Argosy, Vol. 1 (December 9, 1882) — page 148: what you’re looking at

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

- NT ee oe THE BROTHERHOOD OF SILENCE. 141 Olga saw and rightly interpreted the glance, also, for as he left the room upon my assurance that I would follow him at once she put her hands in mine, and said: “ Are you indeed assured of your own safety, Dubravnik? I think I shall always call you by that name. Are you assured of your own safety? Tell me truly.” “ Pertectly ; and of yours, also. Have no fears.” Then I raised her hands to my lips, and kissed them both, first one and then the other, again and again; and she, standing on tiptoe, pressed her lips to my forehead. “ Love, honor, and obey,” I murmured; and she repeated after me: “ Love, honor, and obey.” Then I left her. It was still early in the day, but at that time of the year darkness settles over the earth while yet the day is young, and night was already abroad in the streets. I had much to do ere the dawn of another day, for the time had come when the power of the Brotherhood of Silence must be asserted; when I felt that the work that I had agreed to do for the Czar was nearly completed. My drag net was ready, and the time had come to cast it. CHAPTER XII.—PRINCE MICHAEL’S ANGER. Nosopy but myself, in all Russia, was familiar with the secrets and the mysteries of the Brotherhood of Silence. In organizing it I had anticipated just such a moment as the one that faced me now; i.e., an emergency where I would have to depend entirely upon the loyalty of my men, and my own superior knowledge of who and what they were, for my safety. The partial description already given of that organization conveys only a faint idea of its perfection and completeness. The different departments were thoroughly under the control of their several heads, and those heads were all men whom I could implicitly trust, and I knew that I might even dare to snap my fingers at the power of the police system itself, so great was my own. I had men everywhere, and the gift of remembering names and faces, a gift the Almighty had bestowed upon me, gave me the advantage of knowing nearly all of them by sight, although there was not a score, all told, who knew me; and those were every one importations of my own, upon whose devotion T could thoroughly depend, even in the face of regular police opposition. More than that, I had men within the ranks of the police, even within the ' fold of the mysterious and dreaded third section. I realized fully the danger to my own person in going upon the street at that hour, when I had within so short a time been condemned to death by the extremists—the most implacable element among the Nihilists. They do not dread death themselves, so long as they accomplish the death of him who has been condemned, and one who has fallen under the ban of their disapproval is in as great danger in broad daylight, among a hundred companions, as he is on dark streets and among unfrequented byways. I thought it best, therefore, to provide as well as possible against another GOH GOOO ‘SS COLNT