Count Blowinski looked at the Czar long and earnestly; and at last he replied with a shrug of his shoulders: "Oh, well, I cannot see that it will make much difference. It will get one of your most trusted officers into trouble, but he is loyal to you, so I should be glad to implicate him. In the first place, then, I never went to Siberia." "As I expected," Lord Hastings interrupted. "Continue," said the Czar. "Very well. The officer in whose command I was placed chanced to be an old friend--a young man, rather, who had served under me and had come to think of me highly." "The more fool he," the Czar interrupted. "So you may think. At any rate, he did not believe the charges against me, apparently plain though they were. I played upon his credulity to such an extent that he at last agreed to allow me to escape." "As I suspected," Lord Hastings interrupted a second time; and a second time the Czar exclaimed: "Continue, Count." "It was easily arranged," the count went on. "One night, while the camp slept, this officer came to my prison tent--we had not yet started for Siberia--unbound me, gave me one of his own uniforms and permitted me to go free. I walked out boldly and without being accosted. I immediately left Moscow and came to St. Petersburg--I should say Petrograd--where I have remained unrecognized until I was seen by these two English upstarts in a restaurant to-night. That is all there is to the story." "Plainly and briefly told, Count," said the Czar approvingly. "You may be pleased to know, perhaps, that you shall leave my Empire as quickly and as satisfactorily." "You mean?" questioned the count, raising an eyebrow. "Exactly," replied the Czar significantly. "In the morning at daybreak." Count Blowinski shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "I am not afraid," he said quietly. "No," returned the Czar. "To your credit, I am glad to say that for you. You have been my friend, and in spite of the manner in which you have betrayed me, I am glad to know that you are not a coward. I hope you shall bear up bravely under the ordeal." "You need have no fear," said the count with a bow. "Good," said the Czar. He signaled the officer of the guard in charge of the prisoner. "Take him away!" he exclaimed. "Guard him carefully and at daybreak to-morrow--I should say this morning--take a squad, of soldiers, stand the count against the wall and shoot him. It is time he was put out of the way." Then Count Blowinski did a sudden and audacious thing. At the Czar's last words, and before any man present could raise a hand to stop him, the count leaped forward; and as he did so his hand dropped to his belt. "And it is time you were put out of the way, too!" he cried. CHAPTER XXIX. DEATH OF THE TRAITOR--OLD ENGLAND AGAIN. Czar Nicholas shrank back.