"God, girl, we cannot turn him loose now. He must never go free again. He must die." This was from Spantz.
"We cannot release him, I grant you," she said, and Truxton's heart sank. "Not now, but afterward, yes. When it is all over he can do no harm. But, hear me now, all of you. If he is harmed in any way, if he is maltreated, or if you pursue this design to starve him, I shall not perform my part of the work on the 26th. This is final."
For a full minute, it seemed to King, no one spoke.
"You cannot withdraw," exclaimed Peter Brutus. "You are pledged. You are sworn. It is ordained."
"Try me, and see if I will not do as I say. He is to be treated kindly so long as we hold him here and he is to be released when the committee is in power. Then he may tell all that he knows, for it will be of no avail. He cannot escape, that you know. If he were a spy I would offer no objection to your methods. He is an American gentleman, a traveller. I, Olga Platanova, say this to you. It is not a plea, not a petition; it is an ultimatum. Spare him, or the glorious cause must suffer by my defection."
"Sh! Not so loud, girl! He can hear every word you say!"
"Why should it matter, madam? He is where he can do no harm to our cause. Let him hear. Let him understand what it is that we are doing. Are we ashamed of our duty to the world? If so, then we are criminals, not deliverers. I am not ashamed of what God wills me to do. It is horrible, but it is the edict of God. I will obey. But God does not command us to torture an innocent man who happens to fall into our hands. No! Let him hear. Let him know that I, Olga Platanova, am to hurl the thing that is to destroy the life of Prince Robin. I am not afraid to have him know to-day what the world will know next week. Let him hear and revile me now, as the world will do after it is over and I am gone. The glory will be mine when all the people of this great globe are joined to our glorious realm. Then the world will say that Olga Platanova was not a beast, but a deliverer, a creator! Let him hear!"
The listener's blood was running cold. The life of Prince Robin! An assassination! "The thing that will destroy!" A bomb! God!
For half an hour they argued with her, seeking to turn her from the stand she had taken; protesting to the last stage, cursing her for a sentimental fool. Then they came to terms with her. Truxton King owed his life to this strange girl who knew him not at all, but who believed in him. He suffered intensely in the discovery that she was, in the end, to lend herself to the commission of the most heartless and diabolical of crimes—the destruction of that innocent, well-worshipped boy of Graustark.
"You must be in love with this simple-minded American, who comes—" Peter Brutus started to say at one stage of the discussion, when the frail girl was battling almost physically with her tormentors.