waiting for them. Order them, when Paul joins
them there, to aid Alexis in seizing him instantly. Give them your
instructions quietly, and without attracting notice. Above all do not
let Paul see you speaking to them. When you have seen them out, find
Paul, and order him to go to the stable and tell Alexis that I wish to
speak to him; when he has gone, join me here."

CHAPTER XV.

A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE

Count Preskoff's old steward received his orders with scarce a look of
surprise, singular though they must have seemed to him. A Russian is
accustomed to unquestioning obedience to the orders of his superior,
and although never before had Count Preskoff issued such strange and
unaccountable commands to the steward, the thought never occurred to
the latter of questioning them for a moment.

When he had left the room, the Count turned to the midshipmen, and his
brow relaxed. "I cannot tell you," he said, "under what obligation you
have placed me and my family. Little did we think that any little
kindness we might show to you, strangers and prisoners here, would be
returned by a service of a hundredfold greater value. The danger which
hangs over us may for the time be averted by your discovery. I know my
enemy too well to suppose that it is more than postponed, but every
delay is so much gained. I have news to-day that the Czar is
alarmingly ill. Should Heaven take him, it would be the dawn of a
better era for Russia. His son is a man of very different mould. He
has fallen into disgrace with his father for his liberal ideas, and he
is known to think, as I do, that serfdom is the curse of the empire."

"But surely," Dick Hawtry said, "if we draw out a document signed by
us and Alexis, saying that we overheard the plot to obtain false
evidence against you, the emperor would not believe other false
accusations which your enemies might invent?"

"You little know Russia," the count said. "I believe that Nicholas,
tyrannical and absolute as he is, yet wishes to be just, and that were
such a document placed in his hands, it would open his eyes to the
truth. But my enemies would take care that it never reached him. They
are so powerful that few would dare to brave their hostility by
presenting it. Nor, indeed, surrounded as Nicholas is by creatures
whose great object is to prevent him from learning the true wishes of
his people, would it be easy to obtain an opportunity for laying such
a document before him. Even were