and rasping.

"Where is the fellow?" he snarled, "Let me see him; let me see his
face. Away, Pierre, I tell you, go to the horses! A mercy indeed if
their legs are not broken. A pretty pass this, that one can't drive
through the streets of the capital, not even incognito!--Call the
police!"

The other gentleman, who seemed little more than a boy, stood by the
overturned troika wringing his hands:

"Is it hurt, my little one, my treasure, is it scratched? Keep their
hoofs away, Bobo, hold them still a moment while I raise one end."

He knelt in the snow and peered eagerly beneath the sleigh.

"Sacre--ment!" cried the older man, "What is he after? Quick, on him,
Pierre! Don't let him escape."

The lackey moved cautiously forward, and then gave a sudden leap back
as the boyish figure sprang to his feet, clasping a dark, oblong object
in his arms.

"A bomb, a bomb! In the name of all the saints! If he should drop it
they were doomed, they were dead men!"

The eyes of the lackey were bulging with terror and he stood riveted to
the spot. In the meantime the young man had snatched out his watch and
was holding it up into a patch of moonlight.

"Twenty past the hour!" he exclaimed, "and old Galitsin fuming, I'll be
bound! I'll have to make a run for it. Hey, Bobo!"

As he spoke, an iron hand came down on his shoulder and he looked up
amazed into a pair of eyes, small and black and crossed, flashing with
fury.

"Drop it," hissed a voice, "and I'll throttle you as you stand!
Traitor! Assassin! Your driver obeyed orders, did he? You knew?
Vermin, you ran us down! How did you know? Who betrayed me?--Who?"

The youth stood motionless for a moment in astonishment. He was
helpless as a girl in that vicious grasp that was bearing him under
slowly, relentlessly. "For the love of heaven," he cried, "Let go my
arm, you brute, you'll sprain a muscle! Be careful!"

"Drop it, and I swear by all that is holy--"

"You old fool, you curmudgeon, you coward of an old blatherskite!"
cried the boy, "I wouldn't drop it for all the world, not if you went
on your bended knees. Bobo, yell for the police! Don't you touch my
wrist! Look out now! Of all unpleasant things--!

"Bobo, come here. Never mind the horses. I tell you he is ruining my
arm!--Hey! Help! You're an anarchist yourself, you fool! Shout,
Bobo, shout!"

In the struggle the two had passed from the shadow into the moonlight
and they now confr