“We have been obliged to act very hurriedly, and on our own initiative. Taranïew and the others, so far, know absolutely nothing.”
“They must hear of it at once,” said one voice.
“And cease any plotting of their own,” assented another.
“It could only now lead to certain disaster,” agreed the chairman, “if they were in any sort of way to draw the attention of the Third Section on themselves.”
“Or us!” grimly added Mirkovitch.
“Obviously, therefore, our messenger’s duty to them will be twofold,” said the president. “The bringing of the great news, as it now stands, and our instructions as to the next course they must follow to attain the noble object we all have in view.”
“Yes, the letter to Alexander III.,” said a young voice eagerly.
This was the important point; more eagerness in the listeners, more enthusiasm among the younger men was, if possible, discernible.
“I have here,” said the president, taking a document from the table, “with the help of the committee, embodied our idea as to how that letter should be framed.”
“It will be an appetising breakfast relish for the autocrat of all the Russias when he finds it, as he does all our written warnings, underneath his cup of morning coffee,” sneered Mirkovitch, who had been sitting all this while smoking grimly, and muttering at intervals short sentences between his teeth, which boded no good to the prisoner he had under his charge.