"Oh, Niania, I wish you'd come here a minute," said Alf. "I want to ask you something."
Nurse gave a little grunt, but not a cross one, for she was never angry with her children, as she called them.
"Nurse," said Alf very solemnly in Russian, "if there's going to be a rising among the men in the zavot (factory), on whose side will you be—on ours or on theirs?"
Old Niania threw a loving arm round each of the little lads and drew them close.
"My darlings," she cried, "my doves, my gold and silver and diamond children, do I not belong to you, heart and soul? Whatever happens, I am on your side, now and ever; so help me God!"
[CHAPTER II.]
LITTLE DETECTIVES.
THE plot, part of which Alf Oliver had overheard, ripened so quickly that events followed each other closely. First, the English governess took fright and left in a hurry for St. Petersburg, where she had friends.
In the factory there was a spirit of rebellion and defiance, and the men, instead of doing their work, were constantly gathering in little groups, muttering and scowling when the manager passed them.
At last things came to such a point that next to no work was done. The oil barrels remained unfilled, the cart-horses stood idle in the stables, and the great sledge-carts, which should have been carrying casks of oil to the railway station in the town fifteen miles off, were hauled up close together, lumbering the loading yard.