CHAPTER XIX.
POLOTSKY.
For a few moments I stood regarding the wretch in silence. He was a picture of abject and villainous misery; knowing that he was in the hands of his most determined enemies, he fancied a fate as hideous as his own crimes. A man who has been hard and brutal to others is, in his hour of reckoning, the most abject coward on earth. Pierrot had fastened him securely in his chair, and he lay there writhing in his bonds, his face livid, and the cold sweat standing in beads on his brow. To me he was simply repulsive; I felt no pity then, and he saw it, and groaned aloud in his despair.
“Be brief, fellow,” I said coldly; “I have already waited five minutes. Delay will avail you nothing. If you do not confess to me, there are others to find a shorter means to wag your tongue.”
He shuddered, and clenched the chair with his hands.
“Save me,” he gasped, “and I will tell you all I know! Save me from those men!”
“I will make no conditions,” I retorted calmly. “If you confess, I will not have you tortured here; if you do not, I will turn you over to your old master, and he may do as he pleases with you.”
The wretch stared at me wildly, without speaking, and I began to suspect that he was inventing some fable.
“Speak!” I said sharply; “you cannot have a moment longer. Where is Mademoiselle Ramodanofsky?”
“Ah, that is just what I cannot tell, and you will kill me!” he wailed so abjectly that I began to believe that he really could not enlighten me. “I only know that the Boyar Vladimir had her taken away from Dr. von Gaden’s house.”
“Taken whither?” I demanded fiercely; “a lie will not save you.”