they do to her behind those marble walls? Did you fiddle for her?
What was she when they let her go? My pretty little Anna! The fires
of hell for those damned green stones of yours, Stefani! She heard
of them and wanted to see them, and you promised."

"I? I never promised Anna! . . . So that was it? Boris, I only
saw her there. I never knew what brought her. But the boy was in
England then."

"The breed, the breed!" roared the squat man. "Ha, but you should
have seen! Those gay officers and their damned master - we left
them with their faces in the mud, Stefani; in the mud! And the
women begged. Fine music! Those proud hearts, begging Boris Karlov
for their lives - their faces in the mud! You, born of us in those
Astrakhan Hills, you denied us because you liked your fiddle and
a full belly, and to play keeper of those emeralds. The winding
paths of torture and misery and death by which they came into the
possession of that house! And always the proletariat has had to pay
in blood and daughters. You, of the people, to betray us!"

"I did not betray you. I only tried to save those who had been
kind to me."

A cunning light shot into Karlov's eyes. "The emeralds!" He struck
his pocket. "Here, Stefani; and they shall be broken up to buy bread
for our people."

"That poor boy! So he brought them! What are you going to do with
me?"