The captain nodded to him. He had a large nodding acquaintance. It will be remembered that he claimed for his hands a cleanliness which their appearance seemed to define as purely moral. In his way he was a proud man, and standoffish at that. He looked slowly round, and found no other face to recognize. But he looked a second time at a small, dark man with gentle eyes, whose individuality must have had something magnetic in it. Captain Cable was accustomed to judge from outward things. He picked out the ruling mind in that room, and looked again at its possessor as if measuring himself against him.
“Take a chair, captain,” said Kosmaroff, who himself happened to be standing. He was leaning against the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, which had seen better days—and company—and smoking a cigarette. He was clad in a cheap, ready-made suit; for his heart was in his business, and he scraped and saved every kopeck. But the cheap clothing could not hide that ease of movement which bespeaks a long descent, or conceal the slim strength of limb which is begotten of the fine, clean, hard bone of a fighting race.
The captain looked round, and sought his pocket-handkerchief, with which to dust the proffered seat, mindful of his “suit.”
“Do you speak German, captain?” inquired Kosmaroff.
And Captain Cable snorted at the suggestion.
“Sailed with a crew of Germans,” he answered; “I understand a bit, and I know a few words. I know the German for d⸺n your eyes, and handy words like that.”
“Then,” said Kosmaroff, addressing the gentle-eyed man, “we had better continue our talk in German. Captain Cable is a man who likes plain dealing.”
He himself spoke in the language of the Fatherland, and Captain Cable stiffened at the sound of it, as all good Britons should.
“We have not much to say to Captain Cable,” replied the man who seemed to be a leader of the Brothers of Liberty. He spoke in a thin tenor voice, and was what the French call chetif in appearance—a weak man, fighting against physical disabilities and an indifferent digestion.
“It is essential in the first place,” he continued, “that we should understand each other; we the conquerors and you the conquered.”
With a gesture he divided the party assembled into two groups, the smaller of which consisted only of Kosmaroff and another. And then he looked out of the window with his womanlike, reflective smile.
“We the Russians, and you the Poles. I fear I have not made myself quite clear. I understand, however, that we are to trust the last comer entirely, which I do with the more confidence that I perceive that he understands very little of what we are saying.”
Captain Cable’s solid, weather-beaten face remained rigid like a figurehead. He looked at the speaker with an ill-concealed pity for one who could not express himself in plain English and be done with it.
“Our circumstances are such that no correspondence is possible,” continued the speaker. “Any agreement, therefore, must be verbal, and verbal agreements should be quite clear—the human memory is so liable to be affected by circumstances—and should be repeated several times in the hearing of several persons. I understand, therefore, that, after a period of nearly twenty years, Poland—is ready again.”
There was a short silence in that dim and quiet room.
“Yes,” said Kosmaroff, deliberately, at length.
“And is only awaiting her opportunity.”
“Yes.”
One of the Brothers of Liberty, possibly the secretary of that body, which owned its inability to put anything in writing, had provided a penny bottle of ink and a sticky-looking, red pen-holder. The speaker took up the pen suspiciously, and laid it down again. He rubbed his finger and thumb together. His suspicions had apparently been justifiable. It was a sticky one! Then he lapsed into thought. Perhaps he was thinking of the pen-holder, or perhaps of the history of the two nations represented in that room. He had a thoughtful face, and history is a fascinating study, especially for those who make it. And this quiet man had made a little in his day.
“An opportunity is not an easy thing to define,” he said at length. “Any event may turn out to be one. But, so far as we can judge, Poland’s opportunity must lie in two or three possible events at the most. One would be a war with England. That, I am afraid, I cannot bring about just yet.”
He spoke quite seriously, and he had not the air of a man subject to the worst of blindness—the blindness of vanity.
“We have all waited long enough for that. We have done our best out on the frontier and in the English press, but cannot bring it about. It is useless to wait any longer. The English are fiery enough—in print—and ready enough to fight—in Fleet Street. In Russia we have too little journalism—in England they have too much.”
Captain Cable yawned at this juncture with a maritime frankness.
“Another opportunity would be a social upheaval,” said the Russian, drumming on the table with his slim fingers. “The time has not come for that yet. A third alternative is a mishap to a crowned head—and that we can offer to you.”
Kosmaroff moved impatiently.
“Is that all?” he exclaimed. “I have heard that talk for the last ten years. Have you brought me across Europe to talk of that?”
The Russian looked at him calmly, stroking his thin, black mustache, and waited till he had finished speaking.
“Yes—that is all
