pirators
themselves, directed those constant attempts which held the Emperor and
his Government in such hourly terror.

Rewards without number had been offered by the Ministry of the Interior
for the betrayal and arrest of the unseen man whose power in Russia,
permeating every class, was greater than that of the Emperor himself--at
whose word one day the people would rise in a body and destroy their
oppressors.

The Emperor, the Ministers, the police, and the bureaucrats knew this,
yet they were powerless--they knew that the mysterious professor who had
disappeared from Moscow fifteen years before and had never since been
seen was only waiting his opportunity to strike a blow that would
stagger and crush the Empire from end to end--yet of his whereabouts
they were in utter ignorance.

"You are surprised," the old man laughed, noticing my amazement. "Well,
you are not one of us, yet I need not impress upon you the absolute
necessity, for Mademoiselle's sake, to preserve the secret of my
existence. It is because you are not a member of 'The Will of the
People,' that you have never heard of 'The Red Priest'--red because I
wrote my ultimatum to the Czar in the blood of one of his victims
knouted in the fortress of Peter and Paul, and priest because I preach
the gospel of freedom and justice."

"I shall say nothing," I said, gazing at the strangely striking figure
before me--the unknown man who directed the great upheaval that was to
revolutionize Russia. "My only desire is to save Mademoiselle Heath."

"And you are prepared to do so at risk of your own liberty--your own
life? Ah! you said you love her. Would not this be a test of your
affection?"

"I am prepared for any test, as long as she escapes the trap which her
enemies have set for her. I succeeded in saving her from Kajana, and I
intend to save her now."

"Was it you who actually entered Kajana and snatched her from that
tomb!" he exclaimed, and he took my hand enthusiastically, adding--"I
have no further need to doubt you." And turning to the table he wrote an
address upon a slip of paper, saying, "Take Mademoiselle there. She will
find a safe place of concealment. But go quickly, for every moment
places you both in more deadly peril. Hide yourself there also."

I thanked him and left at once, but as I stepped out of the house and
re-entered the drosky I saw close by, lurking in the shadow, the spy of
"The Strangler of Finland," who had traveled with me fr