At that sight and that remark the others grew ashamed of their confusion. The harmony of that couple embracing in the presence of death restored them to themselves, to their courage, and their "Nitchevo." Athanase Georgevitch, Ivan Petrovitch and Thaddeus Tchitchnikoff repeated after Matrena Petrovna, "As G.o.d wills." And then they said "Nitchevo! Nitchevo!* We will all die with you, Feodor Feodorovitch." And they all kissed one another and clasped one another in their arms, their eyes dim with love one for another, as at the end of a great banquet when they had eaten and drunk heavily in honor of one another.

* "What does it matter!"

"Listen. Someone is coming up the stairs," whispered Matrena, with her keen ear, and she slipped from the restraint of her husband.

Breathless, they all hurried to the door opening on the landing, but with steps as light "as though they walked on eggs." All four of them were leaning over there close by the door, hardly daring to breathe. They heard two men on the stairs. Were they Koupriane and Rouletabille, or were they the others? They had revolvers in their hands and drew back a little when the footsteps sounded near the door. Behind them Treba.s.sof was quietly seated in his chair. The door was opened and Koupriane and Rouletabille perceived these death-like figures, motionless and mute. No one dared to speak or make a movement until the door had been closed. But then:

"Well? Well? Save us! Where are they? Ah, my dear little domovoi-doukh, save the general, for the love of the Virgin!"

"Tsst! tsst! Silence."

Rouletabille, very pale, but calm, spoke:

"The plan is simple. They are between the two staircases, watching the one and the other. I will go and find them and make them mount the one while you descend by the other."

"Caracho! That is simple enough. Why didn't we think of it sooner? Because everybody lost his head except the dear little domovoi-doukh!"

But here something happened Rouletabille had not counted on. The general rose and said, "You have forgotten one thing, my young friend; that is that General Treba.s.sof will not descend by the servants' stairway."

His friends looked at him in stupefaction, and asked if he had gone mad.

"What is this you say, Feodor?" implored Matrena.

"I say," insisted the general, "that I have had enough of this comedy, and that since Monsieur Koupriane has not been able to arrest these men, and since, on their side, they don't seem to decide to do their duty, I shall go myself and put them out of my house."

He started a few steps, but had not his cane and suddenly he tottered. Matrena Petrovna jumped to him and lifted him in her arms as though he were a feather.

"Not by the servants' stairway, not by the servants' stairway," growled the obstinate general.

"You will go," Matrena replied to him, "by the way I take you."

And she carried him back into the apartment while she said quickly to Rouletabille:

"Go, little domovoi! And G.o.d protect us!"

Rouletabille disappeared at once through the door to the main staircase, and the group attended by Koupriane, pa.s.sed through the dressing-room and the general's chamber, Matrena Petrovna in the lead with her precious burden. Ivan Petrovitch had his hand already on the famous bolt which locked the door to the servants' staircase when they all turned at the sound of a quick step behind them. Rouletabille had returned.

"They are no longer in the drawing-room."

"Not in the drawing-room! Where are they, then?"

Rouletabille pointed to the door they were about to open.

"Perhaps behind that door. Take care!"

All drew back.

"But Ermolai ought to know where they are," exclaimed Koupriane. "Perhaps they have gone, finding out they were discovered."

"They have a.s.sa.s.sinated Ermolai."

"a.s.sa.s.sinated Ermolai!"

"I have seen his body lying in the middle of the drawing-room as I leaned over the top of the banister. But they were not in the room, and I was afraid you would run into them, for they may well be hidden in the servants' stairway."

"Then open the window, Koupriane, and call your men to deliver us."

"I am quite willing," replied Koupriane coldly, "but it is the signal for our deaths."

"Well, why do they wait so to make us die?" muttered Feodor Feodorovitch. "I find them very tedious about it, for myself. What are you doing, Ivan Petrovitch?"

The spectral figure of Ivan Petrovitch, bent beside the door of the stairway, seemed to be hearing things the others could not catch, but which frightened them so that they fled from the general's chamber in disorder. Ivan Petrovitch was close on them, his eyes almost sticking from his head, his mouth babbling:

"They are there! They are there!"

Athanase Georgevitch open a window wildly and said:

"I am going to jump."

But Thaddeus Tchitchnikofl' stopped him with a word. "For me, I shall not leave Feodor Feodorovitch."

Athanase and Ivan both felt ashamed, and trembling, but brave, they gathered round the general and said, "We will die together, we will die together. We have lived with Feodor Feodorovitch, and we will die with him."

"What are they waiting for? What are they waiting for?" grumbled the general.

Matrena Petrovna's teeth chattered. "They are waiting for us to go down," said Koupraine.

"Very well, let us do it. This thing must end," said Feodor.

"Yes, yes," they all said, for the situation was becoming intolerable; "enough of this. Go on down. Go on down. G.o.d, the Virgin and Saints Peter and Paul protect us. Let us go."

The whole group, therefore, went to the main staircase, with the movements of drunken men, fantastic waving of the arms, mouths speaking all together, saying things no one but themselves understood. Rouletabille had already hurriedly preceded them, was down the staircase, had time to throw a glance into the drawing-room, stepped over Ermolai's huge corpse, entered Natacha's sitting-room and her chamber, found all these places deserted and bounded back into the veranda at the moment the others commenced to descend the steps around Feodor Feodorovitch. The reporter's eyes searched all the dark corners and had perceived nothing suspicious when, in the veranda, he moved a chair. A shadow detached itself from it and glided under the staircase. Rouletabille cried to the group on the stairs.

"They are under the staircase!"

Then Rouletabille confronted a sight that he could never forget all his life.

At this cry, they all stopped, after an instinctive move to go back. Feodor Feodorovitch, who was still in Matrena Petrovna's arms, cried:

"Vive le Tsar!"

And then, those whom the reporter half expected to see flee, distracted, one way and another, or to throw themselves madly from the height of the steps, abandoning Feodor and Matrena, gathered themselves instead by a spontaneous movement around the general, like a guard of honor, in battle, around the flag. Koupriane marched ahead. And they insisted also upon descending the terrible steps slowly, and sang the Bodje tsara Krani, the national anthem!

With an overwhelming roar, which shocked earth and sky and the ears of Rouletabille, the entire house seemed lifted in the air; the staircase rose amid flame and smoke, and the group which sang the Bodje tsara Krani disappeared in a horrible apotheosis.

XIV. THE MARSHES