Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-10-22
Entry No. 67 in Our Prize Story Competition
DR. PETER DUBOFF, known also in
his own land as Peter Ivanovitch

Ored. He admitted much to himself
without reserve.
He had set his hand to terrible task. I
Freely, deliberately, Solennly, believing <
himself consecrated to the work, he had
undertaken it. At the last, the crucial mo-
ment, to his stupefactOn of
ment, not his hand but his heart had failed
him. From the consequences of this fail
ure he had fled, across half continent and
the ocean, to hide himself in the remote 40
little fishing village of Pratts Harbor on -
the Labrador Coast. When he remembered
it all and the memory of I'M |
dimming vivdness, bitten as if by acid into
brain and nerve,-sometimes he would
flush and then grow cold with shame, pos
sessed by long inherited faith in i'm IS
placable code. But at other times, seeing Esx.
from another point of view, his heart would e.
warm with joy and he would thank God -
paSsOnatelv for that failure and that dis f-%
honor. =
1t had happened in Kief; and in the fol-
lowing fashion had it come about: 81
AN arstocrat by birth, but an ardent in W
tellectual and progressive by convic- ~
ton, Peter Dubof had embraced the doc SSS
trines of the advanced revolutionaries. See -
ing the miseries in which his Holy Russia -
groaned and wallowed, the fanaticism of ~
his zeal for her regeneration could not toer- +
ate slow moderate methods. The nv
turies of cruelty and oppression must be ~
plated with blood. Murder, for the Cause,
he taught himself to regard as blessed and
holy thing; for only by such means, he be-
lieved. could the hearts of tyrants be opened
to admit the fear of God. When therefore,
the choice of the Revolutionary Council fell
him for the great task of the moment, he gla
The iron Somaliev, Governor of Kief was to be blow
to pieces before the gates of his palace.
Duboff ready for his orders In premontion
such great business being committed to his car
thS he had chi how Of
years, school in England and such of his propert
as he had not devoted to the Cause he had put int
English securities. The childs future would be SAT
There nothing more to tie him. His love for tt
motherless boy for the moment withered in tt
white flame of his exaltation.
The good faith of Peter Duboff was above suspicion
in the eyes of his fellow fanatics, whose ever
breath was of conspiracy and distrust. Neverth
less the Red Committee took chances, even wit
Dubof. His every move decreed for him. He w;
bound by dreadful Oaths, which seemed to him, as
took them, chidshy futile, in the face of his ardo
And he menaced with the fate that would fall upo
him and upon his child if he should play false nenac
that it seemed not worth his while to hear.
SOmallev was from the North, stranger to Kief. +
did not know his palace so we'll as he shou
have known it. But the committee knew it very we
indeed. And it came about that just at the no,
when the Governor, who was punctuality itself an
needless of all precaution, should driving up
his gates Duboff, with his deadly picrc bomb Tin tt
form of book under his arm, lettering throue
the shrubbery behind the iron ratings The fact tn;
the explosion would probably destroy not only SOM
liev's coachman and footman but uncertain numb
of bystanders well, seemed to DUBOIS zeal but
necessary and unmportant incident in the DISCIPLINE
of tyrants.
He cool STEEL Even when, at distance
perhaps hundred yards from the gate the coach brol
down through wheel coming off, he not dsturbe
He the tall, white haired, uniformed figure
Somaiev disengage itself from the ruin and stride in
patiently toward the gate.
Somalev was angry at the accident which Shove