The girl paused to take breath. “In March, two years ago,” she went on, “the steamship _Orkney_ sailed from London for St. Petersburg with a million pounds sterling in gold on board. This gold, borrowed on the people’s credit, was to be used in crushing the people. We determined to capture it, or, if that could not be done, at least to prevent its reaching Russia. It belonged to the people; the Czar should not use it to enslave them. “A war-ship had been sent to bring this gold, but at the last moment the bureaucrats discovered that we had gained over the men on board and that a mutiny was probable. Urgently as it needed the money, the Russian government dared not send it by that means. Nor did it dare to send it by rail. We had inspired a wholesome terror in the hearts of the ministers of the Czar. At last it hit on the idea of blackening the gold bars and shipping them on an ordinary steamer as pig lead to Kronstadt. A battalion of soldiers would go along, ostensibly as passengers. So swiftly was this decided on and carried out, we learned it only at the very last minute. Had it not been for a lucky chance, we should not have known it at all. But, as it happened, two of the soldiers were our men, and we managed to get orders to them to see that the gold should never reach its destination. If they could not throw it into our hands, they were to sink the vessel and prevent its reaching Russia. “The _Orkney_ sailed, going north through the Irish Sea, and around the north end of Scotland. The war-ship followed her out of the harbor and hung on her heels persistently, secretly convoying her. Moreover, Russian agents were watching all along the route. Our agents, so far as we could reach them, were also watching. “Yet the _Orkney_ disappeared. She passed Copenhagen and entered the Baltic. There on the first night, at one o’clock in the morning, when near the opening of the Gulf of Finland, less than three hundred miles from her destination, her lights went out. In vain the cruiser tried to find her; in vain the various observers strained their eyes. In the scant hours between one o’clock and daylight she vanished, gold, crew, vessel, all! Since then, though Russia has sought incessantly, she has learned nothing as to her fate. We are certain of this. “We ourselves know a little--a very little--more. A fishing boat saw her passing the Upsula Islands going north into the Gulf of Bothnia. The news came to us and not to the Government.