"To complete the arrangements for to-morrow's glorious event," and his face lighted with a momentary enthusiasm.
"How am I to know you?" I asked, suspiciously.
"I am Gorvas Lassthum; and I saw you twelve months ago when the other plan was laid, as you will remember, and failed. Your memory is treacherous, my friend."
"There are some things I train it to forget," I answered, equivocally.
I was in a fix. I guessed the man was a Nihilist agent, of course, and his air of self-importance suggested that he was high up in the leadership. But on the other hand Moscow was at the moment swarming with spies of all kinds; and this might be one. I assumed an air of extreme caution therefore, and after a flash of thought added: "And some that I prefer not to know at all. It pleases me now to hold that from my side you and I are strangers. You know me well; say then just what you wish to say. I on my side don't know you, and prefer to say nothing."
"Good," he cried; and reaching out offered me his hand and when I gave him mine, he pressed it and said earnestly:—"Would God we had more men like you—so ready in act and so cautious in word."
I bowed and made no other sign.
"You have the orders for the disposition of the troops to-morrow, and at the last minute the whole of them, or the most of them, will be changed. You yourself will be detailed to guard that part of the line which runs over the flat stretch by the river on the further side of the Vsatesk station. Guard it well; for a greater life than that of the Emperor depends on your vigilance—the life of the People."
As he said this another of those little flashes of light that seemed to transform him from a pleasant man of the world into an enthusiast leapt into his eyes. A pause followed in which I said nothing.
"Your orders will be to station your men at set distances on either side of the line—it being an easy place to guard—and you will have some three miles of the line under your command. It is good. Now, take thought. At one point in about the centre of your section, the land dips and the line is embanked to a height of some ten feet, for a length of about half a mile. At that spot there are four alder trees—three to the left of the line, and one to the right. These three form an irregular triangle, one side of which is much shorter than the others; and if you follow the short line which those two trees make, you will find that they form a comparatively straight line with the fourth tree on the other side of the railway embankment. Do you follow me?"