Chapter Thirty Two.At What Cost!Colonel Paul Polivanoff, Marshal of the Imperial Court, gorgeous in his pale-blue and gold uniform of the Nijni-Novgorod Dragoons, with many decorations, tapped at the white-enamelled steel door of His Majesty’s private cabinet in the Palace of Tzarskoie-Selo, and then entered, announcing in French:“Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia and M’sieur Colin Trewinnard.”Nine days had passed since that parting of the lovers at Lochearnhead, and now, as we stood upon the threshold of the bomb-proof chamber, I knew that our visit there in company was to be a momentous event in the history of modern Russia.As we entered, the Emperor, who had been busy with the pile of State documents upon his table, rose, settled the hang of his sword—for he was in a dark green military uniform, with the double-headed eagle of Saint Andrew in diamonds at his throat—and turned to meet us.Towards me His Majesty extended a cordial welcome, but I could plainly detect that his niece’s presence caused him displeasure.“So you are back again in Russia—eh, Tattie?” he snapped in French, speaking in that language instead of Russian because of my presence. “It seems that during your absence you have been guilty of some very grave indiscretions and more than one scandalous escapade—eh?”“I am here to explain to Your Majesty,” the girl said quite calmly, and looking very pale and sweet in her half-mourning.“Trewinnard has furnished me with reports,” he said hastily, motioning her to a chair. “What you have to say, please say quickly, as I have much to do and am leaving for Moscow to-night. Be seated.”“I am here for two reasons,” she said, seating herself opposite to where he had sunk back into his big padded writing-chair, “to explain what you are pleased to term my conduct, and also to place your Majesty in possession of certain facts which have been very carefully hidden from you.”“Another plot—eh?” he snapped. “There are plots everywhere just now.”“A plot—yes—but not a revolutionary one,” was her answer.“Leave such things to Markoff or to Hartwig. They are not women’s business,” he cried impatiently. “Rather explain your conduct in England. From what I hear, you have so far forgotten what is due to your rank and station as to fall in love with some commoner! Markoff made a long report about it the other day. I have it somewhere,” and he glanced back upon his littered table, whereon lay piled the affairs of a great and powerful Empire.Her cheeks flushed slightly, and I saw that her white-gloved hand twitched nervously. We had travelled together from Petersburg, and upon the journey she had been silent and thoughtful, bracing herself up for an ordeal.“I care not a jot for any report of General Markoff’s,” she replied boldly. “Indeed, it was mainly to speak of him that I have asked for audience to-day.”“To tell me something against him, I suppose, just because he has discovered your escapades in England—because he has dared to tell me the truth—eh, Tattie?” he said, with a dry laugh. “So like a woman!”“If he has told you the truth about me, then it is the first time he has ever told Your Majesty the truth,” she said, looking straight at the Emperor.The Sovereign glanced first at her with quick surprise and then at myself.“Her Imperial Highness has something to report to Your Majesty, something of a very grave and important nature,” I ventured to remark.“Eh? Eh?” asked the big bearded man, in his quick, impetuous way. “Something grave—eh? Well, Tattie, what is it?”The girl, pale and agitated, held her breath for a few moments. Then she said:“I know, uncle, that you consider me a giddy, incorrigible flirt. Perhaps I am. But, nevertheless, I am in possession of a secret—a secret which, as it affects the welfare of the nation and of the dynasty, it is, I consider, my duty to reveal to you.”“Ah! Revolutionists again!”“I beg of you to listen, uncle,” she urged. “I have several more serious matters to place before you.”“Very well,” he replied, smiling as though humouring her. “I am listening. Only pray be brief, won’t you?”“You will recollect the attempt planned to be made in the Nevski on the early morning of our arrival from the Crimea, and in connection with that plot a lady, a friend of mine and of Mr Trewinnard’s, named Madame de Rosen, and her daughter Luba were arrested and sent by administrative process to Siberia?”“Certainly. Trewinnard went recently on a quixotic mission to the distressed ladies,” he laughed. “But why, my dear child, refer to them further? They were conspirators, and I really have no interest in their welfare. The elder woman is, I understand, dead.”“Yes,” the Grand Duchess cried fiercely; “killed by exposure, at the orders of General Serge Markoff.”“Oh!” he exclaimed, “then you have come here to denounce poor Markoff as an assassin—eh? This is really most interesting.”“What I have to relate to Your Majesty will, I believe, be found of considerable interest,” she said, now quite calm and determined. “True, I have charged Serge Markoff with the illegal arrest and the subsequent death of an innocent woman. It is for me now to prove it.”“Certainly,” said His Imperial Majesty, settling himself in his big chair, and placing the tips of his strong white fingers together in an attitude of listening.“Then I wish to reveal to you a few facts concerning this man who wields such wide and autocratic power in our Russia—this man who is the real oppressor of our nation, and who is so cleverly misleading and terrorising its ruler.”“Tattie! What are you saying?”“You will learn when I have finished,” she said. “I am only a girl, I admit, but I know the truth—the scandalous truth—how you, the Emperor, are daily deceived and made a catspaw by your clever and unscrupulous Chief of Secret Police.”“Speak. I am all attention,” he said, his brows darkening.“I have referred to poor Marya de Rosen,” said the girl, leaning her elbow upon the arm of the chair and looking straight into her uncle’s face. “If the truth be told, Marya and Serge Markoff had been acquainted for a very long time. Two years after the death of her husband, Felix de Rosen, the wealthy banker of Odessa and Warsaw, Serge Markoff, in order to obtain her money, married her.”“Married her!” echoed the Emperor in a loud voice. “Can you prove this?”“Yes. Three years ago, when I was living with my father in Paris, I went alone one morning to the Russian Church in the Rue Daru, where, to my utter amazement, I found a quiet marriage-service in progress. The contracting parties were none other than General Markoff and the widow, Madame de Rosen. Beyond the priest and the sacristan, I was the only person in possession of the truth. They both returned to Petersburg next day, but agreed to keep their marriage secret, as the General was cunning enough to know that marriage would probably interfere with his advancement and probably cause Your Majesty displeasure.”“I had no idea of it!” he remarked, much surprised. “Marya de Rosen—or Madame Markoff, as she really was—frequently went to her husband’s house, but always clandestinely and unknown to Luba, who had no suspicion of the truth,” the girl went on. “According to the story told to me by Marya herself, a strange incident occurred at the General’s house one evening. She had called there and been admitted, by the side entrance, by a confidential servant, and was awaiting the return of the General, who was having audience at the Winter Palace. While sitting alone, a young woman of the middle-class—probably an art-student—was ushered into the room by another servant, who believed Marya was awaiting formal audience of His Excellency. The girl was highly excited and hysterical, and finding Marya alone, at once broke out in terrible invective against the General. Marya naturally took Markoff’s part, whereupon the girl began to make all sorts of charges of conspiracy, and even murder, against him—charges which Marya declared to the girl’s face were lies.“Suddenly, however, the girl plunged her hand deep into the pocket of her skirt and produced three letters, which, with a mocking laugh, she urged Marya to read and then to judge His Excellency accordingly. Meanwhile, the manservant, having heard the girl’s voice raised excitedly, entered and promptly ejected her, leaving the letters in Marya’s hands. She opened them. They were all in Serge Markoff’s own handwriting, and were addressed to a certain man named Danilo Danilovitch, once a shoemaker at Kazan, and now, in secret, the leader of the Revolutionary Party.“From the first of these Marya saw that it was quite plain that the General—the man in whom Your Majesty places such implicit faith—had actually bribed the man with five thousand roubles and a promise of police protection to assassinate Your Majesty’s brother, the Grand Duke Peter Michailovitch, from whom he feared exposure, as he had been shrewd enough to discover his double-dealing and the peculation of the public funds of which Markoff had been guilty while holding the office of Governor of Kazan. Six days after that letter,” Her Highness added in a hard, clear voice, “my poor Uncle Peter was shot dead by an unknown hand while emerging from the Opera House in Warsaw.”“Ah! I remember!” exclaimed His Majesty hoarsely, for the Grand Duke Peter was his favourite brother, and his assassination had caused him the most profound grief.“Of the other two letters—all of them having been in my possession,” Her Highness went on, “one was a brief note, appointing a meeting for the following evening at a house near the Peterhof Station, in Petersburg, while the third contained a most amazing confession. In the course of it General Markoff wrote words to the following effect: ‘You and your chicken-hearted friends are utterly useless to me. I was present and watched you. When he entered the theatre you and your wretched friends were afraid—you failed me! You call yourself Revolutionists—you, all of you, are without the courage of a mouse! I thought better of you. When you failed so ignominiously, I waited—waited until he came out. Where you failed, I was fortunately successful. He fell at the first shot. Arrests were, of course, necessary. Some of your cowardly friends deserve all the punishment they will get. Forty-six have been arrested to-day. Meet me to-morrow at eight p.m. at the usual rendezvous. You shall have the money all the same, though you certainly do not deserve it. Destroy this.’”“Where is that letter?” demanded His Majesty quickly.“It has unfortunately been destroyed—destroyed by its writer. Marya was aghast at these revelations of her husband’s treachery and double-dealing, for while Chief of Secret Police and Your Majesty’s most trusted adviser he was actually aiding and abetting the Revolutionists! She placed the letters which had so opportunely come into her possession into her pocket, and said nothing to Markoff when he returned. But from that moment she distrusted him, and saw how ingenious and cunning were his dealings with both yourself and with the leader of the Revolutionists. He, assisted by his catspaw, Danilo Danilovitch, formed desperate plots for the mere purpose of making whole sale arrests, and thus showing you how active and astute he was. Danilo Danilovitch—who, as ‘The One,’ the leader whose actual identity is unknown by those poor deluded wretches who believe they can effect a change in Russia by means of bombs—is as cunning and crafty as his master. It was he who threw the bomb at our carriage and who killed my poor dear father. He—”“How can you prove that?” demanded the Emperor quickly.“I myself saw him throw the bomb,” I said, interrupting. “The outrage was committed at Markoff’s orders.”“Impossible! Why do you allege this, Trewinnard? What motive could Markoff have in killing the Grand Duke Nicholas?”“The same that he had in ordering the arrest and banishment of his own wife and her daughter,” was my reply. “Her Highness will make further explanation.”“The motive was simply this,” went on the girl, still speaking with great calmness and determination. “A few days before I left with Your Majesty on the tour of the Empire, I called upon Marya de Rosen to wish her good-bye. On that occasion she gave me the three letters in question—which had apparently been stolen from Danilovitch by the girl who had handed them to her. Marya told me that she feared lest her husband, when he knew they were in her possession, might order a domiciliary visit for the purpose of securing possession of them. Therefore she begged me, after she had shown me the contents and bound me to strictest silence, to conceal them. This I did.“While we were absent in the south nothing transpired, but Danilovitch had arranged an attempt in the Nevski on the morning of our return to Petersburg. The plot was discovered at the eleventh hour, as usual and among those arrested was Madame de Rosen and Luba. Why? Because Your Majesty’s favourite, Serge Markoff, having discovered that the incriminating letters had been handed to his wife, knew that she, and probably Luba, were aware of his secret. He feared that the evidence of his crime must have passed into other hands, and dreading lest his wife should betray him, he ordered her arrest as a dangerous political. After her arrest he saw her, and, hoping for her release, she explained how she had handed the letters to me for safe-keeping, and confessed that I was aware of the shameful truth. She was not, however, released, but sent to her grave. For that same reason Markoff ordered his agent Danilovitch to throw the bomb at the carriage in which I was riding with my poor father and Mr Trewinnard.”“But I really cannot give credence to all this!” exclaimed the Emperor, who had risen again and was standing near the window which looked out upon the courtyard of the palace, whence came the sound of soldiers drilling and distant bugle-calls.“Presently Your Majesty shall be given a complete proof,” his niece responded. “Danilovitch has confessed. At Markoff’s orders—which he was compelled to carry out, fearing that if he refused the all-powerful Chief of Secret Police would betray him to his comrades as a spy—he, at imminent risk of being shot by the sentries, visited our palace on four occasions, and succeeded at last, after long searches, in discovering the letters where I had hidden them for safety in my old nursery, and, securing them, he handed them back to his master.”“Then this Danilovitch is a Revolutionist paid by Markoff to perform his dirty work—eh?” asked the Emperor angrily.“He is paid, and paid well, to organise conspiracies against Your Majesty’s person,” I interrupted. “The majority of the plots of the past three years have been suggested by Markoff himself, and arranged by Danilovitch, who finds it very easy to beguile numbers of his poor deluded comrades into believing that the revolution will bring about freedom in Russia. A list of these he furnishes to Markoff before each attempt is discovered, hence the astute Chief of Secret Police is always able to put his hand upon the conspirators and to furnish a satisfactory report to Your Majesty, for which he receives commendation.”“Apparently a unique arrangement,” remarked the sovereign reflectively.“In order to close the lips of Madame de Rosen, he contrived that she should receive such brutal and inhuman treatment that she died of the effects of cold, hardship and exposure,” I went on. “One of Markoff’s agents made a desperate attempt upon myself while in Siberia, fearing that Her Highness had revealed the truth to me, and well knowing that I was aware of Danilovitch’s truemétier. The attempt fortunately failed, as did another recently formed by Danilovitch in London at Markoff’s orders. Therefore—”“But this Danilovitch!” interrupted His Majesty, turning to me. “Has he actually confessed to you?”“He has, Sire,” I replied. “The sole reason of my journey to Yakutsk was in order to see Marya de Rosen on Her Highness’s behalf and obtain permission for her to speak and reveal to Your Majesty all that the Grand Duchess has now told you. Her Highness had promised strictest secrecy to her friend, but now that the lady is dead I have at last induced her to speak in the personal-interests of Your Majesty, as well as in the interests of the whole nation.”“Yes, yes, I quite understand,” said His Majesty very gravely.“By returning here, by abandoning myincognita, I—I have been compelled to sacrifice my love,” declared the girl in a low, faltering voice, her cheeks blanched, her mouth drawn hard, and her fine eyes filled with tears.“Ah! Tattie! If what you have revealed to me be true, then the reason of Markoff’s unsatisfactory reports concerning, you is quite apparent,” His Majesty said, slowly folding his arms as he stood in thought, a fine commanding figure with the jewelled double eagle at his throat flashing with a thousand fires.“And so, Trewinnard,” he added, turning to me, “all this is the reason why, more than once, you have given me those mysterious hints which have set me pondering.”“Yes, Sire,” I replied. “You have been blinded by these clever adventurers surrounding you—that circle which, headed by Serge Markoff, is always so careful to prevent you from learning the truth. The intrigue they practise is most ingenious and far-reaching, ever securing their own advancement with fat emoluments at the expense of the oppressed nation. Their basic principle is to terrorise you—to keep the bogy of revolution constantly before Your Majesty, to discover plots, and by administrative process to send hundreds, nay thousands, into exile in those far-off Arctic wastes, or fill the prisons with suspects, more than two-thirds of whom are innocent, loyal and law-abiding citizens.”He turned suddenly and, pale with anger, struck his fist upon his table.“There shall be no more exile by administrative process!” he cried, and seating himself, he drew a sheet of official paper before him, and for a few moments his quill squeaked rapidly over the paper.Thus he wrote the ukase abolishing exile by administrative process—that law which the camarilla had so abused—and signed it with a flourish of his pen.The first reform in Russia—a reform which meant the yearly saving of thousands of innocent lives, the preservation of the sanctity of every home throughout the great Empire, and which guaranteed to everyone in future, suspect or known criminal or Revolutionist, a fair and open trial—had been achieved.Surely the little Grand Duchess, the madcap of the Romanoffs, had not sacrificed her great love in vain, even though while that Imperial ukase was being written she sat with bitter tears rolling slowly down her white cheeks.
Colonel Paul Polivanoff, Marshal of the Imperial Court, gorgeous in his pale-blue and gold uniform of the Nijni-Novgorod Dragoons, with many decorations, tapped at the white-enamelled steel door of His Majesty’s private cabinet in the Palace of Tzarskoie-Selo, and then entered, announcing in French:
“Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia and M’sieur Colin Trewinnard.”
Nine days had passed since that parting of the lovers at Lochearnhead, and now, as we stood upon the threshold of the bomb-proof chamber, I knew that our visit there in company was to be a momentous event in the history of modern Russia.
As we entered, the Emperor, who had been busy with the pile of State documents upon his table, rose, settled the hang of his sword—for he was in a dark green military uniform, with the double-headed eagle of Saint Andrew in diamonds at his throat—and turned to meet us.
Towards me His Majesty extended a cordial welcome, but I could plainly detect that his niece’s presence caused him displeasure.
“So you are back again in Russia—eh, Tattie?” he snapped in French, speaking in that language instead of Russian because of my presence. “It seems that during your absence you have been guilty of some very grave indiscretions and more than one scandalous escapade—eh?”
“I am here to explain to Your Majesty,” the girl said quite calmly, and looking very pale and sweet in her half-mourning.
“Trewinnard has furnished me with reports,” he said hastily, motioning her to a chair. “What you have to say, please say quickly, as I have much to do and am leaving for Moscow to-night. Be seated.”
“I am here for two reasons,” she said, seating herself opposite to where he had sunk back into his big padded writing-chair, “to explain what you are pleased to term my conduct, and also to place your Majesty in possession of certain facts which have been very carefully hidden from you.”
“Another plot—eh?” he snapped. “There are plots everywhere just now.”
“A plot—yes—but not a revolutionary one,” was her answer.
“Leave such things to Markoff or to Hartwig. They are not women’s business,” he cried impatiently. “Rather explain your conduct in England. From what I hear, you have so far forgotten what is due to your rank and station as to fall in love with some commoner! Markoff made a long report about it the other day. I have it somewhere,” and he glanced back upon his littered table, whereon lay piled the affairs of a great and powerful Empire.
Her cheeks flushed slightly, and I saw that her white-gloved hand twitched nervously. We had travelled together from Petersburg, and upon the journey she had been silent and thoughtful, bracing herself up for an ordeal.
“I care not a jot for any report of General Markoff’s,” she replied boldly. “Indeed, it was mainly to speak of him that I have asked for audience to-day.”
“To tell me something against him, I suppose, just because he has discovered your escapades in England—because he has dared to tell me the truth—eh, Tattie?” he said, with a dry laugh. “So like a woman!”
“If he has told you the truth about me, then it is the first time he has ever told Your Majesty the truth,” she said, looking straight at the Emperor.
The Sovereign glanced first at her with quick surprise and then at myself.
“Her Imperial Highness has something to report to Your Majesty, something of a very grave and important nature,” I ventured to remark.
“Eh? Eh?” asked the big bearded man, in his quick, impetuous way. “Something grave—eh? Well, Tattie, what is it?”
The girl, pale and agitated, held her breath for a few moments. Then she said:
“I know, uncle, that you consider me a giddy, incorrigible flirt. Perhaps I am. But, nevertheless, I am in possession of a secret—a secret which, as it affects the welfare of the nation and of the dynasty, it is, I consider, my duty to reveal to you.”
“Ah! Revolutionists again!”
“I beg of you to listen, uncle,” she urged. “I have several more serious matters to place before you.”
“Very well,” he replied, smiling as though humouring her. “I am listening. Only pray be brief, won’t you?”
“You will recollect the attempt planned to be made in the Nevski on the early morning of our arrival from the Crimea, and in connection with that plot a lady, a friend of mine and of Mr Trewinnard’s, named Madame de Rosen, and her daughter Luba were arrested and sent by administrative process to Siberia?”
“Certainly. Trewinnard went recently on a quixotic mission to the distressed ladies,” he laughed. “But why, my dear child, refer to them further? They were conspirators, and I really have no interest in their welfare. The elder woman is, I understand, dead.”
“Yes,” the Grand Duchess cried fiercely; “killed by exposure, at the orders of General Serge Markoff.”
“Oh!” he exclaimed, “then you have come here to denounce poor Markoff as an assassin—eh? This is really most interesting.”
“What I have to relate to Your Majesty will, I believe, be found of considerable interest,” she said, now quite calm and determined. “True, I have charged Serge Markoff with the illegal arrest and the subsequent death of an innocent woman. It is for me now to prove it.”
“Certainly,” said His Imperial Majesty, settling himself in his big chair, and placing the tips of his strong white fingers together in an attitude of listening.
“Then I wish to reveal to you a few facts concerning this man who wields such wide and autocratic power in our Russia—this man who is the real oppressor of our nation, and who is so cleverly misleading and terrorising its ruler.”
“Tattie! What are you saying?”
“You will learn when I have finished,” she said. “I am only a girl, I admit, but I know the truth—the scandalous truth—how you, the Emperor, are daily deceived and made a catspaw by your clever and unscrupulous Chief of Secret Police.”
“Speak. I am all attention,” he said, his brows darkening.
“I have referred to poor Marya de Rosen,” said the girl, leaning her elbow upon the arm of the chair and looking straight into her uncle’s face. “If the truth be told, Marya and Serge Markoff had been acquainted for a very long time. Two years after the death of her husband, Felix de Rosen, the wealthy banker of Odessa and Warsaw, Serge Markoff, in order to obtain her money, married her.”
“Married her!” echoed the Emperor in a loud voice. “Can you prove this?”
“Yes. Three years ago, when I was living with my father in Paris, I went alone one morning to the Russian Church in the Rue Daru, where, to my utter amazement, I found a quiet marriage-service in progress. The contracting parties were none other than General Markoff and the widow, Madame de Rosen. Beyond the priest and the sacristan, I was the only person in possession of the truth. They both returned to Petersburg next day, but agreed to keep their marriage secret, as the General was cunning enough to know that marriage would probably interfere with his advancement and probably cause Your Majesty displeasure.”
“I had no idea of it!” he remarked, much surprised. “Marya de Rosen—or Madame Markoff, as she really was—frequently went to her husband’s house, but always clandestinely and unknown to Luba, who had no suspicion of the truth,” the girl went on. “According to the story told to me by Marya herself, a strange incident occurred at the General’s house one evening. She had called there and been admitted, by the side entrance, by a confidential servant, and was awaiting the return of the General, who was having audience at the Winter Palace. While sitting alone, a young woman of the middle-class—probably an art-student—was ushered into the room by another servant, who believed Marya was awaiting formal audience of His Excellency. The girl was highly excited and hysterical, and finding Marya alone, at once broke out in terrible invective against the General. Marya naturally took Markoff’s part, whereupon the girl began to make all sorts of charges of conspiracy, and even murder, against him—charges which Marya declared to the girl’s face were lies.
“Suddenly, however, the girl plunged her hand deep into the pocket of her skirt and produced three letters, which, with a mocking laugh, she urged Marya to read and then to judge His Excellency accordingly. Meanwhile, the manservant, having heard the girl’s voice raised excitedly, entered and promptly ejected her, leaving the letters in Marya’s hands. She opened them. They were all in Serge Markoff’s own handwriting, and were addressed to a certain man named Danilo Danilovitch, once a shoemaker at Kazan, and now, in secret, the leader of the Revolutionary Party.
“From the first of these Marya saw that it was quite plain that the General—the man in whom Your Majesty places such implicit faith—had actually bribed the man with five thousand roubles and a promise of police protection to assassinate Your Majesty’s brother, the Grand Duke Peter Michailovitch, from whom he feared exposure, as he had been shrewd enough to discover his double-dealing and the peculation of the public funds of which Markoff had been guilty while holding the office of Governor of Kazan. Six days after that letter,” Her Highness added in a hard, clear voice, “my poor Uncle Peter was shot dead by an unknown hand while emerging from the Opera House in Warsaw.”
“Ah! I remember!” exclaimed His Majesty hoarsely, for the Grand Duke Peter was his favourite brother, and his assassination had caused him the most profound grief.
“Of the other two letters—all of them having been in my possession,” Her Highness went on, “one was a brief note, appointing a meeting for the following evening at a house near the Peterhof Station, in Petersburg, while the third contained a most amazing confession. In the course of it General Markoff wrote words to the following effect: ‘You and your chicken-hearted friends are utterly useless to me. I was present and watched you. When he entered the theatre you and your wretched friends were afraid—you failed me! You call yourself Revolutionists—you, all of you, are without the courage of a mouse! I thought better of you. When you failed so ignominiously, I waited—waited until he came out. Where you failed, I was fortunately successful. He fell at the first shot. Arrests were, of course, necessary. Some of your cowardly friends deserve all the punishment they will get. Forty-six have been arrested to-day. Meet me to-morrow at eight p.m. at the usual rendezvous. You shall have the money all the same, though you certainly do not deserve it. Destroy this.’”
“Where is that letter?” demanded His Majesty quickly.
“It has unfortunately been destroyed—destroyed by its writer. Marya was aghast at these revelations of her husband’s treachery and double-dealing, for while Chief of Secret Police and Your Majesty’s most trusted adviser he was actually aiding and abetting the Revolutionists! She placed the letters which had so opportunely come into her possession into her pocket, and said nothing to Markoff when he returned. But from that moment she distrusted him, and saw how ingenious and cunning were his dealings with both yourself and with the leader of the Revolutionists. He, assisted by his catspaw, Danilo Danilovitch, formed desperate plots for the mere purpose of making whole sale arrests, and thus showing you how active and astute he was. Danilo Danilovitch—who, as ‘The One,’ the leader whose actual identity is unknown by those poor deluded wretches who believe they can effect a change in Russia by means of bombs—is as cunning and crafty as his master. It was he who threw the bomb at our carriage and who killed my poor dear father. He—”
“How can you prove that?” demanded the Emperor quickly.
“I myself saw him throw the bomb,” I said, interrupting. “The outrage was committed at Markoff’s orders.”
“Impossible! Why do you allege this, Trewinnard? What motive could Markoff have in killing the Grand Duke Nicholas?”
“The same that he had in ordering the arrest and banishment of his own wife and her daughter,” was my reply. “Her Highness will make further explanation.”
“The motive was simply this,” went on the girl, still speaking with great calmness and determination. “A few days before I left with Your Majesty on the tour of the Empire, I called upon Marya de Rosen to wish her good-bye. On that occasion she gave me the three letters in question—which had apparently been stolen from Danilovitch by the girl who had handed them to her. Marya told me that she feared lest her husband, when he knew they were in her possession, might order a domiciliary visit for the purpose of securing possession of them. Therefore she begged me, after she had shown me the contents and bound me to strictest silence, to conceal them. This I did.
“While we were absent in the south nothing transpired, but Danilovitch had arranged an attempt in the Nevski on the morning of our return to Petersburg. The plot was discovered at the eleventh hour, as usual and among those arrested was Madame de Rosen and Luba. Why? Because Your Majesty’s favourite, Serge Markoff, having discovered that the incriminating letters had been handed to his wife, knew that she, and probably Luba, were aware of his secret. He feared that the evidence of his crime must have passed into other hands, and dreading lest his wife should betray him, he ordered her arrest as a dangerous political. After her arrest he saw her, and, hoping for her release, she explained how she had handed the letters to me for safe-keeping, and confessed that I was aware of the shameful truth. She was not, however, released, but sent to her grave. For that same reason Markoff ordered his agent Danilovitch to throw the bomb at the carriage in which I was riding with my poor father and Mr Trewinnard.”
“But I really cannot give credence to all this!” exclaimed the Emperor, who had risen again and was standing near the window which looked out upon the courtyard of the palace, whence came the sound of soldiers drilling and distant bugle-calls.
“Presently Your Majesty shall be given a complete proof,” his niece responded. “Danilovitch has confessed. At Markoff’s orders—which he was compelled to carry out, fearing that if he refused the all-powerful Chief of Secret Police would betray him to his comrades as a spy—he, at imminent risk of being shot by the sentries, visited our palace on four occasions, and succeeded at last, after long searches, in discovering the letters where I had hidden them for safety in my old nursery, and, securing them, he handed them back to his master.”
“Then this Danilovitch is a Revolutionist paid by Markoff to perform his dirty work—eh?” asked the Emperor angrily.
“He is paid, and paid well, to organise conspiracies against Your Majesty’s person,” I interrupted. “The majority of the plots of the past three years have been suggested by Markoff himself, and arranged by Danilovitch, who finds it very easy to beguile numbers of his poor deluded comrades into believing that the revolution will bring about freedom in Russia. A list of these he furnishes to Markoff before each attempt is discovered, hence the astute Chief of Secret Police is always able to put his hand upon the conspirators and to furnish a satisfactory report to Your Majesty, for which he receives commendation.”
“Apparently a unique arrangement,” remarked the sovereign reflectively.
“In order to close the lips of Madame de Rosen, he contrived that she should receive such brutal and inhuman treatment that she died of the effects of cold, hardship and exposure,” I went on. “One of Markoff’s agents made a desperate attempt upon myself while in Siberia, fearing that Her Highness had revealed the truth to me, and well knowing that I was aware of Danilovitch’s truemétier. The attempt fortunately failed, as did another recently formed by Danilovitch in London at Markoff’s orders. Therefore—”
“But this Danilovitch!” interrupted His Majesty, turning to me. “Has he actually confessed to you?”
“He has, Sire,” I replied. “The sole reason of my journey to Yakutsk was in order to see Marya de Rosen on Her Highness’s behalf and obtain permission for her to speak and reveal to Your Majesty all that the Grand Duchess has now told you. Her Highness had promised strictest secrecy to her friend, but now that the lady is dead I have at last induced her to speak in the personal-interests of Your Majesty, as well as in the interests of the whole nation.”
“Yes, yes, I quite understand,” said His Majesty very gravely.
“By returning here, by abandoning myincognita, I—I have been compelled to sacrifice my love,” declared the girl in a low, faltering voice, her cheeks blanched, her mouth drawn hard, and her fine eyes filled with tears.
“Ah! Tattie! If what you have revealed to me be true, then the reason of Markoff’s unsatisfactory reports concerning, you is quite apparent,” His Majesty said, slowly folding his arms as he stood in thought, a fine commanding figure with the jewelled double eagle at his throat flashing with a thousand fires.
“And so, Trewinnard,” he added, turning to me, “all this is the reason why, more than once, you have given me those mysterious hints which have set me pondering.”
“Yes, Sire,” I replied. “You have been blinded by these clever adventurers surrounding you—that circle which, headed by Serge Markoff, is always so careful to prevent you from learning the truth. The intrigue they practise is most ingenious and far-reaching, ever securing their own advancement with fat emoluments at the expense of the oppressed nation. Their basic principle is to terrorise you—to keep the bogy of revolution constantly before Your Majesty, to discover plots, and by administrative process to send hundreds, nay thousands, into exile in those far-off Arctic wastes, or fill the prisons with suspects, more than two-thirds of whom are innocent, loyal and law-abiding citizens.”
He turned suddenly and, pale with anger, struck his fist upon his table.
“There shall be no more exile by administrative process!” he cried, and seating himself, he drew a sheet of official paper before him, and for a few moments his quill squeaked rapidly over the paper.
Thus he wrote the ukase abolishing exile by administrative process—that law which the camarilla had so abused—and signed it with a flourish of his pen.
The first reform in Russia—a reform which meant the yearly saving of thousands of innocent lives, the preservation of the sanctity of every home throughout the great Empire, and which guaranteed to everyone in future, suspect or known criminal or Revolutionist, a fair and open trial—had been achieved.
Surely the little Grand Duchess, the madcap of the Romanoffs, had not sacrificed her great love in vain, even though while that Imperial ukase was being written she sat with bitter tears rolling slowly down her white cheeks.
Chapter Thirty Three.Describes a Momentous Audience.A dead silence fell in that small, business-like room, wherein the monarch, the hardest-working man in the Empire, transacted the complicated business of the great Russian nation.Outside could be heard a sharp word of command, followed by the heavy tramp of soldiers and the roll of drums. The sentries were changing guard.Slowly—very slowly—His Majesty placed a sheet of blotting-paper over the document he had written, and then turning to the tearful girl, asked:“Will not this individual, Danilo Danilovitch, furnish me with proofs? He is a Revolutionist, yet that is no reason why I should not see him. From what you tell me, Markoff holds him in his power by constantly threatening to betray him to his comrades as a police-spy. I must see him. Where is he?”“He has accompanied us from London, Your Majesty,” was my reply. “I had some difficulty in assuring him that he would obtain justice at Your Majesty’s hands.”“He is an assassin. He killed my brother Nicholas; yet it seems—if what you tell me be true—that Markoff compelled him to commit this crime.”“Without a doubt,” was my reply.“Then, Revolutionist or not, I will see him,” and he touched the electric button placed in the side of his writing-table.A sentry appeared instantly, and at my suggestion His Majesty permitted me to go down the long corridor, at the end of which the dark, thin-faced man, in a rather shabby black suit, was sitting in a small ante-room, outside which stood a tall, statuesque Cossack sentry.A few words of explanation, and somewhat reluctantly Danilovitch rose and followed me into the presence of the man he was ever plotting to kill.The Emperor received him most graciously, and ordered him to be seated, saying:“My niece here and Mr Trewinnard have been speaking of you, Danilo Danilovitch, and have told me certain astounding things.”The man looked up at his Sovereign, pale and frightened, and His Majesty, realising this, at once put him at his ease by adding: “I know that, in secret, you are the mysterious ‘One’ who directs the revolutionary movement throughout the Empire, and the constant conspiracies directed against my own person. Well,” he laughed, “I hope, Danilovitch, you will not find me so terrible as you have been led to expect, and, further, that when you leave here you will think a little better of the man whose duty it is to rule the Russian nation than you hitherto have done. Now,” he asked, looking straight at the man, “are you prepared to speak with me openly and frankly, as I am prepared to speak to you?”“I am, Your Majesty,” he said.“Then answer me a few questions,” urged the Imperial autocrat. “First, tell me whether these constant conspiracies against myself—these plots for which so many hundreds are being banished to Siberia—are genuine ones formed by those who really desire to take my life?”“No, Sire,” was the answer. “The last genuine plot was the one in Samara, nearly two years ago. Your Majesty escaped only by a few seconds.”“When the railway line was blown up just outside the station; I remember,” said the Emperor, with a grim smile. “Four of your fellow-conspirators were killed by their own explosives.”“That was the last genuine plot. All the recent ones have been suggested by General Markoff, head of the Secret Police.”“With your assistance?”The man nodded in the affirmative.“Then you betray your fellow-conspirators for payment—eh?”“Because I am compelled. I, alas! took a false step once, and His Excellency the General has taken advantage of it ever since. He forces me to act according to his wishes, to conspire, to betray—to murder if necessity arises—because he knows how I dread the truth becoming known to the secret revolutionary committee, and how I fully realise the terrible fate which must befall me if the actual facts were ever revealed. The Terrorists entertain no sympathy with their betrayer.”“I quite understand that,” remarked the Sovereign. And then, in gracious words, he closely questioned him regarding the assassination of the Grand Duke Peter outside the Opera House in Warsaw, and heard the ghastly truth of Markoff’s crime from the witness’s own lips.“I read the letters which I secured from the Palace of the Grand Duke Nicholas,” he admitted. “They were to the same effect as Your Majesty has said. In one of them His Excellency the General confessed his crime.”“You threw the bomb which killed my brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas?”“It was intended to kill Her Highness the Grand Duchess,” and he indicated Natalia, “and also the Englishman, Mr Trewinnard. The General was plotting the death of both of them, fearing that they knew his secret.”“And in England there was another conspiracy against them—eh?”“Yes,” replied the man known as the Shoemaker of Kazan. “But Mr Trewinnard and the Chief of Criminal Police, Ivan Hartwig, discovered me, and dared me to commit the outrage on pain of betrayal to my friends. Hence I have been between two stools—compelled by Markoff and defied by Hartwig. At last, in desperation, I sent an anonymous letter to Her Highness warning her, with the fortunate result that both she and her lover—a young Englishman named Drury—disappeared, and even the Secret Police were unable to discover their whereabouts. I did so in order to gain time, for I had no motive in taking Her Highness’s life, although if I refused to act I knew what the result must inevitably be.”“All this astounds me,” declared the Emperor. “I never dreamed that I was being thus misled, or that Markoff was acting with such cunning and unscrupulousness against the interests of the dynasty and the nation. I see the true situation. You, Danilo Danilovitch, are a Revolutionist—not by conviction, but because of the drastic action of the Secret Police, the real rulers of Russia. Therefore, read that,” and he took from his table the Imperial ukase and handed it to him.When he had read it he returned it to the Emperor’s hand, and murmured:“Thank God! All Russia will praise Your Majesty for your clemency. It is the reform for which we have been craving for the past twenty years—fair trial, and after conviction a just punishment. But we have, alas! only had arrest and prompt banishment without trial. Every man and woman in Russia has hitherto been at the mercy of any police-spy or any secret enemy.”“My only wish is to give justice to the nation,” declared the Sovereign, his dark, thoughtful eyes turned upon the dynamitard whose word was law to every Terrorist from Archangel to Odessa, and from Wirballen to Ekaterinburg.“And, Sire, on behalf of the Party of the People’s Will I beg to thank you for granting it to us,” said the man, whose keen, highly-intelligent face was now slightly flushed.“What I have heard to-day from my niece’s lips, from Mr Trewinnard and from yourself, has caused the gravest thoughts to arise within me,” His Majesty declared after a slight pause. “Injustice has, I see, been done on every hand, and the Secret Police has been administered by one who, it seems, is admittedly an assassin. It is now for me to remedy that—and to do so by drastic measures.”“And the whole nation will praise Your Majesty,” Danilovitch replied. “I am a Revolutionist, it is true, but I have been forced—forced against my will—to formulate these false plots for the corrupt Secret Police to unearth. I declare most solemnly to Your Majesty that my position as leader of this Party and at the same time anagent-provocateurhas been a source of constant danger and hourly terror. In order to hide my secret, I was unfortunately compelled to commit murder—to kill the woman I loved. She discovered the truth, and would have exposed me to the vengeance which the Party never fails to mete out to its betrayers. Markoff had given me my liberty and immunity from arrest in exchange for my services to him. He held me in his power, body and soul, and, because of that, I was forced to strike down the woman I loved,” he added, with a catch in his voice. “And—and—” he said, standing before the Emperor, “I crave Your Majesty’s clemency. I—I crave a pardon for that act for which I have ever been truly penitent.”“A pardon is granted,” was the reply in a firm, deep voice. “You killed my brother Nicholas under compulsion. But on account of your open confession and the service rendered to me by these revelations, I must forgive you. I see that your actions have, all along, been controlled by Serge Markoff. Now,” he added, “what more can you tell me regarding this maladministration of the police?”Danilovitch threw himself upon his knees and kissed the Emperor’s hand, thanking him deeply and declaring that he would never take any further part in the revolutionary movement in the future, but exercise all his influence to crush and stamp it out.Then, when he had risen again to his feet, he addressed His Majesty, saying:“The Secret Police, as at present organised, manufacture revolutionaries. I was a loyal, law-abiding Russian before the police arrested my brother and my wife illegally, and sent them to Siberia without trial. Then I rose, like thousands of others have done, and fell into the trap which Markoff’s agents so cleverly prepared. No one has been safe from arrest in Russia—”“Until to-day,” the Emperor interrupted. “The ukase I have written is the law of the Empire from this hour.”“Ah! God be thanked!” cried the man, placing his hands together fervently. “Probably no man can tell the many crimes and injustices for which General Markoff has been responsible. You want to know some of them—some within my own knowledge,” he went on. “Well, he was responsible for the great plot in Moscow a year ago when the little Tzarevitch so narrowly escaped. Seventeen people were killed and twenty-three were injured by the six bombs which were thrown, and nearly one hundred innocent persons were sent to Schusselburg or to Siberia in consequence.”“Did you formulate that plot?” the Emperor asked.“I did. Also at Markoff’s orders the one at Nikolaiev where the young woman, Vera Vogel, shot the Governor-General of Kherson and two of his Cossacks. Again at Markoff’s demand, I formed the plot whereby, near Tchirskaia, the bridge over the Don was blown up; fortunately just before Your Majesty’s train reached it. It was I who pressed the electrical contact—I pressed it purposely a few moments too quickly, as I was determined not to be the cause of that wholesale loss of life which must have resulted had the train fallen into the river. Another attempt was the Zuroff affair, when an infernal machine charged with nitro-glycerine was not long ago actually found within the Winter Palace—placed there by an unknown hand in order to terrify Your Majesty. But I tell you the hand that placed it where it was found was that of Serge Markoff himself—the same hand which killed His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Peter in order to prevent His Highness telling Your Majesty certain ugly truths which he had accidentally discovered. And,” he went on, “there were many other conspiracies of various kinds conceived for the sole purpose of keeping the Empire ever in a state of unrest and the arrest of hundreds of the innocent of both sexes. Indeed, explosives—picric acid, nitro-glycerine, mélinite and cordite—were supplied to us from a secret source. Sometimes, too, when I furnished a list of, say, ten or a dozen of those implicated in a plot, the police would arrest them with probably thirty others besides, people taken haphazard in the streets or in the houses. Whole families have been banished, men dragged from their wives, women from their husbands and children, and though innocent were consigned to those terrible oubliettes beneath the level of the lake at Schusselburg, or in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. To adequately describe all the fierce brutality, the gross injustice and the ingenious plots conceived and financed by Serge Markoff would be impossible. I only speak of those in which I, as his unwilling catspaw, have been implicated.”Her Highness and myself had listened to this amazing confession without uttering a word.The Emperor, intensely interested in the man’s story, put to him many questions, some concerning the demands of the Party of the People’s Will, others in which he requested further details concerning Markoff’s crimes against persons, and against the State.“This man in whom for years I have placed such implicit confidence has played me false!” cried the ruler presently, his face pale as he struck the table fiercely in his anger. “He has plotted with the Terrorists against me! He has been responsible for several attempts from which I have narrowly escaped with my life. Therefore he shall answer to me—this cunning knave who is actually my brother’s assassin! He shall pay the penalty of his crimes!”“All Russia knows that at Your Majesty’s hands we always receive justice,” the Revolutionist said. “From the Ministry, however, we never do. They are our oppressors—our murderers.”“And you Revolutionists wish to kill me because of the misdeeds of my Ministers!” cried the Emperor in reproach.“If Your Majesty dismisses and punishes those who are responsible, then there will be no more Terrorism in Russia. I am a leader; I have bred and reared the serpent of the Revolution, and I myself can strangle it—and I promise Your Majesty that as soon as General Markoff is removed from office—I will do so.”
A dead silence fell in that small, business-like room, wherein the monarch, the hardest-working man in the Empire, transacted the complicated business of the great Russian nation.
Outside could be heard a sharp word of command, followed by the heavy tramp of soldiers and the roll of drums. The sentries were changing guard.
Slowly—very slowly—His Majesty placed a sheet of blotting-paper over the document he had written, and then turning to the tearful girl, asked:
“Will not this individual, Danilo Danilovitch, furnish me with proofs? He is a Revolutionist, yet that is no reason why I should not see him. From what you tell me, Markoff holds him in his power by constantly threatening to betray him to his comrades as a police-spy. I must see him. Where is he?”
“He has accompanied us from London, Your Majesty,” was my reply. “I had some difficulty in assuring him that he would obtain justice at Your Majesty’s hands.”
“He is an assassin. He killed my brother Nicholas; yet it seems—if what you tell me be true—that Markoff compelled him to commit this crime.”
“Without a doubt,” was my reply.
“Then, Revolutionist or not, I will see him,” and he touched the electric button placed in the side of his writing-table.
A sentry appeared instantly, and at my suggestion His Majesty permitted me to go down the long corridor, at the end of which the dark, thin-faced man, in a rather shabby black suit, was sitting in a small ante-room, outside which stood a tall, statuesque Cossack sentry.
A few words of explanation, and somewhat reluctantly Danilovitch rose and followed me into the presence of the man he was ever plotting to kill.
The Emperor received him most graciously, and ordered him to be seated, saying:
“My niece here and Mr Trewinnard have been speaking of you, Danilo Danilovitch, and have told me certain astounding things.”
The man looked up at his Sovereign, pale and frightened, and His Majesty, realising this, at once put him at his ease by adding: “I know that, in secret, you are the mysterious ‘One’ who directs the revolutionary movement throughout the Empire, and the constant conspiracies directed against my own person. Well,” he laughed, “I hope, Danilovitch, you will not find me so terrible as you have been led to expect, and, further, that when you leave here you will think a little better of the man whose duty it is to rule the Russian nation than you hitherto have done. Now,” he asked, looking straight at the man, “are you prepared to speak with me openly and frankly, as I am prepared to speak to you?”
“I am, Your Majesty,” he said.
“Then answer me a few questions,” urged the Imperial autocrat. “First, tell me whether these constant conspiracies against myself—these plots for which so many hundreds are being banished to Siberia—are genuine ones formed by those who really desire to take my life?”
“No, Sire,” was the answer. “The last genuine plot was the one in Samara, nearly two years ago. Your Majesty escaped only by a few seconds.”
“When the railway line was blown up just outside the station; I remember,” said the Emperor, with a grim smile. “Four of your fellow-conspirators were killed by their own explosives.”
“That was the last genuine plot. All the recent ones have been suggested by General Markoff, head of the Secret Police.”
“With your assistance?”
The man nodded in the affirmative.
“Then you betray your fellow-conspirators for payment—eh?”
“Because I am compelled. I, alas! took a false step once, and His Excellency the General has taken advantage of it ever since. He forces me to act according to his wishes, to conspire, to betray—to murder if necessity arises—because he knows how I dread the truth becoming known to the secret revolutionary committee, and how I fully realise the terrible fate which must befall me if the actual facts were ever revealed. The Terrorists entertain no sympathy with their betrayer.”
“I quite understand that,” remarked the Sovereign. And then, in gracious words, he closely questioned him regarding the assassination of the Grand Duke Peter outside the Opera House in Warsaw, and heard the ghastly truth of Markoff’s crime from the witness’s own lips.
“I read the letters which I secured from the Palace of the Grand Duke Nicholas,” he admitted. “They were to the same effect as Your Majesty has said. In one of them His Excellency the General confessed his crime.”
“You threw the bomb which killed my brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas?”
“It was intended to kill Her Highness the Grand Duchess,” and he indicated Natalia, “and also the Englishman, Mr Trewinnard. The General was plotting the death of both of them, fearing that they knew his secret.”
“And in England there was another conspiracy against them—eh?”
“Yes,” replied the man known as the Shoemaker of Kazan. “But Mr Trewinnard and the Chief of Criminal Police, Ivan Hartwig, discovered me, and dared me to commit the outrage on pain of betrayal to my friends. Hence I have been between two stools—compelled by Markoff and defied by Hartwig. At last, in desperation, I sent an anonymous letter to Her Highness warning her, with the fortunate result that both she and her lover—a young Englishman named Drury—disappeared, and even the Secret Police were unable to discover their whereabouts. I did so in order to gain time, for I had no motive in taking Her Highness’s life, although if I refused to act I knew what the result must inevitably be.”
“All this astounds me,” declared the Emperor. “I never dreamed that I was being thus misled, or that Markoff was acting with such cunning and unscrupulousness against the interests of the dynasty and the nation. I see the true situation. You, Danilo Danilovitch, are a Revolutionist—not by conviction, but because of the drastic action of the Secret Police, the real rulers of Russia. Therefore, read that,” and he took from his table the Imperial ukase and handed it to him.
When he had read it he returned it to the Emperor’s hand, and murmured:
“Thank God! All Russia will praise Your Majesty for your clemency. It is the reform for which we have been craving for the past twenty years—fair trial, and after conviction a just punishment. But we have, alas! only had arrest and prompt banishment without trial. Every man and woman in Russia has hitherto been at the mercy of any police-spy or any secret enemy.”
“My only wish is to give justice to the nation,” declared the Sovereign, his dark, thoughtful eyes turned upon the dynamitard whose word was law to every Terrorist from Archangel to Odessa, and from Wirballen to Ekaterinburg.
“And, Sire, on behalf of the Party of the People’s Will I beg to thank you for granting it to us,” said the man, whose keen, highly-intelligent face was now slightly flushed.
“What I have heard to-day from my niece’s lips, from Mr Trewinnard and from yourself, has caused the gravest thoughts to arise within me,” His Majesty declared after a slight pause. “Injustice has, I see, been done on every hand, and the Secret Police has been administered by one who, it seems, is admittedly an assassin. It is now for me to remedy that—and to do so by drastic measures.”
“And the whole nation will praise Your Majesty,” Danilovitch replied. “I am a Revolutionist, it is true, but I have been forced—forced against my will—to formulate these false plots for the corrupt Secret Police to unearth. I declare most solemnly to Your Majesty that my position as leader of this Party and at the same time anagent-provocateurhas been a source of constant danger and hourly terror. In order to hide my secret, I was unfortunately compelled to commit murder—to kill the woman I loved. She discovered the truth, and would have exposed me to the vengeance which the Party never fails to mete out to its betrayers. Markoff had given me my liberty and immunity from arrest in exchange for my services to him. He held me in his power, body and soul, and, because of that, I was forced to strike down the woman I loved,” he added, with a catch in his voice. “And—and—” he said, standing before the Emperor, “I crave Your Majesty’s clemency. I—I crave a pardon for that act for which I have ever been truly penitent.”
“A pardon is granted,” was the reply in a firm, deep voice. “You killed my brother Nicholas under compulsion. But on account of your open confession and the service rendered to me by these revelations, I must forgive you. I see that your actions have, all along, been controlled by Serge Markoff. Now,” he added, “what more can you tell me regarding this maladministration of the police?”
Danilovitch threw himself upon his knees and kissed the Emperor’s hand, thanking him deeply and declaring that he would never take any further part in the revolutionary movement in the future, but exercise all his influence to crush and stamp it out.
Then, when he had risen again to his feet, he addressed His Majesty, saying:
“The Secret Police, as at present organised, manufacture revolutionaries. I was a loyal, law-abiding Russian before the police arrested my brother and my wife illegally, and sent them to Siberia without trial. Then I rose, like thousands of others have done, and fell into the trap which Markoff’s agents so cleverly prepared. No one has been safe from arrest in Russia—”
“Until to-day,” the Emperor interrupted. “The ukase I have written is the law of the Empire from this hour.”
“Ah! God be thanked!” cried the man, placing his hands together fervently. “Probably no man can tell the many crimes and injustices for which General Markoff has been responsible. You want to know some of them—some within my own knowledge,” he went on. “Well, he was responsible for the great plot in Moscow a year ago when the little Tzarevitch so narrowly escaped. Seventeen people were killed and twenty-three were injured by the six bombs which were thrown, and nearly one hundred innocent persons were sent to Schusselburg or to Siberia in consequence.”
“Did you formulate that plot?” the Emperor asked.
“I did. Also at Markoff’s orders the one at Nikolaiev where the young woman, Vera Vogel, shot the Governor-General of Kherson and two of his Cossacks. Again at Markoff’s demand, I formed the plot whereby, near Tchirskaia, the bridge over the Don was blown up; fortunately just before Your Majesty’s train reached it. It was I who pressed the electrical contact—I pressed it purposely a few moments too quickly, as I was determined not to be the cause of that wholesale loss of life which must have resulted had the train fallen into the river. Another attempt was the Zuroff affair, when an infernal machine charged with nitro-glycerine was not long ago actually found within the Winter Palace—placed there by an unknown hand in order to terrify Your Majesty. But I tell you the hand that placed it where it was found was that of Serge Markoff himself—the same hand which killed His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Peter in order to prevent His Highness telling Your Majesty certain ugly truths which he had accidentally discovered. And,” he went on, “there were many other conspiracies of various kinds conceived for the sole purpose of keeping the Empire ever in a state of unrest and the arrest of hundreds of the innocent of both sexes. Indeed, explosives—picric acid, nitro-glycerine, mélinite and cordite—were supplied to us from a secret source. Sometimes, too, when I furnished a list of, say, ten or a dozen of those implicated in a plot, the police would arrest them with probably thirty others besides, people taken haphazard in the streets or in the houses. Whole families have been banished, men dragged from their wives, women from their husbands and children, and though innocent were consigned to those terrible oubliettes beneath the level of the lake at Schusselburg, or in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. To adequately describe all the fierce brutality, the gross injustice and the ingenious plots conceived and financed by Serge Markoff would be impossible. I only speak of those in which I, as his unwilling catspaw, have been implicated.”
Her Highness and myself had listened to this amazing confession without uttering a word.
The Emperor, intensely interested in the man’s story, put to him many questions, some concerning the demands of the Party of the People’s Will, others in which he requested further details concerning Markoff’s crimes against persons, and against the State.
“This man in whom for years I have placed such implicit confidence has played me false!” cried the ruler presently, his face pale as he struck the table fiercely in his anger. “He has plotted with the Terrorists against me! He has been responsible for several attempts from which I have narrowly escaped with my life. Therefore he shall answer to me—this cunning knave who is actually my brother’s assassin! He shall pay the penalty of his crimes!”
“All Russia knows that at Your Majesty’s hands we always receive justice,” the Revolutionist said. “From the Ministry, however, we never do. They are our oppressors—our murderers.”
“And you Revolutionists wish to kill me because of the misdeeds of my Ministers!” cried the Emperor in reproach.
“If Your Majesty dismisses and punishes those who are responsible, then there will be no more Terrorism in Russia. I am a leader; I have bred and reared the serpent of the Revolution, and I myself can strangle it—and I promise Your Majesty that as soon as General Markoff is removed from office—I will do so.”
Chapter Thirty Four.The Emperor’s Command.Again the Emperor turned to his table and scribbled a few lines in Russian, which he handed to the man.It was an impressive moment. What he had written was the dismissal in disgrace of his favourite, the most powerful official in the Empire.“I shall receive him in audience to-night, and shall give this to him,” he said. “The punishment I can afterwards consider.”Then, after a pause, he added:“I have to thank you, Danilo Danilovitch, for all that you have revealed to me. Go and tell your comrades of the Revolution all that I have said and what I have done. Tell them that their Emperor will himself see that justice is accorded them—that his one object in future shall be to secure, by God’s grace, the peace, prosperity and tranquillity of the Russian nation.”Then the Emperor bowed as sign that the audience was at an end, and the man, unused to the etiquette of Court, bowed, turned, and wishing us farewell, walked out.“All this utterly astounds me, Trewinnard,” said His Majesty, when Danilovitch had gone. He was speaking as a man, not as an Emperor. “Yet what Tattie has revealed only confirms what I suspected regarding the death of my poor brother Peter,” he went on. “You recollect that I told you my suspicions—of my secret—on the day of the fourth Court ball last year. It is now quite plain. He was ruthlessly killed by the one man in myentouragewhom I have so foolishly believed to be my friend. Ah! How grossly one may be deceived—even though he be an Emperor!” and he sighed, drawing his strong hand wearily across his brow.After a pause he added: “I have to thank you, Trewinnard, for thus tearing the scales from my eyes. Indeed, I have to thank you for much in connection with what I have learned to-day.”“No, Sire,” was my reply. “Rather thank Her Imperial Highness. To her efforts all is due. She has sacrificed her great love for a most worthy man in the performance of this, her duty. Had she not resolved to return to Russia and speak openly at risk of giving you offence, she might have remained in England—or, rather, in Scotland, still preserving herincognita, and still retaining at her side the honest, upright young Englishman with whom she has been in love ever since her school-days at Eastbourne.”“I quite realise the great sacrifice you have made, Tattie,” said the Emperor, turning to her kindly, and noting how pale was her beautiful countenance and how intense her look. “By this step you have, in all probability, saved my life. Markoff and his gang of corrupt Ministers would have no doubt killed me whenever it suited their purpose to do so. But you have placed your duty to myself and to the nation before your love, therefore some adequate recompense is certainly due to you.”The great man of commanding presence strode across the room from end to end, his bearded chin upon his breast, deep in thought. Suddenly he halted before her, and drawing himself up with that regal air which suited him so well, he looked straight at her, placed his hand tenderly upon her shoulder as she sat, and said:“Tell me, Tattie; do you really and truly love this Englishman?”“I do, uncle,” the girl faltered, her fine eyes downcast. “Of course I do. I—I cannot tell you a lie and deny it.”“And—well, if Richard Drury took out letters of naturalisation as a Russian subject, and I made him a Count—and I gave you permission to marry—what then—eh?” he asked, smiling merrily as he stood over her.She sprang to her feet and grasped both his big hands.“You will!” she cried. “You really will! Uncle, tell me!”The Emperor, smiling benignly upon her—for, after all, she was his favourite niece—slowly nodded in the affirmative.Whereupon she turned to me, exclaiming:“Oh! Uncle Colin. Dear old Uncle Colin! I’m so happy—so very happy! I must telegraph to Dick at once—at once!”“No, no, little madcap,” interrupted the Emperor; “not from here. The Secret Police would quickly know all about it. Send someone to the German frontier with a telegram. One of our couriers shall start to-night. Drury will receive the good news to-morrow evening, and, Tattie,”—he added, taking both her little hands again, “I have known all along, from various reports, how deeply and devotedly you love this young Englishman. Therefore, if I give my consent and make your union possible, I only hope and trust that you will both enjoy every happiness.”In her wild ecstasy of delight the girl raised her sweet face to his heavy-bearded countenance, that face worn by the cares of State, and kissed him fervently, thanking him profoundly, while I on my part craved for the immediate release of poor Luba de Rosen.The Emperor at once scribbled something upon an official telegraph form, and touching a bell, the sentry carried it out.“The young lady so cruelly wronged will be free and on her way back to Petersburg within three hours,” the Monarch said quietly, after the sentry had made his exit.“Oh! Uncle Colin!” cried Her Highness excitedly to me, “what a red-letter day this is for me!”“And for me also, Tattie,” remarked His Majesty in his deep, clear voice. “Owing to your efforts, I have learned some amazing but bitter truths; I have at last seen the reason why my people have so cruelly misjudged me, and why they hate me. I realise how I have, alas! been blinded and misled by a corrupt and unscrupulous Ministry who have exercised their power for their own self-advancement, their methods being the stirring-up of the people, the creation of dissatisfaction, unrest, and the actual manufacture of revolutionary plots directed against my own person. I now know the truth, and I intend to act—to act with a hand as strong and as relentless as they have used against my poor, innocent, long-suffering subjects.” Her Highness was all anxiety to send a telegram by courier over the frontier to Eydtkuhnen. If he left Petersburg by the night train at a quarter-past ten, he would, she reckoned, be at the frontier at six o’clock on the following evening. It was half an hour by train from Tzarskoie-Selo to Petersburg, and she was now eager to end the audience and be dismissed.But His Majesty seemed in no hurry. He asked us both many questions concerning Markoff, and what we knew regarding his dealings with the bomb-throwers.Natalia explained what had occurred in Brighton, and how she had been constantly watched by Danilovitch, while I described the visit of Hartwig and myself to that dingy house in Lower Clapton. That sinister, unscrupulous chief of Secret Police had been directly responsible for the death of Natalia’s father; and Her Highness was bitter in her invectives against him.“Leave him to me,” said the Emperor, frowning darkly. “He is an assassin, and he shall be punished as such.”Then, ringing his bell again, he ordered the next Imperial courier in waiting to be summoned, for at whatever palace His Majesty might be there were always half a dozen couriers ready at a moment’s notice to go to the furthermost end of the Empire.“I know, Tattie, you are anxious to send your message. Write it at my table, and it shall be sent from the first German station. Here, in Russia, the Secret Police are furnished with copies of all messages sent abroad or received. We do not want your secret disclosed just yet!” he laughed.So the girl seated herself in the Emperor’s chair, and after one or two attempts composed a telegram containing the good news, which she addressed to Richard Drury at his flat in Albemarle Street.Presently the courier, a big, bearded man of gigantic stature, in drab uniform, was ushered into the Imperial presence, and saluted. To him, His Majesty gave the message, and ordered him to take it by the next train to Eydtkuhnen. Whereupon the man again saluted, backed out of the door, and started upon his errand. What, I wondered, would Dick Drury think when he received her reassuring message?Natalia’s face beamed with supreme happiness, while the Emperor himself for the moment forgot his enemies in the pleasure which his niece’s delight gave to him.Again His Majesty, with darkening brow, referred to the brutal murder of his favourite brother, the Grand Duke Peter, saying:“You will recollect, Trewinnard, the curious conviction which one day so suddenly came upon me. I revealed it to you in strictest secrecy—the ghastly truth which seemed to have been forced upon me by some invisible agency. It was my secret, and the idea has haunted me ever since. And yet here to-day my suspicion that poor Peter was killed by some person who feared what secret he might reveal stands confirmed; and yet,” he cried, “how many times have I, in my ignorance, taken the hand of my brother’s murderer!”Colonel Polivanoff, the Imperial Marshal; my old friend, Captain Stoyanovitch, equerry-in-waiting, both craved audience, one after the other, for they bore messages for His Majesty. Therefore they were received without ceremony and impatiently dismissed. The subject the Sovereign was discussing with us was of far more importance than reports from the great military camps at Yilna and at Smolensk, where manoeuvres were taking place.The Emperor turned to his private telephone and was speaking with Trepoff, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Petersburg, when the Marshal Polivanoff again entered, saying:“His Excellency General Markoff petitions audience of Your Majesty.”Natalia and I exchanged quick glances, and both of us rose.For a second the Emperor hesitated. Then, turning to us, he commanded us to remain.“I will see him at once,” he said very calmly, his face a trifle paler.Next moment the man whose dismissal in disgrace was already lying upon the Emperor’s desk stood upon the threshold and bowed himself into the Imperial presence.
Again the Emperor turned to his table and scribbled a few lines in Russian, which he handed to the man.
It was an impressive moment. What he had written was the dismissal in disgrace of his favourite, the most powerful official in the Empire.
“I shall receive him in audience to-night, and shall give this to him,” he said. “The punishment I can afterwards consider.”
Then, after a pause, he added:
“I have to thank you, Danilo Danilovitch, for all that you have revealed to me. Go and tell your comrades of the Revolution all that I have said and what I have done. Tell them that their Emperor will himself see that justice is accorded them—that his one object in future shall be to secure, by God’s grace, the peace, prosperity and tranquillity of the Russian nation.”
Then the Emperor bowed as sign that the audience was at an end, and the man, unused to the etiquette of Court, bowed, turned, and wishing us farewell, walked out.
“All this utterly astounds me, Trewinnard,” said His Majesty, when Danilovitch had gone. He was speaking as a man, not as an Emperor. “Yet what Tattie has revealed only confirms what I suspected regarding the death of my poor brother Peter,” he went on. “You recollect that I told you my suspicions—of my secret—on the day of the fourth Court ball last year. It is now quite plain. He was ruthlessly killed by the one man in myentouragewhom I have so foolishly believed to be my friend. Ah! How grossly one may be deceived—even though he be an Emperor!” and he sighed, drawing his strong hand wearily across his brow.
After a pause he added: “I have to thank you, Trewinnard, for thus tearing the scales from my eyes. Indeed, I have to thank you for much in connection with what I have learned to-day.”
“No, Sire,” was my reply. “Rather thank Her Imperial Highness. To her efforts all is due. She has sacrificed her great love for a most worthy man in the performance of this, her duty. Had she not resolved to return to Russia and speak openly at risk of giving you offence, she might have remained in England—or, rather, in Scotland, still preserving herincognita, and still retaining at her side the honest, upright young Englishman with whom she has been in love ever since her school-days at Eastbourne.”
“I quite realise the great sacrifice you have made, Tattie,” said the Emperor, turning to her kindly, and noting how pale was her beautiful countenance and how intense her look. “By this step you have, in all probability, saved my life. Markoff and his gang of corrupt Ministers would have no doubt killed me whenever it suited their purpose to do so. But you have placed your duty to myself and to the nation before your love, therefore some adequate recompense is certainly due to you.”
The great man of commanding presence strode across the room from end to end, his bearded chin upon his breast, deep in thought. Suddenly he halted before her, and drawing himself up with that regal air which suited him so well, he looked straight at her, placed his hand tenderly upon her shoulder as she sat, and said:
“Tell me, Tattie; do you really and truly love this Englishman?”
“I do, uncle,” the girl faltered, her fine eyes downcast. “Of course I do. I—I cannot tell you a lie and deny it.”
“And—well, if Richard Drury took out letters of naturalisation as a Russian subject, and I made him a Count—and I gave you permission to marry—what then—eh?” he asked, smiling merrily as he stood over her.
She sprang to her feet and grasped both his big hands.
“You will!” she cried. “You really will! Uncle, tell me!”
The Emperor, smiling benignly upon her—for, after all, she was his favourite niece—slowly nodded in the affirmative.
Whereupon she turned to me, exclaiming:
“Oh! Uncle Colin. Dear old Uncle Colin! I’m so happy—so very happy! I must telegraph to Dick at once—at once!”
“No, no, little madcap,” interrupted the Emperor; “not from here. The Secret Police would quickly know all about it. Send someone to the German frontier with a telegram. One of our couriers shall start to-night. Drury will receive the good news to-morrow evening, and, Tattie,”—he added, taking both her little hands again, “I have known all along, from various reports, how deeply and devotedly you love this young Englishman. Therefore, if I give my consent and make your union possible, I only hope and trust that you will both enjoy every happiness.”
In her wild ecstasy of delight the girl raised her sweet face to his heavy-bearded countenance, that face worn by the cares of State, and kissed him fervently, thanking him profoundly, while I on my part craved for the immediate release of poor Luba de Rosen.
The Emperor at once scribbled something upon an official telegraph form, and touching a bell, the sentry carried it out.
“The young lady so cruelly wronged will be free and on her way back to Petersburg within three hours,” the Monarch said quietly, after the sentry had made his exit.
“Oh! Uncle Colin!” cried Her Highness excitedly to me, “what a red-letter day this is for me!”
“And for me also, Tattie,” remarked His Majesty in his deep, clear voice. “Owing to your efforts, I have learned some amazing but bitter truths; I have at last seen the reason why my people have so cruelly misjudged me, and why they hate me. I realise how I have, alas! been blinded and misled by a corrupt and unscrupulous Ministry who have exercised their power for their own self-advancement, their methods being the stirring-up of the people, the creation of dissatisfaction, unrest, and the actual manufacture of revolutionary plots directed against my own person. I now know the truth, and I intend to act—to act with a hand as strong and as relentless as they have used against my poor, innocent, long-suffering subjects.” Her Highness was all anxiety to send a telegram by courier over the frontier to Eydtkuhnen. If he left Petersburg by the night train at a quarter-past ten, he would, she reckoned, be at the frontier at six o’clock on the following evening. It was half an hour by train from Tzarskoie-Selo to Petersburg, and she was now eager to end the audience and be dismissed.
But His Majesty seemed in no hurry. He asked us both many questions concerning Markoff, and what we knew regarding his dealings with the bomb-throwers.
Natalia explained what had occurred in Brighton, and how she had been constantly watched by Danilovitch, while I described the visit of Hartwig and myself to that dingy house in Lower Clapton. That sinister, unscrupulous chief of Secret Police had been directly responsible for the death of Natalia’s father; and Her Highness was bitter in her invectives against him.
“Leave him to me,” said the Emperor, frowning darkly. “He is an assassin, and he shall be punished as such.”
Then, ringing his bell again, he ordered the next Imperial courier in waiting to be summoned, for at whatever palace His Majesty might be there were always half a dozen couriers ready at a moment’s notice to go to the furthermost end of the Empire.
“I know, Tattie, you are anxious to send your message. Write it at my table, and it shall be sent from the first German station. Here, in Russia, the Secret Police are furnished with copies of all messages sent abroad or received. We do not want your secret disclosed just yet!” he laughed.
So the girl seated herself in the Emperor’s chair, and after one or two attempts composed a telegram containing the good news, which she addressed to Richard Drury at his flat in Albemarle Street.
Presently the courier, a big, bearded man of gigantic stature, in drab uniform, was ushered into the Imperial presence, and saluted. To him, His Majesty gave the message, and ordered him to take it by the next train to Eydtkuhnen. Whereupon the man again saluted, backed out of the door, and started upon his errand. What, I wondered, would Dick Drury think when he received her reassuring message?
Natalia’s face beamed with supreme happiness, while the Emperor himself for the moment forgot his enemies in the pleasure which his niece’s delight gave to him.
Again His Majesty, with darkening brow, referred to the brutal murder of his favourite brother, the Grand Duke Peter, saying:
“You will recollect, Trewinnard, the curious conviction which one day so suddenly came upon me. I revealed it to you in strictest secrecy—the ghastly truth which seemed to have been forced upon me by some invisible agency. It was my secret, and the idea has haunted me ever since. And yet here to-day my suspicion that poor Peter was killed by some person who feared what secret he might reveal stands confirmed; and yet,” he cried, “how many times have I, in my ignorance, taken the hand of my brother’s murderer!”
Colonel Polivanoff, the Imperial Marshal; my old friend, Captain Stoyanovitch, equerry-in-waiting, both craved audience, one after the other, for they bore messages for His Majesty. Therefore they were received without ceremony and impatiently dismissed. The subject the Sovereign was discussing with us was of far more importance than reports from the great military camps at Yilna and at Smolensk, where manoeuvres were taking place.
The Emperor turned to his private telephone and was speaking with Trepoff, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Petersburg, when the Marshal Polivanoff again entered, saying:
“His Excellency General Markoff petitions audience of Your Majesty.”
Natalia and I exchanged quick glances, and both of us rose.
For a second the Emperor hesitated. Then, turning to us, he commanded us to remain.
“I will see him at once,” he said very calmly, his face a trifle paler.
Next moment the man whose dismissal in disgrace was already lying upon the Emperor’s desk stood upon the threshold and bowed himself into the Imperial presence.
Chapter Thirty Five.“From Our Own Correspondent.”That moment was indeed a breathless one.The Emperor’s countenance was grey with anger. Yet he remained quite calm and firm. He was about to deal with an enemy more bitter and more dangerous than the most relentless firebrand of the whole Revolutionary Party.“I was not aware that Your Majesty was engaged with Her Imperial Highness,” the sinister-faced official began. “I have a confidential report to make—a matter of great urgency.”“Well, I hope it is not another plot,” remarked the Sovereign with bitter, weary sarcasm. “But whatever report you wish to make, Markoff, may be made here—before my niece and Mr Trewinnard.”He glanced at us suspiciously and then said:“This afternoon the Moscow police have unearthed a most desperate plot to wreck Your Majesty’s train early to-morrow morning at Chimki. I furnished them with information, and twenty-eight arrests have been made.”“Indeed,” remarked his Imperial Master, raising his eyebrows, quite unmoved. “Have you the list of names?”In answer, the General produced a yellow official paper, which he placed upon His Majesty’s table. Then, with but a casual glance, the Emperor took up his quill and scribbled some words across the sheet and handed it back.Markoff glanced at the words written, then, much puzzled, looked at His Majesty.“Yes,” the latter said. “I order their immediate release. And, let me tell you, Serge Markoff, that this afternoon I have given audience to a very intimate friend of yours; youragent-provocateur, Danilo Danilovitch!”The General’s countenance went white as paper. Such a reception was entirely unexpected.“Ah!” exclaimed His Majesty, with a bitter smile, “I see what surprise and apprehension my talk with Danilovitch causes you. Well, I will not give utterance to the loathing I feel towards you—the man in whose hands I have placed such supreme power, and whom I have so implicitly trusted. Suffice it to say that he has revealed to me the ingenious manner in which plots have been formed in order to terrorise me, and your inhuman method of sending hundreds of innocent ones into exile, merely in order to obtain my favour.”“I have never done such a thing!” cried the man in uniform, standing at attention as his master spoke. “The fellow lies.”“Enough,” said the Emperor, in a loud, commanding voice. “Hear me! You are an assassin. You killed my brother the Grand Duke Peter with your own dastardly hand in order to hide your disgraceful tactics. You sent your own wife to her grave, and you paid your catspaw to kill the Grand Duke Nicholas. To-day there is a plot afoot to close the lips of my niece and my good friend Trewinnard! These are only a few of your disgraceful crimes. No; do not attempt to deny them, brute and liar that you are. Rather reflect upon the terrible fate of the thousands of poor wretches who have been sent to the Arctic settlements by your relentless, inhuman hand. The souls of all those who have been worn out by the journey and died like dogs upon the Great Post Road, or in other ways have fallen innocent victims of your plots, call loudly for vengeance. And I tell you, Serge Markoff,” he said, his dark, heavy brows narrowing in fierce anger, “I tell you that I shall find means by which adequate punishment will be awarded to you. Here is your dismissal!” he added, taking the document from his table. “It will be gazetted to-morrow. Go back to Petersburg at once and there remain. Do not attempt to leave Russia, or even to leave Petersburg, or you will at once be placed under arrest and sent to the fortress. Go home, place your affairs in order, and await until I send for you again.”The Emperor had not yet decided what form his punishment should take.“But—but surely Your Imperial Majesty will allow me to—” he gasped with difficulty.“I will allow you nothing—nothing! You are my enemy, Serge Markoff—a crafty, cunning enemy, who now stands revealed as a brutal assassin! Ah! I shall avenge my brother Peter’s death—depend upon it! Go! Get from my presence!” he commanded, and raising his hand, he pointed with his finger imperiously to the door. I had never before seen such a look upon His Majesty’s strong face.And the man whose evil actions had spread terror into every corner and every home throughout the Russian Empire, thus receiving his suddencongé, slowly crossed the room, his head bowed, his face ashen.He was unable to speak or to protest.For a second he stood still, then, opening the door, he passed out in silence.Extract from the second edition ofThe Timesissued on the following day:“From Our Own Correspondent.“St. Petersburg, May 16th.“A startling tragedy occurred just after seven o’clock last evening in front of the barracks in the Zagarodny Prospect in St. Petersburg, just outside the Tzarskoie-Selo Station. According to the journalNovosti, His Excellency General Serge Markoff, Chief of Secret Police, and one of the Emperor’s most trusted officials, who had been to Tzarskoie-Selo for audience with His Majesty, had arrived at the station unexpectedly on his return to Petersburg, and his carriage not being there, he resolved to walk down into the city. He had turned out of the station, when he was followed by an unknown man, who had, it seems, arrived by the same train. In front of the barracks the pair apparently recognised each other, and, according to a bystander, His Excellency drew a revolver and fired point-blank at the stranger, who next instant drew his own weapon and shot the General dead.“All took place in the space of a few seconds, so suddenly, indeed, that the stranger, who certainly fired in self-protection, was able to get clear away before any of the passers-by could stop him. The General’s body was removed by the military ambulance to his residence facing the Summer Gardens, and the strange affair created the greatest sensation throughout the city.“It is believed that the man so suddenly recognised by His Excellency must have been a prominent Terrorist from whom the General feared assassination; but it is proved by an onlooker—a butcher who was walking only a few feet from them—that His Excellency, who appeared seized by sudden anger, fired the first shot.“The police are making every inquiry, and it is believed that the assassin of the well-known official will be arrested.“Another curious feature in connection with the strange affair is that the same journal in another column publishes in the ‘Official Gazette’ the announcement that His Majesty the Emperor only two hours before the tragic occurrence dismissed his favourite official in disgrace. No reason is given, but it is rumoured in the diplomatic circle that certain grave administrative scandals have been discovered, and this dismissal is the first of several which are to follow. In fact, in certain usually well-informed quarters it is persistently declared that the whole Cabinet will be dismissed.“The Emperor left with the Tzarina for Moscow last evening. The Grand Duchess Natalia accompanied them, and Mr Colin Trewinnard, of the British Embassy, travelled by the same train.”
That moment was indeed a breathless one.
The Emperor’s countenance was grey with anger. Yet he remained quite calm and firm. He was about to deal with an enemy more bitter and more dangerous than the most relentless firebrand of the whole Revolutionary Party.
“I was not aware that Your Majesty was engaged with Her Imperial Highness,” the sinister-faced official began. “I have a confidential report to make—a matter of great urgency.”
“Well, I hope it is not another plot,” remarked the Sovereign with bitter, weary sarcasm. “But whatever report you wish to make, Markoff, may be made here—before my niece and Mr Trewinnard.”
He glanced at us suspiciously and then said:
“This afternoon the Moscow police have unearthed a most desperate plot to wreck Your Majesty’s train early to-morrow morning at Chimki. I furnished them with information, and twenty-eight arrests have been made.”
“Indeed,” remarked his Imperial Master, raising his eyebrows, quite unmoved. “Have you the list of names?”
In answer, the General produced a yellow official paper, which he placed upon His Majesty’s table. Then, with but a casual glance, the Emperor took up his quill and scribbled some words across the sheet and handed it back.
Markoff glanced at the words written, then, much puzzled, looked at His Majesty.
“Yes,” the latter said. “I order their immediate release. And, let me tell you, Serge Markoff, that this afternoon I have given audience to a very intimate friend of yours; youragent-provocateur, Danilo Danilovitch!”
The General’s countenance went white as paper. Such a reception was entirely unexpected.
“Ah!” exclaimed His Majesty, with a bitter smile, “I see what surprise and apprehension my talk with Danilovitch causes you. Well, I will not give utterance to the loathing I feel towards you—the man in whose hands I have placed such supreme power, and whom I have so implicitly trusted. Suffice it to say that he has revealed to me the ingenious manner in which plots have been formed in order to terrorise me, and your inhuman method of sending hundreds of innocent ones into exile, merely in order to obtain my favour.”
“I have never done such a thing!” cried the man in uniform, standing at attention as his master spoke. “The fellow lies.”
“Enough,” said the Emperor, in a loud, commanding voice. “Hear me! You are an assassin. You killed my brother the Grand Duke Peter with your own dastardly hand in order to hide your disgraceful tactics. You sent your own wife to her grave, and you paid your catspaw to kill the Grand Duke Nicholas. To-day there is a plot afoot to close the lips of my niece and my good friend Trewinnard! These are only a few of your disgraceful crimes. No; do not attempt to deny them, brute and liar that you are. Rather reflect upon the terrible fate of the thousands of poor wretches who have been sent to the Arctic settlements by your relentless, inhuman hand. The souls of all those who have been worn out by the journey and died like dogs upon the Great Post Road, or in other ways have fallen innocent victims of your plots, call loudly for vengeance. And I tell you, Serge Markoff,” he said, his dark, heavy brows narrowing in fierce anger, “I tell you that I shall find means by which adequate punishment will be awarded to you. Here is your dismissal!” he added, taking the document from his table. “It will be gazetted to-morrow. Go back to Petersburg at once and there remain. Do not attempt to leave Russia, or even to leave Petersburg, or you will at once be placed under arrest and sent to the fortress. Go home, place your affairs in order, and await until I send for you again.”
The Emperor had not yet decided what form his punishment should take.
“But—but surely Your Imperial Majesty will allow me to—” he gasped with difficulty.
“I will allow you nothing—nothing! You are my enemy, Serge Markoff—a crafty, cunning enemy, who now stands revealed as a brutal assassin! Ah! I shall avenge my brother Peter’s death—depend upon it! Go! Get from my presence!” he commanded, and raising his hand, he pointed with his finger imperiously to the door. I had never before seen such a look upon His Majesty’s strong face.
And the man whose evil actions had spread terror into every corner and every home throughout the Russian Empire, thus receiving his suddencongé, slowly crossed the room, his head bowed, his face ashen.
He was unable to speak or to protest.
For a second he stood still, then, opening the door, he passed out in silence.
Extract from the second edition ofThe Timesissued on the following day:
“From Our Own Correspondent.
“St. Petersburg, May 16th.
“A startling tragedy occurred just after seven o’clock last evening in front of the barracks in the Zagarodny Prospect in St. Petersburg, just outside the Tzarskoie-Selo Station. According to the journalNovosti, His Excellency General Serge Markoff, Chief of Secret Police, and one of the Emperor’s most trusted officials, who had been to Tzarskoie-Selo for audience with His Majesty, had arrived at the station unexpectedly on his return to Petersburg, and his carriage not being there, he resolved to walk down into the city. He had turned out of the station, when he was followed by an unknown man, who had, it seems, arrived by the same train. In front of the barracks the pair apparently recognised each other, and, according to a bystander, His Excellency drew a revolver and fired point-blank at the stranger, who next instant drew his own weapon and shot the General dead.
“All took place in the space of a few seconds, so suddenly, indeed, that the stranger, who certainly fired in self-protection, was able to get clear away before any of the passers-by could stop him. The General’s body was removed by the military ambulance to his residence facing the Summer Gardens, and the strange affair created the greatest sensation throughout the city.
“It is believed that the man so suddenly recognised by His Excellency must have been a prominent Terrorist from whom the General feared assassination; but it is proved by an onlooker—a butcher who was walking only a few feet from them—that His Excellency, who appeared seized by sudden anger, fired the first shot.
“The police are making every inquiry, and it is believed that the assassin of the well-known official will be arrested.
“Another curious feature in connection with the strange affair is that the same journal in another column publishes in the ‘Official Gazette’ the announcement that His Majesty the Emperor only two hours before the tragic occurrence dismissed his favourite official in disgrace. No reason is given, but it is rumoured in the diplomatic circle that certain grave administrative scandals have been discovered, and this dismissal is the first of several which are to follow. In fact, in certain usually well-informed quarters it is persistently declared that the whole Cabinet will be dismissed.
“The Emperor left with the Tzarina for Moscow last evening. The Grand Duchess Natalia accompanied them, and Mr Colin Trewinnard, of the British Embassy, travelled by the same train.”