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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. Here was what had happened above.

"BARINIA, the young stranger has arrived." "Where is he?" "Oh, he is waiting at the lodge." "I told you to show him to Natacha's sitting-room. Didn't you understand me, Ermolai?" "Pardon, Barinia, but the young stranger, when I asked to search him, as you directed, flatly refused to let me."

"Oh, Excellency, keep cool, keep cool, and all is not lost," implored the reporter. Rouletabille and Koupriane slipped carefully into the garden. Ermolai followed them. "There?" inquired Koupriane. "There," Ermolai replied. From the corner where they were, and looking through the veranda, they could see the "doctors" as they waited.

While the general talked with Ermolai, who passed him his tea, Rouletabille made a sign to Matrena that she understood at once. She joined the young man in the drawing-room. "Madame," he said rapidly, in a low voice, "you must go at once to see what has happened there." He pointed to the dining-room. "Very well." It was pitiful to watch her. "Go, madame, with courage."

But before going to their beds all went into the veranda, where liqueurs were served by the brave Ermolai, as always. Matrena pushed the wheel-chair of the general there, and he kept repeating, "No, no. No more such people. No more police. They only bring trouble." "Feodor! Feodor!" sighed Matrena, whose anxiety deepened in spite of all she could do, "they watched over your dear life."

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.

They ascertained the next day that there had been two explosions, almost simultaneous, one under each staircase. The two Nihilists, when they felt themselves discovered, and watched by Ermolai, had thrown themselves silently on him as he turned his back in passing them, and strangled him with a piece of twine.

"Do as I say." Ermolai bowed and returned to the garden. The "barinia" left the veranda, where she had come for this conversation with the old servant of General Trebassof, her husband, and returned to the dining-room in the datcha des Iles, where the gay Councilor Ivan Petrovitch was regaling his amused associates with his latest exploit at Cubat's resort.

He gathered from the gestures of Ermolai that they had passed before the lodge only a few minutes after the marshal's departure. They had gone together. Rouletabille set himself to follow them, traced their steps in the soft earth of the roadway and soon they crossed onto the grass. At this point the tracks through the massed ferns became very difficult to follow.

"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.