to-night. Speak now, without fear or falsehood, tell me whether you
come prepared to take that which I have to give you, and to do that
which I shall ask of you. If there is any doubt in your soul, speak it now
and go in peace; for the task that I shall lay upon you is no light one,
nor may it be undertaken without a whole heart and a soul that is
undivided by doubt.
The young man returned his burning gaze with a glance as clear and
steady as his own, and replied--
"It is for your Majesty to give and for me to take -- for you to command
and for me to obey. Tell me your will, and I will do it to the death. In
the hour that I fail, may heaven's mercy fail me too, and may I die as
one who is not fit to live!"
"Spoken like a true son of Russia!" said the old man, taking his hands
from his shoulders and beckoning the girl to his side. Then he placed
them side by side before an ikon to the eastern wall, with an
ever-burning lamp in front of it. He bade them kneel down and join
hands, and as they did so he took his place behind them and, raising his
hands as though in invocation above their heads, he said in slow,
solemn tones--
"Now, Serge Nicholaivitch and Olga Romanoff; sole heirs on earth of
those who once were Tsars of Russia, swear before heaven and all its
holy saints that, when this body of mine shall have been committed to
the flames, you will take my ashes to Petersburg and lay them in the
Church of Peter and Paul, and that when that is done, you will go to the
Lossenskis at Moscow, and there, in the Uspenski Sobor, where your
ancestors were crowned, take each other for wedded wife and husband,
according to the ancient laws of Russia and the rites of the orthodox
church."
The oath was taken by each of the now betrothed pair in turn, and then
Paul Romanoff, great-grandson of Alexander, the Last of the Tsars,
raised them from their knees and kissed each of them on the forehead.
Then, taking from his neck a gold chain with a small key attached to it,
he went to one of the oak panels, from which the walls of the room
were lined, and pushed aside a portion of the apparently solid beading,
disclosing a keyhole into which he inserted the key.
He turned the key and pulled, and the panel swung slowly out like a
door. It was lined with three inches of solid steel, and behind it was a
cavity in the wall, from which came the sheen of gold and the gleam of
jewels. A cry of amazement broke at the same moment from the lips of
both Olga and Serge, as they saw what the glittering object was.
Paul Romanoff took it out of the steel-lined cavity, and laid it
reverently on the table, saying, as he did so--
"To-morrow I shall be dead, and this house and all that is in it will be
yours. There is my most precious possession, the Imperial crown of
Russia, stolen when the Kremlin was plundered in the days of the
Terror, and restored secretly to my father by the faith and devotion of
one of the few who remained loyal after the fall of the Empire.
"In a few hours it will be yours. I leave it to you as a sacred heritage
from the past for you to hand on to the future, and with it you shall
receive and hand on a heritage of hate and vengeance, which you shall
keep hot in your hearts and in the hearts of your children against the
day of reckoning when it comes.
"Now sit down on the divan yonder, and listen with your ears and your
hearts as well, for these are the last words that I shall speak with the
lips of flesh, and you must remember them, that you may tell them to
your children, and perchance to their children after them, as I now tell
them to you; for the hour of vengeance may not come in your day nor
yet in theirs, though in the fullness of time it shall surely come, and
therefore the story must never be forgotten while a Romanoff remains
to remember it."
The old man, on whom the strange drug that he had taken was still
exercising its wonderful effects, threw himself into an easy-chair as he
spoke, and motioned them with his hand towards a second low couch
against one of the walls, covered with cushions and draped with
neutral-tinted, silken hangings.
Olga, moving,
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