BLESSING THE HERETICS
AT night Father Cyril could not sleep. The scenes he had recently passed through haunted his brain, and drove away sleep.
On the day that was just past, the last day, he had allowed every mother to see the children she was compelled to leave behind, for the last time. Tatiania had not come to say good-bye to little Clava; and to Father Cyril this seemed the saddest thing of all. He dreaded the day that was coming; for then the women would be carried away from their native village, probably never to return.
They were in his parish, his people, though they did not acknowledge him. Yet he was absolutely powerless to help them. He had gained a few alleviations for them. He had obtained permission for Michael to join the convoy at the nearest railway station, which was two days' march from Kovylsk. But that was all.
His brain whirled with useless and hopeless thoughts. Hour after hour he lay awake, praying for the unhappy people who would rather perish in Siberian wildernesses than forswear themselves. More than the rest, the fate of Tatiania and her children perplexed him.
Between two and three hours before the dawn, he heard stealthy footsteps pass his window. Most of the rooms were on the ground floor; and the little chamber where Velia and Clava slept opened out of his own. Very quietly he got up, and looked cautiously through the window. It was bright moonlight, and, three shadows, one that of a woman, lay upon the ground. Very soon he heard a stifled cry. The door into the children's room fitted badly, and there was a chink wide enough for him to look through. He recognised Michael and Sergius; Michael was bending over Velia asleep and softly kissing her hair, whilst Sergius was holding Clava in his arms, and wrapping a sheepskin about her. Father Cyril understood in an instant what the boys were going to do.
He stood spellbound; tears smarting under his eyelids. He had never doubted for a moment that to take children from their parents was a crime against God. He had hesitated to carry out the order of the consistory, but to refuse to obey was simply to give over his parish to the hands of those who would execute the sentence without mercy. What was he to do now?
He watched the silent and rapid movements of the boys, and saw them give the sleeping child into the stretched out arms of the woman whose shadow he had seen. They were only going to steal Clava away. He knew the vital importance of this step for Khariton Kondraty's family. If they remained in Knishi, to-morrow they would be plunged into the direst distress. The boys were doing the best thing in their power. Should he hinder them?
"No!" he said to himself. "God help them!"
It was Paraska who received little Clava into her arms; for the boys had not ventured to tell Tatiania of their desperate scheme. Michael and Paraska were to start at daybreak in the telega for Kovylsk, and the child could easily be concealed at the bottom of the cart, till they were far enough away to be no longer afraid of detection. Once in Kovylsk, Clava could be included in the convoy, as Kondraty's children, three in number, were entered on the list. They started at the first streak of dawn, calling at Tatiania's house, that she might see for herself that little Clava was with them. Michael was so much excited that he scarcely thought how he was leaving home again, this time probably for ever.
Sleep was farther than ever from Father Cyril's eyes, after what he had seen. He felt almost as if he was a boy again, rejoicing with the boys' joy over the success of their enterprise. At any rate, the burden of Kondraty's family would now be taken from him.
He had never before been in a parish containing heretics. He was known throughout the diocese as a very estimable and successful parish priest in country places. And in consequence he had been chosen to follow Father Vasili, and had been sent to Knishi to wage war with the Stundists. He came willingly, with high courage and confident hope. But instead of finding blasphemous, ignorant, and godless people, he met with devout and simple Christians, better grounded in the Scriptures than himself, though ready to listen to him with respectful attention. Now he saw and shrank from the pitiless spirit of persecution. He had never been face to face with it before. Well might our Lord say to His disciples, who wished to command fire to come down from heaven on the Samaritans, "Ye know not what spirit ye are of." Father Cyril understood now the spirit of persecution, and he quailed before it. It might turn cowards into hypocrites, but it could not make true men forswear their consciences.
When the Matoushka awoke in the morning, Father Cyril was up and dressed. His eyes looked heavy, and his whole appearance was dejected.
"Clava is gone to see her mother," he said briefly; "do not speak of her to anybody, my dear wife. Take Velia and our little ones into the forest for the day. I do not wish them to see the women and children setting off."
"Is Clava going with her mother?" asked the Matoushka, who sympathised deeply with Tatiania.
"It is not quite settled yet," he replied.
The hour for starting was early, and Father Cyril went down to the barrier. A crowd of villagers surrounded the carts which were taking away their old friends and neighbours, probably for ever. There were nine women, the oldest, Matrona Ivanovna, nearly seventy years of age; and the youngest just over twenty, with her first baby, only two months old. Thirteen children were with them, either big boys and girls over ten years or babies under two years of age. All the children between those ages were left behind in Knishi. Six out of the nine were bereft of some of their children. One amongst them was bereft of all, and she sat in the cart, tearless and speechless, with a look of despair on her face. The others were weeping and lamenting, calling out the names of their little ones, and beseeching Father Cyril to take care of each of them. All except Tatiania, who sat still, with closed eyes, yet with an expression of secret satisfaction struggling against the sorrow of quitting her native village.
Marfa gazed about her with bewildered and sombre eyes. All of them had been born there, and most of them had never been a day's journey from Knishi. They were passing out of a familiar and beloved world to enter into one of which they knew nothing. It would have been less strange to go to the City of God, whose pearly gates and streets of gold they had often dreamed about.
In the crowd, watching their departure, there were brothers and sisters and other relatives who had not abandoned the Orthodox Church. The young wife who had a baby two months old had a father and mother gazing their last at her with tear-dimmed eyes. What crime had their child committed that she should be torn from them, with scarcely a hope she should ever see them again?
Yarina was there, her heart aching for the mothers of the two children whom she had adopted, who were now holding their little ones in a last passionate embrace.
"They shall be as my own," she cried, sobbing; "and when I know where you go, I will write to you about them."
The last minute was come, and Matrona stood up in the cart where she was sitting, and looked round her with eyes dimmed with age.
"I've lived here sixty-five years," she said, "and now I go away; and I shall never go to the well again, and never hear the church bells ringing. Tell me, have I done any one of you any harm? Have you aught against me? Have I ever refused to help when I could help?"
"No, no, Matrona Stepanovna!" sobbed Yarina.
And a shout of "No!" came from the crowd.
"Then I bid you farewell comforted," said Matrona; "for this I know, that wherever they send us, we shall be in the hollow of God's hand, and no man can pluck us out of our Father's hand."
"Come, we are all ready to start," said the officer who had come to convey the women and children to Kovylsk.
Then Father Cyril stretched out his arms in the attitude of blessing. The Orthodox people knelt down, and the women in the carts bent their heads, whilst he said in a tremulous voice—
"'The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.' . . . 'The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.'"
At last the sorrowful cavalcade set off. The banished women stood up in the carts, and stretched out their arms towards their lost homes, the hearths where they had rocked their babies, and the roofs that had sheltered their happy families. The villagers tried to set up a shout, but they broke down. Now the heretics were going, old animosities and jealousies were forgotten. These sorrow-laden women and sad boys and girls were never to return. As they passed slowly out of sight, a low wailing came back on the wind, and was echoed by the sobs and moans of the crowd.
Father Cyril went home, and passed the long day in solitary meditation and prayer before the altar in his church. He was greatly distressed in spirit. These exiled men and women were accepted of God; for did they not fear, ay, and love Him, and work righteousness? Yet they were despised and rejected of men, oppressed and afflicted, and acquainted with grief. They were fellow-Christians, disciples of the same Lord, and yet they persecuted them in His name, and thought that even when they hounded them to death, they were doing God service.
IN KOVYLSK
IN the meantime Michael and Paraska, who had set off at daybreak, were far on their way across the steppe toward Kovylsk. Until they were quite safe from recognition, Clava lay at the bottom of the telega, her sweet little face peeping up from time to time and smiling merrily at them. She was a small, delicate child, and was easily intimidated, for she had been tenderly guarded from all unkindness and hardship. After a while, Paraska took her on her lap, kissing her often, with a mother's yearning after her own lost children. Her deepest sorrow had befallen her some years ago. She was accustomed to grief.
But Michael was not yet benumbed by sorrow. He was troubled, sorely troubled at leaving his home again; and above all at leaving Velia behind. True, she could not be better off than in Father Cyril's house; and though he knew but little of the perils and hardships of the journey which lay before the exiles, he knew enough to make him thankful that his young sister was not to share them. But should he ever see her again? They would be separated by thousands of miles; and he did not know for how many years his father's term of banishment would run. He never realised as he did now how much he loved her.
Velia was four years younger than himself; and he could recollect her as a little child, following him with tottering feet, and stretching out her tiny arms to him. Would his mother be watching over her, as he sometimes felt sure she was near to him? Velia had never felt her presence as he felt it. Yet, if it was only a fancy that his mother came to him, it was surely true that God cared for both him and Velia. "Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father! Are you not much better than the birds?" he murmured to himself.
He was not afraid for himself. On the contrary, he looked forward almost with pleasure to the long and exciting, though forced, journey he was about to take. What were hardships to him? Many men encountered them for the sake of money; others from a thirst for adventures. He would be journeying with his father and his friend Sergius, every step of the terrible wildernesses through which it was said they would have to pass. He must keep up heart and courage, that his father might never have the grief of seeing his spirits flag. Whatever happened, he must show himself brave and patient and cheerful. He was strong, and hardened to fatigue by the toils of the past winter. Surely if a delicate little creature like Clava could live through the long journey, there could not be anything very dreadful for boys like Sergius and himself.
But he felt grieved when his thoughts reverted to Father Cyril; and he began to realise that he might get into trouble as soon as it was discovered that little Clava had been stolen away. Michael had written a letter, which he had left on Clava's bed, imploring Father Cyril, for God's sake, not to have the child pursued and claimed; begging him not to betray them to Okhrim the Starosta, or to the police who were to convey the women and children to Kovylsk. If the child was taken away again, Tatiania would go mad; and nobody could say what severe measures might be taken against Sergius and himself. Michael felt tolerably sure Father Cyril would grant his petition, even at the risk of trouble to himself.
When they were about half-way across the steppe, Paraska produced a leather bag out of her pocket, and addressed Michael with tears in her eyes, which were red and sunken with much weeping.
"Michael," she said, "going into exile wants all the money you can get. I've been saving every kopek I could to go some day to my poor husband Denim. I forsook him for the sake of my little boys. Take the money; for there are many of you, and only one of me; and I fear I shall never save enough."
"But, Paraska," he answered, "I think you can get leave to join your husband, if you ask the governor. You might have come with us, if you were willing to give up all hope of finding your children."
"Oh, why didn't I know?" she cried. "I shall never find my boys! I'll come after you, if that's true, Michael. You'll see Demyan first; tell him I'm coming soon."
They reached Kovylsk some hours before the arrival of the rough carts bringing the women and children. Michael drove to the house of a well-to-do tradesmen, Orthodox himself, but kindly disposed towards the Stundists, as his wife was secretly a member of the persecuted sect. He undertook to get Clava smuggled into the prison the next morning, in time to pass out with the other families. Khariton had given her name with those of Sergius and Marfa, and it was already entered on the convoy-list; so no question would be raised on that account. He promised also to look after Paraska, and get permission for her to join the next exile party; and f that could not be done, to find work for her. In Kovylsk it was much easier to escape the notice of the priests than in the villages; although the archbishop and the consistory were there.
FATHER CYRIL'S LETTER
MICHAEL lingered about the prison behind whose walls his father was confined, until the carts came in carrying his neighbours and their scanty possessions; for the free exiles were limited in the quantity of baggage they might take. They were to be lodged for the night in the city hospital, as the prison was already overcrowded. This would make it quite easy to restore little Clava to her mother at once; and when Tatiania cast an anxious glance at him, he nodded back with a smile. The weary, worn-out women, exhausted with emotion, alighted from the springless carts, which had jolted heavily and slowly along the muddy, ill-made roads. Sergius came up to him, and clasped his hands warmly; and Michael felt a paper pressed into his own. As soon as the party had entered the hospital, he hurried back to Markovin's house, where he was to pass the night. He was too much afraid of spies to venture to open it before. It was a letter from Father Cyril.
"MY SONS, MICHAEL AND SERGIUS,"—it ran—"I saw you last night taking
away little Clava, but my heart forbade me to prevent it. I prayed
to my God and your God, my Father and your Father, to bless you! For
whosoever is to blame, it is not you. You put your parents before the
priests; and this is the law both of nature and of God. Love your
parents: honour, obey, and cherish them. God gave them to you, and you
to them; and no man can break that bond. You are about to face an army
of difficulties and sorrows, but remember! You can never go where God
is not! I give you two verses to think of daily, 'If I go down into
hell, Thou art there,' and, 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me: Thy rod
and Thy staff, they comfort me.' Death and hell are filled with the
presence of God. Tell your father again, Michael, that Velia shall be
as my own daughter. Kiss little Clava for me—the dear child!
"I feel myself, though you acknowledge it not, your father in Christ."
Michael kissed this letter. And resting his forehead on the hands that enfolded it, he thought with love and gratitude of Father Cyril. Oh, if all Batoushkas had only been like him! Then his father and the Stundist brethren would never have been driven to leave the Orthodox Church. The boy did not yet know how deeply rooted were the principles which separated his people from a State religion. He was, however, keenly awake to the danger there would be to Father Cyril if such a letter was found in his handwriting. He set himself to learn it by heart; and when he was satisfied that he knew and would remember every word of it, he lit a match, and held the burning paper in his fingers till they were almost scorched, taking care that no vestige of the writing should remain.
Markovin looked on with nods of understanding and approval. "A wise lad! A prudent lad!" he murmured. "His head is screwed on right. I'd trust him with a secret."
The next two days Michael drove alone along the route he and his father had traversed on his return from Scotland. He was to join the band of convicts and free exiles at the same station; and in the meanwhile he was charged by his father with the commission to deliver up the funds of the churches in his district to the man who had been elected presbyter in the place of Alexis Ivanoff.
Michael had besides to carry sundry messages from the Stundists in Kovylsk to the little congregations dwelling in scattered villages. It was considered safer to employ a boy than a man; and every precaution was necessary not to arouse suspicion. He reached the station where he was to join the convict party about an hour before the train was due; for the first few stages were to be taken in an ordinary train, though in special carting.
Michael lingered about the station-yard, anxiously looking out for the first indication of the approach oft the prisoners. The stationmaster was raging about the unpunctuality of the prison-convoy. In a siding stood a small number of comfortless carriages, little better than cattle trucks, but with benches and a roof. These were set apart for the exiles.
At last a confused sound was heard in the distance, which by and by came more clearly to the ear as the clanking of chains, the harsh creaking of cart-wheels, the tramp of horses' hoofs, and the cracking of whips. It was a sound to which Michael was to grow familiar, but now it seemed to jar through all his being. Both mind and body were shocked by it; and to the last day of his march with the prisoners the ominous discord made him shiver.
For the last few miles the prisoners had been made to march at a rapid rate, as the convoy feared to be too late for the train. They were driven like cattle into the yard, with oaths and blows, almost running, notwithstanding their heavy leg-chains. They were chained two and two together, which added greatly to the difficulty of marching, and even the strongest among them came in breathless and exhausted. Those prisoners who had been confined for some months in narrow cells were half fainting.
There were nearly two hundred convicts, all dressed alike in long grey overcoats. Their heads were closely shaved on one side, looking bare and blue; whilst on the other side the hair, grown long in prison, fell in a tangled mass over the ear. Michael could not for some time recognise his father, whom he had not seen since last autumn. At last he saw a gaunt, haggard man, in a filthy shirt, and trousers of coarse grey linen, limping painfully beside a vicious and brutal-looking criminal. This man smiled at him with a noble serenity in his eyes, and with a sharp cry of agony, Michael pushed his way through the jostling crowd, and flung his arms round his father's neck.
"Father!" he cried. "Father!"
But before his father could speak, the convict to whom Alexis was chained pulled him forward with a jerk and an oath. The waggons set apart for the exiles were rapidly filling up, and he, an old criminal, knew they must make haste if they wished to secure a seat for the night.
Khariton Kondraty was close behind, with his wife and children marching beside him; all of them worn-out and footsore, for they had walked twenty miles since morning, and for the last hour they had been almost running. But there was no time to linger, the waggons were being crammed with women and children and their bundles, amid calls and cries and an uproar of voices. Sergius was anxious to prevent his mother and sisters being separated from himself.
Michael soon found his hands full in helping his old neighbours from Knishi, lifting the young children into the different compartments, and looking after their baggage. Some of the strangers who were accompanying their convict husbands into exile were willing enough to lose their children for the night, which was rapidly closing in. The waggon was so overcrowded that many of the children sat on the floor; and there was no room for Michael and Sergius except standing against the doors, which were now locked and guarded by the soldiers of the convoy-guard.
Tatiania was in a corner beside the boys, with little Clava on her lap, and Marfa squeezed closely to her side.
Before the long dark night was over, Michael thanked God fervently that Velia was not there. For all night long, as the train sped through the level plains, there was mingled with the rumbling of the wheels, and the throbbing of the engine, the wailing of children and the loud hysterical sobbing of women, rising now and then to despairing shrieks.
Tatiania, who was always an emotional woman, broke down completely, and wept till she was quite exhausted. Marfa took little Clava on to her lap, and sang soothing songs to her. But they could do nothing for Tatiania, only Sergius looked down on his mother with unutterable pity for her in his heart.
But it was not the dark night only, it was the long day that followed, and succeeding days and nights, night and day. They had some hundreds of miles to travel before they could reach the nearest station on the Volga, where they would exchange the convict-train for the convict-barge. The ceaseless motion of the rumbling train became a positive torture to the cramped bodies, which had no space for moving. They escaped the torment of extreme heat or excessive cold, for it was the pleasant spring-tide, and on every side the sweet wind blew in upon them, carrying away the foul air, which must have collected in closed carriages. Twice a day the train was stopped for necessary refreshment, when they could stretch their stiffened and weary limbs. But the families could hold no intercourse with the convicts, who were carefully guarded by the convoy to prevent any attempts at escape.
THE FORWARDING PRISON
AT last they reached the forwarding prison, where they had to await the arrival of the convict-barge which was to take them up the Volga. Here the fathers were to join their families, and occupy the family kamera, or ward set apart for those prisoners whose wives had chosen to accompany them into exile. Through filthy corridors, the women and children were conducted to a still more filthy kamera. It was a long and narrow room, with two windows which would not open. No furniture was in it, except two parallel wooden platforms, each about twelve feet wide, raised a few inches in the middle, thus giving to them sloping sides. This was to be their bed, where the whole party was to lie as closely packed as possible, with heads touching one another in the middle, from the opposite slopes. There were no pillows, no mattresses, no bed-clothing of any kind. Russian peasants are a hardy race, not accustomed to comforts, but this absolute bareness filled the women with dismay for themselves and their children. Every limb, every bone, every muscle was aching from their long journey, and these bare planks formed their only resting-place. There was not even a bench for them to sit down upon.
Michael found Katerina, the young mother, sobbing bitterly over her baby.
"What is the matter, Katerina?" he asked pityingly.
"Look at it!" she cried, putting the baby in his arms. "I haven't been able to wash it for five days. And oh, Michael, it's covered with horrid things, and so am I."
The tiny creature's skin was blotched and smeared, and its little face was terribly disfigured. Michael could hardly find voice to comfort Katerina.
"It will be better now," he said at last. "One of the convoy men told me we were sure to stay here five days or a week. We shall have time to rest. And, Katerina dear, God knows all about it."
"Does He?" she asked doubtingly.
But before he could answer the prisoners came in. Michael flew to his father and flung his arms round his neck, holding him in a close embrace; for he could not bear yet to look into his dear, disfigured face. Khariton met his wife and children in speechless delight, too happy to find even words of endearment. Michael saw Katerina hanging on her young husband's arm, no longer sobbing. All the Stundists had their heads half shaved, like the worst criminals. Sergius and Marfa turned their eyes away from their father's grief-worn face, but Tatiania kissed the poor dishonoured head tenderly.
"We're all together, Khariton!" she cried. "Not one of us is missing. If we all get through to the end, we shall have a home again."
"If God wills it!" said Khariton, taking little Clava into his arms.
Marfa ventured to look at her father, and stole to his side, though she said nothing. They felt happier than they could have imagined it possible to be a few hours before. The cramped limbs and aching heads were almost forgotten. They were together again, with no fear of separation in the future.
Alexis and Michael sat hand in hand on the foot of the sleeping-platform, not able to utter more than a few disjointed sentences. Alexis had been almost utterly cast down by the discovery of the clean sweep which had been made of the Stundists in Knishi. They were all here, with the exception of Nicolas the renegade, and the children who had been taken from their parents to be brought up in the Orthodox Church. Whether they were all to be sent to the same place of exile as himself, or scattered hither and thither in Siberia, he did not know. Just now he was as much worn-out in mind as in body, and he could hardly think of his fellow-prisoners. He could only think feebly of God. From time to time, he muttered absently, "'Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.'"
Michael sat beside him, stiff and weary in body, but with his mind in a tumult. This going into exile, on étape, was very different from what he had imagined. It had seemed beforehand a much lighter experience, mingled indeed with some elements of adventures and pleasures in the long march. But to be pent up in railway waggons like cattle trucks, and be conveyed like cattle from place to place, was quite a different thing. The cries of little children, the wailing of babies, the sobs and prayers and curses of women during the long journey, had entered like iron into his very soul. Hunger and thirst, plank beds and bitter cold, he had been prepared for, but not for the degradation and the untold misery and the wickedness that surrounded him. His father was no longer chained to the brutal murderer who had been his comrade on the march from Kovylsk, for that man's family had abandoned him. But there were men and boys in the kamera so evil and depraved that they did not open their lips without uttering words so vile as to appal him. How could they hinder the girls and children from hearing the common conversation around them? He thanked God again that Velia was not there.
There were women there of the lowest class, degraded to the deepest corruption, not worthy of the name of women. In the corner near Katerina and Tatiania, a young lady sat on the edge of the nari, gazing round with terrified eyes. She was a political prisoner, going into exile as a suspected person. Children of all ages crawled about the filthy floor. There was still light enough to see them—unwashed, weary little ones, with matted hair hanging about their begrimed faces. There had been no chance of washing for any of them; and some of these children were too much accustomed to such a condition to be consciously affected by it. But the Stundists were used to cleanliness, and they suffered from enforced defilement. They felt degraded and injured by it. Clava's sweet little face was soiled with dust and tears. Michael shook himself as if in a rage, as he felt the indescribable offensiveness of the surroundings.
Was it possible the archbishop could think he was doing God service by dooming men and women and children to such a state of misery? Father Cyril said the archbishop was an eminent servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, and only desired their salvation. It could not be true. Either he was quite ignorant of what was being done in his name, or he belonged to the synagogue of Satan—that terrible congregation of devil-worshippers, the very name of which made him shudder when he read the words, "'Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie.'"
His father was falling into a troubled sleep beside him, and Michael heard him muttering in an undertone, "'My God! My God!'" It was the only prayer his weary, worn-out brain could form. Michael bent over him and kissed his shaven head reverently.
THE GREAT SIBERIAN ROAD
THE band of exiles had several days' rest before the convict-barge which was to carry them up the Volga returned. This gave them all time to recover from their terrible railway journey. The women washed and mended the clothes. But there was no decent privacy. In the family kameras men and boys were confined with women and girls in an indiscriminate herding together. More than anything else, worse than the filth and the vermin about them, the modest Stundist women felt this indecent exposure. But there was no help for it. They did not even dare to hold themselves altogether aloof from the coarse, wretched women who were forced upon their companionship.
Alexis and Khariton urged them to do any little act of kindness in their power both to women and children. They themselves sought to gain an influence over the men; they talked to them, wrote letters for them, and made many efforts to interest them and wile away the tedious hours of idleness. The days dragged heavily along, and most of the men spent them in gambling and quarrelling.
Over the big boys and girls, Michael, Sergius, and Marfa soon exercised a good influence. Michael especially could interest them by long stories of his voyage out to Scotland and his twelve months' sojourn there. He could talk for hours of that foreign country; and the boys squatted round him in the prison-yard, listening with breathless attention to his tales of his brave forefathers, the Covenanters, their hairbreadth escapes and courageous deaths.
So the days passed by, spent altogether out of doors in an enclosed yard with high palisadings, which shut out all glimpses of the world outside, excepting the blue sky overhead. But every night they had to herd in the unventilated kamera, reeking with foul air, and swarming with vermin. It was better at night than in the morning, for the open door had admitted some fresh air. But after the kamera had been closed an hour or two, the atmosphere was poisonous. This misery would follow them all along the route to the very end.
At last the convict-barge arrived, and the men were separated from the women and children. More convicts joined the band from Kovylsk, and there was much overcrowding. But this was nothing like as bad as it would be later in the year, when the bands of exiles would be larger. There was no yard here to pass the days in. Instead were two big cages of strong bars, in which the exiles were able to stand upright, though it was almost impossible to move easily about. In the railway waggons they had been compelled to sit, and could not stand. Here they were compelled to stand, and could not sit. But unless they stayed in the foul atmosphere of the cabins below, which no fresh air could enter, they must stand all day long, closely packed in these cages, more like wild beasts than human beings.
It was early summer. Day after day—the sun shining joyously on the rejoicing earth; the happy, free peasants pausing at their labour on the banks of the river to watch the convict-barge go by; the merry sound of church bells ringing—the laughter of girls at the washing platforms—the singing of the larks and the calling of the cuckoo filling the air—day after day, through all this gladness, the terrible load of untold misery sailed up the Volga. Yet this was only one amongst many that would follow in their wake until the winter came. But the day was better far than the night, when they were fastened down below, and the atmosphere in the cabin grew so heavy and polluted they could hardly breathe it.
They left the barge, as they had left the train, with the sense of relief which any change in misery brings. There was a short journey by railway again; and then, because there had been a landslip on the line farther on, it was decided that the convoy should take the old route along the Great Siberian Road. The exiles left the train with the idea that the worst lay behind them. For now they would be able to move freely; they would live in the open air, and at present the early summer was full of sweetness and beauty.
The country through which they passed was carpeted with gay flowers, and the road led through meadows and forests, along valleys, and over the flanks of mountains. Here and there were village streets stretching for a mile or two along the sides of the road. Cattle were browsing on the common pastureland, and corn was shooting up rapidly under the sunshine, which was growing hotter every day. The cloudless sky above them, and the sweet fresh air breathing softly about them, revived the spirits of Michael and Sergius. This was something like what they had anticipated. Little Clava, too, regained her merry ways in some measure, as the children were free to run where they chose, and pick the flowers, provided they kept up with the convoy. Sometimes the convoy-guards were kindly and indulgent, but when the guards were changed they proved often to be impatient and even brutal men. But as the march was a steady one, and about twenty miles a day, there was not much time for rambling among the flowers, and it was forbidden to lag behind. There were rough, springless carts for carrying the children under twelve, as well as the men and women who were too ill to walk. But little Clava did not ride in the cart. Michael and Sergius said they would carry her on their backs whenever she was tired, along the Great Siberian Road. Tatiania was only too glad to keep her darling by her side.
But Marfa was suffering in silence more than any of them suspected. She had spent the winter indoors with her mother, who would not let her out of her sight, and this confinement had sapped her strength before she set out on this sorrowful journey. The scenes she had passed through, of which she had formed even less idea than Michael and Sergius, had given her a more severe mental shock than they had felt. Everything had revolted her. But above all, the infamous and abandoned men and women with whom she had been brought into close contact were insufferably loathsome to her. She felt herself in a hellish atmosphere, amid a band of monsters, from whom she could not escape. Her mind as well as her body was ailing. Though she was not separated from her family, an indescribable home-sickness took possession of her. She longed with a hopeless longing to see once more her old home at Knishi.
Marfa kept her grief, which was gnawing at her heart, to herself. But the home-sickness grew greater as every day took her farther away from her birthplace. They had not yet passed the boundary which separates Russia from Siberia. The exiles were still in their native land. But presently they reached the frontier. A midday halt was called around a square stone pillar, about twice the height of a man, on one side of which lay Russia, and on the other Siberia. It was half-way between the last Russian étape and the first Siberian one; and the cavalcade, with its convoy-guard, its chained prisoners, its carts laden with children and invalids, and its families of free exiles, rested for a short time at this place of farewell.
The midday halt was usually a time of relief and comparative enjoyment. But to-day there was a universal outburst of grief. Even the most brutal and most stupid of the criminals wept at the thought of quitting Russia—their fatherland. Scarcely one among them had ever trodden a foreign soil. Most of the women knelt down, with sobs and prayers. The Stundists stood bareheaded, looking away from the boundary posts to the western land, and taking a last submissive gaze at the dear country they were leaving for conscience' sake. Michael and Sergius, linked arm in arm, leaned sorrowfully against the pillar. Suddenly a wild shriek rang through the sobs and groans of the crowd, and looking round they saw Marfa falling forward against the foot of the pillar, close to the spot where they were standing.
She was quite insensible when they lifted her up. As soon as the order to march forward was given, they carried her to one of the rude carts, at the bottom of which she lay on a little straw, and Tatiania obtained permission to go with her. She was not quite conscious when they reached the étape in the evening. The family kamera was overcrowded as usual, and all they could do for Marfa was to lay her on the hard, bare planks of the sleeping-platform. All night did Khariton and Tatiania watch waking by their delirious child, able to do nothing for her, and only longing for the return of daylight. Fortunately the nights were short, and a dim dawn soon shone through the dirty casements of the étape.
SERGIUS
FOR the first time in his life, Sergius began to realise how much his sister Marfa was to him. She had always been so quiet and reserved, so passive, that she had seemed almost a cipher in the family. Tatiania, his mother, with her lively, impulsive temperament, and Clava, with her coaxing, merry ways, had nearly engrossed his own and his father's regard. None of them had paid much attention to Marfa, either in their home in Knishi or during the long journey which already separated them from it by many hundreds of miles.
But Marfa was no cipher. She was a thoughtful, pensive girl, with very limited powers of putting her inmost thoughts into speech. Her mother was so fluent that she was reduced to silence; there was no need for her to speak. At home she had often done all the housework diligently and steadily, whilst her mother visited the neighbours, or read the Bible sitting close to the warm stove. It was taken for granted that Marfa liked work better than reading. A strong sense of duty possessed her, strengthened by a constant study of the little New Testament which her father had given to her as soon as she could read, and which she always carried in her pocket. Perhaps more than any other woman or girl among the exiled Stundists, Marfa understood why they were banished from their native country.
What she suffered when she bade farewell to the home of her childhood, no one knew but herself. Not a murmur had escaped her quiet lips. Through the wretched railway journey, and the still more trying voyage for many days in the crowded convict-barge, she had not uttered a word of complaint. Often she had taken little Clava from her mother's arms, when Tatiania was moaning and praying alternately, and the girl of thirteen would nurse the child of seven until her young limbs grew stiff and ached with pain. The long and bitter winter preceding their exile, followed by the great strain upon her strength during the journey, had at length broken down her silent courage and endurance. The shock of emotion caused by passing the boundary, and witnessing the uncontrollable distress of the whole band of convicts and exiles, had been the last blow on her breaking heart.
The next morning Marfa was laid in one of the telegas which carried those unable to walk, and the march set out again. There were no seats in these rough, springless carts, and only a thin sprinkling of hay was laid in the bottom of each. Three women lay or crouched beside her. In front of the telegas went a convoy of soldiers, and behind them was the band of chained convicts, shuffling along in low shoes, with their heavy leg-fetters weighing upon them, and now and then clanging against their ankles. Behind the telegas came the baggage-waggons, followed by the free exiles, and the women and the children over twelve years of age who were following their husbands and fathers. After these was a rear-guard of soldiers.
It was full summer now. The sun beat upon the dried-up road, and the dust lay inches thick. The long procession numbered hundreds, and at every footfall the fine, pulverised earth rose in quantities, until the whole cavalcade was almost hidden in a cloud of yellow dust, suffocating to all who breathed it, but to those who were ill, this atmosphere was almost deadly.
Marfa lay along the bottom of the narrow telega, with her head on the lap of a convict who was suffering from asthma, and who could only breathe at all when sitting upright. The woman was gentle and kindly, but there was no escape from the terrible jolting of the springless cart, and the dust-laden air which set the asthmatic convict coughing, and shook her whole body. Marfa looked up into her face pitifully, but what could she do and say to comfort the poor woman? Fever was burning in all her veins, and the heat of the sultry sun seemed to scorch every nerve. She was conscious now, and alive to all the anguish of her position. But her weary brain was unable to recall some memory which haunted it.
"Who was it said, 'I thirst'?" she asked, looking up into the face leaning over her, in an interval of rest from the racking cough.
"I don't know, dear," answered the woman; "nobody in particular. We all say it."
"Living waters!" murmured Marfa. "Somewhere there are living waters."
"I wish they were here," said the woman.
"In the cup of salvation," whispered Marfa to herself.
The woman shook her head, smiling bitterly.
When the midday halt was called, Sergius and Michael rushed to the telega, followed more slowly by Tatiania and little Clava. But Marfa did not recognise them. She was lying quietly, however, and the friendly convict was sitting in a cramped position to give her more room. They bought some tepid water from the peasants who brought provisions for sale, and she drank a little, but she could eat nothing.
"What can we do?" cried Tatiania, wringing her hands. Whilst little Clava climbed into the cart, and crept close to Marfa's side.
"Nothing, nothing!" replied the convict sadly. "We have days to travel yet before we reach any hospital. If I were her mother, I'd pray God night and day to take her to Himself soon, rather than leave her alone in a prison hospital. Soon! O Mother of God! Soon! This misery is more than a child can bear."
The halt came to an end too quickly, and clouds of dust rose again, hanging over and travelling along with the melancholy procession. Michael and Sergius fell back to their own places, panting with the intense heat and suffocating air. But what was their suffering compared with that of the women and children, especially those who were ill like Marfa!
"Michael," said Sergius, "do you know how far we have to march like this?"
"More than two thousand miles," answered Michael; "father told me last night, when I was thinking of Marfa. We are to go at a rate of about one hundred miles in six days. We can't get to the end before next February, or perhaps March, if the winter is a bad one and we are detained on the road."
"Marfa can never live through that!" exclaimed Sergius.
"No," replied Michael.
"Nor little Clava," Sergius continued; "she's too young and too tender! Oh, Michael! If we'd only left her with Father Cyril!"
"But you forget," said Michael, "your mother refused to come without her."
They walked on in silence for a few minutes; and then Sergius spoke under his breath, with a faltering voice.
"Michael," he said, "I feel it would do me good to curse the archbishop and the consistory."
"So do I!" exclaimed Michael.
The two boys halted, gazing into each other's faces, till a sharp cry of command brought them back to recollection.
"No, no! It would grieve my father!" said Michael.
"And mine!" Sergius added.
Again they marched on silently, each pondering in his own heart the temptation that had just assailed them.
"You could not have stayed behind in Knishi," said Michael at last; "you must have starved, all of you, or given up your religion. Even if we all die, it will be better than that."
"Yes," answered Sergius; "father was reading to us last night, and he made me learn the verses. I was glad to learn them, for the Apostle Paul said them about himself: 'Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, perils of waters, perils of robbers, perils by my own countrymen, perils by the heathen, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness!' We've suffered nothing like that yet, Michael."
"No, but we may do, if we live to be as old as he was," said Michael.
"And oh," continued Sergius, with a sob, "the Apostle Paul hadn't got his mother and his little sisters with him!"
MARFA'S FUNERAL
DAY after day passed by. The burning sun beat down upon the exiles, scorching their skin and almost blinding their eyes. The fettered convicts could hardly drag their feet along the hot dust; and the women lagged behind in a straggling line. The convoy-guards grew irritable, and more brutal than in milder weather. They too suffered, but there was no despair added to their sufferings. They had only certain stages to travel, and then they would hand over their charge to a fresh captain and guard.
Every third day there was a respite. After two days' march came a day of rest. Then the sick people were delivered from the choking dust and rough jolting of the telegas. Marfa could lie during the day out of doors under the shadow of the prison walls, with all her friends about her. They listened to her plaintive wanderings in delirium, now and then catching a gleam of recognition or a word or two of intelligence.
But the fever was high, and there was no alleviation for it. Anna Grigorovna, the friendly convict, did her utmost to comfort Tatiania, and reconcile her to Marfa's death. But she refused all consolation. Anna had no children, and knew nothing of a mother's heart. If only she could sit beside her dying girl, she would be satisfied. But that they all knew it was utterly useless to ask. The telegas were already overladen, and some of the children were carried on the baggage-waggons. Tatiania was in fair health, and quite able to walk.
"Even if I could walk," said Anna, "they would not let me give up my place to you."
She was dying slowly of consumption, and knew she must be left behind in one of the few prison hospitals along the Great Siberian Road. Though she dreaded the place, she was longing for the rest she would find there, if the death she prayed for did not overtake her before they reached it. She longed to die before she was parted from this strange little band of Stundists, whose company she had sought because of their quiet and decent ways. What astonished her was that not one among them murmured at their hard lot—excepting Tatiania, who only lamented not being able to ride with her dying girl in the telega. For that Marfa would die there was no shadow of a doubt.
Khariton prayed in his inmost heart that death would come soon, but Tatiania could not bring herself even to say, "God's will be done!"
Two or three children had perished already on the route, from the foul air and from the utter impossibility of cleanliness. None of them were Stundists' children; and their mothers had grown apathetic with despair, and were almost glad to be rid of a charge which became every day more and more burdensome.
But Marfa had been an unfailing, untiring help, not a burden. What should they do without her? To see her lying in the creaking, jolting telega, with the fierce sun smiting her, was maddening to her mother.
They came at length to the last stage before they could reach a hospital. Two days' march would bring them to it, and there they must leave Marfa and the friendly convict Anna. Every one of the little band of Stundists dreaded the day when Khariton and Tatiania must bid farewell for ever to their daughter, and abandon her to a lonely death. Khariton marched all day with bowed-down head and speechless lips. Tatiania wept bitter tears. Sergius and Michael walked side by side, now and then clasping one another's hands, but unable to talk together, as they usually did. Even little Clava, whom they carried by turns, was very quiet and languid, as if she understood their sorrow.
Marfa was carried into the overcrowded kamera, unventilated, and reeking with foul air, and heated with the sultry sun which had beaten upon the low roof all day. The convoy captain was a humane man, and allowed some of the exiles to sleep outside on the ground of the prison-yard. But within the kameras the men and women could hardly breathe; and the dying girl lay panting on the plank sleeping-platform. But even that was comfort compared with the jolting telega. Her mother lay beside her, and little Clava crept close to her on the other side. Her father and Alexis, Sergius, and Michael stood near; and in that corner of the kamera a comparative stillness prevailed; for their fellow-exiles had learned to respect the Stundists. And one of them was dying.
"The end is coming, thank God!" said Anna, turning away and leaving Marfa alone with her own people.
She was quite conscious now, but too weak to lift her hand or turn her head towards her mother, whose sobs filled her dying ear. She could see them who stood at her feet, and a very peaceful smile came over her wasted face.
"Father," she said faintly, "tell mother I'm really going home."
"I'm here, my darling!" sobbed Tatiania, putting her arm across her.
"Home you know," she repeated; "not to Knishi—but to be with the Lord. He says, 'To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.' It's better than living."
She could hardly gasp out the words, but her voice was clear, and they heard her distinctly amid all the din and racket of the crowded kamera. Once more she smiled very peacefully upon them, her eyes resting upon each one with a look of recognition.
"You will all come," she murmured; "I shall be looking out for you."
She closed her tired eyelids, and seemed to fall asleep in her mother's arms. All night she lay there, breathing softly, but as the first rays of light dawned, they saw her spirit pass away in peaceful silence. It was the third day, the day for resting twenty-four hours, and so they were able to see the body laid decently away in the grave. The cemetery of the little Siberian village lay near the étape, and all the free exiles were at liberty to go to it, though none of the men, being convicts, could attend Marfa's funeral. All the Stundist women and children went.
The open plain surrounding the cemetery was bright with flowers, and the hum of bees filled the air. It was too hot for the birds to sing. Many of the graves had black crosses at the head, and were fenced in by gaily-coloured rails. The letters I.H.S. were painted on one of the arms of the crosses, and on some of them there was a rude representation in white paint of the Lord crucified.
As yet, in this far distant and isolated village, with leagues of uninhabited country surrounding it, there was no inclination to refuse burial to a Stundist. The old parish priest was willing, so that he got his dues, to let them bury their dead as they pleased. In the case of paupers, such as this dead exile must be, it was usual to let the relatives dig the grave and lay the body in it; and in course of time, when a sufficient number were interred, the funeral service was read over all the graves together. Michael and Sergius dug Marfa's grave.
The women and children stood round the grave in silence, whilst the boys lowered the rude coffin into it. They were all still alive, those who had left Knishi, but they were emaciated and broken down, the shadows of their former selves. Katerina carried her baby in her arms, but the tiny face that looked up at her was starved and shrivelled, with dull, solemn eyes, and a tremulous, unsatisfied movement on the lips that would never learn to speak. Little Clava was thin and wasted, and every day made her a lighter weight for Michael and Sergius to carry across Siberia.
There was no man to pray, but Matrona stood at the head of the grave, and read, in a voice faltering with old age and pity, these words—
"And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which
are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?
"And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are
they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes,
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
"Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and
night in His temple; and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell
among them.
"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the
sun light on them, nor any heat.
"For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and
shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes."
So they buried Marfa thousands of miles away from her beloved home. She who had never been separated from her own people for a single day, was to lie in a grave that not one of them could visit and weep over. To-morrow they would be already miles away from this sacred spot, and the end of their journey would place still more thousands of miles between them and the lonely grave.
THE PRISON HOSPITAL
TWO days later the exiles reached the city prison, larger than the roadside étapes, which possessed a hospital. Anna Grigorovna had been looking forward eagerly to the hour when she would be delivered from the suffocating dust, the burning sun, and the jolting cart, and lie down in a quiet cot in a hospital ward, which she would never leave again. She had kept herself aloof from her fellow-convicts, and there would be no painful last farewells.
The last evening, when they reached the half-way étape, she sought the company of the Stundists. It had become the custom, as far as possible, for the better class of exiles to keep together in the kameras, avoiding the drunken and more degraded convicts. The Stundist men alone mingled freely with them, seeking earnestly any opportunity of lifting them a little out of the deep mire of their debasement. The band of exiles had been so long together, that they knew one another as intimately as the inhabitants of the same village. On the whole, the Stundists, both men and women, were regarded favourably by their fellow-exiles, to whom they were always ready to render any kindness.
Anna Grigorovna, who had seldom spoken to anyone, seemed to-night anxious to talk with the kindly comrades who must leave her for ever to-morrow. She sat on the edge of the nari, where Tatiania was lying speechless and tearless, and listened attentively to Alexis as he explained to her the simple creed of his sect.
"It is very beautiful," she said, with a sigh; "you believe that in very truth Jesus Christ, being equal with God, left His throne in heaven and came down to this earth, becoming a poor working-man, and dying a shameful death for our sakes. So He sacrificed all for our salvation."
"We believe it," said Alexis; and Khariton bowed his head in assent.
Tatiania lifted up her trembling hand; and Michael and Sergius cried, "Yes, we believe it!"
"You believe," she went on, "that He who was crucified Himself knows all your sorrows and sufferings;—nay! I've heard you say He is here, seeing all and knowing all."
"Yes," answered Alexis; "because He said, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.'"
"You believe," she continued, "that without any priest, or any form of prayer, you may ask God Almighty for all you want, as a child asks his father."
"We believe it," replied Alexis, "but with this reservation, that what we ask is in accord with His will. A child may ask for a scorpion or for a burning coal."
"Would to God I could believe as you do!" said Anna, with a sob. "Do you know that I, too, have sacrificed all, and given up my life for the sake of the people?"
"We know it," answered Alexis; "and God knows it. Be sure He who made the greatest sacrifice of all will not overlook it. He is not far from you, and you are drawing nigh to Him."
It was the evening of the next day when they reached the prison, where there was a hospital. It stood in one corner of the high stockade which enclosed all the prison buildings, a low-roofed kamera, very much like the rest. There was to be the usual third days' halt here, and the next morning the prison-yard was thronged with exiles. The men lounged under the walls, smoking and gambling, whilst the women washed and mended, or crouched on the ground gossiping. It was intensely hot again, and all were glad to rest as quietly as possible. Before the day was over, Michael and Sergius heard their names called in a shrill voice. A woman was standing at the door of the hospital, and they ran to her.
"A convict who came in here last night wants to see you," she said, looking with open admiration at the two sturdy, sunburnt boys; "she says she is fond of boys, and I don't wonder at it. We don't see many of your sort here."
They followed the woman into a filthy corridor, where the floor was thickly covered with all kinds of sweepings and slops from the wards. A noisome stench pervaded it, even worse than the foul air of the kamera to which they were so well used. With the tainted atmosphere of disease and rotting refuse was mingled the sickening odour of drugs and liniments. Michael and Sergius could hardly breathe, but they followed the woman in silence, keeping their lips closely shut.
But if the air was poisonous in the corridor, it was far worse in the women's ward. There were a number of low, narrow cots, placed so close together that there was barely room to pass between each pair of them, and as the suffering women lay, they breathed and coughed into each other's faces. But those who lay in the cots were well off, for the dirty floor was strewn with wretched creatures wherever there was sufficient space for them. These were packed as closely as the convicts in the kameras, and could not stir without disturbing their companions on either side. There was no ventilation except a few holes in the walls, for the windows would not open, and the cots were ranged against them. There was a dim light only, for the glass panes were thick with dust, and had, moreover, a coat of white paint obscuring them. In the grey gloom, surrounded by pallid and fevered faces, the boys were at a loss to find Anna, until they heard the racking cough with which they had grown familiar during Marfa's illness. They stepped carefully among the crowd of sick folk.
Anna was stretched on the ground, almost under a cot. A thin straw palliasse lay below her, but the sheet which had been thrown over her was ragged and bloodstained. It was impossible for her to raise herself, even when her throat and chest were most convulsed with coughing. She was choking now; and Michael knelt beside her, and put his arm under her head, until the paroxysm had passed away.
"This is hell!" she gasped, as soon as she could speak.
"Man makes it, not God!" cried Michael. Father Cyril's letter came into his mind, and he said in a low voice, "'If I make my bed in hell, Thou art there!'"
The dying woman looked up at him with anguish in her eyes.
"Thank God, Marfa died before we came here!" exclaimed Sergius, looking round with horror at the agonised forms and distorted faces of the women, whose mouths were open, gasping for breath in the suffocating atmosphere, and whose staring, feverish eyes wandered hopelessly in search of relief.
In a corner, on a layer of straw, five children were huddled together. The eldest was about seven years old, the youngest about five months. They were tossing to and fro, and wailing with the peculiarly piteous cry of ailing children. Sergius went to them, and sat down on the floor with the baby in his arms, after he had soothed the elder children, and given each of them some tepid water to drink.
"Their crying maddens me," said Anna; "all night long they were moaning, and I could do nothing for them, poor little creatures! We were locked up all night, with no nurse to help any one of us. One of the women died in the night, and lay there till the morning. Michael, this is the worst hell of all! I prayed to God to let me die too, but He did not hear me."
"He must have heard you," Michael answered, "because He is here."
"Not here! Not here!" cried Anna.
"I'm only a boy, and I hardly know how to say it," answered Michael, "but if I was here, I'd rather think God was here too, knowing all about me, and all I had to bear, than think that the devil was reigning here, with nobody stronger than he was, like the Czar."
"But how can God let it be?" she asked.
"We don't know yet," replied Michael, looking round with appalled eyes, "but this I do know, I'd rather be here than be one of the people who send us here. God knows them too! Oh, I wish my father could come and pray for you!"
"Do you pray for me," she said; "God will listen to an innocent soul like yours. Beseech Him to let me die this minute! Beseech Him to send the angel of death to sweep this place of all its misery. Let us all die at once, and then something will be done. But we go one by one, and nobody cares."
Her voice fell into sobs.
Michael was still kneeling beside her, and over him hung the yellow, withered face of an old woman, in the cot above listening eagerly to what was being said.
"I dare not ask God that," he answered; "our Lord does not teach us to pray for things like that. He bade us say, 'Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.' I can say our Lord's Prayer for you."
"Say it," she whispered.
The boy's clear young voice sounded distinctly through the ward, as he lifted up his head, and said "'Our Father!'"
The moans and cries ceased for the time, and pallid faces were turned to him. Some of the parched lips murmured the familiar words, as the women recalled the years when they were children, and said this prayer at their mothers' sides, in the old church at home. For a very brief space there was a lull in their misery—a moment or two of forgetfulness. They too, even they, had a Father in heaven.
Anna lay passive, with tears stealing down her cheeks.
"That is good," she said, when the prayer was ended. "After all, I shall soon know the great secret. Michael, I have a commission to charge you with."
She begged him to let her friends know that she was dead, as soon as he could, but not to pain them by details of her misery. He repeated the address she gave to him, and called Sergius to commit it to memory. Then Anna lifted up her feeble hand and touched his cheek.
"Kiss me!" she said. "I have a young brother Michael like you at home. Oh, how he will miss me, and mourn for me! Kiss me, and bid me good-bye."
MONTH AFTER MONTH
A GREAT change came over Tatiania. Instead of being a woman of many moods, she had now but one—an almost silent but peaceful resignation. Day after day she paced silently along the hot and dusty road, with downcast head, and feet that grew ever more languid. She never grumbled at the heat and weariness, and she greeted Khariton, when he joined her at the étapes in the evening, with a placid smile. To Sergius and little Clava she was more tender than ever in their happy days at home. For now she knew that neither she nor Clava could live through the march that lay before them. In some roadside jail they must lie down to die, and she began to long for the time to come.
With the rest of the Stundist band, the joy of martyrdom was constantly growing and deepening. A sense of triumph filled their inmost souls. They had proved to themselves, beyond a doubt, that their love for Christ and truth was stronger than any other love. A secret peace, passing all understanding, filled their minds. The hymns they sang night and morning were full of an enthusiastic gladness. They chose hymns of praise in preference to any others. Their voices were well harmonised, and the melody of their hymn tunes attracted their fellow-exiles. These, especially the women, sometimes joined in the singing; and it was not often that the convoy-guard interfered with them. The Stundists gave no trouble; on the contrary, they exercised a wholesome influence over the whole company.
Little Clava was gradually losing all her frolicsome and merry ways, and she became a lighter burden to the boys week after week. They had never let her travel with the other little ones in a closely packed telega, where they fought together, and cried and screamed all day long.
Michael and Sergius were saddened. The long march, which had now lasted many weeks, was not without its charm for them. They did not shrink from its hardships. True, they were often hungry and thirsty, but that was the common lot of poor travellers. They were dirty and in rags, that was little and inevitable. They marched barefoot, that was their custom in the summer. They were quite prepared to endure greater hardships than these. They were passing through strange scenery, which had great charms for them. Now winding through the gloomy shades of vast forests; then crossing steppes which seemed boundless; creeping along the margin of swift rivers, and being rowed across them on rude ferryboats; climbing up steep mountain-paths, and going down again into beautiful valleys. They marched from twenty to twenty-five miles a day; not often more quickly than at the rate of two miles an hour, on account of the convicts burdened with leg-fetters, the heavy waggons, and the women walking in the wake of the men. Ten or twelve hours a day they were out in the open air, with the bright, though burning, blue of the cloudless sky above them.
Michael and Sergius, hardy as young bears, enjoyed these long marches. Besides all this, the enthusiasm of the Stundist band filled their hearts. The sober triumph of the men rose to rapture in the boys.
Still, they could not shut their eyes to the grief and misery which perpetually surrounded them. The faces of the exiles, burnt to blackness by the sun, wore a look of stolid despair, into which they had sunk after the first rage and anguish at their position had subsided. Here was a small batch of human beings, some of them dangerous criminals, cut off from all association with the outer world by a living wall of armed soldiers, some of whom were irreclaimable brutes. As they marched on, their living prison walls moved with them, uttering stern threats and menacing oaths. Already each one knew all his comrades, and all that those comrades chose to tell. A profound and stupefying dulness fell upon them. Day after day they marched on like men in a dream; the only break in the monotony being the change of guards at various stages. To-day was like yesterday, and to-morrow would be as to-day.
They knew, too, that, isolated and solitary as they were, there was another band of banished men and women, precisely like themselves, pacing the same road only a few days in advance; and that behind them, week after week, hearts as heavy and hard as their own were beating along the same dolorous way. For scores of years this sad procession had been passing along the Great Siberian Road. They had left traces of themselves, messages written on the dirty walls of the étapes, many of which were undecipherable from age.
The boys' spirits could not fail to be touched by this apathy of hopeless wretchedness. They could feel for it, though they did not feel it themselves. What amazed them was that most of the exiles turned a deaf ear to all the teaching of the Bible, which filled the Stundists with divine courage and strength. They could not hear the heavenly music or see the heavenly light which filled their own souls.
Yet a certain lethargy fell upon them. They walked for hours side by side in silence, only now and then glancing sympathetically at one another, as they took in turns the burden, alas! very light now, of little Clava, who was growing smaller and weaker every day. She scarcely ever set her foot to the ground now.
"What are you thinking of?" asked Sergius one day, after a long silence. The jingle of the clanking chains and the creaking of the cart-wheels had become insupportable to him.
"I began," answered Michael, "by wishing God would let me bear all these troubles, and let the rest go free, but a voice in my heart said to me that could not be, every man must bear his own burden. Then the thought came to me, that was just what our Lord felt, when He looked down from heaven, and saw all the misery and all the oppression under the sun. So He came, and He did bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. Then the same voice told me He was bearing them now, even in heaven, at the right hand of God. Surely, if He shares our troubles, we can bear them. We are following our Captain, and must be like brave soldiers, fighting manfully under His banner."