Part 45 (1/2)
”Yes, yes, I quite understand,” said His Majesty very gravely.
”By returning here, by abandoning my _incognita_, I--I have been compelled to sacrifice my love,” declared the girl in a low, faltering voice, her cheeks blanched, her mouth drawn hard, and her fine eyes filled with tears.
”Ah! Tattie! If what you have revealed to me be true, then the reason of Markoff's unsatisfactory reports concerning, you is quite apparent,”
His Majesty said, slowly folding his arms as he stood in thought, a fine commanding figure with the jewelled double eagle at his throat flas.h.i.+ng with a thousand fires.
”And so, Trewinnard,” he added, turning to me, ”all this is the reason why, more than once, you have given me those mysterious hints which have set me pondering.”
”Yes, Sire,” I replied. ”You have been blinded by these clever adventurers surrounding you--that circle which, headed by Serge Markoff, is always so careful to prevent you from learning the truth. The intrigue they practise is most ingenious and far-reaching, ever securing their own advancement with fat emoluments at the expense of the oppressed nation. Their basic principle is to terrorise you--to keep the bogy of revolution constantly before Your Majesty, to discover plots, and by administrative process to send hundreds, nay thousands, into exile in those far-off Arctic wastes, or fill the prisons with suspects, more than two-thirds of whom are innocent, loyal and law-abiding citizens.”
He turned suddenly and, pale with anger, struck his fist upon his table.
”There shall be no more exile by administrative process!” he cried, and seating himself, he drew a sheet of official paper before him, and for a few moments his quill squeaked rapidly over the paper.
Thus he wrote the ukase abolis.h.i.+ng exile by administrative process--that law which the camarilla had so abused--and signed it with a flourish of his pen.
The first reform in Russia--a reform which meant the yearly saving of thousands of innocent lives, the preservation of the sanct.i.ty of every home throughout the great Empire, and which guaranteed to everyone in future, suspect or known criminal or Revolutionist, a fair and open trial--had been achieved.
Surely the little Grand d.u.c.h.ess, the madcap of the Romanoffs, had not sacrificed her great love in vain, even though while that Imperial ukase was being written she sat with bitter tears rolling slowly down her white cheeks.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.
DESCRIBES A MOMENTOUS AUDIENCE.
A dead silence fell in that small, business-like room, wherein the monarch, the hardest-working man in the Empire, transacted the complicated business of the great Russian nation.
Outside could be heard a sharp word of command, followed by the heavy tramp of soldiers and the roll of drums. The sentries were changing guard.
Slowly--very slowly--His Majesty placed a sheet of blotting-paper over the doc.u.ment he had written, and then turning to the tearful girl, asked:
”Will not this individual, Danilo Danilovitch, furnish me with proofs?
He is a Revolutionist, yet that is no reason why I should not see him.
From what you tell me, Markoff holds him in his power by constantly threatening to betray him to his comrades as a police-spy. I must see him. Where is he?”
”He has accompanied us from London, Your Majesty,” was my reply. ”I had some difficulty in a.s.suring him that he would obtain justice at Your Majesty's hands.”
”He is an a.s.sa.s.sin. He killed my brother Nicholas; yet it seems--if what you tell me be true--that Markoff compelled him to commit this crime.”
”Without a doubt,” was my reply.
”Then, Revolutionist or not, I will see him,” and he touched the electric b.u.t.ton placed in the side of his writing-table.
A sentry appeared instantly, and at my suggestion His Majesty permitted me to go down the long corridor, at the end of which the dark, thin-faced man, in a rather shabby black suit, was sitting in a small ante-room, outside which stood a tall, statuesque Cossack sentry.
A few words of explanation, and somewhat reluctantly Danilovitch rose and followed me into the presence of the man he was ever plotting to kill.
The Emperor received him most graciously, and ordered him to be seated, saying:
”My niece here and Mr Trewinnard have been speaking of you, Danilo Danilovitch, and have told me certain astounding things.”