Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/100

88 about three-quarters of an hour, and had nearly traversed the wood, at that hour so dark that I had considerable difficulty in finding my way, when — of a sudden — I fancied I distinguished voices.

I halted. Yes. Men were talking in low tones of confidence, and in that calm stillness of evening they appeared nearer to me than they actually were. I listened, trying to distinguish the words uttered but could make out nothing. They were moving slowly together, in close vicinity to myself, for their feet stirred the dry leaves, and I could hear the boughs cracking as they forced their way through them.

Of a sudden, while standing there not daring to breathe lest I should betray my presence, a strange sound fell upon my eager ears.

Next moment I realized that I was at that place where Leithcourt so persistently kept his disappointed tryst, having approached it from within the wood.

The sound alarmed me, and yet it was neither an explosion of fire-arms nor a startling cry for help.

One word reached me in the darkness — one single word of bitter and withering reproach.

Heedless of the risk I ran and the peril to which I exposed myself, I dashed forward with a resolve to penetrate the mystery, until I came to the gap in the rough stone wall where Leithcourt's habit was to halt each day at sundown.

There, in the falling darkness, the sight that met my eyes at that spot held me rigid, appalled, stupefied.

In that instant I realized the truth — a truth that was surely the strangest ever revealed to any man.