"Nihilists yes! Always!" exclaimed one who spoke English. "Death to the Czar and the Grand Dukes! Annihilation to the government!"
"Gently my friend, gently," spoke Mr. Petrofsky. "I am opposed to violence you know." And then, while his new friends gazed wonderingly at the strange craft, he led them inside. Tom and the others were hardly able to comprehend what was about to take place.
CHAPTER XVII
ON TO SIBERIA
"Has anything happened?" asked Tom. "Are we suspected? Have they come to warn us?"
"No, everything is all right, so far," answered Ivan Petrofsky. "I didn't have the success I hoped for, and we may have to wait here for a few days to get news of my brother. But these men have been very kind to me," he went on, "and they have ways of getting information that I have not. So they are going to aid me."
"That's right!" exclaimed the one who had first spoken. "We will yet win you to our cause, Brother Petrofsky. Death to the Czar and the Grand Dukes!"
"Never!" exclaimed the exile firmly. "Peaceful measures will succeed. But I am grateful for what you can do for me. They heard me describe your wonderful airship," he explained to Tom, "and wanted to see for themselves."
The Nihilists were made welcome after Mr. Petrofsky had introduced them. They had strange and almost unpronounceable names for the ears of our friends, and I will not trouble you with them, save to say that the one who spoke English fairly well, and who was the leader, was called Nicolas Androwsky. There was much jabbering in the Russian tongue, when Mr. Petrofsky and Mr. Androwsky took the others about the craft, explaining how it worked.