PRINCE IVAN LERMONTOFF came to consider the explosion one of the luckiest things that had ever occurred in his workshop. Its happening so soon after he reached St. Petersburg he looked upon as particularly fortunate, because this gave him time to follow the new trend of thought along which his mind had been deflected by such knowledge as the unexpected outcome of his experiment had disclosed to him. The material he had used as a catalytic agent was a new substance which he had read of in a scientific review, and he had purchased a small quantity of it in London. If such a minute portion produced results so tremendous, he began to see that a man with an apparently innocent material in his waistcoat pocket might probably be able to destroy a naval harbor, so long as water and stone were in conjunction. There was also a possibility that a small quantity of ozak, as the stuff was called, mixed with pure water, would form a reducing agent for limestone, and perhaps for other minerals, which would work much quicker than if the liquid was merely impregnated with carbonic acid gas. He endeavored to purchase some ozak from Mr. Kruger, the chemist on the English quay, but that good man had never heard of it, and a day’s search persuaded him that it could not be got in St. Petersburg, so the Prince induced Kruger to order half a pound of it from London or Paris, in which latter city it had been discovered. For the arrival of this order the Prince waited with such patience as he could call to his command, and visited poor Mr. Kruger every day in the hope of receiving it.

One afternoon he was delighted to hear that the box had come, although it had not yet been unpacked.

“I will send it to your house this evening,” said the chemist. “There are a number of drugs in the box for your old friend Professor Potkin of the University, and he is even more impatient for his consignment than you are for yours. Ah, here he is,” and as he spoke the venerable Potkin himself entered the shop.

He shook hands warmly with Lermontoff, who had always been a favorite pupil of his, and learned with interest that he had lately been to England and America.

“Cannot you dine with me this evening at half-past five?” asked the old man. “There are three or four friends coming, to whom I shall be glad to introduce you.”

“Truth to tell, Professor,” demurred the Prince, “I have a friend staying with me, and I don’t just like to leave him alone.”

“Bring him with you, bring him with you,” said the Professor, “but in any case be sure you come yourself. I shall be expecting you. Make your excuses to your friend if he does not wish to endure what he might think dry discussion, because we shall talk nothing but chemistry and politics.”

The Prince promised to be there whether his friend came or no. The chemist here interrupted them, and told the Professor he might expect his materials within two hours.

“And your package,” he said to the Prince, “I shall send about the same time. I have been very busy, and can trust no one to unpack this box but myself.”

“You need not trouble to send it, and in any case I don’t wish to run the risk of having it delivered at a wrong address by your messenger. I cannot afford to wait so long as would be necessary to duplicate the order. I am dining with the Professor to-night, so will drive this way, and take the parcel myself.”

“Perhaps,” said the chemist, “it would be more convenient if I sent your parcel to Professor Potkin’s house?”

“No,” said the Prince decisively, “I shall call for it about five o’clock.”

The Professor laughed.

“We experimenters,” he said, “never trust each other,” so they shook hands and parted.

On returning to his workshop, Lermontoff bounded up the stairs, and hailed his friend the Lieutenant.

“I say, Drummond, I’m going to dine to-night with Professor Potkin of the University, my old teacher in chemistry. His hour is half-past five, and I’ve got an invitation for you. There will be several scientists present, and no women. Will you come?”

“I’d a good deal rather not,” said the Englishman, “I’m wiring into these books, and studying strategy; making plans for an attack upon Kronstadt.”

“Well, you take my advice, Alan, and don’t leave any of those plans round where the St. Petersburg police will find them. Such a line of study is carried on much safer in London than here. You’d be very welcome, Drummond, and the old boy would be glad to see you. You don’t need to bother about evening togs—plain living and high thinking, you know. I’m merely going to put on a clean collar and a new tie, as sufficient for the occasion.”

“I’d rather not go, Jack, if you don’t mind. If I’m there you’ll all be trying to talk English or French, and so I’d feel myself rather a damper on the company. Besides, I don’t know anything about science, and I’m trying to learn something about strategy. What time do you expect to be back?”

“Rather early; ten or half-past.”

“Good, I’ll wait up for you.”

At five o’clock Jack was at the chemist’s and received his package. On opening it he found the ozak in two four-ounce, glass-stoppered bottles, and these he put in his pocket.

“Will you give me three spray syringes, as large a size as you have, rubber, glass, and metal. I’m not sure but this stuff will attack one or other of them, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life running down to your shop.”

Getting the syringes, he jumped into his cab, and was driven to the Professor’s.

“You may call for me at ten,” he said to the cabman.

There were three others besides the Professor and himself, and they were all interested in learning the latest scientific news from New York and London.

It was a quarter past ten when the company separated. Lermontoff stepped into his cab, and the driver went rattling up the street. In all the talk the Prince had said nothing of his own discovery, and now when he found himself alone his mind reverted to the material in his pocket, and he was glad the cabman was galloping his horse, that he might be the sooner in his workshop. Suddenly he noticed that they were dashing down a street which ended at the river.

“I say,” he cried to the driver, “you’ve taken the wrong turning. This is a blind street. There’s neither quay nor bridge down here. Turn back.”

“I see that now,” said the driver over his shoulder. “I’ll turn round at the end where it is wider.”

He did turn, but instead of coming up the street again, dashed through an open archway which led into the courtyard of a large building fronting the Neva. The moment the carriage was inside, the gates clanged shut.

“Now, what in the name of Saint Peter do you mean by this?” demanded the Prince angrily.

The cabman made no reply, but from a door to the right stepped a tall, uniformed officer, who said:

“Orders, your Highness, orders. The isvoshtchik is not to blame. May I beg of your Highness to accompany me inside?”

“Who the devil are you?” demanded the annoyed nobleman.

“I am one who is called upon to perform a disagreeable duty, which your Highness will make much easier by paying attention to my requests.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“I have not said so, Prince Ivan.”

“Then I demand that the gates be opened that I may return home, where more important business awaits me than talking to a stranger who refuses to reveal his identity.”

“I hope you will pardon me, Prince Lermontoff. I act, as the isvoshtchik has acted, under compulsion. My identity is not in question. I ask you for the second time to accompany me.”

“Then, for the second time I inquire, am I under arrest? If so, show me your warrant, and then I will go with you, merely protesting that whoever issued such a warrant has exceeded his authority.”

“I have seen nothing of a warrant, your Highness, and I think you are confusing your rights with those pertaining to individuals residing in certain countries you have recently visited.”

“You have no warrant, then?”

“I have none. I act on my superior’s word, and do not presume to question it. May I hope that you will follow me without a further parley, which is embarrassing to me, and quite unhelpful to yourself. I have been instructed to treat you with every courtesy, but nevertheless force has been placed at my disposal. I am even to take your word of honor that you are unarmed, and your Highness is well aware that such leniency is seldom shown in St. Petersburg.”

“Well, sir, even if my word of honor failed to disarm me, your politeness would. I carry a revolver. Do you wish it?”

“If your Highness will condescend to give it to me.”

The Prince held the weapon, butt forward, to the officer, who received it with a gracious salutation.

“You know nothing of the reason for this action?”

“Nothing whatever, your Highness.”

“Where are you going to take me?”

“A walk of less than three minutes will acquaint your Highness with the spot.”

The Prince laughed.

“Oh, very well,” he said. “May I write a note to a friend who is waiting up for me?”

“I regret, Highness, that no communications whatever can be allowed.”

The Prince stepped down from the vehicle, walked diagonally across a very dimly lighted courtyard with his guide, entered that section of the rectangular building which faced the Neva, passed along a hall with one gas jet burning, then outside again, and immediately over a gang-plank that brought him aboard a steamer. On the lower deck a passage ran down the center of the ship, and along this the conductor guided his prisoner, opened the door of a stateroom in which candles were burning, and a comfortable bed turned down for occupancy.

“I think your Highness will find everything here that you need. If anything further is required, the electric bell will summon an attendant, who will get it for you.”

“Am I not to be confronted with whoever is responsible for my arrest?”

“I know nothing of that, your Highness. My duty ends by escorting you here. I must ask if you have any other weapon upon you?”

“No, I have not.”

“Will you give me your parole that you will not attempt to escape?”

“I shall escape if I can, of course.”

“Thank you, Excellency,” replied the officer, as suavely as if Lermontoff had given his parole. Out of the darkness he called a tall, rough-looking soldier, who carried a musket with a bayonet at the end of it. The soldier took his stand beside the door of the cabin.

“Anything else?” asked the Prince.

“Nothing else, your Highness, except good-night.”

“Oh, by the way, I forgot to pay my cabman. Of course it isn’t his fault that he brought me here.”

“I shall have pleasure in sending him to you, and again, good-night.”

“Good-night,” said the Prince.

He closed the door of his cabin, pulled out his note-book, and rapidly wrote two letters, one of which he addressed to Drummond and the other to the Czar. When the cabman came he took him within the cabin and closed the door.

“Here,” he said in a loud voice that the sentry could overhear if he liked, “how much do I owe you?”

The driver told him.

“That’s too much, you scoundrel,” he cried aloud, but as he did so he placed three gold pieces in the palm of the driver’s hand together with the two letters, and whispered:

“Get these delivered safely, and I’ll give you ten times this money if you call on Prince Lermontoff at the address on that note.”

The man saluted, thanked him, and retired; a moment later he heard the jingle of a bell, and then the steady throb of an engine. There was no window to the stateroom, and he could not tell whether the steamer was going up or down the river. Up, he surmised, and he suspected his destination was Schlusselburg, the fortress-prison on an island at the source of the Neva. He determined to go on deck and solve the question of direction, but the soldier at the door brought down his gun and barred the passage.

“I am surely allowed to go on deck?”

“You cannot pass without an order from the captain.”

“Well, send the captain to me, then.”

“I dare not leave the door,” said the soldier.

Lermontoff pressed the button, and presently an attendant came to learn what was wanted.

“Will you ask the captain to come here?”

The steward departed, and shortly after returned with a big, bronzed, bearded man, whose bulk made the stateroom seem small.

“You sent for the captain, and I am here.”

“So am I,” said the Prince jauntily. “My name is Lermontoff. Perhaps you have heard of me?”

The captain shook his shaggy head.

“I am a Prince of Russia, and by some mistake find myself your passenger instead of spending the night in my own house. Where are you taking me, Captain?”

“It is forbidden that I should answer questions.”

“Is it also forbidden that I should go on deck?”

“The General said you were not to be allowed to leave this stateroom, as you did not give your parole.”

“How can I escape from a steamer in motion, Captain?”

“It is easy to jump into the river, and perhaps swim ashore.”

“So he is a general, is he? Well, Captain, I’ll give you my parole that I shall not attempt to swim the Neva on so cold a night as this.”

“I cannot allow you on deck now,” said the Captain, “but when we are in the Gulf of Finland you may walk the deck with the sentry beside you.”

“The Gulf of Finland!” cried Lermontoff. “Then you are going down the river?”

The big Captain looked at him with deep displeasure clouding his brow, feeling that he had been led to give away information which he should have kept to himself.

“You are not going up to Schlusselburg, then?”

“I told your Highness that I am not allowed to answer questions. The General, however, has given me a letter for you, and perhaps it may contain all you may want to know.”

“The General has given you a letter, eh? Then why don’t you let me have it?”

“He told me not to disturb you to-night, but place it before you at breakfast to-morrow.”

“Oh, we’re going to travel all night, are we?”

“Yes, Excellency.”

“Did the General say you should not allow me to see the letter to-night?”

“No, your Excellency; he just said, ‘Do not trouble his Highness to-night, but give him this in the morning.’”

“In that case let me have it now.”

The Captain pulled a letter from his pocket and presented it to the Prince. It contained merely the two notes which Lermontoff had written to Drummond and to the Czar.

CHAPTER XIV —A VOYAGE INTO THE UNKNOWN

AFTER the Captain left him, Lermontoff closed and bolted the door, then sat down upon the edge of his bed to meditate upon the situation. He heard distant bells ringing on shore somewhere, and looking at his watch saw it was just eleven o’clock. It seemed incredible that three-quarters of an hour previously he had left the hospitable doors of a friend, and now was churning his way in an unknown steamer to an unknown destination. It appeared impossible that so much could have happened in forty-five minutes. He wondered what Drummond was doing, and what action he would take when he found his friend missing.

However, pondering over the matter brought no solution of the mystery, so, being a practical young man, he cast the subject from his mind, picked up his heavy overcoat, which he had flung on the bed, and hung it up on the hook attached to the door. As he did this his hand came in contact with a tube in one of the pockets, and for a moment he imagined it was his revolver, but he found it was the metal syringe he had purchased that evening from the chemist. This set his thoughts whirling in another direction. He took from an inside pocket one of the bottles of ozak, examining it under the candle light, wishing he had a piece of rock with which to experiment. Then with a yawn he replaced the materials in his overcoat pocket, took off his boots, and threw himself on the bed, thankful it was not an ordinary shelf bunk, but a generous and comfortable resting-place. Now Katherine appeared before his closed eyes, and hand in hand they wandered into dreamland together.

When he awoke it was pitch dark in his cabin. The candles, which he had neglected to extinguish, had burned themselves out. The short, jerky motion of the steamer indicated that he was aboard a small vessel, and that this small vessel was out in the open sea. He believed that a noise of some kind had awakened him, and this was confirmed by a knock at his door which caused him to spring up and throw back the bolt. The steward was there, but in the dim light of the passage he saw nothing of the sentinel. He knew it was daylight outside.

“The Captain, Excellency, wishes to know if you will breakfast with him or take your meal in your room?”

“Present my compliments to the Captain, and say I shall have great pleasure in breakfasting with him.”

“It will be ready in a quarter of an hour, Excellency.”

“Very good. Come for me at that time, as I don’t know my way about the boat.”

The Prince washed himself, smoothed out his rumpled clothes as well as he could, and put on his boots. While engaged in the latter operation the door opened, and the big Captain himself entered, inclosed in glistening oilskins.

“Hyvaa pyvaa, Highness,” said the Captain. “Will you walk the deck before breakfast?”

“Good-day to you,” returned the Prince, “and by your salutation I take you to be a Finn.”

“I am a native of Abo,” replied the Captain, “and as you say, a Finn, but I differ from many of my countrymen, as I am a good Russian also.”

“Well, there are not too many good Russians, and here is one who would rather have heard that you were a good Finn solely.”

“It is to prevent any mistake,” replied the Captain, almost roughly, “that I mention I am a good Russian.”

“Right you are, Captain, and as I am a good Russian also, perhaps good Russian Number One can tell me to what part of the world he is conveying good Russian Number Two, a man guiltless of any crime, and unwilling, at this moment, to take an enforced journey.”

“We may both be good, but the day is not, Highness. It has been raining during the night, and is still drizzling. I advise you to put on your overcoat.”

“Thanks, Captain, I will.”

The Captain in most friendly manner took the overcoat from its hook, shook it out, and held it ready to embrace its owner. Lermontoff shoved right arm, then left, into the sleeves, hunched the coat up into place, and buttoned it at the throat.

“Again, Captain, my thanks. Lead the way and I will follow.”

They emerged on deck into a dismal gray morning. No land or craft of any kind was in sight. The horizon formed a small, close circle round the ship. Clouds hung low, running before the wind, and bringing intermittently little dashes of rain that seemed still further to compress the walls of horizon. The sea was not what could be called rough, but merely choppy and fretful, with short waves that would not have troubled a larger craft. The steamer proved to be a small, undistinguished dingy-looking boat, more like a commercial tramp than a government vessel. An officer, apparently the mate, stood on the bridge, sinewy hands grasping the rail, peering ahead into the white mist that was almost a fog. The promenade deck afforded no great scope for pedestrianism, but Captain and prisoner walked back and forth over the restricted space, talking genially together as if they were old friends. Nevertheless there was a certain cautious guardedness in the Captain’s speech; the wary craft of an unready man who is in the presence of a person more subtle than himself. The bluff Captain remembered he had been caught napping the night before, when, after refusing to tell the Prince the direction of the steamer, he had given himself away by mentioning the Gulf of Finland. Lermontoff noticed this reluctance to plunge into the abyss of free conversation, and so, instead of reassuring him he would ask no more questions, he merely took upon his own shoulders the burden of the talk, and related to the Captain certain wonders of London and New York.

The steward advanced respectfully to the Captain, and announced breakfast ready, whereupon the two men followed him into a saloon not much larger than the stateroom Lermontoff had occupied the night before, and not nearly so comfortably furnished. A plenteous breakfast was supplied, consisting principally of fish, steaming potatoes, black bread, and very strong tea. The Captain swallowed cup after cup of this scalding beverage, and it seemed to make him more and more genial as if it had been wine. Indeed, as time went on he forgot that it was a prisoner who sat before him, for quite innocently he said to the steward who waited on them:

“Have the poor devils below had anything to eat?”

“No orders, sir,” replied the steward.

“Oh, well, give them something—something hot. It may be their last meal,” then turning, he met the gaze of the Prince, demanded roughly another cup of tea, and explained:

“Three of the crew took too much vodka in St. Petersburg yesterday.”

The Prince nodded carelessly, as if he believed, and offered his open cigarette case to the Captain, who shook his head.

“I smoke a pipe,” he growled.

The Captain rose with his lighted pipe, and together they went up on deck again. The Prince saw nothing more of the tall sentinel who had been his guard the night before, so without asking permission he took it for granted that his movements, now they were in the open sea, were unrestricted, therefore he walked up and down the deck smoking cigarettes. At the stroke of a bell the Captain mounted the bridge and the mate came down.

Suddenly out of the thickness ahead loomed up a great black British freighter making for St. Petersburg, as the Prince supposed. The two steamers, big and little, were so close that each was compelled to sheer off a bit; then the Captain turned on the bridge and seemed for a moment uncertain what to do with his prisoner. A number of men were leaning over the bulwarks of the British ship, and it would have been quite possible for the person on one boat to give a message to those on the other. The Prince, understanding the Captain’s quandary, looked up at him and smiled, but made no attempt to take advantage of his predicament. Some one on board the English ship shouted and fluttered a handkerchief, whereupon the Prince waved his cigarette in the air, and the big boat disappeared in the thickness of the east.

Lermontoff walked the deck, thinking very seriously about his situation, and wondering where they intended to take him. If he were to be put in prison, it must be in some place of detention on the coast of Finland, which seemed strange, because he understood that the fortresses there were already filled with dissatisfied inhabitants of that disaffected land. His first impression had been that banishment was intended, and he had expected to be landed at some Swedish or German port, but a chance remark made by the Captain at breakfast inclined him to believe that there were other prisoners on board not quite so favorably treated as himself. But why should he be sent out of Russia proper, or even removed from St. Petersburg, which, he was well aware, suffered from no lack of gaols. The continued voyage of the steamer through an open sea again aroused the hope that Stockholm was the objective point. If they landed him there it merely meant a little temporary inconvenience, and, once ashore, he hoped to concoct a telegram so apparently innocent that it would win through to his friend, and give Drummond at least the knowledge of his abiding-place. The thought of Drummond aroused all his old fear that the Englishman was to be the real victim, and this enforced voyage was merely a convenient method of getting himself out of the way.

After lunch a dismal drizzle set in that presently increased to a steady downpour, which drove Lermontoff to his cabin, and that room being unprovided with either window or electric light, the Prince struck a match to one of the candles newly placed on the washstand. He pushed the electric button summoning the steward, and, giving him some money, asked if there was such a thing as a piece of stone on board, carried as ballast, or for any other reason. The steward said he would inquire, and finally returned with a sharpening stone used for the knives in the galley. Bolting his door, Lermontoff began an experiment, and at once forgot he was a prisoner. He filled the wash-basin with water, and opening one of the glass-stoppered bottles, took out with the point of his knife a most minute portion of the substance within, which he dissolved in the water with no apparent effect. Standing the whetstone up on end, he filled the glass syringe, and directed a fine, vaporous spray against the stone. It dissolved before his eyes as a sand castle on the shore dissolves at the touch of an incoming tide.

“By St. Peter of Russia!” he cried, “I’ve got it at last! I must write to Katherine about this.”

Summoning the steward again to take away this fluid, and bring him another pailful of fresh water, Lermontoff endeavored to extract some information from the deferential young man.

“Have you ever been in Stockholm?”

“No, Excellency.”

“Or in any of the German ports?”

“No, Excellency.”

“Do you know where we are making for now?”

“No, Excellency.”

“Nor when we shall reach our destination?”

“No, Excellency.”

“You have some prisoners aboard?”

“Three drunken sailors, Excellency.”

“Yes, that’s what the Captain said. But if it meant death for a sailor to be drunk, the commerce of the world would speedily stop.”

“This is a government steamer, Excellency, and if a sailor here disobeys orders he is guilty of mutiny. On a merchant vessel they would merely put him in irons.”

“I see. Now do you want to earn a few gold pieces?”

“Excellency has been very generous to me already,” was the non-committal reply of the steward, whose eyes nevertheless twinkled at the mention of gold.

“Well, here’s enough to make a jingle in your pocket, and here are two letters which you are to try to get delivered when you return to St. Petersburg.”

“Yes, Excellency.”

“You will do your best?”

“Yes, Excellency.”

“Well, if you succeed, I’ll make your fortune when I’m released.”

“Thank you, Excellency.”

That night at dinner the Captain opened a bottle of vodka, and conversed genially on many topics, without touching upon the particular subject of liberty. He partook sparingly of the stimulant, and, to Lermontoff’s disappointment, it did not in the least loosen his tongue, and thus, still ignorant of his fate, the Prince turned in for the second night aboard the steamer.

When he awoke next morning he found the engines had stopped, and, as the vessel was motionless, surmised it had reached harbor. He heard the intermittent chuck-chuck of a pony engine, and the screech of an imperfectly-oiled crane, and guessed that cargo was being put ashore.

“Now,” he said to himself, “if my former sentinel is at the door they are going to take me to prison. If he is absent, I am to be set free.”

He jumped up, threw back the bolt, opened the door. There was no one there. In a very few minutes he was on deck, and found that the steamer was lying in the lee of a huge rock, which reminded him of Mont St. Michel in Normandy, except that it was about half again as high, and three times as long, and that there were no buildings of any kind upon it, nor, indeed, the least sign of human habitation.

The morning was fine; in the east the sun had just risen, and was flooding the grim rock with a rosy light. Except this rock, no trace of land was visible as far as the eye could see. Alongside the steamer was moored a sailing-boat with two masts, but provided also with thole-pins, and sweeps for rowing. The sails were furled, and she had evidently been brought to the steamer’s side by means of the oars. Into this craft the crane was lowering boxes, bags, and what-not, which three or four men were stowing away. The mate was superintending this transshipment, and the Captain, standing with his back against the deck-house, was handing one by one certain papers, which Lermontoff took to be bills of lading, to a young man who signed in a book for each he received. When this transaction was completed, the young man saluted the Captain, and descended over the ship’s side to the sail-boat.

“Good morning, Captain. At anchor, I see,” said Lermontoff.

“No, not at anchor. Merely lying here. The sea is too deep, and affords no anchorage at this point.”

“Where are all these goods going?”

The Captain nodded his head at the rock, and Lermontoff gazed at it again, running his eyes from top to bottom without seeing any vestige of civilization.

“Then you lie to the lee of this rock, and the small boat takes the supplies ashore?”

“Exactly,” said the Captain.

“The settlement, I take it, is on the other side. What is it—a lighthouse?”

“There’s no lighthouse,” said the Captain.

“Sort of coastguard, then?”

“Yes, in a way. They keep a lookout. And now, Highness, I see your overcoat is on your back. Have you left anything in your room?”

The Prince laughed.

“No, Captain, I forgot to bring a portmanteau with me.”

“Then I must say farewell to you here.”

“What, you are not going to maroon me on this pebble in the ocean?”

“You will be well taken care of, Highness.”

“What place is this?”

“It is called the Trogzmondoff, Highness, and the water surrounding you is the Baltic.”

“Is it Russian territory?”

“Very, very Russian,” returned the Captain drawing a deep breath. “This way, if your Highness pleases. There is a rope ladder, which is sometimes a little unsteady for a landsman, so be careful.”

“Oh, I’m accustomed to rope ladders. Hyvasti, Captain.”

“Hyvasti, your Highness.”

And with this mutual good-by in Finnish, the Prince went down the swaying ladder.