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Updated: May 15, 2025
In answer to Sobrenski's gesture, she moved towards the window, which another of the conspirators was cautiously opening. Vardri pushed himself forward into the group. "She can't go down there," he said hoarsely, "It's not safe look at the height!" "She'll go down well enough if she holds onto the rope." "The rope may break or fray through on the sill." "She takes her chance like the rest of us."
Emile bit into his cigarette as his eyes caught the discoloured lines of Sobrenski's sign-manual on her wrist. It was entirely through him, Emile, that she had in the first place joined the league of conspirators, and this was one of the results. Sobrenski's judgment had been more far-seeing than his own.
To-night would see Sobrenski's triumph, his grand coup, and when it was all over perhaps she would have peace. How slowly they all seemed to ride, she thought. She wondered how many of the other men knew that she was chosen to act the part of murderess. Some of them had been kind to her in a rough way, especially the older ones.
It crossed her mind how Emile had once likened a certain group of the conspirators to a pack of court cards, saying that they were alternately red and black. Sobrenski's hair and small peaked beard were of a curiously unpleasant colour, and his thin lips, pointed teeth and long sloping jaw gave him a wolfish appearance.
"Don't tell lies, Fatalité!" he said sharply. "Give me your hand at once." Arithelli obeyed, holding it out palm upwards. Emile looked, and ripped out a fiery exclamation. The smooth flesh was scarred and torn across in several places, and was still bleeding. The mark of Sobrenski's grip on her wrist had turned from crimson to a dull discoloured hue. "It doesn't hurt so very much," she said.
Her outward air of indifference was as irritating to him as it had been to the Hippodrome Manager. Sobrenski's blood had never stirred for any woman, however charming, and Arithelli's type of looks was repulsive to him. He loathed her thinness and pallor, her silence and immobility of expression. He vowed inwardly that she should look less indifferent before he had finished with her.
She waited two months for death and then they brought her out one morning in the dawn and hanged her. "'You shall see how a Russian woman dies, she told them as she ran up the ladder and flung herself into space. "You women shame us with your courage. Now every time I hear of a thing like that, I think of you. You may have to run some great risk here for a caprice of Sobrenski's."
The realisation of the folly of trying to escape from the burden that had been laid upon her affected her nerve and seat during her performances in the ring. For the first time she felt her courage failing her when she entered Sobrenski's house in answer to his summons.
If she did Sobrenski's bidding she would be not only a murderess, but the murderess of the being she loved most in the world. Vardri, who was so different from all the other men; Vardri, who could never bear anything to be hurt, or even to be made uncomfortable. She knew that it was perfectly useless for both of them to attempt to escape.
Vardri was also kept under surveillance. It was felt by all that in some quarter treachery lurked as yet undiscovered, and every man suspected his comrades. There were indications that someone, hitherto a sworn ally of the Cause, had turned spy and sold certain information to the authorities. Even Sobrenski's iron nerves were stretched to breaking point.
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