The Adventures of an Ugly Girl

“I had,” continued madame, “father, mother, sister, and two brothers, all of whom were sacrificed to the Moloch of oppression: My father’s estates were confiscated, and his castle was handed into the possession of his betrayer, to whom was also given a title, and who was henceforth known as Count Karenieff. I, a babe in arms, was surely spared in fiendish irony of purpose, and was consigned to the care of a childless couple in St. Petersburg, who had strict injunctions to bring me up as their own offspring, and who, in consideration of the small income they received with me, kept the secret of my birth until I was nineteen. Then Paul Galtioff died, and his wife Marie, having confidence in my discretion, and a premonition that her own end was not far off, showed me my true vocation. She told me of all that my relatives had suffered, and how my mother had been subjected to imprisonment, torture, the lash and personal degradation because she would say nothing that would incriminate my father. I have often since heard of the horrors of St. Peter and Paul. In your country they speak with bated breath of banishment to Siberia as the extreme compass of human suffering. We know that it is the one ray of hope which gleams before the eyes of those who are denounced. Complete freedom will never be theirs again, but there are gradations in even the lowest ruts of misery, and I would pray for the devil himself to be saved from the anguish endured by those condemned to the fortress.

“What wonder that, thinking of all these things, I should pant for vengeance, and that I should devote all my future energies to foiling some of the plots against my compatriots! But Marie Galtioff infused in me some of her own caution and cunning. Both she and her husband had belonged to revolutionary societies for years without once exciting suspicion of their loyalty. Henceforth I derived my chief satisfaction in hoodwinking our oppressors. I habitually met kindred spirits, among them being Feodor Kominski, who afterward became my husband. Perhaps it was well for him that death claimed him soon after Feo was born. His spirit was too ardent to have worked in the dark much longer.

“For some years after I became a widow I supported myself in various ways. Then my opportunity came from a quarter least expected. A member of our society, who possessed great influence at court, where he was supposed to be one of the most loyal supporters of the throne, was asked to recommend some lady who would make an efficient government spy. He nominated me for the office. The pay was on a princely scale. The social advantages attending the post were great. There was no circle deemed too high for my entry into it on apparent terms of equality with the most exclusive. My credentials were indisputable, and my own conversational ability did the rest. I became a general favorite in society, and might have been happy, could I but have faithfully performed the day’s duty for which I was paid. My employers gave me every opportunity of spying and denouncing suspected persons. I denounced a good many when I saw that their discovery by others was inevitable. But I always contrived to let them have sufficient warning to escape before the bolt fell. I was doing good work for my people, under the mask of an alien to patriotism. Above all, I was occupying a place which will soon, I fear, be occupied by a substitute whose aims and aspirations will not be as mine have been.

“When I was in St. Petersburg in the early spring, Count Karenieff, the son of my father’s old enemy, was introduced to me, and I found it a terribly difficult matter to be civil to him. It was, however, necessary that I should curb the anger which his very name aroused in me. But when the caitiff’s whelp actually dared to propose marriage to me, my scorn and hatred over-stepped the bounds of prudence, and my rejection was so fierce as to astonish him.

“‘I see, madame,’ he said, his face glittering with the evil with which his heart is full to bursting. ‘I understand you better than you understand yourself. You see in me a man of strong feeling, and you think it necessary to use strong words with me, in order to drive me from my purpose. But I tell you that your beauty has aroused my passions, and I will gratify them even though you raised ten thousand objections. You are so unnecessarily vehement that I conclude you have a more favored lover. One, moreover, who resembles me not at all. And you think to marry him? I swear you shall marry none but me! Nay, if you do not beware, I will bring that about which shall make you turn to me for help, which shall make you only too happy to throw yourself into my arms and yield yourself to my embraces. As for your lover, I shall find him, and I shall silence him, never fear. His golden hair shall turn gray with horror, and his blue eyes shall become dim with anguish.’

“‘He has neither golden hair nor blue eyes,’ I cried, trembling with the awe the man’s fierce words evoked.

“‘Thank you,’ was his reply. ‘I thought that, as you seemed so disgusted with my proposal, your inamorato must be my antithesis. Now I am sure of it. If it had not been so, you would have been glad to permit me to retain an erroneous opinion. Good-day, madame. Perhaps, when next we meet, you will have become wiser.’

“With this the viper left me, and I sat bereft of all my usual fortitude. For I knew him to be capable of as much villainy as his father before him, and I had practically betrayed Victor Karniak to him; for his instinct had led him to form a correct idea of the appearance of my intended husband. That he would hound him down, I had no doubt. But I was not so paralyzed by Karenieff’s threats as to hesitate long about what I must do.

“That night I attended a meeting which was held by Nihilists not far from here. I had difficulty in reaching the place unobserved, and, carefully disguised, I saw Karenieff and two of his myrmidons watching my house. I explained the impossibility of my further attendance at the meetings for some time, as my presence might lead to the discovery and betrayal of my associates. There were those among them who swore that, if there must be a victim, it should be Karenieff himself. I would have rejoiced any time since then to have heard of the removal of the pestiferous carrion; but he bears a charmed life, or, rather, he is too well aware of his danger to go anywhere unguarded, for he has denounced too many people not to fear vengeance from some quarter.

“Victor Karniak was persuaded to leave St. Petersburg for a time, and it was considered wisest for us not to meet again until we could do so with more safety.

“I was sent to England, on what was deemed important business, soon after this, and hoped that Karenieff’s mischievous intentions were rendered impossible of achievement. Meanwhile Victor, having been imprudently active in Odessa, narrowly escaped capture by shipping as a common seaman on board a steamer, in place of a drunken sailor who had fallen overboard. In due time he reached London. We found means of meeting, and have been married in an English registry office.

“But we dared not return together, and I dared not delay my own return, as I had much information to give concerning many Russians who have escaped to England, some of them with Victor’s help and mine. They are safe where they are, and will assuredly never return to Russia, having been warned of what they might expect; so I feel no twinges of conscience because I have convinced the government beyond doubt that they are out of Russian territory and beyond Russian jurisdiction.

“My husband, anxious to be near me sometimes, and having considerable property which he wishes to realize, if possible, followed me here. He was at the Princess Michaelow’s reception, and though we were studiedly cool to each other, I once saw Karenieff looking at us with such an appearance of malicious conviction on his face that I felt sure he suspected our secret. Victor, who had been called by an alias in Odessa, believed himself to be recognized, and would have tried to leave the country again, but was taken ill and has been unable to quit his bed for more than a week. I have been with him the greater part of the time, and he is only since yesterday strong enough to rise and dress himself. This morning I saw him, disguised as an old peddler, and armed with a license and pass which a friend had procured for him, start on a journey, every inch of which is fraught with danger of detection and death. God grant that, shaken as he is with his recent illness, he may find himself once more in your land of freedom ere long.

“But I fear, I fear! For my enemy has been active. He has been missing from his usual haunts, and has been trying to discover my husband’s whereabouts. This I have been told by the people who, on my behalf, have been watching Karenieff. He did not come here to seek me, because he knew I was not here. That he has not known exactly where I was, I can but hope, for the sake of Victor and the friends who have helped us. But that he has already denounced me as a traitor and Nihilist I was told to-day on my way here. I would not have entered the house again, but would have tried to escape, had I had means of travel with me. Besides, I could not, in any case, have left Feo. Had I done so, my child would surely have fallen under the vengeance of those who have gloatingly crushed out the lives of other innocent children.

“I had hoped to get away under cover of night, but alas! what you have told me since I came home has served to convince me that I am already too closely watched to be permitted to escape. Dora, my friend, help me, for the love of God! for I already feel, in anticipation, all the horrors of the fortress, and I can no longer plan clearly.”

All this had been spoken in a voice too low to penetrate as far as the door, but clear enough for me, whose head was bent close to madame’s, to distinguish every word of it. For a few moments I could only continue to gaze at my friend in blank dismay. Then, as certain possibilities presented themselves before my mental vision, I clasped my hands angrily, and exclaimed: “Great Heaven! why am I not tall and beautiful, when so much size and beauty is wasted on people who do not know how to use it?”

Recalling that time, I am not surprised at the change my apparently irrelevant lament wrought in Madame Kominski’s demeanor. She sprang to her feet, and fairly hissed at me in her wrath: “Fool! fool that I have been, to imagine my troubles could really interest a comparative stranger! I betray all my secrets to you, and implore your aid, and only succeed in evoking from you a lamentation concerning your own lack of beauty. God! what small minds there are in this world!”

“Madame,” I cried, springing to my feet in my turn, “you mistake me. I am devoted to you, and will do anything to help you. I expressed myself clumsily, but I meant to say that if I were more like you I would change places with you. As it is, the plan is hopeless. But we will think of something else. God is not always on the side of the mighty.”

As I spoke, I put my arms round madame and kissed her affectionately. The revulsion of feeling produced in her mind by my words and actions broke the intense strain under which she had labored, and she embraced me convulsively, a perfect storm of sobs shaking her frame. I strove as best I could with my own emotion and let madame cry on. I knew it would do her good. Presently she grew calmer, and after a while her sobs ceased altogether.

“I am better now,” she said. “I feel as if a great cloud were rolled from my brain. I can think and plan once more. My mother, they say, had the courage of a martyr. If I fall, my enemies shall not gloat over my cowardice. Suppose we open the doors again. It is not wise to show a spy that we fear him.”

I had just opened the door, and put the portière into its usual position, when Trischl, the German nurse, came to see her mistress. She walked into the room without invitation, but preserved nevertheless her usual respectful demeanor. “I believe madame needs friends,” she said in a low, cautious voice. “I have seen that which makes me think so. Madame has been good to me. If she will not be angry at my presumption, I will be her faithful helper.”

As Trischl ceased speaking, she looked at her mistress anxiously, as if half afraid of reproof. But of that she met none, and the friendly clasp of the hand with which madame tried to show her appreciation of the risk the faithful creature was running in offering to help a suspect was to her a seal of allegiance. For a little while we deliberated together, forming and rejecting one plan after another. Presently an unusually vigorous peal at the visitor’s bell made itself heard even here, where the sonorous reverberations seldom penetrated. We all turned pale and the same unspoken question was in all our eyes: “Is the enemy already upon us? Is it too late to escape?” Even evils are welcomed at times, when they come in the place of a still more dreaded one, and we were all positively relieved when a footman presently came to ask madame if she would see Count Karenieff in the salon.

“Tell him I will see him immediately,” said madame. Instinctively both Trischl and I knew what should be done, and we hastened to bathe madame’s face with eau-de-cologne, to brush her hair, to alter her toilet a little, and to give to her face the appearance of quiet composure by means of a little powder and rouge. The results were arrived at quickly. The effect was good, and madame’s bearing and appearance, as she went down to interview her mortal enemy, were the reverse of those of a betrayed and despairing woman, who anticipated a horrible fate in the near future.

“Temporize with him,” I had counseled while hurriedly assisting with her toilet. “Feign ignorance of his cruel intentions. If he asks you again to marry him, do not insult him, but seem as if you had altered your opinion of him. Ask him to give you a day to deliberate. It would be so much time gained for us.”

The nod of comprehension with which she left us showed that she considered my advice to be good, and I felt more hopeful of the result of the interview between the courageous woman and the dastardly man than I could have believed possible half an hour before.

“And now,” said Trischl, “there is no time to be lost. There are spies in the house. But we can be as clever as spies, if we like, and we must prepare things for madame’s departure as soon as possible. All her jewelry must be hidden somehow, so that she can easily carry it away.”

I felt that Trischl was right, and that a desperate emergency like this was not the time to stand on ceremony. Fifteen minutes later a strange face peeped in at the open door for a moment. We were both diligently employed. To all appearances we were both innocently employed. Trischl was quilting some silk, of which she purposed making a kind of cuff, to be tied above the elbows. I was indulging in the prosaic occupation of mending a pair of corsets. Could the fellow who had glanced at us have seen that a pile of jewelry lay underneath the aprons Trischl and I had donned, he would perhaps have been slightly surprised. Had he had a suspicion that I had just stitched a parure of diamonds into the corset, and that Trischl was quilting the silk over a beautiful pearl necklace, he might perhaps have thought it advisable to report the occurrence to his superiors. As it was, he passed on, in blissful ignorance of our real occupation, and it was certainly not our business to enlighten him.

“Here is madame,” said Trischl presently; and I looked anxiously at Madame Kominski, to see if I could tell the result of the interview from her bearing. Trischl rose hastily to her feet, seemingly overwhelmed with confusion at having been caught occupying her mistress’s seat. She had forgotten that her quilting task was not finished, and some valuable rings rolled across the floor, the incident evoking a little surprise in the mind of their owner. But while Trischl hurriedly tried to recover the runaways, I explained what we had been doing.

“What a clever idea!” said madame. “I should never have thought of such capital hiding-places myself. If I manage to quit Russia, I shall probably be in great need of money, and will be glad to realize the value of the jewelry.”

“I hope things are not so desperate as we have feared,” I hazarded.

“You shall judge,” was the reply. “Karenieff was evidently prepared to find me more antagonistic to him than I showed myself, and I think my bearing convinced him that my suspicions concerning him were not aroused.

“‘I am sorry to have kept you waiting,’ I said, ‘but the truth is, I was busy with my toilet and could not come before.’

“He cast upon me a swift look of surprise, and then, apparently much gratified by the civility of my reception of him, dosed me with a few compliments, adding that he hoped I had forgotten the wild, foolish words he had uttered to me months ago. I actually found it possible to laugh, as I remarked in my turn: ‘Ah, yes! We all alter our opinions of things as time goes on. I have learned to esteem where I once despised; and you—you, no doubt, take things more coolly than you did.’

“‘My love for you has not grown cooler,’ he exclaimed. ‘Consent to marry me, and I will secure you immunity from trouble in the future.’

“‘Marry you! Is it possible you still wish me to become your wife?’

“‘It is not merely my wish. It is the one passion of my life! Say you will be mine, and remove my suspense.’

“‘I do not know,’ I said, pretending to hesitate. ‘You see, I hardly thought you would favor me again with a proposal, after my former rudeness to you.’

“‘The woman who hesitates is lost! Have I really supplanted my fair-haired rival?’

“‘Bah! Fair men are so insipid.’

“So they are. But you will not find me insipid, my beauty. I hate, or I love, to madness, and either passion finds in me an ardent votary. It is well you have chosen me for your lover rather than for your enemy, since I have more power than you dream of.’

“‘Indeed! I did not know that you had any special vocation. You said just now that marriage with you would bring me immunity from trouble. I do not see how that can be, since we all have our troubles; but I wish it were true.’

“‘It shall be true. Listen. You are in the pay of the government. The private fortune you are supposed to have is non-existent. I know exactly what is paid you, since my position in the secret service is so high as to be one upon which devolves the regulation of these little things. With one stroke of my pen I can make or mar many a life that fancies itself secure at this moment. Now, information has been brought to me that you, so far from being a faithful servant of the Crown, are in league with those vagabond Nihilists. As my wife, you shall be proved innocent. As my enemy, you would be crushed. Which is it to be?’

“I believe I acted my part very well. I was overcome by sudden terror. I clung to the man. I wept and implored him to save me. I promised to marry him as soon as he liked. I suffered him to embrace me. His kisses, hot, passionate and scathing, have been showered on my face and lips. I have listened to burning words which have made me ashamed of my womanhood. Had I alone been concerned, I would have died rather than have undergone the humiliation of the last half hour. But there is Feo and Victor. For their sakes I must escape from this accursed country.”

“And you shall escape,” said Trischl, with decision. “I think I know how it can be managed.” In another moment she had left us, hurrying away as if struck by a fresh idea, while madame and I eyed each other anxiously.

“Has he gone?” I asked.

“For a time. I believe he has gone to stop extreme proceedings against me. But the relief will be only momentary. I should go mad if I had to endure his caresses often, and he may at any moment discover that I am already married. His vengeance would then be more terrible than ever.”

“It is not to be thought of. We must act at once.”

“Here is Ivan Dromireff, madame,” said Trischl’s voice. “I met him on the staircase.”

Both madame and I looked at the new arrival with surprise. He turned out to be none other than her coachman, and he stood bowing awkwardly, the while holding out a note between fingers that were much less clumsy than his vocation would have led one to imagine them to be.

“A letter from Prince Michaelow,” he said quietly.

“How is it that it has not been sent up in the usual way?” inquired madame sharply, receiving for answer a word of which I could not catch the meaning, but which wrought a great change in madame’s behavior.

“Sit down,” she said eagerly, “while I read the note. And you, Trischl, secure the door against intruders, and wait here until we decide what is best to be done.”

Trischl, having obeyed her mistress’s order, came and stood beside Ivan. It struck me that the footing upon which they stood was a very familiar one, for they smiled at each other in quite an affectionate manner. Meanwhile, madame’s proceedings were somewhat curious. She opened the note, upon which were merely written a few lines to the effect that Feo was enjoying herself and would remain for the night where she was. Then she took from her pocket a bunch of keys and unlocked a small medicine chest. From this she took two phials, each containing a colorless fluid. Her next proceeding was to fetch a small china tray from a side-table. Into this she emptied the two phials. When the liquids were thoroughly mixed, she immersed the note in them and let it remain a few seconds. When she lifted it out of the tray again, it was seen to be closely covered with writing, some kind of sympathetic ink having been used which had required acids to develop it. This is what was written on the note:

“My Friend—Our cause is lost. We are betrayed. Nothing but prompt flight can save us. Count Karenieff has much in his power. If you can dupe him for a while it will be well. Victor will elude his enemies, I think. I have long feared this day, and have been prepared for it. Ivan will give you a pass that will be of good service to you. But it must be used to-night. To-morrow every departure from the city will be closely watched. By the time you get this we shall be well on our way. Feo will go with us, and I trust we shall all arrive in England safely. You know the rendezvous. It will be better for you to be unencumbered by the child. I would advise your companion to get away, too, if she has helped you in any way. Ivan has already made his preparations.

After passing the note on to me to read it, madame asked Ivan if he were aware of its contents.

“I know how we are all circumstanced,” he said promptly, “and what the prince told me will be something similar to what he has written.”

In a low, rapid voice madame read the letter over for the benefit of Trischl and Ivan, who were now too much implicated to be excluded from confidence. Then she struck a match and burned the note and its envelope until they were entirely consumed. Meanwhile, I returned the acids to their receptacles, wiped the tray, and removed every trace of the chemical operation, giving madame the key of the medicine chest when I had done.

“And now,” said Ivan, “for action.” A minute later he had divested himself of his overcoat, and had made himself much less stout by the removal of some clothes which he had had packed round his body. Then he coolly took off his big, bushy beard and mustache, and his tously black wig. Such a transformation as all this wrought in him! He had seemed a rough specimen of humanity, not far removed from serfdom. He stood before us slim, erect, fair and smooth-faced, but bearing the witnesses of an indomitable spirit in his determined mouth, no longer hidden by the disfiguring hair, in his fearless glance, and in his square jaw.

“Now you know me; but no names, please,” he said warningly, as madame seemed about to exclaim aloud at sight of him. “The prince, having induced you to accept a certain position, has always been convinced of its danger, and has always been prepared with plans to rescue you. For this purpose, he recommended me to your notice as coachman, in order that no symptoms of menace might escape your friends. I have seen that you have no more time to lose. Here is our passport. It is made out for August Krämer, a German mercantile agent; Anna Krämer, his wife; Wilhelm Schwartz, commission agent, and Karl Schwartz, son of the latter.”

“But that will not do for us. We are three women, not three men,” said madame.

“If circumstances do not fit us, we must fit ourselves to circumstances, and I think we can manage it,” said Ivan. “Trischl is my foster-sister, and will go with us, I know. She is big enough and strong enough to personate Schwartz, senior. You, madame, will have to figure as Herr August Krämer, while I will do my best to make you a suitable spouse. The young English lady will make a very nice boy. Here are some of the things you will require. Put on as many as will be hidden by outer clothing. Take the rest with you. In fifteen minutes follow me. I will have the carriage waiting at the door. It shall contain a few necessary articles which will have to be put on in the carriage. You must give me your order to drive to one of the theaters. But be very careful. Some one is sure to be on the watch. We will drive away openly. As soon as we have driven off, draw the curtains and complete your disguise the best way you can. After a while I will stop the carriage. You must then get out, leaving nothing in the vehicle, and keeping your mantles well wrapped round you. Walk on a few yards until I join you. The horses will stand for some time, and I have a man ready to take them to a place agreed upon. It will not do for them to return home too soon, and it is just possible that we may need them. Now I must be off.”

Another minute, and he had replaced his beard and top-coat. Still a minute more, and we three women were trying to induct ourselves into garments such as we had never been used to. In ten minutes we had stuffed our pockets full of wigs, beards, jewelry, papers, money and other etceteras. I had had time to run to my room and secure my own money and jewelry, as well as a large cloak and a hat. Everything else I must perforce leave behind. Trischl fetched her big cloak and bonnet, and went down to the carriage a yard or two in front of us. Punctual to time, we stepped inside. Madame told Ivan to drive to the Alexander Theater. Ivan touched his hat obsequiously, mounted his box, cracked his whip, and we were started on our perilous journey.

There was no loss of time among us, after we drove off, for we knew that promptitude on our part was a matter of life and death. It was a somewhat cramped place in which to transform our appearance, but we had to make the best of the situation. With hurrying, trembling fingers we wrought at our disguise. Madame donned a tow-colored curly wig, beard, mustache and eyebrows, and exchanged her mantle and bonnet for a top-coat and slouch hat. Trischl adorned herself with a black beard something like Ivan wore, and likewise donned a rough overcoat, which she surmounted by a felt hat. I was not proud of my hair, anyway, so, seeing what trouble the others had in disposing of theirs under their wigs, I ruthlessly cut mine off with a pair of scissors I had brought with me for emergencies. It was surprising how small and slight a boy I seemed. It would be easy to pass me off as a fifteen-year-older.

When we had done our best to transform ourselves into as presentable representatives of Messrs Krämer and Schwartz as was possible with our resources, we commenced strapping up the cloaks and hats, the latter being mercilessly crushed during the operation. We had barely completed our preparations when the carriage stopped and Ivan opened the door. “Now is our time,” he said hurriedly. “We shall barely catch the Cronstadt boat. Go toward the boat-landing. I will follow you in a minute.”

Without another word we obeyed Ivan’s directions. We had almost reached the landing, when a fair-faced, rather good-looking woman grasped madame somewhat unceremoniously by the arm, and addressed her in the whining, ill-used tone which is the special prerogative of certain carping, dissatisfied wives.

“I’m sure, August,” she said. “It’s easy to be seen that we’ve been married this six years and more. I have seen the time when you wouldn’t stalk on half a mile in front, leaving me to follow as best I could. But times are different now, and a man isn’t above making his wife carry his top-coat in these days. But I won’t stand it any longer. You may carry it yourself.”

So great was the transformation that for an instant we did not see that it was Ivan who was personating the ill-used wife. As soon as she did become fully alive to this fact, madame took the top-coat on her arm, instinctively apologizing for her apparent rudeness.

“No, no, that will never do,” muttered Ivan. “You are far too polite. Keep up your rôle of a careless husband and growl harder at me than I growl at you—if you can. There must be no appearance of haste or anxiety to escape notice. Boldness is our best weapon.—Herr Schwartz, that son of yours looks too much like a girl—too quiet and shy.—Here, Karl, my boy, have a cigarette, and walk with a little more swagger—as if the place belonged to you. Take a peep at the pretty girls you pass, and be politely courteous, if any old ladies seem to need your services.—Herr Krämer, you are as fidgety about that hair of yours as if you were a woman. It is dangerous to appear too solicitous about your personal appearance. Now, all three, please. Follow whatever cue I may think it desirable to give you.”

Thus grumbling, admonishing and advising, the pseudo Madame Krämer talked until we were close to the ticket-office, near which a goodly number of people were waiting to pay their fares, have their passports viséd, and receive their tickets to go on board the river steamer which lay waiting for its living cargo.

I am afraid that I must confess myself not nearly so brave as I had imagined I was, for, now that the crucial moment had come, I trembled in every limb; whereas the others, either more habituated to the exercise of courage, or more alive to the irretrievably fatal consequences of a false move on their part, walked up to the barrier as nonchalantly as if traveling by this route were a matter of daily occurrence with them. Fortunately for us, there was an unusually large number of passengers, many of them being of the Jewish persuasion. Upon these the rancor of the officials seemed to concentrate itself, and while apparently well-to-do people were merely treated unceremoniously, the followers of Israel were harassed and insulted beyond patient endurance. Many of them had been prosperous, but had been hounded from their homes and driven to beggary by a cruel and rapacious tyranny that found ready helpers in its horde of greedy, money-grabbing, red-taped myrmidons.

My heart ached for the sorrows of one miserable couple, who were accompanied by six children, and who seemed to be bewildered by the insults which arrogance in office heaped upon them. But I also felt especially grateful to them. For the officials had no time to spare to examine our passports with anything like care when there were so many downtrodden Jews upon whom to exercise their spleen. Thus it happened that without much fuss or questioning we soon found ourselves seated in the deck saloon, en route for Cronstadt, the second-class passengers being huddled forward, where they were not likely to be spoiled by the luxury of too much comfort or accommodation.

I saw madame scan the other occupants of the saloon very searchingly. Perhaps she thought that her daughter was among them, and it was difficult to augur well or ill from the fact that she was not there. I wonder if ever any one watched the endless twistings and turnings of the Neva with more impatience than we did, or if any one ever longed more devotedly to get beyond the oft-recurring view of St. Isaac’s golden dome. But even as times of joy have their ending, even so is the period of suspense and danger never interminable, and we at last found ourselves close to Cronstadt.

We had not considered it safe to talk about our position while sitting in the saloon or pacing the deck, lest we should be overheard and betrayed. But we all felt breathless anxiety as we filed off the boat on to the landing-stage, holding our tickets in readiness for the collector.

Suppose we had been missed at St. Petersburg! Suppose Karenieff, baffled and enraged, were already on our track! Suppose a wire had been sent here, conveying orders to detain and arrest us!

Anticipation presented numberless possibilities, all of which, as we walked ashore without hindrance, seemed as if they were to be happily negatived by the reality.