Читать книгу The Secret Dispatch; or, The Adventures of Captain Balgonie онлайн

32 страница из 50

There was a third person who had overheard the first savage plot, and who felt her heart stirred with pity and terror for Balgonie, who had given her a silver kopec at Krejko but yesterday,—the gipsy girl, Olga Paulowna, the sister of Nicholas Paulovitch; and she resolved to baffle both conspirators if she could.

It was in perfect ignorance of who might be the bearer of that dispatch (with the contents of which a spy had acquainted them) that the two officers, who were then engaged in an extensive and dangerous political and military conspiracy, contrived to have Podatchkine, in the character of a guide and orderly, sent upon the trail of one who was really their most valued friend and comrade; though, as a foreigner and soldier of fortune, they deemed it proper to keep him as yet in total ignorance of their daring hopes and plans.

ssss1

It may now be necessary to afford the reader a little historical insight as to what it was that hinged on this important dispatch of the Scottish officer, Balgonie.