“But it is surely highly necessary, my dear Stoyanovitch,” I said. “With this abominable wave of anarchism which has spread over Europe, it behoves the Secret Police to take every precaution for His Majesty’s safety!”
“Ah! my dear friend,” laughed the equerry. “I tell you it is not at all pleasant to travel when one expects every moment that the train will be blown up. One’s sleeping-berth, though covered with a down quilt, is but a bed of torture in such conditions.”
“Yes,” I said. “But His Majesty—how does he bear it?”
“The Emperor has nerves of iron. He is the least concerned of any of us. But, mon Dieu! I would not be in his shoes for the wealth of all the Russias.”
“What—more conspiracies?” I exclaimed.
“Conspiracies!” sighed the Captain. “Mon Dieu! A fresh one is discovered by the political police every week. Only the day before the Emperor left for the country he found among the Ministers’ daily reports upon the table in his private cabinet an anonymous letter telling him that he will meet with a tragic end on the sixth of the present month. How this letter got there nobody knows. His Majesty is seldom out of temper, but I never saw him so furiously angry before.”
“It is unfortunate,” I said. “Apparently he cannot trust even his immediate entourage.”
“Exactly,” answered the dark-haired handsome man. “The constant reports of General Markoff regarding the revolutionists must be most alarming. And yet he preserves an outward calm that is truly remarkable. But, by the way,” he added, “His Majesty, before I left the Palace with that letter, summoned me and gave me a message for you—a verbal one.”
“Oh! What was that?”
“He told me to say that he sent to you a word—let me see, I wrote it down lest I should forget,” and pulling down his left shirt cuff, he spelt: