Chapter 10

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A DRAMA IN THE NIGHT

At the door of the Krestowsky Rouletabille, who was in a hurry for
a conveyance, jumped into an open carriage where la belle Onoto was
already seated. The dancer caught him on her knees.

"To Eliaguine, fast as you can," cried the reporter for all
explanation.

"Scan! Scan! (Quickly, quickly)" repeated Onoto.

She was accompanied by a vague sort of person to whom neither of
them paid the least attention.

"What a supper! You waked up at last, did you?" quizzed the actress.
But Rouletabille, standing up behind the enormous coachman, urged
the horses and directed the route of the carriage. They bolted
along through the night at a dizzy pace. At the corner of a bridge
he ordered the horses stopped, thanked his companions and
disappeared.

"What a country! What a country! Caramba!" said the Spanish artist.

The carriage waited a few minutes, then turned back toward the city.

Rouletabille got down the embankment and slowly, taking infinite
precautions not to reveal his presence by making the least noise,
made his way to where the river is widest. Seen through the
blackness of the night the blacker mass of the Trebassof villa
loomed like an enormous blot, he stopped. Then he glided like a
snake through the reeds, the grass, the ferns. He was at the back
of the villa, near the river, not far from the little path where
he had discovered the passage of the assassin, thanks to the broken
cobwebs. At that moment the moon rose and the birch-trees, which
just before had been like great black staffs, now became white
tapers which seemed to brighten that sinister solitude.

The reporter wished to profit at once by the sudden luminance to
learn if his movements had been noticed and if the approaches to
the villa on that side were guarded. He picked up a small pebble
and threw it some distance from him along the path. At the
unexpected noise three or four shadowy heads were outlined suddenly
in the white light of the moon, but disappeared at once, lost again
in the dark tufts of grass.

He had gained his information.

The reporter's acute ear caught a gliding in his direction, a slight
swish of twigs; then all at once a shadow grew by his side and he
felt the cold of a revolver barrel on his temple. He said
"Koupriane," and at once a hand seized his and pressed it.

The night had become black again. He murmured: "How is it you are
here in person?"

The Prefect of Police whispered in his ear:

"I have been informed that something will happen to-night. Natacha
went to Krestowsky and exchanged some words with Annouchka there.
Prince Galitch is involved, and it is an affair of State."

"Natacha has