onspired to throw the
guilt of this attempted murder of the general's wife upon her? You--you,
the man whom they call 'The Strangler of Finland'! But I will avenge the
cruel and abominable affliction you have placed upon her. Her
secret--your secret, Baron Oberg--shall be published to the world. You
are her enemy--and therefore mine!"

"Very well," he growled between his teeth, advancing towards me
threateningly, his fists clenched in his rage. "Recollect, m'sieur, that
you have insulted me. Recollect that I am Governor-General of Finland."

"If you were Czar himself, I should not hesitate to denounce you as the
tyrant and mutilator of a poor defenseless woman."

"And to whom, pray, will you tell this romantic story of yours?" he
laughed hoarsely. "To your prison walls below the lake at Kajana? Yes,
M'sieur Gregg, you will go there, and once within the fortress you shall
never again see the light of day. You threaten me--the Governor-General
of Finland!" he laughed in a strange, high-pitched key as he threw
himself into a chair and scribbled something rapidly upon paper,
appending his signature in his small crabbed handwriting.

"I do not threaten," I said in open defiance, "I shall act."

"And so shall I," he said with an evil grin upon his bony face as he
blotted what he had written and took it up, adding: "In the darkness
and silence of your living tomb, you can tell whatever strange stories
you like concerning me. They are used to idiots where you are going," he
added grimly.

"Oh! And where am I going?"

"Back to Kanaja. This order consigns you to confinement there as a
dangerous political conspirator, as one who has threatened me--it
consigns you to the cells below the lake--for life!"

I laughed aloud, and my hand sought my wallet wherein was that
all-powerful document--the order of the Emperor which gave me, as an
imperial guest, immunity from arrest. I would produce it as my
trump-card.

Next second, however, I held my breath, and I think I must have turned
pale. My pocket was empty! My wallet had been stolen! Entirely and
helplessly I had fallen into the hands of the tyrant of the Czar.

His own personal interest would be to consign me to a living tomb in
that grim fortress of Kajana, the horrors of which were unspeakable. I
had seen enough during my inspection of the Russian prisons as a
journalist to know that there, in strangled Finland, I should not be
treated with the same consideration or hum