coachman; the two horses were disemboweled, two
magnificent piebald horses, my dear young monsieur, that the general
was so attached to. As to Feodor, he had that serious wound in his right
leg; the calf was shattered. I simply had my shoulder a little wrenched,
practically nothing. The bomb had been placed under the seat of the
unhappy coachman, whose hat alone we found, in a pool of blood. From
that attack the general lay two months in bed. In the second month they
arrested two servants who were caught one night on the landing leading
to the upper floor, where they had no business, and after that I sent
at once for our old domestics in Orel to come and serve us. It
was discovered that these detected servants were in touch with
the revolutionaries, so they were hanged. The Emperor appointed a
provisional governor, and now that the general was better we decided
on a convalescence for him in the midi of France. We took train for
St. Petersburg, but the journey started high fever in my husband and
reopened the wound in his calf. The doctors ordered absolute rest and so
we settled here in the datcha des Iles. Since then, not a day has passed
without the general receiving an anonymous letter telling him that
nothing can save him from the revenge of the revolutionaries. He is
brave and only smiles over them, but for me, I know well that so long as
we are in Russia we have not a moment's security. So I watch him every
minute and let no one approach him except his intimate friends and us
of the family. I have brought an old gniagnia who watched me grow up,
Ermolai, and the Orel servants. In the meantime, two months later, the
third attempt suddenly occurred. It is certainly of them all the most
frightening, because it is so mysterious, a mystery that has not yet,
alas, been solved."

But Athanase Georgevitch had told a "good story" which raised so much
hubbub that nothing else could be heard. Feodor Feodorovitch was so
amused that he had tears in his eyes. Rouletabille said to himself
as Matrena talked, "I never have seen men so gay, and yet they know
perfectly they are apt to be blown up all together any moment."

General Trebassof, who had steadily watched Rouletabille, who, for that
matter, had been kept in eye by everyone there, said:

"Eh, eh, monsieur le journaliste, you find us very gay?"

"I find you very brave," said Rouletabille quietly.

"How is that?" said Feodor Feodorovitch, smiling.

"You must pardon me fo