Then the master did indeed press the hand offered to him.
"Come inside!" said he, himself escorting the stranger, whilst the peasants, obsequiously raising their caps, made a way for them right up to the door.
The master dismissed everyone from the room, and when they two were alone asked excitedly in Russian:
"You come from Russia, you say? From what part of Russia?"
"From the eternal city where stand the golden gates of the Kremlin," answered Maria, also in the Russian tongue.
All Bodza's doubts instantly disappeared.
"What news in the Empire since the death of Romulus?"
Maria knew very well whom was meant by Romulus. It was none other than Muraviev, who was to be the builder of the walls of the new Rome, which was ere long to be the Lord of the whole earth.
Maria was no proselyte of this extravagant confederacy, but, living, as she did, nearer to the main source of it all, she was better able, with the assistance of current rumours and her own lively imagination, to amuse Thomas Bodza with more fables than he could have told her.
"Romulus is not dead, Romulus is still alive," whispered she to the interrogator mysteriously.