第78章

"Just a second, messieurs, if you please."He did it still with utter naturalness.And he returned to the ledge before he rejoined Koupriane and Rouletabille by way of the lawn.Rouletabille, entirely cool, quite master of himself, as calm now as Koupriane was nervous, said to the Prefect of Police:

"We must act now, and quickly.They are commencing to be suspicious.

Have you a plan?"

"Here is all I can see," said Koupriane."Have the general come down by the narrow servants' stairway, and slip out of the house from the window of Natacha's sitting-room, with the aid of a twisted sheet.Matrena Petrovna will come to speak to them during this time; that will keep them patient until the general is out of danger.

As soon as Matrena has withdrawn into the garden, I will call my men, who will shoot them from a distance.""And the house itself? And the general's friends?""Let them try to get away, too, by the servants' stairway and jump from the window after the general.We must try something.Say that I have them at the muzzle of my revolver.""Your plan won't work," said Rouletabille, "unless the door of Natacha's sitting-room that opens on the drawing-room is closed.""It is.I can see from here."

"And unless the door of the little passage-way before that staircase that opens into the drawing-room is closed also, and you cannot see it from here.""That door is open," said Ermolai.

Koupriane swore.But he recovered himself promptly.

"Madame Trebassof will close the door when she speaks to them.""It's impracticable," said the reporter."That will arouse their suspicions more than ever.Leave it to me; I have a plan.""What?"

"I have time to execute it, but not to tell you about it.They have already waited too long.I shall have to go upstairs, though.

Ermolai will need to go with me, as with a friend of the family.""I'll go too."

"That would give the whole show away, if they saw you, the Prefect of Police.""Why, no.If they see me - and they know I ought to be there - as soon as I show myself to them they will conclude I don't know anything about it."" You are wrong."

"It is my duty.I should be near the general to defend him until the last."Rouletabille shrugged his shoulders before this dangerous heroism, but he did not stop to argue.He knew that his plan must succeed at once, or in five minutes at the latest there would be only ruins, the dead and the dying in the datcha des Iles.

Still he remained astonishingly calm.In principle he had admitted that he was going to die.The only hope of being saved which remained to them rested entirely upon their keeping perfectly cool and upon the patience of the living bombs.Would they still have three minutes' patience?

Ermolai went ahead of Koupriane and Rouletabille.At the moment they reached the foot of the veranda steps the servant said loudly, repeating his lesson:

"Oh, the general is waiting for you, Excellency.He told me to have you come to him at once.He is entirely well and Madame Trebassof also."When they were in the veranda, he added:

"She is to see also, at once, these gentlemen, who will be able to tell her there is no more danger."And all three passed while Koupriane and Rodetabille vaguely saluted the two conspirators in the drawing-room.It was a decisive moment.

Recognizing Koupriane, the two Nihilists might well believe themselves discovered, as the reporter had said, and precipitate the catastrophe.However, Ermolai, Koupriane and Rouletabille climbed the stairs to the bedroom like automatons, not daring to look behind them, and expecting the end each instant.But neither stirred.Ermolai went down again, by Rouletabille's order, normally, naturally, tranquilly.They went into Matrena Petrovna's chamber.Everybody was there.It was a gathering of ghosts.