“I am here with a message, it is true,” said the renowned chief of the Russian Sûreté. “You had, I think, better lock that door, and also make quite certain that nobody in this house overhears what I am about to say,” he added very slowly and meaningly.
“Why?” inquired the other with some show of defiance.
“If you do not want these comrades of yours to know all your private business, it will be best to lock that door and take care that nobody is listening outside. If they are—well, it will be you, Danilo Danilovitch, who will suffer, not myself,” said Hartwig very coolly, his eyes fixed upon the agent-provocateur. “I urge you to take precautions of secrecy,” he added. “I urge you—for your own sake!”
“For my own sake!” cried the other. “What do you mean?”
Hartwig paused for a few seconds, and then, in a lower voice, said:
“I mean this, Danilo Danilovitch. If a single word of what I am about to say is overheard by anyone in this house you will not go forth again alive. We have been threatened by your comrades down below. But upon you yourself will fall the punishment which is meted out by your comrades to all traitors—death!” The man’s face changed in an instant. He stood open-mouthed, staring aghast at Hartwig, haggard-eyed and pale to the lips.