The Witch sailed out of Barcelona harbour with the early morning tide. Besides Emile and Vladimir, and a small picked crew, she carried an assortment of strangely-shaped machines, things that looked like the inside of a clock, and were full of wheels and cogs, firearms, and ammunition, some copies of a revolutionist manual on street fighting tactics, and other inflammatory literature.
Their plan was to enter Russia by way of Finland, leaving all the things there to be smuggled through by degrees.
When they came to the frontier they would part company. Emile would make his way towards the city that holds its trembling autocrat as closely guarded in his palace as any convict in the mines, while Vladimir was to go back to Spain overland to report success or failure in the landing and disposal of their dangerous cargo.
All day the two men sat together, talking, plotting, preparing for all contingencies.
There were no feminine voices to be heard on board the yacht now, no singing on deck in the evenings, no hint of the presence of a woman, either as wife, mistress, or companion.
They neither discussed nor recalled these vanished days, though one had hours of memory and regret, and the other was consumed with a savage hunger for that which he had lost.
Both had taken upon themselves vows that put them outside the pale of human ties and affections.
The Goddess whom they both served had risen, claiming their allegiance, their service, and with the lives and ways of mortal women they had no concern. The Cause had triumphed.
CHAPTER XX
"Do you not know I am a woman?"
AS YOU LIKE IT.