“Don’t listen to him, little friend; I don’t know him,” cried Alexis Hutch.

But the gentlenman of the Neva went on: 

“He is a man close to the first principles of science, and therefore not far from divine; he is a holy man, whom it is good to consult at moments when the future appears difficult.  He knows how to read as no one else can — Father John of Cronstadt excepted, to be strictly accurate — on the sheets of bull-hide where the dark angels have traced mysterious signs of destiny.”

Here the gentleman picked up an old pair of boots, which he threw on the counter in the midst of the ikons.

“Pere Alexis, perhaps these are not bull-hide, but good enough cow-hide.  Don’t you want to read on this cow-hide the future of this young man?”

But here Rouletabille advanced to the gentleman, and blew an enormous cloud of smoke full in his face.

“It is useless, monsieur,” said Rouletabille, “to waste your time and your breath.  I have been waiting for you.”

XVI

BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL

Only, Rouletabille refused to be put into the basket.  He would not let them disarm him until they promised to call a carriage.  The Vehicle rolled into the court, and while Pere Alexis was kept back in his shop at the point of a revolver, Rouletabille quietly got in, smoking his pipe.  The man who appeared to be the chief of the band (the gentleman of the Neva) got in too and sat down beside him.  The carriage windows were shuttered, preventing all communication with the outside, and only a tiny lantern lighted the interior.  They started.  The carriage was driven by two men in brown coats trimmed with false astrakhan.  The dvornicks saluted, believing it a police affair.  The concierge made the sign of the cross.

The journey lasted several hours without other incidents than those brought about by the tremendous jolts, which threw the two passengers inside one on top of the other.  This might have made an opening for conversation; and the “gentleman of the Neva” tried it; but in vain.  Rouletabille would not respond.  At one moment, indeed, the gentleman, who was growing bored, became so pressing that the reporter finally said in the curt tone he always used when he was irritated: 

“I pray you, monsieur, let me smoke my pipe in peace.”

Upon which the gentleman prudently occupied himself in lowering one of the windows, for it grew stifling.

Finally, after much jolting, there was a stop while the horses were changed and the gentleman asked Rouletabille to let himself be blindfolded.  “The moment has come; they are going to hang me without any form of trial,” thought the reporter, and when, blinded with the bandage, he felt himself lifted under the arms, there was revolt of his whole being, that being which, now that it was on the point of dying, did