By Right of Sword Part 49

The Emperor resumed his att.i.tude of intense thought, and then after some moments, he regarded me with a heavy frown and said very sternly and harshly:

"The story you tell is incredible, sir. It is a ma.s.s of contradictions. You say the Nihilists attempted to kill you, having decreed your death; and yet that you had never spoken to one until the night of the attempt. You say this woman whom you accuse of the murder of her husband did this horrible deed for your sake as the result of an intrigue--and yet that you had never seen her until almost the very hour when she sinned thus for your sake. You say that you listened to these Nihilist intrigues in the belief that you would be out of the country--yet you hold and have held for years a commission in my army.

It is monstrous, incredible, impossible."

"There is another contradiction which your Majesty has forgotten," said I daringly. "That I, being as my enemies tell your Majesty, a Nihilist of the Nihilists and a leader among them, should yet have slain three of them with my own hand in defence of your Majesty's life and have turned the sword of the fourth into my own body. As your Majesty said yesterday, traitors of that kind should rather be welcome. But if your Majesty thinks that that is an additional proof of my guilt, my life is at your service still."

He looked at me as if in doubt whether to rebuke me for this daring presumption, or to admit his own doubt. But I did not give him time to speak.

"I have deceived your Majesty, however, though I wished to speak openly at the outset. I told you there was a key to all this of a most extraordinary fas.h.i.+on. There is; and I throw myself humbly on your mercy, Sire. The tales you have been told about me are all true to a point, and false afterwards. To a point all these horrible charges against Alexis Petrovitch are true; but what I have told you is true also. The key is--that I have only been Alexis Petrovitch for seven weeks. I am not a Russian, Sire, but an Englishman; and Prince Bilba.s.soff here has within the last few hours had proof of this."

"An Englishman!" exclaimed the Czar, in a tone that revealed his complete bewilderment. "I don't understand."

"I wish to tell your Majesty everything," and then I told him almost everything as I have set it down here.

As I told the story, ending with my wish to be allowed to leave the country at once, I saw his interest deepening and quickening, and perceived that he was coming round to my side. He listened with scarcely a break or interruption, and at the close remained thinking most earnestly.

"What confirmation have you, Prince?"

Prince Bilba.s.soff was so relieved to find that I had said nothing indiscreet about him that he spoke in the strongest way for me.

"I know much of this to be true, your Majesty. I have had telegrams from England confirming Mr. Tregethner's story; and there is now in Moscow a certain Hon. Rupert Balestier, who has been making the most energetic inquiries for him; and--the weirdest of all--the wretched woman, Paula Tueski, has killed herself and left a confession of her crime."

The Emperor's decision was taken at once.

"I owe you deep reparation, Mr. Tregethner. I ought to have trusted my instinct and my eyesight, and have known that no man would have done what you did yesterday to save my life, and be anything but my firm friend. May G.o.d never send Russia or me a greater enemy than you. May you never lack as firm a friend as I will be to you. G.o.d bless you!"

My heart was too full for speech, and I could only falter out the words:

"I would die for your Majesty."

"You will do better than that--you will live for me; and when you are well, we will speak of your future."

With that he turned to leave the room and said to the Grand Duke, who was quite broken and unstrung:--

"Now, we will find that strange leakage."

As soon as they had left, Prince Bilba.s.soff questioned me closely, and when he heard about the accusation I had by inference brought against the man who had tried to ruin me and had so nearly succeeded, words could not express his delight.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

AFTERWARDS.

It was nearly a month before the doctors would consent to my being moved, and even then they grudged their permission. All the time I lay like a Royal Prince in the Palace with all the world ready to do my lightest wish. Had I been in a hospital, I believe the doctors would have sent me packing a full fortnight earlier; but wounds heal slowly when the State has to pay the doctors' fees.

The time was pleasant enough, however, save for one thing. I was full of anxiety on Olga's account. Prince Bilba.s.soff brought my friend Balestier to me and he stayed all the time, and used all his efforts to find some trace of her whereabouts. The Emperor, too, promised that all in his power should be done to find her; and whenever I saw Prince Bilba.s.soff I importuned him also on the same quest; and his promises were as ripe as the Czar's.

She was not found, however, and I fretted and worried until Balestier drove home the conviction that the best thing I could do was to hurry and get well, and then set out to search for her myself. This pacified me, and I did all that was possible to help the doctors.

But this failure to find her was a never-ending subject of thought, as well as of somewhat angry satire when the opportunity offered. One day when the Prince came I rallied him strongly on the matter, thinking to gibe him into greater activity.

"Your agents are poor hounds, Prince," I said. "They bay loudly enough on the trail, but they don't find."

"They have found the brother," he answered quietly. "And the girl can't be far off."

"The brother be hanged," cried I.

"Not by the Russian hangman. He doesn't mean to return here; but he has dropped your name and probably by this time has left Paris altogether. He knows the facts--or some of them; our agent told him them; and he means to put as great a distance between himself and Russia as the limitations of the globe will permit."

"He's a poor creature. How was he found?"

"As usual--a woman."

"Well, I owe him no grudge. He has given me a better part than I ever thought to play in life. And a good wife too--if we can only find her."

"We shall find her. The woman's not born that can hide herself from us, when we are in earnest."

"Well, I wish you'd be thoroughly in earnest now. If you were only as much in earnest as you were about that duel...."

"I am; for I owe you more than if you had fought the duel." I looked at him in some astonishment. "I have only to-day heard the definite decision," he continued. "You gave me the clue, and I did not fail to follow it up. You say my men are not sleuth hounds. Give them a blood scent like that and try."

"All of which is unintelligible to me," I replied, noting with surprise his excitement and exultation.

"Heavens, lad, I'm more sorry than ever you're not going to join us.

And now that that hindrance is out of the path, the path is brighter than ever. What fools you young fellows are to go tumbling into what you call love, and playing the devil with a career for the sake of muslin and silks and pretty cheeks. I suppose..." he looked questioningly, and waited as if for me to speak.

"Suppose what?" I knew what he meant well enough, but liked to make him speak out.

"That you've really made up your mind or whatever you call it, not to stop in Russia?"

"Absolutely. I'm going to commit social suicide and marry for love--that is, if I can only find my sweetheart; or rather if you can find her for me."

"I wish I couldn't," he returned; and then fearing I should misunderstand him, added:--"I don't mean that. I mean, I'm sorry I'm not to have your help."

"At one time it looked as though you were going to have it whether I would or no, and I'm afraid I may have misled you and--and others somewhat. I'm sorry for this."

"Save your vanity, youngster," he said with a short laugh, understanding me. "My sister is no love-sick maiden with her head full of a silly fancy that any one man is necessary to her."

I flushed a little at the rebuke; and bit my lip.

"We wanted you for Russia, not for ourselves," he added, after a pause.

"You have already done the Empire a splendid service; and that's why you're regretted. Though, mark me, I don't say, now that things have turned out as they have, I should not have been a bit proud of you as a member of my family."

"What service do you mean? Saving my own skin?"

"No. Overthrowing the Grand Duke. He is completely broken. No trap could have snared him half so well. It has now come out that the disposition of the troops was his sole work; he himself arranged the very order of the trains; and the minute details which he executed were known to him alone. He laid his plans splendidly for his infernal purpose, and had you been the man he antic.i.p.ated--the dare-devil who had killed Tueski--nothing could have saved the Emperor's life. But G.o.d in His mercy willed the overthrow of as clever a villain as was ever s.h.i.+elded by high rank. That particular slip no man could have possibly foreseen; but he made another which surprised me. Only a little thing, but enough. When I came to look closely into the business I found that he had worked out in the greatest detail all the arrangements for the last journey and the disposition of the troops, and had committed them to paper in a number of sealed orders. These he dated back to the previous Sat.u.r.day; but only gave them out the last thing on Sunday night. His object was of course that when inquiries came to be made the dates on the papers should tell their own story and prove, apparently, that, as they had been given out on the Sat.u.r.day, there would have been plenty of time for it to have leaked out to the Nihilists through some one of the many officials who would be in possession of it, at the time you proved it was known to the Nihilists.

On that supposition there were a hundred channels through which it would have got out, and the Duke would have been only one among many in a position to divulge the secret. Like a fool he thus drew the coil close round his own body; and as soon as the Emperor knew that, my men made a search. That did the rest effectually."