“I heard you were masquerading in London,” I said; “and among other members of the Circle who are here at the present moment are young Paul Tchartkoff, Sergius Karamasoff, and Ivan Petrovitch.”
“But—but who are you, m’sieur, that you should know so much about the Narodnaya Volya? When we were introduced, I failed to catch your name distinctly.”
“My name is Andrew Verney, and I am an English journalist.”
“Andrew Verney! Ah! of course I have heard of you many times! You were the English newspaper correspondent who, while living at Warsaw, became one of Us, and wrote articles to your journal advocating the emancipation of our country and the inviolability of the individual and of his rights as a man. You assisted us in bringing our case vividly before the English people, and in raising money to carry on the propaganda. But, alas! the iron hand of the Minister of the Interior fell upon you.”
“Yes,” I said, laughing; “I was expelled with a cancelled passport, and an intimation from the Press Bureau at Petersburg that whatever I wrote in future would not be allowed to enter Russia.”
Our boat was drifting, so I bent again to the oars, and rowed back to the lawn of our hostess.
The beautiful girl, who, lolling back upon the saddlebags, commenced to chatter in French about mutual friends in Warsaw, in Moscow, and in Petersburg, was none other than Sonia Ostroff, known to every Nihilist in and out of Russia as “The Sylph of the Terror.” Her slim figure, her childish face, her delicate complexion and charming dimples made her appear little more than a girl; yet I well knew how her bold, daring schemes had caused the Tzar Alexander to tremble. The daughter of a wealthy widow moving in the best society in Petersburg, she had become imbued with convictions that had induced her to join the Nihilists. From that moment she had become one of their most active members, and on the death of her mother, devoted all the money she inherited to the Cause. Many were the remarkable stories I had heard of the manner in which she had arranged attempts upon the lives of the Tzar and his Ministers; how, on one occasion, with extraordinary courage, she had taken the life of a police spy with her own hand; and how cleverly she had always managed to elude the vigilance of the ubiquitous agents of the Third Section of the Ministry of the Interior. Yet, as she laughed lightly, and pulled the rudder-line sharply, bringing us up to the steps before our hostess’s house, few would have suspected Cécile Demage, the chic, flippant daughter of a Belgian mine-owner, to be the same person as Sonia Ostroff, the renowned “Sylph of the Terror,” who spent greater part of her time in hiding from the police in the underground cellar of a presumably disused house near the Ekaterinski in Petersburg.
Half an hour later we were sitting opposite each other at dinner, where she shone brilliantly as a conversationalist. Several persons were present who had met her in society in Brussels; but none suspected the truth—I alone held her secret.
When later that night we bade each other farewell at Waterloo Station, she managed to whisper, “I shall be at Fedor’s on Thursday night at nine. Meet me there. Do not fail.”
“Very well,” I replied; and, allowing her well-gloved hand to rest in mine for a moment, she bade me au revoir, entered a cab, and was driven away.