Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/251

A JOB FOR CAPTAIN HERCULES feeling. Yet so it was—a curiously human touch creeping in! He shut Markart up only under the strongest sense of necessity and with great reluctance. Probably Stafnitz had insisted, in the private conversation which they had held together: Markart had shown such evident signs of jibbing over the job proposed for Captain Hercules!

Lepage's heart was wrung, but his spirit was not broken. Stafnitz's ironical smile called an answering one to his lips.

"It would console my feelings if I also were put in charge of somebody, General," he said. "Shall I, in my turn, keep an eye on Dr. Natcheff, or report if the Captain here is remiss in the duty of keeping himself a prisoner?"

"I don't think you need trouble yourself, Monsieur Lepage. Captain Sterkoff will relieve you of responsibility." To Lepage, too, Stenovics was gentle, urbane, almost apologetic.

"And how long am I to live, General?"

"You're in the enviable position, Monsieur Lepage, of being able, subject to our common mortality, to settle that for yourself. Come, come, we'll discuss matters again to-morrow night or the following morning. There are many men who prefer not to do things, but will accept a thing when it's done. They're not necessarily unwise. I've done no worse to you than give you the opportunity of being one of them. I think you'll be prudent to take it. Anyhow, don't be angry; you must remember that you've given us a good deal of trouble."

"Between us we have killed the King."

Stenovics waved his hands in a commiserating way. "Practical men mustn't spend time in lamenting the past," he said. 233