“Thus are all these so-called good men real blockheads, stupid fools, who believe every word spoken to them with a friendly mien!  This honest man really believes that his highly-prized master is now saved, because he bears in his bosom the fragments of the order for his arrest.  Worthy dunce; as if there were no duplicate, and as if every promise were countersigned by the Divinity himself!  Go home with your count—­my word shall be fulfilled.  No hair of his head shall be touched, but his proud back shall be curled, and in the mines of Siberia he may learn to bow before a higher power!”

Thus speaking, the count pulled a bell whose silken cord hung over the divan, and, as no one instantly appeared, he pulled it again, this time more violently.  But yet some minutes passed, and still the bell was unanswered.  The count gnashed his teeth with rage, and muttered vehement curses.

At length the door opened, and with an imploring face a servant appeared upon the threshold.

“Miserable hound, where were you?” cried the count to him.

The servant fell upon his knees and crept like a dog to his master’s feet.

“Excellency, we had, as your grace commanded, so long as the gentleman was with you, withdrawn from the anteroom and waited in the corridor, where the bell could not be heard,” stammered the servant.

“I will teach you wretches to keep me waiting,” exclaimed the count, and seizing the knout that lay upon the table before him, he laid it with merciless rage upon the poor servant, until his own arm sank powerless, and he felt himself exhausted with fatigue.

“Now, go, you hound!” said he, replacing the knout upon the table; and the flagellated serf, rising respectfully, with his hand wiped away the blood which ran in streams from his wounds.

“Now go and send my officers to me!” cried the count.  The servant staggered out to obey the command, and soon the persons thus ordered made their appearance and remained standing in silence at the door.

The count lay stretched out upon the divan, playing with the knout, whose leathern thongs were still dripping with his servant’s blood.

“Let a courier take horse immediately, and give him the order countersigned by her imperial majesty for the arrest of Count Paulo Rasczinsky.  The courier will follow him with it to the Russian frontier, and then by virtue of this order arrest him at the next station and send him to St. Petersburg in chains!  This is the command for the courier; he will answer with his head for its execution!”

One of the officers bowed, and went to dispatch the courier.

“Is our reconnoitrer returned?” asked the count of the two who remained.

“He is.”

“What news brings he?  Does he know the cause of the murderous attack at the festival of the French cardinal?  Yet why do I ask you?  Make yourselves scarce, and let him come to speak for himself!”