The Argosy, Vol. XXV, No. 1 — page 71: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BY RIGHT OF SWORD. 71 If I had meant treachery, I should have had the police round us tonight like a swarm of bees. You have had a proof whether I’m true or not ; and when I turn traitor, you can run a blade into my heart or lodge a bullet in my brain. But oaths are nothing to a man who means either to keep or break his word. What is the condition? I told you mine before.’’ ‘“ Yours is accepted. Your task is’’—here he sunk his voice and whis- pered right into my ear—‘‘ the death of Christian Tueski.’’ ‘‘ I accept,’’? I answered readily. I would have accepted had they told me to kill the Czar himself.- ‘‘ But it will take time. I will have no other hand init than mine. It isa glorious commission. Mine alone the honor of success, and mine alone the danger, or mine alone the disgrace of fail- ure.’’ I looked on the whole thing now as more or less of a burlesque; but I planned the part I had chosen as well asI could. And when the little puny rebel put out his hand in the darkness and clasped mine, I gripped his with a force that made his bones crack, as if to convey to him the intensity of my resolve, and my enthusiastic pleasure at the bloody work they had allotted me. . 7 Then I was told to leave, and in a few minutes I was once more in the open air, quite as undecided then, as I have always remained, as to what had been the real intentions in regard to myself. One of my chief regrets was not to be able to see the burly giant who had twisted me about on his knee as easily as I should a fowl whose neck I meant to wring. He was indeed a man to admire, and I would have given much for a sight of him. But my guide hurried me back through the labyrinth of streets into respectable Moscow once more, and I was soon busy wondering how long a shrift I should have before sai new ‘“‘ comrades’’ would grow impatient for me to act. Certainly they would have kis of time for their impatience to grow very cold before I should turn murderer to further their schemes. But I could not foresee the strange chain of events which was fated to fasten on me the new character that I had assumed so lightly and dramatically—the char- acter of a desperate, bloodthirsty, and absolutely reckless Nihilist. CHAPTER IX.—DEvinsky AGAIN. It will be readily understood that I now found life exciting enough to satisfy me. My complications multiplied so fast, without any act of mine, that I had no time to think of the old troubles and disappointments which had so soured Hamylton Tregethner. ‘They had already faded into little more than memories, associated with an existence that I had once lived but had now done with altogether. I was getting rapidly absorbed by the dan- gers and incidents of the new life. How completely I had changed the current of opinion about Alexis Petro- vitch I had abundant evidence during the next few days, in the form of invi- tations to houses which had hitherto been closed to me. People also began to remember Olga, and she equally shared in the altered condition of things. CoTmmiclaoolK< (S@)