The other—­the man who had thrown the bomb—­was already dead.  The terrific explosion had sent his soul hard after the puff of white smoke, and in the twinkling of an eye he stood at the bar of the Great Assize.  It is to be hoped that he made a good defence there, and did not stammer in the presence of his Judge.

The Czar’s gentlemen in attendance were all killed or wounded.  He was left to the care of his Cossack escort, who were doing what they could to succor him—­though, being soldiers, they knew that he had passed beyond all human aid.  The crowd parted to make way for a tall man who literally threw aside all who stood in his path.  It was the Emperor’s brother, the Grand Duke Michael, brought hither by the sound of the first explosion.  He knelt on the blood-stained snow and spoke to the dying man.

The sleigh towards which he had been walking was now brought forward again, and the Czar was lifted from the snow.  There was no doctor near.  The mob drew back in dumb horror.  In the crowd stood Cartoner, brought hither by that instinct which had made him first among the Vultures—­the instinct that took him to the battle-field, where he was called upon to share the horror and reap none of the glory.

His quiet eyes were ablaze for once with a sudden, helpless anger.  He could not even give way to the first and universal impulse to kill the killer.

He stood motionless through the brief silence that succeeded to the second explosion.  There is a silence that follows those great events brought about by a man which seems to call aloud for a word from God.

Then, because it was his duty to draw his buzzing thoughts together, to be watchful and quick, to think and act while others stood aghast, he took one last look at the dying Emperor, and turned to make his way from the crowd while yet he could.  He had pieced together, with the slow accuracy that Deulin envied him, the small scraps of information obtained from one source or another in Warsaw, in London from Captain Cable, in St. Petersburg from half a dozen friends.  This was Poland’s opportunity.  A sudden inspiration had led him to look for the centre of the evil, not in Warsaw, but in St. Petersburg.  And that which other men called his luck had brought him within sound of the first explosion by the side of the Catherine Canal.

He passed through a back street and out into wider thoroughfares.  He hurried as much as was prudent, and in a few moments was beyond the zone, as it were, of alarm and confusion.  A sleigh came towards him.  The driver was half asleep, and looked about him with a placid, stupid face.  Here was a man who had heard nothing.

Cartoner called him, and did not wait for him to descend to unhook the heavy leather apron.

“The telegraph office,” he said.

And when the driver had settled down to his usual breakneck speed, he urged him to go faster.  The passers on the pavement were going about their ordinary business now, bent on paying Sunday calls or taking Sunday exercise.  None knew yet what had taken place a few hundred yards away.