"Ivan Maximovitch Ghedimin, you are my prisoner! Surrender your sword!"
Without a word, Ivan, unbuckling his sword, handed it to him.
Anna Feodorovna was furious.
"What does this fellow mean by breaking into my apartment and presuming to take away my grandson's sword, the sword of a Duke Ghedimin? Who is this gentleman?"
"Who I am, madame, it is absolutely unnecessary for you to know; but I will tell you who your grandson is. He is the Dictator of yonder mutinous rebels who attempted to murder the Czar and have been defeated."
"Ihnasko! Ihnasko!" shrieked the matron, "come here, and laugh instead of me! I cannot; help me to laugh. Look at this carnival buffoon who is performing here. He says that my nest-bird is the Dictator of the rebels! Where have you crept to? Laugh—laugh!"
Ivan said in a low voice, and in French, to Galban, "I can exculpate myself to the Czar. There is no proof against me."
"How about 'the green book?'"
"I know nothing of it."
"Do not build up vain hopes, Ivan Maximovitch! You are thoroughly undone. Your wife has betrayed you. No sooner did you give over into her hands a certain key which, as you are aware, opens a certain roulette-bank at Fräulein Zeneida's than she went directly to the President of Police and placed that key in his hands. 'The green book' is now in good keeping."