"Yes; concerning the names of friends who have assisted me when they have been compelled to place their own interests in jeopardy in order to do so." 

 "Do you know Alexis Saberevski?" 

 "I do." 

 "Can you tell me where he is now?" 

 "In New York, I think." 

 "Did you not have a definite proposition to make to me, in case you were successful in securing an audience?" 

 "I did." 

 "Very well, you have secured the audience. I will hear the proposition." 

 I hesitated. Here before me ready at my hand was the very opportunity I had so eagerly sought and which I had determined to go to many lengths to obtain. Already I had undertaken great expense to arrive at this moment and to encounter a circumstance very like the one by which I was now confronted; and yet I hesitated to take his majesty at his word and to render up the proposition he required of me, and which I had travelled so far and gone to such pains to submit. But you will admit that the circumstance was an unusual one, and that the very manner of my introduction to the Czar of all the Russias was calculated to be confounding to me and to place at naught my customary determined poise, and unswerving self-reliance. The abrupt mention of Alexis Saberevski, coupled with other insinuations already brought forward in our conversation, confirmed me in the idea already half formed, that my apparent arrest at the hotel, my strange and mysterious journey through the night, and the threat of Siberia, were all in the nature of what we Americans call a "bluff"; were only intended to conceal the real purpose of this enforced interview. During that moment of hesitation, which was so short that it would not have been noticeable to a disinterested party, I decided that the perfectly frank and open course would be the best one to adopt with this giant of a man who confronted me; a giant not only in physique and stature, and in strength of purpose as well as in muscle, but in the wonderful power he swayed by the mere exertion of his will. 

 I glanced upward into his eyes, which were bent half quizzically and not at all unkindly upon me, and then in words that flowed easily, and which came to 

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