“Our letter,” said the president, “this time will contain the information that the Tsarevitch is, at the present moment, in the hands of some persons unknown, and that those persons will continue to hold him a hostage till certain conditions are complied with.”
“Those conditions being?” queried one of the bystanders.
“Complete pardon for Dunajewski, and all those who are in prison with him in connection with that last plot, together with a free pass out of the country.”
“Nicholas Alexandrovitch to be set free the day that they have crossed the frontier,” added a member of the committee.
“If in answer to this he simply sets the Third Section on our track?” queried a voice diffidently.
“The message shall also contain a warning,” said Mirkovitch grimly.
“That in case the police are mixed up in the matter——?”
“They would not even find a dead body.”
A pause followed this ominous speech. This was the dark side of this daring plot; the possible murder of a helpless prisoner. Yet they all knew it might become inevitable; the hostage’s life might have to be weighed against theirs in case of discovery, and, instead of barter, there might be need for revenge.
“They will never dare to refuse,” said the president, endeavouring to dispel the gloom cast over most of these young people by the suggestion of a cold-blooded murder; “there will be no need for measures so unworthy of us.”