I--I crave a pardon for that act for which I have ever been truly penitent."
"A pardon is granted," was the reply in a firm, deep voice. "You killed my brother Nicholas under compulsion. But on account of your open confession and the service rendered to me by these revelations, I must forgive you. I see that your actions have, all along, been controlled by Serge Markoff. Now," he added, "what more can you tell me regarding this maladministration of the police?"
Danilovitch threw himself upon his knees and kissed the Emperor"s hand, thanking him deeply and declaring that he would never take any further part in the revolutionary movement in the future, but exercise all his influence to crush and stamp it out.
Then, when he had risen again to his feet, he addressed His Majesty, saying:
"The Secret Police, as at present organised, manufacture revolutionaries. I was a loyal, law-abiding Russian before the police arrested my brother and my wife illegally, and sent them to Siberia without trial. Then I rose, like thousands of others have done, and fell into the trap which Markoff"s agents so cleverly prepared. No one has been safe from arrest in Russia--"
"Until to-day," the Emperor interrupted. "The ukase I have written is the law of the Empire from this hour."
"Ah! G.o.d be thanked!" cried the man, placing his hands together fervently. "Probably no man can tell the many crimes and injustices for which General Markoff has been responsible. You want to know some of them--some within my own knowledge," he went on. "Well, he was responsible for the great plot in Moscow a year ago when the little Tzarevitch so narrowly escaped. Seventeen people were killed and twenty-three were injured by the six bombs which were thrown, and nearly one hundred innocent persons were sent to Schusselburg or to Siberia in consequence."
"Did you formulate that plot?" the Emperor asked.
"I did. Also at Markoff"s orders the one at Nikolaiev where the young woman, Vera Vogel, shot the Governor-General of Kherson and two of his Cossacks. Again at Markoff"s demand, I formed the plot whereby, near Tchirskaia, the bridge over the Don was blown up; fortunately just before Your Majesty"s train reached it. It was I who pressed the electrical contact--I pressed it purposely a few moments too quickly, as I was determined not to be the cause of that wholesale loss of life which must have resulted had the train fallen into the river. Another attempt was the Zuroff affair, when an infernal machine charged with nitro-glycerine was not long ago actually found within the Winter Palace--placed there by an unknown hand in order to terrify Your Majesty. But I tell you the hand that placed it where it was found was that of Serge Markoff himself--the same hand which killed His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Peter in order to prevent His Highness telling Your Majesty certain ugly truths which he had accidentally discovered.
And," he went on, "there were many other conspiracies of various kinds conceived for the sole purpose of keeping the Empire ever in a state of unrest and the arrest of hundreds of the innocent of both s.e.xes.
Indeed, explosives--picric acid, nitro-glycerine, melinite and cordite-- were supplied to us from a secret source. Sometimes, too, when I furnished a list of, say, ten or a dozen of those implicated in a plot, the police would arrest them with probably thirty others besides, people taken haphazard in the streets or in the houses. Whole families have been banished, men dragged from their wives, women from their husbands and children, and though innocent were consigned to those terrible oubliettes beneath the level of the lake at Schusselburg, or in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. To adequately describe all the fierce brutality, the gross injustice and the ingenious plots conceived and financed by Serge Markoff would be impossible. I only speak of those in which I, as his unwilling catspaw, have been implicated."
Her Highness and myself had listened to this amazing confession without uttering a word.
The Emperor, intensely interested in the man"s story, put to him many questions, some concerning the demands of the Party of the People"s Will, others in which he requested further details concerning Markoff"s crimes against persons, and against the State.
"This man in whom for years I have placed such implicit confidence has played me false!" cried the ruler presently, his face pale as he struck the table fiercely in his anger. "He has plotted with the Terrorists against me! He has been responsible for several attempts from which I have narrowly escaped with my life. Therefore he shall answer to me-- this cunning knave who is actually my brother"s a.s.sa.s.sin! He shall pay the penalty of his crimes!"
"All Russia knows that at Your Majesty"s hands we always receive justice," the Revolutionist said. "From the Ministry, however, we never do. They are our oppressors--our murderers."
"And you Revolutionists wish to kill me because of the misdeeds of my Ministers!" cried the Emperor in reproach.
"If Your Majesty dismisses and punishes those who are responsible, then there will be no more Terrorism in Russia. I am a leader; I have bred and reared the serpent of the Revolution, and I myself can strangle it-- and I promise Your Majesty that as soon as General Markoff is removed from office--I will do so."
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.
THE EMPEROR"S COMMAND.
Again the Emperor turned to his table and scribbled a few lines in Russian, which he handed to the man.
It was an impressive moment. What he had written was the dismissal in disgrace of his favourite, the most powerful official in the Empire.
"I shall receive him in audience to-night, and shall give this to him,"
he said. "The punishment I can afterwards consider."
Then, after a pause, he added:
"I have to thank you, Danilo Danilovitch, for all that you have revealed to me. Go and tell your comrades of the Revolution all that I have said and what I have done. Tell them that their Emperor will himself see that justice is accorded them--that his one object in future shall be to secure, by G.o.d"s grace, the peace, prosperity and tranquillity of the Russian nation."
Then the Emperor bowed as sign that the audience was at an end, and the man, unused to the etiquette of Court, bowed, turned, and wishing us farewell, walked out.
"All this utterly astounds me, Trewinnard," said His Majesty, when Danilovitch had gone. He was speaking as a man, not as an Emperor.
"Yet what Tattie has revealed only confirms what I suspected regarding the death of my poor brother Peter," he went on. "You recollect that I told you my suspicions--of my secret--on the day of the fourth Court ball last year. It is now quite plain. He was ruthlessly killed by the one man in my _entourage_ whom I have so foolishly believed to be my friend. Ah! How grossly one may be deceived--even though he be an Emperor!" and he sighed, drawing his strong hand wearily across his brow.
After a pause he added: "I have to thank you, Trewinnard, for thus tearing the scales from my eyes. Indeed, I have to thank you for much in connection with what I have learned to-day."
"No, Sire," was my reply. "Rather thank Her Imperial Highness. To her efforts all is due. She has sacrificed her great love for a most worthy man in the performance of this, her duty. Had she not resolved to return to Russia and speak openly at risk of giving you offence, she might have remained in England--or, rather, in Scotland, still preserving her _incognita_, and still retaining at her side the honest, upright young Englishman with whom she has been in love ever since her school-days at Eastbourne."
"I quite realise the great sacrifice you have made, Tattie," said the Emperor, turning to her kindly, and noting how pale was her beautiful countenance and how intense her look. "By this step you have, in all probability, saved my life. Markoff and his gang of corrupt Ministers would have no doubt killed me whenever it suited their purpose to do so.
But you have placed your duty to myself and to the nation before your love, therefore some adequate recompense is certainly due to you."
The great man of commanding presence strode across the room from end to end, his bearded chin upon his breast, deep in thought. Suddenly he halted before her, and drawing himself up with that regal air which suited him so well, he looked straight at her, placed his hand tenderly upon her shoulder as she sat, and said:
"Tell me, Tattie; do you really and truly love this Englishman?"
"I do, uncle," the girl faltered, her fine eyes downcast. "Of course I do. I--I cannot tell you a lie and deny it."
"And--well, if Richard Drury took out letters of naturalisation as a Russian subject, and I made him a Count--and I gave you permission to marry--what then--eh?" he asked, smiling merrily as he stood over her.
She sprang to her feet and grasped both his big hands.
"You will!" she cried. "You really will! Uncle, tell me!"
The Emperor, smiling benignly upon her--for, after all, she was his favourite niece--slowly nodded in the affirmative.
Whereupon she turned to me, exclaiming:
"Oh! Uncle Colin. Dear old Uncle Colin! I"m so happy--so very happy!
I must telegraph to d.i.c.k at once--at once!"
"No, no, little madcap," interrupted the Emperor; "not from here. The Secret Police would quickly know all about it. Send someone to the German frontier with a telegram. One of our couriers shall start to-night. Drury will receive the good news to-morrow evening, and, Tattie,"--he added, taking both her little hands again, "I have known all along, from various reports, how deeply and devotedly you love this young Englishman. Therefore, if I give my consent and make your union possible, I only hope and trust that you will both enjoy every happiness."
In her wild ecstasy of delight the girl raised her sweet face to his heavy-bearded countenance, that face worn by the cares of State, and kissed him fervently, thanking him profoundly, while I on my part craved for the immediate release of poor Luba de Rosen.
The Emperor at once scribbled something upon an official telegraph form, and touching a bell, the sentry carried it out.
"The young lady so cruelly wronged will be free and on her way back to Petersburg within three hours," the Monarch said quietly, after the sentry had made his exit.
"Oh! Uncle Colin!" cried Her Highness excitedly to me, "what a red-letter day this is for me!"
"And for me also, Tattie," remarked His Majesty in his deep, clear voice. "Owing to your efforts, I have learned some amazing but bitter truths; I have at last seen the reason why my people have so cruelly misjudged me, and why they hate me. I realise how I have, alas! been blinded and misled by a corrupt and unscrupulous Ministry who have exercised their power for their own self-advancement, their methods being the stirring-up of the people, the creation of dissatisfaction, unrest, and the actual manufacture of revolutionary plots directed against my own person. I now know the truth, and I intend to act--to act with a hand as strong and as relentless as they have used against my poor, innocent, long-suffering subjects." Her Highness was all anxiety to send a telegram by courier over the frontier to Eydtkuhnen. If he left Petersburg by the night train at a quarter-past ten, he would, she reckoned, be at the frontier at six o"clock on the following evening.
It was half an hour by train from Tzarskoie-Selo to Petersburg, and she was now eager to end the audience and be dismissed.
But His Majesty seemed in no hurry. He asked us both many questions concerning Markoff, and what we knew regarding his dealings with the bomb-throwers.
Natalia explained what had occurred in Brighton, and how she had been constantly watched by Danilovitch, while I described the visit of Hartwig and myself to that dingy house in Lower Clapton. That sinister, unscrupulous chief of Secret Police had been directly responsible for the death of Natalia"s father; and Her Highness was bitter in her invectives against him.
"Leave him to me," said the Emperor, frowning darkly. "He is an a.s.sa.s.sin, and he shall be punished as such."
Then, ringing his bell again, he ordered the next Imperial courier in waiting to be summoned, for at whatever palace His Majesty might be there were always half a dozen couriers ready at a moment"s notice to go to the furthermost end of the Empire.
"I know, Tattie, you are anxious to send your message. Write it at my table, and it shall be sent from the first German station. Here, in Russia, the Secret Police are furnished with copies of all messages sent abroad or received. We do not want your secret disclosed just yet!" he laughed.