“You have tried to murder my Prince, and now you have dragged him from his throne to some of your vile Russian prisons,” she began again, when I burst open the doors of my hiding-place, darted upon her before she could recover from her start of surprise, and, pushing her back, stood between her and the General.
“You!” she cried in a voice choking with baffled passion, and looking for all the world as though she would spring on me.
“Silence!” I said sternly. “This has gone on too long already. I will have no murder of this kind done here.”
I heard the old man behind me give a deep sigh of relief, and, glancing round, I saw that his head had dropped back on his shoulders. He had fainted in the sudden relaxation of the terrible strain, and with his dead white face upturned, open-mouthed and staring-eyed, he looked like a corpse.
But I could give him no more than a glance, for I dared not keep my eyes from the wild woman before me.
“You know he came here to find proofs to justify him in ordering your death?”
“I heard you taunt him with it just now; but I can protect myself.”
“I did not come to kill him for that.”
“I care nothing for your motives; I will not have him killed here,” I returned in the same stern, decisive tone.
She eyed me viciously, like a baulked tigress.