The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

" 'Tis a limit that I will willingly observe; and I thank you, Sir, for placing no other restriction upon me."

The Admiral shrugged. " Tis no part of my duty to prevent Court gossip finding its way to Whitehall; but, if I may advise you, I would suggest that you should seek to learn something of the Russian character before endeavouring to assess the value of such rumours as you may pick up. Your ignorance of it .was clearly demonstrated by your demanding satisfaction of me a while back; and you will find many other traits in them which will appear fantastic to your English mind."

"In that I'd be prodigious grateful for any guidance you may care to give me," Roger said quickly.

"To start with then, there is no such thing as honour among the Russians. Neither man's nor woman's word is to be relied upon; so put your trust in no one. They lie more often than they tell the truth, and not from any sense of malice, but partly from habit and partly from the amusement it affords them. There is a law against gambling, yet it remains the principal national pastime, and rich and poor indulge their passion for it alike. Their improvidence is only equalled by their hospitality, and within a week you will find a dozen well-served tables at every one of which you will be welcome by merely appearing at meal-times every day. In fact the rich nobles measure their prestige by the number of hangers-on they can collect and feed gratis at their tables."

"Surely that robs their hospitality of much of its merit?" Roger remarked.

"You are right there, lad. 'Tis mere childish vanity and ostentation which prompts the majority of them to it. And worse, in many cases, since some of them expect their guests to take a hand at cards with them after supper every night, and seek to recoup themselves for the price of the meal by playing on credit."

Roger gave the Admiral a puzzled look. "I fail to see, Sir, how that can benefit them; since, if they are losers, they must settle up just the same in the long run."

"Not a bit of it," laughed the Admiral. "I tell you that the word, 'honour' has no equivalent in the Russian tongue. If you indulge in gambling and are fool enough to let one of your opponents play on credit, should he lose, it is entirely at his option whether he pays you his debt later, or not. Should he decline and you complain of it, every­one else will simply laugh at you, and he will go up in their estimation as a clever fellow. What is more, they boast openly of their ability at cheating, and are always on the look out for gullible strangers from whom -they may make a picking."

"I would that I had known this a few months back," Roger said, with a rueful grin. "I lost three hundred guineas one night to Count Vorontzoff, the Russian Ambassador to the Court of St. James. Had I but been aware that I could have so lightly laughed off the debt the following morning, it would have saved myself and others a multitude of complications."

"That would be Count Sergius Vorontzoff," remarked Mr. Tooke. "His father was the last Grand Chancellor. No other has been appointed since his death and the powers of the post are more or less shared by Prince Potemkin and Count Bezborodko, who succeeded Count Panin as the Empress's principal adviser on Foreign affairs. The latter is a connection of the Vorontzoff's, and the family's influence is still very great. One of the old man's daughters is the celebrated Princess Dashkof. At the age of eighteen she played a leading part in the con­spiracy which placed Catherine on the throne. Her sister, Elizeveta Romanovna, was Peter the Third's mistress while he was Grand Duke, and during his short reign; and the other brother, Count Alexander, is the head of the College of Commerce."

"It seems strange to think that so violent a man as Count Sergius has a brother who is a Professor," Roger remarked, "and stranger still that a country so backward as Russia should have a college devoted to training young men to enter trade."

"Nay," Mr. Tooke smiled. "You are mistaken on both counts. Here, when one speaks of the College of Commerce, or War or Justice, one means the Government department, and the head of each is the responsible Minister. Yet the present Empress, herself a woman of quite exceptional culture, has performed prodigies in improving educational facilities. In addition to greatly increasing the number of military, naval and agricultural schools, she has instituted academies -of Medicine, Mines, Teaching, Art and the Theatre, and even founded a seminary for young ladies of the nobility. So that nearly seven thousand pupils now receive their education at the expense of the Imperial purse; as once nominated to these institutions there are no fees to pay, the whole cost being borne by the Empress."

"Russia certainly seems a land of extraordinary contrasts," said Roger, thoughtfully.

"You will indeed find it so," nodded the Admiral. "Nine out of ten of the acquaintances you make will entertain you most hospitably one day, yet not scruple to steal your snuff-box the next. So light-fingered are they by habit that after eating your food they will think nothing of pocketing your table-silver the minute your back is turned. My wife and I found ourselves at such loss through this that we took an early opportunity to have made in Leith several dozen spoons and forks of base metal, especially for use when entertaining Russians."

"They are even more inveterate cheats than they are thieves, opined Mr. Tooke. " 'Tis the common practice among merchants to ask foreigners five times the proper price for any article, in the hope that the buyer will think it a good bargain if he can secure it by offering half that sum, and only later discover that he has paid more than double its real value. Worst of all are the rasnoshchiks, as the street-vendors are called. They will offer you a box of tea, which on being carried home will be found to have only a sprinkling of tea-leaves on the surface, the rest of the box being filled with sand and wood-shavings. They are adepts at pumping air into chickens so that the eye is tempted by what appears to be a fat capon, when in reality 'tis but a scraggy old hen wasted to near nothing from rearing her last brood of chicks. In my early days here I even had a bundle of asparagus sold to me, which, at a casual glance, looked in prime condition for the table.

'Twas not till my wife was about to put it to boil that we discovered the edible tips to have already been removed, and the woody stumps repointed and painted."

Roger threw up his hands with a laugh. "Tell me no more, Gentle­men, I beg; for it seems I am come to a veritable sink of iniquity. Yet I thank you for your warnings, and will endeavour to buy my own experience as cheaply as possible."

"I must be on my way," declared the Admiral, getting to his feet. "Mr. Brook, my barouche is at the door, can I carry you in it to the centre of the city, or have you further business to discuss with our good friend?"

"Nay, Sir," Roger replied. "I have already importuned Mr. Tooke for over-long, and gladly accept your offer."

Mr. Tooke smiled at him. "I would have liked to bid you sup with us and meet my wife; but the fewer people who know you to be an Englishman, the better, and 'twould be somewhat embarrassing for both of us did I introduce you as aught else. Therefore I will con­fine myself to wishing you good fortune, and assuring you that I will perform the small service you have requested of me whenever called upon to do so."

Roger thanked the friendly clergyman and leaving the house with the Admiral was swiftly conveyed by him back to the Nevski, where they parted with expressions of mutual goodwill. He then walked the last hundred yards to his lodging.

Upstairs in his sitting-room he found three people patiently await­ing his return; Ostermann, a bearded, middle-aged peasant in a clean white blouse, and a pretty little girl of about fourteen decked out in a gaily embroidered costume.

As he entered they all stood up and bowed almost to the ground; then Ostermann indicated the girl and said:

"Subject to your approval, most noble General, Zaria Feodorovna begs leave to become your servant."

Roger looked at her with interest. Her face was a trifle flat and her black eyes were no more than medium size, but they were full of live­liness. Her brow was broad, her teeth were white and even, her lips cherry-red and her complexion that of a sun-ripened apple. Crisply curling dark hair framed her piquant features and the delicate curves of her figure showed that she was already approaching womanhood. She looked an attractive little thing, but struck Roger as hardly strong enough to carry heavy trays upstairs and perform other such services as he would require. Moreover, he had, not unnaturally, expected Ostermann to find a man to wait upon him.

On his voicing his doubts as to little Zaria's suitability, the Cour-lander broke into vigorous protest. "Small she may be, noble General, but she is as strong as an ox. These peasant girls are brought up to labour long hours and carry heavy .burdens. Feel her muscles for your­self, I beg; behold the sturdiness of her calves. She is capable of doing all the work of your apartment, cleaning your clothes, running your errands, carrying up the wood for the stove, and will still greet you with a smiling freshness when you return in the evenings."

Roger was tired after his long day and did not wish to argue; so he shrugged. "Very well, then. I will give her a trial. How much is she asking?"

"Her father is willing to let you have her for one hundred roubles."

Recalling Mr. Tooke's dictum that Russians always asked five times the proper price from all foreigners, "Rogerswiftly worked it out that twenty roubles, or four pounds, was near enough the correct wage; but even that seemed high for a quarter—the minimum term for which servants were then hired in western Europe—so he asked the period that such a sum would cover.

Ostermann looked at him in surprise. "Why, as long as it pleases you to retain her, noble General. Once the payment is made she will be yours to do what you like with, short of killing her. You must give her enough to eat and drink, let her go to the public baths on Saturdays and to church on Sundays. You must not take her out of the country without first having obtained permission to do so; as although she becomes your slave by this payment to her father shey still remains the property of the Empress. But you may beat her to your heart's content and have her arrested if she attempts to run away from you—unless she can return the hundred roubles that you gave for her."

Roger had no intention of ill-treating the pretty little creature, but, seeing that slave-owning was the custom of the country, the idea of having one of his own rather amused him. He expected to be in Russia for several months at least, and twenty pounds did not seem excessive for the outright purchase of a human being. Yet he felt that he would be regarded as easy game, and in future be constantly cheated by his landlord over other matters, if he did not make a show of driving a bargain. So he declared that the price was outrageous.

"Indeed it is not!" Ostermann spread out his hands. "The noble General has no doubt heard tales that we are all cheats here; but in „ this case he need have no fears. If, Sir, you had not been brought here by Doctor Drenke I should consider it my right to ask a far higher sum, but I dare not; for if the Doctor learned that I had robbed his friend he would beat me black and blue."

This naive confession both amused and somewhat reassured Roger, but he still shook his head; upon which Ostermann cried: "A hundred roubles is a great deal of money, I know, but she is worth every denushkaof it! I would rather break my own neck than be the means of installing here some slut who might give the noble General a loathe-some disease, and I defy anyone to find for him at a lesser sum a girl of such looks who is still a virgin."

Such an aspect of the deal had not even entered Roger's head, and his surprised laugh was taken by Ostermann as a sign of disbelief so the Courlander hurried on: "I beg you, noble General, to examine the girl for yourself. Her father is an honest man and will wish you to

do so before the money is paid over. She will wish it too, that she may have the pleasure of proving to her father that she has led a chaste life."

Roger shook his head. "I thank you, but I asked you to provide me with a servant, not a child to sleep with."

Ostermann shrugged. "She is fully ready to become a woman as soon as the noble General chooses to make her one. Naturally so hand­some a gentleman will have many ladies to visit him, and at such times Zaria Feodorovna can sleep in one of the attics. At other times she will always be at your disposal; and if on coming home drunk late at night her presence annoys you, 'twill prove easy enough for you to kick her out of bed. When the cold weather comes 'tis essential that you should have someone to warm your bed for you; everyone does here. Look at it which way you will, noble General, the offer is a genuine bargain."

Feeling it futile to raise further objections Roger unlocked the brass-bound coffer in which he kept his funds, produced some Swedish gold pieces equivalent in value to one hundred roubles, and somewhat to his embarrassment, completed the formalities of Zaria's purchase. The hitherto silent peasant kissed him on the shoulder and, through Ostermann, expressed his happiness at having found for his daughter such a rich and handsome young master; then the girl snatched awk­wardly at Roger's hands and falling on her knees kissed them, show­ing by her eagerness that she was a willing partner to the deal.

Roger told Ostermann that he wished her to go out and fetch him a light supper of cold chicken and a bottle of red wine; and after much bowing and scraping they left him, all breaking into an excited chatter in Russian the second they were outside his door.

As their voices faded down the stairs he began to pull off his clothes. Then, while he changed into a light silk chamber-robe, he considered a trifle dubiously how he could best disembarrass himself of the more private services which Zaria Feodorovna evidently expected to render him. She would, he thought, in due course make somebody an admirable wife or mistress, but he had no desire whatever for a child-concubine, and he wondered now if he had not been a little rash in allowing him­self to be persuaded into buying a female slave. He had gone through with the deal mainly because he was tired out and it had seemed easier to acquiesce, and acquire a willing little maidservant than wait until the next day to find a man whom he would have to beat and bully. It occurred to him somewhat belatedly that Zaria Feodorovna might prove hurt and resentful at his indifference; so he could only hope that she would see the sense of keeping her virginity until he dispensed with her services, as an additional asset with which to catch a husband.

A quarter of an hour later she returned with his supper, and Ostermann accompanied her to act as translator for any orders that Roger might wish to give on initiating her into his service. Having shown her where he kept his things and stated his requirements about brush­ing his clothes and cleaning his boots, he asked Ostermann to explain to her that he thought her too young, as yet, to be any man's bed­fellow, and that he wished her to sleep in the attic until she grew a little older.

The result was a sudden crimsoning of the apple-hued cheeks, followed by a deluge of tears and heartrending lamentations. Ostermann translated her sobbing protests as despair at having failed to find favour in her master's eyes. She had, it seemed, fallen in love with him on sight and believed herself to be the luckiest girl in all Russia, whereas, at his words, he had made her the most miserable.

Roger saw that there was only one thing for it. Taking the bundle of noisy woe in his arms, he drew her onto his knees, where he petted her like the child she was and kissed the tears away. Then he made her a present of a rich silk scarf, which delighted her beyond measure, and packed her off, greatly consoled, with Ostermann, to her attic.

Just as they were leaving the room the loud boom of a cannon reverberated through the city, and thinking that it might be an alarm signal of some kind, Roger called after Ostermann, asking him if he knew its cause.

" 'Tis nought but the night-gun, noble General," replied the Courlander. "Few of the common people in Petersburg are rich enough to own a watch and many are so ignorant that they cannot read the public clocks even when they can see them; so at this season of the year when there are no hours of darkness a gun is fired from the fortress each evening to let them know that the night has begun."

It was still broad daylight but Roger had been up since half-past five that morning, and his experiences of the day had been so new and varied that he felt more than ready for bed. After despatching a wing of the chicken and a glass of wine he locked the door and went into the bedroom. Almost half of it was occupied by a broad divan; it had no sheets but was covered with innumerable layers of rugs. Pulling the heavy curtains across the window he settled himself on the divan, drew its topmost rug over him, and was almost instantly asleep.

But not for very long. He woke with a start and the instinctive feeling that it was still early in the night. He knew already that a movement beside him had been the cause of his waking, and the faint light percolating between the chinks of the curtains was sufficient to show him a hump under the rug, from the edge of which protruded a tumble of crisp black curls that could only belong to Zaria Feodorovna.

How she had got in he could not imagine, and it was not until the following morning that he learned that she had climbed up to the fan­light of the door that gave onto the landing, then succeeded in squeez­ing herself through. Evidently terrified that he might send her packing again if she so much as showed her face, she lay as still as a mouse buried in the rugs. Daunted at the idea of starting a fresh argument in a language that he did not understand, Roger took the path of least resistance, turned over on his other side, and went to sleep again.

When he awoke in the morning she was no longer beside him, but subdued sounds from the sitting-room told him that he had not dreamed her midnight appearance, and, shortly afterwards, she brought him in his breakfast.

Her down-cast eyes and trembling hands were clear evidence of her shyness, but she now showed no servility, and he soon found that she possessed the natural tact and good manners which grace most of the peasantry of Europe. As he had now landed himself with her it seemed to him that the sooner he could teach her to understand him the better; so, on getting up, he amused himself for an hour pointing at various things and giving her a first French lesson by making her repeat their names in that language after him.

The lesson was terminated only by the arrival of Doctor Drenke, who brought Roger a note from Natalia Andreovna, in which she said that she proposed to visit him at two o'clock that afternoon. While Roger read the note the Doctor addressed a few casual sentences in Russian to Zaria after which he congratulated her master on acquiring her. He then carried Roger off to the morning levee of Count Bezborodko, the head of the College of Foreign Affairs.

At the levee, as well as presenting Roger to the Count, who talked to him for a few moments on Sweden, the Doctor also introduced him to several members of the Corps Diplomatique; all of whom asked him to breakfast, dine or sup, so by the time he left the reception he found himself already launched in Petersburg society.

That afternoon, Natalia appeared at his lodgings cloaked, hooded and wearing a little lace mask, as was then the custom of ladies who wished to preserve their incognito when visiting their gallants. Unfortunately she arrived a good quarter of an hour before she was expected so he had not yet dismissed Zaria, who was seated in a corner of the sitting-room diligently polishing the silver buttons of one of his coats.

No sooner did the green eyes of Roger's aristocratic mistress light upon his pretty little slave than their expression changed from joyous anticipation to indignant anger. Instantly assuming the worst she advanced on him with a spate of curses and soundly boxed his ears; then, vowing in both French and Russian that she would kill the girl if she ever found her there again, she grabbed up Roger's cane and drove the unfortunate Zaria screaming from the room.

Roger swiftly endeavoured to disabuse Natalia of her black sus­picions, but she knew the ways of her country better than he did; his denials of having slept with Zaria the previous night were so lack­ing in conviction that she obviously did ndt believe him, and it took him a considerable time to pacify her.

In the past week she had come as near to loving Roger as she was capable of feeling that passion for any man, and this had resulted in redoubling her natural tendency to jealousy; but so true is it that, given mutual attraction, to start with, love will almost inevitably beget love, the effect of their voyage from Sweden on Roger had been to make him excuse her worst characteristics to himself and come near to loving her in return. In consequence, the genuine concern he displayed at having upset her, and the undiminished warmth of his amorous feelings, were such, that the subject of Zaria Feodorovna was at length allowed to lapse by mutual consent, and a passionate reconciliation ensued.

When Natalia had departed, after having promised to come again the following afternoon, Roger began to wonder if his little maid would return to him, or had abandoned him for good from fear of being beaten to death by his virago of a mistress. But he need not have concerned himself; Zaria's courage was equal to her swiftly-acquired devotion to him, and on his returning from keeping a supper-engagement made that morning, he found her curled up sound asleep in his bed.

Having more or less promised Natalia Andreovna that he would dismiss the child, he made a half-hearted attempt to do so next day. But, with Ostermann as interpreter, she declared that rather than face the shame of returning to her father she would drown herself in the Neva. Roger, not having the heart to drive her away, told her that she might remain, provided she was never visible in his apartments between mid­day and midnight except when sent for; and salved his conscience for the lies he would have to tell Natalia with the thought that she would equally readily have lied to him. Within a few hours he had dis­missed the matter from his mind and settled down to enjoy life in St. Petersburg.

For this he was given ample opportunity, as half a dozen invitations reached him on his second day in the capital from Doctor Drenke's friends in the College of Foreign Affairs, and each party he attended produced a shower of others. True, many of them were from adven­turers and scallywags whose only object was to lighten his purse, but forewarned by Mr. Tooke and Admiral Greig, he succeeded in protect­ing himself from all but minor losses and, in the meantime, ate freely and well in the best taverns, several of the Embassies, and the houses of nobles and rich merchants.

In his role of a Frenchman he naturally took an early opportunity of paying his respects at the French Embassy. He had already learned that the Ambassador was the Comte de Segur and the son of the old Marshal of that name whom he had known as Minister of War during his time in Paris. The acquaintance, slight as it was, but backed up by his more recent ones with the Baron la Houze and the Marquis de Pons, would, he felt sure, be sufficient to secure the Comte's agree­ment to presenting him at the Russian Court. But here he met with a disappointment as de Segur was temporarily absent from St. Peters­burg on a fishing expedition to Lake Ladoga.

Natalia Andreovna came masked to his lodging every afternoon, and towards the end of the week, announced that the Empress had appointed her one of her ladies-in-waiting. Roger was delighted at this news as, despite his physical attachment to her, he had no inten­tion of allowing any scruples to prevent him from using her to further his mission; and since she was to be situated so close to the Empress he hoped to learn from her all the inner gossip of the Court. Moreover, in view of the French Ambassador's absence, it offered another avenue to a speedy presentation; so he asked her if she could arrange some means by which he could make his bow to the Empress.

"Oh, nothing could be easier," Natalia replied, stretching out a supple arm to reach for a bon-bon from a box that lay beside the divan. "She prides herself on being accessible to all, and takes especial de­light in receiving foreigners. You must come to the entertainment that Alexis Orlof is giving for her on Monday evening, and I will present you to her myself."

"Can you get me an invitation?" Roger asked.

"Indeed I can. You could walk in if you wished, as half the town will be there and the more people that attend the better pleased the High Admiral will be. But as you are a stranger I will ask him to send you a card. He is an old friend of mine. In fact, I am inclined to believe that he is the father of my daughter, for the child is growing monstrous like him."

Roger turned over and stared at her in surprise. She was lying on her back contentedly munching the large, sticky sweet, and evidently did not consider that there was anything particularly startling about her announcement, as she went on quite casually: "Since One-Eye is at the wars Alexis is back in favour again; though I doubt whether he cares much one way or the other these days, and he leaves it to Bezborodko to advise the Empress on most affairs of State."

"Whom do you mean by One-eye?" Roger asked.

It was she who now looked surprised. "You are monstrous slow not to recognise it as the nickname of Prince Potemkin."

"How should I, when I have never seen him?"

"Ah, forgive me, dear one! I had forgot that your arrival here is so recent and that it is quite a while since he left the Residence to command the armies that are fighting the Turk. He lost his eye when the Empress first took him into favour. Until then Gregory Orlof had the ordering of everything and remained Catherine's chief confidant, as those who succeeded him in her bed were little more than hand­some puppets. But so puffed up with pride did Potemkin become that, one night while playing a game of billiards, he boasted of his power to dispose of all offices about the Court. Gregory's brother, Alexis, was present and promptly put out the new favourite's eye with a billiard cue. That was fourteen years ago, and 'tis the reason why he has ever since carried his head on one side with the look of a knowing parrot."

"He has performed no small feat in retaining for so long his influence over so fickle a woman as the Empress."

"The Orlofs have retained theirs for near double that time. 'Tis all but twenty-six years since by the coup d'etatthey raised her to the throne."

"But Gregory is dead now, is he not?"

"Yes. He died some four years ago. 'Twas a curious coincidence that Catherine should have lost both him and Count Panin, the other ringleader in the conspiracy, who was her principal minister for so long, within a month of one another. Prince Gregory spent much of his later life travelling in great magnificence, and towards the end he became near unhinged from the premature death in Switzerland of his beauti­ful young niece."

"Was he so devoted to her?"

"He positively worshipped her, and had married her but a short time previously."

Roger raised his eyebrows. It was borne in upon him more strongly every day that these Russians were, beyond all prediction, unprin­cipled; and that his lot was now cast in a veritable hell's kitchen. But Natalia was going on with complete unconcern. "Yet the family influence never waned, as Count Alexis had been Catherine's lover, like his brother, and he is still a power to be reckoned with."

"Have none of the other favourites been men of mark?" Roger inquired.

Natalia considered for a moment. "Nay, none of them; except perhaps Lanskoi. Now he was a true Prince Charming; so good-looking that as a girl I lost my heart to him completely, and of so sweet a dis­position that, having not a single enemy of his own, he would even go out of his way to render services to those of his patron, Prince Potemkin. Eighty-four was a bad year for Her Majesty; since, in it, she lost not only Gregory Orlof and Nikita Panin, but Lanskoi also. She utterly adored him, and so distraught with grief was she that she refused all food for several days and remained for three months shut up in her palace at Tzarskoi-selo refusing all consolation."

" 'Tis quite a revelation that the modern Messalina is, after all, possessed of a heart and capable of such deep feeling," smiled Roger cynically.

Jerking herself up Natalia clapped a hand over his mouth and cast a frightened glance towards the door.

"Speak not so of the Empress, Rojé Christorovitch, I implore you," she whispered. "By comparison with her predecessors, she is an angel of clemency; yet, outside the circle of her intimates, she will not tolerate the faintest disrespect. Were the appellation you have given her to reach her ears she would despatch you straight-way to Siberia."

With a muffled laugh Roger playfully bit the slim fingers that were pressing on his lips; then taking his beautiful mistress in his arms he soothed her fears and made love to her again.

He was too young, confident and carefree, to take the warning seriously. He did not know his Russia yet.

CHAPTER XIV

THE ORDER OF DEATH

0 N the evening of Monday, the 2nd of July, Roger duly attended the reception at the Orlof Palace. It was not quite as vast as the Tavritscheskoi Palace, which the Empress had built for Prince Potemkin, but equally richly furnished, and was now the scene of a magnificent spectacle. From every window hung rich oriental rugs, and in front of it a huge carpet had been spread half-way across the street, so that the Empress might not soil her shoes when she stepped from her coach.

A great concourse of people entirely blocked the roadway; guests were constantly arriving in every type of vehicle, including great numbers of sedan-chairs; footmen in liveries of every hue were making way for them, and on the broad steps sweeping up to the front entrance a solid jam of people elbowed their way towards the door.

Entering the crush Roger was carried by it inside the tall doorway. There the pressure eased owing to the spaciousness of the long suite of marble-floored reception rooms. Semi-circular archways gave easy access for the streams of people passing from one into another and the whole of the suite was double-tiered, the windows in the upper story lighting the jasper columns and fine pieces of statuary that adorned the walls of the lower. Along the sides of all the rooms there were long tables bearing innumerable dishes and bottles. A good half of the guests stood three deep already guzzling at them, but the supplies appeared inexhaustible, as scores of servants were constantly shoulder­ing their way through the press with big cauldrons of food and silver coolers the size of small bath-tubs packed with bottles of iced wine.

Roger began to wonder how he would ever find Natalia Andreovna in such a multitude, but comforted himself with the thought that she would be somewhere near the Empress, which should help him to locate her when the sovereign arrived. For an hour he wandered about, occasionally running into someone he had met during the past week and pausing to talk to them for a while. Then a sudden hush falling ,upon the throng announced the approach of the Czarina of All the Russias.

The crowd immediately divided, forming a broad lane through the middle of each apartment, and a few minutes later Roger set eyes for the first time on the remarkable woman of whom he had heard so much.

She was much smaller than he had imagined and very fat, but extraordinarily regal-looking. A small crown, scintillating with precious gems and supported by a wreath of gold bay leaves, was set firmly on her grey hair, two curls of which fell from a rather severe coiffure down the front of her left shoulder. Her eyes were bright blue and ex­tremely lively as they surveyed the ranks of her bowing subjects. Her nose was small but high-bridged and wide-nostriled; her mouth was tight-lipped and determined; her rounded chin jutted out despite the fleshiness of her neck.

Any other woman of her height would have been completely dwarfed by Alexis Orlof, on whose arm her hand rested, for the High Admiral was a rugged giant six feet six inches tall. But such was the strength of personality radiated by the plump little Empress that her gigantic escort seemed only a proper adjunct to her.

At first sight, in spite of the grossness of her figure, Roger found it difficult to believe that she was in her sixtieth year, for her cheeks were unlined and she appeared to have the milk and roses complexion of a girl of twenty. But, as she passed near him, he detected a certain brittle hardness about her face, and realised that the whole of it had been so heavily painted as to virtually constitute an enamel. It was only with difficulty that he suppressed a laugh, as the sudden idea came to him that if she tripped and fell her face would suffer the fate of a piece of precious porcelain and break into a hundred pieces.

To his dismay Natalia Andreovna was not among the little galaxy of bejewelled courtiers who made up the entourage of the Empress; so he followed at a distance, hoping that if he kept in her vicinity his lady-love would sooner or later appear to pay her respects to her Imperial mistress.

On reaching the end of the galleries the Empress was led into a huge octagonal ballroom, a large part of which was railed off. Only members of the aristocracy were allowed beyond the rail, and Roger stood by it for a few moments. He had just watched the Empress seat herself under a canopy when he received a sharp rap on the arm with a fan, and turned to see Natalia smiling at him.

"Ah, there you are I" he exclaimed. "I was near fearing that I should miss you altogether in such a multitude. Never before have I seen so great a concourse of people assembled under one roof."

She raised an eyebrow. "Methinks that Versailles can be but a paltry palace, then; or perhaps it is that your King Louis is too close-fisted to entertain with the lavishness becoming to a sovereign. I doubt if Alexis has more than three thousand people here to-night, and that is no great number compared to the eight or ten thousand who attend the masked-balls that the Empress gives in winter at the Peterhof."

"It amazes me to hear that there are ten thousand gentry all to be found in this one city," he replied, as he gave her his arm.

"Oh, they are not all persons of quality," she shrugged. "Merchants, small landowners, professional men, and foreigners staying in the Residence, are all admitted on the production of a card; and cards are obtainable on request from anyone about the court."

"I should have thought that the Empress would have been greatly averse to lending her countenance to such motley assemblies."

"On the contrary. The earth is hers and all that is upon it; and it gives her pleasure to lavish something of its bounties as frequently as occasion offers on all classes of her subjects."

"Why were you not in her train when she made her entrance, just now?" Roger inquired.

Natalia smiled up at him. "Because I am not in attendance on her this evening. I thought you would enjoy our spending it together, so I begged her to excuse me and she readily agreed."

Roger squeezed her hand. "That was sweet of you. I vow I'll derive a thousand times more pleasure from this party than I could otherwise have done."

As they talked they had gradually moved forward to within a few yards of the Empress. No western Court could conceivably have rivalled the semi-oriental magnificence of the costumes of the men grouped about her; yet there was a refreshing lack of restraint about their attitude in her presence. They spoke to her with respect but without servility, and she laughed good-naturedly at the jokes they cracked.

The band had struck up a gavotte, and she was just sending her ladies out to dance, when Natalia Andreovna caught the royal glance. Floating into a graceful curtsey she said: "Katerina Alexeyevna, may I present to your gracious Majesty Rojé Chiristorovitch, Chevalier de Breuc, the young French gentleman of whom I spoke to you; he who escorted me back from Sweden."

Catherine smiled and nodded, upon which Roger stepped forward and made a deep obeisance. As he straightened himself, she' beckoned him to her and gave him her plump hand to kiss; then she held him in conversation for several minutes. She asked him how long it was since he had left Paris, the latest gossip of the French Court, if he was interested in literature and painting, who his favourite authors were, and a dozen other questions; to all of which he gave swift, concise answers, his usual quick inventiveness coming to his aid in cases where he was compelled to make them up.

She appeared much pleased with his prompt replies, as she concluded the interview by saying: " 'Tis common knowledge that I have a great fondness and admiration for the genius of your country, and I count you a true representative of it. 'Tis my wish that you should carry away, a good impression of Russia; so should you find yourself incommoded in any way while-you are here, or lack for money, do not hesitate to apply to me through your Ambassador. Now take that little bag of bones, the Baroness Stroganof, away and dance with her."

Murmuring his thanks, Roger kissed the plump, heavily beringed hand again, and bowed his way back into the crowd. Natalia Andreovna congratulated him on the excellent reception with which he had been favoured, and added with a slight touch of spite: "Katinka does not usually converse with strangers who are of no special importance for so long. Momonof will have to look to his laurels, or he will find him­self supplanted by you."

"God forbid!" laughed Roger. "I take it that Momonof was the tall, - sulky-looking fellow, seated on a tabouretto the Empress's left. He has been the reigning favourite for some time, has he not?"

She nodded. "Yes, for well over a year. He was another of Potemkin's proteges; but he is a vain, stupid oaf and now seeks to bite the hand that elevated him. His reign may be abruptly terminated at any time, as he is not even faithful to the Empress. He is also the lover of the Princess Scherbatof, and everyone except Katinka knows it. So it needs but a word in her ear from someone who bears him malice to secure his dismissal."

After dancing for a little they made a leisurely progress through the other apartments. Five orchestras were now playing a variety of French, Russian and German dance music, so dancing as well as feasting was in full swing in most of the rooms. Natalia pointed out various high dignitaries of the Court to Roger and introduced him to a number of her friends. From time to time they joined in a dance themselves, and between dances ate and drank of the lavish refresh- ments.

The Empress had arrived at six o'clock and at about nine they drifted back to the main ballroom, to find the centre of the floor occupied by a troupe of tumblers, who were essaying the most amazing feats for her amusement. Three performing elephants were then led in, and after them an Italian prima donna sang most gloriously. The entertainment was concluded by a grand parade representing the might of Catherine's realm. For it Orlof had mobilised large detachments of warriors from all over the empire, and resplendent in their native costumes, Kalmucks, Tartars, Laplanders, Yakuts, Kazbecks, Cir­cassians and Don Cossacks all streamed past the throne, shouting their wild war-cries and excitedly firing bullets off into the ceiling.

When the pandemonium had died down dancing was resumed; then, at a little before eleven, a sudden hush fell again on the whole brilliant gathering while the Empress was escorted back to the doors of the palace by Orlof, and took her departure. But the party showed no signs of breaking up; the sweating fiddlers, boosted with generous wine, sawed more vigorously at their violins, often joining in the dances themselves; the dancing became faster and more abandoned; the drinking and shouting of healths more unrestrained.

It was almost midnight when Roger and Natalia came upon their giant host sitting moodily on the lower steps of a side staircase with an empty, gem-encrusted tankard dangling from his great hand.

"Why do you look so glum, Alexi?" Natalia Andreovna inquired. "Was not Katinka pleased with this fine entertainment you have given her?"

"Aye, the old bitch was pleased enough," he mumbled ungra­ciously. "But I am bored. Time was when I enjoyed this sort of thing, but now it seems to me nought but foolishness."

"That is because you are getting old," she mocked him.

It was obvious that he was three-parts drunk, but a sudden gleam came into his dull eye, and he stood up.

"I'm not too old to give you a good tumble still, my pretty. Come upstairs and join me in a cup of wine."

She shook her head and indicated Roger. "Nay, I thank you. I am pledged for this evening to Monsieur le Chevalier de Breuc."

The High Admiral returned Roger's bow with a morose stare. A few years earlier it would have been typical of him to knock his young guest down with one blow of his great fist and carry Natalia Andreovna upstairs on his back. To do so did occur to him, but he felt too tired to bother, so he grunted: "As you will Bring him upstairs too, then. I am sick of the sight of all these stupid people."

They followed him up to a landing and across it to a suite of rooms on the. first floor at the back of the house. The one they entered could best be described as a study, and an open door led to a bedroom beyond it. Both rooms were in a state of chaotic disorder. They did not look as though they had been cleaned for a decade, and smelt abominably; yet their contents were worth a fortune. About them were scattered sable cloaks, weapons of all kinds encrusted with precious gems, jewelled ikons, gold baldrics, top-boots, pictures of ships and naval charts. In one corner a chained ape was quietly chattering to itself, and another was occupied by a great pile of empty bottles.

"What'll you drink?" asked their host, thickly, as he pulled open a cabinet; "Tokay, Malmsey, Vodka, Champagne, French Brandy?"

Natalia Andreovna chose champagne and Roger said he would join her. Orlof handed him a bottle and, while he opened it, swept a mass of documents mixed up with gaming chips from the table to the floor, then produced three crystal goblets. All of them were dirty, but he took no heed of that. Knocking the head off a bottle of cognac with one swift, practised, blow against the table edge, he slopped half its contents into one of the goblets for himself, and slumped into a. high-backed chair.

Roger poured the champagne, and lifting their glasses to each other, they drank. After a couple of big gulps of the brandy Orlof set down his glass and declared: "That's better! That's a real man's drink. I wouldn't insult my stomach with that fizzy muck you're drinking, Chevalier. But young men are all the same, these days. They're girls, not men as they were in my time."

Seizing on this golden opportunity to win so important a man's regard and confidence, Roger replied with a laugh. "That may be so in Russia, Excellency, but 'tis not so in France. I may not have your capacity, but I'll drink bottle for bottle with you any time till one of us is under the table."

"Well said," exclaimed the Count, clapping him on the shoulder with sudden affability. "I'd see you under the table seven times out of seven; but 'tis good to meet a youngster for once who is not afraid to drink man's liquor. Pour that filth you're drinking into the monkey's pot and fetch yourself a bottle of brandy."

Roger did as he was bid, and as he settled himself down again Orlof continued with a sad shake of his leonine head. "The youth of France may still be virile; but in Russia 'tis now pestiferous. For a decade or more the Empress has surrounded herself with a riffraff of weaklings who are capable of nought but scribbling poetry or painting pictures. When my brother and I raised her to the throne 'twas vastly different. She was dependent then on us rough soldiers, but we gave her an empire and made her the mightiest sovereign in the world. Aye, we fought, and drank, and leched like men in those days, and stood no nonsense from Katinka either. To see her now you'd never realise what a monstrous handsome baggage she was as a young woman, and 'twas a joy to smack her bottom when she got foolish ideas into her pretty head."

"I would that I had been a girl then," Natalia Andreovna remarked. "Life at the time of the coup d'etatmust have been prodigious exciting. Tell us about it, Alexi?"

"You've heard the story often enough," he grumbled; but evidently he enjoyed recalling the bold stroke that had lifted him from a poor soldier to great fortune, "as after very little pressing from Natalia he started off reminiscently.

"I doubt if the conspiracy would ever have taken place had not Peter the Third been a fool, a weakling and a traitor. With all her faults, the Empress Elizabeth was a true Russian, but her nephew was born a German and remained a German all his life. Bringing him here at the age of fourteen and changing his name from Karl Peter Ulric to Peter Feodorovitch did not have the same effect as changing Katinka's name did on her, when she was brought here three years later to marry him. As he grew up he developed a passionate admiration for Frederick the Great. Well, I've nothing against youngsters playing at soldiers, but the men of his bodyguard didn't like it when he put them into Prussian uniforms. They liked it even less during the last years of Elizabeth's reign, when we were at war with Prussia. Yet. worse, as Grand Duke and Heir-Apparent he was a member of the Royal Council, and time and again he used his position to betray our plans."

Orlof spat on the floor in disgust. "In spite of that we had old mar­tinet Frederick rocking on his pins and our armies were on the very point of taking Berlin. Then the Empress died. Without even having the decency to inform his allies in Vienna and Versailles of his intentions, Peter Feodorovitch made-peace; and a shameful peace at that. He bartered the fruits of all the victories won by Russian lives and blood for the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle, and went about proud as a peacock, flaunting it on his chest."

"What a monstrous thing to do," Roger remarked feelingly.

"'Twas indeed," Orlof nodded. "And he disgusted us further by his affair with Elizaveta Romanovna Vorontzoff. It seems that while she was his mistress as Grand Duke, he had promised her that when he came to the throne he would put away Katinka andjmake her Czarina instead. Katinka had been slipping out of one of the palace-windows at night for years past, to go in disguise to Yelaguin's house in order to keep assignations there with Poniatowsky—the fellow she after­wards made King of Poland—so Peter had ample grounds for divorcing her, but he hadn't got the guts. His failure to carry out his promise resulted in some frightful scenes. He and the Vorontzoff used to get drunk together every night, then she used to beat him, and boast about having done so in public afterwards. Well, no one can respect a man who lets his woman beat him, can they?"

"No," agreed Roger, with an amused glance at Natalia Andreovna. "They certainly cannot."

"So naturally all our sympathies gravitated towards Katinka. My brother Gregory had been A.D.C. to Count Peter Schuvalof. While Katinka was still only Grand Duchess the fates decreed that the Count should catch him in bed with the Princess Kurakm; and as she was Schuvalof's mistress he threatened Gregory with Siberia. Katinka got to hear of it; and her curiosity being aroused, she arranged to get a sight of him without his knowledge. One look at his handsome face was enough, and his destination was changed from Siberia to a much warmer spot."

The High Admiral guffawed at his own joke; then went on. "Mark you, Katinka was remarkably circumspect about her amours in those days. She had wearied of Poniatowsky for quite a while and only continued to visit him in order to divert suspicion from her other pranks. Whenever she saw a likely-looking young officer of the Guards she used to tell her woman, Katarina Ivanovna, to arrange matters for her. On some pretext the fellow was persuaded to allow himself to be blindfolded, then he was secretly introduced into her chamber at night. Often enough, if the young man was a stranger to the Court, he went away next morning with a purse full of gold but not the faintest idea whom he had slept with.

"Gregory knew well enough, but he had the sense to keep his mouth shut. In fact, when the Princess Dashkof sounded him, as just the type of bold bravo who would be required if any sword-play was needed to carry through the conspiracy, she was unaware that Katinka had ever set eyes on him. Actually he had been her favourite lover in secret for some months, and he was shrewd enough to see that if she did not get rid of her husband he would eventually screw up the courage to get rid of her."

"Moreover," Natalia put in, "Gregory also knew that once Peter was out of the way he would be able to come out into the open. And you Orlofs have never been slow at seeing where your best interests lay."

"True enough!" cried the Count. "But the little Dashkof was the prime mover in the affair, inspired by the virulent hatred she bore her own sister, Elizaveta Romanovna. The Dashkof was no more than eighteen then, yet so great was her talent for intrigue that she won over to her project, in turn, the Hetman Cyril Razumofsky, Count Nikita Panin and Prince Volkonsky, the major-general commanding the Brigade of Guards. Katinka pretended afterwards that she knew nothing of all this, and 'tis certain that none of these folk were fully aware of the game the others were playing; but 'tis my opinion that she directed the whole business through the Dashkof and, towards the end, my brother."

"Towards the end, too, the conspirators surely met," Natalia inter­posed again, "and in the presence of the Empress. Have I not heard that there was a violent altercation in which the Dashkof and Gregory vowed that once Peter was deposed Katinka must be enthroned as supreme ruler; whereas Nikita Panin stood firmly by his contention that she should act only as Regent for her son, Paul Petrovitch; believ­ing that his post as governor to the boy would then assure him first place in the Empire?"

Orlof tipped the other half of the bottle of brandy into his goblet, and nodded. "Aye, and it looked as if a deadlock had been reached; but the Dashkoff was persuaded to save the situation by her con­fidential secretary, an ambitious Piedmontese named Odart, whom she used as her go-between in the affair. By the grace of St. Nicholas, Panin had fallen in love with her during these secret negotiations. As he had been her mother's lover she believed herself his own daughter; so she was, at first, loath to give way to him. But Odart overcame her scruples, and on Katinka promising that Panin should be her prin­cipal Minister, between them, the two women brought him to heel."

Roger was no puritan himself and accepted the low morality of the age as natural; but even he was shocked by these disclosures which make it ever more apparent that, compared with the licence that reigned in London and Paris, the Court of St. Petersburg was a positive sink of iniquity.

"Yet the time wasted over this wrangle was near our undoing," Orlof continued. "Peter had succeeded to the throne on the 5th of January, 1762, and it was now the first week in July. The breach between the royal couple had reached such dimensions that Peter had banished Katinka from the city with orders to live at Peterhof until his further pleasure; and we feared that any day Elizaveta Romanovna might pre­vail upon him to have her cast into a fortress. My brother, myself, our friend Bibekof and a Lieutenant Passick had steadily been gaining adherents to the plot in the regiments of Guards; but not all of them were trustworthy. So many people were now involved that talk became inevitable. Frederick of Prussia got to hear that there was something in the wind and sent Peter a warning by Baron Goltz. Fortunately Peter was too drunk or lazy to bother about it; but another warning reached him through a French architect named Valois. As a result, Teplof, the Councillor of State, who was one of our number, was arrested."

Orlof paused dramatically, then he gave a great guffaw of laughter. "Would you believe it, that fool of a Czar had not the sense to put Teplof, to the question, so our necks were saved. But we were near undone again. This time by a soldier, one of Passick's people,' who inadvertently gave away our intentions to his Captain. It was nine o'clock at night. Passick was arrested and thrown into a cell; but, realising the desperateness of the situation he managed to get a message out which reached Princess Dashkoff, urging us to act before morning."

Again Orlof paused, then went on more quickly. "Panin came in to keep an assignation with her just as she received the message. His courage did not prove equal to the occasion and. he begged her to await events. Scorning his counsels she changed into man's attire, sent a message to my brother and met him at the Green Bridge over the Moika. Gregory returned to the barracks to prepare the soldiers and to myself allotted the perilous task of going to fetch the Empress.

"She was then living retired in a small summer house called Mon-plaisir on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, at the extremity of the Peterhof gardens. As her lover, Gregory, had the key to it, and on his giving it to me with directions how to find the place, I took two soldiers and we set off hell-for-leather.

"It was two o'clock in the morning before we reached the Peterhof, and I had the devil's own ado to find Katinka's retreat. Knowing nothing of what had passed in the capital, she had long since retired and was sound asleep. Shaking her awake I told her that if she valued her life she had not a moment to lose and must follow me.

"Katinka never lacked for courage, and although she had never set eyes on me before, within five minutes she was up and dressed. Meanwhile my two men had harnessed horses to a coach that the far-sighted little Dashkof had stabled in an outhouse nearby for just such an emergency. No sooner was Katinka in it than I climbed on the box and took the reins myself.

"Stomach of St. Nicholas! How I drove those horsesl Everything depended on Katinka arriving in the Residence and being acclaimed by the guards before our intentions were discovered. But we had twenty-five verststo cover and I overdid the part of Jehu. While we still had a good part of the way to go, the poor beasts foundered and died in their tracks.

"There was nought for it but to walk, and being this season of the year it was as light as day. Poor Katinka feared that at any moment some of Peter's officers might come galloping up on their way to arrest her at Peterhof, and recognising her there upon the road, seize her person. Then, after a while, we met a market-cart. Dispossessing the peasant of it, I put her in it, and on we went again. As we neared the city we suddenly saw a carriage approaching us at full gallop. For a few moments our hearts were in our mouths; but it was Gregory, who had set out to discover what had caused the delay in Katinka's arrival. He paused to shout to her that they only awaited her coming, then turned about and galloped off to prepare for her reception. At last, near dead with suspense and excitement, at seven o'clock in the morning, we entered the city.

"I drove Katinka straight to the quarters of the Ismailofsky guards, and she earned her crown that day—the 9th of July of glorious

memory. Despite her exhausting experiences of the night she addressed the half-clad men with splendid fire and courage; telling them that being in peril of her life she cast herself on their protection. The sight of her beauty and distress melted the hearts of those rough soldiers as nought else could have done. The Chaplain of the regiment fetched the crucifix from the altar of the chapel and everyone of them swore to die in her defence.

"By that time the Simeonofsky and Pr6baginsky guards had heard the news and also declared for her; while Razumofsky, Volkonsky, Stroganof and others had arrived to form a brilliant company about her person. We all proceeded to the church of Kazan. The Archbishop of Novgorod had already been warned and came out with all his priests to receive her. At the high altar he placed the Imperial crown upon her head and proclaimed her Sovereign of All the Russias.

"She then repaired to the old Palace of the Empress Elizabeth. There Panin brought her son to her, for 'twas on the excuse of assuring the succession to little Paul Petrovitch that the revolution had been carried through. She took him out on to the balcony and showed him to the people, whose plaudits redoubled in the behef that they were acclaiming their future Emperor. We had put it about the city that Peter had planned to put them both to death that very day, and 'twas that which raised so great an indignation among the populace as to counteract all thoughts of resistance. By nightfall of that glorious day we had fifteen thousand picked troops sworn to obey Katinka and the whole city was in our hands with not one drop of blood spilled."

As Orlof paused, at last, and took another gulp of brandy, Roger asked: "What part did Prince Potemkin play in these stirring events?"

The High Admiral shrugged his massive shoulders. "None, worth the telling. He was but an ensign in the horseguards at the time, and if you have heard his name mentioned in connection with the coup d'etat'twas but as the result of an incident that has been made too much of since. When we had made certain of the city Katinka dressed herself in the uniform of a guards officer and rode out to review the troops. One-eye was sharp enough to notice that she had no plume in her hat, so he galloped up and offered her his; but for the next eight years she scarce looked at him again."

"And what of the Czar Peter, all this time?"

"He and his mistress had been drinking themselves stupid for some weeks at the palace of Oranienbaum, which lies some distance further along the Gulf than Peterhof. On the morning of the coup d'etatthey set out to return to the latter place, as Peter was expected to participate in the celebration of the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul there on the following day. As they were approaching their destination they were met by a Chamberlain on his way to inform the Czar that the Czarina had escaped during the night. Peter was alarmed, but lacked the will to take any action.

"In the afternoon tidings of what was ocoirring in the city reached him from a French barber, who had sent his servant with a message.

Peter was urged by Gudovitch his A.D.C. and the veteran Marshal Munich to call up his three thousand Holsteiners from Oranienbaum and advance upon the' Residence; but he was too frightened to take their advice.

"They then advised him to throw himself into the fortress of Cronstadt and secure the fleet, with which he might yet have reduced Peters­burg. Again, he vacillated, but at length was persuaded to put off for the island in his yacht. Fortunately for us he arrived half an hour too late. Admiral Taliezin had just landed there and secured the place for Katinka; and the Admiral threatened to sink the yacht if Peter attempted to come ashore.

"Marshal Munich then urged him to sail down the coast to Reval, take ship for Pomerania and put himself at the head of the army that he had assembled there for the reconquest of his native province of Holstein; then return with it and subdue his rebellious subjects. Once more he could not bring himself to act like a man. Instead, he took refuge in the cabin of the yacht and mingled his tears with those of the Vorontzoff and other women who were in the party. With his tail between his legs, he put back for Oranienbaum.

"At six o'clock that evening Katinka again mounted her horse. With a drawn sword in her hand and a wreath of oak leaves about her brow, she led us out of Petersburg to defeat and subjugate her husband. But we were not called upon to fight. At the news of her approach, twice in the space of a few hours Peter wrote to her; in the first case offering to rule jointly with her, in the second begging her to let him retire peaceably to Holstein and grant him a pension. She disdained to reply to either missive.

"Even at the eleventh hour old Marshal Munich urged him again to fight or fly, but he was too irresolute to do either. Katinka sent the Chamberlain Ismailof to him. Ismailof persuaded him to get into a carriage, drive to Peterhof, and there make an abject surrender. He was stripped of his Orders and Panin made him sign an act of abdication. Then, on the evening of the second day, he was taken under guard some twenty verststo the royal villa at Ropcha; and that was the end of the matter."

"No, no!" cried Natalia Andreovna. "Tell us the rest of the story. Tell us how he diedl"

Orlof belched, loudly. "There is nought to tell. He died of a bloody flux six days later, on the 17th of July, 1762."

. "Fiddlesticks!" she retorted with a sneer. "The official account of his death declared it due to piles, but no one ever believed that."

"It served well enough, and I've nought to add to it," he said sullenly.

"You were there when he died," she insisted. "Come now! Tell the truth and shame the Devil." '.

It was now well past one in the morning. Since six o'clock Natalia had indulged her taste for heady wines at frequent intervals, and in the past hour she had put away the best part of a bottle of champagne.

From the glitter of her green eyes and the flush on her thin cheeks Roger knew that she was three-parts drunk. Orlof, now lurching across the table, was very drunk indeed; and Roger himself felt far from sober. But he was sober enough to fear that the other two were about to enter on a violent quarrel, and made an effort to prevent it.

"I give not a damn how Czar Peter died," he declared roundly. "But I'm mightily obliged to your Excellency for your first-hand account of so enthralling a piece of history."

Natalia ignored him and leaning forward focussed her eyes on Orlof. "Go on, Alexi," she muttered. "You told me about it once before. Tell me again how you and Teplof strangled him."

Orlof jerked himself back and, his muscles tensed, snatched up his heavy goblet. Roger half rose, from the conviction that the drunken giant meant to hurl it in her face; but suddenly Orlof relaxed, set the goblet down, and gave a low laugh:

"Since you know how things went already, what's the odds? Katinka appointed the brothers Baratinsky to be his gaolers out at Ropcha. She had meant to keep him a prisoner, but the excitement of July the 9th had swept the troops off their feet, and a few days later a reaction set in. It was clear that if Peter Feodorovitch were dead no counter revolution could be launched in his favour. So Katinka sent Teplof and myself out there to see him."

"And then?" whispered Natalia Andreovna, eagerly.

"We asked permission to dine with him. Poison was put in the wine that he was offered before dinner. He drank it and was almost instantly seized with an acute colic. We urged him to drink some more of the wine and thus make a quick finish. But, a coward to the end, he refused. I threw him to the floor and Teplof twisted a table-napkin round his neck. We pulled it tight. Thus died a weakling and a traitor."

"May God have mercy on your soul!" muttered Roger, shocked into the exclamation by this barefaced confession to most brutal murder.

Orlof swung upon him. "Keep your prayers for those who need them, boy! I was but a soldier executing orders. If pray you must, pray for the Empress, who sent me to do her husband's business."

"I'll not believe it!" cried Natalia Andreovna. "Katinka has too mild a nature to initiate such a crime. 'Twas Gregory and you others who decreed in secret that Pater Feodorovitch must die, from knowing that as long as he lived your own necks would be in jeopardy."

"Aye, he had to die!" shouted Orlof. "But 'twas the Empress who gave the order!"

"You're lying."

"I am not. 'Tis as I tell you."

As they glared at one another across the table Roger felt certain that next second they would fly at one another's throats. But once again he was mistaken. Orlof suddenly kicked his chair from under him, lurched to his feet, and staggered across the room.

"I'll prove it!" he cried, pressing his great thumbs against two carved rosettes in a heavy oak bureau. "May St. Nicholas strike me dead, if I don't prove to you that Teplof and I did no more than play the part of executioners."

The hidden locks of the bureau sprang back under the pressure and it opened. Roger saw him jab his thumb again against an interior panel low down on the right, and a door slid back disclosing a secret cavity. For a few moments Orlof rummaged in it muttering angrily. "Where is the accursed thing? I've not set eyes on it these ten years past; but I'll swear 'tis here somewhere. Aye! This is it!"

Turning he slammed a piece of yellowed parchment down on the table in front of Natalia Andreovna. Roger peered over her shoulder and saw that it was a brief letter signed "Katerina Alexeyevna." The note was addressed to Prince Baratinsky, the text was in German, and it ran:

A new crisis menaces our authority and life. Therefore we have this day determined on sending Alexi Orlof and Teplof to have speech with the person whom you have in keeping. They have orders not to return until they can hail us with the cry "Live long, Czarina."

For a moment Roger was puzzled by the last sentence; then he recalled having heard that on the death of a Russian sovereign it was customary for those who brought the news to his successor to break it by using those words in salutation.

He had hardly grasped the full significance of the note when he caught the sound of running feet outside on the landing. Next second a dishevelled officer burst into the room. Flinging himself on his knees before the High Admiral the breathless intruder panted:

" 'Tis war, Excellency! 'Tis war! Gustavus of Sweden has landed at Helsingfors with an army of forty-thousand men, and is advancing on Petersburg."

"Ten thousand devils!" bellowed Orlof.

Natalia Andreovna sprang to her feet, and cried: "I feared as much, although my father would not listen to me! With our armies dispersed all over Southern Russia what hope have we of saving the Residence from that treacherous toad!"

Orlof seemed to have suddenly sobered up. Snatching the parch­ment from the table, he threw it among the jumble of papers in the bureau and snapped down the lid. With his heavily-pouched eyes showing something of their old fire he turned upon her. "We still have the Fleet. St. Nicholas be praised that its sailing for the Mediterranean was delayed. It may prove our salvation yet!"

Next moment he had grabbed up a great jewelled scimitar and brandishing it above his head ran from the room shouting at the top of his voice in a jumble of French, German and Russian. "To arms! To arms! Find me Admiral Greig! Every man to his post! To arms! To arms! We are attacked!"

The officer who had brought the news, Natalia and Roger all followed him at the run. Halfway across the landing Roger halted in his tracks and shouted to his mistress. "I left my snuff-box on the table. Don't wait for me. I'll get it and be with you again in one moment."

Swinging round he dashed back into the High Admiral's foul-smelling den, went straight to the bureau and pressed the two rosettes, just as Orlof had done. The lid flew open. In frantic haste he searched among the papers. Suddenly his eye fell upon the note that Orlof had produced. Thrusting it into his pocket, he snapped down the lid again and ran to join the others.

The impulse to steal the document had come to him on the spur of the moment. It had suddenly flashed upon him that it was probably the only existing proof in the world that Catherine II was a mur­deress; and had deliberately ordered the assassination of her husband. As such it was a State paper of incalculable value. Yet he also knew that if the theft were discovered and the paper found in his possession death under the knout would be his portion.

CHAPTER xv

T H E P L 0 T

A T the bottom of the staircase Roger caught up with Natalia. The scene had changed since they had come upon Orlof sitting there an hour and a half earlier. The long rooms were less crowded, the more respect­able guests having gone home, but hundreds of people were still dancing and feasting, the great majority of them now obviously the worse for liquor. The veneer of civilisation symbolised by the minuets, gavottes and quadrilles, danced while the Empress had been present, had been replaced by Tsardas, mazurkasand wild Russian country-dances; here and there men lying dead-drunk on the floor and couples were embracing openly in nearly every corner.

Towering head and shoulders above the crowd, the giant High Admiral was running through it, bellowing for the bands to stop and beating the drunks he came upon into some sensibility with blows from the flat of his scimitar. Within five minutes the revelry had ceased only to be replaced by panic, as the drunken mob, believing the Swedes to be at the very gates of the city, began to fight its way towards the doors.

Roger kept Natalia well back out of the press. After some twenty minutes it eased; a number of fainting women were carried back into the palace, and they were able to get out into the street. Having found her coach he took her home and it then carried him on to his lodging. He was now feeling cold and stale-tight from the amount of neat brandy he had drunk on top of a wide variety of wines; but little Zaria was, as usual, warming his bed for him, and, tumbling into it, he soon drifted off into a troubled sleep.

When he got up and went out the following morning he found the city in a tumult. Everyone knew that North Russia was entirely denuded of troops, except for a few battalions of the Imperial Guard, and it seemed that short of an abject surrender by the Empress to any terms that Gustavus might dictate there was no way of preventing his army from taking and sacking St. Petersburg.

It occurred to Roger that, since he was posing as a Frenchman, it might be thought odd if, at such a time of crisis, he did not place himself at the disposal of the French Embassy. On calling there he found a crowd of excited Frenchmen gathered round their Ambassador, who, it transpired, had returned from his fishing trip only the day before. The Comte de Segur proved to be a young man still in his twenties. He received Roger very affably and they discoursed for a little on their mutual acquaintances, then he remarked: "In the present emergency, Chevalier, you are no doubt anxious to place your sword at the disposal of the Empress?"

Actually there were few things that Roger was less anxious to do than get himself sent to the front just when his introduction to the Court had opened a good prospect of getting to grips with his mission; but in those days, when all armies had large numbers of foreign officers in them, it was as natural to expect visitors who happened to be in a threatened city to participate in its defence as it is now for a house­holder to expect his male guests to assist him in catching a burglar.

Faced with this dilemma Roger swiftly evaded the issue by reply­ing: "It so happened, Comte, that I was with Admiral Orlof last night when the news of the invasion reached him, and I am in hopes that he may find some employment for me."

"I am delighted to hear it," replied the young Ambassador. "And, since you tell me that you have already been presented, you will doubt­less now frequent the Court until you hear further from him."

Roger readily agreed to the suggestion, although not for the reason it was given; and offered to make one of Monsieur de Segur's suite should he be going there that evening. The Cbmte accepted the offer, so later that day Roger found himself one of a company of some dozen Frenchmen who set out in a small cavalcade of coaches for the Imperial Palace at Peterhof.

The Empress, perhaps feeling the need of her most intimate possessions round her, had moved on that day of crisis to her quarters in the Hermitage, and had announced the holding of a special court there for that night. This suite of so-called private apartments was in fact little less than a palace itself, as it consisted of a splendid pavilion containing many reception as well as living-rooms, an art-gallery, a library, various cabinets for the display of her collections of porcelain and coins, and a spacious winter-garden; the whole being connected with the main palace by a covered passage over an archway.

As Natalia Andreovna had, for the first time, failed to visit Roger that afternoon, he was all the more eager to see her; and he had hardly entered the main salon in company with de Segur when his desire was gratified by catching sight of her among a bevy of beauties behind Catherine's armchair.

A master of ceremonies having announced the Ambassador, the crowd gave way and he advanced to make his bow. The Empress gave him her hand to kiss and asked at once: "Since you are just arrived from the Residence, Monsieur, tell us what the people there are talking?"

"They say that your Majesty is preparing to seek refuge in Moscow," he returned at once.

Her fat little body bridled and her blue eyes flashed. "I trust then that you did not believe it. 'Tis true that we have ordered great numbers of post-horses to be kept in readiness, but only for the purpose of bringing up soldiers and cannon."

The Empress's words, Roger soon found, were the keynote of the evening. Gustavus's unprovoked aggression had caught her napping. There were plenty of defeatists round her who counselled a flight to the ancient capital of Russia, but she would not listen to a word of such talk. She had given orders for the mobilisation of every man available, even the convalescents in the hospitals, and the police. Couriers had been sent post-haste in every direction to summon such skeleton garrisons as had been left within five hundred miles of St. Petersburg; and she meant to remain, to fight the invader on the frontier with every resource she could command.

Roger quickly made his way to Natalia, and, as the room grew ever more crowded with people arriving to proclaim their devotion to the throne, she pointed out many of the most interesting.

Among them, Count Cobentzel, the immensely rich and very able Ambassador of Catherine's ally, Joseph II of Austria; old General Sprengtporten, the Finnish nationalist leader who had aided Gustavus III to become an autocratic .monarch, then quarrelled with him and come to Russia in the hope of persuading the Empress to champion the discontented Finns against their Swedish sovereign; and another exile, Prince Alexander Mauro-Cordato, Hospidar of Moldavia, who had sided with the Russians in their quarrel with the Turks as the most likely means of securing independence for his Rumanians.

Roger talked for some while with the last in Latin, and as a result of it formed an entirely new view of the then little-known Balkan country from which the Prince came. He had believed it to be even more barbarous than Russia, but learned that the Prince claimed direct descent from a Roman Emperor, and that in spite of three centuries of Ottoman oppression the Rumanian nobility still main­tained the culture and traditions of the Greeco-Roman civilisation. Mauro-Cordato told him that his library contained many ancient works of the greatest interest that had never reached the western world, and said that when he was restored to his capital of Jassy he would be delighted if Roger would pay him a visit there.

By contrast with this charming Balkan potentate Roger found Bobrinsky, Catherine's natural son by Gregory Orlof, uncouth and barbarous. So too, were her legitimate grandsons, Alexander and Constantine. The latter had been so named, and received a Greek education, owing to her ambition to revive the ancient empire of Byzan­tium and place him on its throne; but both the boys were insufferably conceited and ill-mannered, having been abominably spoiled by her and ruined by bad tutors pandering to their vices.

Their father, the Grand Duke Paul Petrovitch, struck Roger as being of a much quieter and more amiable disposition. The heir to the Imperial throne was now thirty-four years of age, but his mother still kept him very much in the background and he lived in semi-retirement. Only the invasion crisis had brought him and his wife to court on this occasion, and Natalia Andreovna said of him:

"He takes after his father in that he is a great admirer of the Prussians, and spends much of his time training his regiment in their barrack-square evolutions. He and his wife are very devoted to one another, and I should think, the only couple in the whole court who have remained faithful to their marriage-vows. She was a Princess of Wurttemberg, and is of a very different nature from her predecessor. His first wife was Wilhelmina, the youngest of the three Hesse-Darmstadt girls, and she had a great taste for gallantry. My father became her lover. The Empress found them out and packed him off as her Minister to the two Sicilys; but the Queen of Naples then became his mistress, so he lost nothing by the exchange."

Suddenly rapping Roger's arm with her fan, she went on: "Hist! I have just caught the Grand Duke's eye, and will present you to him."

Neither the Grand Duke's features nor his manner were impressive. Above a long upper-lip he had a silly little retrousse nose and a pair of rather prominent brown eyes; he spoke with the jerkiness of a shy man who is called upon to display an air of authority for which he is quite unsuited. After asking Roger a few questions about himself, he said:

"I have just obtained Her Majesty's permission to take my regi­ment to the front. If you are not already engaged elsewhere I should be happy to number you among my military household."

Caught properly this time, there was nothing that Roger could do but bow and render thanks for the honour done him. Later that even­ing he learned its cause. Catherine, true to her policy of never taking any step which might bring her son into the public eye, had refused him the command of the emergency army that was being got together for the defence of St. Petersburg. Instead, all her great Captains, Romantzof, Repnin, Suvarof, Kamenskoi and Soltikof, being away at the Turkish war serving under Prince Potemkin, she had given the command to a comparatively inexperienced general named Mouschin-Pouskin. Smarting under the humiliation of being made to play second fiddle to this almost untried commander, the Grand Duke had deter­mined to outshine him by the size and brilliance of his personal entourage; so he was recruiting everyone he could to it as swiftly as possible.

Roger was intensely annoyed at the turn affairs had taken, but the following morning he looked to his weapons and duly presented him­self at Paul Petrovitch's temporary headquarters. There, he soon saw, from the number of gentlemen assembled, that his duties would be entirely nominal and consist of no more than making one of a showy cavalcade whenever the Grand Duke chose to ride forth to battle.

For a while they all stood about watching the military-minded Prince bark orders at his troops like a Prussian drill-sergeant, then the majority of them dispersed to go about their own business.

That afternoon Natalia Andreovna brought the news that Alexis Orlof, feeling old and tired, had had the good sense voluntarily to surrender his right to command the Fleet so that the Empress might vest it in Admiral Greig; and that at that moment the gallant Scots­man was preparing to take it to sea. It sailed that evening, to the great relief of the citizens of St. Petersburg, who felt that in it lay their only real chance of protection.

For the next few days Roger danced attendance on the Grand Duke, while a vast amount of baggage was being got together, and exercised a fine bay mare which Natalia had presented to him to carry him in the campaign. Then on the 8th of July, he was warned to be ready to set out the following day. He had a last hectic meeting with his green-eyed mistress, and did his best to comfort little Zaria, by telling her that he hoped to return soon so he was keeping on his rooms, and that she could remain there in the care of Dr. Drenke. On Monday, the 9th, to much blowing of trumpets and banging of drums, he made one of the brave company which rode out with Paul Petrovitch to the war.

They had no great distance to cover, and on the third day pitched an elaborate camp, from which it was proposed to. operate against the Swedes. So far there had been no pitched-battle, only a number of skirmishes to secure frontier defiles, in most of which the Swedes had had the best of it. The people on both, sides of the frontier were pro-Russian, so fairly reliable reports were constantly coming in about the .invading army.

It appeared that Gustavus had arrived at Sveaborg with sixteen ships of the line, five large frigates and a great fleet of war-galleys specially designed for operating in the shallow waters among the coastal islands. Rumour had it that he had intended to march direct upon the considerable town of Frederikshamn, but had been delayed by difficulty in landing his artillery. In consequence, having now lost the chance of taking the place by surprise, he proposed to attack it from both sides simultaneously, and was waiting for his fleet to come up to seaward of it.

Roger had never yet participated in any military campaign so, annoyed as he was at having to leave the Court within a few days of securing the entree to it, he felt that he would at least be compen­sated by the excitement of seeing his first battle; but his hopes were doomed to disappointment. The nervy, narrow-minded little Grand Duke proved to be no more than a parade-ground soldier. Instead of seeking out the enemy he spent his days playing the petty martinet, inspecting and drilling his troops, and inflicting savage punishments on them for such slight misdemeanours as appearing with dirty buttons. Roger soon became extremely bored, but as he was technically on active service he could think of no possible excuse which would justify him in asking leave to return to St. Petersburg.

On the 18th of July news came through that a great sea-battle had taken place the previous evening. At five o'clock in the afternoon while cruising off the island of Hogland, Admiral Greig had come across the Swedish fleet half-hidden by a fog-bank. A most bloody encounter ensued, which for a time had to be broken off from mutual exhaustion; but at eight o'clock Admiral Greig received reinforcements and attacked again. The fog had increased to such a degree that few of the ship's companies Were aware of what was going on except in their immediate vicinity, and the deadly carnage continued with groups of two or three ships fighting isolated duels to a finish.

Both sides claimed a victory, but in the course of a few days it emerged that Achniral Greig had scored a great triumph, as he succeeded in driving the remains of the Swedish fleet into Sveaborg, and declared himself confident of being able to keep them bottled up there for the remainder of the campaign.

Meanwhile it became clear that, having taken a few small towns, Gustavus had no intention of advancing further until he had reduced Frederikshamn. The immediate threat to St. Petersburg having been removed, General Mouschin-Pouskin showed no inclination to give battle, and informed the Grand Duke that he was not to risk his troops for the time being. Paul Petrovitch regarded this as a fresh insult, and, evidently having no stomach for the more active part that he might be called on to play later, seized on it as an excuse to resign his little command. To Roger's great delight, on the 28th of the month the camp was packed up, and on the 30th, he accompanied the Grand Duke ingloriously back to St. Petersburg.

The only thing he had gained from his three weeks of abortive campaigning was the somewhat disquieting knowledge that, should he have the good luck to gain any special intelligence which might prove of value to King Gustavus, it would be no easy matter for him to get through with it to the Swedish lines. On numerous occasions he had ridden out with reconnaissance parties, and each time they had approached one of the comparatively few ways of ingress through the exceptionally marshy and difficult country into Swedish Finland, they had found it guarded by a strong outpost with orders to turn everyone back. In addition the woods and fens were patrolled by sotniasof wild Cossacks, who were apt to give short shrift to anyone they suspected of attempting to go over to the Swedes.

That these precautions were well justified Roger learned on his return to St. Petersburg. Apparently Gustavus was having considerable trouble with his army. It was said that, to justify his unconstitutional act in going to war without having first obtained the consent of his Riksdag, he had dressed up a lot of Finnish peasants in Russian uni­forms, caused them to fire upon his troops, then fired upon them in return; afterwards declaring that Russia had attacked Finland and he was within his rights in waging a defensive war.

This measure of the crafty King had not fooled his own officers, and many of the nobility among them were reported to have expressed their disapproval of the war in the strongest terms; while others, particularly from the Finnish regiments, had deserted and come over to the Russians.

On the other hand many of the Russians also displayed little inclination to fight; and after his successful action off Sveaborg Admiral Greig had sent three of his Russian captains back to Cronstadt in irons, charged with deliberately mishandling their ships in order to evade coming to action. Thus, cowardice and treachery being feared by the commanders on both sides, special measures were being taken to prevent traitors communicating with the enemy.

The only land-route from Helsingfors to Stockholm being well over a thousand miles, and a great part of it through almost trackless moun­tains, Gustavus was now completely cut off from his base. This new development provided a good reason for him to offer the Empress an accommodation, and he did so, but not with any desire for peace. He was clever enough to see that in whatever terms he made it the fact of its rejection would serve to strengthen his hand with his dis­contented officers, and he took care that its conditions should be entirely unacceptable, even demanding that Russia should disarm until the conclusion of the treaty.

Natalia Andreovna told Roger that the Empress was so furious when she received it that she had exclaimed: "What language! If the King of Sweden were already at Moscow I should even then show him what a woman is able to do, standing on the ruins of a mighty empire."

Her only reply was to replace the inept Mouschin-Pouskin with the more active General Mikhelson, who promptly attacked a strong Swedish post at Savolax and won a somewhat costly victory.

Gustavus, feeling that he had already lingered over-long at Frederikshamn now determined to take the town by assault. Embark­ing some half of his troops into galleys, he sent them to the far side of the bay under General Siegeroth with orders that when they had landed and were ready to attack, the General should fire a cannon, upon which both forces would hurl themselves upon the enemy.

After some difficulty with contrary winds Siegeroth carried out the manoeuvre and fired his cannon. It proved a signal for the most bitter humiliation of the unfortunate King. He had already placed himself at the head of his troops and was about to give the order to charge when a Colonel Hesteko and a number of other officers rode up to him.

The Colonel declared firmly that it was wrong for His Majesty to expose his own life and that of his subjects for such an unjustifiable cause, and that he and his friends refused to be .a party to it.

In vain the King upbraided the group as cowards. Then, turning to the troops he appealed to them in Swedish to follow him without their officers. Not a man would budge, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he prevailed upon them not to lay down their arms there and then.

Gustavus, far from home, the major part of his fine fleet destroyed, his lines of communication cut and his army in a state of sullen mutiny, now seemed in a desperate situation; and as tidings of the parlous state to which he had so swiftly been reduced drifted through to St. Peters­burg, Roger became extremely worried.

It was not that he felt any particular attachment to the Swedish King, although he had a considerable admiration for his courage. Moreover his personal sympathies naturally inclined towards the Russians, both because they had been attacked without justification or warning and owing to their ready acceptance of him in their midst as a friend and comrade. Yet he knew well enough that far deeper issues were involved. However unprincipled Gustavus might be, he was fight­ing Britain's battle. He alone among the Princes of the North had had the insight to see that unless a check could be put upon Catherine's lust for power, she would subjugate the whole of Scandinavia. Mr. Pitt had foreseen that the rise of the mighty Russian Empire now constituted a new menace to all Europe and had specifically laid it down that, unless Catherine could be induced to enter into a pact for the maintenance of lasting peace, no effort must be spared to assist those who were prepared to challenge Russian aggrandisement.

Apart from the Grand Turk, who was merely endeavouring to defend himself, Gustavus was the only monarch who had dared to defy the growing might of the unscrupulous Muscovites, and Roger knew that it was his duty to aid him if it were in any way possible to do so. The trouble was that he could think of no means by which anyone in his position could conceivably lessen the plight in which the Swedish King had landed himself.

In due proportion to the decline in Gustavus's fortunes, Catherine's elation soared. She had now succeeded in mustering twenty thousand men, and in view of the semi-mutinous state of the Swedish army, could consider St. Petersburg safe from attack by land as well as by sea. Moreover, with the' truly maternal desire not to hazard the lives of her soldiers needlessly, and the brilliant generalship which was one of her many gifts, she had been swift to seize upon the possibility of rendering further fighting redundant by causing Gustavus's own sub­jects to bring about his final destruction. To this end she sent secret agents to put certain proposals before her enemy's rebellious officers, and issued fresh orders that deserters from the Swedish army were now to be encouraged and allowed to pass through the Russian lines.

The result was that in mid-August a deputation of Finns, represent­ing a considerable body of Gustavus's mutinous troops, arrived in St. Petersburg.

Since his return from the front Roger had assiduously attended all Court functions and exercised his social talents to cultivate the acquaintance of as many influential people as possible; so he was now au courantwith all the general gossip of the day. But he still relied mainly on Natalia Andreovna to supply him with the more intimate tid-bits which were let drop by the Empress when she was alone with her ladies. It was, therefore, from Natalia that he learned of the arrival of the Finnish deputation and that it was headed by Count Yagerhorn.

As it was not always easy for Natalia to drive as far as St. Petersburg in the afternoons to visit Roger at his lodgings, they sometimes met at the Krasnoe-Kabac, some eight verstsoutside the city. The place was a small red-painted inn with a pleasant garden, where tables were set in creeper-covered arbours giving a welcome seclusion to couples who wished to dine in private and afterwards linger there in amorous dalliance. It was a favourite haunt of the rich bourgeois of the city on Sundays, but on weekdays was usually almost deserted. They had dined there off sturgeon and a well-hung reindeer-steak, and were well into their second bottle of wine when Natalia told Roger about the Finns.

He said nothing for a moment, but his mind instantly quickened with the most lively emotions. He was far from having forgotten his last meeting with Count Yagerhorn, and had sworn to himself that sooner or later he would get even with him.

At first sight, the Count's arrival in St. Petersburg seemed to present a most welcome opportunity, but on turning the matter over in his mind, Roger realised that as duelling was contrary to custom in Russia, it was unlikely that his enemy would accept a challenge, and that, owing to the vigilance of the night-watch, it would be highly perilous to waylay him in the street and force a fight upon him.

Natalia broke in upon his thoughts. "Will you give me an extra long kiss if I tell you what you are thinking? 'Tis how you can revenge yourself on Erik Yagerhorn for the beating that he gave you."

He laughed. " 'Twas easy to guess, but you shall have your kiss and more like it as soon as we have finished this dish of creamed rowanberries. Tell me, what are your feelings now towards the Count?"

"I have none," she shrugged. "You know as well as I that-you have made me love you to distraction. There is no place in my heart for other lovers, old or new. Should it be your wish I will aid you to settle your score with him. But you must have a care how you set about it, for as a semi-official Ambassador he will be under the special protection of the Empress."

Knowing Natalia to be an habitual liar, Roger took most of her statements with a grain of salt, but for once he thought she was giving true expression to her feelings. He knew that since he had adopted Russian methods with her he now represented in her eyes the best combined qualities of east and west, which it would have been difficult for her to find in another lover; and he was as certain as any man could be that she was faithful to him. Moreover, any project of revenge was calculated to appeal to the vicious streak in her nature.

"You are an enchantress," he said, after a moment. "And since you could offer me no better proof of your love, I accept it. 'Tis certain that you will see the Count, so I would have you renew your old friendship with him. Mark you, 'tis far from my mind that you should once more become his mistress, and did I catch you out as having pleasured him I would beat you till you are black and blue. But make it appear that you have pleasant memories of your former intercourse, and lead him on to hope that you will give him an assignation."

Her green eyes brightened with amusement. "I take your thought; and when I eventually grant it to him 'twill be you that he will find tucked up in bed, instead of myself. So be it then; I make only one stipulation. I must be there hid behind a curtain to see the fun."

Roger readily agreed and they both laughed heartily at the thought of the Count's discomfiture.

In the ten days that followed Natalia kept him informed both of the progress of this intrigue and the Empress's negotiations with the Finns. It seemed that a deadlock had been reached, as the deputation was divided into two factions. Both were prepared to turn their arms against Gustavus if Catherine would give them her support by prosecuting the war more vigorously; but one group demanded com­plete independence for Finland as tile price of their treachery, while the other, led by Count Yagerhorn, was willing to see their country a Russian province provided only that she would assist them to expel the Swedes. Meanwhile Natalia had found it easy to enmesh Yagerhorn in her toils again, and he was pressing her ardently for a private meet­ing.

On the afternoon of Monday, the 27th of August, while she was visiting Roger at his lodgings, she said to him: "The plum is ripe for the picking when you have a mind to it. No sooner did I show him that I was not averse to his attentions than he naturally assumed that I would be willing to resume our old relations. He has taken my excuses in good part so far, but it will soon become difficult for me to find adequate ones with which to fob him off much longer."

Roger grinned. "I should have realised how swiftly your charms would madden any man who had once known you, and have prepared a plan already. As it is I pray you keep him dangling for a day or two yet, while I work out the details."

"So be it then, Roje" Christorovitch, but delay not too long, for the affair of the Finns will shortly reach a crisis; and once a decision is taken they may hasten back to their own country."

He looked up quickly. "How so? What new development has taken place to precipitate their reaching an agreement?"

" 'Tis the Danes," she said softly. "But I beg you speak of it to no one, for 'tis still a State secret of the highest order. I learned it only because the Empress must have forgotten that she had left me in a closet adjacent to her room last night, while she received Bezborodko. She had set me to read through some papers concerning the hospital she established a few years back to which women of all classes can go in secret for the treatment of certain diseases. I was to report to her upon them, but I heard every word that was said. It seems that when she ceded her deceased husband's patrimony of Holstein to the Danes in exchange for the little duchies of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, in '73, there was a secret clause in the treaty by which Denmark bound herself to come to Russia's assistance should she be attacked by Sweden."

Roger's mind flashed back to his talks with Mr. Hugh Elliot the previous April in Copenhagen. This was the very thing that shrewd diplomat had suspected; but for something of the sort, Catherine appeared to have made such a poor bargain.

Leaning towards him, Natalia Andreovna went on in a whisper: "Last month the Empress called on the Danes to honour their bond, and they have now agreed to do so. As soon as their preparations are completed they intend to declare war on Sweden."

With a swift glance at the thin, clever face so near to his own, Roger took her up. "And your conclusion is, that now the Empress knows that she can count upon the Danes she can tell these Finnish rebels that she no longer requires their aid; or will accept it only on her own terms of Finland becoming a Russian province?"

Natalia nodded. "You have it. So they will be forced to say yea or nay within the next few days. But Her Majesty and Bezborodko agreed that not even the Finns should be told what lies behind the ultimatum; so that the Danish attack on Sweden may come as a com­plete surprise, and prove the more deadly. I entreat you, therefore, not even to hint it to another soul."

"Be easy; no one in Petersburg shall learn of it from me," he assured her with swift duplicity. His mind was now working fast and furiously. It was just such advance information of coming events that Mr. Pitt had sent him to Russia to get. He must send a despatch that night via Mr. Tooke and the British Embassy, although the chances were against it reaching Whitehall before the Danes had acted, or their intention of doing so was an open secret. But, far more important, King Gustavus must be warned, because he was so intimately concerned in it. These tidings could hardly be less welcome to a man already in such a difficult situation, and Roger did not see what the Swedish King could do to counter this new threat. Still, that was beside the point. Good or ill, the news must be got to him with the least possible delay.

As Roger wondered how he could get a message to Gustavus, he recalled Natalia having told him some days earlier that, in order to win the confidence of the Finnish deputation and show them how strong she was, the Empress had ordered that all its members should be given laisser passer, which would allow them to pass all military posts at will. It then occurred to him that Count Yagerhorn would be carrying such a pass, and that if he could entrap the Count he could not only give him a good beating, but also take it off him, thus killing two birds with one stone. Armed with the pass he should find no difficulty in getting through the Russian lines, and once in Swedish-held territory, he could himself carry the vital news to Gustavus.

"You are right about Yagerhorn," he murmured. "If we delay further he. may slip through our fingers. Think you that to-morrow evening you could get leave of absence?"

Natalia smiled. "I am in personal attendance only every fourth night, so that should not be difficult."

"Then I suggest that you do so, and give the Count his assignation. Tell him that a discreet friend has lent you a lodging off the Nevski, and that you intend to pass the night there under the name of—let us say—Madame Zabof. The apartment, of course, will be my own. You can come there at any hour you wish and I will warn the landlord that a stranger will inquire for you, and that he is to say nothing of my presence but show the fellow up."

"I could get leave for the evening but not for the night," replied Natalia. "I have told you oft enough that the Empress insists on all her ladies-in-waiting sleeping at Peterhof."

"I have had frequent cause to curse the rule for depriving me of your company," he agreed, "yet hoped that for once you might get a dis­pensation from it."

"Nay, 'tis impossible. But no matter; I can gain admission by the , side door of the palace at any hour up to midnight. There will be ample time to settle Erik Yagerhorn's business before I have to leave you."

Roger was still thinking quickly, and said: "I am all the more sorry that you will be unable to spend the night with me; in that, after to­morrow evening, I shall not see you for a few days. I have accepted an invitation to go fishing on Lake Ladoga."

"With whom?" she asked sharply.

"Monsieur de Ste. Croix," he lied, naming an elderly Frenchman who rarely came to Court. "The trip is but for three days. I leave on Wednesday morning, and expect to be back by Friday night."

"Why did you not tell me of this before?"

"Because the invitation was offered to me only this morning!"

Her green eyes narrowed. "I believe you intend to deceive me and have invented this expedition in order to be free of me for a while, so that you can amuse yourself with another woman."

For a second he was on the point of conforming to the Russian code that he had adopted towards her since they left Sweden, by giving her a good slap and telling her to mind her own business; but he thought better of it. To do so would quell her complaints but leave her still suspicious, and he did not want her to start inquiring into his movements while he was away. So he brushed her accusation aside with a laugh, and said:

"I pray you use that good brain of yours, my beautiful Natalia Andreovna. Since you must perforce always occupy your bed in the palace, I could sleep with a different woman every night and you know nothing of it. But, having you for a mistress, none but a fool would waste himself in such infidelities, and I trust that there are as yet no signs that I am wanting in my wits."

She smiled and kissed him. "You are right, my handsome one. I've enough experience of men to tell when they liave begun to cheat me, from a falhng-off of their ardour. Go then to your fishing, and may you have good sport. To-morrow I will be at your lodging by four o'clock, so order a good dinner to be sent up, and I'll bid Eric Yagerhorn to rendezvous with me there at seven. His discomfiture will provide us with a most diverting dessert."

Immediately Roger got back to his apartment he wrote a lengthy despatch, giving his impressions of the Russian Court and ending with the news that the Danes were preparing to intervene in the Russo-Swedish war.

The following morning he carried it round to the Reverend William Tooke, who promised to arrange for its transmission to London with the minimum of delay.

He then set about his preparations for the culmination of his plot against Count Yagerhorn and his projected journey into Finland. At the pastrycook's he ordered an excellent meal to send to his lodgings that afternoon. He also bought some cold food and a couple of bottles of wine, which he carried round to the livery-stable where he kept the mare that Natalia had given him. Having assured himself that she was in good fettle to take the road, he packed the provisions into her saddle­bags, and gave orders that she was to be saddled and ready for him at ten o'clock that night.

Returning to his lodgings he arranged with Ostermann to serve dinner and gave him his other instructions. Lastly he saw Zaria. First he impressed upon her that in no circumstances was she to come down from her attic that evening until he came up to fetch her; then he told her that she was to go to bed and sleep that afternoon, as he had a special task for her which would mean her staying up from ten o'clock till dawn.

Having thought the matter over with considerable care he had decided that whether he succeeded in securing Count Yagerhorn's laisser-passer, or not, he would set out that night. Natalia, would have to start back for the Peterhof soon after ten. If all went well, Yager­horn would by then have been hots de combat for some hours; so it should not be difficult to keep him captive until the following morning, in order to prevent him from going straight to the police, reporting that he had been attacked, and raising an immediate hue and cry. By the time the Count was free Roger hoped to have put many miles between himself and any possible pursuit. Natalia, Ostermann and Zaria would believe that he had gone off on his fishing-expedition, and the Finn would be baffled by his disappearance. If Yagerhorn did then go to the police Roger thought it unlikely that, the first excitement being over, they would interest themselves much in a fight between two foreigners; and that, although he might be called on to answer their questions on his return to St. Petersburg, providing he had not done the Count any serious injury, nothing would come of the matter.

By the time he had completed his arrangements it was near mid­day, so he lay down on his divan and put in a few hours' rest against the long night-journey that lay ahead of him.

At three o'clock he woke from a light doze and flexed his muscles thoughtfully, as he wondered what the outcome of his encounter with his enemy would be.

CHAPTER xvi

THE AMBUSH

NATALIA ANDREOVNA arrived a little before four, smirking like an exceptionally pretty vixen who has just robbed the hen-roost, with the news that Erik Yagerhorn had swallowed the bait without a qualm, and, short of an earthquake, could be counted on to arrive at seven o'clock. Then they sat down to dine.

The excitement they were both feeling detracted somewhat from their appetites, but they drank fairly copiously; although Roger was careful not to overdo it to an extent which might put him to a dis­advantage when he rame face to face with his intended victim. By a quarter to seven he had had enough to make him just ripe for a fight, and he was becoming impatient for the Count's arrival.

Since there could be no hiding Natalia's part in the plot, she had decided against concealing herself; so they cleared the middle of the room and drew the table across the embrasure of the window, arranging it so that when seated behind it she was as well installed for the coming spectacle as if in a Royal box. Roger took up his position behind the door, so that he could not be seen by anyone on first entering the room; then, sinking their voices to a whisper, they began to count the moments to the springing of their ambush.

At length there came footfalls on the stairs, the door was opened and Ostermann showed Count Yagerhorn in. His glance immediately lit on Natalia Andreovna at the far side of the room, and, his florid face wreathed in smiles, he hastened forward to greet her. As Ostermann closed the door Roger stepped from behind it and exclaimed: "Turn, Sir! 'Tis I who will provide your entertainment this evening."

The tall Finn spun round, his mouth gaping open, as Roger went on sternly: "You recall me, do you not? And the last time we met? 'Tis your turn now to take a beating."

"I recall you well enough, Monsieur," snapped the Count. Then swinging about, he cried to Natalia: "And so Madame, you have led me into a trap! Are you not ashamed to sit smiling there at your own perfidy?"

"Nay, Count," she laughed lightly. "It is but tid-for-tat. Some two months past you pressed me to afford you an opportunity for an explanation with Monsieur de Breuc, and I obliged you. Now that he has made a similar request, how could I refuse him?"

"Yet there is a difference," Roger intervened. "You were not man enough to cross your sword with mine, so brought four bullies with cudgels to aid you. I am content to make do without such hired ruffians and grant you at least an even chance to defend yourself from chastisement."

"Your complaint on that score should be addressed to the Baroness Stroganof," sneered the Count, "for she it was who ordered me to make certain you should not escape the penalty of her displeasure."

"For shame!" cried Roger. "Is it not enough that you are a coward, and a traitor to your King, without seeking to father your craven conduct on a woman?" And, raising the riding-switch with which he had armed himself, he struck the Finn full across, the face.

As Yagerhom recoiled with a sharp cry, Natalia Andreovna gave a gasp of thrilled excitement; but the Count was quick to recover from the blow. Before Roger could get in another he had sidestepped and came charging in upon him.

Roger was equally agile and, springing away, slashed at the Count's head. He winced under the cut, but, swerving, managed to grasp Roger's arm. A second later they had clinched and stood swaying together in the centre of the room.

They were of about equal height, but the Finn was of a broader build and much the heavier of the two. His left hand was still encased in a black kid glove, but whatever unsightliness the glove was worn to cover did not incommode him in the full use of it. He got the gloved hand on Roger's throat and his grip was as tenacious as that of a bull­dog.

Locked together as they were, Roger's whip was no longer an asset to him but an encumbrance. Dropping it, he jabbed the Count sharply in the face; but the Finn's grip on his throat did not relax. Roger felt himself forced back; there was a sharp pain in his lungs from the lack of air and his head was singing. He knew that if he could not break the hold upon his windpipe within another minute he would be forced to the ground and ignominiously receive the beating that he had intended to give his enemy.

Desperate measures were necessary and, he considered, justified. Bringing his knee up sharply, he jabbed it into his adversary's groin.

The sudden move had the desired effect. With a gulp Yagerhorn loosened his hold. Roger jerked his head back, pushed him off and sprang away. He was not a skilled pugilist, having devoted him­self by preference to fencing and pistol practice, but he had picked up enough of the noble art at Sherborne to be much more adept at it than the majority of Continental noblemen, who despised fisticuffs

as the sport of churls. As the black-gloved hand darted out to renew its grip, Roger struck it up with his right and landed a heavy left on the Count's eye.

The Finn staggered back, recovered and came in again, throwing out both hands to catch Roger in a bear-like hug. But Roger was wary now. He had experienced the great strength that lay in his opponent's massive arms and knew that he could not match it. Darting aside he struck Yagerhorn hard, first in the ribs, then on the side of the face.

Panting harshly, the heavier man swerved and made another bull-like rush. Again Roger checked it with a body-blow, and another that glanced across his red, perspiring cheek. It seemed now that the more agile Englishman had the Finn's measure. Circling round him he got in blow after blow till Yagerhorn was reeling and it seemed that he must succumb.

But suddenly the Count dashed to the side of the room, seized a chair by its back, and swinging it aloft, struck with its legs at Roger's head. His jump to save himself was a second too late; one leg caught his head a glancing blow, another crashed upon his shoulder. With a gasp of pain he fell half-stunned to the floor. Next moment the Count flung himself on top of him, driving the breath out of his body.

Natalia Andreovna leapt to her feet. Her green eyes were flashing like those of a wild animal who smells blood. Leaning right- across the table to see the better, she let out a shrill screech of intense excitement; but she made no move to come to her champion's aid.

Breathless, his wits befuddled, his left shoulder half dislocated from the blow and the arm below it numb, Roger writhed impotently be­neath the weighty body of the Count. As in a nightmare he felt the black-gloved hand grasp his throat once more, and knew himself now to be at his enemy's mercy.

Suddenly it flickered through his mind that Yagerhorn, driven to a frenzy by the blows he had received, might kill him. The thought had no sooner entered his head that it became a conviction. The fright­ful clutch upon his neck and the agonising pains that pierced his chest were the last sensations he would ever know. This then was death.

The thought appalled him. His life was so full and gay, and there were so many joys in it that he had not yet experienced. Yet he could neither shout to Natalia for help, nor even beg for mercy had he wished. Only a faint hissing sound escaped his purple lips, and as through a reddish mist, he could see the Finn's blue.eyes, glaring with implaccable hatred, boring down into his own.

The instinctive urge to escape death, rather than any remaining strength in Roger's limbs, still kept him jerking frenziedly in abortive efforts to throw the Count off. His clawing right hand stabbed ineffect­ively at the livid features above him, but was smashed aside and fell limply to the floor. By the will of Providence it struck the handle of the riding-switch that he had dropped some minutes earlier. His fingers closed avidly upon it, and with the butt-end foremost, he struck savagely at the murderous face leering down into his own.

The metal butt thudded dully against Yagerhorn's eye. He gave a bellow of pain, his grip on Roger's throat tightened convulsively, then eased a fraction. Blindly, frantically, with tl maniacal strength of despair, Roger struck again and again.

The Finn's eyes became suffused and swimming; his nose was broken and began to drip great splashes of blood; his cheeks and forehead were lacerated where the metal had torn the flesh, yet he still hung on. But his aching fingers no longer had the power to check Roger's gasps for breath. Suddenly the metal whip-butt caught the Count on the temple, and half-stunned, he lurched sideways. Roger jerked free his neck but remained where he lay, still pounding with all his remaining strength on his enemy's face and head.

For a moment the Count struggled up into a sitting position, astride Roger's body, and swayed there, thrusting out his arms in an effort to protect himself; then he gave a moan and rolled over onto the floor.

Panting, gasping, dripping with sweat, Roger pulled his legs from beneath those of his enemy, and supporting himself with one hand got up onto his knees. He could not yet believe that he had escaped with his life, and still felt that it was in imminent peril as long as Yager­horn had a kick left in him. Filled with mingled fear and rage he rained blow after blow with his whip upon the Count's head and shoulders until they ceased to writhe and he lay insensible.

Not till then did Roger slowly regain full possession of his own senses. For a few moments he remained kneeling there staring at the blood-spattered mass beside him. Then he slowly got to his feet, lurched across to the couch and fell upon it, still fighting for breath, and utterly exhausted.

Natalia had come out from behind the table and, running to him, began to smother his bloodstained face with kisses, as she exclaimed:

" 'Twas a truly marvellous fight. Never have I seen a finer. I would not have missed it for the world; nay, not even for a promise from the Empress of a ribbon of her Order. There came a time in it when I was quite fearful for you, but I knew full well that in the end my brave Rojé Christorovitch must emerge victorious."

Knowing that she had stood by watching with fascinated enjoy­ment while his life was being choked from him, Roger made a feeble attempt to push her away. Yet, as she rattled on, praising his dexter­ity and courage, he found it difficult to maintain his belief that she had failed to attempt his rescue solely on account of the sadistic delight she was deriving from the hideous conflict. Her inner mind was still an unfathomable deep to him, and he could not feel positive that she had not, in fact, refrained from aiding him owing to a complete faith in his ability to get the better of this enemy. In consequence, he sighed; and, when she had fetched water to bathe his hurts, submitted to her ministrations without further protest.

By the time he had revived a little he saw that Yagerhorn was com­ing round; so he got to his feet and, fetching some lengths of cord that he had placed handy for the purpose, he tied the Count's wrists and ankles, and stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth; then lay down again.

For the best part of an hour he remained sprawled upon the settee, while Natalia sat beside him gently stroking his hair and whispering endearments. At last, when he felt more like himself, he got up once more and, with Natalia's help, dragged the Count into the bedroom. When they had levered his body on to the divan Roger sent her back into the sitting-room to fetch a cloth for use as a proper gag, as Yager­horn too had now more or less recovered and was growling and biting like a savage animal.

While she was absent Roger swiftly searched the Count's inner pocket. From it he pulled a batch of papers, and to his great satis­faction, found among them a laisser-passer. One glance was enough to show that it was what he sought, as the Russian text was translated below in both French and German. Without further examination he stuffed the whole lot inside his* shirt. A minute or two later Natalia rejoined him. Together they re-gagged the Finn more efficiently, made certain that his bonds were secure, then returned to the sitting-room.

Not having eaten much dinner Roger now felt hungry; so, at his suggestion, they sat down to demolish the remains of a venison-pasty and some fruit. They were almost silent during their meal, and towards the end of it Natalia amused herself by spitting cherry-stones with com­mendable accuracy right across the room into the wood-basket beside the stove. When she had run out of ammunition she said: "Tell me, Rojé Christorovitch, what have you in mind to do with that miserable Yagerhorn?"

"Keep him here for the night in uncertainty as to his fate," Roger replied casually, "then let him go in the morning."

"The villain deserves worse," she remarked with a shrug. "But you are magnanimous by nature; and wise too, for the Empress might inquire into the matter with serious results to yourself should any permanent harm befall him. Otherwise I would suggest that you should mark him in some way, so that he should never forget this night of your triumph over him."

Roger gave her a side-long glance. Her harshness towards a man whom she had once taken with glad laughter as her lover was quite incomprehensible to him. During these past weeks her beauty had never failed to rouse his passion or her intellect to stimulate his mind. Yet he knew that in his heart he hated and despised her, and would have broken with her long since had it not been for her usefulness to him in securing the type of information he had come to Russia to obtain. Now that he was again in full possession of his senses the vicious delight that she had displayed, when he caught glimpses of her while he and Yagerhorn were locked in mortal combat, sickened and revolted him. He thanked his stars that their liaison depended only on his own convenience, and that as soon as he was better established at the Court he would be able to break it. He felt that he would not have married her for a million, and that there could be few more frightful fates than to find oneself tied to such a woman for life.

As he did not reply she stood up, came round to him, and perched herself upon his knee. "My poor Rojé Christorovitch," she murmured. "What a gruelling experience you have been through; but it is past, and your victory should serve to incite you to triumphs of another kind. I am the spoil of victory and yours to do what you will with. Yet I have none too much time to reward you as you deserve, for it's near half after nine already, so in less than an hour I must be gone."

Suddenly he realised that at some point of time within the past few hours his passion for her had died. Apart from a slight soreness in his throat and a dull ache in his left shoulder he was feeling perfectly fit again; yet he had not the least desire to make love to her, and doubted now if he would ever feel the urge again. On the other hand he knew that he could not yet afford to dispense with her. So, although he shook his head, he smiled at her and said diplomatically:

"Nay, my beautiful Natalia Andreovna. For once I fear that I must disappoint you. I still feel sick and heady from the recent brawl, and am not equal to challenging you in love's lists tb-night. I pray you excuse me and allow me to rest again, while you solace my sadly frail and aching body by the very fact of lying quiescent by my side."

Immediately she was all concern, and on his pretending a renewed attack of vertigo, she helped him to the settee; then lay beside him with one arm about his neck. They remained so, hardly speaking, until, at ten o'clock, Ostermann knocked upon the door and announced that the lady's carriage awaited her below. She poured a final glass of wine, and while they drank it, he assured her that he would send her a message asking for a rendezvous immediately on his return from Lake Ladoga.

This night of strife and blood seemed to have had exactly contrary effects on them. Never before had her farewells been so lingering and so loving; and she swore that if any ill befell him she would die of grief on account of it. Her declarations were so fervid that he found it difficult to doubt their sincerity, and he had to admit to himself that, in her own extraordinary way, she must certainly have a very deep and genuine feeling for him.

At a quarter past ten, she put on her hooded cloak and mask, and despite her protests, he saw her down to her carriage. She had allowed an ample safety margin of time for her return and she would have lingered, had he not insisted that she must run no risk of some unfore­seen misadventure upon the road causing a delay which might result in her finding herself locked out.

As her carriage clattered away Roger drew a deep breath of the fresh night-air into his lungs, and his apparent tiredness fell from him. Re-entering the house he called to Ostermann to fetch his horse round immediately, then ran upstairs to find Zaria Feodorovna.

She was sitting in her attic fully dressed and waiting for him. At the sound of his footsteps she jumped to her feet and threw open her door. He had only to beckon and she hurried after him down to his apartment.

In the two months that she had been with him she had picked up quite a lot of French, and although she could speak it only in a garbled fashion she now had no difficulty in understanding everything he said to her.

When they reached the sitting-room he told her briefly that an enemy of his had attempted to kill him, but had been overcome, and was now lying tied up in the bedroom. To punish the fellow he meant to keep him there all night; but as he had to set out at once on a journey himself he wished her to act as wardress.

Taking Zaria into the bedroom he gave her a hunting-knife, pointed to the prostrate Count and said: "I want you to sit here with him till morning. If he starts to struggle go over and look at the knots which secure him. Should they appear to be slackening prick him with the knife until he stops wriggling. But also examine the gag over his mouth. If you find that he shows signs of suffocation, and is struggling on that account, loosen it a little, so that he gets more air. At six o'clock you are to cut the cord that ties his wrists, then leave him to untie his ankles himself. He will be too stiff to grab you and do you any harm. As soon as you have freed his hands you are to leave the house and take a holiday with your parents for the next three days. I expect to be back on Friday, so you can return here that night. If, in the meantime, anyone seeks you out and questions you about this man, you will simply say that I told you that he was a villain who had attempted to assassinate me, and that you did no more than carry out my orders."

Zaria felt the point of the knife with her finger and grinned at him. "You may leave all to me, lord, and know that I shall do exactly as you bid me. May St. Nicholas protect you on your journey."

He was troubled with no scruples at having involved her in an illegal act, since, as his serf, she was bound by law to obey him in all things, and could not be called to account for carrying out any orders he might give her. Having kissed her on the forehead and chucked her under the chin, he hurried back to the sitting-room to collect his cloak, sword and pistols.

As he was doing so his eye fell upon three rings, lying on a low table near the settee. They were Natalia's; she had taken them off before bathing his face and had evidently forgotten to put them on again. Snatching them up he unlocked the brass-bound coffer in which lie kept his money, threw them inside, re-locked it and ran downstairs.

Ostermann was outside walking the mare up and down. With a word of thanks to him Roger mounted her and trotted off down the street. He had Yagerhorn's laisser passerin his pocket; and was well satisfied with the eventual outcome of the night's events. His arrange­ments had worked so smoothly that barely eight minutes had elapsed between Natalia Andreovna's leaving and his being on his way to Finland.

Once clear of the city the road led north-west across the Karelian isthmus. Unlike the splendid highways to the south of the Gulf which led to Peterhof and Tzarskoe-selo, it had no fine columns of marble, jasper and granite to mark the versts, or the eleven hundred globular lamps which were always kept burning at night to light the way for courtiers and couriers hastening to or from the Imperial Palaces; but fortunately the moon was nearly at the full and shining in an almost cloudless sky.

Without forcing the pace, so as to save his mare, and dismounting every hour to give her a good breather, Roger steadily ate up the miles. He had the best part of a hundred and fifty miles to go, and shortly before three in the morning he entered the little town of Kyrola, having covered a good third of the distance.

Knowing that the inn would be certain to prove squalid and verminous, he watered his mare at the village-trough, tethered her to a nearby tree, and gave her a feed from her nose-bag; then he wrapped himself in his heavy cloak and lay down in a dry, grassy ditch to get some sleep. It was Wednesday, the 29th of August, and the chill of autumn was already in the air, but he was warmly clad and felt no dis­comfort from it.

The nights were lengthening now, but it was full daylight when he woke at seven to see a group of peasant-women regarding him with mild curiosity as they filled their buckets at the well. After watering and feeding his mount he made breakfast off some of his provisions. Then he mounted again and set out to do the twenty miles to Viiborg.

The ancient Finnish city offered much better accommodation; so he had a second breakfast at the hostelry there at ten o'clock and, leaving his mare in its stable, continued his journey on a post-horse.

He had been passing through a desolate land of lakes and marshes, interspersed with dark forests of larch and pine; but, for the greater part of the way the road now ran along the coast, where small villages inhabited by primitive fishing-communities were comparatively numerous. Having twice more changed his mount at post-houses, and taken a good rest at midday, he entered the area of military operations about five in the afternoon. Leaving the road he proceeded with some caution for a further two miles, avoiding all camps as he came in sight of them; then, the terrain forced him to return to the highway, and shortly afterwards he was halted by a Russian outpost.

The sergeant in charge was unable to read and regarded him with considerable suspicion; but Roger could now speak a few words of Russian and he demanded to be taken before an officer. After some twenty minutes delay a young lieutenant examined his laisser-passer, pronounced it to be in order, and gave him permission to proceed.

On reaching the first Swedish post he asked the whereabouts of Gustavus, and learned, as he had hoped, that the King was still in his camp outside Frederikshamn. Two dragoons were detained to escort him there, with orders to see that he did not escape; but he had no desire to do so and shortly before seven o'clock he reached the Swedish headquarters-

When he gave his name and said that he had come from St. Petersburg with urgent news for the King, he was taken to the pavilion of General Baron Armfeldt. Gustavus's handsome favourite at once announced that he was the proper channel through which all news should reach the King, but Roger politely declined the offer of his services and insisted that he must speak personally and in private with His Majesty;

Upon this he was shown to a smaller tent, where he waited for well over an hour. Then an officer led him in the failing light across the grass to a large marquee. In it Gustavus was sitting at a table strewn with maps. His foxy face looked drawn and a little older, but his slightly protuberant eyes still shone with energy and courage. Roger bowed and stood silent, waiting to be addressed.

"Well, Mr. Brook," Gustavus smiled slightly. "We had almost come to believe that you had forgotten us; yet always had a feeling that sooner or later you would honour your obligation, and that when you did you would bring us intelligence of more worth than a dozen of our paid spies. Stand not on ceremony, but earn our eternal gratitude by telling us that Admiral Greig has hung himself from his own yard-arm, or that Catherine the harlot has died from taking an overdose of some new aphrodisiac."

Roger mutely shook his head and, as befitted the bearer of bad news, fell on one knee as he replied: "Alas, Sire, I fear that I bring you ill-tidings. In fact they could scarce be worse."

"No matter," the King's voice was firm. "God knows, fortune has dealt us blows enough these past few months; yet, despite all calamities our shoulders are not become so weak that we cannot bear more, and still face the future with becoming fortitude."

"Sire," Roger said sadly, "in a treaty made some years back, by which the Empress surrendered the Holstein territories to the Danes in exchange for two small duchies, there was a secret clause. By it the Danes bound themselves to aid Russia should she ever be attacked by Sweden. They have agreed to honour it, and are at this moment arming with intent to stab your Majesty in the back."

Gustavus leapt to hisfeet. "Is this the truth? Are you certain of it?" "I had it, Sire, not more than sixty hours ago, from an impeccable source."

"Then God be praised!" The King ran forward, raised Roger to his feet, and embraced him. " 'Tis the best news we have had since we landed in this accursed province. And for the bringing of it we will make you a Chevalier of our Order of the Sword of Sweden."

Roger stared at him in dumbfounded amazement as he began to pace up and down, and breaking into the first person went on excitedly: "Do you not see how this apparently disastrous development may be turned to my advantage? All the world knows that I led my army into Finland. What they do not know is that it is three parts composed of poltroons and traitors. Owing to the disaster sustained by my fleet the army is cut off here; and even could my personal eloquence per­suade the men to a renewed sense of their duty their efforts would be rendered abortive through an acute shortage of warlike stores. My forces are completely moribund and can effect nothing, so their state must go from bad to worse. The only hope for them lies in my own return to Stockholm, where I could raise a new fleet, challenge Admiral Greig's temporary supremacy in the Gulf, and bring them succour. Yet how could I abandon my own troops in their present plight with­out being branded as a coward in their eyes and those of all Europe alike? This news you bring me provides the one excuse by which the army's situation and my personal honour may be saved. Since our home­land is to be attacked the Monarch's proper place is in his capital. To gain it I needs must run the hazard of the blockade; yet even cap­ture in the attempt would be better than to remain here until things reach such a pass that I may risk the indignity of being arrested by my own officers. Mr. Brook, you have brought me new life, and I am your eternal debtor for it."

For Roger this outburst threw an entirely new light on the situation, and from having anticipated an ill-reception on account of the gloomy duty he had undertaken, he found himself instead a welcome and hon­oured guest. He spent over an hour with Gustavus, giving him the latest particulars of affairs at the Russian Court, and left the marquee with the Star of his first Order of Chivalry glittering upon his chest. That night he supped with the King and slept in reasonable comfort in the camp.

Next morning he set off back to St. Petersburg, reaching Viiborg that night; and on the Friday he completed his journey, arriving at his lodging soon after four in the afternoon.

He had taken the last stage slowly, and during it, thought out the line of conduct he should adopt if Count Yagerhorn had laid a com­plaint against him with the police. It seemed best to state frankly that, on account of a love-affair that he had had while in Stock­holm, the Count had waylaid him and given him a beating; and that on learning that the Count had come to St. Petersburg he had availed himself of the opportunity to lure him to his lodging and repay the compliment. The Russian mentality was such as to consider his act fully justified. He hoped that the Count would not drag Natalia Andreovna into the matter, as she might incur the Empress's dis­pleasure for the part she had played; but if that did occur it could not be helped.

The only point that bothered him a little was how to explain away his having stolen Yagerhorn's laisser-passerbut he decided that here a He would serve him best. He could say that after the affray in Stockholm the Count had taken the papers from his pocket and maliciously destroyed them with the object of causing him incon­venience; and that he had returned tid-for-tat without even noticing that the laisser passerwas among them.

On arriving at his lodging he met Ostermann in the hallway. The Courlander gave him good-day with a somewhat shifty, surprised look, but refrained from saying anything further. Running upstairs to his apartment Roger threw open the door; grouped round the table there were three men playing a game of dice. They were wearing the uniform of the Russian police.

At his entrance they all jumped to their feet. The tallest of the three stepped forward, gave a curt bow and said in German: "You are the Chevalier de Breuc are you not? Since you left all your money here we were in hopes that you might return for it before attempting to leave the country, and our patience is well rewarded."

Roger returned the bow politely. "I had no intention of leaving the country, Sir. I have been absent on a fishing-expedition for the past few days; but this being my lodging I naturally intended to return to it. May I inquire the reason for your desiring to see me?"

The officer coughed, brushed up his flowing moustache and said firmly: "It is my duty to arrest you, Chevalier, for the murder of Count Erik Yagerhorn."

CHAPTER XVII

PENALTY FOR MURDER

"MURDER!" gasped Roger, his blue eyes opening wide with shock and sudden apprehension. "Is the Count then dead? I left him.."

He broke off half-way through his sentence from a swift realisation that, for the moment, the less he said the better. He had already committed himself to one lie, by saying that he had been on a fishing-expedition, and if found out in that it might throw discredit on all else he said. What had gone wrong in his absence he could not even remotely guess; but it was clear that some fatal accident had now placed his own life in the direst peril.

The officer relieved him of his sword; one of the men left the room for a few minutes, and on his return, Roger was taken downstairs. Outside in the street there now stood a plain carriage with iron shutters instead of windows. They all got in and drove off.

Suddenly Roger's benumbed wits began to work again and he had an inspiration. His companions were not police-officers at all but men hired and disguised in police uniforms by Yagerhorn. The Count evidently meant to make a vendetta of their quarrel and had thought up this clever ruse for a double purpose; firstly to inflict a terrible fright upon him and secondly in order that he might be conveyed unresisting to some lonely spot where full vengeance could be exacted.

Five minutes later this illusion was abruptly dissipated. The carriage halted, and as Roger got out he recognised the police-office of his district. He was led inside and immediately taken before the local police-president.

The official asked him his name, rank and nationality. Roger gave them as "Rojé Christorovitch de Breuc; Major-General, and Chevalier; native of Strasbourg, France."

When these had been noted down, and his age, his address and the date of his arrival in Russia had been taken, the next question was: "When did you last see Count Erik Yagerhorn?"

To this Roger refused to reply, and added that he would make no statement of any kind until he was given full particulars as to why they should suppose that he had killed the Count; and had also been allowed to see the French Ambassador.

The police-president shrugged, and said that given a little time in a dungeon to think matters over the prisoner would, no doubt, see the advisability of answering straightforward questions. In view of his rank he could not be put into the ordinary aiminal prison, so would be taken to the Fortress of Schlusselburg.

Roger had never seen the fortress but knew that it lay some twenty miles to the east of St. Petersburg, on a small island in the mouth of the Neva where it enters Lake Ladoga; and he had heard of it in con­nection with the tragic life and death of the Czar Ivan IV.

This unfortunate prince, although the legitimate heir to the throne, had been deposed while still a babe in arms in favour of his aunt Eliza­beth. From fear of his being used as the focus of a conspiracy against her she had kept him a solitary prisoner during the whole of his child­hood and youth. At the time of her death he was twenty-two, and, report had it, a personable young man of agreeable manners, who, considering that he had spent his whole life behind prison-walls, showed every sign of good mental abilities. For a few months his prospects had then brightened as Peter III, owing to his hatred of his wife Catherine, had during his short reign, contemplated putting aside both Catherine and his son by her and making the poor captive his heir. He had even visited the prisoner at Schlusselburg and given orders for more comfortable accommodation to be provided for him. But the coup d'etathad put an end to any hopes of poor Ivan ever knowing the joys of freedom. Worse, after Peter's death all those who had a grudge against the new Empress began to contemplate another coup d'etat which would place Ivan on the throne. The conspiracy misfired and during an abortive attempt to rescue him he had been brutally murdered by his guards. Some people whispered that Catherine had known of the conspiracy and deliberately allowed it to develop to a point at which she could use it as an excuse to rid herself of this inoffensive yet potentially dangerous rival to her power.

While Roger was on the way to Schlusselburg, in the closed carriage, he recalled all that he had heard of this melancholy tragedy, and par­ticularly the rumours, though they were no more, which inferred the the complicity of the Empress in young Ivan's untimely death. With fresh trepidation he remembered that no more than rumour accused her of having ordered her husband's death, yet he carried the written proof of her guilt upon him.

That damning piece of evidence against the autocrat was carefully sewn up in the stiff buckram lining to the collar of his coat; but he knew that when he reached the fortress his clothes as well as his person might possibly be searched. Alexis Orlof had, apparently, never missed the document and still believed it to be where it had lain untouched for years, safely in his secretaire; but Roger knew that, whether it could be proved that he was responsible for Yagerhorn's death or not, he could expect no mercy if the paper was discovered.

His fears for himself were further augmented by the fact that he still had both Yagerhorn's laisser-passerand King Gustavus's gift, the Order of the Sword of Sweden, in his pocket. If they were found upon him it should not be difficult to put two and two together and, since Russia was in a state of war with Sweden, he would be shot as a spy. Yet he could not possibly rid himself of the laisser-passeror the Star and its yellow ribbon while in an iron-shuttered carriage with his guards watching him.

With such concrete grounds for apprehension on three separate counts, any one of which might result in his speedy death, Roger felt that his chances of leaving the fortress alive were almost non­existent; and by the time they reached it his very natural fears had caused him to break out in a muck sweat.

On arrival, his particulars were entered by a sour-faced clerk into a heavy ledger, and the police then handed him over to two hefty, ill-favoured gaolers. They lit their lamps, took him to a gloomy stone-floored room, and waited there with him for some twenty minutes until a senior warder joined them. The newcomer beckoned, and Roger was taken along seemingly endless, low-vaulted corridors. At length they halted in front of a heavy iron-studded door. It was unbolted; Roger was thrust in and it clanged dismally behind him.

There was no light or heat and the place smelt dank and foul. His heart sinking to his boots Roger stood still for a moment, listening to the eerie echo of the warders' retreating footsteps. Then there fell complete and utter silence.

Nerving himself against the unexpected, he shuffled forward a few paces, his hands outstretched before him. His feet made a softly-padding sound, so he judged the floor to be covered with a layer of sodden straw. At about twelve paces from the door his fingers suddenly came in contact with damp, rough-hewn stone. Feeling about with his hands, in places he touched slime, and as he continued his investi­gation, he discovered that he was in an underground cell which measured about four paces by three, and had at one side of it a solid stone slab raised some eighteen inches from the floor which could be used as a seat or for lying down.

Seating himself upon it he cupped his chin in his hands and began afresh to contemplate his hopeless situation. After a few moments a faint sound from the far corner of the cell caught his attention. A second later he jumped to his feet and cowered back against the wall. He could not see them but he knew that there were rats there, perhaps swarms of them; and he had heard stories of the feet of living prisoners, in just such circumstances as he now found himself, being gnawed away by packs of rodents made desperate by hunger.

Roger was no coward. Before he reached the age of twenty he had challenged, fought and killed one of the finest swordsmen in all France; with a weapon in his hands he was prepared, if need be, to prove his metal against heavy odds; but the thought of his clothes and flesh being torn from him in small pieces by scores of sharp little teeth utterly unnerved him. The sweat of terror broke out upon his face and he began to shout for help with all the power of his lungs.

No answer came to his frantic cries, and after a while, he fell silent. The sounds from the corner of the cell told him that there was a number of rats there, but they came no nearer. Gradually calmness returned to him, and with the perspiration now cold upon his forehead, he sat down again.

For some time his mind was too numb with misery for him to think coherently; then he remembered that in one thing at least he had been granted a reprieve; he had not so far been searched.

Taking the papers from his inner pocket he fumbled among them in the darkness, until, by his sense of touch he had decided which of them must be the laisser-passer. He then got out his tinder-box, and with some difficulty succeeded in igniting it. When at last the paper burst into a flame, he heaved a sigh of relief. At least he had succeeded in destroying one damning piece of evidence against him.

Yet, as he looked up he cowered back again. The flame was reflected in the corner of the cell by a galaxy of little starlike lights, the eyes of the rats who were watching him, and there could not be less than a score of them.

When he had recovered from that unnerving turn he took from his pocket the Swedish Order. Since it was his first decoration, and a great honour for so young a man, he was most loath to part with it, but he knew that it would cost him his life if it was found upon him. The sodden straw was a good six inches deep, since one layer had been thrown down upon another and it seemed improbable that the cell had been cleaned out for years. Digging the toe of his boot into the" soggy mess, he scooped a hole until he reached the floor, laid the much prized jewel and ribbon on the exposed stone, and trampled the decaying straw well down over it.

He heaved another sigh; partly of regret but partly also of relief. He had enjoyed the possession of it for barely forty-eight hours, but it could not now convict him of being in league with Russia's enemies; since it was most unlikely that it would be found for months to come, and, even if it were, no proof could be brought that it was he who had hidden it there.

With a little gleam of humour it occurred to him how admirable it would be if only he could lay Count Yagerhorn's ghost as easily as he had disposed of the other two more material objects which had threatened to bring him to an untimely grave.

There remained, too, Orlof's letter; but, lacking a knife or scissors, he knew that it would be extremely difficult to get it from its hiding-place, and influenced partly by the unlikelihood of its being discovered there and partly by his belief in its immense potential value, he decided not to attempt its destruction.

Puzzle his wits as he would he could not even hazard a theory as to how the Count had met his death. It could not possibly have been a heart-attack, as had he been liable to such a seizure it would have taken him while he was being flogged into insensibility. It could not have been suffocation either, since he distinctly recalled giving Zaria implicit instructions to ease the Count's gag if that became necessary; and he did not believe for an instant that Zaria would have failed to carry out his orders. The flogging with a riding switch across the head and shoulders could not possibly have been the cause of his death, seeing that he had survived for the best part of three hours afterwards.

At length Roger gave up the riddle and his thoughts drifted to the strange fate which had carried him so far from home. He thought of his dear, wicked Georgina, and wondered if she had returned yet to her beloved Stillwaters or was somewhere in the distant Mediterranean, travelling with her father. He thought, too, of his sweet-faced mother with her circumscribed yet active existence, bounded by her charities and her Hampshire garden; and of his father, that rampaging, forth­right, jolly sea-dog of an Admiral. His small but stately home in Lymington was in fact several thousand miles away, but in mental distance it seemed a million.

Roger began to feel very tired, but he knew that he dared not sleep. As long as he kept awake the rats would keep their distance, but if he once allowed himself to drop off, the foul creatures would sneak up and begin to nibble at his extremities. .

Now and again he stood up and, for a little, paced the narrow cell to keep himself awake and warm; yet, despite these periods of exercise, towards morning the deathly chill of the place began to make him shiver.

Time stood still. It was a place of eternal night where months might pass without its occupant ever being aware that the sun he once had known had passed across the sky. The stomach of the prisoner was his only clock, and but for the lack of craving in his, Roger would have thought that several days had passed, before at last, he caught faint footfalls coming down the corridor.

The footfalls grew louder; they halted, and the heavy door grated open. By the dim light of a lantern Roger saw the head-gaoler and another. The senior called to him and he stumbled from his cell. They took him through endless vaulted corridors again, up several flights of stone steps to the blessed daylight once more, and showed him into a room where an oldish man, dressed in a handsome uniform, was seated behind a desk.

To Roger's amazement this obviously important person not only offered him a chair, but proceeded to apologise to him for the unpleasant hours that he had passed since his arrival. Apparently, unless special instructions were received to the contrary, all new prisoners were put in one of the lower dungeons for their first night, in order that they might form some impression of what a month of such confinement would be like; and thus be persuaded of the folly of bringing such a penalty upon themselves by attempting to escape.

The elderly officer introduced himself as Colonel Tschevaridef; then told Roger with bluff heartiness that he was very pleased to see him, would endeavour to make him as comfortable as possible, and hoped that his stay in the fortress would be a long one. So did Roger, providing it was not in the dungeon—as even a lengthy imprisonment seemed better than the short shrift he had been envisaging for himself since four o'clock the previous afternoon—but all the same he thought the greeting a little queer.

However, it soon emerged that the old soldier was the Governor of the fortress, and he admitted quite frankly that the amount of his income depended on the number and quality of the prisoners in his keeping. He received so much a day for each and the higher their rank the higher the rate he was paid. He was responsible for feeding them out of the money, and the more he got for them the better they fared. Roger, ranking as a Major-General, would be classed as of the second grade, at two roubles a day, 'and feed almost as well as if he were eating at the Governor's table. The Colonel concluded this reference to his organisation by remarking that he prided himself on giving all grades of his prisoners better fare than was the case in other fortresses, and that when Roger was released he would be doing both him and any friend of his who might be a prisoner elsewhere a good service by urging them to use such influence as they might have to get themselves transferred to Schlusselburg.

The idea of a prison-governor canvassing for captives made Roger smile for the first time in seventeen hours, and he said quickly: "I only pray that I may have the opportunity to do so, Sir; but I may be hard put to it to escape being executed on this charge of murder."

"So you are charged with killing someone, eh?" the Governor raised a white eyebrow. "That is a pity, since it may be the cause of my losing you in a day or two; but otherwise it is no affair of mine. A magistrate will visit your cell to question you on that. In the mean­time your treatment will be no different to that of other prisoners of your grade, and I have received no order that you are not to be allowed visitors." With a grin which showed several decayed teeth he added: "A young man of such handsome parts, as yourself, General, will no doubt know a number of pretty women who will be delighted to solace you during your captivity."

Roger grinned amiably back at the old rascal and said: "At the moment, Sir, I am more concerned with the question of my defence;

and I should be deeply grateful if you would send a message to the French Ambassador, asking him to come and see me."

The Governor promised to do so, then summoned the warders and told them to take Roger to cell twenty-four. When he reached it he found it to be a spacious room with a heavily-barred window giving a view of the lake. It was furnished with an old, but fairly comfortable-looking bed, an oak chest, a wash-basin and commode, an elbow-chair and two others, and a stout table on which there were pens, sand and an inkhorn. The head-warder told him that on payment he could have extra wine, brandy, paper, books and other small luxuries brought in; then he was left to his still far from sanguine reflections.

But not for long. Five minutes later one of the warders returned to show in a dark hatchet-faced little man in a wig much too big for him, and a lanky fellow carrying a portfolio. They proved to be the magistrate and his clerk; but, when Roger said that he was not prepared to answer any questions until he had seen his Ambassador, they with­drew.

It now occurred to him that it was many hours since he had eaten, and that he was very hungry; but evidently his gaolers had not been unmindful of the fact that he had not had any breakfast, for soon after the Magistrate's departure, one of them brought him some cold meat, an apple-turnover and a jug of beer.

He was still eating when the door opened again, and, to his surprise and delight Dr. Drenke was shown in. After his first day or two in St. Petersburg Roger had not seen very much of the middle-aged German diplomat, but they sometimes passed one another on the stairs and had remained on a friendly footing. In his misery of the previous night he had not once thought of the Doctor, but now he welcomed him with open arms, as he was the one person to whom he could talk with complete frankness about the Yagerhorn affair, as it was unnecessary to conceal from him the part that Natalia Andreovna had played in it.

"Well, my poor Chevalier," said the Doctor, when he was seated. "I am much relieved to see that you appear to be in your right mind, for I doubted finding you so. What in the world possessed you to murder Count Yagerhorn in so barbarous a manner, and then throw the un­fortunate little Zaria downstairs?"

Roger gaped at him, then exclaimed: " 'Tis the first I have heard of Zaria's mishap! As for the other matter I know nothing of what occurred after I left the house at ten o'clock on Tuesday night. I beg you to enlighten me."

" 'Tis soon told," the Doctor replied gravely. "At about half-past ten Ostermann came up from his basement to lock the street-door. At the bottom of the stairs he found Zaria lying in a crumpled heap, unconscious. Later, when she was taken to the hospital it was found that she had broken a leg and that her skull was fractured. Ostermann had seen you off on your fishing-expedition at ten o'clock, so he thought at first that a thief must have stolen into the house, and that Zaria had surprised him. He ran up to your sitting-room, and on seeing that nothing had been taken, hurried up to mine. I was there reading, and some twenty minutes before I had heard the sounds of a quarrel below me in your room; so we assumed that, having forgotten something you had returned for it, and catching Zaria in the act of making free with your property you had exercised your right to knock her sense­less. We gave you the credit for not realising how seriously you had injured the poor girl, in fact that you thought she had only fainted; and supposed that being already late in your setting out you had jumped on your horse again and ridden away, believing that the sturdy little peasant would be fully recovered from her lesson by morning."

The Doctor paused a moment, then went on: "When Ostermann visited your apartment he took only a hurried look round and did not enter the bedroom. The following day he gave the usual notice to the police that you were absent, but they were quite satisfied by his explanation that you had gone fishing on Lake Ladoga, and would be back on Friday. When Friday morning came, since Zaria was in hospital with a broken leg and severe concussion, Ostermann felt that it was for him to tidy up your apartment against your return. On entering your bedroom he found Count Yagerhorn lying gagged and bound upon the bed. When he fetched the police, they said that the Count had died of suffocation."

"So that was the way of it," nodded Roger. Everything was plain to him now except the attack on Zaria; but, perhaps after all, Ostermann's first theory had been right, and she had been the victim of a thief. She should have been in the bedroom watching Yagerhorn, but if she had heard a noise in the sitting-room she would have come out to see who was there. She might have come upon the thief before he had had time to take anything, and the cries that the Doctor had heard were her efforts to rouse the house; but the thief had overcome her, thrown her down the stairs, and fearing that someone else might come on the scene, hurriedly made his escape. With Zaria suffering from concussion the wretched Count had been left to his fate, and died horribly in consequence.

"I should like to tell you the truth of the matter," Roger said, after a moment. "But only if I may rely on you regarding what I say as in the strictest confidence; for another person is involved in this."

"You may rely on my discretion, Chevalier," the Doctor bowed. "And you refer, I take it, to the Baroness Stroganof?"

Roger gave him a swift glance. "Is it generally known that 'twas she who preceded Yagerhorn to my apartment?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Nay, only that a woman of quality who often came to visit you, dined with you there before the Count's arrival. I guessed that it must be she from knowing of your association with her in the ship that brought us from Sweden, and from having more recently met her once or twice on the stairs."

"That relieves me mightily. For the sake of her reputation I have been at some pains to conceal her identity; so although Ostermann knows her well by sight I doubt if he knows her name. Her only part in this was giving the Count a rendezvous in my apartment; and that she did at my most earnest solicitation and without previous knowledge of what I meant to do to him. She left before myself and can have had no more idea than I of what befell him later. So you see what a terrible thing it would be if she were charged with me in having assisted at his murder?"

"I do not think there is any great fear of that, Chevalier, unless you deny that it was you who lolled him. The police of Petersburg are argus-eyed but very discreet. The odds are that they have known for a long time past about the Baroness's visits to you; but they will not drag her into this unless compelled to it. She has many powerful relatives, and moreover, the Empress does not like scandals in con­nection with her ladies, so they will not stir up trouble for themselves unless it proves unavoidable."

"You mean that if I take full responsibility they will be satisfied with that; but should I protest my innocence they will then be forced to turn their attention to the Baroness in the hope of getting a state­ment from her that will convict me?"

"Exactly. The present assumption is that the lady who dined with you was an innocent party to the affair. 'Tis thought that the Count was also in love with her and having traced her to your rooms surprised you together. What followed is, therefore, put to your account. But why, in the name of reason, did you choose so barbarous a method of killing the wretched man?"

"I did not," Roger assured the Doctor, earnestly. Then he told him the whole story as he knew it.

When he had done the Doctor shook his head. "I willingly accept your word for it, Chevalier, that you had no intention of killing the Count; but that does not affect the fact that you are responsible for his death and will be held to account for it. And even if the Baroness came forward I do not see how anything that she could say would lessen your responsibility."

"I know it," agreed Roger. "So I am all the more anxious that her part in the matter should not become public. Would you be good enough to see her for me, and assure her that should she become involved it will be through no word of mine?"

The Doctor agreed to do so; and to Roger's further request, that little Zaria should be allowed to lack for nothing; then, with renewed expressions of friendship, he took his departure.

When he had gone Roger paced restlessly up and down his room. He at least knew now the way in which his plan had miscarried, but that did not lessen the acute danger of his situation. For a time he thought miserably of the terrible death that Yagerhorn had suffered, yet he felt that he was not wholly to blame for that. The Count would be alive and free had it not been for the dastardly attack on poor little Zaria.

At three o'clock the key of the heavy door grated in the lock.

Roger stood up hoping that the Comte de Segur had arrived to see him, but a woman in black with a heavy hood over her face was shown in. The second they were alone she threw it back and ran to him.

"Natalia Andreovna!" he exclaimed, as her arms closed round his neck. "You should not have cornel 'Tis madness to proclaim your association with me in this way."

"I had to come!" she cried, bursting into tears. " 'Tis my fault that you are here; but I did not learn the awful result of my impetuous act until this morning."

"Act?" He held her firmly from him. "What mean you?" "On Tuesday night I left my rings behind," she sobbed. "My carriage had carried me but half a mile when I remembered them. As I had ample time I returned to your apartment. I was looking for them in the sitting-room when the bedroom door opened, and out of it came that little baggage that you bought for a hundred roubles on your first arrival in Petersburg."

In a flash Roger saw the whole thing. To appease Natalia's jealousy he had told her that he had got rid of Zaria and that Ostermann was looking after him. On finding the girl in his room again two months later Natalia, had, not unnaturally, believed the worst.

" 'Twas you, then, who beat her and threw her downstairs!" he muttered angrily. "Did you not have the sense to realise that I had left her there to watch over Yagerhorn and release him in the morning?"

"How should I?" she wailed. "You told me that you were not set­ting out for your fishing until the morning. As you were nowhere about I thought that you had merely gone down to the privy in the back­yard, or to fetch another bottle of wine from the cellar, and would be back at any moment. You had lied to me about that pretty child and I was furious. I thought that finding her on your return with her looks spoiled would teach you a lesson."

"You broke her leg and devilish near killed her." "I care not for that. I love you, Rojé Christorovitch, and was half-mad with jealousy from the thought that you had deceived me; and kept her with you for a full two months without my knowledge."

"You wrong me by these base suspicions. She was a virgin when I bought her and is one still. I kept her only out of compassion, because she would have been so shamed had I sent her back to her father."

Natalia ceased her crying. "You do love me then! Oh, St. Nicholas be praised for that! But I could not know that you had already set out and charged her to act gaoler to Erik Yagerhorn. I guessed that only on learning last night how he had been found dead in your room. Then came the news of your arrest this morning. Oh, Rojé Christorovitch, I'll never forgive myself, and I'll die of grief if—if...." Again she burst into a fit of weeping.

Roger did not love her any more. His passion for her had died utter­ly; but it was clear that she now loved him madly, and in common decency, he strove to comfort her. For over an hour they talked round and round his plight, but saw no way by which he might evade respon­sibility for the Count's death.

The best line which seemed to offer was for him to admit to having left the Count bound and gagged, but plead that he had died only because the arrangements for his release had miscarried. If the court still judged Roger guilty of murder, Natalia would then use all her personal influence to get the sentence commuted from death to im­prisonment. They agreed that if she could be kept out of the affair her hand would be strengthened in that. And, as he did not wish to be placed in a situation where he would have to make love to her again, he persuaded her that it would be wisest to refrain from making further visits to the fortress unless she had definite news to bring him. After a last tearful embrace they summoned the warder, and she departed.

The French Ambassador did not arrive until seven o'clock, and his visit was a comparatively brief one. The shrewd-eyed young Count was evidently far from pleased that one of his nationals should stand accused of such a brutal crime; but, after having listened to Roger's story, he became much more sympathetic.

He said gravely that he did hot see how a court could fail to con­vict, but hoped the sentence might carry a recommendation to mercy. An appeal to the Empress was useless at the moment, as, although at a word she could stop any legal proceedings, there was nothing what­ever about the present case which might induce her to do so. However, as the representative of the Court of Versailles he was in a position to draw Her Majesty's attention to any verdict pronounced on one of his countrymen, and could do so the more easily in this case as the Empress had told Roger on his presentation that if he found himself in any difficulty, he was to apply to her. So, when the time came, he would use his best endeavours to persuade her that death was too harsh a punishment for a crime that had only been in part premeditated.

Within twenty minutes of the Comte de Segur's departure, the thin-faced magistrate and his clerk again appeared. Roger now agreed to make a statement, and after he had done so, answered most of the questions put to him with complete frankness. When he declined to give the name of the lady who had supped with him before Yagerhorn's arrival the magistrate refrained from pressing him to do so, and even volunteered the opinion that, since Roger had admitted his guilt, it would probably be considered unnecessary to seek out witnesses for the purpose of securing evidence against him.

When Roger was left to sort out his impressions of the day he felt considerably more cheerful than he had twenty-four hours earlier. His immediate circumstances were improved out of all recognition and he now thought it unlikely that he would be called on to pay with his life for Yagerhorn's death. There was also the immensely comforting thought that nobody appeared to be the least interested in his move­ments during his absence from St. Petersburg, or be aware that he had stolen Yagerhorn's laisser-passer; and even Natalia apparently saw no reason to doubt his statement that he had been fishing on Lake Ladoga.

Two mornings later the Comte de Segur appeared again. His news was that at the previous night's Sunday Court the Empress had raised the question of Roger's affair on her own initiative, and said that she had given orders for proceedings to be temporarily suspended, as she had formed the desire to go into the matter herself.

It immediately occurred to Roger that Natalia Andreovna had . seized upon some suitable opening to get to work on his behalf; but the Ambassador's next words destroyed this comforting theory.

He said, "I find myself quite unable to express an opinion whether this new development is likely to have a favourable or adverse effect on your prospects; and I should be serving you ill if I did not warn you that this signal honour is due to no more than curiosity." Smiling a little wryly he added: "The truth is that in Petersburg you are now accounted a monster, and Her Majesty, ever eager for new sensations, is desirous of having another look at you."

With this cold comfort Roger had to be content till afternoon, when Dr. Drenke came to see him, bringing more cheerful tidings. Zaria was now pronounced out of danger and had made a statement to the police. She confirmed all that Roger had said of his instructions to her, and had disclosed that her attacker had been a lady of quality whom she had seen once before but whom she did not know by name.

Roger was much relieved to hear that his little serf was on the way to recovery; but he rather doubted if, in Russia, any great weight would be attached to the testimony of a young girl-slave who was known to be devoted to him. However, her corroboration of his state­ment was very much better than nothing, and once again, Natalia Andreovna had escaped implication, which was a mercy, as any charge against her would have seriously impaired her influence when the time came for her to make her plea for him to the Empress.

During the forty-eight hours that followed he received no fresh news at all of his affair, and hardly knew whether to count that a misfortune or a blessing. The food he was given, while by no means luxurious, was plentiful and varied, and he had been allowed to send in to St. Peters­burg for his clothes and money, so he was living in quite reasonable comfort. Yet, while he realised that any change in his situation might prove very much for the worse, uncertainty as to his eventual fate kept him in a state of nervous tension, and he was beginning to be afraid that the Empress had forgotten him.

That she had not, became apparent on the afternoon of Wednesday, the 5th of September, when two handsome young men of her Chevalier Guard were shown in to his room. After greeting him civilly they asked him to prepare himself to be taken before Her Majesty. He changed into his best suit, scented and powdered himself as if he were going to a ball, then accompanied them down to the echoing entrance-hall of the fortress. A shuttered carriage similar to that in which he had been brought to Schlusselburg was waiting outside. The two young men mounted their horses, Roger, his heart beating considerably faster than usual, was locked into the carriage, and it started on its long drive via St. Petersburg to the Peterhof.

They had set out at three o'clock, and with halts for changing horses, it was nearly eight by the time they arrived at the Imperial Palace. Roger was conducted to the inner guard-room and left to wait there for over an hour; then the two officers returned, drew their swords, and placing themselves one on either side of him, marched him across the vast hall and up a great marble staircase. Some way down a corridor six more glittering members of the Chevalier Guard were drawn up before a pair of tall, ornate double doors. A chamberlain tapped upon the doors with an ivory-headed staff, two footmen threw them open, and drawing himself up, Roger walked forward into the presence of the Empress.

Seated behind a great carved desk she seemed even smaller than he had first thought her, but no less regal. As he advanced he saw that the dark, sly-faced old Katerina Ivanovna, who was both the Empress's personal confidant and the head of her household, was seated just behind her, that her favourite, Momonof, looking very bored, was in one corner of the room playing with a spaniel, and that two young ladies-in-waiting working on some embroidery, occupied another.

As the guards halted, six paces from the table, Roger went down on one knee.

"Stand up," commanded the Empress sharply. "And give us your account of this heinous crime, which brands you the most abominable of murderers."

"August Majesty," he began. "With your own fine mind, great heart and able hand, you gave a new code of laws to Russia. Through­out all the world you are revered for your sense of justice. I pray you, therefore, suspend judgment as to the degree of my guilt until you have heard the stroke of ill-fortune which renders me now a suppliant for mercy at your feet."

Her blue eyes were hard and her little curved nose imperious, as she replied: "You sound a plausible rogue; but think not to curry favour with us by idle flattery. The governance of an Empire leaves us little time for such as you; so be brief and to the point."

Roger had intended to give a full description of the affair from his first meeting with Yagerhorn in Stockholm, but he now promptly changed his tactics. In a few brief sentences he described how, having a quarrel with the Count, he had used a pretext to get him to his apartment, then set upon him, and how, owing to an entirely unfore­seen sequel, Yagerhorn had been left there to die instead of being re­leased the following morning.

"If this be true," said the Empress coldly, "you are not quite the monster that you have been represented; yet you are bandit enough to have attacked an unsuspecting man, and the fact that your serf failed to carry out your orders in no way relieves you of the responsi­bility for Count Yagerhorn's death."

"Nay, your Majesty," Roger replied with sudden boldness. "That

I admit, and a bandit I may be; but, vast as the gulf is that lies between us, we have at least two things in common; and 'tis on this similarity of our natures that I rely in pleading for your clemency."

"Such insolence merits the knout," muttered the Empress and her thin mouth hardened. But Roger ignored the danger signal. He knew that it was now or never, and he hurried on:

"I beg you, Madame, hear what led me to this deed and tell me then if, placed in similar circumstances, you would not have done as I did."

She nodded. "Speak then. But if you fail to prove your words your punishment shall be the more severe."

Roger took a pace forward. One of his most fortunate gifts was the ability to put his thoughts with ease and grace into either writing or speech; and he was making his plea in French, the second language of himself and Catherine, which both of them spoke as fluently as their own.

"Gracious Majesty," he began. "The two things which we have in common are courage and a love of gallantry. The devastation that your eyes have wrought in innumerable hearts and your amiability to those who are fortunate enough to find favour with you, are too well-known for me to need to dwell upon them. As for your courage, all the world knows that no male ruler has ever taken braver decisions than your­self. Yet there is one example of it that I would recall, for it made ine think you braver than any fabled knight or classic hero."

At last the Empress's glance softened a little, and she inquired: "What deed of ours is it that you have in mind?"

" 'Twas when the small-pox was raging in Petersburg, and even striking down people of your Majesty's court," replied Roger promptly. "Fearing that your little son, His Highness the Grand Duke, might fall a victim to the fell disease you determined rather on submitting him to the risks of inoculation, a precautionary treatment then en­tirely untried in Russia. You sent to England for Dr. Dimsdale, and refusing to allow him to experiment first, as he wished, on any of your Majesty's subjects, insisted on his inoculating you with the deadly virus in secret, before he did so to your son and others."

The Empress shrugged her plump shoulders, but she smiled.

"Only a sovereign unfitted to rule would submit a helpless child or a subject to a risk that they were unwilling to face themselves. But if this be courage and we have a natural leaning towards romance, tell us now how these qualities led you to your present pass?"

Without naming Natalia Andreovna, Roger told Catherine then of his love-affair in Stockholm, and of the way in which Yagerhorn had ambushed him. He stoutly maintained that his plan to be revenged had been fully justified, and claimed that he had proved his courage by spurning the thought of hiring ruffians to waylay his enemy in the street at night. Instead, although the Count was far more heavily built, he had armed himself with only a whip, faced him man to man, and overcome him.

When the tale was done the Empress regarded Roger thoughtfully for a moment, then she said: "We will allow that you had some pro­vocation for your act and that you gave Count Yagerhorn the oppor­tunity to defend himself with his superior strength, which was more than he had any right to expect. Yet the fact remains that you deprived him of his life. It is our pleasure that you should remain in the palace while we deliberate upon the matter further. In due course we will have conveyed to you our will."

Sinking again to one knee Roger threw in his last reserves. "May it please your Majesty. Should you decide that my fault merits a major penalty I pray you let me die like a gentleman rather than live like a slave; and should death be the portion you decree for me I have one boon to crave."

"What would you?" asked the Empress a trifle impatiently.

Roger rose to his feet and smiled. " 'Tis that, before I am led out to die, I may kiss the hand that sends me to my premature fate, in token of my respect for the august Princess who has done more for her people than any other ruler."

He had taken a terrible gamble in saying that he would prefer death to a long imprisonment, but it was the only means that enabled him to follow up with his theatrical request, which, if she agreed to it, would ensure him a further, eleventh-hour, chance to plead for mercy.

It was all or nothing now; but, as she signed to his guards to take him away, he felt sure that he saw her bridle slightly at the compli­ment, and she murmured: "Your request is granted."

Instead of turning to be marched out like a prisoner, he played the well-trained courtier, and made her three perfect bows while backing unerringly towards the doors. He was then taken down to the guard­room, given some supper and provided with a truckle-bed on which to spend the night.

The following day passed uneventfully. The guards treated him courteously and he had no reason for complaint, but with nothing to do he found it terribly difficult to stifle the anxiety he was feeling. He felt sure that he had made a good impression on the Empress, but she prided herself so greatly on her sense of justice that he did not believe for one moment that she would let him go scot-free. She had vowed that she would suppress crimes of violence in her capital, and there was no half-way house between imprisonment and death, so she well might take him up on his quixotic gesture.

When, at seven o'clock in the evening, two guards appeared to fetch him, his first sensation was one of relief, at the thought that, in a few moments now, he would know the worst. But as he accompanied them up the grand staircase it dawned upon him that the Empress would send for him again only to do him the favour he had asked in the event of her decreeing his death. His mouth suddenly grew dry, and strive as he would, he could not think of a single new argument which might incline her to mercy. He had had all day to do so, yet somehow, he had never thought that it would come to this, and had frittered the hours away in idle speculation.

While these thoughts were occupying his agitated mind he was taken down the opposite corridor to that which he had entered the previous night. There were no sable-cloaked officers, chamberlains and footmen on duty here. One of his companions knocked upon a door, and a sharp voice called "Entrez." Next moment he found himself ushered into a small salon, and seated in it was old black-eyed Katerina Ivanovna.

As he automatically made a leg to the skinny, sallow-featured old woman, she beckoned him forward to a chair opposite her- and said; "Monsieur, Her Majesty was not altogether unimpressed by the figure you cut before her last night; but before she pronounces sentence upon you she desires to know if you are nought but an adventurer gifted with a silver tongue or if you are, as you appear to be, a some­what more worthy subject for her benevolent consideration. She has charged me to develop your acquaintance with a view to reporting to her on this matter; and as I am entertaining a few friends to supper to-night I felt that the best means of executing my commission was to bid you join us."

With mingled surprise and relief Roger made the old witch another bow and declared himself to be enchanted by the honour. At that moment the entrance of an officer and two ladies gave him a brief respite, while he was introduced to them, to gather his wits and pre­pare himself for this new ordeal upon which his life and freedom hung. Then he set about charming old Katerina Ivanovna with a greater assiduity than he would have displayed had she been half a century younger and the loveliest young woman of the Court.

Within a dozen minutes they were a party of ten, then the door opened again, and without the least formality, the Empress walked in.

Instantly they fell silent; the men bowed deeply, the women curtseyed to the ground. As Katerina Ivanovna rose she exclaimed: "Oh, your Majesty! How gracious of you! What a joyous surprise! I had no idea that you intended to honour me to-night. Permit me to have the table re-set." And after curtseying again she glided off into another room.

The Empress accepted a glass of wine, and with a few brief sen­tences, put the company at their ease. Katerina Ivanovna returned, and, shortly afterwards, supper was announced. Fat little Catherine led the way alone and, with a glance, Katerina Ivanovna signed to Roger to give her his arm. As they brought up the rear she whispered: "There has been no time to change the general seating. I should have been at the head of the table and had placed you on my left, but now Her Majesty takes my place and you will be next to her. For good or ill your destiny now lies in your own hands."

As he took his seat the Empress greeted him civilly, and gave no sign that she regarded him as in any way different to the other guests.

To each in turn she asked some question calculated to lead to a general discussion and Roger was filled with admiration at the way in which she dominated the party yet made it pleasant for everyone present. It was soon clear to him that at this intimate gathering she did not wish to be treated as a sovereign, to whom people spoke only when they were addressed, but simply as a distinguished guest, to whom good manners dictate a certain deference without servility. She even permitted some of those present to rally her gently on her acknowledged idiosyncrasies and joined freely in the laughter.

Once Roger had gauged the atmosphere, he worked like a demon to make himself pleasant, and he was wise enough to give an almost equal share of his attention to anyone who happened to be holding the table as he did to Catherine when she was speaking. He knew that he was fighting now with his wits and ready laugh for his life and freedom, every bit as much as if he had been sword in hand opposed to a troop of enemy horsemen in a battle. When the dessert was put on the table, knowing the Empress's love for French culture, he led the conversation in that direction, and with becoming modesty, displayed his knowledge of it. He had always despised Rousseau as a windy visionary and adored the brilliant cynicism of Voltaire. As the Empress was also entirely of that mind she openly applauded his witticisms and beamed approval on him.

At ten o'clock she stood up to retire. Everyone rose with her, and to Roger's sudden consternation, she held out her hand for him to kiss.

White as a sheet he bowed over it and touched it with his lips. He hopedthat she had done him this honour as a sign of forgiveness, but, knowing the cruelty, treachery, and cynicism that permeated the whole Russian court, he could not be certain that the same plump hand had not signed his death-warrant a few hours earlier, and that she thought it amusing to honour her promise to him in this way.

The incident brought him back with a horrid jerk to the realisation that for the past two hours he had not really been a welcome guest at a jolly supper-party, but a prisoner with one foot on the scaffold. It was all he could do to regain his composure sufficiently to bid a polite good-night to the other guests, who shortly afterwards took their leave.

Finding himself once more alone with Katerina Ivanovna, he said: "Madame, if I knew this definitely to be my last night on earth I could not conceivably have wished for a more pleasant one; and I am more grateful than I can say for your charming entertainment. May I now spare you the trouble of calling the guard and ask you to accept my word that I will find my own way back to the guardroom?"

She shook her bony old head. "Nay, you are in my charge now, Chevalier, and I wish to be able to converse with you at my pleasure. Come with me."

He followed her out into the corridor and along it for fifty paces, then she opened a door and showed him into a well-furnished bed­room. When he thanked her the only reply she made was to wish him good-night, and after a formal curtsey to which he bowed gravely, she left him.

On finding himself alone his first thought was to escape. He had not been asked for his parole and this seemed a heaven-sent chance to do so. Running to the window he opened it and peered out. Below him was a broad paved terrace, that gave onto the gardens. It was a twenty-foot drop, but, undaunted by that, he looked swiftly round for means to get down to it. As he did so he caught the mutter of voices below him; two figures moved out of the shadows and began to pace up and down. He knew then that it was no good. His bonds might have been changed from iron to silk, but they were still there. It was only that a less obtrusive watch was being kept-upon him, and even if he could overcome the two sentries on the terrace, he was alone and almost friendless in Russia. How could he possibly hope to remain uncaught long enough to get out of the country? Reluctantly he undressed himself and made the best of the comfortable bed.

Next morning a footman came to draw back his curtains, then brought him an appetising breakfast. Having eaten it he got up and dressed himself to be in readiness should he be sent for. At nine o'clock there came a knock on the door and a fat, serious-looking man presented himself, announcing in German that he was a doctor and had been ordered to ascertain the state of Roger's health.

At first Roger thought that there must be some mistake, and said so, but his visitor replied thickly: "If you are the Chevalier de Breuc there is no mistake. It is the usual procedure, and you will oblige me by undressing."

As it seemed most unlikely that convicted criminals had to undergo a medical examination before they were taken to execution, Roger could only assume that this was a regulation measure adopted with everyone who came to reside in the palace, as a precaution against infectious and contagious diseases being carried into it. In his own case it seemed a little belated, but he thought that was probably owing to the unorthodox means by which he had become a resident there.

When Roger had stripped as requested the doctor made a most careful examination of every part of his body, and at length, pro­nouncing himself satisfied, packed up his little black bag and departed.

Half an hour later the footman came in again, carrying a pile of books. After presenting Madame Katerina Ivanovna's compliments, he said that, as she had an exceptionally heavy day, she begged that Roger would entertain himself as well as he could with the books and excuse her until the evening.

Having no choice, Roger returned his thanks, browsed among the books, ate the good dinner that was sent to him, and spent a few hours dozing. Soon after seven o'clock the door opened and Katerina Ivan-ovna appeared framed in it. She did not enter the room but beckoned to him to join her outside.

When he did so she led him along several corridors, then down a long arched passageway with windows on either side of it through which the gardens could be seen dimly in the fast-failing light. He knew then that she was taking him across to the Empress's own private retreat, the Hermitage, and he assumed that he was on his way to learn his fate from Her Majesty's own lips.

On entering the smaller palace they went downstairs to the ground floor. Katerina Ivanovna then opened a door and took him into a long suite of private apartments consisting of two ante-rooms, a library, a reception-room, a dining-room and a bedroom; all of which had beautifully painted ceilings and were furnished with great splendour.

In one corner of the bedroom a spiral staircase, elaborately carved from rare woods, led up to a small circular opening in the high ceiling above. Pointing at the staircase Katerina Ivanovna said with her crook­ed smile: "In ten minutes' time you are to go up those stairs and perform the duties for which you have been selected."

"Duties!" repeated Roger. "To what duties do you refer, Madame?"

She gave him a pitying look. "I thought you keener-witted. These are the apartments of the official favourite. Those of Her Majesty are immediately overhead. I received orders to clear that fool Momonof out this morning."

Suddenly the old harridan sank to the floor in a flurry of black lace and, bowing her head before him, cried:

"Live long, Rojé Christorovitch! These rooms are yours! You are the favourite now! Live long; and while you share the Empress's bed forget not last night, and those who smoothed the path for you to become the most powerful man in All the Russias."

CHAPTER XVIII

HER MAJESTY'S PLEASURE

ROGER'S heart missed a beat and his mind baulked for a second, refusing to accept the extraordinary vision that Katerina Ivanovna's words had conjured up. It was fantastic, impossible; a dream from which he would soon wake with a start. It simply could not be true. The old witch was seeking to make a fool of him; or perhaps he had not heard her aright.

Then as he stared at her, still sunk in her curtsey at his feet, he knew that she was not making a mock of him, but had hailed him as the new Imperial consort in sober earnest.

Into his racing mind came all that Natalia Andreovna had told him df the making and unmaking of the favourites. When the Empress tired of one she never quarrelled with him or warned him that he was about to be

dismissed. She began to look round for another; and shrewd Potemkin, to whom her mind was an open book on such matters, put a few likely young men in her way, taking care to select only those whom he felt had not sufficiently strong personalities to undermine his own position as her chief counsellor. When she found one of Potemkin's lusty young proteges pleasing to her, old Katerina Ivahovna was called in to give a party. Without knowing himself to be a candidate for the Empress's favour the young man was invited, and she attended as a private guest, so that she could talk to him informally without giving cause for gossip in her court. If, on closer acquaintance, she still found him to her liking, he was given a thorough medical examination. Then, without warning, the old favourite was presented with a big sum of money and told to travel, and the new one was installed in his place.