CHAPTER IX.
“How fain are we to turn our backs on that which likes us not.”
It struck me at the time as a remarkable coincidence that after walking about fifty yards we should come across a droschki, into which we all stepped, being driven away without a word of explanation to the driver, unless a peculiar, thrice-repeated nod by Ivan be considered sufficient explanation.
It would be useless to pretend that our drive was in every respect a comfortable one. The droschki was, in the first place, so small that we had to sit on each other’s knees. And it was so shaky that we had to hold on to each other to avoid turning a somersault on to the roadway. But that was not the fault of the droschki. The ill-used vehicle was compelled to do duty as a sledge in winter. In summer the runners were unshiped and laid to rest for a few months, while the clumsy wheels were hauled out of their hiding-place and tied to the body of the droschki with ropes. When you take a carriage of this description, and drive it helter-skelter through streets paved with rough round cobble-stones, the result cannot be expected to be conducive to comfort.
In my case, the miseries of that drive were intensified, as I was already feeling very sick, in consequence of having been rash enough to cap my first cigarette with a second one. But it was all in the interests of patriotism and freedom, and the memory of the sufferings of that day and night has been wiped out by the recollection of their satisfactory ending.
We had been driving, as nearly as I can remember, about half an hour, having branched off from the streets into the public park known as Peter the Great’s Gardens, when our driver drew his horse up close to the edge of some dark, stagnant water. We were beside the new Mole. The last remnant of daylight was now gone, so far as it does go altogether in these latitudes in summer. But we were quite able to see that in the huge basin before us lay hundreds of steamers of various nationalities, in one of which at least we hoped to find a haven of refuge.
Seeing us get out of the droschki, several uncouth-looking boatmen, dressed in bright-colored print shirts, immediately importuned us to employ them. After a little preliminary bargaining between them and the droschki-driver, the two least villainous-looking boatmen were employed to row our party to an English steamer named the Beacon.
A liberal douceur was given to the driver by Ivan. We stepped into the gaudily-painted boat, carrying our scanty store of luggage with us; the men bent to their oars, and we were soon skimming the surface of the Mole, while the sounds of the droschki’s wheels died away in the distance.
“Keep a sharp lookout,” muttered Ivan in English. “These fiendish boatmen would brain us all, and pitch us into the water, if they thought that, by catching us unawares, they could land a few roubles and a watch or two. That sort of thing often happens, but none of the villains are ever brought to book. They bolt off to their winter quarters as soon as they have done a stroke of that sort of business, and when they come back in the next boating season the whole affair has been forgotten by the officials.”
After this, I sat with my eyes glued on the boatmen, anxiously noting what a number of ships we had to pass before we reached the one we wanted, and wildly longing for the time when I could bid an eternal farewell to misery-haunted Russia. I supposed, the Beacon being in the inner Mole, the men would be rowing half an hour before they reached it. To me the time seemed an age ere we pulled up beside a black-looking steamer, and one of the men shouted “Ahoy!” to the watchman on deck. There was a speedy reply to the summons, three or four dark heads popping themselves over the side to have a look at us. There were no questions asked, and it almost seemed to me as if we had been expected, though one could not complain of the preparations for our reception being too elaborate. A rope-ladder hung from the ship’s side, and for a moment my heart sank within me, when I was told that this was the only means of boarding our ark of safety.
Trischl confessed to me afterward that she almost fainted at what seemed to her to be courting certain death. But we were both possessed by an even greater dread than that of falling back into the water, and nerved ourselves to appear as “manly” and unconcerned as possible, lest our terror should betray how totally unused to our present surroundings we were. As for madame, she seemed to be endowed with super-human courage and calmness.