82 MYSTIC ISLES 



of money, — thousands, — and I went along, smuggled 

 into the South by an underground road." 



Stroganoff threw away the shreds of tobacco, now a 

 mere fiery wafer that threatened his mouth's seine of 

 silver strands. He put his hand in his Prince Albert 

 and scratched his stomach. 



"Mr. Stroganoff," I queried, with a moral tide rising, 

 "how could you join in a life-and-death issue hke that 

 of the Civil War, and kill men without hatred of their 

 cause in your heart? '* 



He patted my shoulder. 



"My dear young American," he replied, "you join 

 anything, even a sheriff's posse, into which you are 

 di'agged, and have a bullet from the other side slit your 

 ear, or a round shot bang against your deck, and you '11 

 soon convince yourself that you are in the right, or, any- 

 way, that your adversary is a scoundrel. I handled a 

 gun on the Merrimac in Hampton Roads when that 

 cheese-box of a Monitor rattled her solid shot on our 

 slippery sides. I was two years in that damned un- 

 civil War, and as I started on the Southern side, I 

 stayed on it. I left the navy to go with John ^losby 

 and burn houses. When the war was over, and I re- 

 covered from my wound, I went to 'Frisco and crossed 

 to Siberia, and thus back to Moscow. No, I never was 

 an exile in Siberia or in a Russian prison. I knew and 

 worked for the leaders of the old Nihilists. I was with 

 them till I knew them, and then I saw they were selfish 

 and fakers. I knew the socialist chiefs in France and 

 Germany, the fathers of the present movement there. I 

 was red-hot for the cause until I knew them, and I 

 quit." 



