“Why our people: all of them, Tiburtsi and Lavrovski and Turkevich and the Professor—but perhaps he wouldn’t matter.”

“All right, I’ll watch for them, and when they’re in town, I’ll come. Good-bye!”

“Hi! Listen!” Valek called after me when I had gone a few steps. “You won’t tell any one you’ve been here with us, will you?”

“No, not a soul!” I answered firmly.

“That’s good. And when those idiots of yours ask you what you saw say the Devil.”

“All right. I’ll say that.”

“Good-bye, then!”

“Good-bye!”

The thick shades of night were descending on Kniazh Gorodok as I approached our garden wall. A slender crescent moon was hanging over the castle and the sky was bright with stars. I was about to climb the wall when some one seized my arm.

“Vasia!” my runaway friend burst out in an excited whisper. “Is that you?”