Tartarin thought the act worthy of antiquity. Then, having reflected on all the human lives sacrificed by that same Manilof, as conscienceless as an earthquake or a volcano in eruption, who yet would not let others hurt an animal in his presence, he questioned the young girl with an ingenuous air:-- “Were there many killed by the explosion at the Winter Palace?” “Too many,” replied Sonia, sadly; “and the only one that ought to have died escaped.” She remained silent, as if displeased, looking so pretty, her head lowered, with her long auburn eyelashes sweeping her pale rose cheeks. Tartarin, angry with himself for having pained her, was caught once more by that charm of youth and freshness which the strange little creature shed around her. “So, monsieur, the war that we are making seems to you unjust, inhuman?” She said it quite close to him in a caress, as it were, of her breath and her eye; the hero felt himself weakening... “You do not see that all means are good and legitimate to deliver a people who groan and suffocate?..” “No doubt, no doubt...” The young girl, growing more insistent as Tartarin weakened, went on:-- “You spoke just now of a void to be filled; does it not seem to you more noble, more interesting to risk your life for a great cause than to risk it in slaying lions or scaling glaciers?” “The fact is,” said Tartarin, intoxicated, losing his head and mad with an irresistible desire to take and kiss that ardent, persuasive little hand which she laid upon his arm, as she had done once before, up there, on the Rigi when he put on her shoe. Finally, unable to resist, and seizing the little gloved hand between both his own,-- “Listen, Sonia,” he said, in a good hearty voice, paternal and familiar... “Listen, Sonia...” A sudden stop of the landau interrupted him. They had reached the summit of the Brünig; travellers and drivers were getting into their carriages to catch up lost time and reach, at a gallop, the next village where the convoy was to breakfast and relay. The three Russians took their places, but that of the Italian tenor remained unoccupied. “That gentleman got into one of the first carriages,” said Boris to the driver, who asked about him; then, addressing Tartarin, whose uneasiness was visible:-- “We must ask him for your rope; he chose to keep it with him.” Thereupon, fresh laughter in the landau, and the resumption for poor Tartarin of horrid perplexity, not knowing what to think or believe in presence of the good-humour and ingenuous countenances of the suspected assassins. Sonia, while wrapping up her invalid in cloaks and plaids, for the air on the summit was all the keener from the rapidity with which the carriages were now driven, related in Russian her conversation with Tartarin, uttering his pan! pan! with a pretty intonation which her companions repeated after her, two of them admiring the hero, while Manilof shook his head incredulously. The relay!