“This is great nonsense,” he said suddenly.  “I feel like a Nihilist or some theatrical person of that sort.  I do not think it can be necessary, Steinmetz.”

“Not necessary,” answered Steinmetz in thick guttural tones, “but prudent.”

This man spoke with the soft consonants of a German.

“Prudent, my dear prince.”

“Oh, drop that!”

“When we sight the Volga I will drop it with pleasure.  Good Heavens!  I wish I were a prince.  I should have it marked on my linen, and sit up in bed to read it on my nightshirt.”

“No, you wouldn’t, Steinmetz,” answered Alexis, with a vexed laugh.  “You would hate it just as much as I do, especially if it meant running away from the best bear-shooting in Europe.”

Steinmetz shrugged his shoulders.

“Then you should not have been charitable—­charity, I tell you, Alexis, covers no sins in this country.”

“Who made me charitable?  Besides, no decent-minded fellow could be anything else here.  Who told me of the League of Charity, I should like to know?  Who put me into it?  Who aroused my pity for these poor beggars?  Who but a stout German cynic called Steinmetz?”

“Stout, yes—­cynic, if you will—­German, no!”

The words were jerked out of him by the galloping horse.

“Then what are you?”

Steinmetz looked straight in front of him, with a meditation in his quiet eyes which made a dreamy man of him.

“That depends.”

Alexis laughed.

“Yes, I know.  In Germany you are a German, in Russia a Slav, in Poland a Pole, and in England any thing the moment suggests.”

“Exactly so.  But to return to you.  You must trust to me in this matter.  I know this country.  I know what this League of Charity was.  It was a bigger thing than any dream of.  It was a power in Russia—­the greatest of all—­above Nihilism—­above the Emperor himself.  Ach Gott!  It was a wonderful organization, spreading over this country like sunlight over a field.  It would have made men of our poor peasants.  It was God’s work.  If there is a God—­bien entendu—­which some young men deny, because God fails to recognize their importance, I imagine.  And now it is all done.  It is crumbled up by the scurrilous treachery of some miscreant.  Ach!  I should like to have him out here on the plain.  I would choke him.  For money, too!  The devil—­it must have been the devil—­to sell that secret to the Government!”

“I can’t see what the Government wanted it for,” growled Alexis moodily.

“No, but I can.  It is not the Emperor; he is a gentleman, although he has the misfortune to wear the purple.  No, it is those about him.  They want to stop education; they want to crush the peasant.  They are afraid of being found out; they live in their grand houses, and support their grand names on the money they crush out of the starving peasant.”

“So do I, so far as that goes.”