“But let me come to the facts as they are,” she went on, turning again to Alan, who stood literally dumfounded before her, amazed beyond power of thought or speech by the audacity of her words. “It is you who are the liar, the traitor, and the murderer. It is you who killed my brother before my eyes because he sought to protect me from your violence; and it is you and your friend Alexis who, of your own free will, struck your comrades dead, threw them out of the air-ship upon the Norwegian snows, and then, in the hope of gaining my favour, took the Ithuriel to Vorobièvo, near Moscow, and delivered her into the hands of my friends.
“I have fifty men within call at this moment who will swear that this is true. Orloff Lossenski, you are one of them. Were you not at the villa at Vorobièvo when these two came with me in the Ithuriel and delivered her into your hands; and did you not find the corpse of my brother Serge in one of the state rooms with his neck bruised and blackened by the grip of his murderer?”
“Yes, Majesty,” replied Lossenski, stepping forward as he was addressed. “That is true, though they told us at the time that your brother had been killed in a struggle with their comrades.”
“And is it true,” continued Olga, “that they accompanied me into your villa and had supper with us as friends, and did not I forgive the death of my brother for the sake of the advantages which the possession of the air-ship, which they consented to surrender to us, would be to the cause of the revolution in Russia to which we were pledged?”
“That is also true, Majesty; and there are several here now with the squadron who can also testify to the fact.”
“And also,” interrupted Olga, “to the fact that these two traitors worked willingly to help us to secrete the air-ship, and finally to take her to Mount Terror, and there explained the working of her machinery to us and helped us to build other air-ships and submarine vessels, and commanded these in their attacks upon the commerce of our enemies. Is that true, also?”
“It is, Majesty,” again replied Lossenski. “Shall I summon the crews of our ships that they also may testify to it lest my word should not be enough?”
“Is it your Majesty’s wish that they shall be called?” asked Olga, again turning to the Sultan, who all this time had been standing shifting his gaze from her face to Alan’s, and from Alan’s back again to hers, horrified by the fearful accusations with which she had replied to the story, of the falsity of which he was already thoroughly convinced.
“They can be called if Alan Arnold desires it,” he said, in grave, deliberate tones. “But would it not be better that he should speak first? At present we have two words against one. Has he any proof that what you say is false?” he continued, looking inquiringly towards Alan.
“I have none but my own word and that of Alexis, up yonder in the skies, and him I cannot—and if I could, under the circumstances, I would not—call,” said Alan, who by this time had recovered his self-possession. “If your Majesty proposes to judge between us according to spoken testimony, I say at once that I will accept no such tests, for I well know that this woman could produce a hundred of her accomplices who would swear anything she bade them swear.