I had last seen the strange, beautiful, wicked woman known as the Princess Y – bending in a passion of hysterical remorse over the body of the man she had driven to death, on the snow-clad train outside Mukden.

I have had some experience of women, and especially of the class which mixes in the secret politics of the European Courts. But Sophia Y – was an enigma to me. There was nothing about her which suggested the adventuress. And there was much which tended to support the story which had won the belief of her august mistress – that she was an involuntary agent, who had been victimized by an unscrupulous minister of police, by means of a false charge, and who genuinely loathed the tasks she was too feeble to refuse.

I had not been back in Petersburg very long when one afternoon the hotel waiter came to tell me that a lady desired to see me privately. The lady, he added, declined to give her name, but declared that she was well known to me.

I had come back to the hotel, I should mention, in the character of Mr. Sterling, the self-appointed agent of the fraternity of British peace-makers. It was necessary for me to have some excuse for residing in Petersburg during the war, and under this convenient shelter I could from time to time prepare more effectual disguises.

I was not altogether surprised when my mysterious visitor raised her veil and disclosed the features of the Princess herself.

But I was both surprised and shocked by the frightened, grief-stricken look on the face of this woman whom I had come to dread as my most formidable opponent in the Russian Court.

“Mr. Sterling! – Monsieur V – ?” she cried in an agitated voice that seemed ready to break down into a sob. “Can you forgive me for intruding on you? I dare not speak to you freely in my own house. I am beset by spies.”

“Sit down, Princess,” I said soothingly, as I rolled forward a comfortable chair. “Of course I am both charmed and flattered by your visit, whatever be its cause.”

With feminine intuition she marked the reserve in my response to her appeal.

“Ah! You distrust me, and you are quite right!” she exclaimed, casting herself into the chair.

She fixed her luminous eyes on me in a deep look, half-imploring, half-reproachful.

“It is true, then, what they have been telling me? You were the man, dressed as an inspector of the Third Section who traveled on the train with me? And you saw the death” – her words were interrupted by a shudder – “of that unhappy man?”

It was not very easy to preserve my composure in the face of her emotion. Nevertheless, at the risk of appearing callous, I replied:

“I cannot pretend to understand your question. However, even if I did it would make no difference.

“Since you know my name is A. V – , you must know also that I never allow myself to talk about my work.”

The Princess winced under these cold words almost as though she had been physically rebuffed. She clasped her delicately-gloved hands together, and murmured as though to herself:

“He will not believe in me! He will not be convinced!”

I felt myself in a very difficult position. Either this woman was thoroughly repentant, and sincerely anxious to make some genuine communication to me, or else she was an actress whose powers might have excited envy in the Bernhardt herself.

I concluded that I could lose nothing by encouraging her to speak.

“You must pardon me if I seem distrustful,” I said with a wholly sympathetic expression. “I have my principles, and cannot depart from them. But I have every wish to convince you of my personal friendship.”

She interrupted me with a terrible glance.

“Personal friendship! Monsieur, do you know what I have come here to tell you?”

And rising wildly to her feet, she spread out her hands in a gesture of utter despair:

“They have ordered me to take your life!”

I am not a man who is easily surprised.

The adventures I have passed through, some of them far more extraordinary than anything I have recorded in my public revelations, have accustomed me to meet almost any situation with diplomatic presence of mind.

But on this occasion I am obliged to admit that I was fairly taken aback.

As the lovely but dangerous woman whom I had cause to regard as the most formidable instrument in the hands of the conspirators, avowed to my face that she had been charged with the mission to assassinate me, I sprang from my chair and confronted her.

She stood, swaying slightly, as though the intensity of her emotion was about to overpower her.

“Do you mean what you say? Do you know what you have said?” I demanded.

The Princess Y – made no answer, but she lifted her violet eyes to mine, and I saw the big tears welling up and beginning to overflow.

I was dismayed. My strength of mind seemed to desert me. I have looked on without a tear when men have fallen dead at my feet, but I have never been able to remain calm before a woman in tears.

“Madame! Princess!” I was on the point of addressing her by a yet more familiar name. “At least, sit down and recover yourself.”

Like one dazed, I led her to a chair. Like one dazed, she sank into it in obedience to my authoritative pressure.

“Come,” I said in a tone which I strove to render at once firm and soothing, “it is clear that we must understand each other. You have come here to tell me this, I suppose?”

“At the risk of my life,” she breathed. “What must you think of me!”

I recalled the fate of poor Menken, whom the woman before me had led to his doom, though she had not struck the blow.

In spite of myself, a momentary shudder went through me.

The sensitive woman saw or felt it, and shook in her turn.

“Believe me or not, as you will,” she exclaimed desperately. “I swear to you that I have never knowingly been guilty of taking life.

“Never for one moment did I anticipate that that poor man would do what he did,” the Princess went on with passionate earnestness. “I tempted him to give me the Czar’s letter, and I destroyed it – I confess that. Are not such things done every day in secret politics? Have you never intercepted a despatch?”

It was a suggestive question. I thought of more than one incident in my own career which might be harshly received by a strict moralist. It is true that I have always been engaged on what I believed was a lawful task; but the due execution of that task had sometimes involved actions which I should have shrunk from in private life.

“I will not excuse myself, Madame,” I answered slowly. “Neither have I accused you.”

“Your tone is an accusation,” she returned with a touch of bitterness. “Oh, I know well that men are ready to pardon many things in one another which they will not pardon in us.”

“I am sorry if I have wounded you,” I said with real compunction. “Let us say no more about the tragedy that is past. Am I right in thinking that you have come to me for aid?”

“I do not know. I do not know why I am here. Perhaps it is because I am mad.”

I gazed at her flushed face and trembling hands, unable to resist the feeling of compassion which was creeping over me.

What was I to think? What was this woman’s real purpose in coming to me?

Had her employers, had the unscrupulous Petrovitch, or the ruthless Minister of Police, indeed charged her to remove me from their path; and had her courage broken down under the hideous burden?

Or was this merely a ruse to win my confidence; or, perhaps, to frighten me into resigning my task and leaving the Russian capital?

Did she wish to save my life, or her own?

I sat regarding her, bewildered by these conjectures.

I saw that I must get her to say more.

“At least you have come to aid me,” I protested. “You have given me a warning for which I cannot be sufficiently grateful.”

“If you believe it is a genuine one,” she retorted. Already she had divined my difficulties and doubts.

“I do not doubt that you mean it genuinely,” I hastened to respond. “There is, of course, the possibility that you yourself have been deceived.”

“Ah!”

She looked up at me in what I could not think was other than real surprise.

“You think so?” she cried eagerly. The next moment her head drooped again. “No, no. I have known them too long. They have never trifled with me before. Believe me, Monsieur, when they told me that you were to be murdered they were not joking with me.”

“But they might have meant to use you for the purpose of terrifying me.”

She stared at me in unaffected astonishment.

“Terrify —you!” She pronounced the words with an emphasis not altogether unflattering. “You are better known in Russia than you imagine, M. V – .”

I passed over the remark.

“Still they must have foreseen the possibility that you would shrink from such a task; that your womanly instincts would prove too much for you. At least they have never required such work of you before?”

Against my will the last words became a question. I was anxious to be assured that the hands of the Princess were free from the stain of blood.

“Never! They dared not! They could not!” she cried indignantly. “You do not know my history. Perhaps you do not care to know it?”

Whatever I knew or suspected, I could make only one answer to such an appeal. Indeed, I was desirous to understand the meaning of one word which the Princess Y – had just used.

“Listen,” she said, speaking with an energy and dignity which I could not but respect, “while I tell you what I am. I am a condemned murderess!”

“Impossible!”

“Impossible in any other country, I grant you, but very possible in Russia. You have heard, I suppose, everybody has heard, of the deaths of my husband and his children. The first two deaths were natural, I swear it. I, at all events, had no more to do with them than if they had occurred in the planet Saturn. Prince Y – committed suicide. And he did so because of me; I do not deny it. But it was not because he suspected me of any hand in the deaths of his children. It was because he knew I hated him!

“The story is almost too terrible to be told. That old man had bought me. He bought me from my father, who was head over ears in debt, and on the brink of ruin. I was sold – the only portion of his property that remained to be sold. And from the first hour of the purchase I hated, oh, how I loathed and hated that old man!”

There was a wild note in her voice that hinted at unutterable things.

“And he,” she continued with a shiver, “he loved me, loved me with a passion that was like madness. He could hardly bear me out of his sight.

“I killed him, yes, morally, I have no doubt I killed him. He lavished everything on me, jewels, wealth, all the forms of luxury. He made a will leaving me the whole of his great fortune. But I could not endure him, and that killed him. I think,” she hesitated and lowered her voice to a whisper, “I think he killed himself to please me.”

Hardened as I am, I felt a thrill of horror. The Princess was right; the story was too terrible to be told.

“Then the police came on the scene. From the first they knew well enough that I was innocent. But they were determined to make me guilty. The head of the secret service at that time was Baron Kratz. He had had his eye on me for some time. The Czar, believing in my guilt, had ordered him not to spare me, and that fatal order gave him a free hand.

“How he managed it all, I hardly know. The servants were bullied or bribed into giving false evidence against me. But one part of their evidence was true enough; even I could not deny that I had hated Prince Y – , and that his death came as a welcome relief.

“There was a secret trial, and I was condemned. They read out my sentence. And then, when it was all over, Kratz came to me, and offered me life and liberty in return for my services as an agent of the Third Section.”

“And to save your life you consented. Well, I do not judge you,” I said.

The Princess glanced at me with a strange smile.

“To save my life! I see you do not yet know our Holy Russia. Shall I tell you what my sentence was?”

“Was it not death, then?”

“Yes, death – by the knout!”

“My God!”

I gazed at her stupified. Her whole beauty seemed to be focussed in one passionate protest. Knouted to death! I saw the form before me stripped, and lashed to the triangles, while the knotted thong, wielded by the hangman’s hands, buried itself in the soft flesh.

I no longer disbelieved. I no longer even doubted. The very horror of the story had the strength of truth.

For some time neither of us spoke.

“But now, surely, you have made up your mind to break lose from this thraldom?” I demanded. “And, if so, and you will trust me, I will undertake to save you.”

“You forget, do you not, that you yourself are not free? You surely do not mean that you would lay aside your work for my sake?”

It was a question which disconcerted me in more ways than one. In a secret service agent, suspicion becomes second nature. I caught myself asking whether all that had gone before was not merely intended to lead up to this one question, and I cursed myself for the doubt.

“My duty to my present employer comes first, of course,” I admitted. “But as soon as I am free again – ”

“If you are still alive,” she put in significantly.

“Ah! You mean?”

“I mean that when they find out that I am not to be depended on, they will not have far to look for others.”

“It is strange that they should have chosen you in the first place,” I said thoughtfully. “You said they could not ask you.”

“They did not offer me this mission. I volunteered.”

“You volunteered!”

She shook herself impatiently.

“Surely you understand? I heard them deciding on your death. And so I undertook the task.”

“Because?”

“Because I wished to save you. I had great difficulty. At first they were inclined to refuse me – to suspect my motives. I had to convince them that I hated you for having outwitted me. And I persuaded them that none of their ordinary instruments were capable of dealing with you.”

“And you meant to give me this warning all along?”

“I meant to save you from them. Do you not see, as long as we are together, as long as you are visiting me, and I am seen to be following you up, they will not interfere. If I manage the affair skilfully it may be weeks before they suspect that I am playing them false. I shall have my excuse ready. It is no disgrace to be foiled by A. V.”

Again there was an interval of silence. The Princess prepared to go.

“Stay!” I protested. “I have not thanked you. Indeed, I do not seem to have heard all. You had some reason, surely, for wishing to preserve my life.”

“And what does my reason matter?”

“It matters very much to me. Perhaps,” I gave her a searching look, “perhaps the Dowager Czaritza has enlisted you on our side?”

The beautiful woman rose to her feet, and turned her face from me.

“Think so, if you will. I tell you it does not matter.”

“And I tell you it does matter. Princess!”

“Don’t! Don’t speak to me, please! Let me go home. I am not well.”

Trembling violently in every limb, she was making her way toward the door, when it was suddenly flung open, and the voice of the hotel servant announced:

“M. Petrovitch!”

The head of the Manchurian Syndicate walked in with a smile on his face, saw the Princess Y – coming toward him, and stopped short, the smile changing to a dark frown.

CHAPTER XVII
A SUPERNATURAL INCIDENT

Whether because he saw that I was watching him, or because he placed his own interpretation on the circumstances, the war plotter changed his frown into a smile.

“I am glad to see, Princess,” he said to the trembling woman, “that you have so soon found our good friend Mr. Sterling again.”

The Princess Y – gave him a glance which seemed to enjoin silence, bowed with grace, and left the room in charge of the servant who had announced M. Petrovitch.

The latter now advanced to greet me with every appearance of cordiality.

The last time I had met this well-dressed, delicate scamp, he had drugged and robbed me. Now I had just been told that he was setting assassins on my track.

But it is my rule always to cultivate friendly intercourse with my opponents. Few men can talk for long without exposing something of their inner thoughts. I wanted M. Petrovitch to talk.

Therefore I returned his greeting with equal cordiality, and made him sit down in the chair from which the Princess Y – had just risen.

“You will be surprised to hear, no doubt, Mr. Sterling, that I have brought you an invitation from the Emperor.”

“From what Emperor?” was the retort on the tip of my tongue. Fortunately I suppressed it; there is no accomplishment so fatal to success in life as wit, except kindness.

I simply answered,

“I am not readily surprised, M. Petrovitch. Neither, I imagine, are you.”

The financier smiled.

“May I call you M. V – ?” he asked. “His majesty has told me who you are.”

“Were you surprised by that?” I returned with sarcasm.

Petrovitch fairly laughed.

“I hear you have been denouncing me to Nicholas,” he said lightly. “Can’t I persuade you to let our poor little Czar alone. I assure you it is a waste of breath on your part, and you will only worry a well-meaning young man who has no head for business.”

This was plain speaking. It argued no ordinary confidence on the part of the intriguer to speak in such a fashion of the Autocrat of All the Russias.

Already the interview was telling me something. Petrovitch must have some strong, secret hold on Nicholas II.

I shrugged my shoulders as I answered in my friendliest manner,

“I have no personal feeling against you, my dear Petrovitch. But to use drugs – come, you must admit that that was a strong measure!”

“I apologize!” laughed the Russian. “All the more as I find you were too many for us after all. I would give something to know how you managed to hide the letter you got through.”

It was my turn to laugh. I had reason to feel satisfied. Weak as the Russian Emperor might be, it was evident that he had not betrayed my secret.

“Well, now,” the promoter resumed, “all that being over, is there any reason why we should not be friends? Be frank with me. What end have you in view that is likely to bring us into collision?”

“There is no reason why I should not be frank with you,” I answered, racking my brain for some story which the man before me might be likely to believe, “especially as I do not suppose that either of us is likely to report this conversation quite faithfully to his imperial majesty. I am a Japanese spy.”

Petrovitch gave me a glance in which I thought I detected a mingling of incredulity and admiration.

“Really, you are a cool hand, my dear V – !”

“Why, is there anything in that to make us enemies? You are not going to pose as the zealous patriot, I hope. I thought we had agreed to be frank.”

The financier bit his lip.

“Well, I do not deny that I am before all things a man of business,” he returned. “If your friends the Japanese can make me any better offer than the one I have had from another quarter, I do not say.”

“I will see what I can arrange for you,” I answered, not wholly insincerely. “In the meantime, I think you said something about an invitation?”

“Oh, yes, from Nicholas. He wants to see you. He has some scheme or other in which he thinks that you and I can work together, and he wants us to be friends, accordingly.”

“But we are friends, after to-day, I understand?”

“It is as you please, my dear V – ,” replied the conspirator with a slightly baffled air. “You have made a good beginning, apparently, with the Princess Y – .”

I put on the self-satisfied air of the man who is a favorite with women.

“The Princess has been extremely kind,” I said. “She has pressed me to visit her frequently. Oh, yes, I think I may say we are good friends.”

Petrovitch nodded. I had purposely prepared his mind for the story which I anticipated he would hear from my beautiful protector. Evidently it would be necessary for her to tell the Syndicate that she was feigning affection for me in order to draw me into a trap.

“Then, as my carriage is outside, may I take you to the Winter Palace?”

“That seems the best plan,” I acquiesced. “It will convince the Czar that we are on good terms.”

We drove off together, sitting side by side like two sworn friends. I do not know what thoughts passed through his mind; but I know that all the way I kept my right hand on the stock of my revolver, and once, when one of the horses stumbled, M. Petrovitch was within an instant of death.

At the Palace he put me down and drove off. I was admitted to the Czar’s presence without difficulty, and found him, as usual, surrounded by piles of state papers.

Nicholas II. looked up at my entrance with evident pleasure.

“Ah, that is right, M. V – . I hope that, since you have come so promptly in response to the message I gave that worthy M. Petrovitch, you and he are now good friends.”

I could only bow silently. I was a Japanese, related to the sovereign with whom he was at war, and I was acting in the service of Great Britain. Petrovitch had just forced on the war which Nicholas had wished to avert, and he was still acting secretly in the interests of Germany. And the Czar was congratulating himself that we were friends. It was useless to try to undeceive him.

“Sit down, if you please, M. V – . I have something of the greatest importance to tell you. Stay – Perhaps you will be good enough to see first that the doors are all secured. I dislike interruptions.”

I went to the various entrances of the room, of which there were three, and turned the keys in the doors.

“Even M. Petrovitch does not know what I am going to tell you,” Nicholas said impressively as I returned to my seat.

“Your majesty does not trust him entirely, then?” I exclaimed, much pleased.

“You mistake me. I do not distrust M. Petrovitch; but this is a matter of foreign politics, with which he is not familiar. He admits frankly that he knows nothing about diplomacy.”

I gazed at the benevolent young monarch in consternation. It was the spy of Wilhelm II., the agent of the most active diplomatist in the world, of whom he had just spoken!

There was no more to be said.

The Emperor proceeded to put a most unexpected question.

“Are you a believer in spirits, M. V – ?”

“I am a Roman Catholic, sire. Whatever my Church teaches on this subject, I believe. I am rather neglectful of my religious duties, however, and do not know its attitude on this subject.”

“I honor your loyalty to your communion, M. V – . But as long as you do not know what is the attitude of your Church on this subject, you cannot feel it wrong to listen to me.”

I perceived that if his majesty was no politician, he was at least something of a theologian.

The Czar proceeded:

“There is in Petersburg one of the most marvelous mediums and clairvoyants who has ever lived. He is a Frenchman named Auguste. He came here nearly a year ago – just when the difficulty with Japan was beginning, in fact; and he has given me the most valuable information about the progress of events. Everything he has foretold has come true, so far. He warned me from the first that the Japanese would force me into war, just as they have done. In short, I feel I can rely on him absolutely.”

This was not the first time I had heard of the spiritualist who had established such an extraordinary hold on the Russian ruler’s mind. The common impression was that he was a mystic, a sort of Madame Krüdener. At the worst he was regarded as a charlatan of the ordinary spirit-rapping type, cultivating the occult as a means of making money.

But now, as I listened to the credulous monarch, it suddenly struck me what an invaluable tool such a man might prove in the hands of a political faction, or even of a foreign Power astute enough to corrupt him and inspire the oracles delivered by the spirits.

I listened anxiously for more.

The Emperor, evidently pleased with the serious expression on my face, went on to enlighten me.

“Last night M. Auguste was here, in this room, and we held a private séance. He succeeded in getting his favorite spirit to respond.”

“Is it permissible to ask the spirit’s name?” I ventured respectfully.

“It is Madame Blavatsky,” he answered. “You must have heard of her, of course. She was practically the founder of rational psychical knowledge, though she died a victim to persecution.”

I nodded. I had heard of this celebrated woman, who still numbers many followers in different parts of the world.

“Last night, as soon as we found that the spirit of Madame Blavatsky was present, I asked Auguste to question it about the Baltic fleet.

“I had been holding a preliminary review of the fleet in the morning, as you may have seen from the papers. The officers and men seemed thoroughly nervous, and very doubtful whether it would ever be in a condition to sail. Even the Admiral, Rojestvensky, did not seem quite happy, and he found great fault with the stores and equipments.

“I had to authorize a delay of another month, and the Marine Department would not promise to have the fleet ready even then.

“Naturally, I wished to know what would become of the fleet when it did sail. Auguste questioned the spirit.”

His majesty broke off to feel in his pocket for a small slip of paper.

“I took down the answer myself, as the spirit rapped it out.” And he read aloud:

Baltic Fleet threatened. Japanese and English plotting to destroy it on the way to Port Arthur.

I started indignantly.

“And you believe that, sire! You believe that the British Government, which has been straining every nerve to maintain peace, is capable of planning some secret outrage against your Navy?”

“It does not say the Government,” he announced with satisfaction. “The spirit only warns me against the English. Private Englishmen are capable of anything. At this very moment, two Englishmen are arranging to run a torpedo boat secretly out of the Thames, disguised as a yacht, and to bring her to Libau for us.”

This piece of information silenced me. It was no doubt possible that there might be Englishmen daring enough to assist the Japanese in some secret enterprise against a Russian fleet. But I felt I should like to have some better authority for the fact than the word of Madame Blavatsky’s spirit.

“The warning is a very vague one, sire,” I hinted.

“True. But I hope to receive a more definite message to-morrow night. I was going to ask you if you would have any objection to be present. You might then be able to put pressure on the British Government to prevent this crime.”

Needless to say I accepted the imperial invitation with eagerness.

And I retired to send the following despatch to Lord Bedale:

When Baltic Fleet starts prepare for trouble. Have all ports watched. It is believed here that attack on it is preparing in England.