第77章

"We are mad if we arrive like madmen.That would make the catastrophe sure.There is still a chance.If we wish not to lose it, then we must arrive easily and calmly, like friends who know the general is out of danger.""Our only chance is to arrive before the bogus doctors.Either they aren't there, or it already is all over.Priemkof must have been surprised at the affair of the poisoning, but he has seized the opportunity; fortunately he couldn't find his accomplices immediately.""Here is the datcha, anyway.In the name of heaven, tell your driver to stop the horses here.If the 'doctors' are already there it is we who shall have killed the general.""You are right."

Koupriane moderated his excitement and that of his driver and horses, and the carriage stopped noiselessly, not far from the datcha.Ermolai came toward them.

"Priemkof?" faltered Koupriane.

"He has gone again, Excellency."

"How - gone again?"

"Yes,, but he has brought the doctors."

Koupriane crushed Rouletabille's wrist.The doctors were there!

"Madame Trebassof is better," continued Ermolal, who understood nothing of their emotion."The general is going to meet them and take them to his wife himself.""Where are they?"

"They are waiting in the drawing-room."

"Oh, Excellency, keep cool, keep cool, and all is not lost,"implored the reporter.

Rouletabille and Koupriane slipped carefully into the garden.

Ermolai followed them.

"There?" inquired Koupriane.

"There," Ermolai replied.

>From the corner where they were, and looking through the veranda, they could see the "doctors" as they waited.

They were seated in chairs side by side, in a corner of the drawing-room from where they could see every-thing in the room and a part of the garden, which they faced, and could hear everything.

A window of the first-floor was open above their heads, so that they could hear any noise from there.They could not be surprised from any side, and they held every door in view.They were talking softly and tranquilly, looking straight before them.They appeared young.One had a pleasant face, pale but smiling, with rather long, curly hair; the other was more angular, with haughty bearing and grave face, an eagle nose and glasses.Both wore long black coats buttoned over their calm chests.

Koupriane and the reporter, followed by Ermolai, advanced with the greatest precaution across the lawn.Screened by the wooden steps leading to the veranda and by the vine-clad balustrade, they got near enough to hear them.Koupriane gave eager ear to the words of these two young men, who might have been so rich in the many years of life that naturally belonged to them, and who were about to die so horrible a death in destroying all about them.They spoke of what time it was, of the softness of the night and the beauty of the sky; they spoke of the shadows under the birch-trees, of the gulf shining in the late evening's fading golden light, of the river's freshness and the sweetness of springtime in the North.

That is what they talked about.Koupriane murmured, "The assassins!"Now it was necessary to decide on action, and that necessity was horrible.A false movement, an awkwardness, and the "doctors"would be warned, and everything lost.They must have the bombs under their coats; there were certainly at least two "living bombs."Their chests, as they breathed, must heave to and fro and their hearts beat against an impending explosion.

Above on the bedroom floor, they heard the rapid arranging of the room, steps on the floor and a confusion of voices; shadows passed across the window-space.Koupriane rapidly interrogated Ermolai and learned that all the general's friends were there.The two doctors had arrived only a couple of minutes before the Prefect of Police and the reporter.The little doctor of Vassili-Ostrow had already gone, saying there was nothing more for him to do when two such celebrated specialists had arrived.However, in spite of their celebrity, no one had ever heard the names they gave.Koupriane believed the little doctor was an accomplice.The most necessary thing was to warn those in the room above.There was immediate danger that someone would come downstairs to find the doctors and take them to the general, or that the general would come down himself to meet them.Evidently that was what they were waiting for.They wished to die in his arms, to make sure that this time he did not escape them! Koupriane directed Ermolai to go into the veranda and speak in a commonplace way to them at the threshold of the drawing-room door, saying that he would go upstairs and see if he might now escort them to Madame Trebassof's room.Once in the room above, he could warn the others not to do anything but wait for Koupriane; then Ermolai was to come down and say to the men, "In just a moment, if you please."Erinolai crept back as far as the lodge, and then came quite normally up the path, letting the gravel crunch under his countrified footsteps.He was an intelligent man, and grasped with extraordinary coolness the importance of the plan of campaign.

Easily and naturally he mounted the veranda steps, paused at the threshold of the drawing-room, made the remark he had been told to make, and went upstairs.Koupriane and Rouletabille now watched the bedroom windows.The flitting shadows there suddenly became motionless.All moving about ceased; no more steps were heard, nothing.And that sudden silence made the two "doctors" raise their faces toward the ceiling.Then they exchanged an aroused glance.This change in the manner of things above was dangerous.

Koupriane muttered, "The idiots!" It was such a blow for those upstairs to learn they walked over a mine ready to explode that it evidently had paralyzed their limbs.Happily Ermolai came down almost immediately and said to the "doctors" in his very best domestic manner: