IT was dusk when our interview ended, and lighting a cigar I stepped out through the window into the gardens to think.

The tragic and unutterably sorrowful story which Helga had told me had filled the cup of my sympathy with her to overflowing, and help her I vowed I would in some way. But she herself made that help extremely difficult to plan. If I left the place without giving her some pledge in my false character as Emperor, she would instantly make use of those papers, and thus shut the last door upon the chance of his doing anything.

There was the possibility that if I were to give her some such pledge I might afterwards be able to get her the interview with the real Emperor that she desired. But so much further deceit and lying would be involved that I ruled out the idea at once.

There was also one other feeble way—to get some communication to the Emperor, telling him the whole thing, and leaving him to act. But while such a plan might possibly do good, it was much more likely to do harm. Prince Kalkov would be immediately consulted—and then the deluge. It was more than probable, indeed, that any message or communication from me would be intercepted by him. So that notion had to go after the other.

Helga’s stubborn refusal to believe that I was no more than just a private individual was of course the bed rock of the mess, and nothing that I had said or done had shaken her belief in the least. Nothing seemed likely to do it, moreover, short of getting the Emperor to stand shoulder to shoulder with me so that she might see us together.

There was, further, the to me unendurable risk of leaving her alone at Brabinsk to face the danger from these wretched Nihilist fanatics. Had the other parts of the problem been capable of solution, that alone would have kept me by her side.

Of all the tests to which a man’s nerve may be subjected, few can be more terrible than the fear of secret assassination. But there is one, and I ran up against it there. To know that there are a number of human wild beasts planning to put a bullet in your head or a knife in your heart is bad enough, but it is infinitely worse when you feel, as I did, that if they failed to do that for me they would probably endeavour to do it for the woman I loved.

And thus I paced the lawn in a mood of intense embarrassment, complicated with a double fear for my own life and for Helga’s.

With that thought in my mind I had a good look round the house. It was, as Boreski had said in his letter, a good place for taking precautions. A square solid stone building, with all the lower windows protected by bars or heavy shutters, and it would be as difficult to break into it as to get out of it.

In my mood then I had a keen appreciation of its strength, and I came back to the front again feeling very thankful to the man who had planned and built it.

It was a dead still evening. The twilight had faded very quickly, and when I had been smoking and worrying myself for about an hour, without getting an inch nearer to any solution of the problem Helga had set me, my ears, which are very keen, caught a sound in the distance.

It was very faint, but before it ceased I recognized the beat of a horse’s hoofs.

I was in a nervously high strung condition, and as I knew that there was no house near enough for me to be able to hear any one who might be driving or riding up to it, I tossed my cigar away and drew back into some bushes to wait for what might be to come.

It might be just a messenger from Boreski, or even Boreski himself; or, on the other hand, I persuaded myself very easily, it might spell danger. In either case I could do no harm by keeping a watch.

Clearly it was not Boreski, or any one from him, as in that case he would have ridden right up to the house. My ears might have deceived me, of course; but I was conscious of what some people term a creepy sensation as I accepted the other conclusion—that the matter did bode danger of some kind.

I was right too. I stood as still as a statue on my sentry go, and after some minutes I heard a light crunch of gravel under stealthily treading feet and saw a man creeping warily toward the house.

At the same moment I caught a glimpse of Helga. I could see from my place through the open window of the room where we had sat. I saw her enter the room, glance about her in surprise at not finding me there, and then cross to the window and peer into the dark garden.

The man at the gate saw her too, and drew back quickly. A very significant indication.

Helga stood a moment at the window, and then stepped out on to the verandah that ran along the house and looked about her as if seeking me. But I gave no sign of my presence, of course; and after a while she went back through the window, leaving it open, crossed the room with a quick step, and passed out of my line of sight.

Soon afterwards the man crept very cautiously and almost silently a short distance up the gravel walk, pausing at every step and looking about him as if to make certain he was unobserved.

When he was quite close to me he stopped, and I recognized him. It was Paul Drexel. For a moment a hundred possibilities connected with his visit at such a time and in such fashion rushed into my mind, and I was on the point of darting from my hiding-place and seizing him, when he turned and made a signal.

Following his gaze, I saw that two other men had entered the grounds and stood mute and motionless until he waved to them, when they crept up to his side. Then all three got on to the grass, well in the shadow of the trees, and held a whispered consultation.

I could not, of course, catch a word they said, but I saw them point to the open window; and when the consultation ended two of them stole like shadows round the skirt of the lawn under cover of the trees to the window, in front of which both lay flat on the ground.

Then Drexel crept back a short distance, paused, turned and walked up the gravel, with intentionally noisy and heavy steps, to the house door.

It did not require the instincts of a Vidocq to know that some very ugly business was on foot; and while Drexel was getting admitted to the house, I was trying to consider what the thing boded and what I had best do.

In point of fact I did nothing—about the wisest course, as it turned out. To have moved from my hiding-place would only have scared away the two men lying prone by the verandah, and so long as I knew of their presence and they were ignorant of mine, I had the best end of the stick.

I made a pretty cute guess at the meaning of the visit. Drexel had no doubt gone to the villa with the men in the hope of finding me still there, and had learnt by some means of my coming to Brabinsk.

The stroke was aimed at me I felt, and there was less alarm for me in that thought than if it had been directed against Helga. For the time, at any rate, there would be no danger to her, and as I was thus forewarned I could take my own measures.

It is a somewhat skeary thing to have to think out plans to circumvent men who mean to assassinate you, and to realize, as I did, very clearly, how much must hang upon your not making a false step.

As I stood like a statue in the shadows of the trees, I had time to think things out a bit. I had my revolver in my pocket, and I came to the conclusion quite deliberately that if there was any shooting to be done I would let no one get the drop on me, and I would certainly shoot to kill. I had twice in my life had very narrow escapes from death through hesitating in the face of a crisis, and this was not going to be a third time. Some minutes—ten perhaps—lapsed after Drexel was admitted to the house before anything happened, and all the while the men by the house lay as still as death. Although I knew just about where they were, I could not see their dark forms on the ground.

Then Helga entered the room into which I could see, and Drexel followed her. The instant he was inside he shut the door and put his back against it.

Helga seemed perfectly calm and self-possessed, and when he spoke with much gesture, as if excusing himself, she replied with contemptuous indifference, mingled with little shafts of indignation.

The conversation lasted some time, until one of the two men outside lifted his head, so that it came between me and the light from the window, and listened. Then he and his companion, still lying prone, drew themselves cautiously up on to the verandah and lay close to the open window.

Themselves unseen, they were watching intently what passed within the room, and listening to every syllable that was spoken by Helga and Drexel.

So absorbed were the two spies, and so utterly unsuspicious of my presence, that I might have risked closing in upon them, had it not been that the broad drive lay between me and them and the slightest sound of the gravel under my footsteps would have spoilt everything.I chafed at the enforced inaction, but the issues were those of life and death, and I dared not take such a risk. Helga’s life, as well as mine, was in the balance.

At last the minutes of inaction were at an end.

Both men, as if at some signal from Drexel, sprang to their feet and stepped into the room, and I saw the flashing look of anger from Helga at their entrance.

The noise they made in entering gave me the chance I wanted. Two or three light springing tiptoe leaps put me across the drive, and I hurried over the smooth lawn with eager feet, drawing out my revolver as I ran, until, imitating their tactics, I lay full length on the ground in full sight and within earshot of all that went on in the room.

I soon had evidence then of the deadly business on which the men had come.

“I tell you he is not in the house.”

It was Helga’s voice, of course, and she was facing the three men with dauntless courage in voice, look, and manner.

“It is useless to say that, mademoiselle. We know he is here, and call upon you in the name of the brotherhood to give him up to us. It is more than your life is worth to refuse.”

The speaker was seemingly the leader, and his deep vibrating bass voice rolled through the room in tones of intense earnestness.

“Have you ever known me tell you a lie, M. Vastic?” This, then, was the reckless Nihilist himself.

“Do you deny he has been here?”

“An American, M. Denver, has been here; but left this house more than an hour since.”

“To go where?” The question came like a sharp stern command.

“I do not know.”

“He is the man we seek. You know that. Do you dare to trifle with us?”“I allow no one to address me in that tone,” said Helga proudly. “I have told you the truth.”

The man turned to Drexel, who I saw was very pale.

“You are sure this man who calls himself Denver is the Emperor. If you have lied, you will answer to me.”

“Ask mademoiselle,” said the cowardly cur.

“Mademoiselle, what say you?”

“That the man this—this carrion spy speaks of”—and she turned such a look on Drexel that he winced—“is Mr. Denver, an American. And if he were the Emperor, M. Vastic, and I knew where he was at this moment, you are the last man on earth I would tell.”

“I need no other evidence,” was the threatening reply. “I give you two minutes in which to tell me where to find him. If you refuse, you will suffer the consequences. You know the penalty of shielding one whom the brotherhood has sentenced. Say when the time is passed,” he ordered his comrade, and to enforce his threat he drew a revolver.

Helga gave no sign of flinching, but met his stern gaze with one to the full, as steady and resolute.

“You can murder me if you will. I do not know,” she said firmly. Not a change of colour, no quiver of the lip, nor tremor of a finger showed her courage to be shaken, or her purpose weakened by the ordeal.

But it was different with me and I made ready to take up my part in the scene. I calculated precisely what to do. The second man was near enough to the window for me to strike him down as I entered, and I drew myself to my feet in readiness.

But at that moment he moved to speak to Vastic. He spoke in a whisper and seemed to expostulate. But the leader remained unmoved by what he said, and the second man with a shrug of the shoulders stepped back to his former place.

Helga watched the short whispered conference closely, but gave no sign of any feeling, momentous as the import was to her.

Drexel was, however, growing deeply agitated. His face was as white as salt, great beads of perspiration were on his forehead, his lips were quivering, and he clenched and unclenched his hands with quick nervous movements.

The turn of affairs had appalled him.

“M. Vastic,” he began in low hoarse trembling voice.

“Silence, M. Drexel,” thundered the leader. “This is now my affair. It is your part to obey. Now, mademoiselle, the time is run out. I give you a last chance to be——”

The sentence was never finished, for as he spoke Helga gave a great cry, and I dashed through the window, dealt the man near me a blow on the head with my revolver which felled him, and the next moment I had Vastic covered.

“Hands up, you. I’ve heard what you said,” I cried.

“M. Denver,” exclaimed Drexel.

Vastic turned on me instantly, full of fight, and with the quickness of light raised his revolver to take aim.

It was his life or mine, and without a second’s hesitation I fired and shot him.

The fraction of a second decided it. His pistol went off almost simultaneously. But the bullet went wide, for mine was in his brain, and he was already staggering.

There was a scuffle behind me, and another shot was fired by the man I had knocked down. I turned on him, but he was too quick for me and with a cry sprang out into the darkness.

Drexel meanwhile had opened the room door to fly.

“Come back, you, Drexel, or I’ll fire,” I cried, covering him. He came back trembling like the cur he was. “Close the window, Helga, and have some help here.”She was shutting the window when the servants, with Ivan at their head, came in, having heard the pistol shots.

“Have that man held, Ivan,” I said, pointing to Drexel, who indeed was in a state bordering on collapse, “and go instantly in search of a man who has just fled. Quick, as you care for your mistress’s life.”

I bent over Vastic and laid my hand on his heart.

When I looked up Helga was standing by me.

“He is dead,” I said in reply to her glance.

“My God!” The cry forced itself between her pressed lips.

“Have the body taken somewhere for the present,” I ordered one of the servants, “and then see that every door and window in the house is safely bolted. I will speak to you presently,” I added to Helga, who was now trembling. “I must question this man,” and laying a heavy hand on Drexel’s shoulder, I led him into another room.