ah! These gentlemen lay down conditions to me! Money. Money. They
need money. And at how much do they rate the head of the general?"

"Sire, that does not touch Your Majesty, and I never will come to offer
you such a bargain. That matter concerns only Natacha Feodorovna, who
has offered her fortune!"

"Her fortune! But she has nothing."

"She will have one at the death of the general. Now she engages to give
it all to the Revolutionary Committee the day the general dies--if he
dies a natural death!"

The Emperor rose, greatly agitated.

"To the Revolutionary Party! What do you tell me! The fortune of the
general! Eh, but these are great riches."

"Sire, I have told you the secret. You alone should know it and guard it
forever, and I have your sacred word that, when the hour comes, you will
let the prize go where it is promised. If the general ever learns of
such a thing, such a treaty, he would easily arrange that nothing should
remain, and he would denounce his daughter who has saved him, and then
he would promptly he the prey of his enemies and yours, from whom you
wish to save him. I have told the secret not to the Emperor, but to the
representative of God on the Russian earth. I have confessed it to the
priest, who is bound to forget the words uttered only before God. Allow
Natacha Feodorovna her own way, Sire! And her father, your servant,
whose life is so dear to you, is saved. At the natural death of the
general his fortune will go to his daughter, who has disposed of it."

Rouletabille stopped a moment to judge of the effect produced. It was
not good. The face of his august listener was more and more in a frown.

The silence continued, and now the reporter did not dare to break it. He
waited.

Finally, the Emperor rose and walked forward and backward across the
room, deep in thought. For a moment he stopped at the window and waved
paternally to the little Tsarevitch, who played in the park with the
grand-duchesses.

Then he returned to Rouletabille and pinched his ear.

"But, tell me, how have you learned all this? And who then has poisoned
the general and his wife, in the kiosk, if not Natacha?"

"Natacha is a saint. It is nothing, Sire, that she has been raised in
luxury, and vows' herself to misery; but it is sublime that she guards
in her heart the secret of her sacrifice from everyone, and, in spite of
all, because secrecy is necessary and has been required of her. See her
guarding it before