Page:Edgar Wallace--The book of all-power.djvu/198

 "By the head of my mother I will not betray you," said the man, and disappeared in the darkness.

After this they held a council of war.

"So far as I can remember, Petroff is the silk merchant," said Malinkoff, "and his house is the first big residence we reach coming from this direction. I remember it because I was on duty at the Coronation of the Emperor, and his Imperial Majesty came to Preopojensky, which is a sacred place for the Royal House. Peter the Great lived here."

Luck was with them, for they had not gone far before they heard a voice bellowing a mournful song, and came up with its owner, a worker in the silk mills (they had long since ceased to work) who was under the influence of methylated spirit—a favourite tipple since vodka had been ukased out of existence.

"Ivan Petroff, son of Ivan?" he hiccoughed. "Yes, my little dove, it is there. He is a boorjoo and an aristocrat, and there is no Czar and no God!—prikanzerio—it is ordered by the Soviet I . . ."

And he began to weep.

"No Czar and no God! Long live the Revolution! Evivo! No blessed saints and no Czar! And I was of the Rasholnik! . . ."

They left him weeping by the roadside.

"The Rasholniks are the dissenters of Russia—this village was a hotbed of them, but they've