she cried to the other lady. "Did you not know it was an imperial one?"

"How dared you chase that stag to the very gates of the hospital? Did you not know that it is a hospital for cripples?"

"I hope you recognize that the Czar is the first gentleman in Russia."

"Throughout the whole world the first gentlefolks are the sick."

"You are foolhardy, madame."

"That I admit."

Now the huntswoman lifted her veil. She was heated. She toyed impatiently with the riding-whip in her hand.

"Why am I not a man?" she muttered, between her pearly teeth.

The huntsman with the clean-shaven face, reading from his companion's working features and piercing eyes that there was something more in dispute than the shot stag, now bending towards her, addressed her audibly enough in German. For though the French language—that of the best-beloved enemy—is the language of society in the Russian capital, German—that of the most hated friend—is only spoken by the exclusive. German is therefore spoken when the servants are not desired to understand.

"A rival, eh?" asked the clean-shaven one.

The huntswoman projected her lips scornfully, and, knitting her brows, answered aloud in German:

"Neither rival nor——"

The lady standing by had distinctly heard the short colloquy, and was perfectly aware that she had another charge in her pistol.

The speaker had turned pale as she spoke, like a duellist who, having fired his shot and wounded his adversary, now awaits the other's fire.

The owner of the park did not do this, however. There are words, looks, and gestures which can strike deeper than the most deadly weapon. Placing one foot on the crowned antlers of the stag lying prone before her, she smiled full in the face of her adversary; and, as though to emphasize the insulting challenge, raising her pistol, she fired the remaining shot into the air. For an insult loses its sting if directed by an armed person against one unarmed. Now once more she stood conqueror.

The huntswoman's face flamed with fury. She twisted her riding-whip in her hands like a serpent, as though inwardly debating whether to strike it across the other's face, and thus wipe away the irritating smile.

One of the other two ladies was young, little more than a child. Her face a perfect oval, with exquisitely formed chin, a little rosebud mouth, large, deep-blue eyes, looking black in the distance, dark, finely pencilled eyebrows, and hair hanging in soft, shining plaits down her back.

Her whole face wore the astounded expression of a school-girl. The strangest thing about her was that she rode a gentleman's saddle, with which her costume was in keeping—the Circassian beshmet, the broad, white salavár, high boots, and flowing cashmere, with hanging kindzsál. Every one but she knew what the two women were saying to each other. He who happened to be ignorant of the language could understand the gestures, the contemptuous expression of the features, the crossfire of eyes. The young girl did not understand even that. She merely looked on in amazement. That the two ladies were angry with each other she saw—and about a stag's antlers! The riding-whip was twisted about in the huntswoman's nervous fingers until it snapped. She made use of another weapon.

"Bethsaba!" she exclaimed, turning to the girl, and speaking to her in a language unknown to any of their auditors—possibly Circassian; but the expression on the speaker's face, and the terror-stricken, pallid look on that of the young girl, said as plainly as words:

"You have asked me what the devil looks like? Look at that woman; there you have the fiend in human form."

The girl, bending her head, crossed herself as she cast a frightened side glance at the dreadful woman, who was the embodiment of his Satanic Majesty. Then the Amazon, turning her own horse, and at the same time seizing the reins of that upon which the young girl was mounted, galloped back the way she had come, huntsmen and hounds following. The stag remained where it had fallen.

CHAPTER V
PLAN OF WAR AGAINST A WOMAN

On the way back to Ghedimin Palace naturally nothing was spoken of by the members of the hunt but the exciting scene to which they had just been witness.

"Parole d'honneur," said the clean-shaven horseman, as he struck his riding-boot with his whip, "the whole world is turned upside down! In the time of the Empress Elizabeth, if any woman had allowed herself to insult a Princess Ghedimin in that manner, she would have had her tongue cut out and have been punished with the knout."

"This is what we have to thank exaggerated philanthropy for! It was never created for us. Voltairianism will be the ruin of the nation. How can Araktseieff suffer it?"

"The woman is no Russian?"

"Perhaps some English or German here to spite us, and who has placed herself under the protection of the Embassy? By Jove! in 1816, when I was last at home, such a thing would not have been permitted!"

"These cursed foreigners! Anyway, if the president of the police does not take the matter in hand, we will administer the knout ourselves. I swear your presence alone withheld me just now, Princess Maria Alexievna!"

"Indeed! You do not know who the woman is."

"What does it matter who she is? She may even be a princess."

"She is more than that."

"Then some expatriated queen, perhaps from Georgia."

"Silence!" said the lady, as she gave a warning look in the direction of the girl riding at her other side.

"She does not understand German. So the woman is really a queen?"

At this question the lady laughed heartily.

"Really a queen! A true queen! A reigning queen—an absolute monarch! We all are her slaves; you, I, even Alexis Maximovitch. A queen who is not to be driven out of her kingdom by means of cannon, but with this!" and she held out to her companion the whistle of her shattered riding-whip.

"What! an actress?"

"Of course. What else should she be?"

"Ha, ha, ha! To whom the whistle means a revolution; whose throne is upset by hisses! Ah, Maria Alexievna, present me with this whistle. With it I will fight for you, as a knight sans peur et sans reproche."

The lady resigned the fatal weapon, so efficacious in the downfall of stage potentates, to her cavalier, as the latter lifted her out of her saddle in the portico of the Ghedimin Palace.

He then kissed her hand. She kissed him on the cheek, and, taking the young girl by the hand, she passed through a treble glass door and ascended the broad frescoed staircase within.

Here the hunting-party broke up, making rendezvous at the opera that evening.

Now the silent, bestarred gentleman, who had hitherto not mixed in the conversation, slapping the clean-shorn one on the back with the flat of his hand, said:

"Nicholas Sergievitch, a word with you. Come along with me."

"At your service, Alexis Maximovitch."

And together they rode off to the Araktseieff Palace.

There are no old palaces in St. Petersburg. The whole city only dates back a century and a half. The palace of the favorite official of the Czar is situated on the Nevski Prospect, and is built more for comfort than for elegance. During the winter the whole building is heated throughout with hot-air pipes; every window has treble cases; the floors of the rooms are of parquetry.

The two huntsmen said nothing until they had refreshed themselves with hot tea seasoned with arak and a curious compound of cayenne and cantharides. A tiny portion on the point of a knife of this latter