The young Pole sprang up at the taunt.
“Your trust is not misplaced, Mirkovitch,” he said quietly, “and our cause and our comrades are not compromised. Give me the necessary funds, and the right to dispose of them, and I swear to you that three days hence I will hand over our papers safely in your keeping, to act with as you please after that, both with them… and with me.”
“You know, then, where the candlesticks are at this moment?” said Mirkovitch, somewhat pacified.
“They are to be sold by auction on Thursday next, and we can buy them easily enough.”
“Yes! unless fate or Madame Demidoff interposes.”
“Madame Demidoff cannot know where the candlesticks are. Grünebaum was arrested half an hour after I saw him. He is not likely to have betrayed his accomplice in London, and she was bound to lose trace of them.”
“You must act as you think best, Iván,” said Mirkovitch at last; “as you know we have ample funds, those of the fraternity; and Lobkowitz has placed them all at your disposal. We must trust you yet so far——”
And he added after a slight pause—
“After that your life is in our hands.”
That Iván knew full well. He knew that if harm came to the brotherhood after this, he would not be allowed to suffer or die with them. He knew that they would brand him as a traitor, disown him, revile him, and that he would die alone in the dark, stricken by the dagger of an avenger, and not be thought worthy the common death of the martyrs.