n store for the fleet, should it be permitted to sail.

M. Auguste was earning his reward.

CHAPTER XXI

MY FUNERAL

The extreme privacy with which I had managed my negotiation with M.
Auguste completely baffled the plotters who were relying on the
voyage of the Baltic Fleet to furnish a _casus belli_ between Russia
and Great Britain.

They realized, of course, that some powerful hand was interfering
with their designs, and they were sufficiently intelligent to guess
that that hand must be mine.

But they were far from suspecting the method of my operations. They
firmly believed that M. Auguste was still carrying out their
instructions, and sowing distrust of England in the mind of Nicholas
II. Indeed, on one occasion he informed me that the Princess Y----
had sent for him and ordered him not to frighten the Czar to such an
extent as to make him afraid to let the fleet proceed to sea.

Unable to detect and countermine me, it was natural that they should
become impatient for my removal.

Accordingly, I was not surprised to receive an urgent message from
Sophia, late one evening, requesting me to come to her without delay.

By this time our friendship, if such it could be called, had become
so intimate that I visited her nearly every day on one pretext or
another.

Her greeting, as soon as I had obeyed the summons, showed me that a
fresh development had taken place in the situation.

"Andreas, the hour has come!"

"The hour?"

"For your removal. Petrovitch has been here. He suspects something.
He has rebuked me severely for the delay."

"Did you tell him I was not an easy man to kill?"

"I told him anything and everything. He would not listen. He says
they have lost confidence in me. He was brutal. He said----"

"Well, what did he say?"

"He said--" she spoke slowly and shamefacedly--"that he perceived it
took a man to kill a man."

I smiled grimly.

"History tells us differently. But what then?"

"To-morrow I shall no longer be able to answer for your life."

"You think some one else will be appointed to dispose of me?"

"I am sure that some one else has been appointed already. Most likely
it is Petrovitch himself."

"Well, I shall look out for him." I did not think it necessary to
tell Sophia that I had been expecting something of this kind, and had
made certain preparations.

"It will be useless, Andreas. You do not know the man with whom you
have to deal."

"The ignorance may