Olga Romanoff. George Chetwynd Griffith

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СКАЧАТЬ going to do that—two of us against ten or a dozen, armed with powers we know nothing about?”

      “We must find means to drug them—to poison them, if necessary, during to-morrow’s voyage,” came the reply, in a whisper that made his heart stand still for the moment with utter horror.

      “Good God! is that really necessary? It seems a horrible thing to do, when they are trusting us and taking us as their guests,” he said in a low, trembling tone.

      “Yes,” she replied, with a well simulated shudder; “it is horrible, I know, but it is necessary. Remember that we have solemnly sworn war to the knife against this people, and that, armed as they are, all open assault is impossible; therefore they must be struck in secret, or not at all.

      “Now listen. I have brought with me a flask which my grandfather gave me a day or two before he died. It contains enough of a tasteless, powerful narcotic to send twenty people to sleep so that nothing will wake them for several hours. I will give you half of this to-night and keep half myself, and one of us must find an opportunity to get the crew to take it in their wine, or whatever they may drink, for they are sure to have one or two meals while we are on board.

      “To-night I will send instructions in cypher to the Lossenskis in Vorobièvŏ to tell them that as many as possible of the Friends must be ready for action by eight to-morrow night, and must wait, if necessary, night after night till we come. If all goes well we shall select the new crew of the Ithuriel from them before we see two more sunrises. In fact, by the time we return from our voyage we must have absolute control of the vessel.

      “Such an opportunity as this will never offer itself again, and I, for my part, am determined to risk anything, not excepting life itself, to take the best advantage of it. It would be madness to allow any scruples to stand in our way when the Empire of the Air is almost within our grasp.”

      “And none shall, so far as I am concerned,” replied Serge in a low, steady voice that showed that his horror at the deed they contemplated had succumbed, at least for the moment, to the tremendous temptation offered by the prospect of success.

      “Spoken like a true Romanoff!” said Olga, looking up at him with a sweet smile of approval. “As the deed is so shall the reward be. Now we must get back to our friends. We will find a means to get an hour together before to-night to arrange matters further, and we will have Alan and Alexis to supper with us after the opera, and then I will begin my share of the work. Once the air-ship is ours, we can hide her in one of the ravines of the Caucasus, hold a council of war in the villa at Vorobièvŏ, and set about the work of the Revolution in regular fashion.”

      The rest of the day was spent in accordance with the plans already agreed on. Olga and Serge had tea together in their private room before going to the theatre, and put the finishing touches to their plans for the momentous venture of the following day; and Alan and Alexis, all unsuspecting, accepted their invitation to supper after their return from the opera-house.

      The seemingly innocent and pleasant little supper, which passed off so merrily in the private sitting-room occupied by Olga and Serge, had but one incident which calls for description here, and even that was unnoticed not only by the two guests, but by Serge himself.

      Just before midnight, Olga proposed that, in accordance with the ancient custom of Russia, they should drink a glass of punch, brewed in the Russian style; and as she volunteered to brew it herself, it is needless to say that the invitation was at once accepted.

      The apparatus stood upon a little table in one corner of the room. For a single minute her back was turned to the three sitting at the table in the centre; her share in the conversation was not interrupted for an instant, and no one saw a couple of drops of sparkling, blue liquid fall into each of three of the glasses from the little flask that she held concealed in the palm of her hand, and when she turned round with the little silver tray on which the glasses stood, the flask was resting at the bottom of her dress-pocket.

      She handed a glass to each of them, and then took her own up from the side-table where she had left it. She went to her place, and, holding her glass up, said simply—

      “Here’s to that which each of us has nearest at heart!” and drank.

      All followed suit, and as the clock chimed twelve a few minutes later, the two Aerians took their leave, and left Olga and Serge alone.

      “You said you would begin your share of the work to-night,” said he, as soon as they were alone. “Have you done so?”

      “If you do your work to-morrow as successfully as I have done mine to-night,” replied Olga, looking steadily into his eyes as she spoke, “the Empire of the Air will no longer be theirs.”

      Serge returned her glance in silence. He wanted to speak, but some superior power seemed to have laid a spell upon his will, and as long as Olga’s burning eyes were fixed on his, his tongue was paralysed, nay, more than this, his mind even refused to shape the sentences that he would have liked to speak. Olga held him mute before her for several minutes, and then she said quietly, still keeping her eyes fixed on his—

      “Now speak, and tell me what you would do if I told you that I preferred Alan as a lover to you, and that I would rather a thousand times be his slave and plaything than your wife.”

      “I should say that you are the mistress of my destiny, that I have no law but your will, and that it is for you to give me joy or pain, as seems good to you.”

      Serge spoke the unnatural words in a calm, passionless tone, rather as though he were speaking in a sort of hypnotic trance than in full command of his senses. A strange, subtle influence had been stealing through his veins and over his nerves ever since he had drunk the liquor which Olga had prepared.

      He seemed perfectly incapable of resisting any suggestion that might have been made to him. His will was paralysed, but even the consciousness of this fact was fading from his mind. All his passions were absolutely in abeyance. Even his love for Olga failed to inspire him with any jealous resentment of words which half an hour before would have goaded him to frenzy. He heard them as though they concerned someone else.

      The ruin of his life’s hopes, which they implied so distinctly, had no meaning for him; so far as his volition was concerned he was an automaton, ready to obey without question the dictates of her imperious will.

      “That will do,” said Olga, in the tone of a mistress addressing a servant. “Now go to bed and sleep well, and remember the work that lies before you to-morrow.”

      “I will,” said Serge, and without another word, without attempting to take his customary good-night kiss, he walked out of the room, leaving her to the enjoyment of her victory and the contemplation of triumphs that now seemed almost certain to her.

      Punctual to its appointed time, the air-ship appeared in mid-air over the city a few minutes before ten the next morning. It sank slowly and gracefully to within a hundred feet of the ground over the garden of the hotel in which the two Aerians and their new friends were staying.

      Signals were rapidly exchanged as before between Alan and one of the crew standing on the afterpart of the deck. Then it sank down on to one of the snow-covered lawns of the garden, a door opened in the glass covering of the deck, a short, light, folding ladder with hand-rails dropped out of it to the ground, and Alan, springing up three or four of the steps, held out his hand to Olga, saying—

      “Come along! we shall have a crowd round us in another minute.”

      This was true, for the appearance СКАЧАТЬ