destination.

It was not very dark here, and for the moment I thought that the fellow had played a trick upon us.

We appeared to have reached a veritable forest, great chestnut trees taking the place of the pines and a wide pool shining under the moon's rays where the roadway ended. Presently, however, I discerned the glimmer of a lamp amidst a copse upon the right-hand side, and the droshky driver indicated with his whip that it was the house which Captain Léon had visited.

An uglier place could not be imagined. The dark groves of stupendous trees, the silent pool, the remote situation of the habitation, affected me strangely. I was convinced by this time that my nephew had fallen into a trap, and that we should be lucky men if we found him alive. Even the imperturbable Bardot could not put a good face upon it. He showed his pistol to the coachman and commanded him to stay where he was. Then he followed me down the grove towards the house.

I have told you that it was hidden in the trees; but this will give you but a poor idea of its situation. We saw upon nearer approach that the pool or lake was fed by a winding river, upon an island of which the house was built, so that it was entirely surrounded by water, which a mediæval drawbridge spanned.

The building itself had all the air of the keep of an ancient castle, being no more than a great round tower built upon the island, with a miserable outhouse at its foot and a barn-like structure to the south, which served, I doubt not, for a stable. Save for a glimmer of light which showed through a considerable loophole above the drawbridge, there was no evidence of occupation either above or below. The place seemed as silent as the grave; our own footsteps upon the sward were a heavy sound upon the silence of that summer's night.

To be sure, we approached very cautiously. We must have been at least fifty paces from the water's edge when Bardot went down flat upon his stomach and began to crawl towards the river.

"If I whistle," he said, "come to me."

I answered that I would; and after an interminable interval of waiting I heard his signal. When I came up to his side he pointed to the figure of a man who stood sentry beyond the bridge.

"Look," he said. "The fellow is drunk. They are all drunk in this cursed country. If we sounded the réveillé he would not hear us. We must go over and tell him so. You can swim, of course?"

I shook my head, for the truth was I could not swim a stroke. When I discovered that he was in a like predicament, the tragic irony of our position began to be realised for the first time. There we were, fifty paces from the door, behind which poor Léon might already be in jeopardy. I knew now that the girl Valerie had not written the letter, and this was just the trap I had supposed it to be. Yet there we stood, as helpless as any child from a woodlander's hut. Even Bardot could make nothing of it.

"If I had known!" he would say, just as though it had been in my power to tell him. Such folly angered me. I got up regardless of the risk of discovery, and began to make my way back to the carriage. The man should gallop back to Moscow, said I, and we would return within the hour with a troop of cavalry, and this time we would bring our own bridge.

This was in my mind, though the despair of it needs no apology.

"A thousand to one," I argued, "that Léon will not be alive when we return; and yet we might avenge him!"

A fierce desire to beat down the walls of the accursed house, to break in upon the assassins and to butcher them where they stood, possessed me as a fever. There was not a man in the regiment who, would not have galloped through the night at Léon's call. Pity then if we might not avenge him.

This I had said, when another whistle from the river bank arrested my attention and sent me back to Bardot.

He still lay behind the bush which concealed us, and his hand was raised in warning. When I rejoined him he pulled me down, and speaking in a deep whisper, he bade me listen. A boat was being rowed across the river. We saw it plainly in the moonlight—a great, crazy tub with a frail girl for its pilot. It touched the bank some fifty yards from the place where we lay hidden, and instantly the girl leapt from it and disappeared in the brushwood.

"Valerie St. Antoine, by all that is holy!" said I.

The mystery was deepening truly, but we were nearer to it now, and without a word spoken we strode toward the deserted boat and immediately began to pull across the river.

IV

Meanwhile what of Léon, and what had happened to him since he left Moscow? I shall try to tell you in a few words, that you may understand both his situation and ours, and the meaning of what was to come after.

The letter he had received was such as a soldier of the Guard is well acquainted with, and he discovered in it nothing out of the ordinary.

A pretty woman had fallen in love with him and desired to see him again. There must have been two hundred who had done that since he quitted Paris, yet few who drew from him so swift a response.

Was not Mademoiselle Valerie a fellow-countrywoman, and had not these two looked into each other's eyes as lovers are wont to do?

I remembered the impression she had made upon him in the prince's palace, and how he had sworn to hunt her out at Moscow; and I for one could not wonder that his heart leapt when she wrote to him and named a rendezvous to his liking.

He was to dine with her, the letter said, and her carriage would carry him to the barracks afterwards. He little knew the kind of journey that it was meant to be, nor what would lie under the tarpaulin which the assassins had made ready for him.

So off goes our gay cavalier, dressed in his best and as cock-a-hoop as a page-boy who has been kissed by a duchess.

The warnings he received fell on deaf ears. He knew that the regiment had lost good officers who went out upon just such a foolish errand as this; but they had gone to Russian houses, while Valerie was a Frenchwoman who bore an honoured name. There could be nothing to fear in such society. He would dine with her and tell her what she most desired to hear. This was a Guardsman's proper employment, and he would not be doing his duty if he shirked it. To give him his due, Léon was rarely remiss in these matters.

So you will understand why he did not suspect anything—even when they drove through the wood and came to the drawbridge. She would desire secrecy, of course, and this place appeared to be a very citadel of love. Léon merely remarked that aspect of it when he crossed the bridge and the great gate which Ivan the Terrible had built was shut upon him.

She would be alone, and he would find her complacent. The words were hardly said when he found himself face to face with Nicholas, the princely assassin, whose name had struck terror to the heart of many a French prisoner. Now a man trained to the surprises of war has some command of himself whatever the circumstances.

Léon was such a man, and you may be sure he did not betray himself.

Though the peril of the situation was now fully revealed, and he understood the trap into which he had fallen, what should he do but bow in a grand manner to his Highness, and declare his pleasure at that rencontre? The prince in his turn affected to be as agreeably surprised. He apologised for the absence of Mademoiselle Valerie, whom he declared to be confined to her room with an indisposition; and upon that he led the way immediately to the great apartment in which the supper was to be served.

This was nothing else than the round tower which Ivan had built, and a strange place it was, surely, for the entertainment of a man's friends. Léon observed that the walls of the apartment were hung entirely in black velvet, while at the northern arch there was a platform similarly draped in black, but with its plain boards strewn with rushes, as they strew a