uch as a movement
of the curtain, which showed that the singer was heard and attended
to.

And so the days passed on. Every hour we improved our position, and at
last the day came, when Count Saxe said to us:

"One more week of work, and we can stay here as long as this island
stays."

But those last days were the most important of all. Work relaxed not,
and our time of rest in the evening was to be shortened still more.
And on this evening, as Gaston Cheverny sat in the twilight on the
terrace, all of us listening to his singing, after a day of labor, and
a night of toil to come, Gaston stopped suddenly, rising to his
feet--and so rose Count Saxe and all of us. For in the gray evening we
saw on the mainland a moving mass, like a huge black serpent,
unfolding itself from the distant woods and boscage upon the open
country. The Russians were upon us.

Instantly all was life and movement. Count Saxe did not, even in that
moment, forget Francezka, for tapping at her window, he said, when she
appeared:

"Mademoiselle, here are our friends, the Russians. Be not alarmed;
there is a place of safety for you below the terrace if there should
be fighting."

"I am not alarmed, Monsieur," quietly replied Francezka. She had been
reading by the light of a single candle that volume of Villon which
Gaston Cheverny had carried in his pocket or at his saddle bow ever
since we left France. She kept her finger at the page, and spoke in a
calm voice, although she grew a little pale. "Whenever and wherever
you will have me go, I am ready."

As Gaston Cheverny said, she was the most docile creature alive when
real danger was at hand. She knew how to obey like a soldier, and as
she came of good soldierly stock, this was not strange.

The Russians, however, having now got within hearing of us, sounded a
parley on the trumpet. Count Saxe instantly determined to send Gaston
Cheverny to the parley. Gaston had picked up some understanding of
the Russian language while we were at Mitau, and especially while he
was with Pintsch's highwaymen, and had been artful enough to conceal
it. So, Gaston, with a small escort, put off in a boat to meet the
Russian envoys. The main body had halted about a mile from the shore,
while we could see, by the starlight, a considerable number of them,
presumably officers, making for the point of land which dipped into
the lake.

We were all at our posts awaiting the outcome quietly. But one more
week, and w