“Do not interrupt me! Very well, then, I am going to say this to you: ‘If I ward off this blow—if, after having been the unintentional cause of Natacha’s arrest, I have the daughter of General Trebassof set at liberty, and that within twenty-four hours,—what do you say? Would you still hang me?’”
The president, he who had the Christ-like countenance, said:
“Messieurs, Natacha Feodorovna has fallen the victim of terrible machinations whose mystery we so far have not been able to penetrate. She is accused of trying to poison her father and her step-mother, and under such conditions that it seems impossible for human reason to demonstrate the contrary. Natacha Feodorovna herself, crushed by the tragic occurrence, was not able to answer her accusers at all, and her silence has been taken for a confession of guilt. Messieurs, Natacha Feodorovna will be started for Siberia to-morrow. We can do nothing for her. Natacha Feodorovna is lost to us.”
Then, with a gesture to those who surrounded Rouletabille:
“Do your duty, messieurs.”
“Pardon, pardon. But if I do prove the innocence of Natacha? Just wait, messieurs. There is only I who can prove that innocence! You lose Natacha by killing me!”
“If you had been able to prove that innocence, monsieur, the thing would already be done. You would not have waited.”
“Pardon, pardon. It is only at this moment that I have become able to do it.”
“How is that?”
“It is because I was sick, you see—very seriously sick. That affair of Michael Nikolaievitch and the poison that still continued after he was dead simply robbed me of all my powers. Now that I am sure I have not been the means of killing an innocent man—I am Rouletabille again! It is not possible that I shall not find the way, that I shall not see through this mystery.”