ow the miserable rabbits of creatures kept huddled together,
shivering in the dark, till the hour arrived! and then the death-like
stillness they found outside; and the wild wonder and fear of it; and
the old men and the women crying like children to find themselves in the
free air again. Marie Falevitch--that was my sister-in-law--she kissed
me, and was laughing when she whispered, '_Eljen a haza_!' I think she
was a little off her head with the long, sleepless nights."

He stopped for a second; his throat seemed choked.

"Did I tell you they had all got out?--the poor devils all wondering
there, and scarcely knowing where to go. And now suppose, sir--ah! you
don't know anything about these things, you happy English
people--suppose you found the black night around you all at once turned
to a blaze of fire--red hell opened on all sides of you, and the bullets
plowing your comrades down; the old men crying for mercy, the young ones
falling only with a groan; the women--my God! Did you ever hear a woman
shriek when she was struck through the heart with a bullet? Marie
Falevitch fell at my feet, but I could not raise her--I was struck down
too. It was a week after that I came to my senses. I was in the prison,
but the prison was not quite so full. Czars and governors have a fine
way of thinning prisons when they get too crowded."

These last words were spoken in a calm, contemptuous way; the man was
evidently trying hard to control the fierce passion that these memories
had stirred up. He had clinched one hand, and put it firmly on the desk
before him, so that it should not tremble.

"Well, now, Mr. Brand," he continued, slowly, "let us suppose that when
you come to yourself again, you hear the rumors that are about: you
hear, for example, that Count Verdt--that exceedingly clever man--has
been graciously pardoned by the Czar for revealing the villanous
conspiracy of his fellow-prisoners; and that he has gone off to the
South with a bag of money. Do you not think that you would remember the
name of that clever person? Do you not think you would say to yourself,
'Well, it may not be to-day, or to-morrow, or the next day: _but some
day_?'"

Again the dark eyes glowed; but he had a wonderful self-control.

"You would remember the name, would you not, if you had your
sister-in-law, and your only brother, and six or seven of your old
friends and comrades all shot on the one night?"

"This was the same Count Verdt?" Brand