"Katina," said Paul, impulsively, "if this Feodor Orloff be still living tell me where he may be found; I will seek him out, challenge, and slay him."
"No, brave Englishman, no. That vengeance belongs to me. No one must rob me of my due. And," she added with clenched hand and stern look, "the day is coming. Fate is drawing Count Orloff near to Czernova."
"True!" replied Zabern. "He has lately been appointed governor-general of Warsaw, a province bordering on our own."
"And his appointment bodes no good to Czernova," remarked Katina. "Marshal, I have a strange tale for your ears,—a tale I have been waiting the opportunity to relate. What will you say when I tell you that I have this very day seen the executioner who knouted me,—the minion of Orloff?"
"No, marshal, no. It is difficult, I am aware, for the knouted person to see his executioner, but nevertheless I contrived to see the face of mine, and what is more I have seen it again to-day—this afternoon—in the room where we now are. I could not mistake those furtive reddish eyes, that horse-shoe mark on the cheek—"
"Heavens! Katina, what are you saying?" interrupted Zabern, with more excitement than he usually displayed. "That a man with a horse-shoe mark on his cheek has been here this afternoon? Had the fellow a blue caftan, a red beard, a trick of gnawing his finger-nails—?"
"You describe the very man, marshal."
"Russakoff, as I live! Your old executioner and my spy one and the same person! Can it be?—And he was here this afternoon? At what hour did he call?"
"About four o'clock."