“You are the devil, Prince Kalkov,” I cried furiously. “This is just another of your infernal schemes.”
“Is that quite just to me, when I have offered you a safe conduct across the frontier, or to anywhere you please? It is you who place me in this awkward situation.”
“To hell with your hypocrisy,” I exclaimed, losing my head in my rage. “Speak out bluntly, and say what you do mean—that if I won’t consent to leave the country you will take this devil’s way of getting me into one of your cursed prisons while you carry out your other plans.”
“Really, M. Denver, this language to me is beyond bounds—even for a free-speaking citizen of the United States. It is true we might not be able to get the proceedings finished for some weeks; I have known it take months, indeed. There was the case of——”
“The devil take your cases. Do your worst, and we’ll fight it out on those lines;” and I turned away and flung myself into a chair.
But he was my match at that tactic also. He sat down, drew a small table to his side, took out some papers and studied them with slow methodical deliberation. He calculated that my temper would not last, and that I should then see the utter futility of resisting him. And of course it proved so.
“I’ll accept your terms and leave Russia,” I said, when the silence had lasted many minutes.
“Pardon me,” he said, as if he was buried in some other matters. “Just one minute,” and he went on with his papers, and then folded them up neatly. “Now I am at your service again. Let us talk it over. Why do you treat me as an enemy?”
“I would rather not discuss anything except my departure.”
“As you please, but the matter is not quite where it was when we last spoke of it. I know a great deal more than I did, and I am compelled to regard you as more dangerous than before. You are at liberty to leave, but I shall have to ask you for a written declaration on your word of honour as an American gentleman that you will go straight to America, and that you will make no effort to communicate, directly or indirectly, with my August Master. Further, I shall place at your disposal a courier, who will accompany you to the port you select—I would suggest Hamburg—and attend on you until you reach New York. This I do partly for your personal safety.”