"That I cannot say. I fancy, judging from what I know of Nicholas Nicholaivitch, that he did not waste this man. I should hazard the guess that he passed him on to another commander—perhaps to Alexieff—perhaps to Brussilov."
"Do you know anything more about General Makailoff?" The Kentuckian sought to clothe his question in the casual tone of ordinary interest, but as he lighted a cigar his fingers held a tremour.
Ivangoroff shook his head.
"Of course there was mess-table talk—but that is always the gauziest myth. Perhaps you know the fable that is told in all European armies of the ghost general?"
"No, I've never heard it."
"The story runs that there is a certain man of extraordinary military genius—genius of the first class—who is not so much a soldier of fortune as a super-soldier. In peace times no army knows him. No government owns him. He disappears as does the storm petrel when the sea is quiet. But when the tempest breaks and the need arises for a leader beyond small leaders—then, under a new name each time, this ghost-commander reappears. You see, they make the story a good one. Mess tables have embellished and elaborated it with much retelling over their wine glasses. It is even said that the mystery man fights on the righteous side and brings victory." The Russian lighted a fresh cigarette and naïvely observed, "When we fought Japan, however, he was reported to be against us, guiding the hand of Kuroki. When Savoff defeated the Turks, it was rumoured that he sat in the Bulgar's councils. Now"—Ivangoroff laughed—"now it is whispered in Petrograd and Moscow that he laid his sword at the service of the Grand Duke Nicholas and stands shoulder to shoulder with the men he fought in Manchuria."
The raconteur glanced at his wrist watch and rose hastily.
"I have overstayed my time," he declared. "It is hard for me to leave one who suffers me to talk—even when I talk of moonshine gossip like this."
But when he had gone, Boone sat for a long while unmoving, and before he went to his bed that night he had resolved, so soon as his duties freed him long enough, to undertake a journey to Russia.