I left the wounded man in Louise's care, and jumped upon the cart.
I can give no details of the combat that followed. I had too much occupation myself to attend to what my companions were doing. We were attacked by at least twenty wolves at once. After discharging my two pistols, I armed myself with an axe that George gave me. The fight lasted nearly a quarter of an hour, and certainly the scene was one of the most terrible it is possible to imagine. At length, and just as I was splitting the skull of a wolf that hung on to one of the wheels of my waggon, a shout of victory resounded along our line, and again our enemies fled, but this time it was for good.
Three of our men were wounded, besides Nicholas, who was still alive, but in a desperate state. We were obliged to shoot the horse that had been torn by the wolf.
By daybreak, a passage was opened through the wall of snow, and we resumed our journey. The evening of the same day we reached a small village, where we found an inn, that, under any other circumstances, would have been pronounced abominable, but which appeared a palace after three such days as we had passed. The following morning we parted from our friends the carriers, leaving George five hundred rubles to divide among them.
All now went well. Thanks to the imperial order with which we were provided, the best horses were always for us, and, when necessary, escorts of ten or twelve men galloped on either side of our sledge. The country was flat and the pace good, and exactly a week after leaving the Ural mountains we entered Tobolsk.
We were dreadfully fatigued, but yet Louise would only remain long enough to take a bath; and at two in the morning we set out for the little town of Koslowo, which had been selected as the abode of twenty of the exiles, among whom was Alexis. On arriving, we hastened to the officer commanding there, and showing him the Emperor's order, which produced its usual effect, enquired after the Count. He was well, was the answer, and still at Koslowo.
It had been agreed between Louise and myself that I should go and see him first, and inform him of her arrival. I asked the governor for a pass, which he gave me without hesitation, and a Cossack conducted me to a part of the town composed of some twenty houses enclosed within high palisades, and guarded by sentries. We stopped before a door, and my guide knocked. "Come in!" said a voice which I recognized as that of Alexis.
When I opened the door, he was lying on his bed, dressed, and with a book on the floor near him. I stopped upon the threshold. He stared at me without speaking, and seemed hardly to believe his eyes.
"Well," said I, "have you forgotten me?"
At the sound of my voice, he sprang from his bed and threw his arms round me. But the next instant he started back. "Good heavens!" exclaimed he, "you are exiled, and I am probably the cause."