Chapter Twenty.The Land of No Return.The day had been grey and dispiriting, the open windswept landscape a great limitless expanse of newly-fallen snow of dazzling whiteness—the same cheerless wintry tundra over which I had been travelling by sledge for the past four weary weeks to that everlasting jingle of harness-bells.My companion, the police-agent Petrakoff, a smart, alert young man, wrapped to the tip of his nose in reindeer furs, was asleep by my side; and I, too, had been dozing, worn out by that fifteen hundred miles of road since leaving the railway at Ekaterinburg.Suddenly I was awakened by Vasilli, our yamshick, a burly, bearded, unkempt ruffian in shabby furs, who, pointing with his whip to the grey far-off horizon, shouted:“Tomsk! Tomsk! Look, Excellency!”Straining my tired eyes, I discerned upon the far skyline a quantity of low, snow-covered, wood-built houses from which rose the pointed cupolas of several churches.Yonder was the end of the first stage of my long journey. So I awoke Petrakoff, and for the next half-hour we sat with eyes fixed eagerly upon our goal, where we hoped to revel in the luxury of a hotel after a month of those filthy stancias or povarnias, the vermin-infested rests for travellers on the Great Post Road of Siberia.The first sod of the great Trans-Siberian railway had already been cut by the Tzarevitch at Tcheliabyisk, but no portion of the line was at that time complete. Therefore all traffic across Asia, both travellers and merchandise, including the tea-caravans from China, passed along that great highway, the longest in the world.Six weeks had elapsed since I had left the Emperor’s presence, and I had accomplished by rail and road a distance of two thousand four hundred miles.Since I had left the railway at Ekaterinburg I had only rested for a single night on two occasions, at Tiumen and at Tobolsk.At the former place I made my first acquaintance with the inhuman exile system, for moored in the river Obi I saw several of those enormous floating gaols, in which the victims of Russia’s true oppressor were transporteden routeto the penal settlements of the Far East—great double-decked barges, three hundred feet long, with a lower hold below the main deck. Along two-thirds of the barge’s length ran an iron cage, reaching from the lower to the upper deck-cover, and having the appearance of a great two-storied tiger’s cage. Eight of them were moored alongside the landing-stage. Five of them were crowded by wretched prisoners, each barge containing from four to five hundred persons of both sexes and the Cossack guards—a terrible sight indeed.Provided as I was with an Imperial permit and a doubly-stamped road-passport that directed all keepers of post-stations to provide me with the mail horses, and give me the right of way on the Post Road, I had set forth again after a day’s rest towards Tobolsk.The first snow had fallen on the third day after leaving Tiumen, and the country, covered by its white mantle, presented always a dreary aspect, rendered drearier and more dispiriting by the gangs of wretched exiles which we constantly overtook.Men, women, and children in companies from a hundred to three hundred, having left the barges, were marching forward to that far-off bourne whence none would ever return. They, indeed, presented a woeful spectacle, mostly of the criminal classes, all their heads being half, or clean-shaven. The majority of the men were in chains, and many were linked together. Not a few of the women marched among the men as prisoners, while the rest trudged along into voluntary exile, holding the hands of their husbands, brothers, lovers or children. Some of the sick, aged and young were in springless carts, but all the others toiled onward through the snow like droves of cattle, bent to the icy blast, a grey-clad, silent crowd, guarded by a dozen Cossacks, with an officer taking his ease in a tarantass in the rear.Once we met a family of Jews—husband, wife and two children—in a tarantass, with a Cossack with bayonet fixed alongside. We stopped to change horses with them, as we were then midway between post-stations. The man, a bright, intelligent, middle-aged fellow, addressed us in French, and said he had been a wealthy fur merchant in Nijni Novgorod, but was exiled to the Yenisei country simply because he was a Jew. His eyes were clouded with regret at the bitter consciousness of his captivity. Four thousand of his townsmen had, he said, emigrated to England and America, and then pointing to his pretty, delicate wife and two chubby children, the tears rolled down his cheeks, as he faltered out: “Siberie!” Poor fellow!That word had all the import of a hell to many—many more than him.The distance between relays on the Great Post Road was, we found, from sixteen to thirty versts, and the speed of fresh horses about ten versts an hour.Vasilli, the ugly bearded yamshick who had lost one eye, we had engaged in Tiumen, and he had contracted to drive me during the whole of my journey. He was a sullen fellow, who said little, but on finding that I was travelling with an Imperial permit, his chief delight was to hustle up the master of each post-station and threaten to report to the Governor of the province if I, the Excellency, were kept waiting for a single instant.Usually, changing operations at the stations occupied anything from forty minutes to two hours, according to the temper or trickishness of the post-horse keeper and his grooms, for they were about the meanest set of knaves and rogues on the face of Asia. Yet sight of my permit caused them all to tremble and cringe and hustle, and I certainly could not complain of any undue delay.We had set out in a tarantass from Tiumen—the town from which the Imperial courier had despatched the order to the various Governors—but as soon as the snow came I purchased a big sledge, and in this we managed to travel with far greater comfort over the snow than by cart over the deeply-rutted road.None can know the terrible monotony of Siberian travel save those who have endured it.Nowadays one can cover Siberia from the frontier to far Vladivostock in fifteen days in a luxurious drawing-room car, with restaurant and sleeping-berth, a bath-room and a piano, the line running for the most part near the Old Post Road. But leave the railway and strike north or south, and the same terrible greyness and monotony will grip your senses and depress you as perhaps no other journey in the world can do.It was dusk when at last we sped, our runners hissing over the frozen snow, into the wood-built town of Tomsk, and alighted at the Hotel Million, a dismal place with corridors long and dark, and bedroom doors fastened by big iron padlocks and hasps! The full-bearded proprietor wandered along with an enormous bunch of keys, opening the doors and exhibiting his uninviting apartments; and at first I actually believed that Vasilli had mistaken my order and driven to a Siberian prison instead of conducting me to a hotel.Upstairs, however, the rooms were much better. But there were no washing arrangements whatever, or mattresses or bedding; for every traveller in Siberia is expected to carry his own pillows and bedclothes. Here, however, we put up and ate our evening meal in true Siberian style—a single tough beefsteak—simply that and nothing more.Afterwards I drove through the snowy, unlighted streets to the Governor’s palace, a long, log-built place, and on giving my name to the Cossack sentry at the door he at once saluted. Apparently he had been warned of my coming. So had the servants, for with much bowing and grave ceremony I was shown along a corridor lit by petroleum lamps to a small reception-room at the farther end.The furniture was of the cheap, gaudy character which in England would speak mutely of the hire-system. But it had, no doubt, come from Petersburg at enormous cost of transit, and was perhaps the best and most luxurious furniture—it was covered with red embossed velvet—in all Siberia.Scarcely was I afforded time to look round the close, overheated place with its treble windows, when General Tschernaieff, a rather short, white-haired, pleasant-featured man in a green uniform, with the Cross of St. Anne at his throat, entered, greeting me warmly and expressing a hope that I had had a pleasant journey.“I received word of your coming. Mr Trewinnard, some weeks ago,” His Excellency said rather pompously. “I am commanded to treat you as a guest of my Imperial Master. Therefore you will, I hope, be my guest here in the palace.”I told him that I already had quarters at the Hotel Million, whereupon he laughed, saying:“I fear that you will find it very rough and uncouth after hotels in Petersburg or in your own London.”I replied that as a constant traveller, and one who had knocked about in all corners of the world, I was used to roughing it. Then, after he had offered me a cigarette, and a lean manservant, who, I afterwards learned, was an ex-convict, had brought us each a glass of champagne, I explained to him the object of my visit.“Madame Marya de Rosen and her daughter Luba de Rosen, politicals,” repeated His Excellency, as though speaking to himself. “Of course, sir, as you know, all prisoners, both criminal or political, pass through the forwarding-prison here. It is myself who decides to which settlement they shall be sent. But—well, there are so many that the Chief of the Police puts the lists before me and I sign them away to Nerchinsk, to Yakutsk, to Sredne Kolimsk, to Verkhoiansk, to Udinsk, or wherever it may be. Their names, I fear, I never notice. I have sent some politicals recently up to Parotovsk, fifty versts north of Yakutsk. The two prisoners may have been among them.”“Here, I suppose, they lose their identity, do they not?” I asked, looking at the white-headed official who governed that great Asiatic province. He was sixty-five, he had told me, and had served twenty-seven years in Siberia.“Yes. Only across the road in the archives of the forwarding-prison are their names kept. When they leave Tomsk they are known in future—until their death, indeed—only by a registered number.”Then, rising, the white-headed Governor rang a bell, and on his secretary, a young Cossack captain, entering, he gave him certain instructions to go across to the prison and obtain the registers of prisoners during the previous month.Afterwards, he stretched himself out in his long chair, smoking and asking me questions concerning myself and the object of my journey.As soon as he learned that I was a British diplomat and personal friend of His Majesty, his manner became much more cordial, and he declared himself ready to do everything in his power to bring my mission to a successful issue.Presently the secretary returned, carrying two large registers and accompanied by a tall, dark-bearded man in uniform and wearing a decoration, who I learned was the governor of the prison.He saluted His Excellency on entering the room, and said in Russian:“Your Excellency is, I believe, inquiring regarding the prisoner Marya de Rosen, widow, of Petersburg, deported by administrative order?”“Yes,” said the General. “Where has she been sent, and what is her number?”“She was the woman about whom we received special instructions from the Ministry of Police in Petersburg, Your Excellency will remember,” replied the prison governor.“Special instructions!” I echoed, interrupting. “What were they?”But His Excellency, after a moment’s reflection, said: “Ah! I now remember! Of course. There was a note upon the papers in General Markoff’s own handwriting to the effect that she was a dangerous person.”“Yes. She was one of those when your Excellency sent to Parotovsk,” remarked the prison governor.“To Parotovsk!” I echoed. “That is beyond Yakutsk—two thousand five hundred miles from here—far in the north, and one of the most dreaded of all the settlements!”“All penal settlements are dreaded, I fear,” remarked His Excellency, blowing the cigarette smoke from his lips. Then, turning to the prison governor, he inquired under what number the prisoner was registered.On referring to one of the books the officer declared Madame to be now known as “Number 14956” and her daughter as “Number 14957.”I took a note of the numbers, protesting to His Excellency:“But to compel delicate ladies to walk that great distance in the winter is surely a sentence of death!”“And if the politicals die, the State has fewer responsibilities,” he remarked. “As you see, we have received notification from Petersburg that your lady friend was a dangerous person. Now, of dangerous persons we take very special care.” Then, turning to the prison governor, he asked: “How did they go?”“By tarantass. Excellency. They were in too weak a state to walk, especially the elder prisoner. I doubt, indeed, if ever they will reach Parotovsk.”“And if they don’t it will perhaps be the better for both of them,” His Excellency remarked with a sigh, rising and casting his cigarette-end into the pan of the round iron stove. He was a stiff, unbending official and ruled the province with a ruthless hand, but at heart he often evinced sympathy with the female exiles.“Were they very ill?” I inquired quickly of the prison governor.“They were very exhausted and complained to me of ill-treatment by their guards,” he answered. “But if we investigated every complaint we should have more than sufficient to do.”“How long ago did they leave here?”“About two months,” was the man’s reply. “The elder prisoner implored to be sent to the Trans-Baikal, where the climate is not so rigorous as in the north, and this would probably have been done had it not been for the special memorandum of His Excellency General Markoff.”“Then he suggested her being sent to the Yakutsk settlement—in fact, to her death—eh?” I asked.His Excellency replied:“That seems so. The prisoners have already been on their way two months, at first by tarantass and now, no doubt, by sled. There were fifteen others, nine men and six women—all dangerous politicals, I see,” he added, glancing at the order which he had signed and was now produced by the prison governor. “If it is your intention to travel and overtake them, then I fear your journey will be futile.”“Why?” I asked.“Because I expect that long before you reach them their dead bodies will have been left upon the road,” replied His Excellency. “Politicals who die here in Siberia, and especially those marked as dangerous, are not mourned, I assure you.”“There was, if I remember aright, a telegram to Your Excellency from General Markoff regarding prisoners of that name only three days ago,” remarked the Cossack captain. “It inquired whether you knew if Madame de Rosen were still alive.”“Ah, yes, I remember. And I replied that I had no knowledge,” the General said.I was silent. My heart stood still.By the fact of that telegraphic inquiry I knew that Markoff was, as I feared, aware of my journey. He would most certainly prevent my overtaking her—or, if not, he would, no doubt, contrive to seal her lips by death ere I could reach her.
The day had been grey and dispiriting, the open windswept landscape a great limitless expanse of newly-fallen snow of dazzling whiteness—the same cheerless wintry tundra over which I had been travelling by sledge for the past four weary weeks to that everlasting jingle of harness-bells.
My companion, the police-agent Petrakoff, a smart, alert young man, wrapped to the tip of his nose in reindeer furs, was asleep by my side; and I, too, had been dozing, worn out by that fifteen hundred miles of road since leaving the railway at Ekaterinburg.
Suddenly I was awakened by Vasilli, our yamshick, a burly, bearded, unkempt ruffian in shabby furs, who, pointing with his whip to the grey far-off horizon, shouted:
“Tomsk! Tomsk! Look, Excellency!”
Straining my tired eyes, I discerned upon the far skyline a quantity of low, snow-covered, wood-built houses from which rose the pointed cupolas of several churches.
Yonder was the end of the first stage of my long journey. So I awoke Petrakoff, and for the next half-hour we sat with eyes fixed eagerly upon our goal, where we hoped to revel in the luxury of a hotel after a month of those filthy stancias or povarnias, the vermin-infested rests for travellers on the Great Post Road of Siberia.
The first sod of the great Trans-Siberian railway had already been cut by the Tzarevitch at Tcheliabyisk, but no portion of the line was at that time complete. Therefore all traffic across Asia, both travellers and merchandise, including the tea-caravans from China, passed along that great highway, the longest in the world.
Six weeks had elapsed since I had left the Emperor’s presence, and I had accomplished by rail and road a distance of two thousand four hundred miles.
Since I had left the railway at Ekaterinburg I had only rested for a single night on two occasions, at Tiumen and at Tobolsk.
At the former place I made my first acquaintance with the inhuman exile system, for moored in the river Obi I saw several of those enormous floating gaols, in which the victims of Russia’s true oppressor were transporteden routeto the penal settlements of the Far East—great double-decked barges, three hundred feet long, with a lower hold below the main deck. Along two-thirds of the barge’s length ran an iron cage, reaching from the lower to the upper deck-cover, and having the appearance of a great two-storied tiger’s cage. Eight of them were moored alongside the landing-stage. Five of them were crowded by wretched prisoners, each barge containing from four to five hundred persons of both sexes and the Cossack guards—a terrible sight indeed.
Provided as I was with an Imperial permit and a doubly-stamped road-passport that directed all keepers of post-stations to provide me with the mail horses, and give me the right of way on the Post Road, I had set forth again after a day’s rest towards Tobolsk.
The first snow had fallen on the third day after leaving Tiumen, and the country, covered by its white mantle, presented always a dreary aspect, rendered drearier and more dispiriting by the gangs of wretched exiles which we constantly overtook.
Men, women, and children in companies from a hundred to three hundred, having left the barges, were marching forward to that far-off bourne whence none would ever return. They, indeed, presented a woeful spectacle, mostly of the criminal classes, all their heads being half, or clean-shaven. The majority of the men were in chains, and many were linked together. Not a few of the women marched among the men as prisoners, while the rest trudged along into voluntary exile, holding the hands of their husbands, brothers, lovers or children. Some of the sick, aged and young were in springless carts, but all the others toiled onward through the snow like droves of cattle, bent to the icy blast, a grey-clad, silent crowd, guarded by a dozen Cossacks, with an officer taking his ease in a tarantass in the rear.
Once we met a family of Jews—husband, wife and two children—in a tarantass, with a Cossack with bayonet fixed alongside. We stopped to change horses with them, as we were then midway between post-stations. The man, a bright, intelligent, middle-aged fellow, addressed us in French, and said he had been a wealthy fur merchant in Nijni Novgorod, but was exiled to the Yenisei country simply because he was a Jew. His eyes were clouded with regret at the bitter consciousness of his captivity. Four thousand of his townsmen had, he said, emigrated to England and America, and then pointing to his pretty, delicate wife and two chubby children, the tears rolled down his cheeks, as he faltered out: “Siberie!” Poor fellow!
That word had all the import of a hell to many—many more than him.
The distance between relays on the Great Post Road was, we found, from sixteen to thirty versts, and the speed of fresh horses about ten versts an hour.
Vasilli, the ugly bearded yamshick who had lost one eye, we had engaged in Tiumen, and he had contracted to drive me during the whole of my journey. He was a sullen fellow, who said little, but on finding that I was travelling with an Imperial permit, his chief delight was to hustle up the master of each post-station and threaten to report to the Governor of the province if I, the Excellency, were kept waiting for a single instant.
Usually, changing operations at the stations occupied anything from forty minutes to two hours, according to the temper or trickishness of the post-horse keeper and his grooms, for they were about the meanest set of knaves and rogues on the face of Asia. Yet sight of my permit caused them all to tremble and cringe and hustle, and I certainly could not complain of any undue delay.
We had set out in a tarantass from Tiumen—the town from which the Imperial courier had despatched the order to the various Governors—but as soon as the snow came I purchased a big sledge, and in this we managed to travel with far greater comfort over the snow than by cart over the deeply-rutted road.
None can know the terrible monotony of Siberian travel save those who have endured it.
Nowadays one can cover Siberia from the frontier to far Vladivostock in fifteen days in a luxurious drawing-room car, with restaurant and sleeping-berth, a bath-room and a piano, the line running for the most part near the Old Post Road. But leave the railway and strike north or south, and the same terrible greyness and monotony will grip your senses and depress you as perhaps no other journey in the world can do.
It was dusk when at last we sped, our runners hissing over the frozen snow, into the wood-built town of Tomsk, and alighted at the Hotel Million, a dismal place with corridors long and dark, and bedroom doors fastened by big iron padlocks and hasps! The full-bearded proprietor wandered along with an enormous bunch of keys, opening the doors and exhibiting his uninviting apartments; and at first I actually believed that Vasilli had mistaken my order and driven to a Siberian prison instead of conducting me to a hotel.
Upstairs, however, the rooms were much better. But there were no washing arrangements whatever, or mattresses or bedding; for every traveller in Siberia is expected to carry his own pillows and bedclothes. Here, however, we put up and ate our evening meal in true Siberian style—a single tough beefsteak—simply that and nothing more.
Afterwards I drove through the snowy, unlighted streets to the Governor’s palace, a long, log-built place, and on giving my name to the Cossack sentry at the door he at once saluted. Apparently he had been warned of my coming. So had the servants, for with much bowing and grave ceremony I was shown along a corridor lit by petroleum lamps to a small reception-room at the farther end.
The furniture was of the cheap, gaudy character which in England would speak mutely of the hire-system. But it had, no doubt, come from Petersburg at enormous cost of transit, and was perhaps the best and most luxurious furniture—it was covered with red embossed velvet—in all Siberia.
Scarcely was I afforded time to look round the close, overheated place with its treble windows, when General Tschernaieff, a rather short, white-haired, pleasant-featured man in a green uniform, with the Cross of St. Anne at his throat, entered, greeting me warmly and expressing a hope that I had had a pleasant journey.
“I received word of your coming. Mr Trewinnard, some weeks ago,” His Excellency said rather pompously. “I am commanded to treat you as a guest of my Imperial Master. Therefore you will, I hope, be my guest here in the palace.”
I told him that I already had quarters at the Hotel Million, whereupon he laughed, saying:
“I fear that you will find it very rough and uncouth after hotels in Petersburg or in your own London.”
I replied that as a constant traveller, and one who had knocked about in all corners of the world, I was used to roughing it. Then, after he had offered me a cigarette, and a lean manservant, who, I afterwards learned, was an ex-convict, had brought us each a glass of champagne, I explained to him the object of my visit.
“Madame Marya de Rosen and her daughter Luba de Rosen, politicals,” repeated His Excellency, as though speaking to himself. “Of course, sir, as you know, all prisoners, both criminal or political, pass through the forwarding-prison here. It is myself who decides to which settlement they shall be sent. But—well, there are so many that the Chief of the Police puts the lists before me and I sign them away to Nerchinsk, to Yakutsk, to Sredne Kolimsk, to Verkhoiansk, to Udinsk, or wherever it may be. Their names, I fear, I never notice. I have sent some politicals recently up to Parotovsk, fifty versts north of Yakutsk. The two prisoners may have been among them.”
“Here, I suppose, they lose their identity, do they not?” I asked, looking at the white-headed official who governed that great Asiatic province. He was sixty-five, he had told me, and had served twenty-seven years in Siberia.
“Yes. Only across the road in the archives of the forwarding-prison are their names kept. When they leave Tomsk they are known in future—until their death, indeed—only by a registered number.”
Then, rising, the white-headed Governor rang a bell, and on his secretary, a young Cossack captain, entering, he gave him certain instructions to go across to the prison and obtain the registers of prisoners during the previous month.
Afterwards, he stretched himself out in his long chair, smoking and asking me questions concerning myself and the object of my journey.
As soon as he learned that I was a British diplomat and personal friend of His Majesty, his manner became much more cordial, and he declared himself ready to do everything in his power to bring my mission to a successful issue.
Presently the secretary returned, carrying two large registers and accompanied by a tall, dark-bearded man in uniform and wearing a decoration, who I learned was the governor of the prison.
He saluted His Excellency on entering the room, and said in Russian:
“Your Excellency is, I believe, inquiring regarding the prisoner Marya de Rosen, widow, of Petersburg, deported by administrative order?”
“Yes,” said the General. “Where has she been sent, and what is her number?”
“She was the woman about whom we received special instructions from the Ministry of Police in Petersburg, Your Excellency will remember,” replied the prison governor.
“Special instructions!” I echoed, interrupting. “What were they?”
But His Excellency, after a moment’s reflection, said: “Ah! I now remember! Of course. There was a note upon the papers in General Markoff’s own handwriting to the effect that she was a dangerous person.”
“Yes. She was one of those when your Excellency sent to Parotovsk,” remarked the prison governor.
“To Parotovsk!” I echoed. “That is beyond Yakutsk—two thousand five hundred miles from here—far in the north, and one of the most dreaded of all the settlements!”
“All penal settlements are dreaded, I fear,” remarked His Excellency, blowing the cigarette smoke from his lips. Then, turning to the prison governor, he inquired under what number the prisoner was registered.
On referring to one of the books the officer declared Madame to be now known as “Number 14956” and her daughter as “Number 14957.”
I took a note of the numbers, protesting to His Excellency:
“But to compel delicate ladies to walk that great distance in the winter is surely a sentence of death!”
“And if the politicals die, the State has fewer responsibilities,” he remarked. “As you see, we have received notification from Petersburg that your lady friend was a dangerous person. Now, of dangerous persons we take very special care.” Then, turning to the prison governor, he asked: “How did they go?”
“By tarantass. Excellency. They were in too weak a state to walk, especially the elder prisoner. I doubt, indeed, if ever they will reach Parotovsk.”
“And if they don’t it will perhaps be the better for both of them,” His Excellency remarked with a sigh, rising and casting his cigarette-end into the pan of the round iron stove. He was a stiff, unbending official and ruled the province with a ruthless hand, but at heart he often evinced sympathy with the female exiles.
“Were they very ill?” I inquired quickly of the prison governor.
“They were very exhausted and complained to me of ill-treatment by their guards,” he answered. “But if we investigated every complaint we should have more than sufficient to do.”
“How long ago did they leave here?”
“About two months,” was the man’s reply. “The elder prisoner implored to be sent to the Trans-Baikal, where the climate is not so rigorous as in the north, and this would probably have been done had it not been for the special memorandum of His Excellency General Markoff.”
“Then he suggested her being sent to the Yakutsk settlement—in fact, to her death—eh?” I asked.
His Excellency replied:
“That seems so. The prisoners have already been on their way two months, at first by tarantass and now, no doubt, by sled. There were fifteen others, nine men and six women—all dangerous politicals, I see,” he added, glancing at the order which he had signed and was now produced by the prison governor. “If it is your intention to travel and overtake them, then I fear your journey will be futile.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I expect that long before you reach them their dead bodies will have been left upon the road,” replied His Excellency. “Politicals who die here in Siberia, and especially those marked as dangerous, are not mourned, I assure you.”
“There was, if I remember aright, a telegram to Your Excellency from General Markoff regarding prisoners of that name only three days ago,” remarked the Cossack captain. “It inquired whether you knew if Madame de Rosen were still alive.”
“Ah, yes, I remember. And I replied that I had no knowledge,” the General said.
I was silent. My heart stood still.
By the fact of that telegraphic inquiry I knew that Markoff was, as I feared, aware of my journey. He would most certainly prevent my overtaking her—or, if not, he would, no doubt, contrive to seal her lips by death ere I could reach her.
Chapter Twenty One.Hot Haste across Asia.I resolved to push forward in all haste and at all hazards. I lost no time.With only forty-eight hours’ stay at the wretched Hotel Million in Tomsk we went forth again, our faces set ever eastward on that wide, straight road which first runs direct for a hundred miles to Marinsk, a poor, log-built place with a dirty verminous post-station and an old postmaster who, when I presented my Imperial permit, sank upon his knees before me. Fortunately the mail was two days behind me, hence, at every stancia I was able to obtain the best horses, though it seemed part of Vasilli’s creed to curse and grumble at everything.With the snow falling continuously our journey was not so rapid as it had been to Tomsk. Winter had now set in with a vengeance, although it still wanted a few days to the English Christmas. Yet the journey from Marinsk to Krasnoyarsk, two hundred miles, was one of wondrous beauty. It was cold, horribly cold. Often I sat beside the sleepy Petrakoff cramped and shivering, even in my furs.But those deep, dark woods, with their little glimpses of blue sky; the dashing and jingling along under the low-reaching arms of the evergreen trees, league after league of the forest bowed down to the very earth and in places prostrated with its white weight of snow, the weird ride over hill and mountain, skirting ravine and precipice, the breaks along and across the numerous watercourses, over rude bridges or along deep gullies where rough wooden guards protect the sleds from disaster—with this quick succession of scenery, wild and strange, was I kept constantly awake and charmed.At the stancias we met the travelling merchants from the Far East and from China with their long train of goods hauled in sleds or packed on the backs of horses. Fivepood, we found, was the regulation load, and all packages were put up in drums bound with raw hide and so strapped that they could easily be transported by the pack-horse, which carried half a load on either side of a saddle-tree prepared for the purpose.But those stancias were filthy, overcrowded, evil-smelling places, wherein one laid in one’s sleeping-bags upon a bench amid a crowd of unwashed, vodka-drinking humanity in damp, noxious sheep-skins.Fortunately the moon was at that moment nearly full, and often at night I went forth alone to smoke, sometimes with the snowy plain stretched on every hand about me, and at others with gigantic peaks lifting their hoary heads far into the blue night vault of heaven; silent, frigid, white. Ah! what grandeur! I rejoiced that it was night, when I could smoke and ponder. So cold and still was it that those snowy summits, bathed in the silver radiance of the Siberian moon, filled me with awe such as I had never before experienced.Yes, those were wonderful nights which will live for ever in my memory—nights when my thoughts wandered far away to the gay promenade at Hove, wondering how fared the little madcap, and whether her peril were real or only imaginary.Ever obsessed by the knowledge that Markoff was aware of my journey, and would endeavour to prevent its successful issue, I existed in constant anxiety and dread lest some prearranged disaster might befall Madame de Rosen ere I could reach her.Siberia is, alas! the country where, as the exiles say: “God is nigh, and the Tzar is far away.”Thus, after three weeks more of hard travelling, I passed through the big, straggling, snow-covered town of Krasnoyarsk, and arrived at the wretchedly dirty stancia of Tulunovsk, where the road to Yakutsk—distant nearly two thousand miles—branches to the north from the Great Post Road, up the desolate valley of the Lena.We arrived in Tulunovsk in the afternoon, and, having sent a telegram to Her Highness from Krasnoyarsk, eight days before, I was delighted to receive a charming little message assuring me that she was quite well and wishing me a continuance of good fortune on my journey.Since I had left Tomsk no traveller had overtaken me. At Tulunovsk we found a party of politicals, about sixty men and women, in the roughly-constructed prison rest-house, being permitted a few days’ respite upon their long and weary march.Already they had been six months on the road, and were in a terrible condition, almost in rags, and most of them so weak that death would no doubt have been welcome.And these poor creatures were nearly all of them victims of the bogus plots of His Excellency General Markoff.To the Cossack captain in charge of the convoy I made myself known, and after taking tea with him I was permitted to go among the party and chat with them.One tall, thin-faced man, whose hair was prematurely grey, begged me to send a message back to his wife in Tver. He spoke French well, and told me his name was Epatchieff, and that he had been a doctor in practice in the town of Tver, between Moscow and Petersburg.“I am entirely ignorant of the reason I was arrested, m’sieur,” he declared, hitching his ragged coat about him. “I have not committed any crime, or even belonged to any secret society. Perhaps the only offence was my marrying the woman I loved. Who knows?” and the sad-eyed man, whose life held more of sorrow in it than most men, went on to say:“I had been attending the little daughter of the local chief of the police for a week, but she had recovered so far that I did not consider a further visit was necessary. One morning, six months ago, I was surprised to receive a visit from the police officer’s Cossack, who demanded my presence at once at the house of his master, as the child had been seized with another attack. I told him I would go after breakfast as the matter was serious. But the Cossack insisted that I should go at once, so I agreed and went forth. Outside, the Cossack told me that I must first go to the police office, and, of course, I went wonderingly, never dreaming for a moment that anything was wrong. So I was ushered into the office, where the chief of police told me that I was a prisoner. ‘A body of exiles are ready to start for Siberia,’ said the heartless brute, ‘and you will go with them.’ I laughed—it was a good joke, but the chief of police assured me that it was a solemn fact. I was completely dumbfounded. I begged for a delay in my transportation. Why was I deprived of my liberty? Who was my accuser? What was the accusation? But I got no answer save ‘administrative order.’“I begged to be allowed to revisit my house under guard, to procure necessary articles of clothing—to say farewell to my young wife. But the scoundrel denied me everything. I waited in anguish, but they placed me in solitary confinement to await the departure of the convoy, and in six hours I was on my way here—to this living tomb!”Of course the poor fellow was half crazed. What would become of his young wife—what would she think of him? A thousand thoughts and suspicions racked his mind, and he had already lived through an age of torture, as his whitening head plainly showed.At my suggestion he wrote a letter to his wife informing her of his fate, and using my authority as guest of His Imperial Majesty I took it, and, in due course, posted it back to Russia.Not until three years afterwards did I learn the tragic sequel. The poor young lady received my letter, and as quickly as she could set out to join him in his exile. With womanly wit she managed to apprise him of her coming and a light broke in upon his grief. He had been sent to Irkutsk, and daily, hourly he looked and longed for her. Yet just as he knew she must arrive, he was suddenly sent far away to the most northerly Arctic settlement of Sredne Kolimsk.The poor young lady, filled with sweet sympathy and expectation, hoping to find him in Irkutsk, arrived there a fortnight too late. Imagine her anguish when, having travelled over four thousand miles of the worst country on the fact; of the world, she learned the cruel news. Still three thousand miles distant! But she set out to find him. Alas! however, it was too much for her. She lost her reason, raved for a little while under restraint and died at the roadside.Is it any wonder that there were in Russia real revolutionists, revolting not against their Tzar, but against the inhuman system of the camarilla?Petrakoff and I spent a sleepless night in that rat-eaten post-house where the food was bad, and our beds consisted only of a wooden bench. We had as companions half a dozen drivers, who had come with a big tea-caravan from China, ragged, unwashed, uncouth fellows in evil-smelling furs.Indeed the air was so thick and intolerable that at two o’clock in the morning I took my sleeping-bag outside and lay in the sled, in preference to staying in that vermin-infested hut.Next morning, the twenty-second of January, I signed the postmaster’s book as soon as it grew light, and with three fresh horses approved of by Vasilli, we were away, leaving the Great Post Road and striking north along the Lena.From that moment we entered an uninhabited country, the snowy dreariness of which was indescribable, and as day succeeded day and we pushed further north the climate became more rigorous, until it was no unusual thing to have great icicles hanging from one’s moustache.One day, a week after leaving Tulunovsk, we passed through an entirely deserted village of low-built huts. I asked Vasilli the reason that no one lived there.“This is a bad place, Excellency,” was the fellow’s reply. “All the people died of smallpox six months ago.”And so we went on and on, and ever onward. Sometimes we would travel the whole twenty-four hours rather than rest in those horrible post-houses, and on such journeys we often covered one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty versts, changing horses every twenty to thirty versts.We covered seven hundred and fifty miles to Dubrovsk in sixteen days, and here, at the post-house, we met a party of Cossacks coming south after taking a convoy of prisoners to Olekminsk—half-way between Dubrovsk and Yakutsk—and handing them over to the guard sent south to meet them.While taking our evening tea I chatted with the Cossack captain, a big, muscular giant in knee-boots who sat with his legs outstretched on the dirty floor, leaning his back against the high brick stove.I was making inquiries regarding the prisoners he had recently brought up, whereupon he said:“They were a batch of politicals from Tomsk. Poor devils, they’ve been sent to Parotovsk—and there’s smallpox there. I suppose General Tschernaieff has sent them there on purpose that they shall become infected and die. Politicals are often sent into an infected settlement.”“To Parotovsk!” I gasped, for it suddenly occurred to me that the woman of whom I was in search might be of that party!And then I breathlessly inquired if Madame de Rosen, Political Number 14956, had been with them.“She and her daughter were ill, and were allowed a sled,” I added.“There were two ladies, Excellency, mother and daughter. One was about forty, and the other about eighteen. They came from Petersburg, and were, I believe, well connected and moved in the best society.”“You do not know their names?” I asked anxiously.“Unfortunately, no,” was his reply. “Only the numbers. I believe the lady’s number was that which you mentioned. She was registered, however, as a dangerous person.”“No doubt the same!” I cried. “How is she?”“When they left Olekminsk she was very weak and ill,” he replied. “Indeed, I recollect remarking to my lieutenant that I feared she would never reach Yakutsk.”“How far are they ahead of us?” I inquired eagerly. The bearded man reflected for some minutes, making mental calculations. “They left Olekminsk a fortnight ago, therefore by this they should be nearing Yakutsk.”“And how long will it take me to reach Yakutsk?” I asked.He again made a calculation and at last replied:“By travelling hard, Excellency, you should reach Yakutsk, I think, in twenty-five to twenty-seven days. It would be impossible before, I fear, owing to the heavy snowdrifts and the bad state of the roads.”“Twenty-seven days!” I echoed. “And before I can reach there the ladies will already be inmates of that infected settlement of Parotovsk—the place to which they have been sent to sicken and die!”“She was marked as ‘dangerous,’ Excellency. She would therefore be sent north at once, without a doubt. Persons marked as ‘dangerous’ are never permitted to remain in Yakutsk.”Could I reach her in time? Could I save her?
I resolved to push forward in all haste and at all hazards. I lost no time.
With only forty-eight hours’ stay at the wretched Hotel Million in Tomsk we went forth again, our faces set ever eastward on that wide, straight road which first runs direct for a hundred miles to Marinsk, a poor, log-built place with a dirty verminous post-station and an old postmaster who, when I presented my Imperial permit, sank upon his knees before me. Fortunately the mail was two days behind me, hence, at every stancia I was able to obtain the best horses, though it seemed part of Vasilli’s creed to curse and grumble at everything.
With the snow falling continuously our journey was not so rapid as it had been to Tomsk. Winter had now set in with a vengeance, although it still wanted a few days to the English Christmas. Yet the journey from Marinsk to Krasnoyarsk, two hundred miles, was one of wondrous beauty. It was cold, horribly cold. Often I sat beside the sleepy Petrakoff cramped and shivering, even in my furs.
But those deep, dark woods, with their little glimpses of blue sky; the dashing and jingling along under the low-reaching arms of the evergreen trees, league after league of the forest bowed down to the very earth and in places prostrated with its white weight of snow, the weird ride over hill and mountain, skirting ravine and precipice, the breaks along and across the numerous watercourses, over rude bridges or along deep gullies where rough wooden guards protect the sleds from disaster—with this quick succession of scenery, wild and strange, was I kept constantly awake and charmed.
At the stancias we met the travelling merchants from the Far East and from China with their long train of goods hauled in sleds or packed on the backs of horses. Fivepood, we found, was the regulation load, and all packages were put up in drums bound with raw hide and so strapped that they could easily be transported by the pack-horse, which carried half a load on either side of a saddle-tree prepared for the purpose.
But those stancias were filthy, overcrowded, evil-smelling places, wherein one laid in one’s sleeping-bags upon a bench amid a crowd of unwashed, vodka-drinking humanity in damp, noxious sheep-skins.
Fortunately the moon was at that moment nearly full, and often at night I went forth alone to smoke, sometimes with the snowy plain stretched on every hand about me, and at others with gigantic peaks lifting their hoary heads far into the blue night vault of heaven; silent, frigid, white. Ah! what grandeur! I rejoiced that it was night, when I could smoke and ponder. So cold and still was it that those snowy summits, bathed in the silver radiance of the Siberian moon, filled me with awe such as I had never before experienced.
Yes, those were wonderful nights which will live for ever in my memory—nights when my thoughts wandered far away to the gay promenade at Hove, wondering how fared the little madcap, and whether her peril were real or only imaginary.
Ever obsessed by the knowledge that Markoff was aware of my journey, and would endeavour to prevent its successful issue, I existed in constant anxiety and dread lest some prearranged disaster might befall Madame de Rosen ere I could reach her.
Siberia is, alas! the country where, as the exiles say: “God is nigh, and the Tzar is far away.”
Thus, after three weeks more of hard travelling, I passed through the big, straggling, snow-covered town of Krasnoyarsk, and arrived at the wretchedly dirty stancia of Tulunovsk, where the road to Yakutsk—distant nearly two thousand miles—branches to the north from the Great Post Road, up the desolate valley of the Lena.
We arrived in Tulunovsk in the afternoon, and, having sent a telegram to Her Highness from Krasnoyarsk, eight days before, I was delighted to receive a charming little message assuring me that she was quite well and wishing me a continuance of good fortune on my journey.
Since I had left Tomsk no traveller had overtaken me. At Tulunovsk we found a party of politicals, about sixty men and women, in the roughly-constructed prison rest-house, being permitted a few days’ respite upon their long and weary march.
Already they had been six months on the road, and were in a terrible condition, almost in rags, and most of them so weak that death would no doubt have been welcome.
And these poor creatures were nearly all of them victims of the bogus plots of His Excellency General Markoff.
To the Cossack captain in charge of the convoy I made myself known, and after taking tea with him I was permitted to go among the party and chat with them.
One tall, thin-faced man, whose hair was prematurely grey, begged me to send a message back to his wife in Tver. He spoke French well, and told me his name was Epatchieff, and that he had been a doctor in practice in the town of Tver, between Moscow and Petersburg.
“I am entirely ignorant of the reason I was arrested, m’sieur,” he declared, hitching his ragged coat about him. “I have not committed any crime, or even belonged to any secret society. Perhaps the only offence was my marrying the woman I loved. Who knows?” and the sad-eyed man, whose life held more of sorrow in it than most men, went on to say:
“I had been attending the little daughter of the local chief of the police for a week, but she had recovered so far that I did not consider a further visit was necessary. One morning, six months ago, I was surprised to receive a visit from the police officer’s Cossack, who demanded my presence at once at the house of his master, as the child had been seized with another attack. I told him I would go after breakfast as the matter was serious. But the Cossack insisted that I should go at once, so I agreed and went forth. Outside, the Cossack told me that I must first go to the police office, and, of course, I went wonderingly, never dreaming for a moment that anything was wrong. So I was ushered into the office, where the chief of police told me that I was a prisoner. ‘A body of exiles are ready to start for Siberia,’ said the heartless brute, ‘and you will go with them.’ I laughed—it was a good joke, but the chief of police assured me that it was a solemn fact. I was completely dumbfounded. I begged for a delay in my transportation. Why was I deprived of my liberty? Who was my accuser? What was the accusation? But I got no answer save ‘administrative order.’
“I begged to be allowed to revisit my house under guard, to procure necessary articles of clothing—to say farewell to my young wife. But the scoundrel denied me everything. I waited in anguish, but they placed me in solitary confinement to await the departure of the convoy, and in six hours I was on my way here—to this living tomb!”
Of course the poor fellow was half crazed. What would become of his young wife—what would she think of him? A thousand thoughts and suspicions racked his mind, and he had already lived through an age of torture, as his whitening head plainly showed.
At my suggestion he wrote a letter to his wife informing her of his fate, and using my authority as guest of His Imperial Majesty I took it, and, in due course, posted it back to Russia.
Not until three years afterwards did I learn the tragic sequel. The poor young lady received my letter, and as quickly as she could set out to join him in his exile. With womanly wit she managed to apprise him of her coming and a light broke in upon his grief. He had been sent to Irkutsk, and daily, hourly he looked and longed for her. Yet just as he knew she must arrive, he was suddenly sent far away to the most northerly Arctic settlement of Sredne Kolimsk.
The poor young lady, filled with sweet sympathy and expectation, hoping to find him in Irkutsk, arrived there a fortnight too late. Imagine her anguish when, having travelled over four thousand miles of the worst country on the fact; of the world, she learned the cruel news. Still three thousand miles distant! But she set out to find him. Alas! however, it was too much for her. She lost her reason, raved for a little while under restraint and died at the roadside.
Is it any wonder that there were in Russia real revolutionists, revolting not against their Tzar, but against the inhuman system of the camarilla?
Petrakoff and I spent a sleepless night in that rat-eaten post-house where the food was bad, and our beds consisted only of a wooden bench. We had as companions half a dozen drivers, who had come with a big tea-caravan from China, ragged, unwashed, uncouth fellows in evil-smelling furs.
Indeed the air was so thick and intolerable that at two o’clock in the morning I took my sleeping-bag outside and lay in the sled, in preference to staying in that vermin-infested hut.
Next morning, the twenty-second of January, I signed the postmaster’s book as soon as it grew light, and with three fresh horses approved of by Vasilli, we were away, leaving the Great Post Road and striking north along the Lena.
From that moment we entered an uninhabited country, the snowy dreariness of which was indescribable, and as day succeeded day and we pushed further north the climate became more rigorous, until it was no unusual thing to have great icicles hanging from one’s moustache.
One day, a week after leaving Tulunovsk, we passed through an entirely deserted village of low-built huts. I asked Vasilli the reason that no one lived there.
“This is a bad place, Excellency,” was the fellow’s reply. “All the people died of smallpox six months ago.”
And so we went on and on, and ever onward. Sometimes we would travel the whole twenty-four hours rather than rest in those horrible post-houses, and on such journeys we often covered one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty versts, changing horses every twenty to thirty versts.
We covered seven hundred and fifty miles to Dubrovsk in sixteen days, and here, at the post-house, we met a party of Cossacks coming south after taking a convoy of prisoners to Olekminsk—half-way between Dubrovsk and Yakutsk—and handing them over to the guard sent south to meet them.
While taking our evening tea I chatted with the Cossack captain, a big, muscular giant in knee-boots who sat with his legs outstretched on the dirty floor, leaning his back against the high brick stove.
I was making inquiries regarding the prisoners he had recently brought up, whereupon he said:
“They were a batch of politicals from Tomsk. Poor devils, they’ve been sent to Parotovsk—and there’s smallpox there. I suppose General Tschernaieff has sent them there on purpose that they shall become infected and die. Politicals are often sent into an infected settlement.”
“To Parotovsk!” I gasped, for it suddenly occurred to me that the woman of whom I was in search might be of that party!
And then I breathlessly inquired if Madame de Rosen, Political Number 14956, had been with them.
“She and her daughter were ill, and were allowed a sled,” I added.
“There were two ladies, Excellency, mother and daughter. One was about forty, and the other about eighteen. They came from Petersburg, and were, I believe, well connected and moved in the best society.”
“You do not know their names?” I asked anxiously.
“Unfortunately, no,” was his reply. “Only the numbers. I believe the lady’s number was that which you mentioned. She was registered, however, as a dangerous person.”
“No doubt the same!” I cried. “How is she?”
“When they left Olekminsk she was very weak and ill,” he replied. “Indeed, I recollect remarking to my lieutenant that I feared she would never reach Yakutsk.”
“How far are they ahead of us?” I inquired eagerly. The bearded man reflected for some minutes, making mental calculations. “They left Olekminsk a fortnight ago, therefore by this they should be nearing Yakutsk.”
“And how long will it take me to reach Yakutsk?” I asked.
He again made a calculation and at last replied:
“By travelling hard, Excellency, you should reach Yakutsk, I think, in twenty-five to twenty-seven days. It would be impossible before, I fear, owing to the heavy snowdrifts and the bad state of the roads.”
“Twenty-seven days!” I echoed. “And before I can reach there the ladies will already be inmates of that infected settlement of Parotovsk—the place to which they have been sent to sicken and die!”
“She was marked as ‘dangerous,’ Excellency. She would therefore be sent north at once, without a doubt. Persons marked as ‘dangerous’ are never permitted to remain in Yakutsk.”
Could I reach her in time? Could I save her?
Chapter Twenty Two.In the Night.From that day and through twenty-two other dark, weary days of the black frosts of mid-winter, we travelled onward, ever onward. Sometimes we crossed the limitless snow-covered tundra, sometimes we went down into the deep valley of the frozen Lena river, changing horses every thirty versts and signing the post-horse keeper’s greasy road-book.At every stage I produced my Imperial permit, and at almost every station the ignorant peasant who kept it fell upon his knees in deep obeisance to the guest of the great Tzar.We were now, however, off the main road, for this highway to the far-off Arctic settlements, used almost solely by the convict convoys, ran for a thousand miles through a practically uninhabited country, the only sign of civilisation being the never-ending telegraph-line which we followed, and the lonely post-stations half-buried in the snow.Ah! those long, anxious days of icy blasts and whirling snow blizzards. My companion and I, wrapped to our eyes in furs, sat side by side often dozing for hours, our ears tired of that irritating jingle of the sled-bells, our limbs cramped and benumbed, and often ravenously hungry, for the rough fare at the post-house was very frequently uneatable.For six dark days we met not a single soul upon the road, save a party of Cossacks coming south. But from them I could obtain no news of the last batch of “politicals” who had travelled north, and whom we were following in such hot haste.Again I telegraphed to Hartwig in Brighton, telling him of my whereabouts, and obtaining a reply from him that Her Highness was still well and sent me her best wishes.That in itself was reassuring.Hard travel and bad food told, I think, upon both of us. Petrakoff dearly wished himself back in his beloved Petersburg again. Yet our one-eyed half-Tartar driver seemed quite unconscious of either cold or fatigue. The strain of driving so continuously—sometimes for twenty hours out of the twenty-four—must have been terrible. But he was ever imperious in his dealings at post-stations, ever loud in his commands to the cringing owners of those log-built huts to bring out their best trio of horses, ever yelling to the fur-clad grooms not to keep His Excellency waiting on pain of terrible punishment.Thus through those short, dark winter days, and often through the long, steely nights, ever following those countless telegraph-poles, we went on—ever onward—until we found ourselves in a small wretched little place of log-built houses called Olekminsk. Upon my travelling map, as indeed upon every map of Siberia, it is represented in capitals as an important place. So I expected to find at least a town—perhaps even a hotel. Instead, I discovered it to be a mere wretched hamlet, with a post-house, and a wood-built prison for the reception of “politicals.”We arrived at midnight. In the common room of the post-house, around which earth and snow had been banked to keep out the cold, was a high brick stove, and around the walls benches whereon a dozen wayfarers like ourselves were wrapped in their evil-smelling furs, and sleeping. The odour as I entered the place was foetid; the dirt indescribable. One shaggy peasant, in heavy top-boots and fur coat, had imbibed too much vodka, and had become hilarious, whereat one of the sleepers, suddenly awakened, threw a top-boot at him across the room, narrowly missing my head.The post-house keeper, as soon as he saw my permit, sent a man to the local chief of police, a stout, middle-aged man, who appeared on the scene in his hastily-donned uniform and who invited me to his house close by. There I questioned him regarding the political prisoners, “Numbers 14956 and 14957.”Having read my permits—at which he was visibly impressed when he saw the signature of the Emperor himself—he hastened to obtain his register. Presently he said:“The two ladies you mention have passed through this prison, Excellency. I see a note that both are dangerous ‘politicals,’ and that the elder lady was rather weak. Judging from the time when they left, they are, I should say, already in Yakutsk—or even beyond.”“From what is she suffering?” I asked eagerly.“Ah! Excellency, I cannot tell that,” was his reply. “All I know is that the captain of Cossacks who came down from Yakutsk to meet the convoy considered that being a dangerous political, she was sufficiently well to walk with the others. So she has gone on foot the remainder of the journey. She arrived her in a sled.”“On foot!” I echoed. “But she is ill—dying, I was told.”The chief of police shrugged his shoulders and said with a sigh:“I fear. Excellency, that the lady was somewhat unfortunate. That particular captain is not a very humane person—particularly where a dangerous prisoner is concerned.”“Then to be marked as ‘dangerous’ means that the prisoner is to be treated with brutality—eh?” I cried. “Is that Russian justice?”“We do not administer justice here in Siberia, Excellency,” was the man’s quiet reply. “They do that in Petersburg.”“But surely it is a scandal to put a sick woman on the road and compel her to walk four hundred miles in this weather,” I cried angrily.“Alas! That is not my affair,” replied the man. “I am merely chief of police of this district and governor of theétape. The captain of Cossacks has entire charge of the prisoners on their journey.”What he had told me maddened me. In all that I heard I could plainly detect the sinister hand of General Markoff.Indeed, when I carefully questioned this official, I felt convinced that the captain in question had received instructions direct from Petersburg regarding Madame de Rosen. The chief of police admitted to me that to the papers concerning the prisoners there had been attached a special memorandum from Petersburg concerning Madame and her daughter.I smoked a cigarette with him and drank a cup of tea—China tea served with lemon. Then I was shown to a rather poorly-furnished but clean bedroom on the ground floor, where I turned in.But no sleep came to my eyes. Such hard travelling through all those weeks had shattered my nerves.While the bright northern moon streamed in through the uncurtained window, I lay on my back, pondering. I reflected upon all the past, the terrible fate of Madame and her daughter, the strange secret she evidently held, and the peril of the Emperor himself, so helpless in the hands of that circle of unscrupulous sycophants, and, further, of my little madcap friend, so prone to flirtation, the irrepressible Grand Duchess Natalia.I reviewed all the exciting events of those many months which had elapsed since the last Court ball of the season at Petersburg—events which I have attempted to set down in the foregoing pages—and I was held in fear that my long journey might be in vain—that ere I could catch up with the poor wretched woman who, though ill, had been compelled to perform that last and most arduous stage of the journey through the snow, she would, alas! be no longer alive. The vengeance of her enemy Markoff would have fallen upon her.A sense of indescribable oppression, combined with the hot closeness of the room, stifled me. For hours I lay awake, the moonlight falling full upon my head. At last, however, I must have dropped off to sleep, fagged out after twenty hours of those jingling bells and hissing of the sled-runners over the frozen snow.A sense of coldness awakened me, and opening my eyes I saw, to my surprise, though the room was practically in darkness with only the reflected light of the snow, that the small treble window stood open. It had certainly been tightly closed when I had entered there.I raised my eyes to peer into the darkness for the atmosphere, which when I had gone to sleep was stifling on account of the iron stove, was now at zero. Suddenly I caught sight of a dark figure moving noiselessly near where I lay. A thief had entered by the window! He seemed to be searching the pockets of my coat, which I had flung carelessly upon a chair. Surely he was a daring thief to thus enter the house of the chief of police! But in Siberia there are many escaped convicts roaming about the woods. They are called “cuckoos,” on account of their increase in the spring and their return to the prisons when starved out in winter.A “cuckoo” is always a criminal and always desperate. He must have money and food, and he dare not go near a village, as there is a price on his head. Therefore, he will not hesitate to murder a lonely traveller if by so doing he thinks he can secure a passport which will permit him to leave Siberia and re-enter European Russia, back to freedom. Some Siberian roads are in summer infested with such gentry, but winter always drives them back to the towns, and consequently into prison again. Only a very few manage to survive the rigours of the black frosts of the Siberian winter.Rather more amused than alarmed, I lay watching the dark figure engaged in rifling my pockets. I was contemplating the best method by which to secure him and hand him over to the mercies of my host. A sudden thought struck me. Unfortunately, being guest in the house of the chief of police I had left my revolver in the sled. I never slept at a post-house without it. But that night I was unarmed.Those moments of watching seemed hours. The man, whoever he was, was tall and slim, though of course I could not see his face. I held my breath. He was securing my papers and my money! Yet he did it all so very leisurely that I could not help admiring his pluck and confounded coolness.I hesitated a few seconds and then at last I summoned courage to act. I resolved to suddenly spring up and throw myself upon him, so that he would be prevented from jumping out of the window with my property.But while I was thus making up my mind how to act, the mysterious man suddenly left the chair where my coat had been lying, and turning, came straight towards me, advancing slowly on tip-toe. Apparently he was not desirous of rousing me.Once again I waited my opportunity to spring upon him, for he fortunately was not yet aware that I was awake and watching him.I held my breath, lying perfectly motionless, for, advancing to me, he bent over as though to make absolutely certain that I slept. I tried to distinguish his face, but in the shadow that was impossible.I could hear my own heart beating.He seemed to be peering down at me, as though in curiosity, and I was wondering what could be his intentions, now that he had secured both my money and my papers.Suddenly ere I could anticipate his intention, his hand was uplifted, and falling, struck me a heavy blow in the side of the neck just beneath the left jaw.Instantly I felt a sharp burning pain and a sensation as of the running of warm liquid over my shoulders.Then I knew that the fluid was blood!I had been stabbed in the side of the throat!I shrieked, and tried to spring fiercely upon my assailant, but he was too quick for me.My eager hand grasped his arm, but he wrenched himself free, and next instant had vaulted lightly through the open window and had disappeared.And as for myself, I gave vent to a loud shriek for help, and then sank inertly back, next second losing consciousness.The man had escaped with all my precious permits, signed by the Emperor, as well as my money!My long journey was now most certainly a futile one. Without those Imperial permits I was utterly helpless. I should not, indeed, be allowed to speak with Madame de Rosen, even though I succeeded in finding her alive.My loss was irreparable, for it had put an end to my self-imposed mission.Such were the thoughts which ran through my overstrung brain at the moment when the blackness of insensibility fell upon me, blotting out both knowledge of the present and apprehension of the future.
From that day and through twenty-two other dark, weary days of the black frosts of mid-winter, we travelled onward, ever onward. Sometimes we crossed the limitless snow-covered tundra, sometimes we went down into the deep valley of the frozen Lena river, changing horses every thirty versts and signing the post-horse keeper’s greasy road-book.
At every stage I produced my Imperial permit, and at almost every station the ignorant peasant who kept it fell upon his knees in deep obeisance to the guest of the great Tzar.
We were now, however, off the main road, for this highway to the far-off Arctic settlements, used almost solely by the convict convoys, ran for a thousand miles through a practically uninhabited country, the only sign of civilisation being the never-ending telegraph-line which we followed, and the lonely post-stations half-buried in the snow.
Ah! those long, anxious days of icy blasts and whirling snow blizzards. My companion and I, wrapped to our eyes in furs, sat side by side often dozing for hours, our ears tired of that irritating jingle of the sled-bells, our limbs cramped and benumbed, and often ravenously hungry, for the rough fare at the post-house was very frequently uneatable.
For six dark days we met not a single soul upon the road, save a party of Cossacks coming south. But from them I could obtain no news of the last batch of “politicals” who had travelled north, and whom we were following in such hot haste.
Again I telegraphed to Hartwig in Brighton, telling him of my whereabouts, and obtaining a reply from him that Her Highness was still well and sent me her best wishes.
That in itself was reassuring.
Hard travel and bad food told, I think, upon both of us. Petrakoff dearly wished himself back in his beloved Petersburg again. Yet our one-eyed half-Tartar driver seemed quite unconscious of either cold or fatigue. The strain of driving so continuously—sometimes for twenty hours out of the twenty-four—must have been terrible. But he was ever imperious in his dealings at post-stations, ever loud in his commands to the cringing owners of those log-built huts to bring out their best trio of horses, ever yelling to the fur-clad grooms not to keep His Excellency waiting on pain of terrible punishment.
Thus through those short, dark winter days, and often through the long, steely nights, ever following those countless telegraph-poles, we went on—ever onward—until we found ourselves in a small wretched little place of log-built houses called Olekminsk. Upon my travelling map, as indeed upon every map of Siberia, it is represented in capitals as an important place. So I expected to find at least a town—perhaps even a hotel. Instead, I discovered it to be a mere wretched hamlet, with a post-house, and a wood-built prison for the reception of “politicals.”
We arrived at midnight. In the common room of the post-house, around which earth and snow had been banked to keep out the cold, was a high brick stove, and around the walls benches whereon a dozen wayfarers like ourselves were wrapped in their evil-smelling furs, and sleeping. The odour as I entered the place was foetid; the dirt indescribable. One shaggy peasant, in heavy top-boots and fur coat, had imbibed too much vodka, and had become hilarious, whereat one of the sleepers, suddenly awakened, threw a top-boot at him across the room, narrowly missing my head.
The post-house keeper, as soon as he saw my permit, sent a man to the local chief of police, a stout, middle-aged man, who appeared on the scene in his hastily-donned uniform and who invited me to his house close by. There I questioned him regarding the political prisoners, “Numbers 14956 and 14957.”
Having read my permits—at which he was visibly impressed when he saw the signature of the Emperor himself—he hastened to obtain his register. Presently he said:
“The two ladies you mention have passed through this prison, Excellency. I see a note that both are dangerous ‘politicals,’ and that the elder lady was rather weak. Judging from the time when they left, they are, I should say, already in Yakutsk—or even beyond.”
“From what is she suffering?” I asked eagerly.
“Ah! Excellency, I cannot tell that,” was his reply. “All I know is that the captain of Cossacks who came down from Yakutsk to meet the convoy considered that being a dangerous political, she was sufficiently well to walk with the others. So she has gone on foot the remainder of the journey. She arrived her in a sled.”
“On foot!” I echoed. “But she is ill—dying, I was told.”
The chief of police shrugged his shoulders and said with a sigh:
“I fear. Excellency, that the lady was somewhat unfortunate. That particular captain is not a very humane person—particularly where a dangerous prisoner is concerned.”
“Then to be marked as ‘dangerous’ means that the prisoner is to be treated with brutality—eh?” I cried. “Is that Russian justice?”
“We do not administer justice here in Siberia, Excellency,” was the man’s quiet reply. “They do that in Petersburg.”
“But surely it is a scandal to put a sick woman on the road and compel her to walk four hundred miles in this weather,” I cried angrily.
“Alas! That is not my affair,” replied the man. “I am merely chief of police of this district and governor of theétape. The captain of Cossacks has entire charge of the prisoners on their journey.”
What he had told me maddened me. In all that I heard I could plainly detect the sinister hand of General Markoff.
Indeed, when I carefully questioned this official, I felt convinced that the captain in question had received instructions direct from Petersburg regarding Madame de Rosen. The chief of police admitted to me that to the papers concerning the prisoners there had been attached a special memorandum from Petersburg concerning Madame and her daughter.
I smoked a cigarette with him and drank a cup of tea—China tea served with lemon. Then I was shown to a rather poorly-furnished but clean bedroom on the ground floor, where I turned in.
But no sleep came to my eyes. Such hard travelling through all those weeks had shattered my nerves.
While the bright northern moon streamed in through the uncurtained window, I lay on my back, pondering. I reflected upon all the past, the terrible fate of Madame and her daughter, the strange secret she evidently held, and the peril of the Emperor himself, so helpless in the hands of that circle of unscrupulous sycophants, and, further, of my little madcap friend, so prone to flirtation, the irrepressible Grand Duchess Natalia.
I reviewed all the exciting events of those many months which had elapsed since the last Court ball of the season at Petersburg—events which I have attempted to set down in the foregoing pages—and I was held in fear that my long journey might be in vain—that ere I could catch up with the poor wretched woman who, though ill, had been compelled to perform that last and most arduous stage of the journey through the snow, she would, alas! be no longer alive. The vengeance of her enemy Markoff would have fallen upon her.
A sense of indescribable oppression, combined with the hot closeness of the room, stifled me. For hours I lay awake, the moonlight falling full upon my head. At last, however, I must have dropped off to sleep, fagged out after twenty hours of those jingling bells and hissing of the sled-runners over the frozen snow.
A sense of coldness awakened me, and opening my eyes I saw, to my surprise, though the room was practically in darkness with only the reflected light of the snow, that the small treble window stood open. It had certainly been tightly closed when I had entered there.
I raised my eyes to peer into the darkness for the atmosphere, which when I had gone to sleep was stifling on account of the iron stove, was now at zero. Suddenly I caught sight of a dark figure moving noiselessly near where I lay. A thief had entered by the window! He seemed to be searching the pockets of my coat, which I had flung carelessly upon a chair. Surely he was a daring thief to thus enter the house of the chief of police! But in Siberia there are many escaped convicts roaming about the woods. They are called “cuckoos,” on account of their increase in the spring and their return to the prisons when starved out in winter.
A “cuckoo” is always a criminal and always desperate. He must have money and food, and he dare not go near a village, as there is a price on his head. Therefore, he will not hesitate to murder a lonely traveller if by so doing he thinks he can secure a passport which will permit him to leave Siberia and re-enter European Russia, back to freedom. Some Siberian roads are in summer infested with such gentry, but winter always drives them back to the towns, and consequently into prison again. Only a very few manage to survive the rigours of the black frosts of the Siberian winter.
Rather more amused than alarmed, I lay watching the dark figure engaged in rifling my pockets. I was contemplating the best method by which to secure him and hand him over to the mercies of my host. A sudden thought struck me. Unfortunately, being guest in the house of the chief of police I had left my revolver in the sled. I never slept at a post-house without it. But that night I was unarmed.
Those moments of watching seemed hours. The man, whoever he was, was tall and slim, though of course I could not see his face. I held my breath. He was securing my papers and my money! Yet he did it all so very leisurely that I could not help admiring his pluck and confounded coolness.
I hesitated a few seconds and then at last I summoned courage to act. I resolved to suddenly spring up and throw myself upon him, so that he would be prevented from jumping out of the window with my property.
But while I was thus making up my mind how to act, the mysterious man suddenly left the chair where my coat had been lying, and turning, came straight towards me, advancing slowly on tip-toe. Apparently he was not desirous of rousing me.
Once again I waited my opportunity to spring upon him, for he fortunately was not yet aware that I was awake and watching him.
I held my breath, lying perfectly motionless, for, advancing to me, he bent over as though to make absolutely certain that I slept. I tried to distinguish his face, but in the shadow that was impossible.
I could hear my own heart beating.
He seemed to be peering down at me, as though in curiosity, and I was wondering what could be his intentions, now that he had secured both my money and my papers.
Suddenly ere I could anticipate his intention, his hand was uplifted, and falling, struck me a heavy blow in the side of the neck just beneath the left jaw.
Instantly I felt a sharp burning pain and a sensation as of the running of warm liquid over my shoulders.
Then I knew that the fluid was blood!
I had been stabbed in the side of the throat!
I shrieked, and tried to spring fiercely upon my assailant, but he was too quick for me.
My eager hand grasped his arm, but he wrenched himself free, and next instant had vaulted lightly through the open window and had disappeared.
And as for myself, I gave vent to a loud shriek for help, and then sank inertly back, next second losing consciousness.
The man had escaped with all my precious permits, signed by the Emperor, as well as my money!
My long journey was now most certainly a futile one. Without those Imperial permits I was utterly helpless. I should not, indeed, be allowed to speak with Madame de Rosen, even though I succeeded in finding her alive.
My loss was irreparable, for it had put an end to my self-imposed mission.
Such were the thoughts which ran through my overstrung brain at the moment when the blackness of insensibility fell upon me, blotting out both knowledge of the present and apprehension of the future.
Chapter Twenty Three.Identification!When again I opened my eyes it was to find a lamp being held close to my face, and a man who apparently possessed a knowledge of surgery—a political exile from Moscow, who had been a doctor, I afterwards discovered—was carefully bathing my wound.Beside him stood two Cossacks and the chief of police himself. All were greatly agitated that an attack should have been made upon a man who was guest to His Imperial Majesty, their Master.To my host’s question I described in a few words what had occurred, and bewailed the loss of my papers and my money.“They are not lost,” he replied. “Fortunately the sentry outside heard your scream, and seeing the intruder emerge from the window and run, he raised his rifle and shot him.”“Killed him?” I asked.“Of course. He was an utter stranger in Olekminsk. Presently we shall discover who and what he is. Here are your papers,” he added, handing back the precious documents to me. “For the present the man’s body lies outside. Afterwards you shall see if you recognise him. From his passport his name would appear to be Gabrillo Passhin. Do you know anyone of that name?”“Nobody,” I replied, my brain awhirl with the crowded events of the past half-hour.I suppose it was another half-hour before the doctor, a grey-bearded, prematurely-aged man, finished bandaging my wound and strapping my left arm across my chest. Then, assisted by my host, I rose and went forth, led by men with lanterns, to where, in the snow, as he had fallen beneath the sentry’s bullet, lay the would-be assassin.They held their lanterns against the white, dead lace, but I did not recognise him. He seemed to be about thirty-five, with thin, irregular features and shaven chin. He was respectably dressed, while his hands were soft, betraying no evidence of manual labour. The features were perfectly calm, for death had been instantaneous, the bullet striking at the back of the skull.Near where he lay a small pool of blood showed dark against the snow.While we were examining the body, Petrakoff, whom I had sent for from the post-house, arrived in hot haste, and became filled with alarm when he saw my neck and arm enveloped in bandages.In a few words I told him what had occurred, and then advancing, he bent and looked upon my assailant’s face. He remained bent there for quite a couple of minutes. Then, straightening himself, he asked:“Does his passport give his name as Ivan Müller—or Gabrillo Passhin?”“You know him!” I gasped. “Who is he?”“Well,” he replied, “I happen to have rather good reason to know him. In Odessa he was chief of a desperate gang of bank-note forgers, who, after eluding us for two years, were at last arrested—six of them in Moscow. The seventh, who called himself Müller, escaped to Germany. A year ago he was bold enough to return to Petersburg, where I recognised him one day close to the Nicholas station and followed him to the house where he lodged. I entered there alone, very foolishly perhaps, whereupon he drew a revolver and fired point-blank at me. The bullet struck me in the right shoulder, but assistance was forthcoming, and he was arrested. His sentence about eleven months ago was confinement in the Fortress of Peter and Paul for fifteen years. So he must have escaped. Ah! he was one of the most daring, astute and desperate criminals in all Russia. At his trial he spat at the judge, and contemptuously declared that his friends would not allow him to be confined for very long.”“It seems that they have not,” I remarked thoughtfully. “The fact of his having dared to break into the house of the chief of police shows in itself the character of the man,” Petrakoff exclaimed. “I myself had a most narrow escape when I arrested him. But what was he doing here—in Siberia?”“He may have been exiled here and escaped,” remarked the chief of police, as we were returning to the bureau at the side of the house.“I hardly think that, Excellency,” interrupted a Cossack sergeant, who had just returned from the post-station, where he had been making inquiries. “We have just arrested a yamshick, who arrived with the assassin an hour after midnight. Here he is.”A moment later a big, red-faced, shaggy, vodka-drinking driver in ragged furs was brought into the bureau between two Cossacks, and at once interrogated by the chief of police.First he was taken out to view the body still lying in the snow; then brought back into the police office, a bare, wooden room, lit by a single petroleum lamp, and bearing on its walls posters of numbers of official regulations, each headed by the big black double eagle.“Now,” asked the chief of police, assuming an air of great severity, “where do you come from?”“Krasnoyarsk, Excellency,” answered the man gruffly.“What do you know of the individual you have just seen dead—eh?”“All I know of him, Excellency, is that he contracted with me to drive him to Yakutsk.”“Why? Was he quite alone?”“Yes, Excellency. He made me hurry, driving night and day sometimes, for he was overtaking a friend.”“What friend?”“Ah! I do not know. Only at each stancia, or povarnia, he inquired if an Englishman had passed. Therefore I concluded that it was an Englishman he was following.”Petrakoff, hearing the man’s words, looked meaningly towards me.“He was alone, you say?” I inquired. “Had he any friends in Krasnoyarsk, do you know?”“None that I know of. He had journeyed all the way from Petersburg, and he paid me well, because he was travelling so rapidly. We heard of the Englishman at a number of stancias, and have gradually overtaken him, until we found, on arrival here, that the friend he sought had only come in an hour before us. I heard the post-house keeper tell him so.”“Then he was following this mysterious Englishman—eh?” asked the chief of police, who had seated himself at his table with some officiousness before commencing the inquiry.“No doubt he was, Excellency. One day he told me that if he did not overtake the Englishman on his way to Yakutsk, he would remain and wait for his return.”Then I took a couple of steps forward to the official’s table and said:“I fear that I must be the Englishman whom this mysterious person has followed in such hot haste for nearly six thousand miles.”“So it seems. But why?” asked the chief of police. “I can see no reason why that escaped criminal should follow you with such sinister intent. You don’t know him?”“Not in the least. I have never even heard his name before.”“He was well supplied with money, it seems,” remarked my host. “This wallet found upon him contains over ten thousand roubles in notes, together with a credit upon the branch of the National Bank in Yakutsk for a further thirty thousand.” And he showed me a well-worn leather pocket-book, evidently of German manufacture.Both Petrakoff and myself knew only too well that this daring criminal had been released from that cold citadel in the Nevi and given money, promised a free pardon in all probability, if he followed me and at all hazards prevented me from obtaining an interview with the poor, innocent, suffering woman whose dastardly enemy had marked her “dangerous.”I was about to tell the while scandalous truth, but on second thought I saw that no good could be served. Therefore I held my tongue, and allowed the officials—for the starosti of the village had now arrived—regard the affair as a complete mystery.I had narrowly escaped death, the doctor had declared, and my friend, the chief of police of Olekminsk, kept the unfortunate yamshick under arrest while he reported the extraordinary affair to Yakutsk. He also confiscated the money found upon the man who had made that daring attack upon me.I could see he was secretly delighted that the criminal had been killed. What, I wondered, would have happened to him if I, a guest of His Imperial Majesty, had lost my life beneath his roof?The same thought apparently crossed his mind, for in those white winter days I was compelled to remain his guest, being unfit for travel on account of my wound, he many times referred to the narrow escape I had had.Petrakoff, on his part, related to us some astounding stories of the man, who hid been known to the coining and note-forging fraternity as Müller,aliasPasshin, the man who had at least three murders to his record.And this man was Markoff’s hireling! What, I wondered, was the actual price placed upon my head?For a whole week—seven weary days—I was compelled to remain there in Olekminsk. I wanted to push forward, but the exiled doctor would not allow it.There was a small and wretched colony of political exiles in the village, and I visited them. Fancy a poet andlittérateur, one of those rare Russian souls whose wonder-working effusions must ultimately enlighten and enfranchise the people—a Turgenieff—immured for life in that snowy desert. Yet in Olekminsk there was such a one. He lived in a wretched one-roomed, log-built cabin within a stone’s-throw of the house wherein I so nearly lost my life—a tall, alert, deep-eyed man, whom even the savagery of his surroundings could not dispirit or cool the ardour of his wonderful genius. From his prolific pen flowed a ceaseless stream of learning and of light; he wrote and wrote, and in this writing forgot his wrongs and sorrows. The authorities—the local officials who wield such autocratic authority in those parts—were overjoyed to see him in this mood. They fostered his rich whim, they encouraged him to write his books, the manuscripts of which they seized and sold in Petersburg and Berlin, Paris and London.Yet he lived in a smoky, wooden hovel, banked up by snow, and wrote his books upon a rough wooden bench, which was polished at the spot over which his forearm travelled with his pen.No exile, I found, was allowed to carry on any business, teach in a school, till the soil, labour at a trade, practise a profession, or engage in any work otherwise than through a master. If I wanted any service, an exile would sometimes come and offer to perform it, but I would have to pay his master, upon whose bounty he must depend for remuneration.The doctor, named Kasharofski who bandaged me was not a revolutionist, or at all intemperate in his political view’s. He was one of the thousands of Markoff’s victims sacrificed in order that the Chief of Secret Police should remain in favour with the Emperor. Therefore he was not in favour with many of his fellow-exiles, who held pronounced revolutionary views. He was on pleasant visiting terms with the chief of police, and I often went to his wretched, carpetless hut, around which were sleeping bunks, and spent many an hour with him listening to the cruel, inhuman wrong from which he had suffered at the hands of that marvellously alert organisation, the Secret Police.One grey, snowy afternoon, while I sat with him in his bare wooden hut, one room with benches around for beds, and he smoked a cigar I had given him, he burst forth angrily against the exile system, declaring: “The whole government is a monstrous mistake. Russia has been striding in vain to populate Siberia for a thousand years, but she will never succeed so long as she continues in her present policy of converting the land into a vast penitentiary wherein the prisoners are prevented from making an honest livelihood, and so driven, if criminals, to a further commission of crime. Beyond doubt there are rogues of the very worst type in Russia and Siberia, but certainly it is plain that their mode of punishment will never tend to elevate or reform them; further, it is utterly impossible that Siberia, under its present system of government, should ever be populated or improved, as have been the penal colonies of the French and English.”His words were, alas! too true. What I had seen of Siberia and its exile system—those terrible prisons where men and women were herded together and infected with typhoid and smallpox; those wretched hovels of the political settlement, and those chained gangs of despairing prisoners on the roads—had indeed filled me with horror. The condition of those exiles, both socially and morally, was utterly appalling.The day after my conversation with Doctor Kasharofski, after a week of irritating delay, in which every moment I feared that I was losing valuable time, I set forth again upon my last stage, the journey of four hundred miles of snow-covered tundra and forests of cheerless silver birch to Yakutsk.Did Madame de Rosen still live, or had Markoff taken good care that, even though I escaped the assassin’s knife, I should never meet her again in the flesh?Ay, that was the one important question. And my heart beat quickly as, bidding farewell to my hospitable friend, the chief of police, our three shaggy horses plunged jingling away into the snow.
When again I opened my eyes it was to find a lamp being held close to my face, and a man who apparently possessed a knowledge of surgery—a political exile from Moscow, who had been a doctor, I afterwards discovered—was carefully bathing my wound.
Beside him stood two Cossacks and the chief of police himself. All were greatly agitated that an attack should have been made upon a man who was guest to His Imperial Majesty, their Master.
To my host’s question I described in a few words what had occurred, and bewailed the loss of my papers and my money.
“They are not lost,” he replied. “Fortunately the sentry outside heard your scream, and seeing the intruder emerge from the window and run, he raised his rifle and shot him.”
“Killed him?” I asked.
“Of course. He was an utter stranger in Olekminsk. Presently we shall discover who and what he is. Here are your papers,” he added, handing back the precious documents to me. “For the present the man’s body lies outside. Afterwards you shall see if you recognise him. From his passport his name would appear to be Gabrillo Passhin. Do you know anyone of that name?”
“Nobody,” I replied, my brain awhirl with the crowded events of the past half-hour.
I suppose it was another half-hour before the doctor, a grey-bearded, prematurely-aged man, finished bandaging my wound and strapping my left arm across my chest. Then, assisted by my host, I rose and went forth, led by men with lanterns, to where, in the snow, as he had fallen beneath the sentry’s bullet, lay the would-be assassin.
They held their lanterns against the white, dead lace, but I did not recognise him. He seemed to be about thirty-five, with thin, irregular features and shaven chin. He was respectably dressed, while his hands were soft, betraying no evidence of manual labour. The features were perfectly calm, for death had been instantaneous, the bullet striking at the back of the skull.
Near where he lay a small pool of blood showed dark against the snow.
While we were examining the body, Petrakoff, whom I had sent for from the post-house, arrived in hot haste, and became filled with alarm when he saw my neck and arm enveloped in bandages.
In a few words I told him what had occurred, and then advancing, he bent and looked upon my assailant’s face. He remained bent there for quite a couple of minutes. Then, straightening himself, he asked:
“Does his passport give his name as Ivan Müller—or Gabrillo Passhin?”
“You know him!” I gasped. “Who is he?”
“Well,” he replied, “I happen to have rather good reason to know him. In Odessa he was chief of a desperate gang of bank-note forgers, who, after eluding us for two years, were at last arrested—six of them in Moscow. The seventh, who called himself Müller, escaped to Germany. A year ago he was bold enough to return to Petersburg, where I recognised him one day close to the Nicholas station and followed him to the house where he lodged. I entered there alone, very foolishly perhaps, whereupon he drew a revolver and fired point-blank at me. The bullet struck me in the right shoulder, but assistance was forthcoming, and he was arrested. His sentence about eleven months ago was confinement in the Fortress of Peter and Paul for fifteen years. So he must have escaped. Ah! he was one of the most daring, astute and desperate criminals in all Russia. At his trial he spat at the judge, and contemptuously declared that his friends would not allow him to be confined for very long.”
“It seems that they have not,” I remarked thoughtfully. “The fact of his having dared to break into the house of the chief of police shows in itself the character of the man,” Petrakoff exclaimed. “I myself had a most narrow escape when I arrested him. But what was he doing here—in Siberia?”
“He may have been exiled here and escaped,” remarked the chief of police, as we were returning to the bureau at the side of the house.
“I hardly think that, Excellency,” interrupted a Cossack sergeant, who had just returned from the post-station, where he had been making inquiries. “We have just arrested a yamshick, who arrived with the assassin an hour after midnight. Here he is.”
A moment later a big, red-faced, shaggy, vodka-drinking driver in ragged furs was brought into the bureau between two Cossacks, and at once interrogated by the chief of police.
First he was taken out to view the body still lying in the snow; then brought back into the police office, a bare, wooden room, lit by a single petroleum lamp, and bearing on its walls posters of numbers of official regulations, each headed by the big black double eagle.
“Now,” asked the chief of police, assuming an air of great severity, “where do you come from?”
“Krasnoyarsk, Excellency,” answered the man gruffly.
“What do you know of the individual you have just seen dead—eh?”
“All I know of him, Excellency, is that he contracted with me to drive him to Yakutsk.”
“Why? Was he quite alone?”
“Yes, Excellency. He made me hurry, driving night and day sometimes, for he was overtaking a friend.”
“What friend?”
“Ah! I do not know. Only at each stancia, or povarnia, he inquired if an Englishman had passed. Therefore I concluded that it was an Englishman he was following.”
Petrakoff, hearing the man’s words, looked meaningly towards me.
“He was alone, you say?” I inquired. “Had he any friends in Krasnoyarsk, do you know?”
“None that I know of. He had journeyed all the way from Petersburg, and he paid me well, because he was travelling so rapidly. We heard of the Englishman at a number of stancias, and have gradually overtaken him, until we found, on arrival here, that the friend he sought had only come in an hour before us. I heard the post-house keeper tell him so.”
“Then he was following this mysterious Englishman—eh?” asked the chief of police, who had seated himself at his table with some officiousness before commencing the inquiry.
“No doubt he was, Excellency. One day he told me that if he did not overtake the Englishman on his way to Yakutsk, he would remain and wait for his return.”
Then I took a couple of steps forward to the official’s table and said:
“I fear that I must be the Englishman whom this mysterious person has followed in such hot haste for nearly six thousand miles.”
“So it seems. But why?” asked the chief of police. “I can see no reason why that escaped criminal should follow you with such sinister intent. You don’t know him?”
“Not in the least. I have never even heard his name before.”
“He was well supplied with money, it seems,” remarked my host. “This wallet found upon him contains over ten thousand roubles in notes, together with a credit upon the branch of the National Bank in Yakutsk for a further thirty thousand.” And he showed me a well-worn leather pocket-book, evidently of German manufacture.
Both Petrakoff and myself knew only too well that this daring criminal had been released from that cold citadel in the Nevi and given money, promised a free pardon in all probability, if he followed me and at all hazards prevented me from obtaining an interview with the poor, innocent, suffering woman whose dastardly enemy had marked her “dangerous.”
I was about to tell the while scandalous truth, but on second thought I saw that no good could be served. Therefore I held my tongue, and allowed the officials—for the starosti of the village had now arrived—regard the affair as a complete mystery.
I had narrowly escaped death, the doctor had declared, and my friend, the chief of police of Olekminsk, kept the unfortunate yamshick under arrest while he reported the extraordinary affair to Yakutsk. He also confiscated the money found upon the man who had made that daring attack upon me.
I could see he was secretly delighted that the criminal had been killed. What, I wondered, would have happened to him if I, a guest of His Imperial Majesty, had lost my life beneath his roof?
The same thought apparently crossed his mind, for in those white winter days I was compelled to remain his guest, being unfit for travel on account of my wound, he many times referred to the narrow escape I had had.
Petrakoff, on his part, related to us some astounding stories of the man, who hid been known to the coining and note-forging fraternity as Müller,aliasPasshin, the man who had at least three murders to his record.
And this man was Markoff’s hireling! What, I wondered, was the actual price placed upon my head?
For a whole week—seven weary days—I was compelled to remain there in Olekminsk. I wanted to push forward, but the exiled doctor would not allow it.
There was a small and wretched colony of political exiles in the village, and I visited them. Fancy a poet andlittérateur, one of those rare Russian souls whose wonder-working effusions must ultimately enlighten and enfranchise the people—a Turgenieff—immured for life in that snowy desert. Yet in Olekminsk there was such a one. He lived in a wretched one-roomed, log-built cabin within a stone’s-throw of the house wherein I so nearly lost my life—a tall, alert, deep-eyed man, whom even the savagery of his surroundings could not dispirit or cool the ardour of his wonderful genius. From his prolific pen flowed a ceaseless stream of learning and of light; he wrote and wrote, and in this writing forgot his wrongs and sorrows. The authorities—the local officials who wield such autocratic authority in those parts—were overjoyed to see him in this mood. They fostered his rich whim, they encouraged him to write his books, the manuscripts of which they seized and sold in Petersburg and Berlin, Paris and London.
Yet he lived in a smoky, wooden hovel, banked up by snow, and wrote his books upon a rough wooden bench, which was polished at the spot over which his forearm travelled with his pen.
No exile, I found, was allowed to carry on any business, teach in a school, till the soil, labour at a trade, practise a profession, or engage in any work otherwise than through a master. If I wanted any service, an exile would sometimes come and offer to perform it, but I would have to pay his master, upon whose bounty he must depend for remuneration.
The doctor, named Kasharofski who bandaged me was not a revolutionist, or at all intemperate in his political view’s. He was one of the thousands of Markoff’s victims sacrificed in order that the Chief of Secret Police should remain in favour with the Emperor. Therefore he was not in favour with many of his fellow-exiles, who held pronounced revolutionary views. He was on pleasant visiting terms with the chief of police, and I often went to his wretched, carpetless hut, around which were sleeping bunks, and spent many an hour with him listening to the cruel, inhuman wrong from which he had suffered at the hands of that marvellously alert organisation, the Secret Police.
One grey, snowy afternoon, while I sat with him in his bare wooden hut, one room with benches around for beds, and he smoked a cigar I had given him, he burst forth angrily against the exile system, declaring: “The whole government is a monstrous mistake. Russia has been striding in vain to populate Siberia for a thousand years, but she will never succeed so long as she continues in her present policy of converting the land into a vast penitentiary wherein the prisoners are prevented from making an honest livelihood, and so driven, if criminals, to a further commission of crime. Beyond doubt there are rogues of the very worst type in Russia and Siberia, but certainly it is plain that their mode of punishment will never tend to elevate or reform them; further, it is utterly impossible that Siberia, under its present system of government, should ever be populated or improved, as have been the penal colonies of the French and English.”
His words were, alas! too true. What I had seen of Siberia and its exile system—those terrible prisons where men and women were herded together and infected with typhoid and smallpox; those wretched hovels of the political settlement, and those chained gangs of despairing prisoners on the roads—had indeed filled me with horror. The condition of those exiles, both socially and morally, was utterly appalling.
The day after my conversation with Doctor Kasharofski, after a week of irritating delay, in which every moment I feared that I was losing valuable time, I set forth again upon my last stage, the journey of four hundred miles of snow-covered tundra and forests of cheerless silver birch to Yakutsk.
Did Madame de Rosen still live, or had Markoff taken good care that, even though I escaped the assassin’s knife, I should never meet her again in the flesh?
Ay, that was the one important question. And my heart beat quickly as, bidding farewell to my hospitable friend, the chief of police, our three shaggy horses plunged jingling away into the snow.