"Eh? well, yes, it was rather awkward, for it was the right hand, you see, and never having accustomed myself to employ the left I was rendered completely useless for the rest of the campaign. However, I have repaired the deficiency, and here is a hand as good as the lost one," continued Zabern, holding up his left hand. "So ended my first experience with the Russians."
"You fought them again?" inquired Paul.
"At many times and in many places. I have aided Georgians in the Caucasus, and Turks on the Danube. And when secret tidings came to me that Poland was preparing to vindicate its freedom against the tyranny of the viceroy Constantine, brother of the present Czar, I hastened to take part in the enterprise. Her Highness's father, Prince Thaddeus, would not permit Czernova to be drawn into the movement; selfishly, as we then thought; wisely, as we now perceive.
"The rising began at Warsaw in a conspiracy to seize the person of the Grand Duke Constantine. I was one of the eighteen appointed for the purpose. At nightfall we set off for the palace, slew the guards, and penetrated to the vice-regal bedchamber. But we were just a few seconds too late. Roused from sleep by the clash of arms, and the shouting, Constantine had sprung from the bed, thrown a cloak over himself, and fled by a secret staircase communicating with the palace gardens."
"The insurrection failed?"
"For a year we offered a gallant resistance to all the might of Russia. But what can valor effect against numbers? We gained victories, and those great ones; but if we slew ten thousand of the enemy on one day, there was a second ten thousand to replace them on the morrow. We had no such reserves to fall back upon. And then, too, the damned Russians brought the cholera with them, an ally that proved far more fatal than their arms; though, the saints be praised! it carried off the tyrant Constantine. On the taking of Warsaw I became one of a band of prisoners condemned to march in chains four thousand miles over the winter snow to Siberia."
"After five years, and have found asylum in Czernova. And here I am to-day, fifty-three years of age, and good for a deal more mischief yet," continued Zabern with a grim twinkle in his eye. "To see me holding the post of minister is gall and wormwood to the Russians; they have required my extradition, but the princess has resolutely refused to grant it."
Such in brief was the history of Zabern, and though his attempts to win freedom for his country were deserving of sympathy, Paul could not avoid a feeling of regret that Barbara should have admitted to her ministry such a firebrand as this patriot, whose undoubted aim was to utilize the resources of Czernova against Russia, should a favorable opportunity occur.
"By the way, Trevisa," said the marshal, turning to the ex-secretary, "you must not let the princess's frown diminish your interest in the cipher letter found upon the spy Russakoff. Read me that riddle, and I will undertake to restore you to favor."