ownfall of local administration, and
finally, we've seen with our own eyes the town on fire? What do you find
amiss? Isn't that your programme? What can you blame us for?"

"Acting on your own initiative!" Pyotr Stepanovitch cried furiously.
"While I am here you ought not to have dared to act without my
permission. Enough. We are on the eve of betrayal, and perhaps to-morrow
or to-night you'll be seized. So there. I have authentic information."

At this all were agape with astonishment.

"You will be arrested not only as the instigators of the fire, but as a
quintet. The traitor knows the whole secret of the network. So you see
what a mess you've made of it!"

"Stavrogin, no doubt," cried Liputin.

"What... why Stavrogin?" Pyotr Stepanovitch seemed suddenly taken aback.
"Hang it all," he cried, pulling himself together at once, "it's Shatov!
I believe you all know now that Shatov in his time was one of the
society. I must tell you that, watching him through persons he does
not suspect, I found out to my amazement that he knows all about the
organisation of the network and... everything, in fact. To save
himself from being charged with having formerly belonged, he will give
information against all. He has been hesitating up till now and I have
spared him. Your fire has decided him: he is shaken and will hesitate
no longer. To-morrow we shall be arrested as incendiaries and political
offenders."

"Is it true? How does Shatov know?" The excitement was indescribable.

"It's all perfectly true. I have no right to reveal the source from
which I learnt it or how I discovered it, but I tell you what I can
do for you meanwhile: through one person I can act on Shatov so that
without his suspecting it he will put off giving information, but not
more than for twenty-four hours." All were silent.

"We really must send him to the devil!" Tolkatchenko was the first to
exclaim.

"It ought to have been done long ago," Lyamshin put in malignantly,
striking the table with his fist.

"But how is it to be done?" muttered Liputin. Pyotr Stepanovitch at once
took up the question and unfolded his plan. The plan was the following
day at nightfall to draw Shatov away to a secluded spot to hand over
the secret printing press which had been in his keeping and was buried
there, and there "to settle things." He went into various essential
details which we will omit here, and explained minutely Shatov's present
ambiguous attitude to the c