Piece by piece the whole story as set forth in the first part of this chronicle was put together, and the plot laid bare; but though many had been brought under the iron grip of the law, the arch-conspirator, to whose ruling spirit and genius the plot was due, was still at large, and no trace of him was at that time forthcoming; but Danevitch did not despair of hunting him down, of bringing him to his doom. And no one whose mind was not distorted could say his life was not forfeited. His whole career had been one of plotting and deceit. His commanding presence and masterful mind had given him such an influence over many of those with whom he came in contact—especially women—that he had proved himself more than ordinarily dangerous, while his reckless and cowardly wickedness in carrying the infernal machine on board the Czar’s yacht, and thereby causing the sudden and cruel death of something like two dozen people, stamped him at once as a being against whom every honest man’s hand should be raised.
In the meantime, while Danevitch was trying to get a clue to Treskin’s whereabouts, his co-conspirators—they might truly be described as his dupes—were tried, found guilty, condemned, and executed. Smolski, the two Eisenmanns, and four others, were ignominiously hanged in the presence of an enormous crowd. Smolski met his end with a perfect resignation, a calm indifference. He firmly believed he was suffering in a good cause. He died with the words ‘Khrista radi’ (For Christ’s sake) upon his lips. He posed as a martyr.
Anna Plevski had been cast for Siberia, but before starting upon the terrible journey, the prospects of which were more appalling than death, she would have to spend many months in a noisome dungeon in the Russian Bastile, Schlusselburgh, in Lake Ladoga.
But a circumstance presently arose which altered her fate. Danevitch had kept his eye on Lydia Zagarin, of Werro. He found she was the daughter of a retired ship-master, who had purchased a little property in the small and pleasantly-situated town of Werro. He was a widower. Lydia was his only daughter. On her father’s death she would succeed to a modest fortune. Treskin had borrowed money from her, and it was probable that he had singled her out from his many female acquaintances as one to whom he would adhere on account of her money. Four months after the fateful day when the Czar’s yacht was partially destroyed and many people were killed, Treskin wrote to this young woman, renewing his protestations of regard for her, and asking her to send him money, and to join him with a view to his marrying her. He gave his address at Point de Galle, Ceylon, where, according to his own account, he had started in business as a merchant. He stated that, though he had taken no active part in the destruction of the North Star, he happened to be in Kronstadt on the night of the crime, and as he knew he was suspected of being mixed up in revolutionary movements, he deemed it advisable to go abroad; and so he had bribed a boatman to convey him to a Swedish schooner which was on the point of leaving the Kronstadt harbour on the night of the explosion, and he bribed the captain of the schooner to convey him to the coast of Sweden. By this means he escaped. From Sweden he travelled to England; from England to Ceylon, where he had a cousin engaged on a coffee plantation.
This letter came into the hands of Danevitch before it reached Lydia. How that was managed need not be stated; but Danevitch now believed he saw his way to capture Treskin. He knew, of course, that, as a political refugee, claiming the protection of the British flag, he could not be taken in the ordinary way. The British flag has over and over again been disgraced by the protection it has afforded to wretches of Treskin’s type, and it was so in this instance. To obtain his extradition was next to impossible. He was a wholesale murderer, but claimed sanctuary in the name of politics, and he found this sanctuary under the British flag.
Danevitch, however, resolved to have him, and resorted to stratagem. He visited Anna Plevski in her dungeon. She knew nothing at this time of the fate of her lover, though she did know that he had not been captured. Danevitch, by skill and artifice, aroused in her that strongest of all female passions—jealousy. He began by telling her that Treskin had deserted her in a cowardly and shameful manner on the night of the crime, and did not care whether she perished or lived. Then he laid before her Lydia Zagarin’s letters to Treskin, which had been seized at Treskin’s lodgings, and he watched the effect on the girl as she read them. Finally he showed her the letter sent from Ceylon.
That was the last straw. Her feelings burst from the restraint she had tried to impose upon them, and she cursed him again and again. She declared solemnly that she was his victim; that she was innocent and loyal until he corrupted her, and indoctrinated her with his revolutionary ideas. He had sworn to be true to her, and used to say they would live and die together. On the night of the crime he had persuaded her to go with him to Kronstadt, because he declared that he could not bear her to be out of his sight. They had arranged that on the morrow they were to quit St. Petersburg, and travel with all speed to Austrian soil. But not only had he basely deceived her, but treacherously deserted her. She was furious, and uttered bitter regrets that she could not hope to be revenged upon him.
In this frame of mind she was left for the time. A week later, however, Danevitch once more visited her. She was still brooding on her wrongs and her hard fate. To suffer Siberia for the sake of a man who had so cruelly deceived her and blighted her young life was doubly hard.
‘Would she be willing, if she had the chance, to bring him to justice?’ Danevitch asked.
Her dark eyes filled with fire, and her pale face flushed, as she exclaimed with passionate gesture that she would do it with a fierce joy in her heart, and laugh at him exultingly as he was led to his doom.