"Ah!"
Like a flash of light through the darkness, my own peril returned to
her.
"You! What are you going to do?" she exclaimed.
"I am going about my daily duty just as though nothing had happened," I
replied.
"Those men out there are waiting to kill you. Come! Let us see if they
are there still."
We went to the window together and peered out. The karetta was
still waiting.
"Tell me your true name again," she demanded, rather irrelevantly I
thought, as we drew back. "You told me, but I have forgotten. To me you
are Dubravnik; but I suppose I must learn the other one."
"You must learn how to answer to it, also, for it is to be yours as
well as mine." Then I mentioned it, and she repeated it after me
several times, under her breath.
"Do you know of any way, no matter how, to escape those men who are
waiting outside?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied, "I know of one."
"What is it?"
"I can have them arrested where they are--every one of them; that is,
if one of your servants can be induced to carry a message a short
distance, for me."
"He would be stopped. The message would be taken from him, and read."
"He would be permitted to go on again, for the message would mean
nothing to those who stopped him. It would be in cipher, and assistance
would not be long in coming, once it were delivered. Men in whom I can
implicitly trust would soon clear the streets for us. We would have
nothing to fear after that."
"Then you are connected with the police, Dubravnik." But when she
made the statement I noticed with joy that there was no suggestion of
her former displeasure. There was no indication now that she would love
me the less because I was associated with the powers she had been
taught all her life to abhor.
"No, Zara, not with the police. I have nothing to do with them, nor
with any department of that service. The men I shall send for are not
even Russians; and they serve me, not this government. They will serve
you, as well."
"I believe you, dear one; forgive me. You shall have the messenger."
"You have forgotten one thing, princess."
"What?"
"Your own danger."
She shrugged her shoulders and laughed at that. It was a return to the
Zara I had first known. "I have forgotten much since you came," she
said. "In what way am I in danger?"
"If those men are arrested, they will know that you have betrayed them
to me. Their friends will know it, also."
"You mistake. I had not forgotten that. But I have remembered that you
are here to protect me, Dubravnik. What have I to fear when you are
near me?" It was sweet indeed to hear her say such words, sweeter still
to realize the full import of them. But there was a phase of our
present dilemma which had not yet claimed her attention, but regarding
which it was necessary to remind her. Her brother Ivan was doubtless
one of the assassins, waiting outside.