A man sprang at me. I saw along the sights of my Derringer the gleam of a knife and the demoniacal face of Gustave Berger. Then I pulled the trigger, and, with his hoarse scream sounding in my ears, I was felled to the ground by a crashing blow from behind. Half-unconscious, and pressed down by some heavy weight, I heard the noise of shouts and blows above me, and then I fainted away.
When I came to myself I was lying among the débris of the door, which had been beaten in on the top of me. Opposite were a dozen of the men who had lately sat in judgment upon me, tied two and two, and guarded by a score of Russian soldiers. Beside me was the corpse of the ill-fated English agent, the whole face blown in by the force of the explosion. Alexis and Petrokine were both lying on the floor like myself, bleeding profusely.
“Well, young fellow, you’ve had a narrow escape,” said a hearty voice in my ear.
I looked up, and recognized my black-eyed acquaintance of the railway carriage.
“Stand up,” he continued: “you’re only a bit stunned; no bones broken. It’s no wonder I mistook you for the Nihilist agent, when the very lodge itself was taken in. Well, you’re the only stranger who ever came out of this den alive. Come downstairs with me. I know who you are, and what you are after now; I’ll take you to Mr. Dimidoff. Nay, don’t go in there,” he cried, as I walked toward the door of the cell into which I had been originally ushered. “Keep out of that; you’ve seen evil sights enough for one day. Come down and have a glass of liquor.”
He explained as we walked back to the hotel that the police of Solteff, of which he was the chief, had had warning and been on the look-out during some time for this Nihilist emissary. My arrival in so unfrequented a place, coupled with my air of secrecy and the English labels on that confounded portmanteau of Gregory’s, had completed the business.
I have little more to tell. My Socialistic acquaintances were all either transported to Siberia or executed. My mission was performed to the satisfaction of my employers. My conduct during the whole business has won me promotion, and my prospects for life have been improved since that horrible night, the remembrance of which still makes me shiver.
BONES.
THE APRIL FOOL OF HARVEY’S SLUICE.
Abe Durton’s cabin was not beautiful. People have been heard to assert that it was ugly, and, even after the fashion of Harvey’s Sluice, have gone the length of prefixing their adjective with a forcible expletive which emphasized their criticism. Abe, however, was a stolid and easy-going man, on whose mind the remarks of an unappreciative public made but little impression. He had built the house himself, and it suited his partner and him, and what more did they want? Indeed he was rather touchy upon the subject. “Though I says it, as raised it,” he remarked, “it’ll lay over any shanty in the valley. Holes? Well, of course there are holes. You wouldn’t get fresh air without holes. There’s nothing stuffy about my house. Rain? Well, if it does let the rain in, ain’t it an advantage to know it’s rainin’ without gettin’ up to unbar the door. I wouldn’t own a house that didn’t leak some. As to its bein’ off the perpendic’lar, I like a house with a bit of a tilt. Anyways it pleases my pard, Boss Morgan, and what’s good enough for him is good enough for you, I suppose.” At which approach to personalities his antagonist usually sheered off, and left the honors of the field to the indignant architect.
But whatever difference of opinion might exist as to the beauty of the establishment, there could be no question as to its utility. To the tired wayfarer, plodding along the Buckhurst road in the direction of the Sluice, the warm glow upon the summit of the hill was a beacon of hope and of comfort. Those very holes at which the neighbors sneered helped to diffuse a cheery atmosphere of light around, which was doubly acceptable on such a night as the present.