“But, after all,” she continued, speaking somewhat more calmly, “it is not setting them free that has done the mischief. It is the treason or the miracle that enabled them to capture the Narwhal. I would give a good deal to know how that was done. They cannot have done it themselves, for I had given them enough of the drug to deprive them of all will-power for at least twenty-four hours, and I told that traitor, Turgenieff, who must have betrayed the attack on Kerguelen, to give them more when he landed them on the island.”
“But is your Majesty sure that they took the drug?” said Lossenski, interrupting her for the first time. “Did you give it with your own hand, or see them take it with your own eyes?”
“No!” said Olga, with a start. “I did not. I sent it to them by my maid, Anna, but she swore that she put it in their wine, and when they had finished their last meal the decanter was empty.”
“That was a grave mistake, Majesty,” said Lossenski, in a tone of respectful reproof, “and one which may yet cost you the empire of the world. It is such trifles as that which destroy the grandest schemes.”
“I know! I know!” said Olga impatiently. “You may think me a fool and a weakling, but I could not bring myself to see or speak to Alan again after I had at last resolved to give up the hopeless task of winning him, and send him away.
“But for that mistake the Narwhal would still have been ours, and we should have taken Kerguelen unawares. He could have told his people nothing else that would have harmed us, for the more he tells them about Mount Terror the more impossible they will see any attack upon it to be. No, no, it was all that one fatal mistake! But there, it tortures me to talk about it! Tell me, my old friend and counsellor, what we are to do to repair the damage?”
Exhausted by her fierce and sudden outburst of passion, and the bitterness of her regret, Olga threw herself into a chair and sat waiting for Lossenski to speak. He remained silent for several moments, buried in thought, and then he began speaking in the low, deliberate tone of a man who has weighty counsels to impart.
“We cannot deny, Majesty, that we have been worsted in our two first encounters with these Aerians, but we must learn wisdom and patience from defeat. It seems plain to me that the Aerians are too strong for us as we are.
“When we attacked them we forgot that, while we are children in warfare, they are perfect masters of it. They have preserved the traditions of their fathers, and for four generations they have been trained in the use of the weapons which we have only just learnt to use. Therefore my advice is that we do not attack them again for the present.”
“But,” interrupted Olga, “in any case, they will attack us, and we shall still have to fight.”