Every scheme of the conspirators turned out to be beset with insurmountable difficulties. Clara did not tell Pavel all she knew and made light of those obstacles with which he was acquainted, but in her own heart she was extremely uneasy.
One evening Pavel sat on a bench in front of a public house, smoking a cheap pipe. He had a loaded pistol in his pocket and a dagger under his vest. The prison was a short distance round the third corner. When one of the customers of the public house seated himself by his side Pavel engaged him in conversation, talking garrulously in the manner of a humble, careworn government clerk.
At last a way had been found for the provision man to take Makar out of the prison yard. This was what kept Pavel in this out-of-the-way spot. In the near vicinity of the inn stood a droshky. The appearance of the provision waggon, full of empty sacks and some barrels, at a corner diagonally across the street was to serve as a signal for Pavel to walk up to a deserted ditch-bridge, where the runaway was expected to emerge from under the sacks and to put on a military cap. Then Makar and Boulatoff would gain the droshky, mount it, and be driven to the Palace—the best hiding place one could find in all Miroslav.
Pavel was calm, determined, ready to shoot and to be shot at. By degrees he grew fidgety. Presently Clara passed along. He rose to his feet and went off in the opposite direction, the two meeting in the next street.
“It was a fizzle to-day, but it’ll be all right, Pasha,” she said in a cheery, matter-of-fact voice. “As ill luck would have it, there were some people about.”
Pavel’s brows contracted. “He’ll try again, of course.”
“Certainly. He will be there in four days.”
“Four days! Couldn’t he make it sooner?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Wait, dearest. Are you sure the people in the prison are not getting suspicious about you?” He had asked the question and she had answered it more than once before.