A minute or two later the steward, a white-headed old man, who had from childhood been in the service of the family, entered. "Demetri," he said, "will you tell Ivan and Alexander to go out into the stable? They will find Alexis waiting for them. Order them, when Paul joins them there, to aid Alexis in seizing him instantly. Give them your instructions quietly, and without attracting notice. Above all do not let Paul see you speaking to them. When you have seen them out, find Paul, and order him to go to the stable and tell Alexis that I wish to speak to him; when he has gone, join me here." CHAPTER XV. A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE Count Preskoff's old steward received his orders with scarce a look of surprise, singular though they must have seemed to him. A Russian is accustomed to unquestioning obedience to the orders of his superior, and although never before had Count Preskoff issued such strange and unaccountable commands to the steward, the thought never occurred to the latter of questioning them for a moment. When he had left the room, the Count turned to the midshipmen, and his brow relaxed. "I cannot tell you," he said, "under what obligation you have placed me and my family. Little did we think that any little kindness we might show to you, strangers and prisoners here, would be returned by a service of a hundredfold greater value. The danger which hangs over us may for the time be averted by your discovery. I know my enemy too well to suppose that it is more than postponed, but every delay is so much gained. I have news to-day that the Czar is alarmingly ill. Should Heaven take him, it would be the dawn of a better era for Russia. His son is a man of very different mould. He has fallen into disgrace with his father for his liberal ideas, and he is known to think, as I do, that serfdom is the curse of the empire." "But surely," Dick Hawtry said, "if we draw out a document signed by us and Alexis, saying that we overheard the plot to obtain false evidence against you, the emperor would not believe other false accusations which your enemies might invent?"