"This experiment convinced me of Katina's ability to do the trick, and success has justified my opinion. A bold liberty on my part, your Highness, but pardonable, considering the object I had in view." Barbara's first emotion of breathless amazement was followed by a sense of anger, as she recalled the dreadful sensation that came over her when the hot bullet whizzed past her face. "Remember," pleaded Zabern, cognizant of Barbara's feelings, "remember that your Highness gave me _carte blanche_ to do whatsoever I pleased, provided that I could but secure the rejection of the Appropriation Bill." This was true, but who could have guessed that Zabern would have resorted to such a desperate remedy? "And you could devise no other plan than this for defeating the bill?" "None, though I racked my brain for a week." Barbara's anger began to yield to a mournful feeling. It was her belief that no state can flourish long on duplicity. If her chief minister could maintain her in power only by resorting to trickery such as this, then, indeed, the day of her fall could not be far distant. "It is past," she murmured. "I am scathless, and the bill is rejected; what more should I desire?" And then, addressing Katina and her sister, she said, "You played a very hazardous game as well with your own lives as with mine. Why, marshal, you ordered the guards to fire upon the fugitives!" "Nikita was in the plot, your Highness, and had taken the precaution to serve out blank cartridges to your _corps du garde_; so the volley was a harmless one. But I confess my heart was in my mouth when I saw Captain Woodville taking aim with his pistol. Fortunately he tripped up in the very act of firing." "I little thought that I was taking aim at Mistress Katina," smiled Paul, "and grateful am I that she did not return the shot. And so Nikita was in the plot? Why, the rogue vowed that one of the two was Russakoff!" "He couldn't resist the temptation of poking a little fun at you," replied Zabern. "Had you looked round, you would have seen him choking with suppressed laughter." "And I suppose, marshal, that you led the way down the path where the red cap lay--" "Purposely to give Katina and Juliska more time to escape." "And I presume, likewise, that it was your hand which annotated the copy of the 'Kolokol' newspaper?" "Precisely. Those marginal remarks were my own invention." Paul could not refrain from laughter as he recalled the fine air of indignation with which Zabern had pointed out to the Diet the annotations that his own pencil had made. "Marshal, you lie with admirable grace." "I have lived five years in Russia, you see." "But, marshal," remonstrated Barbara, gravely, "you have placed me in a false position, by letting me pose before the Diet as the escaped victim of an assassination plot." "A splendid way of catching votes," returned Zabern, coolly. "And votes were what we wanted."