"Here is the permit for her to leave the country. It is yours—on conditions."
"What are they? Never mind what they are," I added, quickly. "I accept them in advance. Save that girl, who is innocent, and do what you like with me."
"Do you know what I ought to do with you?" he asked.
"Yes; better than you do. Write me a permit also and have me conducted to the frontier at the same time. But I don't know what you think you should do."
"I ought to write out a very different order and have you both sent straight to the Mallovitch yonder; and let things take their course."
"Well, it's fortunate for me then," I replied, with a laugh, "that your interest and your judgment pull different ways. You won't do that, Prince."
"How do I know that you are not a Nihilist?"
"Instinct, judgment, knowledge of men, knowledge of me—everything. Besides, if you want proof, no one knows better than yourself that a cipher telegram sent to London, and inquiries made in half a dozen places that I can mention, will put ample proofs in your hands to shew who I am. So far as I know there's one man in Russia at the present moment and actually coming to Moscow, who'll stir up the British Legation and every British consulate in the country to the search for Hamylton Tregethner. That's the Hon. Rupert Balestier." Then I told him what had happened in Paris. At first he smiled, but soon grew thoughtful again.
"I warn you, too," I added, when he made no answer, "that if you chop my head off or stifle me in one of your infernal prisons, or send me packing to Siberia, Balestier is just the man to raise a devil of a clatter. And you don't want a row with our Foreign Office just at the moment when things are so ticklish with the Sick Man."
He waved his hand as if to put all such considerations away from him.