Jumping to my feet, and straining my eyes eagerly in the direction indicated, I descried what appeared to be a black, winding streak disappearing over the brow of the hill.
“Perhaps, after all, it may be only a train of freight sleighs,” I said.
“No! I can see the Cossacks’ bayonets,” he replied; for his practised eyes could detect objects on the snow-covered plains where I could see nothing.
For an hour we travelled at increased speed, until we gradually overtook the convoy. My thoughts went back to the ever-to-be-remembered days when I was a “political.” Trudging wearily onward through the deep snow, they were a sorry band. The men wore flat caps on their half-shaven heads, long grey overcoats with diamond-shaped patches of black or yellow on the back, and leg-fetters that filled the air with an ominous clinking. The women, too, wore coarse and ragged clothes of grey homespun, with woollen squares tied tightly over their heads, while in the rear of the sad procession were several telegas filled with the sick.
Driving on past the party, we came up to the captain of the Cossack escort. Jumping eagerly from the sleigh, I saluted him, telling him whom I sought, and at the same time handing him an official paper bearing the seal of the Minister of the Interior.
Opening it, he shouted an order to halt, and at that moment a ragged, unkempt-looking woman rushed towards me and flung her arms wildly about my neck. So tightly was the kerchief bound over her head for protection from the icy blast, that it was only on second glance that I recognised Mariána. She shed tears of joy.
“What’s this?” exclaimed the officer, carefully examining the document. “An order from the Ministry for the immediate release of the convict Mariána Néstoff?”
“Yes,” I said. “Here are my identification papers.”
“An order for my release, Anton?” she cried. “How did you obtain it?”
“It was simple, darling,” I replied, caressing her tenderly. “General Korolénko now occupies a high position in the Ministry of the Interior in Petersburg. In exchange for his written confession of the mysterious death of Marie Smirnitskaya I obtained the document by which you are released, and I have brought it personally in order to take you back again to civilisation and happiness.”