as was
not lighted. But striking a match he led me up the broad staircase and
into a small, cosy, well-furnished room on the second floor, evidently
the sitting-room of some studious person, judging from the books and
critical reviews lying about.

For a few minutes I waited there, until the door reopened, and there
entered a man of medium height, with a shock of long snow-white hair
and almost patriarchal beard, whose dark eyes that age had dimmed
flashed out at me with a look of curious inquiry, and whose movements
were those of a person not quite at his ease.

"I have called on behalf of Mademoiselle Elma Heath, to give this letter
to Madame Stassulevitch, or if she is absent to place it in the hands of
the Red Priest," I explained in my best Russian.

"Very well, sir," the old man responded in quite good English. "I am the
person you seek," and taking the letter he opened it and read it
through.

I saw by the expression on his furrowed face that its contents caused
him the utmost consternation. His countenance, already pale, blanched to
the lips, while in his eyes there shot a fire of quick apprehension. The
thin, almost transparent hand holding the letter trembled visibly.

"You know Mademoiselle--eh?" he asked in a hoarse, strained voice as he
turned to me. "You will help her to escape?"

"I will risk my own life in order to save hers," I declared.

"And your devotion to her is prompted by what?" he inquired
suspiciously.

I was silent for a moment. Then I confessed the truth.

"My affection."

"Ah!" he sighed deeply. "Poor young lady! She, who has enemies on every
hand, sadly needs a friend. But can we trust you--have you no fear?"

"Of what?"

"Of being implicated in the coming revolution in Russia? Remember I am
the Red Priest. Have you never heard of me? My name is Otto Kampf."

Otto Kampf!

I stood before him open-mouthed. Who in Russia had not heard of that
mysterious unknown person who had directed a hundred conspiracies
against the Imperial Autocrat, and yet the identity of whom the police
had always failed to discover. It was believed that Kampf had once been
professor of chemistry at Moscow University, and that he had invented
that most terrible and destructive explosive used by the revolutionists.
The ingredients of the powerful compound and the mode of firing it was
the secret of the Nihilists alone--and Otto Kampf, the mysterious
leader, whose personality was unknown even to the cons