And soon Diabolka was standing before Araktseieff, both hands chained to her back, her unkempt hair about her saucy face, her eyes gleaming wildly through it. Her feet, too, were chained. "So you are Diabolka, the street dancer?" asked the President of Police. "Of course. Don't you hear my castanets?" answered the girl, striking her feet together, and making the chains clash. "And do you know who I am?" "Of course. The father of a street thief." "You are right! My son is an offender; he has paid the penalty. I myself signed his sentence. Was it you who informed against him?" "I might deny it if I chose, but I do not." "Was it you who wrote the letter to the Czar?" "Though I cannot write, yet it was I who wrote it." "Then somebody guided your hand, and you wrote down the characters?" "But you shall never know the name of that 'somebody.'" "Were you aware what your hand was putting to paper?" "I was." "Then you must have been aware that not alone he whom you denounced was lost, but also you yourself, for having stolen a Vladimir order." "But I have returned it." "None the less, you are a thief, and must be sent to the pillory." "Women of higher rank than mine have stood there already." "Your shoulders will be branded with hot iron." "My dark skin marks me already as a gypsy. I am bad from head to foot." "Come, I don't believe that. This very day, through you, I have forever lost my only son. All night long until the sun rose I was tossing in an agony of sobs on my bed. In the early morning I went into the chapel, and there, before my Maker, I swore an oath that I would free the unhappy creature who had been my son's undoing, body and soul. At least, I will loose your outer chains." "No need to trouble the jailer for that. If I choose and you allow, I can be rid of them myself." The gypsy girl had extraordinarily little hands. Easily, as if she were drawing off a glove, she drew out her hands from the fetters; and as simply, without even sitting down, freed her feet. Lifting one foot in the air, she balanced herself on the other, and, in a second, stood unfettered. So she stood before Araktseieff, holding one end of her chain in her hand, looking capable of laying about her with the other end on the head of any one who came near her; and that person would have remembered the attention to his dying day. The keeper was alone in the cage with the unchained leopard. "Listen to what I will do with you!" The leopard took an attitude as if about to spring. And this time Araktseieff was not, as usual, prodding about with his sword-stick. He had no weapon of any description near to hand. "I will find you a respectable situation, where you can both live quietly and honestly, and educate yourself, mind and body--where, in fact, you can improve yourself."