passed unnoticed. When morning dawned the Orkney lay ten fathoms deep, and the wreckage and bodies belonging to her, caught in the tide, had been swept away toward Copenhagen and the vast Atlantic. Two succeeding winters had torn her masts away and ravished her upper decks of all their superstructure. But the hull lay intact, buried far beneath the green water.

For five days the Sea Spume had lain moored close to the head of the channel, within sight of the village, while the divers searched the bottom hour after hour until the last ray of daylight vanished. One of them was really a scientific assistant, and to him was allotted the task of making such observations and collecting such specimens as would naturally have been desired by Professor Shishkin, had the object of the expedition actually been that which it purported to be. Indeed, so far as the Professor was concerned, the work was conducted in good[131] faith, the researches planned really being in exact line with his long-cherished ambitions.

The other two divers, under direction of Captain Wilson, commander of the Sea Spume, who had necessarily been taken into confidence some time before, lost no time in setting about their search for the wreck. In less than half an hour after the Sea Spume was in position, they were hard at work at the bottom of the inlet.

It was not to be expected that the search would be brief. The inlet (or high-tide channel), though comparatively small, was large as compared with the Orkney. Its bottom was rocky, with irregular humps and unexpected holes, making search slow and difficult. Even if the unlucky steamer had run upon the beach itself, it must have slipped back and been carried by the current to a greater or less distance—just how far no one could predict. The divers might chance on it at their first descent, or might not discover it for a week or more. And after it was found would come the toilsome task of salvaging the gold. Five million dollars would weigh about ten tons, and, even lightened as it would be by being in the water, it would not be the work of a day to move it, even if it could be readily come at, which was improbable.

The adventurers had laid their plans with a full knowledge of these facts. Had there been any chance of speedy work, they might have tried to conceal their presence, but under the circumstances this[132] would be impossible. Therefore they had resolved to proclaim their presence and even to welcome visitors if any should appear, up to the moment before the gold began to be brought aboard.

Besides the advisability of making their presence known to the authorities, there was always the off-chance that careful watch as the launch sped to and fro in the inlet might disclose the Orkney lying like a dark shadow beneath the water. The fisher boats, of course, had not discovered it, but this argued little, because the boats generally used the other, or eastern, outlet, rather than the western; and further, perhaps, because the fishermen were not looking for anything of the kind.

So soon as possible after the divers had gone below the water, Caruth ordered out a steam launch to make the quarter-mile trip to the head of the inlet and visit the village which he knew lay there, though screened from view of the yacht by a turn in the channel.

Caruth had intended to go to the village alone on the first trip, leaving Marie Fitzhugh (who thought it best not to show herself) and Captain Wilson to superintend affairs on board the yacht and deal with any emergencies that might arise. It was no part of his plan to take Wilkins along, but when that individual joined him, evidently intending to go, he did not quite know how to refuse.

So far, he had no reason to question the plainsman’s good faith. Wilkins had produced his[133] brother’s letter at the time promised, and it had proved to be all that he had claimed for it. Caruth could not risk exciting any animosity by showing unwillingness to trust the man on shore.

Suddenly, in the midst of his hesitation, he recalled the westerner’s marked liking for the pretended Olga Shishkin, and at once sought out that young woman and invited her to go on the trip to the village.

“You’ll be doing us all a favor if you’ll come, Miss Shishkin,” he urged. “Of course we are all loyal and all that, but”—he dropped his voice—“none of us know very much about Wilkins, and it would make things a good deal safer for your father and the rest of us if you’d go along and keep an eye on him. He’s all right, you know, but——”

“But you’re on the anxious bench all the same. I know how it is myself. Sure! I’ll go with pleasure, Mr. Caruth.”

The run up to the village was brief, and soon the launch grated against a little wooden pier and disembarked her passengers, who started toward the cluster of buildings that seemed to constitute the village.

“There’s the church and the store and the post-office and the mayor’s house,” explained Caruth, pointing out the several edifices. “There’s no mistaking any of them, once you know the type. I’ll have to go to the mayor first, to report my arrival, and give him a chance to inform St. Petersburg.[134] You needn’t come in unless you like. It will take only a few minutes, and then we can see the town.”

By the time the party had reached the village, quite a little crowd had collected. Visitors are few on Burndo Island, and the news of their coming spread apace. Curious faces appeared at doors and windows, and gaping children lined the way.

Caruth vanished into the house of the mayor, where he found that his business would take a much longer time than he had expected. The mayor, a stupid and suspicious peasant, spoke no English, and Caruth spoke no Russian, and there was a delay until an interpreter could be found.

This interpreter proved to be a slim fellow, whose appearance, despite the fact that his features were hidden by a profusion of beard, nevertheless impressed Caruth with a vague sense of familiarity. For an instant, indeed, the young fellow was sure that he had seen the man before; the next moment, however, he dismissed the idea as preposterous.

But he quickly adverted to his former feeling when the interpreter addressed him in very good American.

“Mornin’, Cap’n,” he said, with a nod. “This old son of a gun wants to know who you are and what you want here, anyhow.”

Caruth gave his name and explained the object of his trip; then added: “Who are you? You talk like an American.”

“American! Well, I guess yes! Me for the starry banner every time. I’m from little old Noo York;[135] I am. But wait a minute till I tell his pie-face what you say.”

He turned and translated what Caruth had said into halting Russian, and then appeared to render into English something that the Mayor said in return.

“He says you are a liar or crazy,” he translated cheerfully. “He puts it kinder easier, but that’s what it means all right. Say, that yarn you told me about hunting things at the bottom of the bay is straight, I suppose.”

“Well, I’ll try to sneeze it to him again, though I ain’t much on the Russian. It tastes too much like it sounds, and that’s enough. Say! I suppose you belong to the safety vault crowd and have barrels of simoleons at home!”

Caruth flushed; then laughed. The man’s impudence was refreshing. “Well,” he admitted, “I’ve got enough to keep me going.”

“I guessed so. Wait a minute. I must keep the old geezer satisfied.” He turned and for a moment the language of the Czar held the floor. Finally the man resumed.

“It’s that touch of yours about rising sea bottoms that gets him,” he explained. “He says he’s lived here all his life and never saw the sea-bottom rise yet, ’cept when the tide goes out. It’s a tough sort of a gag to spring on one of these two-by-four government officers what rank somewhere between jack high and a bobtail flush and is intelligenced[136] according. Not but what I reckon it’s true enough. But about this here question of wealth. If you’ve got it to burn, I don’t reckon you’d care to pyramid it a million or so, would you?”

Caruth was startled, his unquiet conscience making him suspect that everything any one said to him had reference to his true errand.

“I don’t know,” he answered cautiously. “What have you got? A gold mine?”

The man laughed shortly. “A gold mine!” he echoed. “A gold mine! Well, I guess you might call it that. What I want to know is, do you care to go in on it? Or if you don’t, will you help out an American marooned on this durned holeski?”

Caruth nodded uneasily. “Oh, I suppose so,” he answered slowly. “I’m always willing to help a fellow countryman. But you’ll have to explain.” The man nodded. “I’ll explain all right,” he promised. “But you’ve got to answer all the questions on this sheet of paper first or you’ll have the Czarski in your hairski.”

The questions were long and tedious, and when they were finished Caruth rose with a sigh of relief.

The interpreter rose also. “I’ve told his joblots that you want me to show you round the mud puddle,” he explained. “That’ll give me a chance to spiel. Come along.”

The two walked to the door. As they walked out, Wilkins met them. “Miss Shishkin’s looking at the church,” he explained. “She’s——”

[137]He broke off and his face grew red, then white, as his eyes fell on the interpreter. Once or twice he swallowed; then coughed. “D—— that Russian tobacco!” he exclaimed. “It’s been strangling me ever since I sniffed it half an hour ago.”

Caruth, who had waited smilingly till the plainsman recovered, glanced toward the church. “Shall we go over and join Miss Shishkin?” he suggested. “I’ve got an interpreter here who can—— Hello! what’s become of the fellow?”

The interpreter had vanished. In the few instants that Caruth’s attention was centred on Wilkins, he had slipped away, probably around one of the houses that stood close by. At first Caruth supposed that the disappearance would be but temporary, but as the minutes went by without sign, he was forced to conclude that it was both permanent and intentional.

When at last doubt no longer remained, the young fellow laughed angrily. “Let him go, confound him!” he exclaimed. “He was half crazy, anyhow. Come! Let’s go to the church.”

NEITHER Wilkins nor Florence had waited long for Caruth to return. In fact, that gentleman had scarcely vanished into the mayor’s office when Florence had turned to her companion.

“Gee!” she remarked. “Me for the breakaway. These high-brows gets on me nerves. Let’s see the town—even if it ain’t all to the giddy, it’s better than the old boat. Gee! but it’s slow!” Miss Lee, it will be observed, was glad to pretermit, when opportunity offered, the forms of polite speech that she was rapidly acquiring.

Wilkins looked at her suspiciously. “You ain’t seemed in no ways bored,” he suggested.

“Oh, I got to put up a front, of course,” rejoined the girl indifferently; “but if it wasn’t for you, I guess I’d fade away. This style of life’s all right for those that likes it, I guess, but it’s me for Coney Island every time.”

They had reached the church now and were peering in at the open door. Miss Lee was not impressed; she had seen Russian churches in her beloved New York, and mentally compared them with this one, much to its disadvantage. Wilkins, however, found[139] it all new and interesting. The candles ranged before the icons, the gilt and glass of the altar, the tawdry trappings, all impressed him, and he advanced into the building, studying its details.

Scarcely had he left the girl when a man dressed in the habiliments of a priest stepped to her side, holding out his hat, as if for alms. As Florence stared at him, he muttered swiftly, in excellent English:

“Pardon, mademoiselle! I must speak to you secretly. You have been deceived. You are not Professor Shishkin’s daughter. You are a princess of Russia with a huge fortune. I have come from St. Petersburg to talk with you. Give me a chance, I beg.”

Miss Lee turned away. “Say, Mr. Wilkins,” she called. “I left my jacket in the boat. Would you mind chasin’ down and gettin’ it for me? I’ll wait here for you.”

When the plainsman had gone, Florence turned to the priest. “Make good,” she ordered briefly. “You look like the Caliph of Bagdad, and I guess you can do the magic. If I’m a face-card instead of a two-spot, of course I want to know it.”

The priest did not answer Florence’s speech in words. Turning, he stepped to the door and threw out his hand. “Begone!” he shouted to the curious crowd, and at the word it melted away.

Then he came back. “Will you not be seated, Princess?” he inquired courteously, pointing toward[140] a bench that stood against the wall. “I regret that I have no better accommodation to offer you, but——”

Florence took the seat. “Cut it out,” she advised. “Get on with the fairy tale.”

The priest removed his cap and threw back his vestments, revealing himself as a well-preserved, courtly gentleman of perhaps fifty years of age. Beautiful white hair curled about his brow, while his beard and mustaches were the pink of military perfection. Florence, studying him furtively, found him very good to look upon. To her he represented romance, aristocracy, refinement—all that she had never had in her sordid life. He was too old to play Prince Charming, she concluded, but he was of the type to which she believed Prince Charming belonged.

Meanwhile the priest was seating himself. “No fairy tale. Princess,” he contradicted deferentially—“unless we liken it to Cinderella and transform the beautiful, wronged young lady into the princess. Rather let us call it a masquerade. I am not what I seem. You are not what you seem. Your whole expedition is not what it seems. We are all masked. But the time for unmasking is at hand.”

Florence stared at him languidly. “I suppose you know what you mean,” she remarked insolently. “But I don’t.”

“I am Baron Ivan Demidroff, chief of the third section of the Russian police. Perhaps you know what that means. Your yacht has been watched ever since it entered the Baltic, and I am here for the express purpose of meeting you. If I may advise, Princess, it is not well to scoff always. This affair is not one for laughter.”

“Oh, splash! Excuse these tears of regret!” mocked the girl. “Go ahead! I’ll be good.”

For a moment the Baron studied the girl’s face. Then he shrugged his shoulders. Privately he was revising his former opinions about American training and manners. He had not met Florence’s type before.

“You have always supposed yourself the daughter of Professor Shishkin, have you not, Princess?” he questioned.

Florence dodged. “Well, I got a right to,” she answered. “He told me so himself.”

“I know. He did you a grave injustice. Listen, Princess! Twenty years ago, the man you suppose to be your father engaged in a plot to murder my imperial master the Czar. The plot was detected, and its authors were thrown into prison. Three years after, Shishkin escaped. In some way he had gotten the idea that his highness, the Grand Duke Ivan, had been responsible for his arrest. It was not true, but he believed it. So he slipped into the palace of the Grand Duke and stole away his daughter, the[142] Princess Yves Napraxine. He escaped with her to America and passed her off as his daughter. You were that child! You were and are that princess, Yves Napraxine, daughter of the late Grand Duke Ivan, cousin to his imperial majesty the Czar, and heiress to a great fortune. All this would have been yours from birth up had not that wicked old man stolen you away and robbed you of it.”

Florence closed her eyes. She felt faint. Ever since Professor Shishkin had approached her in New York, she had been wondering to what the adventure would lead. Naturally romantic, in spite of her flippancy, she had thought out half a dozen possible terminations, the least of which left her rich and honored. But never in her wildest imaginings had she dreamed of being identified as a princess and a cousin of the Czar.

A delightful excitement raced through her veins. In imagination she was already receiving homage and declining the hands of great nobles. Then, all at once, the “pipe went out.” None of this could be hers. It all belonged to the real Olga, married and settled three thousand miles away. The truth must of course soon appear; all she could do was to get all the pleasure possible out of the situation while it lasted. Perhaps she might manage to feather her nest by that time.

Her thoughts flew to the Professor. So this was the reason why he had wanted to keep the real Olga out of Russia? He had dreaded just such[143] a disclosure as this. Well, she would help him as long as she could—that is, as long as his interests did not clash with hers. When they did, of course——

“Ah ha!” he exclaimed. “You understand now perhaps some things you could not guess before. Perhaps you remember details of your childhood, almost forgotten. You were three years old when you were stolen, and some recollection sticks in your mind. Is it not so?”

“Yes, some recollection sticks in my mind.” Florence wondered grimly what the Baron would say if he knew what her recollections really were.

“The villain has robbed you of your birthright,” he repeated, with what seemed to be rising wrath. “But now it shall all be restored. Yes!”

Florence nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The situation was too new and strange, and she must move circumspectly. Besides, she was certain the Baron had more to say. She had been taught in a hard school, and was very sure that his actions were not disinterested. So she merely waited.

Baron Demidroff did not delay. “Yes,” he reiterated. “It shall all be restored, and the robber shall be punished. But there is more to tell, Princess. To whom, think you, belongs the gold for which the Sea Spume is seeking?”

“What gold?” Florence looked innocently into[144] the Baron’s eyes. She would admit nothing until compelled to do so.

“What gold? Mon Dieu, Princess, do you think we police are fools? Every step of the so-called Miss Fitzhugh and of Monsieur Caruth has been known to us. Almost we captured the letter on the fire-escape in New York. But Monsieur le valet was too cunning for us.”

Florence raised her eyes. “So,” she murmured thoughtfully, “it was your agents who murdered Wilkins?”

“Executed him, Princess. He was a robber and a murderer, with a long criminal record. We knew him well. His robbery of Monsieur Caruth was his last crime. My men observed him from the fire-escape and acted summarily. That is all.”

Florence did not understand half of this. She had been told nothing of Wilkins’s murder, her only knowledge being inferred from what his brother had said to her about it three days before. She laid away in her mind the information the Baron so freely imparted, and waited.

The Baron flung up his hands. “Alas, yes, Princess. But we watched and waited, and when Miss Fitzhugh organized her little expedition, we guessed that she had somehow gotten the letter. But, mademoiselle, revenons à nos moulons! Do you know whose gold it is they seek?”

[145]“It is yours! Yes, Princess, I swear it. Your illustrious father had never given up the hope of finding you, and when he died, ten years ago, his will directed that his estate should be set aside for you or be spent in seeking for you. When Russia’s needs became great owing to the war with Japan, my imperial master directed that money be borrowed for the government on your English estates. If you were found, he would pay it back; if you were not found, the estate would in time revert to the Crown. That gold was carried by the Orkney, wrecked by the nihilists, and is now being stolen from you by your pretended father and his rascally associates. It makes one’s blood boil, Princess!”

For obvious reasons, Florence’s blood did not boil quite so ardently as the Baron’s seemed to do. Plainly he was trying to excite her animosity against the members of her party, for reasons not yet disclosed, but not difficult to guess in a general way. She was sure that he was preparing to ask her to play traitor, and she was debating inwardly whether or not she would find it profitable to do so.

“It’s a real fervent tale,” she remarked encouragingly. “Gee! wouldn’t it make a hit on the ten-twent’-thirt’ circuit. Think of the Czarski doing the hands-across-the-sea act to an American girl! By the way, I forgot how you said you found me!”

Baron Demidroff hesitated. “It is a long story,” he boggled. “We got a hint from a friend of ours in the nihilist councils, and we followed it up. The[146] proofs were completed only after your party sailed from America. The last Unit came by cable a few days ago.”

Florence rose. “Well,” she said, “if it satisfies you, I certainly ain’t got any kick coming. But I guess you’d better get down to brass tacks and be done with it. Do I get this estate and princely rank, or don’t I? Talk business! I’m no ingénue.”

The Baron’s eyes lighted up. At last he thought he understood. He rose. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “You will treat with us! That is well. You will get everything if you help us! We want that gold. The Emperor is responsible to you for it, and he has charged us to recover it. Is it in the Inlet here?”

“Oh, gee, I don’t know! Nobody knows! They’re hunting for it here, but I don’t think they’re certain it ain’t somewhere else.”

“Ah!” The Baron was disappointed. “Well, no matter!” he went on. “You can help me nevertheless. Let me know when they find it, and I will do the rest. The moment it is in my hands, I will hand you the proofs that will make you a princess and give you a fortune of forty million rubles—twenty million American dollars. Will you help us?”

Florence shivered with delight. If she were clever,[147] she might coax some of those twenty millions to come her way. But matters were still decidedly vague.

“Why can’t you seize the yacht now?” she asked. “Why do you need my help?”

“My dear young lady!” the Baron exclaimed. “We do not know where the wreck is! We do not know that she is in this inlet at all. It may be for a blind that the yacht comes here. If we seize her before she finds the gold, we know nothing and we get nothing. Mr. Caruth he draw himself up. ‘Ah ha!’ he cries. ‘You insult the American flag!’ The American newspapers raise the—the war-whoop—and we—we can answer nothing. We have no proof. But when the gold is once aboard, we get it and we can catch Mr. Caruth red-handed. He is caught stealing our gold. He can say nothing. If he makes trouble, the American papers are dumb or they take our side. Russia’s friendship with America is not disturbed. It is only a pirate that is caught. Ah, no, no, Princess. We must proceed slowly. We must know our ground before we move. We must wait until the gold is found. Now what say you?”

Florence considered. Clearly, nothing was to be gained by refusing the Baron outright. She must have time to decide on her course of action. If it appeared best to betray the yacht, she would not hesitate to do so; but she had no intention of playing the traitor unless she saw her profit. She must study over the situation. Meanwhile, she would appear to accept.

[148]“All right,” she said briefly. “I’ll go with you. I’ll let you know when the gold is found. How’ll I do it?”

If Baron Demidroff was gratified, he did not show it. He was no longer treating Florence as a girl, but as a woman and a fellow conspirator.

“Your stateroom is the second on the port side, I believe,” he said tersely. “Very well. When the gold is found, hang a small red flag from your port-hole or show a red light there by night. It is understood? Yes? But your friend approaches. Adieu, Madame la Princesse!”

As he walked up the aisle toward the altar, Miss Lee rose to greet Wilkins. “Gee!” she exclaimed. “Let’s get back on board. This place is as dead as a puddle duckski!”

THREE days after Florence’s adventure at the church, that young woman sat on the quarter-deck of the Sea Spume, gazing with unseeing eyes over the lapping water which the descending sun had turned into a golden river stretching away to the west. Upon this yellow flood two boats were moving, and on these Miss Lee’s eyes were fixed.

But her thoughts were far away. Not once since Baron Demidroff had told his amazing tale had its substance been out of her ears. Again and again she had gone over the details, wondering if by any chance she could make the fairy tale come true.

In time she almost persuaded herself that she could. She was sure that she understood at last why the Professor had not wanted to bring his daughter to Russia. He had been afraid of this very thing—afraid lest Olga’s relatives should find her and reclaim her. More than ever now, he would want to keep the substitution secret. And no one else knew of it.

Florence’s heart leaped within her as the possibilities danced before her mind’s eye. Let her only dare to go ahead and she would have money and wealth. Why not?

A princess! Sharply she drew her breath at the[150] thought. A princess! She! Florence Lee! She who had faced beggary a few short weeks before! Princess Yves Napraxine! Princess Yves Napraxine! Again and again she wrote the words on the flyleaf of a book that lay in her lap. Princess Yves Napraxine! If it could be! If it could be!

A step on the deck aroused her. Hastily she closed the book, with its tell-tale writing, and looked up to see Wilkins close at hand.

Rapidly he strode to the rail and gazed toward the boats; then he turned abruptly back and sat down beside the girl.

“They’re getting mighty contiguous,” he declared. “I reckon they’ll oscillate on it to-night. Well, it don’t matter; everything’s ready.”

Curiously Miss Lee gazed at him. “What in the world are you talking about?” she demanded.

Wilkins withdrew his eyes from the dancing water and fixed them on the girl. For a moment he looked her in the face; then he deliberately winked.

Miss Lee struck at him. “Don’t get fresh,” she ordered severely. “I don’t allow gentlemen to wink at me except over a cold bottle. Speak out and quit making signs.”

Wilkins chuckled. “Say! You’re all to the good,” he remarked. “I’m ready if you are.”

“To foreclose on that there promissory note of yourn—that one about the gold. I’m ready to start for New York if you are. Fact is, I’m off to-night!”

“Sure thing! It’s me for the broad Atlantic by the light of the moon this very night. Say, don’t you want to shake this gang and come along?”

The girl paled slightly. “Tell me what you mean right away,” she ordered crisply.

Wilkins pointed over the water. “You see that right-hand boat pronouncin’ around yonder?” he questioned. “Well, near’s my specification goes, the Orkney lies just about under her. Unless they’re too terrible promiscuous, they’ll find her mighty soon, and then there’ll be goings on worse’n a locoed bronco.”

“How do you know?” The girl was leaning over him, every muscle tense with excitement. “How do you know where the Orkney is, and why will there be trouble when it is found?” she demanded.

“Because—say, I guess you didn’t see a slim, limpy fellow with a black hirsute adornment on his chin up in the village the day we was up there, did you? Well, that fellow was Bill, my brother Bill, the one that wrote the epizootle that brung us here. He wasn’t drowned in the Orkney—Bill wasn’t born to be drowned. Everybody else was, but he got on terra cotta, and he’s been hibernating here ever since, waiting his chance to get away with the gold.”

“Yes! Bill’s got it. How he done it, I don’t know. But he’s got it. Bill’s a man of his hands, Bill is! He’s got all them nuggets out of the ship[152] and cached ’em ashore. There ain’t a speck of dust left on the Orkney. Bill’s got it all!”

Amazement gripped Florence and held her dumb. The gold whose capture was to be the price of proofs of her princesshood had passed into other hands. What was she to do? There was no time to lose. Should she betray Wilkins to Caruth or to the Baron? How could she betray him to the Baron even if she wanted to? Should she grasp at the money and let the visionary rank go. She did not question whether she should be true to Professor Shishkin. Long before, she had decided that question.

“Going to run the gold off, of course,” returned the plainsman. “Bill’s got a boat of sorts—a schooner or pergola or something—and he’s got the gold on board by now. I’ve staked him to buy provisions, and we’re off to-night. Bill would have gone before, but he’s been crippled up since the wreck, and couldn’t manage the boat alone. But it’s all skeeky now. The scow’s lying up here a ways, just a-waiting for dark and for you and me to join her. If it coincides with your sentiments, we’ll do the fly away act to-night. Will you come?”

Miss Lee considered. Of course it would be delightful to be a princess, but, after all, there might be a string tied to Demidroff’s offer, while there was something substantial about five million dollars in gold. It might be well to pass up the fairy tale and close with Wilkins. She must consider.

“Ain’t going to try. We’ll just run over the way to Stockholm to a place Bill knows of, and go home from there by steamer. Oh, we’ve got it all diagnosed out proper. It’s a cinch.”

“But”—Florence was thinking aloud—“how are you goin’ to get away from the yacht?”

“That’s fixed, too. Bill will float down under the cabin windows about ten o’clock, just before the moon gets on the job, and we’ll drop in on him.”

“Let ’em find. What difference does it make? They may aspirate to get this here gold, but that don’t make it theirs. Bill and me’s got it, and I guess we’ll keep it. Why, say, there ain’t one of ’em’ll dare to baa even if they find us, which they won’t. Oh, it’s a cinch.”

“Perhaps! And yet—say, Mr. Wilkins, you’ve been on the level with me, and I’m going to treat you likewise. Don’t you be too sure you’ve got a cinch! There’s others besides the folks on this yacht that’s after that gold.”

Wilkins did not speak, but he looked the girl in the eye and waited for her to go on.

“The Russian cops are onto their jobs all right. They know what we’re after, and they’re watching us all the time. They’re ready to swoop down on us the minute we get the gold on board. I guess they’ve got a dozen boats lying around here.”

Wilkins looked thoughtful. “Humph!” he said.[154] “You’re all to the good, you are. You ain’t been wasting no time, have you? How’d you find out?”

“And you strung him along, all right, didn’t you? You would, of course!” He paused, then went on. “Well,” he remarked; “I don’t reckon it makes no difference. They won’t be suspecting a fishing schooner of any allusions, and they won’t be aggravatin’ us none. They’ll be keepin’ their optics trained on the yacht circumspectious. We can slip out easy. Is it a go?”

Florence held out her hand. “It’s a go,” she agreed. “More! I’ll help you to get away. I’ll fix things so that the yacht won’t have any time to bother us. Yes, it’s a go. And now——”

Swiftly Florence opened the book that lay in her lap and ripped out the flyleaf with its princely inscription. Swiftly she tore it into tiny fragments and tossed it to the breeze that sang through the rigging. “There!” she cried, as the bits besprinkled the water. “That’s the end of the Princess Yves Napraxine. It’s a go.”

“Somebody you never heard of. A bird in the bush. A dream of the impossible. A romance from the Chambermaid’s Own. Let her go. I’ll be ready when you are.”

THAT night the wreck was found. Seated in the cabin, close beside the telephone that led over the side down to the divers toiling beneath the darkening water, Caruth received the thrilling news.

Instantly hoarse orders rang through the ship, and the crew sprang to their stations. The furnace doors were flung open and brawny stokers hurled coal upon the banked fires until the hiss of steam told that the Sea Spume was ready to race for the open sea the moment the gold was on board.

Below, the divers were picking their way over the sunken hull, seeking the storage place of the treasure.

Above, at the telephones, stood Caruth and Marie Fitzhugh, cheeks flushed and eyes a-sparkle.

“At last! At last!” breathed the girl; and “At last! At last!” echoed Caruth.

His tones penetrated to the girl’s consciousness, and she blushed brightly. In the triumph of her cause, she had forgotten that Caruth’s object and hers were not the same.

She blushed, but she did not draw away. After all, if she were fated to give herself for Russia, to sell herself to Caruth in return for his help in the[156] cause of freedom, the sacrifice would not be so very hard. Indeed, it might not be hard at all. If policy were to govern her mating, this clean-limbed, clean-thinking young American would be a better mate than many a one who had sought her in the past. The Brotherhood must decide; she had sworn herself body and soul to its orders; but she found herself suddenly hoping that the Brotherhood might find Caruth’s claims worthy.

Smilingly she looked into the young man’s eyes. “Not yet,” she murmured. “Not yet. We are not out of the woods yet, and until we are you must remember your promise.”

“To give all your thoughts to the business in hand. Not to make love to me. Not to——”

“Great Cæsar’s Ghost! You don’t call this making love, do you? With you half a mile away across the cabin, and me with this telephone harness on my head. Just you wait and——” Excitedly he devoured her with his eyes.

Brightly she blushed, and restlessly she moved. Then she pressed a button on the wall. “I am going to send for Mr. Wilkins and Miss Shishkin to come and hear the news with us,” she explained. “We owe Mr. Wilkins an apology for distrusting him.”

When the steward entered, she sent him to find the two and ask them to come to the cabin.

When the man had gone, Caruth looked at her[157] and laughed. “Yes,” he agreed, “I guess I owe Wilkins an apology, but I could make it later just as well as now. I’m inclined to think that Miss Shishkin has had more to do with his good faith than anything else, anyhow. Queer girl, isn’t she, to be the Professor’s daughter. Not the sort I should have expected at all.”

The steward had entered, hastily. “Mr. Wilkins and Miss Shishkin don’t seem to be aboard, ma’am!” he exclaimed.

“I’ve hunted everywhere, ma’am. I’ve looked in Miss Shishkin’s cabin, ma’am, and she ain’t there. There weren’t nothing there but a red light burning in the port-hole, ma’am.”

Caruth sprang to his feet, tearing the telephone-receiver from his head. “A red light? Man, you’re crazy!”

“No, sir; I ain’t, sir. There was a lantern wrapped round with a red cloth burning in her port-hole. And she’s gone, sir. She ain’t on board, sir; and Mr. Wilkins ain’t on board either.”

For an instant Marie and Caruth stared at the man in dumb silence. Then the girl realized the situation. “Treachery!” she cried. “Treachery! Wilkins has betrayed us! I never trusted him. He’s betrayed us, and he’s carried the girl off.”

“Impossible or not, it’s been done. Maybe she[158] went with him willingly—I don’t know and I don’t care. She’s gone, and he’s gone, and there’s danger in it! Danger! It means we are watched. It means we’ll be attacked——”

“Yes, attacked! Do you think Russia will try to arrest us? She couldn’t! We are within our rights. We are only seeking salvage. She won’t dare to arrest us. She’ll send ruffians to attack us and kill or imprison us all. The Sea Spume will disappear as the Orkney did. No one will ever hear of it again. Quick! For God’s sake, give me that telephone! I’ll stay here. Go and find Captain Wilson! Serve out arms. Prepare to fight; for, as God is my judge, we will have to fight or perish. Don’t I know Russia and its police? Quick! The murderers may be creeping on us now.”

In three steps Caruth was on deck, and in three more on the bridge at Captain Wilson’s side. Eagerly he poured out his story.

“If the police come for us openly, we must yield,” he finished. “But Miss Fitzhugh says they will not come openly. She says they will come as pirates, thieves, murderers. If they do, we must fight for our lives. We’re armed and——”

“We’ll do it! I’ll give orders.” The captain was gone with the words trailing over his shoulders.

The Sea Spume had been bought and fitted out as a dispatch boat by the United States Government at the breaking out of the Spanish war. At its close,[159] she had been sold, guns and all, to the highest bidder; since then she had changed hands once or twice, but none of her owners had dismantled her. Finally Caruth, who had served on her during the war with other boy members of the Naval Militia, had bought her and had brought her up almost to a man-of-war pitch. When he had started for Russia, he had needed to add only a little ammunition to put the yacht in condition to cope with anything of her tonnage.

This armament was now to stand the adventurers in good stead. Caruth, watching from the bridge, saw the wave of excitement ripple along the vessel at the captain’s low-spoken commands; saw the tarpaulins jerked from the guns, revealing the long black muzzles of the six-pound rapid-firers; heard the splutter of the search-light as the men tested its connection, and the rattle of the hoists as the fixed ammunition, cartridge-like in ease of handling, was brought upon the deck.

Suddenly all lights went out, and the Sea Spume became only a darker spot in the opaque blackness of the night. Simultaneously fell silence, profound and tomblike!

Ghost-like, Captain Wilson mounted the bridge. “Everything’s ready,” he reported in scarcely audible tones. “If anybody comes for us now, they’ll get a warm reception. The men are crazy for a scrap.”

“Good! This means double pay all round,[160] Captain. You might pass the word. I’m going to the cabin now to find out what news there is from the divers. Miss Fitzhugh is at the telephone.”

But Caruth was not to go to the telephone then. As his foot poised above the first step of the companionway, from the bows a shrill challenge came.

No answer came. But out in the darkness a voice uplifted itself in short but swift command, intelligible by its tone if not by its syllables. Unseen men responded with an eager cheer, followed by a splash of oars in the water.

“The search-light! Quick!” shouted Captain Wilson, and at the word the electric sword glimmered through the darkness, illuminating the black water, and illuminating too, a score of boats, loaded with men, dashing upon the yacht.

Small time was there for parley. “Aim! Fire!” yelled the captain; and the flames of the guns split the darkness, while their thunders echoed back from the cliffs that towered close beside.

“Fire at will!” yelled Wilson, again; and again the guns roared, not all together as before, but in a pitter-patter of rattling sound. Swiftly the search-light circled, picking out the boats for an instant as vivid bull’s-eyes for the concentration of the yacht’s fire; dancing away again to some fresh point.

The yachtsmen were poor gunners, but at that range they could not miss. The revolving search-light soon showed an inextricable tangle of boats,[161] drifting or turning unbalanced athwart the course of their companions, with oars dropping from dead fingers and men plunging limply after them into the embrace of the tide. Other boats showed for an instant in the glare, then sank beneath the shimmering water. But past and through all these, others kept their way, intent only on coming to hand-grips with the men of the yacht. In the gaps of sound, the same ringing voice still sounded, as the unseen commander incited his men to fresh efforts.

For a moment fate hung in the balance. Then, as Caruth, pistol in hand, leaped down from the ladder to join in repelling the boarders who seemed about to swarm over the taffrail, the tide turned. The Russians, overtaxed, bewildered, hesitated and fled, some by boat, some by swimming; those who had gained the yacht’s shrouds leaped back in panic, careless whether planks or the Baltic lay beneath them.

Captain Wilson’s deep voice rang out. “Cease firing!” he shouted. “Cease firing!”

Silence followed storm. Then out of the night came a flash and a roar. A jet of ruddy flame shot from the cliff side toward the Sea Spume and the skylight above the saloon vanished in a rain of splinters and flying glass. The search-light, flung to port, showed, high up on the cliffs, two heavy guns, armed and manned.

Stupefied, the yachtsmen stared at them, unmoving, till again came a flash and a report and a rending[162] roar as the yacht quivered to the impact of a shell.

Captain Wilson woke to life. “Fire on that battery!” he yelled. “Mr. Caruth, get those divers up. We can’t stay here.”

Blood flecked Caruth’s lip where he had bitten it through. “What!” he cried. “Run away and leave the gold to them? I won’t do it.”

“Yes! The strong room on the Orkney has been broken open. The boxes are there, but they are empty. Some one has been before us. The gold is gone.”

“It’s true. I ordered the divers on board. They are coming over the side now. We must flee. Quick, Captain! Full speed ahead.”

The engine bells clanged, and the yacht shook to the throb of the screws. Rapidly she gathered way. Another shot from the battery on the cliff hissed over her, and still another went wide. Then a turn in the channel shielded her from farther danger.

It was not until half an hour later that it was learned that Professor Shishkin had disappeared.

AT full speed and without lights, the Sea Spume rushed through the darkness, threading her way among the islands by the faint light of the stars reflected from the dancing water. Her course was perilous in the extreme. At any moment an unseen rock might rise in the way and bring her to hopeless ruin. But delay was more perilous than rocks, and the Sea Spume sped breathlessly on.

Marie Fitzhugh was responsible both for the speed and the course. As the yacht dashed from the inlet into open water and veered southward, she climbed to the bridge where Captain Wilson and Caruth were standing.

Captain Wilson grasped the engine-room indicator. “Why north?” he demanded. “Stockholm lies southwest.”

“We can never reach Stockholm. What! Do you think escape is to be so easily made? No! Russia has gone too far to stop now. The path to the west and south—the path to any foreign port—is guarded. To the north and east lies our only chance.”

[164]Captain Wilson hesitated, but Caruth took control. “North, please. Captain,” he commanded; “and as fast as you dare.”

An instant more and the Sea Spume swept round, heading northward around Burndo. As it turned, the girl spoke again.

“I think their plan was to have us looted unofficially,” she said, “and then, after they had gotten the gold, to shoot a lot of the looters to satisfy international conditions. But unless they are fools, they must have prepared for just what has happened. If half a dozen torpedo-boats are not hunting for us this very minute, I miss my guess. Why they were not waiting for us at the mouth of the inlet, I can’t for the life of me understand, but if we get to port without chancing on them, we shall be luckier than I dare hope. They’ll never let us get away with the gold—and of course they must think we have it.”

But instead of answering, the girl, with a half-choked sob, hurried down the ladder, leaving the two men alone.

Caruth hesitated for a moment, yearning to follow and comfort her, yet uncertain whether it would be best to do so.

Captain Wilson’s voice aroused him. “We’ll be round the island in half an hour or more,” he said gruffly. “Which way shall I head then?”

Caruth shook his head. “I don’t know, Captain,”[165] he confessed. “I’ll talk with Miss Fitzhugh, and see what she thinks.”

Swiftly Caruth descended to the cabin and there, as he had expected, he found the girl who had been the inspiration of the whole trip.

Seated at the table in the cabin of the Sea Spume, Marie faced the ruin of her hopes. Indeed, she faced more. For, as she had descended from the bridge, one of the divers met her and commanded her, by an authority she could not dispute, to report at once to the Inner Circle of the Brotherhood, to explain the causes of her failure. Well she knew what such an order meant, and for the first time in her life she shrank from the ordeal.

At that moment Caruth came upon her. Never, even in her brief period of exaltation of a few hours before, had she appealed to him as in this time of abasement. Stricken by the realization of what had been and what must be, she yet held her head proudly erect, though its poise suggested, not triumph, but the grand air with which nobles rode in the tumbrels to the guillotine. Her violet eyes were deep as ever, but in their depths lay a pathetic softness, as of a child grieving over some disappointment which it was too young to understand. When Caruth, with throbbing heart, strode forward and took her in his arms, she melted all at once upon his shoulder.

Gently he stroked her dark hair. “There, there,[166] sweetheart,” he murmured. “Cheer up! Everything isn’t lost! We’ll live to triumph yet.”

But the girl sobbed on hopelessly, her slender form shaking with emotion, until Caruth grew frightened.

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” he murmured again. “Don’t take it so hard. It isn’t worth it, after all. Come, dear, cheer up! There are other things in the world besides plots and plotting. Marry me at the first port we touch. Then, later, we can help your cause all you like.”

Gently the girl freed herself and stood alone. On her fair skin the color deepened from neck to temples; her wet eyes glistened. A lock of hair had escaped and trailed down over her forehead; she put it back mechanically.

“Never!” Once more Caruth caught her in his arms. “Never!” he shouted. “By Heaven! I swear it shall be!” Hotly he showered kisses upon her hair, her face, her lips.

She did not resist. For the moment she could not. A sense of intoxication numbed her faculties. “Oh!” she breathed. “I did not know that it was so sweet—so sweet!”

“Yes, dear; it is sweet. And it will continue sweet through all the years to come. Can you not see those years, dear one? Each with its own peculiar happiness, yet each the same—for we shall be the same. Yes, it is sweet, Marie.”

[167]Slowly the girl raised her face, and the tragedy in her eyes appalled him. There was love in them, love unutterable, but there was misery, too, misery, hopeless, unspeakable. “I thank God!” she said slowly. “I thank him for this moment. Whatever comes, I thank him that he has given me to know the love of a good man. See what it has done for me. A little while ago I was afraid, afraid, afraid. But now I fear no longer. I do not care what happens now.”

Slowly the girl shook her head. She still rested in his embrace, her dark eyes fixed on his. “No,” she murmured. “No! I cannot.”

Gently she laid her fingers on his lips. “If it could be,” she whispered—“if it could be, I would count the world well lost. But it cannot be. Don’t you understand, dear? I am vowed to help the people, the poor, down-trodden people, who cannot help themselves—who can only suffer. I cannot desert them. I am sworn to them by vows as holy as those of any nun. Success might have won release, but I have failed.”

Caruth straightened himself indignantly. “Failed nothing!” he cried. “You’ve not failed. There is no failure where there is no chance of success. The gold must have been gone before you ever saw New York—before you ever heard of the matter at all. You’ve done more than any one else could[168] have done, for you’ve found the ship and explored her. It isn’t your fault that somebody was before you.”

Marie freed herself gently. “It isn’t a question of fault,” she answered sadly. “It is a question of success, and I have not succeeded. But, even so, I fear it really is my fault. It would not be if you were right—if the gold had indeed been taken when you say. But I don’t think it was so taken. I believe it was there when we left New York, even when we arrived at Burndo. I feel that it was snatched away under my very eyes. It was—— Good Heavens! What’s the matter?”

For Caruth, suddenly weak, had dropped into a chair. For the first time he had recalled the words of the interpreter in the village. “Great Scott!” he cried, “you are right. Why didn’t I think? Why didn’t I guess? Fool, dolt, ass, that I am! I know who got the gold.”

“The interpreter in the village. I told you something of him, but I didn’t tell you enough. I didn’t realize what it meant. I was a fool. He talked of something—some gold mine, he said—that he needed help to secure. He offered me a share. Then Wilkins came up and he ran. By Heavens! I see it all now. He knew Wilkins! He ran away to avoid explaining. And I thought he was crazy! Oh, what an incredible idiot I was!”

[169]“Fated nothing! It was plain idiocy. Oh, I see it all now! Wilkins and he arranged it all. It’s they that have the gold.”

“Oh, I know all you would say. She is the Professor’s daughter and all that; but she has fled with Wilkins all the same. Trust a woman to know. She has gone away with him willingly.”

The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, the poor old man!” she cried. “The poor old man! So courteous, so sweet, so kindly. I never knew my father—he died when I was an infant—but I like to think that if he had lived he would have been like the Professor.”

“What! Gone with her? Never! Why, he was on board long after they had disappeared. He must have been knocked overboard in the fight.”

Caruth nodded. “I agree with you, of course,” he responded. “No one could suspect the old man, even if circumstances were against him, which they are not. But what of the others? Do you think they will escape?”

“For the moment perhaps. Not for long. I did not speak idly when I warned Wilkins in New York. Neither he nor the girl will live to enjoy the fruits[170] of their treachery.” Dangerously the dark eyes flashed.

Caruth shuddered. “You wouldn’t set the nihilists on them?” he protested blankly.

“There is no need. Think you I could screen them if I would! No! I am not the only member of the Order on board. The Brotherhood has its agents everywhere. At this very moment, it probably understands better than we what has happened. Who should know its methods if not I? We shall all have to answer for our failure—I, Professor Shishkin if he lives, and, most of all, his daughter and her lover. I have already been summoned before the Inner Circle. The order was given me ten minutes ago.”

She paused, hesitated for a moment, then raised her head proudly. “We have all made our beds,” she declared. “Let us lie in them. I, for one, shall not flinch. What port is the yacht heading for?”

The moment for sentiment had passed, and the girl was herself again, cold, clear-headed, self-reliant. Caruth realized the fact and bowed to it.

“I came to consult you about that,” he explained. “We are about around the islands now, and must decide on our course. Where shall we go?”

“Yes. We can be there by daylight to-morrow, and by breakfast you can reach your ambassador.”

[171]“What for?” echoed the girl amazedly. “What for? Your yacht, a private American yacht, engaged in a lawful occupation, has been attacked and fired on in Russian waters. Three of her passengers, one of them a distinguished scientist, have disappeared. You must complain; appeal to your ambassador; demand the identification and punishment of the offenders. Things like that cannot be done with impunity, even by Russia, unless they succeed so fully that they blot out their own traces. This time some one has blundered, and they will strive desperately to retrieve themselves. If you attempted to seek another port, you would find yourself denounced as a criminal who had fired on inoffensive fishing-boats. No! No! The boldest course is the best. Take the bull by the horns. Run to St. Petersburg, and have the ambassador present the case to the Czar in person. Once your complaint is filed, you are at least safe from murder.”

Caruth nodded. The advice was good. “I’ll tell the captain,” he acceded. “Now promise me you will try to get some sleep.”

Marie laughed cheerlessly. “Oh, yes, I’ll try,” she promised; “but I feel as if I should never sleep again.”

When Caruth reached the deck, the night was far gone, and streaks of light were already glimmering in the east. Not being in the mood for sleep, he stayed and watched the dawn come up.

Uneventfully the moments sped past, and at last[172] the golden ball of the sun lifted itself above the horizon, sending long lances of light ricocheting over the dancing waters.

There was a twang in the air; the salt sea breeze thrummed in the rigging; in spite of himself, Caruth caught the uplift of the day. All was not hopeless, he told himself, with the buoyancy of his youth and his race, to which all things are possible. He had lost the first inning. “I’ll win her yet!” he cried aloud. “I’ll win her yet.”

THIRTY-SIX hours later the Sea Spume lay in harbor at St. Petersburg, and Caruth had told his story to the American Chargé d’Affaires, who was conducting matters in the absence of the ambassador. As he stepped out of the office of the Chargé, he heard his name called in wondering tones.

The accents seemed familiar, and he whirled round. Then he started in amazement and held out his hand.

The reporter grinned back at him. “Seems kind of funny, doesn’t it?” he answered. “But, shucks, this is a small world nowadays, and you oughtn’t to be surprised at meeting anybody.”

Caruth disregarded the persiflage. “Well!” he declared heartily. “I don’t know any man in the world I’d rather see. Your arrival is a regular Godsend. How did it come about?”

“Most natural thing in the world. The Consolidated Press man at St. Petersburg has been wanting for a year or two to come home on a long vacation, but they never could spare him. A few weeks[174] ago, when things were quieter than they had been for some time, I asked them to send me over to relieve him. When I told them I could speak a little Russian, they agreed right away. I left New York two days after you did.”

The reporter grinned. “I didn’t know it either a month ago,” he responded. “But I got married and——”

“Thank you. My wife wanted to visit Russia in a hurry, and so—here we are. But that’s enough about me. How about yourself? There’s an incendiary tale afloat about your doings. Any truth in it?”

“Too much! Come over here and sit down, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

Rapidly, Caruth poured his tale into the reporter’s sympathetic ears. He kept nothing back, as he had done in his first talk in New York. He told about Wilkins’s arrival; explained about the letters; and sketched rapidly the organization and the departure of the expedition and the events, so far as he knew them, that had taken place at Burndo Island.

“The situation is all in a muddle,” he ended. “I suppose Wilkins got away with the gold, though I can’t imagine how he did it. And I suppose the Professor was knocked overboard and drowned. But I can’t understand what has become of the girl.”

[175]Bristow leaned back in his chair. “If I remember correctly,” he premised slowly, “I favored you in New York with certain moralizations on the way events fit in together. I’ll add to that now that if you hunt back far enough, you can find a common cause for a good many events that at first blush seem unrelated. You don’t know it, of course, but I have a direct personal interest in this affair. You see, I have known Professor Shishkin and his daughter for several years. In fact, Miss Shishkin is now my wife.”

“Take it easy! I don’t mean that the girl you had on board this yacht is my wife. God forbid! As a matter of fact, that lady is not Professor Shishkin’s daughter at all. She is an alleged actress, drafted from the music hall stage by the Professor and cast for the part of his daughter. Now perhaps you begin to see a glimmer of light.”

But Caruth shook his head. “No, I don’t,” he returned. “Why should Professor Shishkin palm off somebody else as his daughter? It’s all a tangle of fraud and deceit. You go on and explain, please. My brain is buzzing.”

“It’s simple enough. The nihilists had ordered the Professor to bring his daughter with him on this trip, and he didn’t want to do it. Just why he objected, I’m not sure, though I have my suspicions; but he did object most strenuously. But he didn’t dare to refuse either to go on this expedition or[176] to take his daughter. He was half mad when I went to him and asked for Olga. To cut it short, he agreed that I might marry her if I would find a substitute who looked like her and who would go in her place. I did find such a substitute in the person of Miss Florence Lee, the lady who accompanied your expedition. She was always a cold-blooded, calculating piece, for all her mask of flippancy, and I guess she and Wilkins framed it up between them to sell out. Now do you see?”

“Yes, I see.” Caruth spoke heavily. “Why didn’t you put me on?” he asked. “If I had known, I might have prevented all this.”

“You couldn’t have prevented it. I’m absolutely certain that your expedition has been watched, almost from the first. It was madness for Miss Fitzhugh to think she could succeed. Besides, you didn’t take me into your confidence or ask my advice; and, even if you had, I should probably have been compelled to keep silence for the sake of my wife and father-in-law. For—make no mistake about this, Caruth—what I have told you must go no further. The Professor may be dead, as you suppose, but Olga is alive, and I don’t want to draw any nihilist vengeance on her. You mustn’t talk.”

“The situation is reasonably clear now, isn’t it, except about how those fellows got the gold and where they have taken it? But I guess you’d better put the gold out of your mind. Wherever it is, it is[177] out of reach, and a good thing, too. Of course, as a matter of salvage, the finder of an abandoned wreck is entitled to the bigger part of her value. But when the finders have deliberately brought about the wreck, the ethics of the case get mixed. I think you’ll be glad some day that you missed it.”

“Perhaps! If I get the girl! Not unless. Great Scott, Bristow. I’d do worse than steal for Marie’s sake! You’ve just been married yourself, and you know how it is.”

Bristow grinned. “So it’s got to the ‘Marie’ point, now, has it? By the way, where is the lady?”

“Gone! The moment we got here, she left the ship, saying that she had been summoned before the Inner Circle—whatever that is.”

Bristow whistled softly. “I suppose you will wait for her to return?” he questioned.

“I shall. I have nothing else to wait for. The whole trip has been a flat failure, and there is nothing for me to do but to sneak back to New York with my tail between my legs. I wouldn’t mind if she would go with me, but I fear——”

Bristow laughed unfeelingly. “Well,” he said, “others have failed before and will fail hereafter. You aren’t the only one. And—though you may not believe it—‘men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’ Things will seem brighter after awhile. Have you found out who she is yet?”

[178]Caruth shook his head. “I don’t care,” he answered frankly. “She told me her mother was an American, and—oh, well, she is she. That’s enough.”

“I might find out for you,” suggested the reporter. “I’ve got sources of information that most men haven’t. I’ve only been here a short while, but I’ve learned a lot about the nihilists. Forbes, my predecessor here, established relations with them and built up a wonderful news system, to which, of course, I have fallen heir.”

“Certainly. Revolutionists all over the world trust American newspaper men. It’s positively marvellous how the most secretive conspirator will put his life in our hands. It speaks pretty well for the profession.”

But Caruth shook his head. “No,” he said slowly. “If she had wanted me to know, she would have told me. Thank you; but—never mind.”

“Just as you like. I’ve got to look my nihilist friends up, any way, to see if they have any news from Burndo. Their system of communication beats the government’s sometimes.”

“Search me! But I know that it does. Information seems to travel faster underground than it does[179] in the air. The only trouble is that it’s spotty—not complete. A man may know every detail of one circumstance and be totally ignorant of another that you’d think he couldn’t help but know. But tell me once more about the Professor—when and how you last saw him. Olga will be in despair over his death. I suppose you can’t give me any hope?”

Caruth shook his head. He could give none. Everything seemed to point to the Professor having been knocked overboard and lost. If not, he must have been captured, and this seemed improbable under the circumstances. Caruth explained all this, going over the circumstances again and again.

At last the reporter nodded. “I’m afraid it’s good-night for the poor old fellow,” he concluded sadly. “It’s some comfort that he never knew that his plan failed. Yes, I guess it’s good-by.” The reporter rose. “Well, I must be off,” he finished. “I suppose you are willing that I should use my own judgment as to what I wire to New York about this scrape of yours. I’ll make things as easy as possible for you, of course.”

FRIDAY, the 13th of June, one week after the day the Sea Spume had scurried into St. Petersburg, came without making any apparent change in the situation. Nothing had been learned as to the fate of Professor Shishkin, and both Bristow and Caruth were convinced that the old man had perished. Wilkins and Florence had not been heard from, despite the fact that the entire Baltic was lined with spies, police and nihilistic, each intent on regaining the gold which all parties had become convinced was in the possession of the pair. Their sloop and its precious cargo seemed to have vanished from the earth.

The Russian authorities were still “investigating” the attack on the yacht, without seeming to draw any nearer to an elucidation of the facts. They had called before them and questioned every member of the yacht’s crew. These, however, had been able to tell little, for the reason that they knew little, and, being intensely loyal to Caruth, were all anxious to keep that little to themselves. The inquiry was, in fact, a farce, the Russians knowing perfectly well what the yacht’s errand really had been, yet not being able to declare it or to lay claim to the[181] Orkney’s gold without practically admitting that they had been back of the attack. On the other hand, Caruth could not accuse the Russians, without admitting that he himself was engaged in an adventure that, if not actually piratical, certainly verged on it.

Neither side was therefore in position to force the issue, and the inquiry dragged on from day to day, really waiting the moment when it would be quietly pigeonholed. Both sides steadily went through the motions of pretending desperate efforts to discover what both knew and both were very anxious to keep secret. If it had not been for the disappearance of Professor Shishkin, the whole matter would probably have been allowed to drop.

Professor Shishkin, however, was too distinguished a man to be allowed to drop out of sight so easily. His scientific brethren, especially those in the rest of Europe, were clamoring for an explanation of an attack on one of their number while engaged in scientific work in such a peaceable sea as the Baltic. Hints that the Professor had really been engaged in gold-hunting and that the attack had been made by a gang of thieves, had little effect in calming the agitation. They were simply disbelieved.

Bristow’s inquiries in revolutionary circles had brought abundant confirmation of what he already knew, but had yielded little additional information.

According to the nihilists, the whole affair had been carefully planned by the Russian police. A battalion[182] of marines had been landed at the village of Burndo on the very afternoon of the attack, reaching it by the eastern inlet, and had climbed over the ridge and come down the hill behind the yacht, bringing two field-guns with them. As Miss Fitzhugh had guessed, the men were in peasant dress, and it was intended that they should appear to be a band of rioters such as were only too common in Russia in those troubled times. It was supposed that they would capture the yacht without trouble, loot her, and let her go, after perhaps murdering the Russians whom they should find on board. However, lest they should fail, several gunboats and destroyers had been ordered to the spot to intercept the yacht if she should escape. The orders to these were far more grim.

This plan was disarranged by the suddenness with which Florence exposed her signal, and by the haste of the officer in command of the Russian troops. When the sparks from the yacht’s funnels showed that she was getting up steam, this officer feared she was about to flee with the gold, and, wanting the credit of capturing this, had made his attack before the field-guns were in position and before the gunboats had arrived off the mouth of the inlet. Had he moved a half an hour later, the Sea Spume would have been captured or sunk by the hurrying warships.

Concerning the gold, the information was less exact. The nihilists had learned, however, that a[183] sloop, very heavily laden, carrying two men and one woman, had left Burndo for an unknown destination a few moments before the Sea Spume. It had turned south outside the mouth of the inlet, and had passed beyond the ken of the watchers. Probably it was bound for Stockholm or some other foreign port. Its passengers had been identified as Wilkins and Miss Shishkin (really Florence Lee); the third man was unknown, but it was supposed that he was an American sailor who had been living at Burndo for two years or more.

The nihilists felt assured that this sloop had the gold on board, though how it got there, they did not profess to know. Orders had been sent all along the Baltic to watch for it, and if it was found, it would go hard with those on board.

None of this, however, was much satisfaction to Caruth, to whom, indeed, the week had been one of torture. Since Marie Fitzhugh had slipped away on the morning of the yacht’s arrival, no word of her had come to him, and his anxiety as to her safety was continually growing. Events had shown that the Sea Spume had been under surveillance for some time, possibly from the very beginning, and Caruth realized that this could scarcely have been possible without Marie having been seen and recognized. If she had been, her carefully arranged alibi must have been shattered, and instant arrest would assuredly follow her detection on Russian soil.

Even if she escaped the authorities, or if her family[184] connections proved strong enough to enable her to defy them, the disappointed and enraged terrorists had to be considered. She had been ordered before the Inner Circle, and such vague and illusory information as he had been able to gain as to the doings of that body made him fear almost anything. At the same time, he dared not start inquiries, for fear they might precipitate the very calamity he dreaded.

On the morning of his seventh day in St. Petersburg, he could bear the suspense no longer, and turned to Bristow with a demand that he relieve it, as he had done on that far-away evening in New York.

“I seem to be always relying on you to find Miss Fitzhugh for me,” he said, with an attempt at levity. “But if you really have sources of information here that are safe and certain, I wish you would call on them for news of her. The suspense is getting unbearable.”

Bristow frowned slightly. “I don’t suppose there’s any use in talking,” he observed. “You wouldn’t take my advice in New York, and I don’t suppose you’ll take it here. But all the same, I’m going to suggest once more that you’d better let the lady go. As I understand it, she has refused to marry you and has gone back to her own people. Why not go back home and forget her. Candidly, old man, I can’t see anything but ruin ahead for you if you go on.”

As the reporter spoke, a slow flush spread over Caruth’s cheeks. The boy had aged a good deal in[185] the past month; experience had made him far more of a man than he had been when Marie Fitzhugh first came to him. Advice which he had received meekly in New York, he resented in Russia.

“Thank you,” he returned stiffly. “I don’t doubt your advice is good. I should probably say the same to another man under the same circumstances. But please understand, once for all, that it is not for me. The only question is, will you help me or shall I have to seek farther?”

“Oh, I’ll help you, confound you!” returned the reporter. “What do you want to know?”

“I want to know about Miss Fitzhugh. If she has gone back to her relatives and is safe and well, I want to know it. If she is under arrest, I want to know it. If she is in trouble with the Brotherhood on account of the loss of the gold, I want to know it. And wherever she is, if she needs help, I want to get to her and give it.”

“Humph! That’s a good-sized program you’ve laid out, isn’t it? Well, the Lord watches over children, lovers, and—well, fill the blank yourself. I can give you some news. I heard it last night, and was debating whether to tell you or not. Miss Fitzhugh is in trouble with the Brotherhood. She is charged with responsibility for the loss of the gold. A special meeting is to be held to consider her case.”

“As I understand it, when any one has failed at anything and is summoned before the Inner Circle,[186] it means that he or she is to be entrusted with some particularly dangerous duty. Some forlorn hope, such as throwing a bomb or something,—not as a punishment, you understand, but as a chance to retrieve the failure. Such a chance means almost certain death, either instant or later on the scaffold. I’m sorry, old man; I know it’s hard to bear, and I guess it’s best to tell you.”

Caruth’s face was white, but his jaws were set. He passed by the reporter’s regrets as though they had not been spoken.

“Nothing is impossible!” There was an accent in Caruth’s voice that Bristow had never heard before. “Send word at once through your channels that I wish to appear before the Circle as a witness for Miss Fitzhugh. Say that I will submit to any and all conditions it cares to impose. Add that I am very rich and will be glad to contribute heavily to the cause in return for this privilege. Let them name their price and I will pay it.”

[187]Bristow weakened, impressed in spite of himself. “By Jove!” he cried. “It might be done, after all. But you understand what it means! There is always grave danger of these meetings being raided by the police. If you were caught at one of them, nothing could save you. It would be death or life in prison——”

“I understand! I’ll take the risk! I’ll take any risk, only get me the chance.”

“All right. I’ll try. But we’ll have to be mighty careful. Demidroff is awfully keen on getting this gold. In fact, rumor says his job depends on it.”

“He’s chief of the third section of Russian police—the secret police, you know. I wonder you haven’t heard of him. He’s the smartest and the most dreaded man in Russia to-day; to-morrow—well, they do say that his enemies have gotten the ear of the Emperor, and that he is likely to be turned out any minute. However, he isn’t down and out yet and may never be, and he’s keeping a mighty sharp watch on you. So you’ll have to be careful.”

“All right. I’ll do my best for you. Hold yourself ready to start at any minute. When the chance comes it won’t wait.”

BRISTOW’S efforts to secure Caruth an audience before the Inner Circle proved more successful than the reporter had dared to hope. His request, once started on its way, was transmitted with what seemed to him amazing rapidity: so quickly, in fact, did the answer come back that he would have questioned its authenticity had not the proof of this been unimpeachable.

The Inner Circle, it appeared, was as anxious to see Caruth as Caruth was to see it. The answer fixed the very next afternoon for the interview. Caruth was notified to go for a stroll on the Nevski Prospekt, and to submit himself to the guidance of a man who would accost him there and utter certain pass-words.

Accordingly, the next afternoon saw Caruth strolling along the designated roadway, staring at the brilliant equipages that crowded that fashionable drive, and rubbing shoulders with the cosmopolitan crowd that passed and repassed.

The season was over, and gay St. Petersburg was fleeing away from the capital over which the annual shadow of malaria was slowly growing. Enough remained, however, to illustrate Russian life; and[189] many tourists still lingered, lending color to the scene. Not often, Caruth thought, had he seen so many ornamental women gathered together.

His thoughts, however, were not on women, but on the guide who was to meet him and lead him before the council. Which of the tall, bearded men that pressed by him, he wondered, would turn out to be the messenger?

Caruth turned. A young fellow, by all signs an American tourist, was reaching out his hand for the cigar Caruth held between his lips.

“Thank you,” continued the young man lightly, as he returned the weed. “I spotted you for an American the minute I saw you. I can always tell. Everybody can’t. I’m an American, too. Did you guess? Whence did you come, brother?”

Caruth started. The words were part of the prescribed ritual whereby he was to know his guide. But could this——

“From the land of the free and the home of the brave,” he answered unwillingly. Never before had the patriotic words seemed to him quite so bombastic.

“I’m from the House of the Three Feathers myself,” returned the stranger jauntily, completing the ritual. “Come and have a wet. They’ve got a bar over here where you can get drinks like the eagle used to make. Come along!”

Caruth dropped into line beside his interlocutor,[190] who, still talking loudly and volubly, led him into a café, around a partition, and then with an admonitory “Look sharp now,” darted down a flight of stairs, followed a long passage, and finally came out into another street, where a cab was waiting. Into this he jumped, Caruth following.

Before the door was closed, the driver whipped up his horses and the cab darted off at the breakneck speed characteristic of the Russian jehus. As it began to move, the young man turned to Caruth and spoke quietly, without a trace of his former levity. “We are going to the railway station,” he explained, “and will have just time to catch a train. Be ready to follow me promptly.”

Conversation was difficult in the swaying cab, and indeed there was little time for it, for in less than ten minutes the cab drew up before the railway station and the young man leaped out and tore toward the gate, Caruth at his heels. Scarcely had they passed through when it clanged behind them.

“Close shave that,” remarked the other, when the two were seated and the train was rolling southward. “I came mighty near cutting it too fine. However, all’s well that ends well. Now, we’ve got an hour’s ride before us, and might as well make ourselves comfortable.”

Caruth’s lips opened. He was about to ask a question, when the other interposed. “Curiosity killed a cat,” he murmured. “Where ignorance is bliss, etc. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no[191] lies. Talk about the weather if you can’t think of anything else, but don’t be inquisitive. Pretty country this—if you don’t mind what you say!”

Thus adjured, Caruth made no attempt to question his mentor, but chatted on indifferent subjects till the train stopped at Gatchina, where the two left it and entered a cab, which at once started off at the usual speed. “I’ll leave you in a moment now,” said the other quietly. “Stay in the cab. The driver has his orders and has been paid. When he stops in front of a house, No. 351, go up to the door and walk in without ringing. You will be expected.”

His instructions finished, the young fellow turned the handle of the door. “Au revoir,” he said, and leaped out as the cab swung round a corner.

Caruth caught and closed the swinging door, and sat back to await events. Evidently the men he was to see took good precautions to keep their meeting place secure.

The drive did not last long. It ended in a street of cheap looking houses, over the door of one of which Caruth descried the number 351. Promptly he dismounted and walked up the steps, noting that his cab drove away the moment he left it. The next instant he had opened the door and stepped into a dimly lighted hall.

A man seated on the foot of a flight of stairs that led upward rose as Caruth entered and glanced at him sharply, then made way for him to pass, jerking his thumb over his shoulder as a direction. He added[192] something, probably a word of instruction, but as it was in Russian the American could not profit by it.

At the head of the stairs Caruth hesitated for a moment, then tapped at a doorway whence came the low sound of voices. Some one answered, presumably in invitation to enter, and Caruth opened the door and went in.

Half a dozen men seated around a table looked up as he entered, and the one at the head addressed him in fair English.

“Mr. Caruth?” he questioned. “Yes? I am Sergius Lermantoff. Take a seat, please, Mr. Caruth.”

Caruth sat down with a strong feeling of disappointment. Could these be the members of the famous Inner Circle, before which the mighty Czar quailed, and under whose menace the atrocities formerly perpetrated on helpless prisoners had recently come to an end? Certainly they did not look it! Four of them appeared to be stolid peasants, and the other two, including the leader, while more intelligent-looking, did not look at all above the grade of the average immigrant whom Caruth had often seen trailing up town from Castle Garden. Could it be that such men as this held the destinies of a girl like Marie in their hands?

Lermantoff addressed him again. “The Brotherhood wishes to thank you, Mr. Caruth, for your kindness in placing your yacht at its disposal in the endeavor to regain the treasure of the Orkney. It[193] would be glad if you would answer it some questions about the circumstance at Burndo. I am the only one here who speaks English, so I must act as interpreter.”

Caruth nodded, glad enough to give any information that might dispose the Circle favorably toward him later in the proceedings.

Then followed a series of questions regarding the trip of the Sea Spume, and the details of her stay at Burndo, all tending to elucidate every phase of the proceedings. Taken together, they amounted to a cross-examination as keen and searching as any he had ever known in a New York court-room. Under their spur, Caruth felt his respect for the other rising and began to understand why he had attained his present power.

At last the examination ended. Lermantoff translated the last answer to his companions; then turned back to Caruth. “Now, Mr. Caruth——” he said.

During the questioning Caruth had studied every detail of the room, hoping to find something that would show the presence near at hand of the girl on whom he had set his heart; but he had looked in vain. Now at last, with a tightening around his heart, he realized that his time had come, and he summoned all his faculties for the contest.

“Mr. Lermantoff,” he began, “you understand, of course, that I embarked in this enterprise for[194] selfish motives. I make no pretenses. I sympathize with the Russian people in their fight for liberty, but I did not and do not sympathize with them enough to risk my life and liberty for their sake. I came to Russia simply and solely because I hoped to aid the lady whom I know only as Marie Fitzhugh.”

The leader nodded. “Most men have selfish or partly selfish motives for what they do,” he agreed, with a suspicion of a smile. “Your motive is quite clear; I take it you expected Marie Fitzhugh to reward you.”

“I hoped she might. From the moment I saw her, I wanted her for my wife. That was why I kept silence in New York when my valet was murdered, and thereby saved your scheme from being wrecked at the outset. That was why I came to Russia. That is why I am here.”

Caruth threw out his hands. “Don’t fence with me,” he protested. “You know what she told me. You know you took her vows—the vows of a mere child—to devote her life and her beauty to your cause. You know that you are holding her practically for sale to the highest bidder—to him who will do most for that cause. It isn’t fair! It is an outrage on womanhood. It is trafficking in all that is holiest and highest in life. No cause will prosper that depends on such methods. Be advised! She has done[195] her best for you. She has done more than most women could do. Release her! Let her marry me—if she will.”

Caruth’s breath came quick and fast. His words tumbled over each other. With outflung hands, he leaned forward across the heavy table.

Thoughtfully Lermantoff studied his face. “Mr. Caruth,” he said slowly, “all your life you have had everything you wanted. This is probably the first time you have had to fight and wait and hope for anything. You find it hard. Further, you are young. Your own happiness and the girl’s seem to you the most important things in the world. Really, they are not. What difference will it make to the world one hundred years from now whether you two marry or not? But it will make a great difference one hundred years from now whether the Russian people have won their freedom or not. We have trained Marie Fitzhugh for the work she has to do. We have no one in all the Brotherhood who can do that work so well. To give her up—to surrender this tool that we have fashioned so carefully—is to set back the cause by no one knows how many years. Consider a moment, Mr. Caruth! She went to New York and enlisted your coöperation with all your wealth and influence within an hour after she had landed. And do not think that it was all her beauty; it was more—it was her personality. Do I not know it? Have I not felt it myself?”

The speaker paused. Caruth, reading an unsuspected[196] meaning in his last words and foreseeing complications, caught his breath, but Lermantoff gave him no time to consider. With unmistakable, though suppressed, emotion, he went on:

“Such powers as hers are mighty, not to be thrown lightly away. They have been reserved for some great end, for some moment when they might turn the scale of Russia’s destiny. For this reason I have denied myself.”

“Yes! I tell you! Myself!” The man leaned forward, face aglow. His sinewy hands, clinched, thundered on the table. “What! Think you I have lived beside her and not loved her? Am I a dolt or a stone? Am I less a man because I am pledged to the Brotherhood? No, no, Mr. Caruth! I love her, love her—and I have denied myself. Shall I now yield her to you?”

Both men had forgotten the others. They might have been alone in a wilderness, for all heed they took of listeners. The one subject in their minds swallowed up all else.

Caruth moistened his dry lips. “She does not love you,” he muttered despairingly.

Lermantoff sank back, the fire dying from his eyes. “No,” he answered sadly; “she does not love me. Perhaps that was why. Oh, we are poor creatures, we men! We do not even know our own motives.” He brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over his brow. “She does not love me, and[197] she does love you. Therefore—oh, I am a sentimentalist after all—therefore, I would give her to you, were it even at Russia’s expense, if I alone had the power. But I have not. I am only one. The interests of the Brotherhood must be consulted.”

“What does the Brotherhood demand?” Caruth’s tones were firmer now. Hope had begun to glimmer.

“The Brotherhood has fashioned a tool for its use; you want that tool. The Brotherhood will not—dare not—give it to you. But the Brotherhood is poor, and you are rich. It will sell it to you—at a great price. What will you give?”

Caruth moved restlessly. It was shocking to him that Marie should be made a subject of bargain and sale. “I cannot chaffer over such a subject,” he cried. “Tell me what you want, and I will pay it if it is in my power. You say right. I am rich—not rich like many of my countrymen, but rich by ordinary standards. Tell me what you want, and I will pay it if I can.”

Caruth did not hesitate. “You shall have it,” he answered. “But you will have to give me time to get it for you. I have not a tithe of the sum in ready cash. I shall have to go to New York and sell property. It may take two months. I will give you my note for the sum at two months if you will take it.”

“Assuredly! But the Brotherhood trusts no one; it has no need to do so. Marie Fitzhugh will be as much within its reach in New York as she is in this house. No one can betray or deceive the Brotherhood and live to enjoy it.”

Caruth’s face grew stern. “I understand that this million dollars buys the lady’s release absolutely. You will give up all hold on her, all claim over her. You will tell her so, and release her from her vows in my presence?”

Lermantoff nodded. “That is the understanding,” he said. Turning, he said a few words to the man by his side, and that individual rose and went out. “I have sent for Marie,” he explained.

Caruth sprang to his feet. “You—you will not tell her that I have—have bought her?” he pleaded.

The other shook his head. “Have no fear,” he answered gently. “Remember! I love her too.”

In a moment the man was back. With him came Marie. When she saw Caruth, she stopped short, gasping, with distended eyes. “You!” she muttered. “You here!”

Caruth caught both her hands in his. “Yes!” he cried. “Yes! And it’s all right! All right! The Brotherhood has given you to me.”

Lermantoff caught her glance and nodded. [199]“Marie Fitzhugh,” he said solemnly, “for reasons that seem good to it, the Brotherhood has decided to send you to America to aid in creating sympathy for the Russian people there. You will go with Mr. Caruth to St. Petersburg, to the American Embassy, and marry him there, and go with him to the United States. You are hereby released from all obligations to the Brotherhood and from all your vows. Such service as you may render hereafter will be purely voluntary. As chief of the Brotherhood, I tell you this in Mr. Caruth’s presence. The other members of the Circle will now confirm it to you.”

He turned and spoke a few words in Russian, and one by one each of the other members repeated what seemed to Caruth to be a set form of words. When they had finished, Lermantoff spoke again.

“You are not entirely out of danger yet, Mr. Caruth,” he warned. “Baron Demidroff is making desperate efforts to capture Marie, and she will be arrested if found. That is why she has remained concealed here. Once you have made her your wife at the American Embassy, she will be measurably safe. Until then, she will be in danger. I think, therefore, that she had better go with you in disguise. Tell me good-by now, my child, and go and get ready. I hope you will be very, very happy.”

AS the train drew away from Gatchina, Caruth drew a long breath of relief. Running express, it would make no stops on the way to St. Petersburg, scarcely an hour distant, and little was likely to happen in an hour. Humanly speaking, he felt that Marie was safe.

Quickly the speed increased as the suburbs of the town whisked by, and almost in a moment the train was running through open fields. Then might the peasants along the track, if gifted with sufficiently quick eyesight, have seen in one of the compartments a fashionably dressed young man ecstatically embracing what seemed to be a workingman.

Marie wore the dress of a laborer. Her lovely hair, coiled on top of her head, was concealed beneath a rough cap. Her coat collar, turned up around her neck, hid her slim throat, while a heavy beard, hastily affixed, concealed the outlines of her oval face. With her nether limbs thrust into a pair of workingman’s trousers, and her feet hidden in heavy boots, she bore no resemblance to the fashionably dressed woman for whom the police were watching so eagerly.

Caruth, however, did not seem to mind her[201] costume, even when her beard tickled his nose and made him sneeze. Only muttering something about insisting that she should shave as soon as she became Mrs. C., he continued to kiss and hug her as though he would never be satisfied.

“To think I’ve got you at last!” he cried. “After all these days and days of doubt and anxiety. To think that soon we’ll be on our own yacht, bound for our own country, away from all this horrible plotting and counterplotting. Oh, I can’t believe it!”

The girl shuddered slightly. “I can’t either,” she sighed. “I’m afraid—oh, I’m horribly afraid that something will happen yet to prevent. I didn’t use to be afraid of anything! I always thought that I could face whatever came without quailing, but now—now I’m a very woman, dear! Love has made me timid. I don’t think I could bear it if I were caught now.”

“Caught! You can’t be and shan’t be. Why, we are half way to St. Petersburg already.”

“Not quite yet! And even if we were—oh, I’m afraid. Lermantoff is not an alarmist. He never speaks without good reason. No one else could have persuaded me to wear this ridiculous disguise.”

Caruth grinned. “We’ll keep it as a memento of our honeymoon,” he observed. “Don’t worry. A good many wives don the trousers after marriage; you are only anticipating a little. And I don’t think you need be afraid. I can’t see a cloud on the——”

[202]He broke off as a shadow fell across the compartment, darkening the window, and a voice, rough and strained, flung a brief sentence into the interior—a sentence that made Marie spring up in terror.

A man was standing on the running board, hanging to the casement. A glance at the cap he wore told that he was one of the guards (or brakemen) of the train. Volubly he sputtered in harsh-sounding Russian and eagerly Marie drank in his words. Then as suddenly as he had come, he was gone.

Marie sank back on the cushions, and Caruth could see that she had grown deathly white.

Caruth gazed at her in consternation. This cowering woman was not the brave girl he remembered. Love had indeed robbed her of her courage.

“What is it? What is it?” he importuned, sinking down beside her. “Lermantoff shall not back out now. He shall not take you away from me. If he tries——”

“It isn’t Lermantoff. It’s the police. They know I am here. They know my disguise. They know I am on this train. They are only waiting till it stops to seize me. The guard is one of our men. He came along the footboard at the risk of his life to warn me. It’s all over, dear. I’ll never see America again.”

For an instant the girl sobbed on; then she buried her hot face in her hands. “Oh!” she wailed, “I[203] cannot bear it! I had not realized it! Save me! For God’s sake, save me!”

All his life Caruth had been noted for the speed with which he came to decisions, and the rapidity with which he acted upon them, and this, his most exciting experience, furnished no exception to the rule. Before the last words had fallen from the girl’s lips, he was slipping out of his light spring overcoat.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he exclaimed. “You cut it fine, Marie. Why”—with a fleeting glance out the window—“we’re in the city now!”

They were, but fear, like love, has wings, and before the train reached the station the girl had been disguised afresh. Shorn of her beard, and clothed in Caruth’s stylish overcoat, with his cap drawn down over her ears, she made a very presentable boy.

“Oh, I hope so! But aren’t you going to——” She glanced at her discarded hat and coat.

“Neverlee.” The joy of the game was mounting to Caruth’s head like wine. “Neverlee! That would be ruin sure enough. I’ve got a scheme worth two of that. You’ve got a pistol, haven’t you? Let’s see it.”

“Good!” He sat down and leaned forward. “Now,” he said, “hit me with the butt of your revolver. Here.” He laid his finger on his forehead just at the bottom of the hair. “Hit hard,” he concluded,[204] “and when the train gets into the station put out for the American Embassy and stay there till I come. Hit! Hit hard!”

“You must. You’ve got to have time to escape from the railway station, and this is the only thing that would explain my delay and lend artistic verisimilitude to a bald and unconvincing narrative, as our friend, the Mikado, once said. Don’t be afraid; my skull is thick, and won’t be seriously hurt. Quick! We are getting into the station. Think that I am General Somebodyoffski and hit—hit hard. Quick!”

The girl’s eyes grew big with tears. “I did not think there lived such a man as you,” she breathed. “Now I understand why your great country is free. Such men as you must be free. Oh, God! Is there no other way?”

“None. The train is stopping. Quick!” Despairingly, the girl glanced around. Then she lifted the heavy revolver and struck as Caruth had directed. Without a moan he sank back, unconscious, in his seat.

For a moment Marie stood gazing at her handiwork. Then a great sob shook her frame, and she bent down and pressed her lips to the purpling wound.

“Forgive, forgive!” she cried. “If it had been life alone—— Oh, love, forgive, forgive!”

IT is one thing to embark on adventure and another thing to carry it through. Though the first step costs more than any other one step, it does not cost more than the aggregate of the rest, and certainly does not cost more than the period of suspense that inevitably comes in any prolonged enterprise. All of which serves as an introduction to the statement that though Florence began well, she soon sickened of her venture.

The conditions were against her. She had always been used to a good share of the world’s comforts. Even in New York, hanging on the ragged edge of the bottomless pit, she had never been penniless, and had never held back from anything she wanted through fear of becoming penniless. Like a cat, she loved warmth and the cream of life.

When she placed the red light in her port on the Sea Spume and dropped over the side into the arms in which Wilkins willingly received her, she contemplated nothing more unpleasant than a sail by night over the dancing waves to a safe port. The danger that menaced her not being visible, she disregarded it; or felt it only as giving a zest to a romantic flight.

[206]But things did not turn out as she had anticipated. They seldom do. Scarcely had the sloop gained the open sea when it became apparent that it was too heavily laden. The wind was only ordinarily fresh, and the waves were not at all dangerous to an ordinary craft; yet they broke continually over the rail. Soon it was evident that to attempt to run across the open channel to the Swedish coast would be suicidal, and to run for Copenhagen even more so. Much against his will, Wilkins was forced to keep south around the lee of the islands, and finally to run for a Russian port. Even on this tack, the trip was very dangerous, and for more than three hours Florence, who had never before done any work harder than carrying a spear in the front rank of the chorus, had to toil strenuously helping to pump out the water that poured in unceasingly.

When a girl is cold and wet and exhausted beyond expression for several hours, during all of which Death sits grinning over her shoulder, it is not exactly surprising if she wonders whether the game is worth the candle.

Nor were matters greatly improved when at last the sloop won to the port of Helsingfors and dropped anchor along with other fishing-smacks in the bay, where her passengers hoped to lie unnoticed while Bill Wilkins, who alone spoke Russian, ran up to St. Petersburg to try to find a steamer whose captain would consent, for a sufficiently large remuneration, to clear for a foreign port and then run out of his[207] course close to Helsingfors, to take the gold on board. Such a captain once found, and signals arranged, Bill would return to Helsingfors to join the others and help take the schooner out to meet the vessel.

Tom Wilkins stood the monotony of waiting very well. Used to the loneliness of the plains, his own thoughts sufficed. But Florence had no resources in herself. Accustomed to the clatter of New York, she had been bored even by the quietness of the life on the Sea Spume, and this was ten times worse. Day after day she did nothing but twirl her fingers and think about Baron Demidroff and his wonderful tale of Princess Yves Napraxine.

Such was her mood on the third afternoon of her imprisonment, when Wilkins, with a fatuity scarcely credible, attempted to cheer her up by making love to her. Florence promptly went into hysterics, and Wilkins had the time of his life in quieting her. That night, after pretending to go to bed, she slipped away, rowing herself ashore in the only small boat belonging to the sloop, and took the night train for St. Petersburg. By the time that Wilkins missed her she was at the office of Baron Demidroff.

Even when there, however, she found it none too easy to reach the Baron. Totally ignorant of the language, and unable to ask her way, she had to trust to luck, and luck did not favor her. It was late in the afternoon—the afternoon of the same day and at about the same hour when Caruth and Marie were leaving Gatchina—that she at last found[208] her way to the Baron’s office and sent in a card inscribed with Olga’s name, but with the additional words, “Princess Yves Napraxine,” pencilled in the corner.

But after that events moved fast. Scarcely had her card vanished when the door was flung open and the Baron rushed in, both hands extended.

“Ah, Madame la Princesse!” he exclaimed. “To think of seeing you here! Come in! Come in!” Eagerly he urged her toward the inner office, pouring out the while a flood of welcomings. “Well! Well!” he exclaimed. “To think of it. Where did you come from, Princess? Where have you been all these days?”

Florence seated herself and stared at him with cool insolence. Instinctively she knew that she would gain no more from him by softness than she had gained in former days from the “Johnnies” in New York. Men were all alike, she decided, and the weeping, clinging girl was a back number.

“Back off! Back off!” she ordered. “I’m not telling where I’ve been yet.”

“The gold is all to the downy. It’s where I can put my hand on it. You see, Baron, I’m one of the new woman push, and I ain’t trusting anybody. You might play fair if I turned the stuff over to you, and you might not. It’s me for the sure thing every time. That’s why I got me suitors to carry the gold off and hide it away till I got guarantees.”

[209]Instead of showing vexation, the Baron chuckled. Such impudence from one altogether in his power was refreshing. Florence had made no mistake in her treatment of him. The Baron admired any one who was clever enough to see through him. Besides, the girl was very handsome.

Florence hesitated; she did not know what to ask. “I want to see the proofs,” she declared vaguely. “You hand me a jolly about strawberry mark and me lost ancestors and ask me to turn over five million dollars in return. It ain’t good enough! See? I’d rather keep the five million dollars meself, if there’s any doubt about the thing.”

“Quite reasonable! Quite reasonable!” The Baron nodded. “The proofs are largely documentary. I will send for them. Meanwhile——”

The Baron paused for a moment; then went on. “Princess!” he said, “I will be frank with you. I see that you are not one to be deceived. To a fair face you unite the cool head of a man——”

“It is the truth. But you do not know Russia. Here every man has his price. Every one is making himself rich. What you call graft flourishes. You are the Princess Yves Napraxine; that is true. You are heiress to enormous wealth; that also is true. But if you think that all you have to do is to come forward and show who you are, in order to get that[210] rank and wealth, you know little of Russia. Your estates are in the hands of a trustee who has grown rich in caring for them. Think you he will readily give them up? Not so! He is a powerful man—one who stands in a high place. Once he hears of you, you will disappear, unless protected by a power as strong or stronger than his—in fact, Princess, unless protected by me.”

Florence nodded. The Baron’s words were really a relief to her. It was quite believable that a man who had had the control of twenty millions for ten years would fight to retain that control, and that they could easily dispose of a lone woman, irrespective of the fact that she was really an impostor. But if the Baron were ready to back and protect her, as he seemed to imply, the situation would be changed.

“You’re all to the good, Baron,” she agreed. “Go on and tell me. I’m from Missouri, you know.”

“This trustee is my enemy, Princess,” went on Demidroff. “For years he has been trying to ruin me. In the effort, he has used the power of your millions unscrupulously. A year ago I concluded that I must wrest the control of those millions from him, or he would destroy me. I set on foot inquiries which led me to you. The nihilists thought they had you brought to Russia. Well, so they did, but it was I that pulled the strings. I brought you here to wrest Count Strogoff’s wealth from him. By my aid, you can win money and place; by your[211] aid, I shall triumph over the Count. United, we shall win everything; divided, we both lose. But I must help you before you will be able to help me. It is really I that should demand guarantees, Princess.”

Florence did not answer for a moment. The Baron’s words seemed reasonable enough, and she felt somehow that he was telling her the truth. The mist of intrigue, plot, and counterplot in the midst of which she found herself, was exactly the sort of thing she had always understood was characteristic of Russia. To her dramatic instincts the whole thing seemed logical and feasible, supposing her to be the real Olga Shishkin. Well, she might as well go on pretending. Obviously nothing was to be gained by confession.

“The Orkney’s gold? I want it! Yes, but only to aid me to aid you. If I recover it, I win my imperial master’s favor and I pave the way for your recognition. On the other hand, failure will lose me that confidence, and make it harder for me to triumph over Count Strogoff and help you. Except for this, the gold counts for comparatively little. Your estates are worth five times as much.”

“Now, Princess, I will make you a proposal. You are a woman, clever, young, and beautiful, but weak; I am a bachelor, not very young, but not yet very old, and I am powerful, and power is what you need.[212] Madame la Princesse, will you do me the honor to become my wife?”

Florence’s breath was taken away with a vengeance. That she, the variety actress of a month before, should be receiving a proposal of marriage from the chief of the Russian secret police was past belief. “Gee!” she muttered. “What’s coming next? If the pipe don’t go out and I don’t wake up, the first thing I know the Czarski’ll be asking me to share his bomb-proof cottage with him.”

“I know that it is presumption for me to address you, Princess,” he was saying. “My family, though noble, is by no means on a par with yours. Still, I assure you that your union with me cannot be termed a mesalliance. The position I have won makes it possible for me to mate with any one outside of the blood royal. Will you not accept me, Princess?”

The daze was passing away, and Florence was regaining command of herself. “Gee!” she muttered desperately. “Gee! He’s a nice old fellow, any way, and I don’t know but what—oh, gee!” she exploded. “I’m afraid! I’m afraid!” She looked up at the Baron. “I must think! I must think!” she cried.

“Assuredly, Princess! Think all you like. And remember that, though I do not talk of sentiment, for you might think me deceitful, yet I feel it, Princess. I am not so old that I cannot admire and love—yes, love, Princess. But I will leave that till later. Just now remember that I can give you everything,[213] and that I offer myself as a guarantee of my truth. Can I say more?”

“No! No!” Florence had found her tongue at last. “No! No! You can’t say more. And I will accept if I can. I will, honest. But I must think. I must talk to my friends on the Sea Spume.”

“Certainly! Yet do not forget that time flies. Will the gold stay safe while you think?”

“Perhaps I can save you the necessity of going on board the yacht.” Demidroff touched a bell. “I will send for some one whom you will be glad to see,” he explained.

“You shall see.” Demidroff touched a bell and gave an order in Russian. An instant later the door was pushed open.

NEITHER Florence nor the Professor was as much surprised at seeing the other as might have been expected, and this for the very simple reason that neither knew that the other had been missing. Ever since her flight, Florence had been cut off from all information concerning the yacht, while Professor Shishkin had vanished during the fight without having learned of the treachery of Wilkins and the woman who was impersonating his daughter.

Consequently, when they saw each other, neither expressed any particular amazement nor delight. Each, indeed, was uncertain what this confrontation in the office of the chief of the secret police could mean. Shishkin wondered if Florence had betrayed his substitution of her for his daughter, while Florence wondered whether the Professor was about to bring her to shame by disclosing that very fact. Each, therefore, stared at the other much as do two strange dogs hesitating whether to fight or to fraternize.

At last the Professor stretched out a trembling hand. “Olga! My child!” he quavered.

Florence was not dull. If Shishkin still called[215] her child, he had not betrayed her; possibly he might not intend to do so. “Father!” she cried, with a histrionic gesture that smacked of music hall days. “Father! But no! You are not me father! Oh, father, how could you tear me from me happy home?”

The Professor looked stunned, as well he might. If Florence had had a happy home when he took her from the music hall, he had never heard of it.

Florence, however, gave him no time to explain. “Oh, father!” she cried again. “When you stole me from the home of the Grand Duke Ivan, my real father, did you never think how you wr’r’ronged me?”

The Professor started. The mention of the Grand Duke showed him that Florence’s words had no such superficial meaning as he had at first supposed. With satisfaction, he remembered that the true Olga was far away in America. Whatever this girl was driving at, could not alter that fact. He glanced at Demidroff, who sat watching, and grew cautious.

Florence breathed easier. The old man had caught her cue and was playing up to her. “All is discovered!” she cried theatrically. “Twenty years ago, here, in Russia, you stole me from my father, the Grand Duke Ivan, and took me to America, away from all I knew and loved. How could you do it? How could you do it?”

[216]Shishkin began to understand. It was not only the nihilists who knew that he had stolen Olga; Demidroff knew it, too! This girl knew it! But what was this talk of grand ducal paternity?

“It was my right,” he protested. “It is always a man’s right to recover his own child.”

“But I am not your child. Did you think that I was your child when you stole me? That explains, Baron! That explains! He thought it was his own child he was taking. And he has been very good to me. I will not have him hurt or punished. You must let him go. You will do that much for me?”

Demidroff nodded. “I will do much for you, Princess,” he murmured; “perhaps even that.”

“Professor”—he turned to the old man—“I was not in office when the Princess Yves Napraxine was stolen, and am not very familiar with the circumstances; but I know it did not occur to any one at the time that she had been taken in mistake for your daughter. It was only a few months ago, when I began to look into the case, that I suspected something of the sort. Your words confirm my belief. Professor, you did not steal your own daughter. You stole the daughter of the Grand Duke Ivan, the Princess Yves Napraxine, who was the same age, and was playing with her. You brought her up as your own. And now you have brought her back to resume her rightful place in the world as heiress to a great fortune and a great name.”

Professor Shishkin tottered to a chair and sank[217] down. Not for a moment did he doubt the truth of Demidroff’s words. Again and again he had tried to find in Olga a resemblance to himself or to his dead wife, but always in vain. The girl was like neither of them—in face or in character. Often he had wondered whence she had gotten this or that trait, and now he understood. The fabric of his life fell shattered round him.

What was to be done? He loved Olga, even if she were not his own daughter; for twenty years he had cared for her; he had dared nihilist vengeance rather than let her come to Russia and run the risk of being separated from him. He could not give her up now.

And would she want to be given up? She was married and supposedly three thousand miles away, presumably happy and content, knowing nothing of all this. Would she care to leave it all for a new life, even if it brought her wealth and station? He doubted it. For the present, at any rate, he would tell nothing.

The Baron nodded. “Perfectly true!” he replied. “From all accounts, the disappearance of the princess was discovered almost immediately. It was supposed that she had been stolen by some enemy of the Grand Duke. Strenuous efforts were made to find her, but they all failed. There were no clues. No one guessed that Count Lladislas had escaped from the[218] fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul and come back to carry away his own child. Until I took the matter up, a few weeks ago, no one knew whether she was alive or dead. Now the proofs are nearly completed; it needs only your own affidavit that you stole this lady from the ducal palace, to render them irrefutable.”

“But—but——” the Professor gasped—“but my own child. Where is she?”

“She is safe and well. I will tell you about her in good time. First, however, comes that affidavit. Will you draw it up now?”

Professor Shishkin faltered. The question with him, however, was one of sentiment and not one of morality. If need be, he was willing to make a hundred affidavits, careless of their truth, counting it a virtue to deceive any one connected with the Czar and his government. The memory of the wrongs they had wrought on him still burned in his mind. Not in all the years that had elapsed had he forgotten them. But he had begun to remember Olga’s rights. No matter whose daughter she might be, no matter what rightful enmity he bore against her father, she herself was dear to him. Now that it came to the point, he could not bring himself to throw away her rights without consulting her; certainly not without serious consideration. He would give no affidavit at the moment.

Yet if he refused, Demidroff would keep him in suspense about his own daughter. Well, he could[219] bear it; he had been separated from her for twenty years; surely he could wait a little longer.

But what excuse to give? What plea could he offer for refusing to bear witness to a state of affairs which he had already admitted?

While still he hesitated, Demidroff, who had been watching him with rising suspicion of he knew not what, struck in. “I believe I am justified, Professor,” he remarked suavely, “in telling you that your daughter is suspected of affiliation with the terrorists, and is now being sought by the authorities. Information has recently reached me that she is in hiding in a near-by town and is liable to be arrested any moment. The charges against her are not very serious, however, and I shall be glad to quash them if I have reason to believe that you are friendly to me. This is only by the way, however. The pressing business in hand is that affidavit.”

The old man flushed red, then white; he had opened his lips to speak, to defy this man who was mocking him, when Florence burst in.

The show-girl had been watching the old man narrowly, and had guessed very accurately what was passing in his mind. She felt that it was high time for her to speak.

“Father,” she exclaimed anxiously—“for I will still call you father! Do not forget your obligations to me.”

The old man started. He had entirely forgotten Florence. Obviously she hoped that he would let[220] the deception go on; obviously she had fostered it, even if she had not been responsible for it; plainly she was a little cheat, who ought to be exposed. Yet, after all, he himself was partly responsible for her deceit; he had palmed her off as Olga, and even if she had gone beyond his instructions, he felt it his duty to see that no harm should come to her. Indeed, he had promised her as much in New York. Slowly he raised his tremulous eyes. “I will not forget,” he promised.

Florence drew a long breath. She resolved to dare everything. “Say!” she exclaimed. “I’ll put it to you straight. When popper died—the Grand Duke Ivan, I mean—when popper died he left a lot of money that was to come to me if I ever turned up. He left it in the hands of Count Strogoff as trustee. Now, what the Count’s done to it is a plenty. He thinks it’s his, and he won’t give it up till he’s made to. He ain’t a quitter. He’ll fight for all he’s worth, and I ain’t going to have any walkover for the stakes. Not on your tin-type. But the Baron here believes in me. He says he and I can win out if we do good team work. He wants to marry me and make a play for the money. Nobody else could win. If I was married already, for instance,”—Florence spoke slowly and pointedly—“my name would be Dennis, for the Baron holds all the cards and wouldn’t back the game unless he stood to pull down something worth while. You see that, don’t you? Now, if you’ll just give the Baron that affidavit,[221] we’ll tour round to the Embassy and get a sure ’nuf preacher. I’ll marry the Baron again any way he says later on, but I’ve got to be married by somebody I know something about first. I ain’t taking any chances on an illustrated post-card priest. Now, father, what do you say?”

The Professor had listened intently. The girl’s words carried conviction. He had heard of Count Strogoff, and could guess how that personage would fight to retain possession of a fortune he had once gotten his hands on. Decidedly, the game was not worth the candle, so far as the real Olga was concerned. It was her happiness that he wished for, not to unsettle her life, so happily begun, by dangling before her a dream of wealth that, however it ended, could not bring her greater contentment than was hers at present. If Florence wanted to take the risks of the game, let her. He owed nothing to Demidroff nor to any other Russian.

“Very well,” he declared, turning to the Baron. “I’ll sign the affidavit just as soon as this young lady is safely married to you at the American Embassy—on the distinct pledge, however, that you tell me who my daughter is and give her a chance to escape with me out of Russia.”

The Baron nodded. “Agreed!” he exclaimed. “It is, of course, understood that you make no complaint about the Burndo matter. Yes? Very well.”

He struck a bell, and a man entered, bringing a note which the Baron read. “Let him wait,” he[222] ordered, in Russian. He turned back to the old man. “If you will go with this messenger, Professor,” he said, “he will enable you to arrange your toilet.”

“You do me honor, Princess,” he said, bowing. “It shall be my task to see that you do not regret it. You, too, will want to arrange yourself. But before you go, tell me where that gold is.”

Florence told him. The die was cast now, and no holding back was possible. “But, say,” she concluded, almost wistfully, “you won’t hurt those Wilkinses, will you? They’re right nice boys, and while, of course, I ain’t treating them any worse than they treated Mr. Caruth, still, I’d hate to have their deaths on my conscience.”

The Baron laughed happily and pinched Florence’s cheek. “Oh ho!” he cried. “I am to spare everybody, am I?—even the Wilkinses? You are too tender hearted for Russia, Princess! But I’ll do it this time. I’ll spare them if they’ll let me. Now, Princess, au revoir. As soon as you are ready, we will start for the Embassy.”

CONSCIOUSNESS struggled back to Caruth slowly, but it came at last. All about him was the roar of a great passenger station, the murmur of voices, the tramp of feet, the banging of carriage doors, the thump of baggage. Dully he put his hand to his head and felt a tremendous swelling just above his forehead. Then he looked around at the unfamiliar foreign faces that ringed him about. Somebody was questioning him in harsh spitting Russian.

He did not understand, and shook his head petulantly, only to cease quickly on account of the pain which the movement caused him. Memory had returned with a jerk, and he wondered whether Marie had escaped. He must give her as much time as he could to pass the gates. He closed his eyes and lay silent.

Five minutes sped by. Then he was picked up, bundled into a cab, and driven away. He gathered that he was under arrest, but he was not troubled. His story was unassailable. Besides, his head ached too much for him to think of anything else.

On the way to headquarters his head became better, and on his arrival he was able to talk quite[224] clearly and connectedly to a courteous individual who spoke English very well. Caruth did not know it, but it was Baron Demidroff himself who questioned him.

“I especially regret that this should have happened to you, Mr. Caruth,” he said apologetically. “You must already have a very poor opinion of Russia, I fear, after your unfortunate experience in the Sea Spume.”

A qualm came to Caruth as he realized that he was known, but it quickly passed. After all, the knowledge merely anticipated the story he was about to tell.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Such things happen everywhere, Monsieur,” he replied. “Don’t trouble about it.”

The Baron smiled. “Certain inquiries must be made,” he answered. “Can you give me a description of the person who robbed you?”

“Not very well,” he said reluctantly. “I had no reason for noticing him. Generally speaking, he was tall and broad and had a thick beard.”

“We found the beard in the railway carriage. He carried off your overcoat and hat, you say?”

“Then he could not have been very stout. You are too slender for your clothing to fit a very large man. Is it not so?”

[225]Caruth put his hand painfully to his head. “I guess I’d have thought of that myself if my head had been clear,” he evaded. “A crack like that isn’t conducive to lucidity.”

“Humph! I suppose you have no reason to suppose that this brawny man was really a woman?”

Caruth’s heart contracted painfully. “A woman!” he exclaimed. “Heavens, no! No woman could strike a blow like that!”

“No? You are sure, then, that it could not have been struck by one Marie Fitzhugh, so called, who made the voyage from America to Russia on your yacht?”

Caruth struggled to his feet with what assumption of dignity he could command. “You are pleased to jest, Monsieur,” he remarked stiffly. “Miss Fitzhugh is a valued friend. To think of her in such a connection as this is little short of an insult. I will bid you good day, Monsieur.”

The young man looked the elder in the eye. “To-night, I hope,” he answered shortly.

“So? That is good. I was about to advise an early departure. Russia does not seem to agree with you, Mr. Caruth. You are too unfortunate. I fear—I very much fear—that a third misfortune more serious than the others will overtake you if you stay much longer. But if you are leaving soon——”

Heavy heartedly the young American drove to a hotel and sent for a physician, who dressed his head, prescribed a sedative, and ordered him to bed. Caruth bowed him out, poured the sedative into the slop basin, and set off for the American Embassy. He did not feel at all certain of his reception. The ambassador was absent on leave and the Chargé d’Affaires, who acted in his place, had long before been rendered nearly frantic by the complications of the Sea Spume’s case. What he would say when this fresh development was forced upon him, Caruth found it difficult to guess.

If Marie had arrived there in disguise, as he hoped she had, he could imagine that the poor Chargé was having a bad quarter of an hour.

His anticipations proved true. As he entered the office the Chargé sprang up. “Well, Mr. Caruth,” he cried, “this is the limit! Not content with engaging in filibustering, you seem to have gone in for direct nihilism. Heavens, man, haven’t you any consideration for the position you put me in?”

Caruth did not answer. His eyes had lighted on a well-remembered form, and he turned to greet Marie Fitzhugh.

Swiftly she came toward him still dressed in her men’s clothes, and laid her white hand in his.

“Thank God you are safe!” she said with a catch in her voice. “It was the bravest thing I ever knew.”

[227]Caruth smiled at her. “Nonsense!” he answered. “I’ve taken many a harder crack in football. It was all right again in ten minutes. And the police couldn’t do a thing to me, though I guess they knew pretty well what had happened. But you? Did you get through all right?”

“Easily. I came here, and—well, I suppose I made myself a nuisance, and——” She turned shyly toward the Chargé.

But that gentleman had calmed down a little. He had remembered that Caruth’s friends were powerful politically and that it might not be well for him to show too much irritation.

“Not at all,” he protested. “Not at all. I simply didn’t know what to do under the circumstances. And I’d really be glad if you’d tell me just what you want me to do now.”

Caruth smiled. “There’s one thing you can do all right, all right,” he answered happily, “and it won’t compromise you, either. Just call in your Embassy minister and let him marry us as quick as he can say the words. Then if we can get to the Sea Spume, we’ll skiddoo and leave you alone forevermore. That’ll be a relief, I know.”

The Chargé’s face cleared. “Delighted,” he answered, somewhat ambiguously. “I’ll send for the minister at once. He lives just around the corner. Meanwhile, hadn’t you better—er—send out for some clothes for Miss Fitzhugh? Mr. Forbes is[228] very high church, and I’m not sure that he would consent to marry her under——”

But Caruth interrupted. “Sure!” he laughed. “I had forgotten. If you’ll let me get at the ’phone, I’ll ask Mrs. Bristow to get what is needed and hurry it around. Besides, I’d like to have the Bristows here. It will seem more like home.”

The Chargé rose. “The telephone is in the next room,” he said. “The messenger will show you. Is there anything else I can do?” The thought of getting rid of the Sea Spume affair made him positively affable.

As the two went out, a card was brought to the Chargé. He scanned it and his face grew grave. For a moment he hesitated; then, “Ask Baron Demidroff to come in,” he directed.

BARON DEMIDROFF entered the office of the Embassy jauntily. Things were coming his way. He had found the Princess and gotten her on his side, and he would soon recover the Orkney’s gold. With such a potent recommendation, he could reëstablish himself in favor, wrest the control of the Princess’s fortune from Count Strogoff, and put that gentleman where he could do no more harm. There was not a cloud on his horizon.

But there were a good many on that of the Chargé. Ignorant of the true reason of the Baron’s errand he could put but one construction on it: the Baron was coming in person to demand the surrender of Caruth’s bride. He foresaw various unpleasantnesses before the matter was settled.

Nevertheless, he rose to greet the Baron warmly. He knew him very well indeed, having, in fact, taught him to play poker at the club only the night before.

On this intimacy he based almost his sole hope of a satisfactory outcome to the affair. Those people who assert that the functions of an ambassador have been superseded by the cable and the long-distance telephone, and argue that those highly ornate[230] offices should be abolished forthwith, fail to take into account the mellowing effects of personal intercourse. Men who have met daily on friendly terms can usually smooth over causes of irritation as they arise and prevent them from developing into crises, and can often even suppress a crisis itself after it has developed—unless, of course, one or the other country is determined to quarrel. The Chargé believed that the Baron would not quarrel with him unless it could not be avoided.

So he sprang to his feet. “Ah, Baron! Glad to see you,” he cried. “Sit down. What can I do for you?” He glanced expectantly at the tall old gentleman and the handsome girl who stood waiting close behind.

The Baron chuckled. “Much, my dear fellow, much,” he cried. “But first let me present my friends. This is Professor Shishkin, so called, for whom you have been inquiring so anxiously for several days. I believe you have not met!”

The Chargé grasped the Professor’s hand. “What!” he cried. “Really! Why, Professor, you don’t know how glad I am to see you. We’ve been——”

“And this,” the Baron interrupted; “this is the lady who for twenty years has been known as Miss Olga Shishkin, and who has passed as daughter of Professor Shishkin.”

The Chargé bowed. Officially, he had heard of Florence’s flight only as a disappearance, and was[231] supposed to know nothing of the peculiar circumstances attending it. Actually, he knew a good deal more than had appeared on the surface, and the conjunction of his three visitors staggered him. And what was this talk about a “supposed” daughter?

“I’m glad to see you,” he muttered half-heartedly. “How did you——”

Again the Baron broke in. “Professor Shishkin,” he announced, “will tell you that he was knocked overboard during the outrageous attack by robbers on the Sea Spume! He was held prisoner for several days and was finally rescued by my men and brought here. Miss Shishkin, so-called——”

He stopped, with distended eyes. It takes something to surprise a veteran newspaper man, but the presence of Demidroff, Shishkin, and Florence together in that place did it.

“I beg your pardon,” he boggled. “I thought you were alone. I’ll——”

But Olga had seen the Professor, and her one thought was to get at him. With shining eyes, she thrust by her husband and rushed forward, hands outstretched.

[232]The tones reached the girl’s inner consciousness and she stopped, hesitating.

Before she could recover, Bristow passed her and grasped the Professor’s hand. “I’m delighted to see you safe again, Professor,” he declared. “Mrs. Bristow and I had about given you up. She felt very strongly about your fate.... Olga! Shake hands with Professor Shishkin.”

The Professor had managed to keep his self-possession. Though Olga’s presence was a surprise she was not to him as one returned from the dead, as he was to her. Mingled with his surprise was a feeling of enormous relief. Olga seemed to have appeared in direct answer to his prayers, to enable him to submit to her the question of her future. The need for caution still remained, however, and controlled him.

Quietly he and Olga pressed each other’s hands, putting off to the future the more intimate welcoming that would come. Bristow drew a long breath of relief as he saw them. It did not occur to him to look at Florence; in fact, for the moment he had forgotten her.

Demidroff relieved the situation. So sure of the facts and so full of his approaching triumph was he, that he was less observant than usual and saw nothing suspicious in the greeting. Nor did it occur to him to look at Florence, not dreaming that the meeting of the Professor and Mrs. Bristow could be of interest to her.

[233]Eagerly he pressed on with his program. “I’m glad to see you, Mr. Bristow,” he proclaimed. “You are the man above all others I would have hoped for. Through the Consolidated Press, you can lay before the world the amazing tale I have to tell.”

The reporter pricked up his ears. If Demidroff characterized a tale as amazing, it was worth listening to.

“Twenty years ago,” went on the Baron, “Count Lladislas Metrovitch, a Pole and a professor in the University here, was arrested for participation in a plot against the Czar. Whether he was guilty or not does not matter now. He was convicted and was imprisoned in a fortress. After three years it was reported that he was dead. The truth was that he had escaped.

“His first act was to look for his family. He learned that his wife had died shortly after his arrest, and that his daughter was being cared for by the Grand Duke Ivan, who had known him and his wife. By some means, he got into the Grand Duke’s palace. He saw there a child about four years old, which was the age of his own child, and from various circumstances concluded that she was his own child. He was deceived; she was not his own. She was the little Princess Yves Napraxine, daughter of the Grand Duke. But, unknowing, he stole her and escaped to America, where he took the name of Shishkin.”

The Baron paused and glanced around to note[234] the effect of his story. He need not have feared; his listeners, one and all, were hanging breathlessly on his words. The thoughts of each differed from those of the rest, but there was not one to whom the recital did not come sharply home. Bristow and Olga, especially, were beginning to realize what this might mean. No one had yet thought of Florence.

“The Grand Duke,” went on the Baron, “died ten years ago. He left enormous wealth and no children except the missing princess. He had always refused to believe her dead, and in his will he left all his fortune to her and provided for keeping up the search for her. If she was not found in twenty years, the estates were to escheat to the crown.

“Count Strogoff was made trustee of these estates, and as time passed on, and the princess did not appear, he doubtless came to look upon them as his own. Undoubtedly he will demand the best of proof before giving them up. But slowly and surely I have traced the matter and riveted the proofs one by one until they are indisputable.

“I was about to send for Professor Shishkin—Count Lladislas—when he suddenly started for Russia on the Sea Spume, bringing with him this lady whom he supposed to be his daughter, but who was really the Princess Yves Napraxine.”

As the Baron spoke, he drew Florence forward. “I have the honor,” he declared, “to present to you the Princess Yves Napraxine.”

Florence faced them boldly. Her face was white.[235] The desperation of a cornered rat shone in her eyes. Her swelling heart seemed about to suffocate her. Yet she faced them all, head high; she would take her medicine bravely when the time came; at least, they should not call her coward.

Olga, too, was pale. The revelation of her birth stunned her; the complications terrified her; the loss at one blow of him whom she had always called father and the substitution of fresh kindred and fresh life made her brain reel. Desperately she strove to reduce the confusion to order.

The Baron gave her time. “The Princess Yves Napraxine,” he went on suavely, “has done me the honor to consent to become my wife. I come now to ask my good friend the Chargé to permit the ceremony to be performed at his Embassy by the American clergyman. Immediately afterwards we will be remarried by the full rites of the Greek Church.”

The Chargé said something courteous, but no one except the Baron heard him. The rest were listening to Olga and the Professor.

The former had found her tongue at last. Gently she laid her hand on the old man’s sleeve. “Is this true?” she questioned softly.

Long the Professor gazed into her eyes, and what he read there gave him courage.

“Yes,” he answered slowly; “I believe it is true. Certainly it is true that I stole the child, thinking her my own daughter. I took her to America,[236] brought her up as my own, loved her, cared for her. And she was a good daughter to me, tender, sweet, affectionate. If I wronged her by taking her from her rightful station in life, I did it unknowingly. But I am not so sure that I did wrong her. To be a Russian princess is a great thing, but to be an American girl and become the wife of a good, true American is also a great thing. I am not certain that the exchange was not a good thing for her as well as for me. And still more do I doubt whether the change back now will be good for her. Count Strogoff is powerful and unscrupulous; he will fight to retain control of the Napraxine millions. Only the most powerful support can win against him; only one like Baron Demidroff can venture to throw down the gage to such a one as he. I cannot advise; the Princess is twenty-three years old; she must choose for herself. But before she does choose, it might be well for her to advise with you. You, too, are an American girl! You can tell her what you would do in her place!”

The old man’s voice dropped. He had said all there was to be said. For good or for ill, the matter now lay in Olga’s hands. Almost calmly he waited for her to choose.

The atmosphere had grown suddenly tense. Even the Baron and the Chargé, ignorant of the facts as they were, found themselves hanging on Olga’s lips, while to Bristow and Florence the suspense was terrible.

[237]For a moment Olga hesitated. Then she laughed lightly. “Good gracious!” she exclaimed, in a voice that somehow instantly relaxed the tension. “Good gracious! How can I tell? I’m not in the Princess’s place. I’m married! If I wasn’t—well, I don’t know. But”—she put out her hand and clasped that of her husband—“but as things are, I wouldn’t risk losing Joe for all the estates in Russia. I wouldn’t give up America for the finest position that Russia could offer. Certainly I wouldn’t trade my happiness for a lawsuit. Joe tells me that I am an American queen now; why should I care to become a Russian princess. Oh, no! It wouldn’t suit me at all. But——” she faced Florence with serenity in her eyes—“but that hasn’t anything to do with you, Princess. If you want to go ahead, we will all do everything we can to make success easy for you. I am sure that you need never fear that any of us will obstruct you in any way. In fact, I, for one, shall always be eternally grateful to you—for permitting me the honor of your acquaintance, of course.”

But Olga had turned away. Grateful to Florence she might be, but she did not care to fraternize with her, certainly not until her disappearance from the yacht had been explained. Besides, she wanted to talk with Bristow, never so dear to her as at that moment of abnegation.

[238]Ringing with happiness, the Professor’s voice struck in. Everything was coming out as he wanted it.

“Where is that affidavit, Baron?” he questioned. “I’ll sign it now with pleasure, and the Chargé here will witness it.”

Slowly Demidroff drew out the paper. The scene that had just passed puzzled him. He was not dull, or he would never have climbed to his post in the Russian service, and a suspicion that all was not as he had supposed began to stir in his brain. He did not guess the truth—how could he?—but probably a glimmer of something not far from the truth quivered before his eyes. He shot a keen glance at Florence, who bore it without visible emotion; then, as one who had resolved to go on at all hazards, he handed the affidavit to the Professor and saw it signed and witnessed.

The Chargé tugged at his mustache. He had been rather crowded into the background for the past few moments and was glad to get into the limelight again. Besides, he judged that the psychical moment had come to do what he could for Caruth.

“Certainly, my dear Baron,” he rejoined, fingering a note that an attendant had brought him a moment before. “Certainly. He is in the next room. I sent for him a few moments before your arrival, although, of course, I had no idea that you[239] would require his services. In fact, I thought you came on a very different matter.”

“Yes?” The Baron was polite, but was plainly impatient. The Chargé’s ideas were of little moment to him.

“Yes! The fact is I thought you came to demand the surrender of a certain young lady whom you might have some reason to suppose to be here—a Russian lady known as Marie Fitzhugh.”

“Oh, yes! What of her? I understand that she is here.” The Baron knew, of course, that Marie was in the Embassy; and the Chargé knew that he knew it or would soon know it. Anything else was impossible.

“No such person is in the Embassy,” explained the Chargé courteously. “In fact, there is no Russian young lady here at all. However, I should like to present you to an American young lady who has been here for a few moments only.”

The Baron looked puzzled. “I shall be charmed to meet any friend of your excellency’s,” he nodded.

The Chargé stepped to the inner door of the room. “Will you young people please come in here,” he called.

Side by side Caruth and Marie entered, followed by Reverend Mr. Forbes, the American clergyman. Caruth’s head was bound up, but his eyes were bright.

“Baron,” said the Chargé. “Let me present to you Mr. and Mrs. Caruth, just married by the[240] Reverend Mr. Forbes, who will shortly officiate at your own wedding. A foreign-born wife, as you of course know, takes the status of her husband and becomes a citizen of his country. Mr. and Mrs. Caruth are about to sail for America on the Sea Spume, leaving Russia forever. I give you my personal assurance of this. Would you mind viséing their passports, and thus guaranteeing them safe conduct out of Russia?”

“We Russians are not all quite so black as we are painted,” he said. “I shall be happy to endorse their passports.” He paused for a moment. “I regret to add,” he finished, “that the visé will be good for twenty-four hours only.”

“I have not forgotten, Professor,” he smiled. “You want your daughter. Your own daughter, I mean, of course. There she stands,” and he pointed to Mrs. Caruth.

IF Florence had delayed her flight from Helsingfors a day longer, she would probably not have gone at all. At practically the same moment at which she arrived at St. Petersburg, Bill Wilkins left that city, having completed arrangements for the shipment of the gold.

He had found the task of finding a ship a difficult one. Ten tons of gold was not freight that would ordinarily be found in the possession of a man of Wilkins’s appearance, and the fact that he wanted to get it out of the country secretly was abundant proof that he had come by it illegally. To explain the true nature of the stuff he wanted to ship, was to risk arrest by the police on the one hand, and robbery and murder by those who aided him on the other.

Yet it was practically impossible to conceal the fact that it was gold with which he wished to escape. Its mere weight would almost inevitably betray its character, for it was not credible that he should be willing to pay the sum necessary to induce a captain to violate the laws and risk his ship in order to carry off a few tons of lead, which was about the only conceivable substance of approximately equal weight.

Gold, of course, might be so packed in boxes too[242] large for it, as to conceal its relative weight, but the Wilkins brothers had no means at hand to enable them to do this.

Under these circumstances, it was not surprising that it took Wilkins practically all of the ten days he had supposed might be required to make his arrangements. He made them at last, however, with a villainous-looking captain, who drove a very hard bargain, and whom Wilkins suspected would turn robber if given the ghost of an opportunity. Neither he nor Tom, however, shrank from taking risks.

Meanwhile, Tom Wilkins had discovered Florence’s disappearance but had found himself helpless. Florence had taken the sloop’s only small boat, and Wilkins, unable to swim, found himself hopelessly marooned, unable to get ashore except by calling for aid. Although he had no nerves to speak of, and was ready at any time to fight his weight in wild-cats, even he found the situation appalling. Alone in a strange seaport, unable to speak a word of the language, under ban of the police, tied by the leg to a pile of gold, and deserted by his companions, a weaker man would have attempted to sail away despite his ignorance in regard to the management of the boat. But Tom Wilkins was not that sort. He would stick till the last minute.

Florence’s desertion was the hardest to bear. He really loved the girl, and he had almost persuaded himself that she loved him; believing this, he found[243] it very hard to conclude that her absence spelled treachery, as it obviously seemed to do. Rather, knowing how she chafed against the long confinement and remembering her hysterical fit of the night before, he clung to the hope that she had merely gone ashore and would soon be back.

But as the hours wore on and she did not return, he was forced to believe that she had deserted and perhaps betrayed him. He had taken her as a partner in his flight when he had expected to reach safety easily and quickly. If he had had any idea of what was before him, he would have gone without her and sent for her after the toil and danger of the adventure was over. But, having taken her, he expected her to stand by him, and to find that she was a “quitter,” the thing he despised most on earth, hurt him. According to his ideas, his own conduct in leaving the yacht was not “quitting,” but frank piracy, a thing which he by no means held in the same disesteem.

Bill’s arrival did not mend matters. Arriving at the shore, his sailor’s eyes quickly missed the dinghy that had trailed behind the sloop and he promptly hired a shore boat and had himself rowed out.

As he came alongside, Tom, who had been watching from below, came on deck to meet him, but showed no interest in the success of his errand.

“It’s all right, Tom,” he cried breathlessly. “It’s all right. Everything’s fixed, and we’ll be off as[244] soon as it gets dark. I had a d——d hard time of it with them d——d nihilists on one side and the cops on the other. But I pulled it off at last. Where’s the liquor! Let’s splice the main brace on the strength of it.”

Without answering, Tom set out a bottle and watched the other drink. But he himself took nothing.

Such disrespect to the convenances roused Bill’s indignation. “What in h——l’s the matter with you?” he demanded. “Anybody’d think I’d brought bad news ’stead of tellin’ you I’d pulled the thing off.”

Still Tom did not answer, and the other stared at him with growing suspicion. “Where’s the dinghy?” he demanded suddenly. “And where’s that girl?”

Tom raised his heavy eyes. “Gone,” he responded briefly. “She took the boat and vamosed some time last night.”

“Gone! Gone!” Bill’s voice rose to a scream. “Gone where? After the cops? I always knowed it. I always told you she’d do us. The little hell cat. D—— her——”

A pair of sinewy hands closed round his throat, choking the words, and he felt himself shaken to and fro like a rat.

“That’ll do, Bill Wilkins,” grated a voice that he hardly recognized as his brother’s. “That’ll do. Don’t you orthogrify a word agin her. She’s playin’ for her own hand, same’s we are. You keep your[245] tongue off her.” With the last word the plainsman hurled the other across the cabin.

Bill picked himself up slowly. He fingered his throat, swallowed once or twice, and then came back to where Tom stood glowering.

“All right,” he mumbled. “I won’t say nothing against her. She’s an angel of light if you say so. But I reckon she’s sold us out, and I guess the peelers are coming for us right now. We’d better get a move on—unless you’d sooner stay here and get pulled so’s not to spoil her game.”

Tom quivered, but said nothing. Lifelong self-control was again in the ascendency. He knew the other was right, and he already repented his fury of a moment before.

“All right, Bill!” he said, almost calmly. “You’re right. Only don’t say nothing against her to me. I’m too plumb sore to stand it just now. We’ll go as soon as you say.”

“I say now. The Haakon—she’s the steamer I’ve chartered—won’t be along till about dawn, but we’ve got to get out in the bay and wait for her. That little h—— —that is, them policeoffskis may be down on us any bloomin’ minute. The water’s quiet, and I guess we won’t swamp. Wait! Let’s look.”

The man broke off and ran up the ladder that led to the deck and poked his head above the combings. In a moment he turned, and Tom could see that his face was pale under its tan.

“—— —— ——!” he raged. “They’re coming[246] now. A dozen boats are starting out. Quick! We ain’t got a minute to lose.”

“Here!” he yelled. “Get that anchor up. Quick! Then help me with the mainsail.”

He darted forward and grasped the jib halliards. The weight was almost too much for one man, but necessity lent strength, and by the time the anchor was on board the jib was up. Then the two men tailed on to the mainsail halliards and the big sail rose slowly to the peak.

Leaving the halliards to his brother, Bill sprang to the sheet, and drew aft the flapping sail, holding it with one hand against the bits, and grasping the helm with the other.

The sloop was moving now, slowly but surely. Behind her pulsed a distant outcry, borne hoarsely across the water. Bill glared backward over his shoulder. “Shout! Shout! D—— you!” he cried.

Tom was by his side now, sheeting home the mainsail. The sloop felt the added press, and with every movement gathered way. But in the lee of the shore the wind was light, and the boats, driven by sinewy arms, were coming fast, relentlessly cutting down the distance that intervened.

Bill glared back at them. “Shoot ’em, Tom,” he cried. “Shoot ’em! Why don’t you shoot?”

[247]A grim smile curved the plainsman’s lips. Erect he stood, a revolver in either hand, balancing to the swaying boat. “Too far yet,” he muttered. “I ain’t got no cartridges to waste. This is only the overturnity; we’ll need ’em all when the main show begins. Besides, we’re holding even with them now.”

Indubitably the sloop was holding its own. With every foot she gained from the land, the breeze grew stronger. Soon the strip of water between her and the boats showed perceptibly larger and the hoarse cries grew fainter.

Tom lowered his pistols. “I guess we’re all right now,” he remarked comfortably.

Bill grunted. “All right as far as them boats counts,” he agreed. “But they’ll have steam launches and gunboats and torpedo-boats after us mighty soon, and then where’ll we be?”

“We won’t be in no jail,” returned his brother grimly. “I won’t, any way. I won’t be took. I always expected to cash in with my boots on, and I’m ready right now.”

“Same here—if I can’t help myself. But I reckon we’ve got a chance yet. They’ll be expectin’ us to run west and try to fetch Copenhagen, I reckon! But we’ll fool ’em. If we can get out of sight, we’ll run east and try to meet the Haakon. We’ve got to go east, any way. If we ran out into the Baltic, we’d swamp, sure, just as we would have the other day.”

DRIVEN by twin propellers, the Sea Spume raced westward, bearing happy souls released from the suspense of the past month. Caruth had found a wife; Professor Shishkin, a daughter; Marie, a father and a husband; and freed from the long strain of service to the cause, she had learned for the first time how heavy the burden had been.

With them were Bristow and Olga. The reporter’s assignment to the Russian capital was nearly up, and as it was madness for Olga to remain longer in the same city with Baron Demidroff and the pretended Princess Napraxine, he had decided to sail with Caruth.

They were all going back to America, to the western world, and they were all happy at the thought. They would find complications awaiting them, they knew. Olga, reported by the papers to have been identified as the Princess Napraxine and to have married Demidroff, must keep away from her old home and her old friends. Shishkin, though he had gained one daughter without losing the other, must pass as childless in the evening of his life. Caruth would have to satisfy the curious as to his somewhat[249] remarkable performances in Russia and Russian waters. And he would have to raise that million dollars.

One and all they had agreed to shield Florence, both for her sake and for theirs. To betray her was to risk drawing down upon themselves nihilist vengeance for the failure of the expedition—a failure that would assuredly be charged to her substitution for Olga. Besides, in that critical moment at the Embassy they had all tacitly agreed to keep silence in regard to her identity.

None of them were quite certain as to the part she had played, as to whether she had been a traitor, a double traitor, or only a spy. Anyhow, as Caruth put it: “All’s well that ends well. I’m not heaving any stones. I’m living in a tolerable imitation of a glass house myself.”

Running before the wind, the sloop bearing the Wilkins brothers and their golden plunder fled eastward. Until the sun set, it had beat to the west, toward the far-off land of promise, but as soon as darkness hid it from sight of the land, it had turned toward St. Petersburg, and for half a dozen hours had churned heavily onward.

Heavily laden, deep in the water, requiring constant bailing even in that smooth, sheltered sea, it made slow progress. Pursuers such as must be[250] questing the gulf for it would surely find it as soon as day dawned. Let the rising sun once gleam on its sails and the game would be lost.

To Bill Wilkins, seated at the tiller, managing the boat with a consummate skill whose constant exercise alone kept it afloat, the game seemed lost long before the dawn. In vain through the night he had strained his eyes for the signal lights by which the steamer Haakon was to signify her presence and readiness to ship the gold. Either she had passed unseen or her captain’s heart had failed him. In any case dependence was no longer to be placed on her.

What other hope remained? None that Bill Wilkins could see. The eastward course, while it probably deluded the pursuers and gave the sloop a little longer lease on freedom, led to no safety. Every mile took the fugitives nearer to a Russian prison. Yet any course but an eastern one was but to throw themselves into the arms of the pursuers or to plunge inevitably to the bottom the moment the stronger waves of the Baltic were encountered. To Bill, it seemed that they were rats in a trap, waiting till the captors came to take them out. If he had been alone, he would long ago have surrendered, hoping to win pardon by giving up the gold.

But he soon found that it was useless to talk of terms to his brother. A mere hint in that direction aroused in the plainsman a cold fury before which the weaker man shrank.

[251]The plainsman’s eyes flashed. “I hope you didn’t,” he roared. “I hope there ain’t no cowards or quitters in our family. I’ve staked on this here play, and I’m going to see it through. If I can’t get away with this gold, nobody shall. Understand that, Bill Wilkins.”

“Besides, I ain’t certain sure we’re done for yet. We’ve missed the Haakon, but she ain’t the only boat on the sea. If we can find a ship—any old ship—before dawn, we’ve got a chance.”

“How so? Great Lord! Ain’t you got no receptions at all, Bill Wilkins? Ain’t we got money enough to buy anything if we can once get a chance to show it? You think any captain breathin’ would refuse a million dollars in gold to take us aboard. And once aboard, who’d catch us? Russia can’t search every ship going out of the Baltic.”

A spark of hope sprang up in Bill’s bosom—but only a spark. “I don’t know where all the ships are,” he muttered. “There’d ought to be plenty all about. This here gulf is usually just crawling with ships. But there ain’t none passing to-night—and the dawn’s breaking.”

Captain Wilson stood on the bridge of the yacht, peering into the darkness. All night he had kept watch, unwilling to leave his post on deck as long as Russian waters lapped around the vessel committed to his care. When, with eight bells in the morning[252] watch, there came a lightening of the sky, he turned to the first officer.

“The dawn’s breaking, Jackson,” he said, “and I think I’ll turn in. We’ve got through the night safe and that’s more’n I expected.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I felt something brooding. My mother was Scotch and had second sight, and I can generally tell when something’s due to come off. But I guess I missed it this time. There comes the sun, and nothing’s doing.”

Captain Wilson lifted his glasses and stared forward across the brightening water. After a moment he turned to his companion.

“By the Lord! One, two, three, four steamers, all heading for her. What’s it mean?”

“It means—the something that was due to happen. Send for Mr. Caruth at once. Unless I miss my guess that boat carries Wilkins and his gold!”

As the sun came, Wilkins notched the sloop’s bowsprit into it. “There’s the sun,” he remarked grimly.

[253]Tom stood up, releasing the handle of the pump, and peered forward under his hand.

Bill had been staring around the horizon. “Yes, —— ——her!” he cried. “There she comes—too late. Look yonder.”

Tom looked, and counted just as the yacht’s officer had done. “One! Two! Three! Four! By God! They’re right after us! All right”—grimly. “We’ll give ’em a run for their money.”

But Bill groaned. “Wot’s the use,” he whined. “It’ll only make things worse. We ain’t got a chance.” He rose, his nerveless hand dropped away from the tiller, and the sloop yawed sharply to port.

“You d——n cur!” Tom’s voice rang out. “You d——n cur! Grab that thing again quick, or, by God, you won’t live to go to no jail!” His revolver emphasized the words.

Between the two terrors, Bill deferred to the nearer. Once more his hand closed on the tiller, and the sloop, recovering headway, swept onward.

Bill laughed harshly. “A h——l of a lot of help she’ll be to us!” he cried. “You darned fool, don’t you see it’s the Sea Spume?”

“What?” Tom spun round. “So much the better!” he cried. “We won’t need to waste no time explaining. And she’ll save us even if we lose the gold. That’s the kind of soft-headed fool that man Caruth is.”

[254]The yacht was very near now—so near Tom Wilkins could distinctly hear the sound of her engine-room bells signalling “stop.” The Russian boats were also near. Wilkins looked at them, then at the yacht, then thrust his pistols back into his belt.

“They won’t shoot,” he declared. “We’re too valuable to shoot. And I guess you’re right. We can’t whip a whole fleet, but we’ll spoil their game, all the same.” He paused and glanced at the yacht. “Run across her bows,” he ordered, “and float down alongside.”

Little margin was there, but the sloop took what there was and swept across just ahead of the yacht’s sharp prow.

As she scraped aft, screened for a moment from the sight of the Russians, Wilkins caught his brother’s arms, and hoisted the slighter man upward toward the yacht’s shrouds. “Grab hold! Quick!” he directed.

As Bill scrambled upward, the plainsman sprang upon the further gunwale of the sloop and leaned far outward. Borne down by his weight, the overloaded boat careened; a green wave curled in over her side; and quietly and soberly she went down beneath his feet.

As he felt her go down, Tom turned to the yacht, and waved his hand. “Heave us a rope, Mr. Caruth,” he called. “I can’t swim!”

Caruth did not hesitate. He had read the plainsman’s purpose and had given orders accordingly. In less than a minute Tom Wilkins, dripping but[255] unhurt, stood on the deck beside his brother Bill, while aft, in the water churned into foam by the screws of the yacht, a white sail fluttered for a moment; then was gone.

Caruth looked at the spot where the sloop had disappeared; then at the plainsman; then at the hurrying Russians. “That was a child’s trick, Wilkins,” he said severely. “The water isn’t fifty feet deep here, and Demidroff can fish the gold up easy. Meanwhile, you’ve put us all in a hole.”

Caruth looked again. The yacht was drawing rapidly away, and the Russians were making no effort to follow her. Clustered around the spot where the sloop sank, they seemed to be throwing out buoys to mark the spot.

Six months later, five of the chief participants in the contest for the Orkney’s gold were gathered at a home dinner given by the Caruths to mark their departure from the apartment in the Chimneystack Building to the splendid new house Caruth had bought for his bride. Until then, Marie had insisted on remaining in the rooms where she had first met her husband.

Inevitably, as always when these five met, the talk turned on the trip of the Sea Spume and those connected with the quest for the Orkney’s gold.

“I got a letter from Colorado from the Wilkinses[256] to-day. They’ve struck a gold mine that Tom Wilkins says is going to make them all rich if they can get the money to develop it. He offers to sell me a share on easy terms. He certainly has more assurance than anybody I ever knew.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” It was Bristow who spoke. “He was within his rights, you know, in that matter of the Orkney. Irrespective of his part in sinking the Orkney, Bill Wilkins saved that gold from the abandoned wreck, and thereby got a perfect title to about nine-tenths of it by the laws of pretty nearly every country in the world. Russia had no right to take it from him, and he would have had a good claim against her at the end if Tom Wilkins hadn’t wrecked and abandoned it again. That gave the second salvors their claim and wiped out his.”

Caruth growled. “He’d have had a hard time making good,” he observed. “Demidroff didn’t fish that gold up from the bottom of the gulf to surrender it to the Wilkinses.”

“Oh, no! I’m only discussing the legal rights of the matter, and Tom Wilkins’s part in it. If Bill Wilkins owned the gold—as he did—he had a right to take any partners in he liked. Oh, yes, the Wilkinses were within their legal rights all the time, though that isn’t exactly a recommendation for going in with them on a gold mine. There are too many legal robberies connected with that class of property to suit me.”

“I’m afraid there is too much law in this country,” chimed in Marie. “Just as there is too little in[257] Russia. But what have you heard of the progress of the suit of the Princess Napraxine against Count Strogoff, Mr. Bristow?”

Bristow glanced quickly at his wife. “The Princess really seems about to win,” he declared, “though the case is still in the courts. Our man there writes me that he understands the Czar is convinced that the claim is valid, and has received the ‘Princess’ officially at his court. That means that everything’s over except the shouting. I don’t know; sometimes I wonder if I did right in letting Olga give up everything!”

But Olga smiled. “Not for me,” she declared, as she had declared in Baron Demidroff’s presence six months before. “Not for me. I told Baron Demidroff the truth. My tastes are simple, and I am quite content without the millions and the rank.”

“And in any event you are right.” It was Marie who spoke. “I have tested that mode of life, and I know. There is nothing in its glitter and pomp to balance home—home such as I never had and never could have had in Russia’s splendid barbarism. No, no, Mr. Bristow! If Olga had hesitated, it would have been your duty to tear her away from it by force. The world has nothing to offer that is better than America and American husbands.”

“Yes, you are quite right!” The Professor smiled benignantly on his two daughters. “You are quite right, both of you! Money and rank! What are they? Nothing! Nothing to freedom and the chance for a man to be a man! Besides,” he added[258] shrewdly, “I suspect those estates will not be so very large after all. If Strogoff has not plundered them, he is not the man he is reputed to be.”

The bell at the door of the apartment rang, and a moment later a servant brought an evening paper to Caruth.

“The janitor brought this up, sir,” he explained. “He says as how there’s something in it he thinks you’ll like to see, sir.”

Caruth took the paper and glanced down its columns. Then he uttered an exclamation.

Caruth dropped the paper. “There’s more of it,” he finished, “but that’s the substance.”

Olga clasped her hands. “Oh, Joe, Joe!” she cried. “It might have been you and me! It might have been you and me!”

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PAGE
The Diver Commanded Her to Report at once to the Inner Circle of the Brotherhood.	Frontispiece.
Like a Cat, the Woman Sprang Forward and Caught His Arm.	32
“Pardon, Mademoiselle! I Must Speak to You Secretly.”	139
“You!” She Muttered, “You Here!”	198

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN