Peter drew near and looked at what Michael held. It was a cased dagger—a leather case of red, surmounted by a hilt of yellowed old ivory and a steel hand guard at the base of the hilt. It was the weapon of Chinese assassins, an instrument made for but a single crime for it was cupped under the hilt guard in such a way that it sealed the very wound it made. Peter knew at once what it was and what it would do. “Give me the promise—and take the knife!” entreated Michael. “One Russian to another—to save Katerin from the Mongol!” “And what should I do with it?” asked Peter, seeking to draw out the old general. “What should you do? What else, but thrust it into my heart—and take my daughter away from the city? Come! Your word! Give it and strike quickly, or the Ataman will defeat you!” “You know well I could not escape, leaving you dead in my room,” jeered Peter. “What would I gain? If I strike now—here—my vengeance will be a short joy. It is so much simpler to turn you over to Shimilin.” “By the Holy Saints!” cried Michael in disgust. “Has the blood of a Russian turned to water so that he will not kill on his own honor’s account? Please! Take this blade!” Michael drew the hilt away from the leather case and exposed a polished shaft of steel, white and glittering in the light from the windows—a weapon of exquisite daintiness, with a round blade, slightly curved. “Look at it!” urged Michael. “It is cupped at the hilt, and if you do not draw it once you have struck, it will let away no blood. What more could you desire?” Peter regarded him with thoughtful eyes. Michael threw aside the leathern case, and pulled his shirt open at the neck, exposing his withered chest. “Say the promise—and strike quickly while I pray,” he begged. “See! It is a gentle weapon—so sharp and smooth that it will cause me little discomfort. And then you may say I did it, which will leave you without blame.” For an instant Peter thought Michael to be mad. But it was plain enough that the simplicity of the old man in his appeal for death was but his surrender to the inevitable. Peter knew the lucidity of mind which comes with the agony of spirit. He knew how Michael’s mind was working. The old man was in the grip of that clarity of mental vision which comes to the drowning man, or to the man who walks to execution. Peter had experienced the same phenomenon as he watched his father die twenty years before. The trivial things of every day, things never noticed before, had stood out with amazing distinctness and had registered in his brain a picture which had never vanished. Peter remembered now the tiny stone he had seen in the snow near his dying father; the Cossack’s boot which had been deeply scratched; the odor of raw fur from the sledges—even now the pungent scent was in his nostrils. The scene recurred to him now with overpowering intensity, and once more his old rage against Michael mounted. He reached forward and snatched the dagger from Michael’s fingers.