Stolen Souls Part 10

When, however, I called a week later and gave the usual four tugs at the bell, my summons remained unanswered. A dozen times I repeated it, but with the same effect, until a postman who chanced to pa.s.s informed me that the occupants had gone away suddenly five days before and left no address.

Surprised at this hurried departure, I walked to the house of Grigorovitch, about half a mile distant, and told him of my friends and their flight.

"Well," he said, with a smile, when I had told him their name, and explained the various circ.u.mstances, "I shrewdly suspect you've been tricked. I know no one by the name of Souvaroff. He is certainly not one of Us, and it is equally certain that he got you to insert that extraordinary paragraph by a very neat ruse."

And he laughed heartily, enjoying a joke that I confess I was unable to appreciate.

Eight months pa.s.sed, during which the strange incident gradually faded from my mind.

The increased number of persons who were being sent from all parts of Russia to Siberia without trial had become a subject of much comment in England. Horrifying reports anent the state of the _etapes_, and the shocking brutality and inhuman treatment to which the oft-times innocent convicts were subjected, were continually reaching London from various sources, and public feeling against Russian autocracy had risen to fever heat.

Hence it was that one day when I entered my office I received instructions to proceed without delay to Siberia, in order to inspect the general condition of the prisoners and ascertain the truth of the harrowing details. The prospect of this mission delighted me, for not only was it certain to be fraught with a good deal of exciting adventure, but it would also enable me to complete the novel, already half written, and which I had been compelled to put aside owing to lack of information regarding life in the Asiatic penal settlements.

That evening, after calling upon Grigorovitch and informing him of my projected journey, I returned home, and sat at my writing-table far into the night, finis.h.i.+ng some work upon which I had been engaged. The whole of the following day I spent in packing my traps, and otherwise preparing for a long absence. In the evening, while I was busy writing some letters, the servant announced that a young lady, who refused her name, desired to see me. I was not particularly clean, and I confess that just then I was too much engaged in making arrangements for my departure to think of anything else. However, my curiosity got the better of me, and I told her to admit the stranger.

"You?" I cried, when a moment later Prascovie Souvaroff entered.

"Yes. Why not?" she asked, laughing, and offering me her hand.

What could I say? I stammered out a greeting, invited her to be seated, and began to question her regarding her sudden disappearance.

To my questions she replied--

"It was imperative. You English know nothing of the persecution which follows those who flee from the wrath of the White Tzar. We were compelled to leave hurriedly, and as the Secret Police were watching both you and me it was unsafe for us to meet. To-night I have risked coming to you for a most important purpose," she added, looking up into my face earnestly.

"Oh! What's that?" I asked.

"I want you to take me to Siberia."

"To Siberia? You?" I repeated in astonishment.

"Yes. I hear you are going. Any news affecting us travels rapidly.

I--I have an intense desire to see what the country beyond the Urals is like."

"Who told you I was going?"

"I'm not at liberty to say," she replied. "All I ask is that I may be allowed to accompany you. I have here sufficient money to defray the cost of my journey;" and she drew from the breast of her dress a large packet of Russian bank-notes.

I shook my head, replying that Siberia was no place for a delicately-reared woman, and pointed out the uninviting prospect of a winter journey of five thousand miles in a sleigh. "Besides," I added, "your connection with the Terrorists would render it unsafe for you to return to Russia; and, again, there are _les convenances_ to be studied."

"Do you think that I, a Russian, am afraid of a cold sleigh journey?"

she asked earnestly, after a few moments' silence. "Scarcely! Of course, I should not travel in this dress, but would a.s.sume the disguise of a Russian lad, in order to act as your servant and interpreter. As for _les convenances_"--and, shrugging her shoulders, she pulled a little grimace, and added, "Bah! we are not lovers!"

I asked for news of her father, but she informed me that he was in Zurich. She refused to give me her address, and all argument was useless. The point she urged, that she would be companion and interpreter combined, impressed me, and ere I had finally promised, she had given me instructions that I should, in applying for my pa.s.sport from the Russian Emba.s.sy, also make application for one for "Ivan Ivanovitch, servant."

Four evenings later, I was on the platform at Charing Cross Station, watching my big iron-bound trunks being stowed away into the Continental express, and chatting to two old Fleet Street friends, who had come to see the last of me, when a rather short young man, enveloped in a long, heavy ulster, approached, and, touching his cap respectfully, said--

"Good-evening, sir. I hope I'm not late."

"No, plenty of time," I said indifferently, although I had a difficult task to keep my countenance. Turning to my friends, I explained, "That's my interpreter, Ivanovitch." Meanwhile, the object of our attention had walked across to the van to see his own trunk placed with mine.

Five minutes afterwards, when we were in the carriage together, gliding out over the bridge that spans the Thames, I burst into a hearty laugh as I, for the first time, regarded her critically. Her disguise was so complete that, for the moment when she had greeted me, I had been deceived. Laughing at her successful make-up, she removed her round fur cap, and showed how she had contrived, by cutting her hair shorter, to make it appear like a man's. Underneath her overcoat she wore a suit of thick, rough tweed, and with great gusto she related how she had filled up her large boots with wool.

She produced the inevitable cigarettes, and we spent the two hours between London and Queenborough in smoking and chatting.

To describe in detail our long railway journey across Europe by way of Berlin and Moscow would occupy too much s.p.a.ce. Suffice it to say that I travelled through Holy Russia with a pa.s.sport which bore the _vise_ of the Minister of the Interior at Petersburg, and which ensured myself and my "servant" civility and attention on the part of police officials.

At length we pa.s.sed through the Urals and alighted at Ekaterinbourg, where the railway at that time ended. A fortnight after leaving London, I purchased a sleigh, hired three Government horses, and Prascovie and I, in the great fur coats, skin gloves, and sheepskin boots we had bought, took our seats; the baggage and provisions having been packed in the bottom of the conveyance, and covered with a layer of straw. Then our driver shouted to the little knot of persons who had a.s.sembled before the post-station, whipped up the three s.h.a.ggy horses, and away we started on the first stage of our long, dreary drive across Siberia.

Over the snow the horses galloped noiselessly, and the bells on the wooden arch over their heads tinkled merrily as we moved swiftly along through the sharp, frosty air.

Soon we were out upon the Great Post Road, and as far as the eye could see, there was no other object visible on the broad, snow-covered plain but the long straight line of black telegraph poles and striped verst-posts that marked our route.

Day after day we continued our journey, often pa.s.sing through miles of gloomy pine forests, and then out again upon the great barren steppes.

Frequently we met convoys of convicts, pitiful, despairing bands of men and women, dragging their clanking chains with them wearily, and trudging onward towards a life to which death would be preferable. No mercy was shown them by their mounted escorts, for if a prisoner stumbled and fell from sheer exhaustion, he was beaten back to his senses with the terrible knout which each Cossack carried.

On dark nights we halted at post-houses, but when the moon shone, we continued our drive, s.n.a.t.c.hing sleep as best we could. We lived upon our tinned meats and biscuits, the post-houses--which are usually about twenty to thirty miles apart--supplying tea and other necessaries.

Although the journey was terribly monotonous and uncomfortable, with a biting wind, and the intense white of the snow affecting one's eyes painfully, my fair fellow-traveller uttered no word of complaint. All day she would sit beside me chatting in English, laughing, smoking cigarettes, and now and then carrying on a conversation in Russian with our black-bearded, fierce-looking driver, afterwards interpreting his observations. Indeed, it appeared that the further we travelled from civilisation, the more light-hearted she became.

Arriving at last at Tomsk, we remained there three weeks, during which time I visited the _kameras_ of the "forwarding prison," the horrors of which I afterwards fully described. An open letter I had from the Minister of the Interior admitted me everywhere, but I was compelled to secrete the notes I made in the money-belt I wore under my clothes, otherwise they would have been discovered and confiscated by the prying _ispravniks_, or police officers, during the repeated examination of our baggage at almost every small town we pa.s.sed through.

Since leaving England, time had slipped rapidly away, until, one day, after we had left Tomsk, and were well on our way towards Yeniseisk, I chanced to take out my diary. I discovered that it was the last day of the old year.

The journey had been most cheerless and wearisome. It was now about four o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun, which had struggled out for half an hour, had sunk upon the hazy horizon, leaving a pale yellow streak in the grey lowering sky. An icy wind blew in fierce gusts across the barren steppe; the monotony of the dull thud of the horses'

hoofs in the snow and the incessant jingle of the bells had grown utterly unendurable. The only stoppage we had made that day was about noon, when we changed horses, and Prascovie had then told me she felt very fatigued. Almost hidden under her furs, she was now sleeping soundly. Her head had fallen upon my shoulder; and I--well, although I tried to console myself with a cigar, I confess I was thinking of the folk at home, and had the nostalgia of England upon me. Suddenly she moved uneasily, and awoke with a start. She addressed a question to the driver, which he answered.

"You must be terribly tired," I said, recollecting that it was two days since we drove out of Tomsk, and that, owing to the lack of accommodation at the post-houses, we had been unable to rest.

"No, I'm not very tired," she replied. "But I feel so cramped and cold."

"Never mind," I said cheerfully, placing my arm tenderly around her waist and drawing her closer to me: "in a couple of hours we shall get something hot to eat." She did not answer, but in a few moments she again fell asleep with her head upon my shoulder; and I, too, also dozed off.

Our lonely halting-place was, like all Siberian post-houses, built of pine logs, and little better than a large hut, devoid of any vestige of comfort, and horribly dirty. The sitting-room was a bare, uncarpeted place, with a large brick stove in the centre, a picture of the Virgin upon the wall, a wooden table, and three or four rough chairs, while the little dens that served as sleeping apartments contained nothing beyond a chair and a straw mattress.

It was not long after our arrival that the great _samovar_ was placed upon the table, and, together with the two sinister-looking fellows who kept the place, we sat down to a rough, uncivilised meal. The evening we spent in smoking and drinking vodka, Prascovie and I being able to carry on a private conversation by speaking English.

I asked why she was so unusually thoughtful, but she replied that it was only because she was in need of rest.

"I am sorry I am breaking down," she said apologetically, and laughing at the same time. "But I'm only a woman. It was, indeed, very kind of you to have been bothered with me."

"Don't mention it," I said. "I'm sure I'm indebted to you, for your knowledge of Russian a.s.sists me in my work. Do you remember," I added, "that it is a year to-night since we first met?"

"Was it?" she asked in a strange tone of alarm. "Ah, I remember. I--I was happy then, wasn't I?"

"Are you not happy now?" I inquired.

"Yes--very," she replied, smiling. "But I'm tired, and must go to my room, or I shall be fit for nothing to-morrow."