Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1879-06-20
HEART AND DAGGER,
A Tale of NIhIIIsm of the Present.

A Tale of NIhIIIsm of the Present.
Though the night of Dec. Is, 1873,
was the coolest of the winter, police
man, disdained the shelter of his hut in
the Nevskoi Perspective, measured his
beat without even halting to glance
with envy at the brilliantly illuminated
windows of Prince Nurine's mansion
where ball was going on for the high.
est circle in St. Petersburg.
Major-General Murine, Imperial Aid.
de-Camp and Governor of Khovno, was
a man of sixty, whose ruling motive
was blind obedience to orders. This
severity had created him a host of enc.
mics. But he went his way calmly and
coldly, thinking he had done enough
when, out of his immense fortune, to
accumulate which thousands labored
he cast handful of coin to the orphans
or widow or some wretch of whose ruiz
he had been the. unwitting but impla.
cable instrument.
Such man had made but very few
friends, and lately, they had been re-
moved. Count Schouvaloff was sent as
Minister to st. James, Mesentzoff had
been assassinated, and one or two
others had not returned from the war
in the south. All his life out of the
official world was concentrated on his
daughter, who received the wor-
ship of an idolator. Whosoever pro-
nounced her less than the fairest
among the fair or best of the good
would have made himself the General s
deadly enemy.
Nathalia was eighteen. She was fair
with tawny hair, shaggy on the ivory
forehead, and always with a tress or
two loose in spite of coral clasps. Her
eyes were softer blue than her father S
and, like his, always fastened themselves
on whosoever addressed her, seeking
the truth. This tenacious and persist
ent gaze in young lady was puzzling
to foreigners and courtiers till they be-
came accustomed to it, but it was an
additional charm to find one maiden
above the deception of Fashionable life.
She was, bar this, typical Russian,
all gracefulness, full of superstition
from her partly conventional education,
paradoxical, prejudiced, and capricious.
Gipsy legends and songs of the church
had impressed her youth, and each OF
her governesses, English, French, Swiss
and German, had grated on her pecu-
liarities, which blossomed oddly. Caste
had inflicted the final polish, but the
real heart burst forth from that hard,
firm shell at intervals.
Up to the end of autumn Nathalia
had been recklessly gay. Bpt fugitive
sadness had come, and she brooded
deeply. The Prince was alarmed, and
all the more because she, ever so frank
held her peace as to the cause of hel
brown studies, maintaining that she
had not altered. But he OWNED that
love was entangling her, while he was
confident in her pride and honor to
doubt that she had chosen worthily.
BY watching her steadily he soon no
ticed that the presence and absence OF
an infrequent visitor, Count Bergius
Kabuloff, had some effect upon her.
He was a man of twenty-six, who had
worked his way up in the army to the
position of the best artillery officer, and
had been cited at Plevna in the orders
of the day. Moody and silent in sew.
eral languages" Sergius went very
seldom to social gatherings .at the cap.
ital, and was engaged, said his com.
rades, on history of the campaign,
which explained his association with
brother officers and few superior col
legians. Nevertheless, he accepted an
invitation to Prince Nurine's ball.
The dancing was at its apogee, and
the host was smiling as happily as ever
his grave features had been known to
unbend, and was watching his daughte;
in the Pompadour gavotte, led out by 8
Prince of the blood royal, while he ate
harlequin ice, when the displacement
of the half-emptied China saucer on the
silver son-coupe which he held revealed
some scratches in the metal. They
were letters-Sc Sclavonic writing. With
the natural inquisitiveness of the man
who had been brought up to seize upon
the veriest triles, he glanced around tc
see that no one was between him anC
the wall, and pushing the saucer to the
edge of the platter read;
General! as thou fearest not death
and thine honor is too clear to dread
any SANDER, thou must be attacked
where alone thou art vulnerable. BY
order of the Committee on Forewarn
ing. The Secret Government"
Two interlaced serpents, which like
the ancient Egyptian sign, meant The
cipher and the emblem of eternity, a.
well as the initial letters for Semla anc
SVoboda, that is to say, FatherlanC
and Liberty, stamped the authenticity
of this regular communication. He
could not remember from which lac
quey he had taken the refreshment
Profound anger was his first impulse
but as his eye wandered in search of an
object of wrathful outlet, it perceived
half hidden in the window curtain,
Colonel Sergius, tixedly contemplating
his daughter in the cuique pace. He
saw his dark face light up with smile
as If rejecting Nathalia's radiant love,
illness. IL was a revelation TO the Gen.
eral, and the germ of novel train OF
thought. He laid the saucer on table,
and rolling up the silver plate with the
strength of finger hereditary in the
Orloff family, and pocketing II envel-
oped in his handkerchief for future in
vestigation, he carefully approached
the young artillerist. There could be no
doubt of the object of his regards in all