sia.
And this was the payment!

The other--the man who had thrown the bomb--was already dead. The
terrific explosion had sent his soul hard after the puff of white smoke,
and in the twinkling of an eye he stood at the bar of the Great Assize.
It is to be hoped that he made a good defence there, and did not stammer
in the presence of his Judge.

The Czar's gentlemen in attendance were all killed or wounded. He was
left to the care of his Cossack escort, who were doing what they could
to succor him--though, being soldiers, they knew that he had passed
beyond all human aid. The crowd parted to make way for a tall man who
literally threw aside all who stood in his path. It was the Emperor's
brother, the Grand Duke Michael, brought hither by the sound of the
first explosion. He knelt on the blood-stained snow and spoke to the
dying man.

The sleigh towards which he had been walking was now brought forward
again, and the Czar was lifted from the snow. There was no doctor near.
The mob drew back in dumb horror. In the crowd stood Cartoner, brought
hither by that instinct which had made him first among the Vultures--the
instinct that took him to the battle-field, where he was called upon to
share the horror and reap none of the glory.

His quiet eyes were ablaze for once with a sudden, helpless anger. He
could not even give way to the first and universal impulse to kill the
killer.

He stood motionless through the brief silence that succeeded to the
second explosion. There is a silence that follows those great events
brought about by a man which seems to call aloud for a word from God.

Then, because it was his duty to draw his buzzing thoughts together, to
be watchful and quick, to think and act while others stood aghast, he
took one last look at the dying Emperor, and turned to make his way
from the crowd while yet he could. He had pieced together, with the
slow accuracy that Deulin envied him, the small scraps of information
obtained from one source or another in Warsaw, in London from Captain
Cable, in St. Petersburg from half a dozen friends. This was Poland's
opportunity. A sudden inspiration had led him to look for the centre of
the evil, not in Warsaw, but in St. Petersburg. And that which other men
called his luck had brought him within sound of the first explosion by
the side of the Catherine Canal.

He passed through a back street and out into wider thoroughfares. He
hurried as much as was prudent, and in a