“Except this, we knew nothing until two weeks ago. Then a friend sent us a bottle he had found floating in the Baltic. It contained a message from the dead. It told us how well our men had done their work. It said in brief that the writer and his friends had risen and attacked the officers. Bitter fighting had followed. The stokers, imprisoned below, kept the fires up and the ship moved slowly but steadily northward. A storm arose. Our men made a rush and gained control. But at the moment of victory one of the officers exploded some powder that was on board, and the ship began to sink. Nearly everybody was dead or dying by that time, and all that our agent could do was to drive the vessel ashore. Just before she sank he must have thrown overboard the bottle with his message. He had done his duty well and patriotically; his name will be honored when the Russian people come to their own. “In one thing alone he failed. The part of his letter that told just where the _Orkney_ sank was blotted out. We can infer only that she sank on the coast of Finland, the Russian side of the Gulf of Bothnia; that she is lying somewhere within a stretch of one hundred and fifty or at the most two hundred miles. She must have sunk intact without breaking up, for no wreckage has come ashore from her. Somewhere at the bottom of that water she is lying with her gold.” Miss Fitzhugh paused. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks flushed. Thrilling as was her tale, Caruth came near not heeding it through looking at her. The charm of the teller nearly effaced the interest of the tale. After a while the girl went on. “And now, Mr. Caruth, you know all. I have put myself wholly in your hands. A word from you to the Russian authorities and I shall be an exile from my native land, proscribed, with a price on my head. If I go back and am caught, I shall rot in the dungeons of St. Peter and St. Paul. I am not afraid. I faced the risk when I entered on this work. I knew that sooner or later I must be caught; that permanent escape could come only from the advent of freedom before fate overtook me. I took the risk, and I will pay the penalty without whining if the need comes. But I wish to do something to aid my country before that time. Hitherto I have been able to do but little. I bear a great name. Fitzhugh is my mother’s name--not my father’s. I am reputed wealthy, but I have no real power over my money. My fortune is in the hands of a guardian who is loyal to the Czar, and who watches me narrowly. In his grip I am held powerless. I am only a woman. I cannot fight with my hands. I can only use my wits. You reproach me because I am contending for gold. Can you conceive what this gold will do for our cause? What a mighty lever it will be in our hands? For we are poor--_poor!_ If I can put this money in the hands of the Brotherhood, I shall have done more than I ever hoped to do. Then let the bureaucrats lay me by the heels and I will laugh in their faces, content to die.”