"There is but one punishment for such an act—death!" cried Zoiloff, in such a ringing, merciless tone that the rascal's heart may well have sunk within him. "Death, if he will not speak."
"Death, if he will not speak," echoed the rest.
At this Zoiloff drew his sword, and at the clash of the steel in the dead silence the wretch moaned.
"Will you speak, or die?" I said, after a moment.
"I heard only a little," said the man after a struggle, his lips so dry and parched that he could only speak with an effort.
"Tell it!" I thundered again; and word by word he told us that he heard me declare that we were Russian agents, and all that followed.
His fear of the death that he believed imminent was sickening to behold, and made me anxious to close the scene.
"You have heard this wretch's confession, gentlemen; what say you?"
"He must die!" cried Zoiloff. "In the name of the Czar I claim his life. Every Russian interest in the country is in peril while he lives."
"You will vote, if you please," I said. And we went through a form of writing each man's decision on paper.
"The verdict is unanimous," I said, glancing at the paper. "You must die. I would have spared your life, but I am powerless against all present."
At that he clung to me, clutching at my hands and at my coat, praying, beseeching, imploring, and vowing that he would never say a word of what he had overheard.
"Whose spy are you?" I asked.
"I am in the service of the Countess Bokara."
