Had we known that night that we were destined to be imprisoned in the filthy room in which we slept for two days, I doubt if we should have retired to rest in such good spirits. We had come to the end of our provisions, and should now have to subsist entirely on the meagre fare provided by the post-houses. I could stand everything well enough but the bread. Oh! that Siberian bread. My stomach recoils at the mere recollection of the sour, greasy substance, as black as ink, as heavy as lead, and in consistency so soft and damp, that one could pull it out like a piece of unbaked dough.
Swallowing a glass of tea, we rolled up in our furs, wet through as we were. Such a proceeding in England would probably have resulted in an attack of rheumatic fever, but a special providence seems to watch over one’s health in Siberia, and we never had a day’s sickness, hard though the work, and short the supply of food and (with the exception of tea) drink. We did not get much sleep that night, but lay awake, listening to the howling of the wind and pattering of the rain on the window-panes. About two in the morning I dropped into an uneasy dose, from which I awoke about an hour after, to find the old post-master replenishing the stove. “A terrible night, gospodin,” he muttered, tossing a huge pine log into the flame. “One almost pities the Katorgi, with no roof over their heads. Poor devils, they must be like drowned rats!” Too tired to answer, I was about to turn on my side, when a loud knock startled me into a sitting position, and brought the old man shuffling back from the kitchen in double quick time. It was no tarantass or téléga. There had been no bells or sound of wheels. Whoever the nightly visitor was, he had come on foot. The old man displayed no desire to open the door, and showed signs of such uneasiness, that then, for the first time, flashed across me the words of our Cossack friend at Koutoulik, “Keep a good look-out about Touloung. They are worse there than anywhere.”
A second knock, louder than the first, cut short my reflections, and induced me to make signs to the Pole that my revolver was loaded, and that Lancaster (who was still slumbering peacefully) had a similar weapon. Apparently reassured, he then went to the door, unbolted it, and let in the mysterious visitor.
A tall, spare man with reddish grey beard and moustache, apparently about sixty years of age, pushed rudely past the Pole and entered the room; and divesting himself of a huge bearskin pelisse, sank into a chair with a sigh of satisfaction. “Enfin!” he muttered in French, adding in Russian sharply, “I thought you were going to keep me out there all night. Why did you not open sooner? Come! quick, the samovar, and some eggs and bread. Don’t stand staring there like a fool.”
That the stranger had no earthly right to order provisions in a Government post-house, without a podarojna, I was well aware. This fact, however, did not seem to occur to the post-master, who slunk away without a word of remonstrance to get the refreshments. In the meantime, being unobserved, I had a good opportunity of taking stock of the new arrival from behind my dacha.
It was not a pleasing or reassuring countenance. One thing especially struck me as curious; he had not removed his cap on entering the room, and had, apparently, no intention of doing so. It is, as I have said, an unwritten law, that on entering an apartment in Russia the head shall be uncovered, more out of respect to the sacred Ikon, which always stands in one corner, than out of politeness to the occupants of the compartment. I had never yet seen the rule departed from, and felt sure that the man had some hidden motive in remaining covered. His dress was unique if not becoming: a pair of grey tweed trousers, surmounted by a Siberian peasant’s caftan, secured by a broad red sash round the waist, and a pair of high-heeled, buttoned boots. Save for a thick wooden cudgel, which lay on the table beside him, the stranger was apparently unarmed. Who could the man be? and where in Heaven’s name had he dropped from this wild stormy night, or rather morning? for I noticed with satisfaction that day was beginning to dawn.
Who he was, must remain a mystery. He left about 5 a.m., as suddenly as he had come, and the old post-master was either too frightened or too lazy to send up to the prison for a couple of Cossacks. One circumstance convinced me that my suspicions were well founded. Having made a hearty meal of tea, black bread, and sardines, he pushed his chair back, and resting both feet on the stove, lit a cigarette. While so doing his cap slipped off, and I distinctly saw that one half of his head was partly shaved, the distinguishing mark of the Siberian convict. That he was a “Katorgi” I do not for a moment doubt. He never once caught sight of me, lying as I was in the shadow of the table; but Lancaster, who slept calmly through the whole business, lay close to him, and my only wonder is that he did not take a fancy to the gold watch-chain lying so temptingly across my friend’s chest. He left the post-house very quietly without paying for his food, nor did the old post-master make any further remarks anent his strange visitor. It might have got him into trouble with the authorities.
The poor wretch had probably been starving for the past two or three days, afraid to show his face in the village near which so many brutal murders had been committed. Judging there would be few travellers abroad a night like this, he had made for the post-house, and seeing, as he thought, its only inmate the old Pole, had summoned up courage to enter. It seemed odd that with the dirty and ragged dress he wore, a large diamond ring, sparkled on the first finger of his left hand. We afterwards heard that the contractor had been robbed of one of unusual size and brilliancy.
Any hopes we had of pushing on to Nijni Udinsk the next day were soon dispelled, for at about ten o’clock the Imperial post clattered in, and every available horse was harnessed to the mail-carts. We were not altogether sorry, for the rain was coming down as hard as ever. Even the dirty, dreary post-house was preferable to a long drive of eighty odd versts, wet to the skin and chilled to the bone, with a filthy post-house and no food at the end of the journey.
What a day that was! I have experienced many miserable hours in the course of my travels but never a day so wretched, and unspeakably depressing as that 30th of August in Touloung post-house. Save the mail, nothing passed the whole livelong day, not even a téléga. Having read all that the rain had left us of our books, we simply sat down and looked at each other in sheer despair. The situation would have been laughable had it not seemed, at the time, so serious.