Hearts in exile

CHAPTER XXIV

HOW THEY PREPARED TO GO WITH HIM

Hope had been busy during his absence. Marya Verskaïa had come in, and between them they had packed Hope's belongings into bundles, and spread out all Paul's for his decision as to what he would take and what leave behind.

The kind-hearted little chatterbox was loud in her lamentations over their sudden departure, and her ceaseless flow of talk was to Paul like the continuous dropping of small shot on a bared membrane of the brain.

He hastily selected the most necessary things, constantly forgetting that it was not to Yakutsk that he was going, but to freedom, where all things were obtainable, or to death, where nothing would be needed.

The philosophical paucity of his requirements astonished Marya Verskaïa not a little.

"But Serge Petrovitch," she would urge, time after time. "You will certainly need this at Yakutsk. There is nothing there, you know—absolutely nothing. You cannot possibly replace it."

"No, no. I shall not need it. I will do without it, Marya Stepanovna."

And—"His brain has given way," Marya would plaintively murmur.

"You will give that to Polokof, and this to Hugo Svendt, and this to Alexei Etelsky. I shall not require them, I assure you," as she held up remonstrative hands again. "Anna Roskova will do as she thinks fit with all the rest. Now I will see you home, or the police will think you have run away," for he knew that Hope's nerves must be as tremulous as his own, and that Marya's chatter must be jangling them in similar fashion.

Hope was still busy about the house on quite unnecessary work when he got back. She could not sit still for a moment. Her great eyes glowed luminously in their dark circles, in spite of their drooping lids.

She turned them on him full of anxious questioning as he came in.

He shook his head despondently. "I had no chance of speaking to him. Sokolof never left us for a moment."

But he said nothing of that fateful telegram. The load she carried was heavy enough already. Her strained, white face wrung his heart. If the sacrifice of his own life could have smoothed her way he would have given it, willingly and instantly. But he knew that it could not. It was to him that she looked now, and he must live for her, to defend her against the whole world, as he had pledged himself when he married her.

"Marya was driving me crazy with her babble," Hope said wearily. "But I could not get her to go. You are quite sure it is Serge, Paul?"

"Quite sure, Hope."

"Has he suffered much?"

"He looks gay and gallant, though I have no doubt he is as anxious as we are."

"It is surely a very dangerous thing he is doing."

"He is risking life and liberty. But he is a brave man. We must do nothing to add to his risk."

"I will be very careful."

"Will you not try to sleep for an hour or two, Hope? There will be no rest when once we start."

"Sleep! I could as soon think of dying as of sleeping. Which way do we go!"

"Up into the Yablonois. Then as Serge may have decided. He has thought out his plans without doubt."

"I will get ready the breakfast," she said, starting up again.

"It is only twelve o'clock yet," he said, with a wan smile.

"Well, some tea, then. One must do something. Will you not try to sleep? You look worn out."

"I could not sleep either. We will have some tea."

So they sat sipping their tea and making pretence to eat, and Hope jumped up every second minute to do some little job which did not need doing, and Pavlof's teeth ground silently at times, as he thought of that telegram speeding over the steppes, and the possible reply speeding back for their destruction. But he said no word of it to Hope, and when he had got his pipe fairly under way, and the soothing of the tea began to make itself felt, his wits settled down somewhat, and matters began to look more hopeful, as they sometimes have a way of doing when they have touched bottom.

He reproached himself as an ingrate for the feelings that would come uppermost in his heart. He tried his very hardest to feel grateful to Serge for his gallant remembrance of him. But he was painfully conscious of a dull sense of regret, of injury almost, at his having come back to life, and in so lively a fashion.

Far better if he had left them alone. But then he could not know that. He had gallantly done his best, and in return they were going to break his heart.

How would he take it? Hardly, hardly. How could it be otherwise? If only he could have had it all out with Serge before he and Hope met in the morning! But that had been impossible.

And it would be hard for Hope too. The sight of Serge's misery would be dreadful to her. The thought of it would darken her life.

But there was no escape from the coil. Explanations were impossible. Go they must, for Serge's life was at stake. But the thought of the explanations which must be made on the morrow hung upon him like a great black cloud.

Liberty was good, but the love and companionship of Hope Ivanovna were more to him than anything liberty could give him. With her he would have been content to spend the rest of his life at Kara. Content? Ay, happy beyond anything all the rest of the world could possibly hold for him. And now—their happy content must suffer shock and be strained through bitterness. It would survive the shock, if they themselves survived the dangers of the road they were about to travel, but it would always bear the imprint of it.

And, not without bitterness, he recognised all the irony of the position. How Serge was repaying him in kind, and most exactly, for the service he had once rendered him. For Hope Ivanovna's sake he had undertaken Palma's burden, and so, all unconsciously, had been the means of separating her and Serge. And now Palma had come, at risk of his life, to set him free, and, all unconsciously, was threatening the new happiness which had come to Hope and himself. It was a strange turn of the wheel, and there was no escape from it. He strove to be grateful, but found it well nigh impossible.

CHAPTER XXV

HOW THEY STRUCK A FRIEND

Pavlof's heart was beating wild alarms as he led Hope to police headquarters a little before eight the following morning. What would they find there, and how would Hope come through the ordeal? Had any answer come from St. Petersburg? Was Serge even now under arrest and this wild chance of liberty gone? Verily he wished the chance had never offered.

One false step, a look too much, and Serge was ruined beyond redemption, and he pressed Hope's arm tight inside his own to brace her for the test.

But as soon as they turned in through the big gate of the stockade, the sight of Colonel Zazarin's three-horse tarantas and a teléga, at the door of Sokolof's quarters, set his mind at rest.

So far no discovery had been made and all was well. He arranged the bundles in the tarantas to make as comfortable a seat as could be managed for Hope. He took her hand through his arm again for the crucial moment, and they stood waiting for Sokolof and Lieutenant Vinsky.

"Now," said Pavlof shortly, as they appeared in the doorway.

Hope shot one quick glance at Serge, and then her hand began to tremble violently on Paul's arm.

"Steady," he murmured, "it will be over in a minute," and Sokolof and Palma came towards them, saluting Madame as they came.

"So, Madame, you have decided to be courageous once more," said Sokolof.

She bowed, not daring to use her voice or raise her eyes.

"Well, that is as it should be. And be sure I shall do my utmost to shorten your trials."

"It is very good of you," she murmured.

"This is Lieutenant Vinsky." Hope bowed again. "He will provide for your comfort, as far as may be, on the journey, and you must remember that he is only carrying out his orders. Mr. Palma," he said, shaking hands with Pavlof, "I shall not forget what I owe to you, and I shall not rest till I get this abominable order annulled. Now, Vinsky is on tenterhooks to be gone. So— Adieu! Adieu, Madame!"

They settled Hope among her bundles in the tarantas, and Pavlof and the lieutenant disposed themselves as comfortably as circumstances would permit.

"If you get any reply to your telegram, Captain, you know our route," said Serge, leaning over the side.

"Do not fear. I shall send after you post haste if it is good news," said Sokolof.

Then the driver climbed to his seat, gathered up his reins, cracked his long lash over his horses' heads, shouted an encouraging "Noo-oo-oo!" and they started at a wild gallop for freedom.

The road was full of holes, and the holes were full of mud, and the mud from six madly spurning heels came flying past their heads, and Serge laughed gaily as he drew down the leather curtain in front. Then, with his face still lighted by a broad smile, and a blaze in his bold blue eyes, he turned to Hope, and took her hands in his and kissed them, gloves and all.

"Oh, Serge! Is it all real?" she cried, the words jerking out of her to the bumping of the tarantas, and she, all in a red heat of confusion, clinging tight to the side lest she should be thrown out of her seat. "Are you alive? Am I awake? Are we really going to freedom?"

"All those," he said, with a hearty laugh of enjoyment. "And you?—you had given me up?"

"Yes, we had given you up," she began, but came to a stop. For how was it possible to enter on explanations such as they had to make, when they were all three jumping in their places like marionettes, and their words were shot out of them like pellets, to the endangerment of their teeth.

"Serge!" began Pavlof, in the same difficult case. "We have much to tell you." He had to shout to get this out.

"So have I," jerked Serge, nodding and smiling happily still.

Paul shook his head. It was impossible. He clung to his seat with a grim face, not the face of a man rejoicing at his escape from prison, rather of one riding to trouble.

Serge glanced at him questioningly once or twice, but it was on Hope that his eyes turned most of the time, and he looked at her with the hungry gaze of a man who has been overlong deprived of his rightful food.

She found it hard to bear, and presently closed her eyes as though the bumping of the tarantas was painful to her.

They passed through Ust Kara at speed, and gained the posting road, and turned sharp to the east in the direction of Ignashina. The going was easier now, both as to speed and roadway, but Palma's jubilant smile had faded by degrees for lack of response, and a look of perplexity had taken its place.

There was something here which he did not understand, but nothing was further from his thoughts than the actual fact.

He had looked for triumphant jubilation at the success of his exploit. Instead, he found sober faces and quiet acquiescence, and nothing more. But he put it all down to the effects of Kara, and it was not till they drew up at the first post-house for change of horses that Paul found his opportunity.

"I must speak with you, Palma," he said, as they dismounted.

"Nu! We will go along the road," said Serge, with a look of surprise, but just then the teléga came lumbering up and its occupants jumped out and came towards them.

"Tea for the barina," shouted Serge to the post-master, and turned to meet the others.

They were bright-faced young fellows, clad in green Cossack uniforms, with bandoliers and Berdan rifles. They saluted gravely, each with one eye closed in a solemn wink, as they approached.

"Don't give yourselves away, my children!" said Palma. "Drivers have eyes, and these return to Kara. Pavlof, this is Loris Blok, and this Alex Rimof. They are from Moscow. Good boys both, and longing for a fight before we get through. We are going to walk on. You two see that Madame is attended to. Now, my friend!" and he and Paul turned and walked along the road.

They walked in silence for a time. Never had Paul faced a more difficult situation, and he scarcely knew how to begin.

"Well!" said Serge at last. "What is it?"

"I am going to bruise your heart, Serge Petrovitch. But you must hear the whole truth, and you must not judge us harshly."

Palma looked sharply round at him. His face crumpled perplexedly and the jovial light had fled from it. He was beginning to fear, if not to understand.

"For two whole years we had no news of you, except news of your death——"

"Ah!"

"Mikhail Barenin brought the first report. That was fourteen months ago. Then one, Felix Ostrog, came saying you were shot while trying to escape in his company near Tomsk. That was nearly twelve months ago."

"Go on!" said Palma grimly. He began to understand.

"Hope Ivanovna waited for news of you with a breaking heart——"

"I sent you word."

"It never reached us. Nothing but news of your death. I was Serge Palma. She was supposed to be my wife. Of her distress at finding me there instead of you, I need not tell you. She lived in my house with Madame Roskova, the wife of Dr. Feodor Roskof, who is at Yakutsk. I held myself aloof from her till she deemed me cold and hard. I did not tell her Barenin's news for three months after I had heard it, leaving her still the hope of your being alive. But the hope died, and she was in sore distress. When Ostrog came, saying he had seen you lying dead in the grass with a bullet through the head, we had no further hope of seeing you again. Before God, we believed you dead. My love for her was what it always had been. Before God, I would have died sooner than speak had I believed you still alive. You must believe me, Palma. She was in great distress and loneliness, and I loved her. She put me off for many months, still hoping against hope. And then——at last——we wedded——"

They had come to a stand long since and stood facing one another.

At the word, Palma's fist rose and dropped expressively, and his face tightened grimly. He turned and walked on without a word, and Pavlof followed.

They walked on and on. Would the carriages never come? Would Palma never speak? It seemed to Pavlof as if they might walk on so, in gloomy silence, for ever. But he had no words wherewith to break it. Of what avail words? He had struck this man over the heart, and he must have time to recover from the blow.

So, on and on, in a silence that was dreadful and seemed endless.

But all things come to an end, and at last they heard the carriages coming up the road behind them, and still Palma said no word of what was in him.

"Palma," said Paul, "do not break her heart. She has suffered enough. She is innocent of offence in this matter, as I am also. But, if you have anything to say, say it to me, here and now."

"There is nothing to say," said Serge with a groan. "It is the will of God. But it is hard to bear. She is all the world to me, Pavlof."

"God help us all!" said Paul, and the tarantas drove up.

They climbed silently to their places, and Hope's quick glance showed her that the story had been told. She had been very nervous as to the outcome. She was trembling now with anxiety as to what Serge would do, and how he would treat her.

He took her hand in his, and bent and kissed it, not with the quick passion of the former time, but reverently, as one kisses the hand of a dead love.

She burst into tears of relief and gratitude, and her fears were gone.

They were on the great Eastern road now, and speech was possible. And presently, when she had recovered her composure somewhat, he bent towards her and asked very gently—

"And—the child, Hope? What of it?"

"Ah! You have not heard, Serge?" The words came in a nervous torrent. "He died when he was three months old.—We did our best, Marya Ostronaya and I, but we could not keep him.—And truly, Serge, I was so broken with it all that I was glad when God took him. Did you not find Masha, then?"

"She died two months before I got there."

"Dear old Masha! She was very faithful. It broke her heart to be sent away, but I could not take her with me. Who told you I had come here, then?"

"Nobody. I knew you, that was enough. That was my only fear in getting away—that we might pass one another on the road."

"Then you did not know for certain till you got here?"

"Not till I got here. As soon as I heard that Madame Palma had come out to join her husband I put two and two together. I knew it must be you."

"And now—do you think it possible we can get clear away, Serge?"

"We will try for it anyway," he said valiantly.

"How do we go?" asked Pavlof.

"Up into the mountains to mislead them. Then down again to the Amur and the Vladivostok road."

"Won't that be dangerous?"

"Not for us. I have fresh papers, giving you your freedom and ordering me to see you safely out of Russian territory."

"You are well provided. How did you manage it?"

"You remember Egor Anenkof? He is employed in the Ministry of the Interior and is a most useful man. He has worked for years to get into his present position, with the sole object of being of service to his friends in trouble. Some day he will be found out and then he will come to the mines. However, there are others."

"Who are these two with you?" she asked.

"Loris Blok and Alex Rimof. They are from Moscow. I had to have orderlies. That was where Muishkin made his mistake. They are capital fellows and bold as lions. If it should come to a fight they will be delighted. In fact they will be somewhat disappointed if it does not, I'm afraid."

"Oh, I hope there is no chance of that," said Hope anxiously.

"We will hope not," said Palma, with a quick glance at Paul, which showed him that she had heard nothing of the telegram. "But if they should find out the trick and try to stop us we shall have—well, we shall have to argue the point."

CHAPTER XXVI

HOW THEY FOUGHT IN THE CLEFT

The route Palma had chosen, when at last they turned off the posting road, was a little-used track leading up into the Yablonois, rough travelling amid broken black hills, whose feet were sparsely clad with ancient growths of larch and fir, and their crests powdered with snow. At times the way led through dark defiles, with brawling streams gnashing sudden white teeth at them as they passed, and then they were crawling slowly over rugged humps of the hills, amid ever-increasing desolation and a loneliness that grew more and more profound.

Not one traveller did they encounter after quitting the main road. Only once, in a distant hollow, they caught a glimpse of the beasts and tents of some nomadic tribe, with thin blue wreaths of smoke hanging over them. But these were the only signs of humanity; they conveyed no sense of friendliness and served only to accentuate the surrounding loneliness.

Twice they had changed horses and drivers at lonely little posting stations, and had obtained welcome cups of hot tea and such coarse eatables as the places afforded. But the tea atoned for all shortcomings, and, apart from other matters, they were all in hopeful spirits at the success which had attended their risky adventure so far.

Palma indeed kept a cautious eye on the rear whenever they topped a point of vantage. And Blok and Rimof, bumping merrily along in the teléga some distance behind the tarantas, had their faces turned hopefully over their shoulders most of the time.

While the stout little horses scrambled painfully up the rocky ways, the travellers in the tarantas talked quietly at times of the past, and more briefly of the future. Serge told them shortly of his first escape and recapture, and of his final escape after another change of names at Tomsk. He congratulated himself and them on the forethought which had long since led his father to deposit a certain portion of his fortune in the hands of his old friend, Charles Gerrardius, the great Geneva banker; just as he himself had made provision for Hope by banking money in her name with Rothschilds' in London. It was thanks to this that his way had been comparatively easy when once he got clear of Russian territory, and what a poor man could only have dreamt of doing, a rich man had been able to accomplish—thus far at all events.

As to the future, they spoke but little. It was in the balances and the scales might go against them. To count upon it—even to discuss it over-much—seemed to savour of presumption, and felt like a tempting of Providence.

"Is there nothing we can do for Russia?" asked Hope sadly.

"Nothing!" said Serge sombrely. "Until the ground is cleared of its present growth, nothing! And the clearing will have to come from the bottom, I fear, since the top cares for nothing but keeping top. The reckoning day will come sometime and it will be a terrible one."

"Poor Russia!" sighed Hope.

"Poor Russians!" said Serge, "who sit quietly under the yoke and suffer like oxen."

A shrill whistle from the rear stopped him. He sprang half out of his seat and leaned out, looking anxiously backwards.

Then he called to the driver to stop, and leaped down and went to meet the teléga.

"What is it?" he asked, as it drew near.

"Bandits, brigands, nomads," cried Blok and Rimof eagerly, with nods and winks behind the driver's back. "About a dozen, as far as we can see, mounted and coming up smartly."

"Ah! Then it looks as if you were not to be done out of your fun, boys."

He looked carefully round. They were in an upland valley. Ahead, the road wound away into the mountains through a narrow defile, a cleft with almost perpendicular sides of scarped rock.

"How far to the next station?" he asked the driver of the teléga, who sat listening impassively.

"About twenty versts, barin."

"That is the place for us, boys," said Palma, with a nod towards the cleft in the rocks.

"Couldn't be better," said Blok, with enthusiasm.

"We'll halt at this end," said Rimof. "You go on and see if it is better still farther in."

They could see the pursuers plainly now, as they bobbed over a distant ridge and disappeared into the hollow. Palma ran back to the tarantas, out of which Hope and Pavlof were peering anxiously. His nod to Pavlof told him what there was to tell.

"Go ahead!" to the driver, "and smartly."

"Come, my little ones!" chirruped the driver, and the tarantas rolled on into the cleft.

"What is it?" asked Hope.

"Brigands, the boys say"—so much for the benefit of the driver, who, however, showed no interest in the matter. "They may be after us, they may not. Blok and Rimof are anxious to have a chat with them."

He was looking out ahead as he talked, and examining the lie of the land carefully. They shaved an angle of rock with a heavy lurch and turned sharp to the right. Palma leaped out.

"That will do!" to the driver. "Stop! Loose your horses and take them round that next loop and wait there."

"Yes, barin."

"You had better go too, Hope."

She hesitated a moment as if with the intention of objecting. Then she turned and went after the horses.

"The boys are waiting at the entrance," said Palma. "This is better. We will go for them," and he and Pavlof ran back along the road.

Five minutes later the teléga stood alongside the tarantas just inside the sharp turn of the road. The driver stolidly did as he was told and followed his companion round the next loop with his horses. Another five minutes' pulling and hauling and the teléga was in position across the road, jammed tight against the left wall of the cleft and blocking it completely, except a two-foot space between its front and the opposite wall. And the tarantas stood across the road inside it, jammed tight against the right wall and leaving only a similar space between its front and the left-hand wall.

The barricade was perfect, thanks to the formation of the cleft. To horsemen it was impossible, and to storm it on foot the attack must come under, among the wheels, or over the top, or must wind in single file through the narrow openings between the vehicles.

Palma laughed grimly when it was completed.

"If they work through that they'll deserve all they get," he said, and the four men stood expectantly behind their barricade, and waited events.

"Take this," said Palma, holding out a revolver to Pavlof. "We can't have the game spoiled by a handful of Cossacks."

Blok and Rimof, in their capacity of orderlies, carried Berdan rifles with a bandolier of cartridges over the shoulder.

Presently the sound of hoofs echoed in the angle of the rocks above them. Then the regular footfalls turned into a confused trampling and scrabbling, as the horsemen halted in a bunch at sudden sight of the obstruction and backed away from it.

Palma stepped quietly between the two vehicles and confronted them.

"Well, what's the matter now?" he asked.

"You are Lieutenant Vinsky?" asked one, shaking his horse a step or two out of the throng. Pavlof, looking over the barricade, saw that it was Lieutenant Tschak, Sokolof's right-hand man, vice Razin retired through the hunger-strike, but of exactly the same breed and as like him as twin peas. The rest were low-browed, heavy-faced fellows of the ordinary Cossack type. All their little black eyes were fixed sullenly on Palma, as though casting up to him the account of their long, hard ride.

Palma nodded curtly, and asked again, "What is it you want?"

"You and your party are to return," said Tschak brusquely.

"Ah! and why?"

"Captain Sokolof's orders."

"I am not under Captain Sokolof's orders and I shall not return."

"Then we are to bring you."

"Be advised, my friend, and don't attempt it."

"We have our orders," said Tschak.

"And I have mine."

Tschak shook his bridle again and his pony made a step forward.

Palma held up a warning hand.

"We shall both regret it if worse comes of this. I warn you if you try to pass that barrier we shall stop you," and he stepped back behind the carriages and drew his companions round the angle of the rock.

They could not see the enemy, nor the enemy them, till one or other advanced. The barricade, however, the crux of the matter, was visible to both parties.

"We could get well ahead while they are thinking about it," said Pavlof, from no feeling of cowardice, but from a simple vast distaste for the killing of men, deepened in this case by the knowledge that they were only doing their duty and had no personal animus in the matter.

"It would only be a postponement of the evil," said Palma, "and a throwing away of our chances. We are impregnable here.——I'm sorry, but the lives of ten Cossacks weigh nothing against what I am here for."

It was late in the afternoon and the shadows were already abroad in that gloomy cleft. Palma passed round his cigarettes, and they leaned against the boulders smoking quietly and listening intently.

Blok and Rimof were restless to be doing. To quiet them their leader gave them permission to steal into the tarantas and learn what the opposing force was up to.

Blok was back in a moment, with a smile all over his face.

"They're doing the same as we are—sitting smoking and thinking about it," he said.

"A rest before the assault," said Palma quietly, "and the last smoke for some of them if they try that corner. Keep a sharp eye on them, Loris. It will be dark in ten minutes, then they'll make a move. The moment they do so, come back here both of you," and young Blok slipped away to join his friend.

The shadows deepened in the well of the cleft till the barricade was only a darker shadow among them.

Blok's voice whispered suddenly alongside Palma and Pavlof. "They are withdrawing down the valley."

"Out of earshot for instructions. They'll come back presently. Well, they've had their warning. Fetch Alex, Loris. They will come with a rush, poor devils! And their shooting will be wild and free, and we can't afford any useless risks," and Bloke stole away again into the deeper shadow.

Such waiting tries the temper of a man's courage as no actual fighting can, and if his mettle lack steel it saps and runs, and leaves him limp for the fray. But to Hope, sitting solitary on a rock behind the next turn of the road, this anxious waiting was more terrible still.

She wove her fingers tight, and bowed her head, and prayed numbly. Her life, and the lives of the men down the road, were at stake. Liberty at such a price was dearly purchased.

Suppose Paul should be killed, what would life be worth to her? Suppose they were all killed, what would become of her?—left alone in the wilderness with these rough boors, who sat smoking impassively and thought more—if they thought at all—of the safety of their horses than of the lives in the balance down yonder.

She jumped up, and went to the bend of the road, and peered down it into the darkness. But there was not a sound, and her anxiety deepened every instant.

She took a step or two round the corner, stopped, and stood listening. It was no good going. Her presence would only hamper them, and their hands were overfull as it was.

Then a sudden vicious spurt of flame ripped out of the ground in the nearer darkness in front. In a moment the angle of the cleft blazed with intermittent flashes and echoed with shots and shouts. Something sang past her in the darkness, and she ran back and dropped on her rock, and held her hands over her ears. And alongside her the drivers grunted guttural ejaculations over their pipes, and the horses stamped restlessly at the turmoil.

Loris Blok had withdrawn along the road with the rest after recalling Rimof. But he was one of those restless souls who find it impossible to wait doing nothing, and he was aching for a fight. He had in his time suffered at the hands of the authorities, both as student and prisoner. He had seen his comrades beaten down and ridden over in the streets of Moscow. He had seen them shot down in the open and done to death in the prisons, and he hated the doers of these things, head and hand, from the highest to the lowest, with a very bitter hatred.

The only fear he had was lest the enemy should withdraw—even now, at this ultimate moment, when everything was shaping so well for a settlement of old scores, and forces were, as he considered it, so evenly balanced.

The pursuers were, indeed, nearly three to one, but the position was against them. It would be a tremendous pity if such an opportunity were allowed to slip. Sooner than let that happen he would venture much.

Inch by inch, in the dark, he edged noiselessly away from the others towards the barricade. He knelt down and crept between the hind wheels of the teléga and the rock wall. He craned his head round the corner, and became instantly aware of a similar approach from the other side.

He waited in joyful suspense. He held his breath. His rifle barrel slipped cautiously through his left hand, till his right hand was on the lock.

There was a shuffling of many feet outside, a click of the tongue such as one uses to start a horse, and Blok opened fire.

A guttural curse and a stumble, the crash of many rifles, the splintering of wood, the spat of bullets on rock, and the bend of the cleft blazed fitfully in the intermittent flashes.

But Blok lay still and fired no more. He had disobeyed orders and he had paid the price.

Half-a-dozen dark figures slipped in round the end of the teléga, and some came out round the end of the tarantas, and some from underneath it, and some stood and fired over it. Other hands seized the teléga and slewed it round into the roadway to widen the approach.

But, as the dark figures emerged from the darkness of the tarantas, the three defenders opened fire, with revolvers and rifle, and man after man went down.

The cleft boiled like a mighty pot in the light of the continuous flashes. It was full of wreathing smoke and vicious cracklings and wild-flying lead.

That first shot from beneath the teléga had told Palma Blok's story. He curtly bade the others grimp to the rock, but himself stood out in the narrow way and shot down man after man as they issued round, or crept from under, the tarantas. One might almost have thought him careless of his life. When his revolver was empty, and still they came, he ran in and used the butt on any head or face that offered.

Rimof's Berdan rang out alongside Pavlof as fast as he could snap in the cartridges. But the besieger's bullets were two to one in spite of casualties, and presently Pavlof heard the clang of a rifle as it fell on the rocky way at his feet, and then the sprawling fall of a man.

He was bending to him, when, in the fitful glare in front, he saw Palma fall in a heap also, and he ran forward to help him. The men behind the tarantas gave a hoarse shout, and the cleft blazed and boiled again. Pavlof felt a bullet rip through his coat. Another stung through his shoulder like the searing of a hot iron, and spun him round and dropped him on Palma's body.

Then what were left of the besiegers came panting round the barricade, and stumbled on the two bodies, and kicked them and cursed them. Pavlof sat up. Palma lay still.

By Lieutenant Tschak's orders one of his men kicked some planks out of the side of the teléga, and started a fire for the purpose of ascertaining casualties. He swore roundly as the bodies were dragged up one by one and laid in a line. Six of his men lay there dead or wounded. Blok was dead. Rimof was dead. By the crackling flames Pavlof endeavoured to find out if Palma was dead. There was a hole in his breast from which the blood was welling, but he groaned as Pavlof attempted to staunch it with his handkerchief.

"Dead?" growled Lieutenant Tschak, looking down at them.

"Wounded here," said Pavlof, pointing to the hole, "but he lives still," and went on with his bandaging.

"The worse for him," said Lieutenant Tschak.

Then Hope stole silently into the circle of light, her white face pinched and drawn with her fears. She saw Pavlof, she saw whose body he was bending over, and she ran to them with a cry.

"Is he dead?" she asked breathlessly.

"Not dead, Hope, but sorely wounded, I fear."

She had held herself with a tight hand till now, but at sight of those stark bodies, and of this one, she broke down and sobbed convulsively.

Serge opened his eyes and looked up at her in a dazed way. Then his glance wandered to Pavlof and rested meditatively on him for a moment. Then it passed on to the coppery glow of the firelight on the rocky walls, and his brow puckered as though he were trying hard to recollect all that had passed.

Pavlof saw his lips move and bent over him.

"Failed," he murmured faintly.

"No man could have done more, Serge. We are very grateful."

"More harm than good. Sorry!"

"Does it pain you?"

"Yes——I'm done——What will you do?"

"We are in God's hands," said Hope gently, and sank down beside him and drew his head on to her lap.

The shadow of a smile trembled on his lips, and there was a flickering spark in his eyes as he looked up at her.

"God keep you, dear," he said, very softly, and turned his eyes on Pavlof again, and said, "And you."

A great pity for him filled Hope's heart. She bent down and kissed his forehead and he lay still. And presently, as they watched him, he sighed gently, and stretched himself out like a weary man.

Hope bent over him weeping. She thought he was dead. Pavlof stood up.

"He will die if you move him," he said to Lieutenant Tschak.

"So! He will have to be moved all the same," said Tschak. "Where are your horses?"

"Up the road," and having done all he could for Palma, he turned to the others and examined their wounds, and showed their comrades how to bind them up till better could be done for them.

And presently, the stolid-faced drivers came slowly down with the horses, and led them stolidly past the row of dead bodies, and harnessed them to their respective vehicles.

The only exclamation that fell from them was from the driver of the teléga at the sight of the broken side.

"Da! Some one will have to pay for that. My word, yes!"

An hour later they were on their way back to Kara. Hope and the wounded men in the tarantas, Palma's head in her lap, and her heart bruising for his sake with every bump of the heavy wheels. The dead were piled promiscuously into the teléga, and Pavlof rode one of the dead men's horses.

Lieutenant Tschak was the only reasonably cheerful member of the party. He had been instructed to bring back the fugitives alive or dead, and he was bringing them back, not one missing.

The bitterness and shock of the catastrophe were still too close and sudden not to weigh heavily on the spirits of Hope and Pavlof. For the present they could only mourn their loss, without a thought for the distressing complication which Serge's death would remove from their path. He had made a gallant attempt at their rescue, he had given his life for them, and their hearts were very sore for him.

The Cossacks, whole and wounded alike, bore themselves stolidly. If, now and again, at the bumping of the tarantas over the rocky way, one or another growled a curse, and feathered it at Hope with a white side-glance, it missed its mark, for she took no notice. She was thinking of Serge and of Pavlof, and wondering dully what the end of it all would be.

At the best, she supposed, it would mean Kara for life for Paul. She did not see how he could possibly have acted otherwise than he had done. But he had broken bounds and he must suffer the consequences. Well, they had been very happy at Kara. They would still be together. Her heart chilled at thought of what might have been, and glowed again at thought of what was.

Suppose it had been Pavlof's head which lay like a clod on her knee, ah, how desolate her state then! So, even in the depths of her distress, she found a ray of consolation and cause for thankfulness, and these helped her to bear herself with a certain rigid composure.

It was long after midnight when they hammered on the door of the post-house from which they had started out that afternoon, and the startled postmaster came near to losing his wits when he saw the gruesome company that summoned him.

The wounded men were carried in, one by one, and laid on the floor. Serge would never have got into the house alive but for Hope's tender care and Pavlof's insistent endorsement of it. They were brutalised by usage and careless to bodily suffering, those Cossacks of the mines. But some of them had been under Pavlof's hands in the hospital and his word still had weight with them. As it was, and in spite of all their care, the handling started Palma's wound bleeding again. He was barely alive, but he opened his heavy eyes and groaned as they carried him in, and seemed to wonder that they could not leave him to die in peace.

Pavlof, with his one arm, could do little more for him or the others than had already been done on the field. His own shoulder was stiff and painful, but the bullet had gone clean through without smashing the bone, and it was only a question of care and nursing.

In the corner of the room allotted to them, they staunched Palma's wound again and bound him up as well as they were able, and Hope bathed Pavlof's shoulder and renewed his own hasty bandages; and then, under his instructions, did what little could be done for the others. They suffered her ministrations in silence and gave her no thanks, but still the occupation was a relief to her. Even minutes saved from the contemplation of one's own troubles are minutes gained.

In time, some black bread and tea, with "cutlets" of chopped meat, were brought to them, and after their long fast, and all they had gone through, they felt the need of them. Paul succeeded in getting a few drops of vodka down Palma's throat, and the onlookers considered it good liquor wasted and did not scruple to say so.

Then the soldiers lighted their pipes and the atmosphere became thick and pungent. Their stolidity relaxed somewhat, and they roughly fought the battle over again, and illuminated it with oaths and jokes and jibes. And to Hope—with the dead men lying outside in a ghastly heap in the teléga, and Serge lying like death alongside her on the floor, and Paul dozing fitfully against the wall—it was all a nightmare of horrors, and she never forgot it.

She was weary beyond words, but she could not sleep. Now and again her tired eyes closed in repulsion against the acrid smoke and the slimy things that crept about the walls; but there was no escape from the sounds and the smells, and, bodily, as well as mentally, she felt sick to death.

That night of purgatory seemed as though it would never end. It was but a few hours in reality, but to her it was a long-drawn, sickening agony, which stretched back further than she could bear to think of, and forward beyond all hope of amelioration.

But day broke at last. The light stole dimly through the thick-paned window, and the distorted shadows resolved themselves into the forms of men lying huddled in uncouth attitudes. Paul woke up with a start, and, with a glance at her which pinched his lips for her suffering, he bent over Palma to see if he were still alive.

He was breathing, but no more, and it seemed doubtful to Paul if he would be got into the tarantas alive.

But Lieutenant Tschak had no compunctions about making the attempt. Under his autocratic ordering, every man who could swallow got a bowl of hot tea and a hunch of bread. Then the sick were carried out, with small attention to their groanings, and the funereal procession set off at a foot pace for the journey home. Two of the wounded Cossacks got there before they reached Kara; and when they rumbled slowly through Ust Kara, through which they had rattled so briskly the day before, Hope's companions in the tarantas were two dead men, and two sorely wounded, and Serge Palma—and him she feared dead, since he showed no signs of life.

CHAPTER XXVII

HOW THREE CAME HOME AND ONE WENT FURTHER

As they jolted through the Lower Diggings and the settlement, all who could turned out to see them pass, and so they came at last to the political prison, where Captain Sokolof and a grizzly-bearded stranger stood awaiting them inside the great stockade.

Sokolof listened with a grim face to Lieutenant Tschak's report, while the wounded men were being carried into the hospital and the teléga discharged its ghastly load.

Pavlof had got down stiffly from his horse, and Hope climbed down from the tarantas as soon as Serge's body had been lifted down, and, when he had disposed of the rest, Sokolof came across to them. Hope's eyes swept his face anxiously for indications of their fate, but found it inscrutable. The grizzly-bearded man had followed the wounded men into the hospital.

"Madame, you are at liberty to return to your own house," said Sokolof abruptly. "You, Mr. Palma, must remain here."

"May I not stop with my husband, sir?" asked Hope. "He is wounded."

"It shall be seen to. You will be better at home, Madame."

"You will be far better there, dearest. God keep you!" said Paul, and kissed her very tenderly, thinking it might well be for the last time.

With the same fear in her, she took one long look at him, and then went brokenly down the enclosure. The great gate opened and closed, the pointed black fangs of the stockade grinned derisively, and Paul wondered if he would ever see her more.

He was still staring blankly at the gates, as though he could see through them and after her, when Sokolof touched him on the shoulder, and said quietly, "Follow me!" and strode away to his own quarters.

"You made a great mistake," he said, turning upon him abruptly, as soon as they were in his room. "What made you go with that man?"

"It was impossible for me to do otherwise."

"Da! Impossible? What hold has he on you?"

Pavlof hesitated. He did not know where he stood, and least said soonest mended.

"Who is he?" asked Sokolof again. "And why had you to go with him?"

And still Pavlof made no reply.

"See, Mr. Palma, I have been your friend. I would still be so. But, as I see things at present, it is an ill return you have made me in this matter."

Pavlof made a gesture of dissent.

"Yes," said Sokolof, "an ill return, and calculated to damage me sorely at headquarters. An escape is nothing. But to be gulled in this fashion, and to call their attention to it myself by that cursed telegram, which was intended entirely for your benefit——"

"He tried hard to dissuade you from it."

"For his own ends. The result has been disastrous, and the matter, and your share in it, must be investigated. But, in the fact of your going, you are not incriminated. His papers were all in order, so far as we could possibly make out. In going with him you only obeyed orders supposed to have come from St. Petersburg. But that is not enough for me. There is that behind which I do not understand. If I am still to stand your friend I must understand it."

Upon which Pavlof took his fate in his hands.

"It is a strange story," he said, "and may try your credence at times. But I will tell you the whole matter, and you shall judge me. The man who is dying in the hospital there is Serge Palma——"

"Serge Palma!" echoed Sokolof in vast surprise. "Then who——? Who the devil are you?"

"I am Paul Pavlof."

At which Sokolof shook his head with a perplexed pinching of the brows. He had never heard of Paul Pavlof.

"But Madame——" he asked, with sudden inspiration, "Is she then not Madame Palma?"

"She was Palma's wife. She came out here to join him. He and I had exchanged names on the road. He stopped at Minusinsk. I came on to Kara. Instead of her husband, she found me here."

"You had known her before she married Palma?"

"Yes, I had known her and loved her. But I was very poor, and she was very enthusiastic on the subject of the people."

"And Palma was rich?"

"Palma was rich."

"I begin to see. And now—is she your wife or Palma's?"

"She is my wife—now. We awaited news of Palma. We got only news of his death——"

"Ah?"—as if he would have liked much to inquire how such news had reached him.

"And so, after long waiting, we married. Then Palma came, at the risk of his life, to pay the debt he considered he owed me. I was quite happy here. So was my wife. His coming was terrible to us. What could we do?"

Sokolof nodded.

"We could not refuse to go, though we had no wish to go. If we had refused, you would have sent us. The only thing we could have done was impossible, and that was to expose the man who was risking his life for us. Would you have done that, Captain Sokolof?"

"I would not."

"And what would you have thought of me if I had done it?"

"I should have thought you a cur."

"Exactly. Now you understand the whole matter."

"Now I understand." He paced thoughtfully to and fro. Once he stopped and faced Pavlof, as if about to speak, but thought better of it and went on.

"I must keep you here for the present," he said at last, "till inquisition is made into the matter."

"You will let me see to Palma and the others?"

"They will be seen to. The man you saw with me arrived last night. He is the new doctor appointed by headquarters."

"Ah, then I would be glad to have him strap up my shoulder."

"You are wounded? Yes, I remember, Madame mentioned it."

"A bullet went through it in the mêlée, but I don't think any great damage is done. It was a narrow defile——"

"Don't tell me anything about it," Sokolof held up his hand. "Tschak and the rest will no doubt have quite enough to say about it. A good deal will depend on what they say. I will send Irbatsky in to look at your shoulder. And, remember, the less said the better."

"Will you as a favour allow me to nurse Palma to the end? It cannot be far off. You can understand—I feel as if I had used him ill, though God knows, I never intended to do so."

"I will see what Irbatsky says. I am a bit suspicious of him and must walk warily. Perhaps he will be glad of your help with the wounded. He is a drinker, unless I'm mistaken, which is perhaps the reason for his coming here. I will see you later."

And presently Dr. Irbatsky came in, and Pavlof bared his wound, and the doctor washed and strapped it, talking meanwhile of the fight.

"Ach, so you were fighting, too, Mr. Palma? Bad job, bad job! And no good came of it after all."

"I saw my friend fall, and went to help him," said Paul. "It was then that I got hit. How do you find him, Doctor?"

"Bad, very bad. It is a wonder he got back here alive."

"He can't last long?"

"Not many hours. Might die any minute."

"I would be grateful for your permission to sit by him till he goes. Can I help with the others also? I am ready to be of use."

"Da! I see no objection, if Captain Sokolof does not. But you are pretty well done up yourself and have lost blood. You can hardly keep your eyes open."

"I shall keep them open longer than he will."

"That's so. Well, come along. Captain Sokolof is with the prisoner now, but I doubt if he'll get anything out of him."

They crossed the enclosure and entered the hospital, and found Sokolof standing beside the bed on which Palma had been laid.

"Will he come to before he goes, Doctor?" asked Sokolof.