"Down here!" she said, taking a candle, lighting it, and handing it to
me. "Go--I will follow."

I descended cautiously into the cold, dank place, discovering it to be a
kind of unlighted cellar hewn out of the rock. A table, a chair, a lamp,
and some provisions showed that preparation had been made for
concealment there, but ere I had entirely explored the place my pretty
fellow-fugitive rejoined me.

"This, I hope, is a place of safety," she said. "They will not find us
here. This is where Gustave lived before his flight."

"Gustave?" I repeated, looking her straight in the face.

She dropped her eyes and blushed. Her silence told its own tale. The
previous occupant of that rock chamber was her lover.

Her name was Luba--Luba Lazareff, she told me. But of herself she would
tell me nothing further. Her reticence was curious, yet before long I
recognised the reason of her refusal.

In reply to further questions she said: "The Germans are our friends.
Two men from Berlin have been in Ostrog nearly a month holding secret
meetings and urging us to rise."

"Do you know Hermann Hartmann?" I inquired.

"Ah! yes. He is the great patriot. He arrived here the day before
yesterday to address us before the struggle," she replied
enthusiastically.

Candle in hand, I was examining the deepest recesses of the dark,
cavernous place, while she lit the lamp, when, to my surprise, I
discovered at the further end a workman's bench, upon which were various
pieces of turned metal, pieces of tube of various sizes, and little
phials of glass like those used for the tiny tabloids for subcutaneous
injections.

I took one up to examine it, but at that instant she noticed me and
screamed in terror.

"Ah, sir! For heaven's sake, put that down--very carefully. Touch
nothing there, or we may both be blown to pieces! See!" she added in a
low, intense voice of confession, as she, dashed forward, "there are
finished bombs there! Gustave could not carry them all away, so he left
those with me."

"Then Gustave made these, eh?"

"Yes. And, see, he gave me this"--and she drew from her breast a small,
shining cylinder of brass, a beautifully finished little object about
four inches long similar to those used at the barricade. "He gave this
to me to use--if necessary!" the girl added, a meaning flash in her dark
eyes.

For a moment I was silent.

"Then you would have used it upon that Cossack?" I said slowly.

"That was my intention."