the letter to Alexander III," said a young voice eagerly.
This was the important point; more eagerness in the listeners, more enthusiasm among the younger men was, if possible, discernible.
"I have here," said the president, taking a document from the table, "with the help of the committee, embodied our idea as to how that letter should be framed."
"It will be an appetising breakfast relish for the autocrat of all the Russians when he finds it, as he does all our written warnings, underneath his cup of morning coffee," sneered Mirkovitch, who had been sitting all this while smoking grimly, and muttering at intervals short sentences between his teeth, which boded no good to the prisoner he had under his charge.
"Our letter," said the president, "this time will contain the information that the Tsarevitch is, at the present moment, in the hands of some persons unknown, and that those persons will continue to hold him a hostage till certain conditions are complied with."
"Those conditions being?" queried one of the bystanders.
"Complete pardon for Dunajewski, and all those who are in prison with him in connection with that lat plot, together with a free pass out of the country."
"Nicholas Alexandrovitch to be set free the day they have crossed the frontier," added a member of the committee.
"If in answer to this he simply sets the Third Section on our track?" queried a voice diffidently.
"The message shall also contain a warning," said Mirkovitch grimly.
"That in case the police are mixed up in the matter––?"
"They would not even find a dead body."
A pause followed this ominous speech. This was the dark side of this daring plot: the possible murder of a helpless prisoner. Yet they all knew it might become inevitable; the hostage's life might have to be weighed against theirs in case of discovery, and, instead of barter, there might be need for revenge.
"They will never dare refuse," said the president, endeavouring to dispel the gloom cast over most of these young people by the suggestion of a cold-blooded murder; "there will be no need for measures so unworthy of us."
"They know completely the Tsarevitch's life is in our hands," said Mirkovitch authoritatively. "They cannot defy us, they are bound to treat and bargain with us. We might demand the freedom of every convict now languishing in Siberia, and they would have to remember that the heir of all the Russias sleeps with a dagger held over his heart, and be bound to grant what we ask."
"But let them be just and merciful, and we will be so likewise," added the president's more gentle voice; "let Dunajewski and all those concerned cross the frontier with a free pass, and that day the Tsarevitch will be restored to liberty. But let Alexander understand that at the slightest suspicion of police intervention, the life of the hostage will from that hour be considered forfeited."
There was no reply to this; the president has been putting into words the decision of all those assembled.
Mirkovitch still sat, his powerful fist clutched on the table, in his eyes a dark, lurid fire that told of dangerous thoughts.
"There is one person whom, I think, the committee have omitted to consider," said a voice at last, breaking the silence, that had lasted some minutes, "and that is Lavrovski."
"Pardon me," said the president, "we have, I think, all thought of that incompetent, though, at the present moment, important personage, and all reflected as to what his possible attitude would be throughout."
"I have not the slightest doubt," said a voice from the further end of the table, "that it will take Lavrovski some days before he will make up his mind to communicate with his own government."
"Yes," assented another, "I have met him in Petersburg once or twice, and he always given me the idea being a weak and irresolute man."
"Whose first feeling, when he realises–and it will take him some days to do that–that the Tsarevitch has effectually disappeared, will be one of intense terror, lest the blame for the disappearance be primarily laid on him, and he be dispatched to Siberia to expiate his negligence."
"And the fool puts up with being treated a mere valet to a dynasty who would treat him with such baseness and serving a government which, at the first opportunity, would turn on him and whip him like a cur," muttered Mirkovitch wrathfully.
"We have, therefore, every chance that in our favour," resumed the president, "that Lavrovski will not communicate with Petersburg, at any rate for the first few days, whilst he will be busying himself in trying to obtain some clue or idea as to his charge's whereabouts."
"He may probably," suggested someone, "employ some private detective in this city, and, until that hope has failed him, endeavour to keep the Tsarevitch's disappearance a secret from the Russian government."
"Be that as it may," concluded the president. "I think we may safely presume that our messenger will get a few day's start on that slowly moving courtier, and that three days is all he will need to seek out Taranïew, who will lose no time in seeing that the letter reaches its proper destination."
"You are, of course, presuming all the time," now said a voice–an elderly man's voice, sober and sedate–"that Lavrovski, thinking only of his own safety, will at first merely endeavour to keep the matter of the disappearance of his charge's much of a secret as possible; those of our friends who know him best, seem, by judging his pretty well known dilatoriness, to have arrived at this conclusion, which no doubt is the right one. But we must all remember that there is one other person–shall I say enemy?–whom Lavrovski may, in spite of his fears, choose for a confidant, and that person is neither dilatory nor timorous, and has moreover an army of allies of every rank in Vienna to help her speedily and secretly–you all know who I mean."
The question was not answered. What need was there of it? They all knew her by reputation–the beautiful Madame Demidoff–and all suspected and feared her; yet who dared to say she was a spy or worse, this grande dame who was one of the ornaments of Viennese society.
"I spoke to her at the opera ball to-night," said Iván Volenski, who up to this point had taken very little part in the discussion.
"She was there then?" queried an anxious voice.
"She always is everywhere where there is a brilliant function," replied Iván, "and it is just possible that she may have had instructions to keep her dainty ears open, whenever she came across any of her compatriots; when I met her, it was just after Maria Stefanowa had driven off in the fiaker, Madame Demidoff was wanting her carriage, and asked me to help her in finding it."
"No doubt she is our greatest danger," said the president, "for if anything did rouse her suspicions to-night, she certainly would not hesitate to employ a whole army of private and police detectives, and may force our hand before our brothers in Petersburg have had time to play the trump card."
"After all," said Mirkovitch, "if we find that she is exerting her powers too much, it is always within our means to give her a warning, that the Tsarevitch's life is in actual danger through her interference."
"Anyhow, my friends," now concluded the president, "it is well that, knowing our foes, we keep a strict watch on them. After all, let us always remember that, though we risk our lives and liberties, they, in their turn, must first see that the Tsarevitch is quite safe. We hold
