“Don’t listen to him, little friend; I
don’t know him,” cried Alexis Hutch.
But the gentlenman of the Neva went on:
“He is a man close to the first principles of
science, and therefore not far from divine; he is
a holy man, whom it is good to consult at moments
when the future appears difficult. He knows how
to read as no one else can — Father John of
Cronstadt excepted, to be strictly accurate —
on the sheets of bull-hide where the dark angels have
traced mysterious signs of destiny.”
Here the gentleman picked up an old pair of boots,
which he threw on the counter in the midst of the
ikons.
“Pere Alexis, perhaps these are not bull-hide,
but good enough cow-hide. Don’t you want
to read on this cow-hide the future of this young
man?”
But here Rouletabille advanced to the gentleman, and
blew an enormous cloud of smoke full in his face.
“It is useless, monsieur,” said Rouletabille,
“to waste your time and your breath.
I have been waiting for you.”
BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL
Only, Rouletabille refused to be put into the basket.
He would not let them disarm him until they promised
to call a carriage. The Vehicle rolled into
the court, and while Pere Alexis was kept back in
his shop at the point of a revolver, Rouletabille quietly
got in, smoking his pipe. The man who appeared
to be the chief of the band (the gentleman of the
Neva) got in too and sat down beside him. The
carriage windows were shuttered, preventing all communication
with the outside, and only a tiny lantern lighted the
interior. They started. The carriage was
driven by two men in brown coats trimmed with false
astrakhan. The dvornicks saluted, believing it
a police affair. The concierge made the sign
of the cross.
The journey lasted several hours without other incidents
than those brought about by the tremendous jolts,
which threw the two passengers inside one on top of
the other. This might have made an opening for
conversation; and the “gentleman of the Neva”
tried it; but in vain. Rouletabille would not
respond. At one moment, indeed, the gentleman,
who was growing bored, became so pressing that the
reporter finally said in the curt tone he always used
when he was irritated:
“I pray you, monsieur, let me smoke my pipe
in peace.”
Upon which the gentleman prudently occupied himself
in lowering one of the windows, for it grew stifling.
Finally, after much jolting, there was a stop while
the horses were changed and the gentleman asked Rouletabille
to let himself be blindfolded. “The moment
has come; they are going to hang me without any form
of trial,” thought the reporter, and when, blinded
with the bandage, he felt himself lifted under the
arms, there was revolt of his whole being, that being
which, now that it was on the point of dying, did
