Drexel took the hand. “Thank you, colonel.”
“Though at least they might have notified me sooner,” grumbled the governor. “The executions are all arranged for—the orders all given—the men appointed to the work merely waiting for the hour. But that’s no fault of yours, captain!” He proffered his cigarette case. “Will you join me?”
“If you please. Thank you. And now I suppose the prisoners are ready?”
“They have merely to be brought from their cells. Will you let me have the order?”
Drexel handed it forth, and life stood suspended in him while it underwent the scrutiny of the governor’s sharp eyes. If Sabatoff had made an error in the form!
But the governor thrust it into a drawer of his desk. “So you only want four of them?”
“Four, yes. The prisoners known as Borodin, Sonya Varanova, Razoff and The White One.”
“They trust me with one out of the five; I dare say I should be satisfied,” said the governor ironically. “The order against the fifth, of course, still stands. I suppose you will wait here while I bring them.”
It flashed upon Drexel that if Sonya first saw him in this bright room, her natural astonishment might be observed and prove the means of their betrayal. Better that the first meeting should be in her shadowy cell.
“No, I will go with you,” he said.