By Right of Sword

by Arthur W. Marchmont

It was resolved, by whom and in what centre of the Empire I never knew, to follow up the murder of Christian Tueski by the greater blow, and to strike this with the utmost possible despatch: as a proof of the desperate courage and daring of the Nihilists.

I was chosen to play one of the chief parts. I had no option to refuse. There was no choice given me. The task was committed to me; just as a command might have been given me by my military superior officer. When I attempted to decline, I was given to understand that refusal meant death.

I was thus placed in a position of cruel difficulty and I pondered with close self-searching what I ought to do. Looking back I think I made a blunder in not disclosing all I knew to the authorities, leaving them to take what steps they pleased; but in forming my decision at the time I was swayed by a number of considerations most difficult to weigh.

One of my chief reasons for holding my tongue was that as the plot followed so soon after the Tueski murder—for the plans were all made within a week—the fact that I knew so much of Nihilist plots at such a time, would bring both Olga and myself under suspicion of having been privy to the former one. In such a case everything I wished to win would be jeopardised. A single breath of suspicion would have been enough to sweep us both into a gaol; and once there, no one could say when, if ever, we should come out; for the whole country was red-hot against the Nihilists, and men of the highest rank and wealth were rotting in gaol side by side with the most abject and destitute paupers.

I was also much concerned as to my supposed past. I knew that the old Alexis was gravely compromised; but what he had actually done, I did not know. If any old offences were raked up I should be certain to be called to account for them now, while Olga would inevitably suffer with me.

For those reasons I decided to hold my tongue and to seek my own means for causing the infernal scheme to miss its aim. I reckoned that, as I was to have a principal part assigned to me, I could by my own effort, either through apparent stupidity or by wilful design, wreck the whole project; and with this object I thought carefully over every detail of it which was entrusted to me.

The scheme was ingenious and, save in one respect, simple enough. A fortnight later the Emperor was to pay a visit to Moscow, and already preparations had commenced for his reception. At one time it was thought he would refuse to come because of the Tueski murder; but with that unerring accuracy that always made me marvel, till I ascertained the cause, the Nihilist leaders learnt the Imperial intentions before they were known in some of even the closest official circles.

What the Czar decided to do was to have all the preparations continued as though the original arrangements for the visit were to be carried out; but at the last moment to make a change which would baffle any plots. He meant to alter the arrangement of the train by which he would travel: and this at the very last moment.

The object of this was, of course, to thwart any plot that might be laid to attack the train in which he travelled, so that thus the plotters might be discovered.

But the double cunning of the Nihilists was quite equal to this change: and the plot was indeed exactly what the officials had anticipated—to wreck the train in which the Czar travelled—and I think it was chosen for the very reason of its apparent obviousness. Given precise information of the Imperial movements and a little double cunning in the plans, it was likely enough that the authorities would be especially vulnerable in just that spot in which they believed they had most effectively guarded themselves.