The Argosy — page 131: what you’re looking at

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

BY RIGHT OF SWORD. , 323 ‘“T ought to write out a very different order and have you both sent straight to the Mallovitch yonder, and let things take their course.’’ ‘Well, it’s fortunate for me, then,’’ I replied, with a laugh, ‘‘ that your interest and your judgment pull different ways. You won’t do that, prince.” ‘“ How do I know that you are not a Nihilist ?’’ ‘Instinct, judgment, knowledge of men—knowledge of me—everything. Besides, if you want proof, no one knows better than yourself that a cipher telegram sent to London, and inquiries made in half a dozen places that I can mention, will put ample proofs in your hands to show whoI am. So farasI know, there’s one man in Russia at the present moment, and actually coming to Moscow, who’ll stir up the British legation and every British consulate in the country in the search for Hamylton Tregethner. That’s the Hon. Rupert Balestier.’” Then I told him what had happened in Paris. At first he smiled, but soon grew thoughtful again. ‘I warn you, too,’’ I added, when he made no answer, ‘‘ that if you chop my head off, or stifle me in one of your infernal prisons, or send me packing to Siberia, Balestier is just the man to raise a devil of a clatter. And you don’t want a row with our foreign office just at the moment when things are so ticklish with the Sick Man.’’ He waved his hand as if to put all such considerations away from him. ‘If the girl had got away, did you mean to try to escape ?”’ ‘‘ Certainly,’’ replied I frankly ; and I told him the scheme I had formed. ‘“And now ?’’ ‘If I give my word I shall keep it. You Russians never seem to think a man will keep his parole to his own disadvantage. We English think dif- ferently—and act as we think.”’ ‘If we postpone this talk till tomorrow, have I your word that you’ll make no attempt to escape ?’’ y ‘“ No, indeed, you haven’t. Let this girl go at once; then you can have it and welconie.’’ ‘You seem to forget that I can keep you under guard ?’’ ‘I forget nothing of the kind. Clap me into a prison and you may whistle for any one to carry out—to do what you wish. You can decide now, or lose the option. That’s in the rules of a game like this.’’ “You carry things with a high hand,’’ he cried angrily. ‘‘ Most probably I shouldn’t be here if I didn’t,’ said I, with a laugh. It?s my advantage to force the pace at this juncture; and the risk’s too big to throw away a single chance.”’ He made no reply, but pushing back his chair got up and walked about the room in a state of indecision. absolutely foreign to his character and habits. I knew how momentous the decision was. If I were the dangerous Nihilist that Paula Tueski had declared, the risk of letting me free and in- trusting to me such a task as that we had discussed was critical and deadly. The Russian instinct was to clap me into prison and be done with me; but the personal feeling pulled him in the other direction—to use me for a tool in the project that was all in all to him. With the grand duke (S@) connicbooks