Emile had told her that she must get her sleep up in the hut.
"You have two hours to yourself," he said. "You can't sleep up there?
Nonsense! Make up your mind to do it and then you will."
The building in question, which was more like an outhouse than anything else, she had christened, "The Black Hole of Calcutta." The upper part, which was approached by a ladder as a loft would be, was used as a meeting-room, while the ground floor became a temporary stable for the horses and mules, of which she was left in charge. Since the scene in that upper room in the Calle de Pescadores she had put herself outside all consideration; and Sobrenski now excluded her from all work other than the merest drudgery. Vardri was also kept under surveillance. It was felt by all that in some quarter treachery lurked as yet undiscovered, and every man suspected his comrades. There were indications that someone, hitherto a sworn ally of the Cause, had turned spy and sold certain information to the authorities.
Even Sobrenski's iron nerves were stretched to breaking point.
The rest tried to drown anxiety in absinthe, and all grew daily more morose and uncertain of temper.
The first sensation came in the shape of a rumour that Count Vladimir's companion, Pauline Souvaroff, had disappeared.
Only three people knew that she had vanished utterly and completely on the same day that she had received a communication from the leader. The note had been brought to her by Vladimir himself. He could guess at its contents, but Pauline had revealed nothing.
Two hours afterwards when he went on shore she was shut up in her cabin, and he had not interrupted her, thinking she was asleep. When he returned, and found her door unlocked, and her cabin empty, a suspicion of the truth occurred to him.
Everything was left in perfect order, but there was no letter, no word of explanation. He questioned the crew, and heard that she had been rowed to shore by two of them soon after he left. She had given the men orders not to wait, but to return at once to the yacht. For a week Vladimir hunted through street and slum. At the end of that time he knew that alive or dead he would never see Pauline Souvaroff again. The missive he had brought her from Sobrenski had probably meant a journey for her to one of the great centres of the movement—Amsterdam, Geneva, or perhaps even London.
Alphonse of Spain was now in England, having escaped two attempts upon his life in Paris, and in his own capital. His every moment would be watched and noted by the destroyers of monarchy. Probably she had been chosen to obtain information, because women made better spies than men, and their movements were not so likely to be noticed by the police. Many a high official whose name was on the list of those condemned to death by a revolutionary tribunal had been tracked from city to city by female agents.