“Oh, I have tried,” Domiloff answered, hastily. “He is an Englishman, and he cannot be bought. He will not listen to reason. And so far as regards other means we have been unfortunate. He has a hat with two bullet holes in it.”
Hassen caught up his hat.
“Oh, I think that it is of no use my staying here,” he said. “The Domiloff I have heard of and used to know is not any more in existence. That is very certain. You have let the man write these letters day by day; you have had him within the city all this time, and all that you can tell me is that ‘he has a hat with two bullet holes in,’ ‘you have been unfortunate.’ Bah! The man who makes history is not the man who fails in a trifle like that.”
Domiloff ground his teeth together, but he kept his temper.
“My friend,” he said, “that is all very well. But you do not understand everything. This man is the lover of the Countess of Reist. Any hurt to him would be a mortal affront to her.”
“Cannot she make him hold his tongue?” Hassen asked. “If he is her lover she should surely be able to bring him to our side. The girl is pretty enough. Surely the Englishman is not a Joseph?”
“He is English, and that is worse,” Domiloff answered. “But this very day we caught him here in this house. She appealed to him—offered him every inducement, implored him to cease those letters. His obstinacy was amazing. Neither my threats nor her prayers and promises availed. I ordered him to be seized, and then what must she do but turn round and swear that if he were touched she would go to the King—and she would have done it.”
“So he got away?”
“He got away.”
Hassen groaned.