Part 29 (1/2)
remarked the prison governor.
”To Parotovsk!” I echoed. ”That is beyond Yakutsk--two thousand five hundred miles from here--far in the north, and one of the most dreaded of all the settlements!”
”All penal settlements are dreaded, I fear,” remarked His Excellency, blowing the cigarette smoke from his lips. Then, turning to the prison governor, he inquired under what number the prisoner was registered.
On referring to one of the books the officer declared Madame to be now known as ”Number 14956” and her daughter as ”Number 14957.”
I took a note of the numbers, protesting to His Excellency:
”But to compel delicate ladies to walk that great distance in the winter is surely a sentence of death!”
”And if the politicals die, the State has fewer responsibilities,” he remarked. ”As you see, we have received notification from Petersburg that your lady friend was a dangerous person. Now, of dangerous persons we take very special care.” Then, turning to the prison governor, he asked: ”How did they go?”
”By taranta.s.s. Excellency. They were in too weak a state to walk, especially the elder prisoner. I doubt, indeed, if ever they will reach Parotovsk.”
”And if they don't it will perhaps be the better for both of them,” His Excellency remarked with a sigh, rising and casting his cigarette-end into the pan of the round iron stove. He was a stiff, unbending official and ruled the province with a ruthless hand, but at heart he often evinced sympathy with the female exiles.
”Were they very ill?” I inquired quickly of the prison governor.
”They were very exhausted and complained to me of ill-treatment by their guards,” he answered. ”But if we investigated every complaint we should have more than sufficient to do.”
”How long ago did they leave here?”
”About two months,” was the man's reply. ”The elder prisoner implored to be sent to the Trans-Baikal, where the climate is not so rigorous as in the north, and this would probably have been done had it not been for the special memorandum of His Excellency General Markoff.”
”Then he suggested her being sent to the Yakutsk settlement--in fact, to her death--eh?” I asked.
His Excellency replied:
”That seems so. The prisoners have already been on their way two months, at first by taranta.s.s and now, no doubt, by sled. There were fifteen others, nine men and six women--all dangerous politicals, I see,” he added, glancing at the order which he had signed and was now produced by the prison governor. ”If it is your intention to travel and overtake them, then I fear your journey will be futile.”
”Why?” I asked.
”Because I expect that long before you reach them their dead bodies will have been left upon the road,” replied His Excellency. ”Politicals who die here in Siberia, and especially those marked as dangerous, are not mourned, I a.s.sure you.”
”There was, if I remember aright, a telegram to Your Excellency from General Markoff regarding prisoners of that name only three days ago,”
remarked the Cossack captain. ”It inquired whether you knew if Madame de Rosen were still alive.”
”Ah, yes, I remember. And I replied that I had no knowledge,” the General said.
I was silent. My heart stood still.
By the fact of that telegraphic inquiry I knew that Markoff was, as I feared, aware of my journey. He would most certainly prevent my overtaking her--or, if not, he would, no doubt, contrive to seal her lips by death ere I could reach her.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
HOT HASTE ACROSS ASIA.
I resolved to push forward in all haste and at all hazards. I lost no time.
With only forty-eight hours' stay at the wretched Hotel Million in Tomsk we went forth again, our faces set ever eastward on that wide, straight road which first runs direct for a hundred miles to Marinsk, a poor, log-built place with a dirty verminous post-station and an old postmaster who, when I presented my Imperial permit, sank upon his knees before me. Fortunately the mail was two days behind me, hence, at every stancia I was able to obtain the best horses, though it seemed part of Vasilli's creed to curse and grumble at everything.