As I passed into the sleeping apartment beyond, I started and drew back in alarm, for lying upon the unclean straw mattress, fully dressed, and covered with a heavy fur overcoat, lay a man. His face was turned from me, but after a moment’s hesitation I shook him gently by the shoulder. He did not stir.
I placed my hand upon his face, but drew it back instantly, for its contact thrilled me. It was icy cold! The man was dead!
As I realised the truth, my eyes fell upon a piece of paper lying upon the chair beside him. Taking it up, I read the following words written in pencil in a feeble, shaky hand—
“I shall die before you can return with medical aid. I order you in the name of the Tzar to send on the despatches by a trusty messenger. You will be repaid.—Ivan Drukovitch.”
On searching the body I found the dispatches referred to secreted in the money-belt around his waist. There were three official letters, secured by the Imperial seal, and addressed to General Sergius Okoulow, Governor of the District of Kolymsk, the Arctic exile settlement in the Province of Yakoutsk. With the letters I found about 500 roubles in notes, and a passport which declared the bearer to be “Ivan Drukovitch, messenger in the service of His Imperial Majesty the Tzar, on official business to the Governor of Kolymsk.”
It did not take me long to decide what course to adopt. Divesting myself of my rags—which I put in the stove and set fire to—I attired myself in the dead man’s uniform, strapped the money-belt with its contents around my waist, together with a revolver, and destroyed the note the dead man had written. After a brief search I discovered a file among the tools belonging to the post-house keeper, and in half an hour had succeeded in freeing my ankles of the galling fetters. Getting out of the window, I went to the stable, where I found the courier’s horse, and having saddled it mounted and rode away in the direction the convoy had taken.
Fortunately, my head had not been shaved, as is usual with criminals entering upon the life sentence. The transformation from convict to Imperial messenger was complete. My official dress, with its brass double-headed eagle on the cap, was an effectual disguise. The wide collar of my riding-coat was turned up, and just as it was growing dusk I overtook the convoy. As I saluted the officers they responded, and I rode past, inwardly chuckling, and soon left the sorry band of malefactors far behind.
Mine was a terribly lonely and monotonous journey. Instead of following the road to Irkutsk, I rode due north until I came to the mighty Lena, afterwards travelling along its bank a distance of 700 English miles, until I reached Yakoutsk. Remaining there for a couple of days, I again bade farewell to all human companionship, and set out for the terrible regions within the Arctic circle.
From the first I had recognised that it would be useless to attempt to return to Petersburg by recrossing the Ourals, for the passport was endorsed with dates so recent that if I presented it at the European frontier it would be at once discovered that I had not had time to travel to Kolymsk. This, combined with various other reasons, caused me to assume the rôle of courier and deliver the Tzar’s dispatches to the person to whom they were addressed.
It is needless to refer in detail to my journey of 2,500 versts from Yakoutsk across the great uninhabited desert and over the moss-covered tundras, or Arctic swamps, to the most northerly exile settlement. Lonely and weary, I sometimes rode for three and four days without reaching a post-house or seeing a single human being, and frequently I was in a half-starved, half-frozen condition. Time passed, and I kept no count of it. My thoughts were only of eventual freedom. Having destroyed the note left by the dying man, together with my convict’s rags, I knew the post-house keeper would be puzzled at finding the corpse had been plundered, and as there was no telegraph to Yakoutsk, I was confident that I should not be forestalled by the news of the courier’s death.