"'Fore God, Sir, what are you saying?" cried the Emperor in a loud voice. He had turned white and was pressing his hand to his forehead with every sign of great agitation. "Do you hear this?" he asked the man who had been so loud in accusing me, and who himself was now fighting hard for self-possession.
I had struck home indeed.
A dead silence followed, lasting more than a minute; and to give it full weight I affected to be unable to speak.
"I'm not surprised such a tale overcomes him in the telling. It is wild enough to listen to, let alone to invent," said the Grand Duke, recovering himself with a sneer.
"Proceed, when you can, Lieutenant," said the Emperor, shortly.
"I have nearly finished, Sire," I answered weakly. "But there is one point where I can give you the highest corroboration of the key to all this seeming mystery. Will your Majesty send for Prince Bilbassoff?"
The Duke started as I mentioned the name and glanced keenly at me as it seemed to me in much discomposure.
"I was told, Sire," I resumed, when the Emperor had complied with my request. "That there was one, or at most two persons beside your Majesty who knew the real order of matters for yesterday; and that it was from that one, or from one of those two persons, that the information was given to the Nihilists which formed the basis of this plot. I did not believe it possible, Sire, and I did not think therefore that any attempt could be made. But yesterday morning to my intense astonishment, I found myself appointed to command exactly the section of the line of which I had been told by the Nihilists, many hours, indeed days in advance."
The consternation of both my hearers as I dwelt on this was so great that I emphasized it; and I saw then that I could safely slur over the only point that I really feared in the whole story—the episode of the five men whom I had posted in accordance with the Nihilist orders.
I had struck such a blow at the Grand Duke that he said no more; and he was much more busy thinking of how to defend himself than of how to accuse me.