at, if you wish it to be so, we can forget
everything that has been said here."

The three others, frightened, at once protested their discretion.
He added, roughly this time, "Service of the Tsar," and the three
stammered, "God save the Tsar!" After which he saw them to the door.
When the door had closed after them, he said, "My little Annouchka,
you mustn't reckon without me." He hurried toward the sofa, where
Rouletabille was lying forgotten, and gave him a tap on the shoulder.

"Come, get up. Don't act as though you were asleep. Not an instant
to lose. They are going to carry through the Trebassof affair this
evening."

Rouletabille was already on his legs.

"Oh, monsieur," said he, "I didn't want you to tell me that. Thanks all
the same, and good evening."

He went out.

Gounsovski rang. A servant appeared.

"Tell them they may now open all the rooms on this corridor; I'll not
hold them any longer." Thus had Gounsovski kept himself protected.

Left alone, the head of the Secret Service wiped his brow and drank a
great glass of iced water which he emptied at a draught. Then he said:

"Koupriane will have his work cut out for him this evening; I wish him
good luck. As to them, whatever happens, I wash my hands of them."

And he rubbed his hands.

X. A DRAMA IN THE NIGHT

At the door of the Krestowsky Rouletabille, who was in a hurry for
a conveyance, jumped into an open carriage where la belle Onoto was
already seated. The dancer caught him on her knees.

"To Eliaguine, fast as you can," cried the reporter for all explanation.

"Scan! Scan! (Quickly, quickly)" repeated Onoto.

She was accompanied by a vague sort of person to whom neither of them
paid the least attention.

"What a supper! You waked up at last, did you?" quizzed the actress. But
Rouletabille, standing up behind the enormous coachman, urged the horses
and directed the route of the carriage. They bolted along through the
night at a dizzy pace. At the corner of a bridge he ordered the horses
stopped, thanked his companions and disappeared.

"What a country! What a country! Caramba!" said the Spanish artist.

The carriage waited a few minutes, then turned back toward the city.

Rouletabille got down the embankment and slowly, taking infinite
precautions not to reveal his presence by making the least noise, made
his way to where the river is widest. Seen through the blackness of the
night the blacker mass of the Trebassof vill