it again, this time
more violently. But yet some minutes passed, and still the bell was
unanswered. The count gnashed his teeth with rage, and muttered vehement
curses.

At length the door opened, and with an imploring face a servant appeared
upon the threshold.

"Miserable hound, where were you?" cried the count to him.

The servant fell upon his knees and crept like a dog to his master's
feet.

"Excellency, we had, as your grace commanded, so long as the gentleman
was with you, withdrawn from the anteroom and waited in the corridor,
where the bell could not be heard," stammered the servant.

"I will teach you wretches to keep me waiting," exclaimed the count, and
seizing the knout that lay upon the table before him, he laid it with
merciless rage upon the poor servant, until his own arm sank powerless,
and he felt himself exhausted with fatigue.

"Now, go, you hound!" said he, replacing the knout upon the table; and
the flagellated serf, rising respectfully, with his hand wiped away the
blood which ran in streams from his wounds.

"Now go and send my officers to me!" cried the count. The servant
staggered out to obey the command, and soon the persons thus ordered
made their appearance and remained standing in silence at the door.

The count lay stretched out upon the divan, playing with the knout,
whose leathern thongs were still dripping with his servant's blood.

"Let a courier take horse immediately, and give him the order
countersigned by her imperial majesty for the arrest of Count Paulo
Rasczinsky. The courier will follow him with it to the Russian frontier,
and then by virtue of this order arrest him at the next station and send
him to St. Petersburg in chains! This is the command for the courier; he
will answer with his head for its execution!"

One of the officers bowed, and went to dispatch the courier.

"Is our reconnoitrer returned?" asked the count of the two who remained.

"He is."

"What news brings he? Does he know the cause of the murderous attack
at the festival of the French cardinal? Yet why do I ask you? Make
yourselves scarce, and let him come to speak for himself!"

The officers were no sooner gone, than a wild-looking, bearded churl
made his appearance upon the threshold of the door and greeted the count
with a grinning laugh.

"What know you of the murderous attack?" asked the count, in Italian.

"A friend of mine was charged with the affair," said the bravo. "He is
in the