"In the neighbourhood of Schlusselburg."
Charlie felt his heart die within him at this intelligence, for such a vicinity was full of peril.
"Be to-morrow at noon on the road that leads to Tosna, and you shall learn more; but do you know it, Hospodeen?"
"I shall soon discover it—and the place?"
"The skirts of the wood four versts from this."
"Good—till then, adieu; and God be with you."
Balgonie retired all unaware or heedless that his Cossacks were secretly jesting at his whispering with the pretty gipsy; and through the dark streets he marched them towards the great and sombre masses of the fort which loomed between him and the star-lighted sky, his heart the while being literally sick with alarm and dismay, in the conviction, that the long-dreaded crisis was coming—that Natalie was near, and the place of her concealment was known to a vagrant gipsy girl, the sister of Nicholas Paulovitch, who, if he knew it not already, might wrest the secret from her with the point of his knife, for the information of him whose spy he was—the hateful Bernikoff!
Ruin and sorrow were close at hand, indeed.
On receiving the official but verbal report of Balgonie, and learning that the visit to the identical tea-house where the dangerous rouble was found had proved abortive, and that there was no one to be knouted or hanged in the morning, Colonel Bernikoff became transported with rage, and lifted his cane somewhat threateningly. On this, Balgonie's hand was instantly laid on the hilt of his sword.
"Beware, Excellency," said he firmly: "a blow to an equal is a foul insult; to an inferior it is mean tyranny; and, in either instance, blood alone should wash it out."